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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Word Only A Word, Complete
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5577]
+Last Updated: August 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD, Complete
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+
+Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+“A word, only a word!” cried a fresh, boyish voice, then two hands
+were loudly clapped and a gay laugh echoed through the forest. Hitherto
+silence had reigned under the boughs of the pines and tops of the
+beeches, but now a wood-pigeon joined in the lad’s laugh, and a jay,
+startled by the clapping of hands, spread its brown wings, delicately
+flecked with blue, and soared from one pine to another.
+
+Spring had entered the Black Forest a few weeks before. May was just
+over, yet the weather was as sultry as in midsummer and clouds were
+gathering in denser and denser masses. The sun was still some distance
+above the horizon, but the valley was so narrow that the day star had
+disappeared, before making its majestic entry into the portals of night.
+
+When it set in a clear sky, it only gilded the border of pine trees on
+the crest of the lofty western heights; to-day it was invisible, and the
+occasional, quickly interrupted twittering of the birds seemed more in
+harmony with the threatening clouds and sultry atmosphere than the lad’s
+gay laughter.
+
+Every living creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious
+suspense, but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare
+knee against a bundle of faggots, cried:
+
+“Give me that stick, Ruth, that I may tie it up. How dry the stuff is,
+and how it snaps! A word! To sit over books all day long for one stupid
+word--that’s just nonsense!”
+
+“But all words are not alike,” replied the girl.
+
+“Piff is paff, and paff is puff!” laughed Ulrich. “When I snap the
+twigs, you always hear them say ‘knack, knack,’ and ‘knack’ is a word
+too. The juggler Caspar’s magpie, can say twenty.”
+
+“But father said so,” replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks. “He toils
+hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words. You are always
+wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up
+courage to ask him, and now I know. I suppose he saw I was astonished,
+for he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question
+at lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not
+be despised, for God had made the world out of one single word.”
+
+Ulrich shook his head, and after pondering a few minutes, replied.
+
+“Do you believe that?”
+
+“Father said so,” was the little girl’s only answer. Her words expressed
+the firm, immovable security of childish confidence, and the same
+feeling sparkled in her eyes. She was probably about nine years old,
+and in every respect a perfect contrast to her companion, her senior by
+several summers, for the latter was strongly built, and from beneath
+his beautiful fair locks a pair of big blue eyes flashed defiance at the
+world, while Ruth was a delicate little creature, with slender limbs,
+pale cheeks, and coal-black hair.
+
+The little girl wore a fashionably-made, though shabby dress, shoes and
+stockings--the boy was barefoot, and his grey doublet looked scarcely
+less worn than the short leather breeches, which hardly reached his
+knees; yet he must have had some regard for his outer man, for a red
+knot of real silk was fastened on his shoulder. He could scarcely be the
+child of a peasant or woodland laborer--the brow was too high, the nose
+and red lips were too delicately moulded, the bearing was too proud and
+free.
+
+Ruth’s last words had given him food for thought, but he left them
+unanswered until the last bundle of sticks was tied up. Then he said
+hesitatingly:
+
+“My mother--you know.... I dare not speak of her before father, he goes
+into such a rage; my mother is said to be very wicked--but she never was
+so to me, and I long for her day after day, very, very much, as I long
+for nothing else. When I was so high, my mother told me a great many
+things, such queer things! About a man, who wanted treasures, and before
+whom mountains opened at a word he knew. Of course it’s for such a word
+your father is seeking.”
+
+“I don’t know,” replied the little girl. “But the word out of which God
+made the whole earth and sky and all the stars must have been a very
+great one.”
+
+Ulrich nodded, then raising his eyes boldly, exclaimed:
+
+“Ah, if he should find it, and would not keep it to himself, but let you
+tell me! I should know what I wanted.”
+
+Ruth looked at him enquiringly, but he cried laughingly: “I shan’t tell.
+But what would you ask?”
+
+“I? I should ask to have my mother able to speak again like other
+people. But you would wish....”
+
+“You can’t know what I would wish.”
+
+“Yes, yes. You would bring your mother back home again.”
+
+“No, I wasn’t thinking of that,” replied Ulrich, flushing scarlet and
+fixing his eyes on the ground.
+
+“What, then? Tell me; I won’t repeat it.”
+
+“I should like to be one of the count’s squires, and always ride with
+him when he goes hunting.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Ruth. “That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like
+you. A squire! But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord
+of the castle and a powerful count. You can have real velvet clothes,
+with gay slashes, and a silk bed.”
+
+“And I’ll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags
+and deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I’ll
+show them!”
+
+Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the
+words, he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a
+thunder-shower was rising.
+
+Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots,
+he laid some on the little girl’s shoulders, and went down with her
+towards the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or
+lightning; but Ruth trembled in every limb.
+
+At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still.
+The moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a
+reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.
+
+“Come!” cried Ulrich, stepping on to the edge of the ravine, where
+stones and sand, loosened by the wet, were now rattling down.
+
+“I’m afraid,” answered the little girl trembling. “There’s another flash
+of lightning! Oh! dear, oh, dear! how it blazes!--oh! oh! that clap of
+thunder!”
+
+She stooped as if the lightning had struck her, covered her face with
+her little hands, and fell on her knees, the bundle of faggots slipping
+to the ground. Filled with terror, she murmured as if she could command
+the mighty word: “Oh, Word, Word, get me home!”
+
+Ulrich stamped impatiently, glanced at her with mingled anger and
+contempt, and muttering reproaches, threw her bundle and his own into
+the ravine, then roughly seized her hand and dragged her to the edge of
+the cliff.
+
+Half-walking, half-slipping, with many an unkind word, though he was
+always careful to support her, the boy scrambled down the steep slope
+with his companion, and when they were at last standing in the water
+at the bottom of the gully, picked up the dripping fagots and walked
+silently on, carrying her burden as well as his own.
+
+After a short walk through the running water and mass of earth and
+stones, slowly sliding towards the valley, several shingled roofs
+appeared, and the little girl uttered a sigh of relief; for in the row
+of shabby houses, each standing by itself, that extended from the forest
+to the level end of the ravine, was her own home and the forge belonging
+to her companion’s father.
+
+It was still raining, but the thunder-storm had passed as quickly as it
+rose, and twilight was already gathering over the mist-veiled houses and
+spires of the little city, from which the street ran to the ravine. The
+stillness of the evening was only interrupted by a few scattered notes
+of bells, the finale of the mighty peal by which the warder had just
+been trying to disperse the storm.
+
+The safety of the town in the narrow forest-valley was well secured, a
+wall and ditch enclosed it; only the houses on the edge of the ravine
+were unprotected. True, the mouth of the pass was covered by the field
+pieces on the city wall, and the strong tower beside the gate, but it
+was not incumbent on the citizens to provide for the safety of the row
+of houses up there. It was called the Richtberg and nobody lived there
+except the rabble, executioners, and poor folk who were not granted the
+rights of citizenship. Adam, the smith, had forfeited his, and Ruth’s
+father, Doctor Costa, was a Jew, who ought to be thankful that he was
+tolerated in the old forester’s house.
+
+The street was perfectly still. A few children were jumping over the
+mud-puddles, and an old washerwoman was putting a wooden vessel under
+the gutter, to collect the rain-water.
+
+Ruth breathed more freely when once again in the street and among human
+beings, and soon, clinging to the hand of her father, who had come to
+meet her, she entered the house with him and Ulrich.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+While the boy flung the damp bundles of brushwood on the floor beside
+the hearth in the doctor’s kitchen, a servant from the monastery was
+leading three horses under the rude shed in front of the smith Adam’s
+work-shop The stately grey-haired monk, who had ridden the strong
+cream-colored steed, was already standing beside the embers of the fire,
+pressing his hands upon the warm chimney.
+
+The forge stood open, but spite of knocking and shouting, neither the
+master of the place, nor any other living soul appeared. Adam had gone
+out, but could not be far away, for the door leading from the shop into
+the sitting-room, was also unlocked.
+
+The time was growing long to Father Benedict, so for occupation he tried
+to lift the heavy hammer. It was a difficult task, though he was no
+weakling, yet it was not hard for Adam’s arm to swing and guide the
+burden. If only the man had understood how to govern his life as well as
+he managed his ponderous tool!
+
+He did not belong to Richtberg. What would his father have said, had he
+lived to see his son dwell here?
+
+The monk had known the old smith well, and he also knew many things
+about the son and his destiny, yet no more than rumor entrusts to one
+person concerning another’s life. Even this was enough to explain why
+Adam had become so reserved, misanthropic and silent a man, though even
+in his youth he certainly had not been what is termed a gay fellow.
+
+The forge where he grew up, was still standing in the market-place
+of the little city below; it had belonged to his grandfather and
+great-grandfather. There had never been any lack of custom, to the
+annoyance of the wise magistrates, whose discussions were disturbed by
+the hammering that rang across the ill-paved square to the windows
+of the council-chamber; but, on the other hand, the idle hours of the
+watchmen under the arches of the ground-floor of the town-hall were
+sweetened by the bustle before the smithy.
+
+How Adam had come from the market-place to the Richtberg, is a story
+speedily told.
+
+He was the only child of his dead parents, and early learned his
+father’s trade. When his mother died, the old man gave his son and
+partner his blessing, and some florins to pay his expenses, and sent him
+away. He went directly to Nuremberg, which the old man praised as the
+high-school of the smith’s art, and there remained twelve years. When,
+at the end of that time, news came to Adam that his father was dead, and
+he had inherited the forge on the market-place, he wondered to find that
+he was thirty years old, and had gone no farther than Nuremberg. True,
+everything that the rest of the world could do in the art of forging
+might be learned there.
+
+He was a large, heavy man, and from childhood had moved slowly and
+reluctantly from the place where he chanced to be.
+
+If work was pressing, he could not be induced to leave the anvil, even
+when evening had closed in; if it was pleasant to sit over the beer, he
+remained till after the last man had gone. While working, he was as mute
+as the dead to everything that was passing around him; in the tavern
+he rarely spoke, and then said only a few words, yet the young artists,
+sculptors, workers in gold and students liked to see the stout drinker
+and good listener at the table, and the members of his guild only
+marvelled how the sensible fellow, who joined in no foolish pranks, and
+worked in such good earnest, held aloof from them to keep company with
+these hairbrained folk, and remained a Papist.
+
+He might have taken possession of the shop on the market-place directly
+after his father’s death, but could not arrange his departure so
+quickly, and it was fully eight months before he left Nuremberg.
+
+On the high-road before Schwabach a wagon, occupied by some strolling
+performers, overtook the traveller. They belonged to the better class,
+for they appeared before counts and princes, and were seven in number.
+The father and four sons played the violin, viola and reboc, and the two
+daughters sang to the lute and harp. The old man invited Adam to take
+the eighth place in the vehicle, so he counted his pennies, and room
+was made for him opposite Flora, called by her family Florette. The
+musicians were going to the fair at Nordlingen, and the smith enjoyed
+himself so well with them, that he remained several days after reaching
+the goal of the journey. When he at last went away Florette wept, but
+he walked straight on until noon, without looking back. Then he lay down
+under a blossoming apple-tree, to rest and eat some lunch, but the lunch
+did not taste well; and when he shut his eyes he could not sleep, for
+he thought constantly of Florette. Of course! He had parted from her far
+too soon, and an eager longing seized upon him for the young girl, with
+her red lips and luxuriant hair. This hair was a perfect golden-yellow;
+he knew it well, for she had often combed and braided it in the
+tavern-room beside the straw where they all slept.
+
+He yearned to hear her laugh too, and would have liked to see her weep
+again.
+
+Then he remembered the desolate smithy in the narrow market-place and
+the dreary home, recollected that he was thirty years old, and still had
+no wife.
+
+A little wife of his own! A wife like Florette! Seventeen years old,
+a complexion like milk and blood, a creature full of gayety and joyous
+life! True, he was no light-hearted lad, but, lying under the apple-tree
+in the month of May, he saw himself in imagination living happily and
+merrily in the smithy by the market-place, with the fair-haired girl who
+had already shed tears for him. At last he started up, and because he
+had determined to go still farther on this day, did so, though for no
+other reason than to carry out the plan formed the day before. The next
+morning, before sunrise, he was again marching along the highway, this
+time not forward towards the Black Forest, but back to Nordlingen.
+
+That very evening Florette became his betrothed bride, and the following
+Tuesday his wife.
+
+The wedding was celebrated in the midst of the turmoil of the fair.
+Strolling players, jugglers and buffoons were the witnesses, and there
+was no lack of music and tinsel.
+
+A quieter ceremony would have been more agreeable to the plain citizen
+and sensible blacksmith, but this purgatory had to be passed to reach
+Paradise.
+
+On Wednesday he went off in a fair wagon with his young wife, and
+in Stuttgart bought with a portion of his savings many articles of
+household furniture, less to stop the gossips’ tongues, of which he took
+no heed, than to do her honor in his own eyes. These things, piled high
+in a wagon of his own, he had sent into his native town as Florette’s
+dowry, for her whole outfit consisted of one pink and one grass-green
+gown, a lute and a little white dog.
+
+A delightful life now began in the smithy for Adam. The gossips avoided
+his wife, but they stared at her in church, and among them she seemed to
+him, not unjustly, like a rose amid vegetables. The marriage he had made
+was an abomination to respectable citizens, but Adam did not heed them,
+and Flora appeared to feel equally happy with him. When, before the
+close of the first twelvemonth after their wedding, Ulrich was born,
+the smith reached the summit of happiness and remained there for a whole
+year.
+
+When, during that time, he stood in the bow-window amid the fresh
+balsam, auricular and yellow wallflowers holding his boy on his
+shoulder, while his wife leaned on his arm, and the pungent odor of
+scorched hoofs reached his nostrils, and he saw his journeyman and
+apprentice shoeing a horse below, he often thought how pleasant it had
+been pursuing the finer branches of his craft in Nuremberg, and that he
+should like to forge a flower again; but the blacksmith’s trade was not
+to be despised either, and surely life with one’s wife and child was
+best.
+
+In the evening he drank his beer at the Lamb, and once, when the surgeon
+Siedler called life a miserable vale of tears, he laughed in his face
+and answered: “To him who knows how to take it right, it is a delightful
+garden.”
+
+Florette was kind to her husband, and devoted herself to her child,
+so long as he was an infant, with the most self-sacrificing love. Adam
+often spoke of a little daughter, who must look exactly like its mother;
+but it did not come.
+
+When little Ulrich at last began to run about in the street, the
+mother’s nomadic blood stirred, and she was constantly dinning it into
+her husband’s ears that he ought to leave this miserable place and go to
+Augsburg or Cologne, where it would be pleasant; but he remained firm,
+and though her power over him was great, she could not move his resolute
+will.
+
+Often she would not cease her entreaties and representations, and when
+she even complained that she was dying of solitude and weariness, his
+veins swelled with wrath, and then she was frightened, fled to her room
+and wept. If she happened to have a bold day, she threatened to go away
+and seek her own relatives. This displeased him, and he made her feel
+it bitterly, for he was steadfast in everything, even anger, and when he
+bore ill-will it was not for hours, but months, nor at such times could
+he be conciliated by coaxing or tears.
+
+By degrees Florette learned to meet his discontent with a shrug of
+her shoulders, and to arrange her life in her own way. Ulrich was her
+comfort, pride and plaything, but sporting with him did not satisfy her.
+
+While Adam was standing behind the anvil, she sat among the flowers in
+the bow-window, and the watchmen now looked higher up than the forge,
+the worthy magistrates no longer cast unfriendly glances at the smith’s
+house, for Florette grew more and more beautiful in the quiet life she
+now enjoyed, and many a neighboring noble brought his horse to Adam to
+be shod, merely to look into the eyes of the artisan’s beautiful wife.
+
+Count von Frohlingen came most frequently of all, and Florette soon
+learned to distinguish the hoof-beats of his horse from those of the
+other steeds, and when he entered the shop, willingly found some pretext
+for going there too. In the afternoons she often went with her child
+outside the gate, and then always chose the road leading to the count’s
+castle. There was no lack of careful friends, who warned Adam, but he
+answered them angrily, so they learned to be silent.
+
+Florette had now grown gay again, and sometimes sang like a joyous bird.
+
+Seven years elapsed, and during the summer of the eighth a scattered
+troop of soldiers came to the city and obtained admission. They were
+quartered under the arches of the town-hall, but many also lay in the
+smithy, for their helmets, breast-plates and other pieces of armor
+required plenty of mending. The ensign, a handsome, proud young fellow,
+with a dainty moustache, was Adam’s most constant customer, and played
+very kindly with Ulrich, when Florette appeared with him. At last the
+young soldier departed, and the very same day Adam was summoned to the
+monastery, to mend something in the grating before the treasury.
+
+When he returned, Florette had vanished; “run after the ensign,” people
+said, and they were right. Adam did not attempt to wrest her from the
+seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff
+that is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand
+fibres, and to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it
+has taken root, and with it life itself. When he secretly cursed her
+and called her a viper, he doubtless remembered how innocent, dear and
+joyous she had been, and then the roots of the destroyed affection put
+forth new shoots, and he saw before his mental vision ensnaring images,
+of which he felt ashamed as soon as they had vanished.
+
+Lightning and hail had entered the “delightful garden” of Adam’s life
+also, and he had been thrust forth from the little circle of the happy
+into the great army of the wretched.
+
+Purifying powers dwell in undeserved suffering, but no one is made
+better by unmerited disgrace, least of all a man like Adam. He had done
+what seemed to him his duty, without looking to the right or the left,
+but now the stainless man felt himself dishonored, and with morbid
+sensitiveness referred everything he saw and heard to his own disgrace,
+while the inhabitants of the little town made him feel that he had been
+ill-advised, when he ventured to make a fiddler’s daughter a citizen.
+
+When he went out, it seemed to him--and usually unjustly--as if people
+were nudging each other; hands, pointing out-stretched fingers at
+him, appeared to grow from every eye. At home he found nothing but
+desolation, vacuity, sorrow, and a child, who constantly tore open the
+burning, gnawing wounds in his heart. Ulrich must forget “the viper,”
+ and he sternly forbade him to speak of his mother; but not a day passed
+on which he would not fain have done so himself.
+
+The smith did not stay long in the house on the market-place. He wished
+to go to Freiburg or Ulm, any place where he had not been with her. A
+purchaser for the dwelling, with its lucrative business, was speedily
+found, the furniture was packed, and the new owner was to move in on
+Wednesday, when on Monday Bolz, the jockey, came to Adam’s workshop
+from Richtberg. The man had been a good customer for years, and bought
+hundreds of shoes, which he put on the horses at his own forge, for he
+knew something about the trade. He came to say farewell; he had his own
+nest to feather, and could do a more profitable business in the lowlands
+than up here in the forest. Finally he offered Adam his property at a
+very low price.
+
+The smith had smiled at the jockey’s proposal, still he went to
+the Richtberg the very next day to see the place. There stood the
+executioner’s house, from which the whole street was probably named.
+One wretched hovel succeeded another. Yonder before a door, Wilhelm the
+idiot, on whom the city boys played their pranks, smiled into vacancy
+just as foolishly as he had done twenty years ago, here lodged Kathrin,
+with the big goitre, who swept the gutters; in the three grey huts, from
+which hung numerous articles of ragged clothing, lived two families of
+charcoal-burners, and Caspar, the juggler, a strange man, whom as a boy
+he had seen in the pillory, with his deformed daughters, who in winter
+washed laces and in summer went with him to the fairs.
+
+In the hovels, before which numerous children were playing, lived
+honest, but poor foresters. It was the home of want and misery. Only
+the jockey’s house and one other would have been allowed to exist in the
+city. The latter was occupied by the Jew, Costa, who ten years before
+had come from a distant country to the city with his aged father and a
+dumb wife, and remained there, for a little daughter was born and the
+old man was afterwards seized with a fatal illness. But the inhabitants
+would tolerate no Jews among them, so the stranger moved into the
+forester’s house on the Richtberg which had stood empty because a better
+one had been built deeper in the woods. The city treasury could use the
+rent and tax exacted from Jews and demanded of the stranger. The Jew
+consented to the magistrate’s requirement, but as it soon became known
+that he pored over huge volumes all day long and pursued no business,
+yet paid for everything in good money, he was believed to be an
+alchemist and sorcerer.
+
+All who lived here were miserable or despised, and when Adam had left
+the Richtberg he told himself that he no longer belonged among the proud
+and unblemished and since he felt dishonored and took disgrace in the
+same dogged earnest, that he did everything else, he believed the people
+in the Richtberg were just the right neighbors for him. All knew what
+it is to be wretched, and many had still heavier disgrace to bear. And
+then! If want drove his miserable wife back to him, this was the right
+place for her and those of her stamp.
+
+So he bought the jockey’s house and well-supplied forge. There would be
+customers enough for all he could do there in obscurity.
+
+He had no cause to repent his bargain.
+
+The old nurse remained with him and took care of Ulrich, who throve
+admirably. His own heart too grew lighter while engaged in designing or
+executing many an artistic piece of work. He sometimes went to the
+city to buy iron or coals, but usually avoided any intercourse with the
+citizens, who shrugged their shoulders or pointed to their foreheads,
+when they spoke of him.
+
+About a year after his removal he had occasion to speak to the
+file-cutter, and sought him at the Lamb, where a number of Count
+Frolinger’s retainers were sitting. Adam took no notice of them,
+but they began to jeer and mock at him. For a time he succeeded in
+controlling himself, but when red-haired Valentine went too far, a
+sudden fit of rage overpowered him and he felled him to the floor. The
+others now attacked him and dragged him to their master’s castle, where
+he lay imprisoned for six months. At last he was brought before the
+count, who restored him to liberty “for the sake of Florette’s beautiful
+eyes.”
+
+Years had passed since then, during which Adam had lived a quiet,
+industrious life in the Richtberg with his son. He associated with
+no one, except Doctor Costa, in whom he found the first and only real
+friend fate had ever bestowed upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Benedict had last seen the smith soon after his return from
+imprisonment, in the confessional of the monastery. As the monk in his
+youth had served in a troop of the imperial cavalry, he now, spite
+of his ecclesiastical dignity, managed the stables of the wealthy
+monastery, and had formerly come to the smithy in the market-place with
+many a horse, but since the monks had become involved in a quarrel with
+the city, Benedict ordered the animals to be shod elsewhere.
+
+A difficult case reminded him of the skilful, half-forgotten artisan;
+and when the latter came out of the shed with a sack of coal, Benedict
+greeted him with sincere warmth. Adam, too, showed that he was glad to
+see the unexpected visitor, and placed his skill at the disposal of the
+monastery.
+
+“It has grown late, Adam,” said the monk, loosening the belt he was
+accustomed to wear when riding, which had become damp. “The storm
+overtook us on the way. The rolling and flashing overhead made the
+sorrel horse almost tear Gotz’s hands off the wrists. Three steps
+sideways and one forward--so it has grown late, and you can’t shoe the
+rascal in the dark.”
+
+“Do you mean the sorrel horse?” asked Adam, in a deep, musical voice,
+thrusting a blazing pine torch into the iron ring on the forge.
+
+“Yes, Master Adam. He won’t bear shoeing, yet he’s very valuable. We
+have nothing to equal him. None of us can control him, but you formerly
+zounds!... you haven’t grown younger in the last few years either, Adam!
+Put on your cap; you’ve lost your hair. Your forehead reaches down to
+your neck, but your vigor has remained. Do you remember how you cleft
+the anvil at Rodebach?”
+
+“Let that pass,” replied Adam--not angrily, but firmly. “I’ll shoe the
+horse early to-morrow; it’s too late to-day.”
+
+“I thought so!” cried the other, clasping his hands excitedly. “You
+know how we stand towards the citizens on account of the tolls on the
+bridges. I’d rather lie on thorns than enter the miserable hole. The
+stable down below is large enough! Haven’t you a heap of straw for a
+poor brother in Christ? I need nothing more; I’ve brought food with me.”
+
+The smith lowered his eyes in embarrassment. He was not hospitable. No
+stranger had rested under his roof, and everything that disturbed his
+seclusion was repugnant to him. Yet he could not refuse; so he answered
+coldly: “I live alone here with my boy, but if you wish, room can be
+made.”
+
+The monk accepted as eagerly, as if he had been cordially invited; and
+after the horses and groom were supplied with shelter, followed his host
+into the sitting-room next the shop, and placed his saddle-bags on the
+table.
+
+“This is all right,” he said, laughing, as he produced a roast fowl and
+some white bread. “But how about the wine? I need something warm inside
+after my wet ride. Haven’t you a drop in the cellar?”
+
+“No, Father!” replied the smith. But directly after a second thought
+occurred to him, and he added: “Yes, I can serve you.”
+
+So saying, he opened the cupboard, and when, a short time after, the
+monk emptied the first goblet, he uttered a long drawn “Ah!” following
+the course of the fiery potion with his hand, till it rested content
+near his stomach. His lips quivered a little in the enjoyment of the
+flavor; then he looked benignantly with his unusually round eyes at
+Adam, saying cunningly:
+
+“If such grapes grow on your pine-trees, I wish the good Lord had given
+Father Noah a pine-tree instead of a vine. By the saints! The archbishop
+has no better wine in his cellar! Give me one little sip more, and tell
+me from whom you received the noble gift?”
+
+“Costa gave me the wine.”
+
+“The sorcerer---the Jew?” asked the monk, pushing the goblet away. “But,
+of course,” he continued, in a half-earnest, half-jesting tone, “when
+one considers--the wine at the first holy communion, and at the marriage
+of Cana, and the juice of the grapes King David enjoyed, once lay in
+Jewish cellars!”
+
+Benedict had doubtless expected a smile or approving word from his host,
+but the smith’s bearded face remained motionless, as if he were dead.
+
+The monk looked less cheerful, as he began again “You ought not to
+grudge yourself a goblet either. Wine moderately enjoyed makes the heart
+glad; and you don’t look like a contented man. Everything in life has
+not gone according to your wishes, but each has his own cross to bear;
+and as for you, your name is Adam, and your trials also come from Eve!”
+
+At these words the smith moved his hand from his beard, and began to
+push the round leather cap to and fro on his bald head. A harsh answer
+was already on his lips, when he saw Ulrich, who had paused on the
+threshold in bewilderment. The boy had never beheld any guest at his
+father’s table except the doctor, but hastily collecting his thoughts
+he kissed the monk’s hand. The priest took the handsome lad by the chin,
+bent his head back, looked Adam also in the face, and exclaimed:
+
+“His mouth, nose and eyes he has inherited from your wife, but the shape
+of the brow and head is exactly like yours.”
+
+A faint flush suffused Adam’s cheeks, and turning quickly to the boy as
+if he had heard enough, he cried:
+
+“You are late. Where have you been so long?”
+
+“In the forest with Ruth. We were gathering faggots for Dr. Costa.”
+
+“Until now?”
+
+“Rahel had baked some dumplings, so the doctor told me to stay.”
+
+“Then go to bed now. But first take some food to the groom in the
+stable, and put fresh linen on my bed. Be in the workshop early
+to-morrow morning, there is a horse to be shod.”
+
+The boy looked up thoughtfully and replied: “Yes, but the doctor has
+changed the hours; to-morrow the lesson will begin just after sunrise,
+father.”
+
+“Very well, we’ll do without you. Good-night then.”
+
+The monk followed this conversation with interest and increasing
+disapproval, his face assuming a totally different expression, for the
+muscles between his nose and mouth drew farther back, forming with the
+underlip an angle turning inward. Thus he gazed with mute reproach at
+the smith for some time, then pushed the goblet far away, exclaiming
+with sincere indignation:
+
+“What doings are these, friend Adam? I’ll let the Jew’s wine pass, and
+the dumplings too for aught I care, though it doesn’t make a Christian
+child more pleasing in the sight of God, to eat from the same dish
+with those on whom the Saviour’s innocent blood rests. But that you,
+a believing Christian, should permit an accursed Jew to lead a foolish
+lad. ...”
+
+“Let that pass,” said the smith, interrupting the excited monk; but the
+latter would not be restrained, and only continued still more loudly and
+firmly: “I won’t be stopped. Was such a thing ever heard of? A
+baptized Christian, who sends his own son to be taught by the infidel
+soul-destroyer!”
+
+“Hear me, Father!”
+
+“No indeed. It’s for you to hear--you! What was I saying? For you, you
+who seek for your poor child a soul-destroying infidel as teacher. Do
+you know what that is? A sin against the Holy Ghost--the worst of all
+crimes. Such an abomination! You will have a heavy penance imposed upon
+you in the confessional.”
+
+“It’s no sin--no abomination!” replied the smith defiantly.
+
+The angry blood mounted into the monk’s cheeks, and he cried:
+threateningly: “Oho! The chapter will teach you better to your sorrow.
+Keep the boy away from the Jew, or...”
+
+“Or?” repeated the smith, looking Father Benedict steadily in the face.
+
+The latter’s lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he
+replied: “Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you
+and the vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and
+it is long since a Jew has been burned for an example to many.”
+
+These words did not fail to produce an effect, for though Adam was a
+brave man, the monk threatened him with things, against which he felt
+as powerless as when confronted with the might of the tempest and the
+lightning flashing from the clouds. His features now expressed deep
+mental anguish, and stretching out his hands repellently towards his
+guest, he cried anxiously “No, no! Nothing more can happen to me. No
+excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to
+bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you
+to cross my threshold.”
+
+The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle
+tone: “You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you
+going now? Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you
+look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you? No one shall
+have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest. See
+your way clearly once more, and when you have come to your senses--why,
+we monks have two eyes, that we may be able to close one when occasion
+requires. Have you any special cause for gratitude to Costa?”
+
+“Many, Father, many!” cried the smith, his voice still trembling with
+only too well founded anxiety for his friend. “Listen, and when you know
+what he has done for me, and are disposed to judge leniently, do not
+carry what reaches your ears here before the chapter no, Father--I
+beseech you--do not. For if it should be I, by whom the doctor came
+to ruin, I--I....” The man’s voice failed, and his chest heaved so
+violently with his gasping breath, that his stout leathern apron rose
+and fell.
+
+“Be calm, Adam, be calm,” said the monk, soothingly answering his
+companion’s broken words. “All shall be well, all shall be well. Sit
+down, man, and trust me. What is the terrible debt of gratitude you owe
+the doctor?”
+
+Spite of the other’s invitation, the smith remained standing and with
+downcast eyes, began:
+
+“I am not good at talking. You know how I was thrown into a dungeon on
+Valentine’s account, but no one can understand my feelings during that
+time. Ulrich was left alone here among this miserable rabble with nobody
+to care for him, for our old maid-servant was seventy. I had buried my
+money in a safe place and there was nothing in the house except a loaf
+of bread and a few small coins, barely enough to last three days. The
+child was always before my eyes; I saw him ragged, begging, starving.
+But my anxiety tortured me most, after they had released me and I was
+going back to my house from the castle. It was a walk of two hours, but
+each one seemed as long as St. John’s day. Should I find Ulrich or not?
+What had become of him? It was already dark, when I at last stood before
+the house. Everything was as silent as the grave, and the door was
+locked. Yet I must get in, so I rapped with my fingers, and then
+pounded with my fist on the door and shutters, but all in vain. Finally
+Spittellorle--[A nickname; literally: “Hospital Loura.”]--came out
+of the red house next mine, and I heard all. The old woman had become
+idiotic, and was in the stocks. Ulrich was at the point of death, and
+Doctor Costa had taken him home. When I heard this, I felt the same as
+you did just now; anger seized upon me, and I was as much ashamed as
+if I were standing in the pillory. My child with the Jew! There was not
+much time for reflection, and I set off at full speed for the doctor’s
+house. A light was shining through the window. It was high above the
+street, but as it stood open and I am tall, I could look in and see over
+the whole room. At the right side, next the wall, was a bed, where amid
+the white pillows lay my boy. The doctor sat by his side, holding the
+child’s hand in his. Little Ruth nestled to him, asking: ‘Well, father?’
+The man smiled. Do you know him, Pater? He is about thirty years old,
+and has a pale, calm face. He smiled and said so gratefully, so-so
+joyously, as if Ulrich were his own son: ‘Thank God, he will be spared
+to us!’ The little girl ran to her dumb mother, who was sitting by the
+stove, winding yarn, exclaiming: ‘Mother, he’ll get well again. I have
+prayed for him every day.’ The Jew bent over my child and pressed his
+lips upon the boy’s brow--and I, I--I no longer clenched my fist, and
+was so overwhelmed with emotion, that I could not help weeping, as if I
+were still a child myself, and since then, Pater Benedictus, since....”
+ He paused; the monk rose, laid his hand on the smith’s shoulder, and
+said:
+
+“It has grown late, Adam. Show me to my couch. Another day will come
+early to-morrow morning, and we should sleep over important matters. But
+one thing is settled, and must remain so-under all circumstances: the
+boy is no longer to be taught by the Jew. He must help you shoe the
+horses to-morrow. You will be reasonable!”
+
+The smith made no reply, but lighted the monk to the room where he and
+his son usually slept. His own couch was covered with fresh linen for
+the guest--Ulrich already lay in his bed, apparently asleep.
+
+“We have no other room to give you,” said Adam, pointing to the boy; but
+the monk was content with his sleeping companions, and after his host
+had left him, gazed earnestly at Ulrich’s fresh, handsome face.
+
+The smith’s story had moved him, and he did not go to rest at once, but
+paced thoughtfully up and down the room, stepping lightly, that he might
+not disturb the child’s slumber.
+
+Adam had reason to be grateful to the man, and why should there not be
+good Jews?
+
+He thought of the patriarchs, Moses, Solomon, and the prophets, and had
+not the Saviour himself, and John and Paul, whom he loved above all the
+apostles, been the children of Jewish mothers, and grown up among Jews?
+And Adam! the poor fellow had had more than his share of trouble, and he
+who believes himself deserted by God, easily turns to the devil. He was
+warned now, and the mischief to his son must be stopped once for all.
+What might not the child hear from the Jew, in these times, when heresy
+wandered about like a roaring lion, and sat by all the roads like a
+siren. Only by a miracle had this secluded valley been spared the evil
+teachings, but the peasants had already shown that they grudged the
+nobles the power, the cities the rich gains, and the priesthood the
+authority and earthly possessions, bestowed on them by God. He was
+disposed to let mildness rule, and spare the Jew this time--but only on
+one condition.
+
+When he took off his cowl, he looked for a hook on which to hang it, and
+while so doing, perceived on the shelf a row of boards. Taking one down,
+he found a sketch of an artistic design for the enclosure of a fountain,
+done by the smith’s hand, and directly opposite his bed a linden-wood
+panel, on which a portrait was drawn with charcoal. This roused his
+curiosity, and, throwing the light of the torch upon it, he started
+back, for it was a rudely executed, but wonderfully life-like head of
+Costa, the Jew. He remembered him perfectly, for he had met him more
+than once.
+
+The monk shook his head angrily, but lifted the picture from the shelf
+and examined more closely the doctor’s delicately-cut nose, and the
+noble arch of the brow. While so doing, he muttered unintelligible
+words, and when at last, with little show of care, he restored the
+modest work of art to its old place, Ulrich awoke, and, with a touch of
+pride, exclaimed:
+
+“I drew that myself, Father!”
+
+“Indeed!” replied the monk. “I know of better models for a pious lad.
+You must go to sleep now, and to-morrow get up early and help your
+father. Do you understand?”
+
+So saying, with no gentle hand he turned the boy’s head towards the
+wall. The mildness awakened by Adam’s story had all vanished to the
+winds.
+
+Adam allowed his son to practise idolatry with the Jew, and make
+pictures of him. This was too much. He threw himself angrily on his
+couch, and began to consider what was to be done in this difficult
+matter, but sleep soon brought his reflections to an end.
+
+Ulrich rose very early, and when Benedict saw him again in the light of
+the young day, and once more looked at the Jew’s portrait, drawn by
+the handsome boy, a thought came to him as if inspired by the saints
+themselves--the thought of persuading the smith to give his son to the
+monastery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+This morning Pater Benedictus was a totally different person from the
+man, who had sat over the wine the night before. Coldly and formally he
+evaded the smith’s questions, until the latter had sent his son away.
+
+Ulrich, without making any objection, had helped his father shoe the
+sorrel horse, and in a few minutes, by means of a little stroking over
+the eyes and nose, slight caresses, and soothing words, rendered the
+refractory stallion as docile as a lamb. No horse had ever resisted the
+lad, from the time he was a little child, the smith said, though for
+what reason he did not know. These words pleased the monk, for he
+was only too familiar with two fillies, that were perfect fiends for
+refractoriness, and the fair-haired boy could show his gratitude for the
+schooling he received, by making himself useful in the stable.
+
+Ulrich must go to the monastery, so Benedictus curtly declared with the
+utmost positiveness, after the smith had finished his work. At midsummer
+a place would be vacant in the school, and this should be reserved
+for the boy. A great favor! What a prospect--to be reared there with
+aristocratic companions, and instructed in the art of painting. Whether
+he should become a priest, or follow some worldly pursuit, could be
+determined later. In a few years the boy could choose without restraint.
+
+This plan would settle everything in the best possible way. The Jew need
+not be injured, and the smith’s imperiled son would be saved. The monk
+would hear no objections. Either the accusation against the doctor
+should be laid before the chapter, or Ulrich must go to the school.
+
+In four weeks, on St. John’s Day, so Benedictus declared, the smith and
+his son might announce their names to the porter. Adam must have saved
+many florins, and there would be time enough to get the lad shoes and
+clothes, that he might hold his own in dress with the other scholars.
+
+During this whole transaction the smith felt like a wild animal in the
+hunter’s toils, and could say neither “yes” nor “no.” The monk did not
+insist upon a promise, but, as he rode away, flattered himself that he
+had snatched a soul from the claws of Satan, and gained a prize for
+the monastery-school and his stable--a reflection that made him very
+cheerful.
+
+Adam retrained alone beside the fire. Often, when his heart was heavy,
+he had seized his huge hammer and deadened his sorrow by hard work; but
+to-day he let the tool lie, for the consciousness of weakness and lack
+of will paralyzed his lusty vigor, and he stood with drooping head, as
+if utterly crushed. The thoughts that moved him could not be exactly
+expressed in words, but doubtless a vision of the desolate forge, where
+he would stand alone by the fire without Ulrich, rose before his mind.
+Once the idea of closing his house, taking the boy by the hand, and
+wandering out into the world with him, flitted through his brain. But
+then, what would become of the Jew, and how could he leave this place?
+Where would his miserable wife, the accursed, lovely sinner, find him,
+when she sought him again? Ulrich had run out of doors long ago. Had
+he gone to study his lessons with the Jew? He started in terror at the
+thought. Passing his hands over his eyes, like a dreamer roused from
+sleep, he went into his chamber, threw off his apron, cleansed his face
+and hands from the soot of the forge, put on his burgher dress, which he
+only wore when he went to church or visited the doctor, and entered the
+street.
+
+The thunder-storm had cleared the air, and the sun shone pleasantly on
+the shingled roofs of the miserable houses of the Richtberg. Its rays
+were reflected from the little round window-panes, and flickered over
+the tree-tops on the edge of the ravine.
+
+The light-green hue of the fresh young foliage on the beeches glittered
+as brightly against the dark pines, as if Spring had made them a token
+of her mastery over the grave companions of Winter; yet even the pines
+were not passed by, and where her finger had touched the tips of the
+branches in benediction, appeared tender young shoots, fresh as the
+grass by the brook, and green as chrysophase and emerald.
+
+The stillness of morning reigned within the forest, yet it was full of
+life, rich in singing, chirping and twittering. Light streamed from the
+blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered
+and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been
+prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows
+of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant
+moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds and grass.
+
+Nature had celebrated her festival of resurrection at Easter, and the
+day after the morrow joyous Whitsuntide would begin. Fresh green life
+was springing from the stump of every dead tree; even the rocks afforded
+sustenance to a hundred roots, a mossy covering and network of thorny
+tendrils clung closely to them. The wild vine twined boldly up many a
+trunk, fruit was already forming on the bilberry bushes, though it
+still glimmered with a faint pink hue amid the green of May. A thousand
+blossoms, white, red, blue and yellow, swayed on their slender stalks,
+opened their calixes to the bees, unfolded their stars to deck the
+woodland carpet, or proudly stretched themselves up as straight as
+candles. Grey fungi had shot up after the refreshing rain, and gathered
+round the red-capped giants among the mushrooms. Under, over and around
+all this luxuriant vegetation hopped, crawled, flew, fluttered, buzzed
+and chirped millions of tiny, short-lived creatures. But who heeds them
+on a sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
+twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously? Murmuring
+and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
+amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley. The hurrying
+water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew
+along the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third
+species of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and
+spun delicate silk threads.
+
+In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
+charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
+below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
+purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
+sullied.
+
+It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
+smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky. Little
+clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles
+of wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln. A moss-grown but
+stood at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with
+the coal-burner. People called this man “Hangemarx,” and in truth he
+looked in his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that
+Nature should deck herself in her Spring garb. He had a broad, peasant
+face, his mouth was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in
+many places looked washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow
+forehead, that it wholly concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white
+brows. The eyes under them needed to be taken on trust, they were so
+well concealed, but when they peered through the narrow chink between
+the rows of lashes, not even a mote escaped them. Ulrich was shaping an
+arrow, and meantime asking the coal-burner numerous questions, and when
+the latter prepared to answer, the boy laughed heartily, for before
+Hangemarx could speak, he was obliged to straighten his crooked mouth by
+three jerking motions, in which his nose and cheeks shared.
+
+An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
+dissimilar companions.
+
+After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again.
+Marx knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the
+boy, that he might shoot it. The host of the Lamb down in the town
+needed game, for his Gretel was to be married on Tuesday. True, Marx
+could kill the animal himself, but Ulrich had learned to shoot too,
+and if the place whence the game came should be noised abroad, the
+charcoal-burner, without any scruples of conscience, could swear that he
+did not shoot the buck, but found it with the arrow in its heart.
+
+People called the charcoal-burner a poacher, and he owed his ill-name
+of “Hangemarx” to the circumstance that once, though long ago, he had
+adorned a gallows. Yet he was not a dishonest man, only he remembered
+too faithfully the bold motto, which, when a boy, one peasant
+wood-cutter or charcoal-burner whispered to another:
+
+“Forest, stream and meadow are free.”
+
+His dead father had joined the Bundschuh,--[A peasants’ league
+which derived its name from the shoe, of peculiar shape, worn by its
+members.]--adopted this motto, and clung fast to it and with it, to the
+belief that every living thing in the forest belonged to him, as much
+as to the city, the nobles, or the monastery. For this faith he had
+undergone much suffering, and owed to it his crooked mouth and ill name,
+for just as his beard was beginning to grow, the father of the reigning
+count came upon him, just after he had killed a fawn in the “free”
+ forest. The legs of the heavy animal were tied together with ropes, and
+Marx was obliged to take the ends of the knot between his teeth like a
+bridle, and drag the carcass to the castle. While so doing his cheeks
+were torn open, and the evil deed neither pleased him nor specially
+strengthened his love for the count. When, a short time after, the
+rebellion broke out in Stuhlingen, and he heard that everywhere the
+peasants were rising against the monks and nobles, he, too, followed
+the black, red and yellow banner, first serving with Hans Muller of
+Bulgenbach, then with Jacklein Rohrbach of Bockingen, and participating
+with the multitude in the overthrow of the city and castle of
+Neuenstein. At Weinsberg he saw Count Helfenstein rush upon the spears,
+and when the noble countess was driven past him to Heilbronn in the
+dung-cart, he tossed his cap in the air with the rest.
+
+The peasant was to be lord now; the yoke of centuries was to be broken;
+unjust imposts, taxes, tithes and villenage would be forever abolished,
+while the fourth of the twelve articles he had heard read aloud more
+than once, remained firmly fixed in his memory “Game, birds and fish
+every one is free to catch.” Moreover, many a verse from the Gospel,
+unfavorable to the rich, but promising the kingdom of heaven to the
+poor, and that the last shall be first, had reached his ears. Doubtless
+many of the leaders glowed with lofty enthusiasm for the liberation of
+the poor people from unendurable serfdom and oppression; but when Marx,
+and men like him, left wife and children and risked their lives, they
+remembered only the past, and the injustice they had suffered, and were
+full of a fierce yearning to trample the dainty, torturing demons under
+their heavy peasant feet.
+
+The charcoal-burner had never lighted such bright fires, never tasted
+such delicious meat and spicy wine, as during that period of his life,
+while vengeance had a still sweeter savor than all the rest. When the
+castle fell, and its noble mistress begged for mercy, he enjoyed a
+foretaste of the promised paradise. Satan has also his Eden of fiery
+roses, but they do not last long, and when they wither, put forth sharp
+thorns. The peasants felt them soon enough, for at Sindelfingen they
+found their master in Captain Georg Truchsess of Waldberg.
+
+Marx fell into his troopers’ hands and was hung on the gallows, but only
+in mockery and as a warning to others; for before he and his companions
+perished, the men took them down, cut their oath-fingers from their
+hands, and drove them back into their old servitude. When he at last
+returned home, his house had been taken from his family, whom he found
+in extreme poverty. The father of Adam, the smith, to whom he had
+formerly sold charcoal, redeemed the house, gave him work, and once,
+when a band of horsemen came to the city searching for rebellious
+peasants, the old man did not forbid him to hide three whole days in his
+barn.
+
+Since that time everything had been quiet in Swabia, and neither in
+forest, stream nor meadow had any freedom existed.
+
+Marx had only himself to provide for; his wife was dead, and his sons
+were raftsmen, who took pine logs to Mayence and Cologne, sometimes even
+as far as Holland. He owed gratitude to no one but Adam, and showed in
+his way that he was conscious of it, for he taught Ulrich all sorts of
+things which were of no advantage to a boy, except to give him pleasure,
+though even in so doing he did not forget his own profit. Ulrich was now
+fifteen, and could manage a cross-bow and hit the mark like a skilful
+hunter, and as the lad did not lack a love for the chase, Marx afforded
+him the pleasure. All he had heard about the equal rights of men he
+engrafted into the boy’s soul, and when to-day, for the hundredth time,
+Ulrich expressed a doubt whether it was not stealing to kill game that
+belonged to the count, the charcoal-burner straightened his mouth, and
+said:
+
+“Forest, stream and meadow are free. Surely you know that.”
+
+The boy gazed thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then asked:
+
+“The fields too?”
+
+“The fields?” repeated Marx, in surprise. “The fields? The fields are a
+different matter.” He glanced as he spoke, at the field of oats he had
+sown in the autumn, and which now bore blades a finger long. “The fields
+are man’s work and belong to him who tills them, but the forest, stream
+and meadow were made by God. Do you understand? What God created for
+Adam and Eve is everybody’s property.”
+
+As the sun rose higher, and the cuckoo began to raise its voice,
+Ulrich’s name was shouted loudly several times in rapid succession
+through the forest. The arrow he had been shaping flew into a corner,
+and with a hasty “When it grows dusk, Marxle!” Ulrich dashed into the
+woods, and soon joined his playmate Ruth.
+
+The pair strolled slowly through the forest by the side of the stream,
+enjoying the glorious morning, and gathering flowers to carry a bouquet
+to the little girl’s mother. Ruth culled the blossoms daintily with the
+tips of her fingers; Ulrich wanted to help, and tore the slender stalks
+in tufts from the roots by the handful. Meantime their tongues were
+not idle. Ulrich boastfully told her that Pater Benedictus had seen his
+picture of her father, recognized it instantly, and muttered something
+over it. His mother’s blood was strong in him; his imaginary world was a
+very different one from that of the narrow-minded boys of the Richtberg.
+
+His father had told him much, and the doctor still more, about the wide,
+wide world-kings, artists and great heroes. From Hangemarx he learned,
+that he possessed the same rights and dignity as all other men, and
+Ruth’s wonderful power of imagination peopled his fancy with the
+strangest shapes and figures. She made royal crowns of wreaths,
+transformed the little hut, the lad had built of boughs, behind the
+doctor’s house, into a glittering imperial palace, converted round
+pebbles into ducats and golden zechins--bread and apples into princely
+banquets; and when she had placed two stools before the wooden bench on
+which she sat with Ulrich her fancy instantly transformed them into a
+silver coronation coach with milk-white steeds. When she was a fairy,
+Ulrich was obliged to be a magician; if she was the queen, he was king.
+
+When, to give vent to his animal spirits, Ulrich played with the
+Richtberg boys, he always led them, but allowed himself to be guided by
+little Ruth. He knew that the doctor was a despised Jew, that she was
+a Jewish child; but his father honored the Hebrew, and the foreign
+atmosphere, the aristocratic, secluded repose that pervaded the solitary
+scholar’s house, exerted a strange influence over him.
+
+When he entered it, a thrill ran through his frame; it seemed as if he
+were penetrating into some forbidden sanctuary. He was the only one of
+all his playfellows, who was permitted to cross this threshold, and he
+felt it as a distinction, for, in spite of his youth, he realized that
+the quiet doctor, who knew everything that existed in heaven and on
+earth, and yet was as mild and gentle as a child, stood far, far
+above the miserable drudges, who struggled with sinewy hands for mere
+existence on the Richtberg. He expected everything from him, and Ruth
+also seemed a very unusual creature, a delicate work of art, with whom
+he, and he only, was allowed to play.
+
+It might have happened, that when irritated he would upbraid her with
+being a wretched Jewess, but it would scarcely have surprised him, if
+she had suddenly stood before his eyes as a princess or a phoenix.
+
+When the Richtberg lay close beneath them, Ruth sat down on a stone,
+placing her flowers in her lap. Ulrich threw his in too, and, as the
+bouquet grew, she held it towards him, and he thought it very pretty;
+but she said, sighing:
+
+“I wish roses grew in the forest; not common hedge-roses, but like those
+in Portugal--full, red, and with the real perfume. There is nothing that
+smells sweeter.”
+
+So it always was with the pair. Ruth far outstripped Ulrich in her
+desires and wants, thus luring him to follow her.
+
+“A rose!” repeated Ulrich. “How astonished you look!”
+
+Her wish reminded him of the magic word she had mentioned the day
+before, and they talked about it all the way home, Ulrich saying that
+he had waked three times in the night on account of it. Ruth eagerly
+interrupted him, exclaiming:
+
+“I thought of it again too, and if any one would tell the what it was,
+I should know what to wish now. I would not have a single human being in
+the world except you and me, and my father and mother.”
+
+“And my little mother!” added Ulrich, earnestly.
+
+“And your father, too!”
+
+“Why, of course, he, too!” said the boy, as if to make hasty atonement
+for his neglect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The sun was shining brightly on the little windows of the Israelite’s
+sitting-room, which were half open to admit the Spring air, though
+lightly shaded with green curtains, for Costa liked a subdued light, and
+was always careful to protect his apartment from the eyes of passers-by.
+
+There was nothing remarkable to be seen, for the walls were whitewashed,
+and their only ornament was a garland of lavender leaves, whose perfume
+Ruth’s mother liked to inhale. The whole furniture consisted of a chest,
+several stools, a bench covered with cushions, a table, and two plain
+wooden arm-chairs.
+
+One of the latter had long been the scene of Adam’s happiest hours, for
+he used to sit in it when he played chess with Costa.
+
+He had sometimes looked on at the noble game while in Nuremberg; but
+the doctor understood it thoroughly, and had initiated him into all its
+rules.
+
+For the first two years Costa had remained far in advance of his pupil,
+then he was compelled to defend himself in good earnest, and now it not
+unfrequently happened that the smith vanquished the scholar. True, the
+latter was much quicker than the former, who if the situation became
+critical, pondered over it an unconscionably long time.
+
+Two hands more unlike had rarely met over a chess-board; one suggested
+a strong, dark plough-ox, the other a light, slender-limbed palfrey. The
+Israelite’s figure looked small in contrast with the smith’s gigantic
+frame. How coarse-grained, how heavy with thought the German’s big, fair
+head appeared, how delicately moulded and intellectual the Portuguese
+Jew’s.
+
+To-day the two men had again sat down to the game, but instead of
+playing, had been talking very, very earnestly. In the course of the
+conversation the doctor had left his place and was pacing restlessly to
+and fro. Adam retained his seat.
+
+His friend’s arguments had convinced him. Ulrich was to be sent to
+the monastery-school. Costa had also been informed of the danger that
+threatened his own person, and was deeply agitated. The peril was great,
+very great, yet it was hard, cruelly hard, to quit this peaceful nook.
+The smith understood what was passing in his mind, and said:
+
+“It is hard for you to go. What binds you here to the Richtberg?”
+
+“Peace, peace!” cried the other. “And then,” he added more calmly, “I
+have gained land here.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“The large and small graves behind the executioner’s house, they are my
+estates.”
+
+“It is hard, hard to leave them,” said the smith, with drooping head.
+“All this comes upon you on account of the kindness you have shown my
+boy; you have had a poor reward from us.”
+
+“Reward?” asked the other, a subtle smile hovering around his lips. “I
+expect none, neither from you nor fate. I belong to a poor sect, that
+does not consider whether its deeds will be repaid or not. We love
+goodness, set a high value on it, and practise it, so far as our power
+extends, because it is so beautiful. What have men called good? Only
+that which keeps the soul calm. And what is evil? That which fills it
+with disquiet. I tell you, that the hearts of those who pursue virtue,
+though they are driven from their homes, hunted and tortured like
+noxious beasts, are more tranquil than those of their powerful
+persecutors, who practise evil. He who seeks any other reward for
+virtue, than virtue itself, will not lack disappointment. It is neither
+you nor Ulrich, who drives me hence, but the mysterious ancient curse,
+that pursues my people when they seek to rest; it is, it is... Another
+time, to-morrow. This is enough for to-day.”
+
+When the doctor was alone, he pressed his hand to his brow and groaned
+aloud. His whole life passed before his mind, and he found in it,
+besides terrible suffering, great and noble joys, and not an hour in
+which his desire for virtue was weakened. He had spent happy years here
+in the peace of his simple home, and now must again set forth and wander
+on and on, with nothing before his eyes save an uncertain goal, at the
+end of a long, toilsome road. What had hitherto been his happiness,
+increased his misery in this hour. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to
+drag his wife and child through want and sorrow, and could Elizabeth,
+his wife, bear it again?
+
+He found her in the tiny garden behind the horse, kneeling before
+a flower-bed to weed it. As he greeted her pleasantly, she rose and
+beckoned to him.
+
+“Let us sit down,” he said, leading her to the bench before the hedge,
+that separated the garden from the forest. There he meant to tell her,
+that they must again shake the dust from their feet.
+
+She had lost the power of speech on the rack in Portugal, and could only
+falter a few unintelligible words, when greatly excited, but her hearing
+had remained, and her husband understood how to read the expression of
+her eyes. A great sorrow had drawn a deep line in the high, pure brow,
+and this also was eloquent; for when she felt happy and at peace it was
+scarcely perceptible, but if an anxious or sorrowful mood existed,
+the furrow contracted and deepened. To-day it seemed to have entirely
+disappeared. Her fair hair was drawn plainly and smoothly, over her
+temples, and the slender, slightly stooping figure, resembled a young
+tree, which the storm has bowed and deprived of strength and will to
+raise itself.
+
+“Beautiful!” she exclaimed in a smothered tone, with much effort, but
+her bright glance clearly expressed the joy that filled her soul, as
+she pointed to the green foliage around her and the blue sky over their
+heads.
+
+“Delicious-delicious!” he answered, cordially. “The June day is
+reflected in your dear face. You have learned to be contented here?”
+
+Elizabeth nodded eagerly, pressing both hands upon her heart, while
+her eloquent glance told him how well, how grateful and happy, she felt
+here; and when in reply to his timid question, whether it would be hard
+for her to leave this place and seek another, a safer home, she gazed at
+first in surprise, then anxiously into his face, and then, with an eager
+gesture of refusal, gasped “Not go--not go!” He answered, soothingly:
+
+“No, no; we are still safe here to-day!”
+
+Elizabeth knew her husband, and had keen eyes; a presentiment of
+approaching danger seized upon her. Her features assumed an expression
+of terrified expectation and deep grief. The furrow in her brow
+deepened, and questioning glances and gestures united with the
+“What?--what?” trembling on her lips.
+
+“Do not fear!” he replied, tenderly. “We must not spoil the present,
+because the future might bring something that is not agreeable to us.”
+
+As he uttered the words, she pressed closely to him, clutching his
+arm with both hands, but he felt the rapid throbbing of her heart, and
+perceived by the violent agitation expressed in every feature, what
+deep, unconquerable horror was inspired by the thought of being
+compelled to go out into the world again, hunted from country to
+country, from town to town. All that she had suffered for his sake,
+came back to his memory, and he clasped her trembling hands in his with
+passionate fervor. It seemed as if it would be very, very easy, to die
+with her, but wholly impossible to thrust her forth again into a foreign
+land and to an uncertain fate; so, kissing her on her eyes, which were
+dilated with horrible fear, he exclaimed, as if no peril, but merely a
+foolish wish had suggested the desire to roam:
+
+“Yes, child, it is best here. Let us be content with what we have. We
+will stay!--yes, we will stay!” Elizabeth drew a long breath, as if
+relieved from an incubus, her brow became smooth, and it seemed as if
+the dumb mouth joined the large upraised eyes in uttering an “Amen,”
+ that came from the inmost depths of the heart.
+
+Costa’s soul was saddened and sorely troubled, when he returned to the
+house and his writing-table. The old maid-servant, who had accompanied
+him from Portugal, entered at the same time, and watched his
+preparations, shaking her head. She was a small, crippled Jewess, a
+grey-haired woman, with youthful, bright, dark eyes, and restless hands,
+that fluttered about her face with rapid, convulsive gestures, while she
+talked.
+
+She had grown old in Portugal, and contracted rheumatism in the unusual
+cold of the North, so even in Spring she wrapped her head in all the gay
+kerchiefs she owned. She kept the house scrupulously neat, understood
+how to prepare tempting dishes from very simple materials, and bought
+everything she needed for the kitchen. This was no trifling matter
+for her, since, though she had lived more than nine years in the black
+Forest, she had learned few German words. Even these the neighbors
+mistook for Portuguese, though they thought the language bore some
+distant resemblance to German. Her gestures they understood perfectly.
+
+She had voluntarily followed the doctor’s father, yet she could not
+forgive the dead man, for having brought her out of the warm South into
+this horrible country. Having been her present master’s nurse, she took
+many liberties with him, insisting upon knowing everything that went on
+in the household, of which she felt herself the oldest, and therefore
+the most distinguished member; and it was strange how quickly she could
+hear when she chose, spite of her muffled ears!
+
+To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing
+to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced
+around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in
+Portuguese:
+
+“Don’t begin that, Lopez. You must listen to me first.”
+
+“Must I?” he asked, kindly.
+
+“If you don’t choose to do it, I can go!” she answered, angrily. “To be
+sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion? Do you feel inclined
+to make the monks’ acquaintance once more?”
+
+“Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again? Go into the kitchen!”
+
+“Directly! Directly! But I will speak first. You pretend, that you are
+only staying here to please your wife, but it’s no such thing. It’s
+yonder writing that keeps you. I know life, but you and your wife are
+just like two children. Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye,
+and blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna.
+What sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with
+the doctor’s hat from Coimbra? Then everybody said: ‘Lopez, Senor Lopez.
+Heavenly Father, what a shining light he’ll be!’ And now! The Lord have
+mercy on us! You work, work, and what does it bring you? Not an egg; not
+a rush! Go to your uncle in the Netherlands. He’ll forget the curse, if
+you submit! How many of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?”
+
+Here the doctor interrupted the old woman’s torrent of speech with
+a stern “enough!” but she would not allow herself to be checked, and
+continued with increasing volubility.
+
+“Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my
+tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of
+your senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to
+be sure it isn’t written in the books, that when people find out what
+happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a
+Christian girl....”
+
+At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant’s
+shoulder, and said with grave, quiet earnestness.
+
+“Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it. Do you understand
+me, Rahel? I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you: my
+wife is content here, and danger is still far away. We shall stay. And
+besides: since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed,
+the Christians as a condemned man. The former close the doors,
+the latter would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean. No
+Portuguese will come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one
+monk and one Jew from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find
+Elizabeth with me, it will involve no less trifle than her life and
+mine. I shall stay here; you now know why, and can go to your kitchen.”
+
+Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
+the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
+more rapidly than usual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+St. John’s day was close at hand. Ulrich was to go to the monastery the
+following morning. Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no
+one molested the doctor. Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted
+so beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he
+now felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into
+connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.
+
+The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this
+purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native
+place, but to the nearest large city.
+
+There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper’s windows, and
+the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before
+this splendid show. As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected
+the clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head
+to foot, were blue on one side and yellow on the other. But Adam pushed
+them angrily aside. Ulrich’s pleasure in the gay stuff reminded him of
+his wife’s outfit, the pink and green gowns.
+
+So he bought two dark suits, which fitted the lad’s erect figure as
+if moulded upon him, and when the latter stood before him in the inn,
+neatly dressed, with shoes on his feet, and a student’s cap on his head,
+Adam could not help gazing at him almost idolatrously.
+
+The tavern-keeper whispered to the smith, that it was long since he had
+seen so handsome a young fellow, and the hostess, after bringing the
+beer, stroked the boy’s curls with her wet hand.
+
+On reaching home, Adam permitted his son to go to the doctor’s in his
+new clothes; Ruth screamed with joy when she saw him, walked round and
+round him, and curiously felt the woollen stuff of the doublet and its
+blue slashes, ever and anon clapping her hands in delight.
+
+Her parents had expected that the parting would excite her most
+painfully, but she smiled joyously into her playmate’s face, when he
+bade her farewell, for she took the matter in her usual way, not as it
+really was, but as she imagined it to be. Instead of the awkward Ulrich
+of the present, the fairy-prince he was now to become stood before her;
+he was to return without fail at Christmas, and then how delightful it
+would be to play with him again. Of late they had been together even
+more than usual, continually seeking for the word, and planning a
+thousand delightful things he was to conjure up for her, and she for him
+and others.
+
+It was the Sabbath, and on this day old Rahel always dressed the child
+in a little yellow silk frock, while on Sunday her mother did the same.
+The gown particularly pleased Ulrich’s eye, and when she wore it, he
+always became more yielding and obeyed her every wish. So Ruth rejoiced
+that it chanced to be the Sabbath, and while she passed her hand over
+his doublet, he stroked her silk dress.
+
+They had not much to say to each other, for their tongues always
+faltered in the presence of others. The doctor gave Ulrich many an
+admonitory word, his wife kissed him, and as a parting remembrance hung
+a small gold ring, with a glittering stone, about his neck, and old
+Rahel gave him a kerchief full of freshly-baked cakes to eat on his way.
+
+At noon on St. John’s day, Ulrich and his father stood before the gate
+of the monastery. Servants and mettled steeds were waiting there, and
+the porter, pointing to them, said: “Count Frohlinger is within.”
+
+Adam turned pale, pressed his son so convulsively to his breast that he
+groaned with pain, sent a laybrother to call Father Benedict, confided
+his child to him, and walked towards home with drooping head.
+
+Hitherto Ulrich had not known whether to enjoy or dread the thought
+of going to the monastery-school. The preparations had been pleasant
+enough, and the prospect of sharing the same bench with the sons of
+noblemen and aristocratic citizens, flattered his unity; but when he
+saw his father depart, his heart melted and his eyes grew wet. The monk;
+noticing this, drew him towards him, patted his shoulder, and said:
+“Keep up your courage! You will see that it is far pleasanter with us,
+than down in the Richtberg.”
+
+This gave Ulrich food for thought, and he did not glance around as the
+Father led him up the steep stairs to the landing-place, and past the
+refectory into the court-yard.
+
+Monks were pacing silently up and down the corridors that surrounded it,
+and one after another raised his shaven head higher over his white cowl,
+to cast a look at the new pupil.
+
+Behind the court-yard stood the stately, gable-roofed building
+containing the guest-rooms, and between it and the church lay the
+school-garden, a meadow planted with fruit trees, separated from the
+highway by a wall.
+
+Benedictus opened the wooden gate, and pushed Ulrich into the
+playground.
+
+The noise there had been loud enough, but at his entrance the game
+stopped, and his future companions nudged each other, scanning him with
+scrutinizing glances.
+
+The monk beckoned to several of the pupils, and made them acquainted
+with the smith’s son, then stroking Ulrich’s curls again, left him alone
+with the others.
+
+On St. John’s day the boys were given their liberty and allowed to play
+to their hearts’ content.
+
+They took no special notice of Ulrich, and after having stared
+sufficiently and exchanged a few words with him, continued their
+interrupted game of trying to throw stones over the church roof.
+
+Meantime Ulrich looked at his comrades.
+
+There were large and small, fair and dark lads among them, but not one
+with whom he could not have coped. To this point his scrutiny was first
+directed.
+
+At last he turned his attention to the game. Many of the stones, that
+had been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over
+the church. The longer the unsuccessful efforts lasted, the more
+evident became the superior smile on Ulrich’s lips, the faster his heart
+throbbed. His eyes searched the grass, and when he had discovered a
+flat, sharp-edged stone, he hurriedly stooped, pressed silently into the
+ranks of the players, and bending the upper part of his body far back,
+summoned all his strength, and hurled the stone in a beautiful curve
+high into the air.
+
+Forty sparkling eyes followed it, and a loud shout of joy rang out as it
+vanished behind the church roof. One alone, a tall, thin, black-haired
+lad, remained silent, and while the others were begging Ulrich to throw
+again, searched for a stone, exerted all his power to equal the 11
+“greenhorn,” and almost succeeded. Ulrich now sent a second stone
+after the first, and, again the cast was successful. Dark-browed Xaver
+instantly seized a new missile, and the contest that now followed so
+engrossed the attention of all, that they saw and heard nothing until a
+deep voice, in a firm, though not unkind tone, called: “Stop, boys! No
+games must be played with the church.”
+
+At these words the younger boys hastily dropped the stones they had
+gathered, for the man who had shouted, was no less a personage than the
+Lord Abbot himself.
+
+Soon the lads approached to kiss the ecclesiastic’s hand or sleeve, and
+the stately priest, who understood how to guide those subject to him
+by a glance of his dark eyes, graciously and kindly accepted the
+salutation.
+
+“Grave in office, and gay in sport” was his device. Count von
+Frohlinger, who had entered the garden with him, looked like one whose
+motto runs: “Never grave and always gay.”
+
+The nobleman had not grown younger since Ulrich’s mother fled into the
+world, but his eyes still sparkled joyously and the brick-red hue that
+tinged his handsome face between his thick white moustache and his eyes,
+announced that he was no less friendly to wine than to fair women. How
+well his satin clothes and velvet cloak became him, how beautifully
+the white puffs were relieved against the deep blue of his dress!
+How proudly the white and yellow plumes arched over his cap, and how
+delicate were the laces on his collar and cuffs! His son, the very image
+of the handsome father, stood beside him, and the count had laid his
+hand familiarly on his shoulder, as if he were not his child, but a
+friend and comrade.
+
+“A devil of a fellow!” whispered the count to the abbot. “Did you see
+the fair-haired lad’s throw? From what house does the young noble come?”
+
+The prelate shrugged his shoulders, and answered smiling:
+
+“From the smithy at Richtberg.”
+
+“Does he belong to Adam?” laughed the other. “Zounds! I had a bitter
+hour in the confessional on his mother’s account. He has inherited the
+beautiful Florette’s hair and eyes; otherwise he looks like his father.
+With your permission, my Lord Abbot, I’ll call the boy.”
+
+“Afterwards, afterwards,” replied the superior of the monastery in a
+tone of friendly denial, which permitted no contradiction. “First tell
+the boys, what we have decided?”
+
+Count Frohlinger bowed respectfully, then drew his son closer to his
+side, and waited for the boys, to whom the abbot beckoned.
+
+As soon as they had gathered in a group before him, the nobleman
+exclaimed:
+
+“You have just bid this good-for-nothing farewell. What should you say,
+if I left him among you till Christmas? The Lord Abbot will keep him,
+and you, you....”
+
+But he had no time to finish the sentence. The pupils rushed upon him,
+shouting:
+
+“Stay here, Philipp! Count Lips must stay!”
+
+One little flaxen-headed fellow nestled closely to his regained
+protector, another kissed the count’s hand, and two larger boys seized
+Philipp by the arm and tried to drag him away from his father, back into
+their circle.
+
+The abbot looked on at the tumult kindly, and bright tear-drops ran down
+into the old count’s beard, for his heart was easily touched. When he
+recovered his composure, he exclaimed:
+
+“Lips shall stay, you rogues; he shall stay! And the Lord Abbot has
+given you permission, to come with me to-day to my hunting-box and light
+a St. John’s fire. There shall be no lack of cakes and wine.”
+
+“Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the count!” shouted the pupils, and all
+who had caps tossed them into the air. Ulrich was carried away by the
+enthusiasm of the others; and all the evil words his father had so
+lavishly heaped on the handsome, merry gentleman--all Hangemarx’s abuse
+of knights and nobles were forgotten.
+
+The abbot and his companion withdrew, but as soon as the boys knew that
+they were unobserved, Count Lips cried:
+
+“You fellow yonder, you greenhorn, threw the stone over the roof. I saw
+it. Come here. Over the roof? That should be my right. Whoever breaks
+the first window in the steeple, shall be victor.”
+
+The smith’s son felt embarrassed, for he shrank from the mischief and
+feared his father and the abbot. But when the young count held out his
+closed hands, saying: “If you choose the red stone, you shall throw
+first,” he pointed to his companion’s right hand, and, as it concealed
+the red pebble, began the contest. He threw the stone, and struck the
+window. Amid loud shouts of exultation from the boys, more than one
+round pane of glass, loosened from the leaden casing, rattled in broken
+fragments on the church roof, and from thence fell silently on the
+grass. Count Lips laughed aloud in his delight, and was preparing to
+follow Ulrich’s example, but the wooden gate was pushed violently open,
+and Brother Hieronymus, the most severe of all the monks, appeared in
+the playground. The zealous priest’s cheeks glowed with anger, terrible
+were the threats he uttered, and declaring that the festival of St.
+John should not be celebrated, unless the shameless wretch, who had
+blasphemously shattered the steeple window, confessed his fault, he
+scanned the pupils with rolling eyes.
+
+Young Count Lips stepped boldly forward, saying beseechingly:
+
+“I did it, Father--unintentionally! Forgive me!”
+
+“You?” asked the monk, his voice growing lower and more gentle, as
+he continued: “Folly and wantonness without end! When will you learn
+discretion, Count Philipp? But as you did it unintentionally, I will let
+it pass for to-day.”
+
+With these words, the monk left the court-yard; and as soon as the gate
+had closed behind him, Ulrich approached his generous companion, and
+said in a tone that only he could hear, yet grateful to the inmost
+depths of his heart:
+
+“I will repay you some day.”
+
+“Nonsense!” laughed the young count, throwing his arm over the shoulder
+of the artisan’s son. “If the glass wouldn’t rattle, I would throw now;
+but there’s another day coming to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Autumn had come. The yellow leaves were fluttering about the school
+play-ground, the starlings were gathering in flocks on the church roof
+to take their departure, and Ulrich would fain have gone with them, no
+matter where. He could not feel at home in the monastery and among
+his companions. Always first in Richtberg, he was rarely so here, most
+seldom of all in school, for his father had forbidden the doctor to
+teach him Latin, so in that study he was last of all.
+
+Often, when every one was asleep, the poor lad sat studying by the
+ever-burning lamp in the lobby, but in vain. He could not come up with
+the others, and the unpleasant feeling of remaining behind, in spite of
+the most honest effort, spoiled his life and made him irritable.
+
+His comrades did not spare him, and when they called him “horse-boy,”
+ because he was often obliged to help Pater Benedictus in bringing
+refractory horses to reason, he flew into a rage and used his superior
+strength.
+
+He stood on the worst terms of all with black-haired Xaver, to whom he
+owed the nickname.
+
+This boy’s father was the chief magistrate of the little city, and was
+allowed to take his son home with him at Michaelmas.
+
+When the black-haired lad returned, he had many things to tell, gathered
+from half-understood rumor, about Ulrich’s parents. Words were now
+uttered, that brought the blood to Ulrich’s cheeks, yet he intentionally
+pretended not to hear them, because he dared not contradict tales that
+might be true. He well knew who had brought all these stories to the
+others, and answered Xaver’s malicious spite with open enmity.
+
+Count Lips did not trouble himself about any of these things, but
+remained Ulrich’s most intimate friend, and was fond of going with him
+to see the horses. His vivacious intellect joyously sympathized with the
+smith’s son, when he told him about Ruth’s imaginary visions, and often
+in the play-ground he went apart with Ulrich from their companions; but
+this very circumstance was a thing that many, who had formerly been
+on more intimate terms with the aristocratic boy, were not disposed to
+forgive the new-comer.
+
+Xaver had never been friendly to the count’s son, and succeeded in
+irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied
+himself better than they, and still more against Ulrich, who was half a
+servant, yet presumed to play the master and offer them violence.
+
+The monks employed in the school soon noticed the ill terms, on which
+the new pupil stood with his companions, and did not lack reasons for
+shaking their heads over him.
+
+Benedictus had not been able to conceal, who had been Ulrich’s teacher
+in Richtberg; and the seeds the Jew had planted in the boy, seemed to be
+bearing strange and vexatious fruit.
+
+Father Hieronymus, who instructed the pupils in religion, fairly
+raged, when he spoke of the destructive doctrines, that haunted the new
+scholar’s head.
+
+When, soon after Ulrich’s reception into the school, he had spoken of
+Christ’s work of redemption, and asked the boy: “From what is the world
+to be delivered by the Saviour’s suffering?” the answer was: “From the
+arrogance of the rich and great.” Hieronymus had spoken of the holy
+sacraments, and put the question: “By what means can the Christian
+surely obtain mercy, unless he bolts the door against it--that is,
+commits a mortal sin?” and Ulrich’s answer was: “By doing unto others,
+what you would have others do unto you.”
+
+Such strange words might be heard by dozens from the boy’s lips. Some
+were repeated from Hangemarx’s sayings, others from the doctor’s; and
+when asked where he obtained them, he quoted only the latter, for the
+monks were not to be allowed to know anything about his intercourse with
+the poacher.
+
+Sharp reproofs and severe penances were now bestowed, for many a word
+that he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the
+poor, tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.
+
+He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to
+have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear
+his grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for
+help.
+
+The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill
+words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys
+a right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure,
+holy Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.
+
+In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the
+abbot, the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy,
+an opinion strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose
+best pupil Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who
+had lured this nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and
+often urged the abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to
+an examination by torture.
+
+In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the
+heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian
+child.
+
+The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement,
+during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the
+magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the
+doctor. Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against
+the accused. Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he
+heard from the boy’s lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the
+smith and his son would be examined.
+
+The abbot, who liked to linger over his books, was glad to know that
+the matter was in the hands of the civil authorities, and enjoined
+Hieronymus to pay strict attention.
+
+On the third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the
+monastery. His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the
+deep snow in the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went
+directly to the refectory and there asked for his son.
+
+The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when
+his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.
+
+It would not have needed Xaver’s bitter complaints, to rouse his father
+to furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and
+he was by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been
+excluded for three weeks from the others’ sports, and placed on a very
+frugal diet. He went furiously to the abbot.
+
+The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young
+count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered
+play-ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades,
+pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated. The conspirators had
+stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off
+his shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his
+back, pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and
+believed his last hour had come.
+
+Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing
+off and seizing his tormentor. While the others fled, he wreaked his
+rage on the magistrate’s son to his heart’s content, first with his
+fists, and then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him. Meantime,
+snowballs had rained upon his body and head from all directions,
+increasing his fury; and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started
+up, exclaiming with glowing cheeks and upraised fists:
+
+“Wait, wait, you wicked fellows! The doctor in Richtberg knows a word,
+by which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable
+rascals!”
+
+Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father,
+cleverly enlarged with many a false word. The abbot listened to the
+magistrate’s complaint very quietly.
+
+The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter
+seemed important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the
+meal-time had already begun. The Jew had really spoken to his daughter
+about the magic word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his
+companions with it. So the investigation might begin.
+
+Ulrich was led back to the prison-chamber, where some thin soup and
+bread awaited him, but he touched neither. Food and drink disgusted him,
+and he could neither work nor sit still.
+
+The little bell, which, summoned all the occupants of the monastery, was
+heard at an unusual hour, and about vespers the sound of sleigh-bells
+attracted him to the window. The abbot and Father Hieronymus were
+talking in undertones to the magistrate, who was just preparing to enter
+his sleigh.
+
+They were speaking of him and the doctor, and the pupils had just been
+summoned to bear witness against him. No one had told him so, but he
+knew it, and was seized with such anxiety about the doctor, that drops
+of perspiration stood on his brow.
+
+He was clearly aware that he had mingled his teacher’s words with the
+poacher’s blasphemous sayings, and also that he had put the latter into
+the mouth of Ruth’s father.
+
+He was a traitor, a liar, a miserable scoundrel!
+
+He wished to go to the abbot and confess all, yet dared not, and so the
+hours stole away until the time for the evening mass.
+
+While in church he strove to pray, not only for himself but for the
+doctor, but in vain, he could think of nothing but the trial, and while
+kneeling with his hands over his eyes, saw the Jew in fetters before
+him, and he himself at the trial in the town-hall.
+
+At last the mass ended.
+
+Ulrich rose. Just before him hung the large crucifix, and the Saviour on
+the cross, who with his head bowed on one side, usually gazed so gently
+and mournfully upon the ground, to-day seemed to look at him with
+mingled reproach and accusation.
+
+In the dormitory, his companions avoided him as if he had the plague,
+but he scarcely noticed it.
+
+The moonlight and the reflection from the snow shone brightly through
+the little window, but Ulrich longed for darkness, and buried his face
+in the pillows. The clock in the steeple struck ten.
+
+He raised himself and listened to the deep breathing of the sleepers on
+his right and left, and the gnawing of a mouse under the bed.
+
+His heart throbbed faster and more anxiously, but suddenly seemed to
+stand still, for a low voice had called his name.
+
+“Ulrich!” it whispered again, and the young count, who lay beside him,
+rose in bed and bent towards him. Ulrich had told him about the word,
+and often indulged in wishes with him, as he had formerly done with
+Ruth. Philipp now whispered:
+
+“They are going to attack the doctor. The abbot and magistrate
+questioned us, as if it were a matter of life and death. I kept what
+I know about the word to myself, for I’m sorry for the Jew, but Xaver,
+spiteful fellow, made it appear as if you really possessed the spell,
+and just now he came to me and said his father would seize the Jew early
+to-morrow morning, and then he would be tortured. Whether they will hang
+or burn him is the question. His life is forfeited, his father said--and
+the black-visaged rascal rejoiced over it.”
+
+“Sileutium, turbatores!” cried the sleepy voice of the monk in charge,
+and the boys hastily drew back into the feathers and were silent.
+
+The young count soon fell asleep again, but Ulrich buried his head still
+deeper among the pillows; it seemed as if he saw the mild, thoughtful
+face of the man, from whom he had received so much affection, gazing
+reproachfully at him; then the dumb wife appeared before his mind, and
+he fancied her soft hand was lovingly stroking his cheeks as usual.
+Ruth also appeared, not in the yellow silk dress, but clad in rags of a
+beggar, and she wept, hiding her face in her mother’s lap.
+
+He groaned aloud. The clock struck eleven. He rose and listened. Nothing
+stirred, and slipping on his clothes, he took his shoes in his hand
+and tried to open the window at the head of his bed. It had stood open
+during the day, but the frost fastened it firmly to the frame. Ulrich
+braced his foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength, but
+it resisted one jerk after another; at last it suddenly yielded and flew
+open, making a slight creaking and rattling, but the monk on guard did
+not wake, only murmured softly in his sleep.
+
+The boy stood motionless for a time, holding his breath, then swung
+himself upon the parapet and looked out. The dormitory was in the second
+story of the monastery, above the rampart, but a huge bank of snow rose
+beside the wall, and this strengthened his courage.
+
+With hurrying fingers he made the sign of the cross, a low: “Mary, pray
+for me,” rose from his lips, then he shut his eyes and risked the leap.
+
+There was a buzzing, roaring sound in his ears, his mother’s image
+blended in strange distortion with the Jew’s, then an icy sea swallowed
+him, and it seemed as if body and soul were frozen. But this sensation
+overpowered him only a few minutes, then working his way out of the mass
+of snow, he drew on his shoes, and dashed as if pursued by a pack of
+wolves, down the mountain, through the ravine, across the heights, and
+finally along the river to the city and the Richtberg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The magistrate’s horses did not reach the city gate, from the monastery,
+more quickly than Ulrich.
+
+As soon as the smith was roused from sleep by the boy’s knock and
+recognized his voice, he knew what was coming, and silently listened to
+the lad’s confessions, while he himself hurriedly yet carefully took out
+his hidden hoard, filled a bag with the most necessary articles, thrust
+his lightest hammer into his belt, and poured water on the glimmering
+coals. Then, locking the door, he sent Ulrich to Hangemarx, with whom
+he had already settled many things; for Caspar, the juggler, who learned
+more through his daughters than any other man, had come to him the day
+before, to tell him that something was being plotted against the Jew.
+
+Adam found the latter still awake and at work. He was prepared for the
+danger that threatened him, and ready to fly. No word of complaint, not
+even a hasty gesture betrayed the mental anguish of the persecuted man,
+and the smith’s heart melted, as he heard the doctor rouse his wife and
+child from their sleep.
+
+The terrified moans of the startled wife, and Ruth’s loud weeping and
+curious questions, were soon drowned by the lamentations of old
+Rahel, who wrapped in even more kerchiefs than usual, rushed into the
+sitting-room, and while lamenting and scolding in a foreign tongue,
+gathered together everything that lay at hand. She had dragged a large
+chest after her, and now threw in candlesticks, jugs, and even the
+chessmen and Ruth’s old doll with a broken head.
+
+When the third hour after midnight came, the doctor was ready for
+departure.
+
+Marx’s charcoal sledge, with its little horse, stopped before the door.
+
+This was a strange animal, no larger than a calf, as thin as a goat, and
+in some places woolly, in others as bare as a scraped poodle.
+
+The smith helped the dumb woman into the sleigh, the doctor put Ruth
+in her lap, Ulrich consoled the child, who asked him all sorts of
+questions, but the old woman would not part from the chest, and could
+scarcely be induced to enter the vehicle.
+
+“You know, across the mountains into the Rhine valley--no matter where,”
+ Costa whispered to the poacher.
+
+Hangemarx urged on his little horse, and answered, not turning to the
+Israelite, who had addressed him, but to Adam, who he thought would
+understand him better than the bookworm: “It won’t do to go up the
+ravine, without making any circuit. The count’s hounds will track us, if
+they follow. We’ll go first up the high road by the Lautenhof. To-morrow
+will be a fair-day. People will come early from the villages and tread
+down the snow, so the dogs will lose the scent. If it would only snow.”
+
+Before the smithy, the doctor held out his hand to Adam, saying: “We
+part here, friend.”
+
+“We’ll go with you, if agreeable to you.”
+
+“Consider,” the other began warningly, but Adam interrupted him, saying:
+
+“I have considered everything; lost is lost. Ulrich, take the doctor’s
+sack from his shoulder.”
+
+For a long time nothing more was said.
+
+The night was clear and cold; the men’s footsteps fell noiselessly on
+the soft snow, nothing was heard except the creaking of the sledge,
+and ever and anon Elizabeth’s low moaning, or a louder word in the old
+woman’s soliloquy. Ruth had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap, and was
+breathing heavily.
+
+At Lautenhof a narrow path led through the mountains deep into the
+forest.
+
+As it grew steeper, the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the
+little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down,
+as if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very
+heavy fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal’s
+neck, and whispered to the smith “Twenty years old, and has the glanders
+besides.”
+
+The little beast nodded slowly and mournfully, as if to say: “Life is
+hard; this will probably be the last time I draw a sleigh.”
+
+The broad, heavy-laden pine-boughs drooped wearily by the roadside, the
+gleaming surface of the snow stretched in a monotonous sheet of white
+between the trunks of the trees, the tops of the dark rocks beside the
+way bore smooth white caps of loose snow, the forest stream was frozen
+along the edges, only in the centre did the water trickle through
+snow-crystals and sharp icicles to the valley.
+
+So long as the moon shone, flickering rays danced and sparkled on the
+ice and snow, but afterwards only the tedious glimmer of the universal
+snow-pall lighted the traveller’s way.
+
+“If it would only snow!” repeated the charcoal-burner.
+
+The higher they went, the deeper grew the snow, the more wearisome the
+wading and climbing.
+
+Often, on the doctor’s account, the smith called in a low voice, “Halt!”
+ and then Costa approached the sleigh and asked: “How do you feel?” or
+said: “We are getting on bravely.”
+
+Rahel screamed whenever a fox barked in the distance, a wolf howled, or
+an owl flew through the treetops, brushing the snow from the branches
+with its wings; but the others also started. Marx alone walked quietly
+and undisturbed beside his little horse’s thick head; he was familiar
+with all the voices of the forest.
+
+It grew colder towards morning. Ruth woke and cried, and her father,
+panting for breath, asked: “When shall we rest?”
+
+“Behind the height; ten arrow-shots farther,” replied the
+charcoal-burner.
+
+“Courage,” whispered the smith. “Get on the sledge, doctor; we’ll push.”
+
+But Costa shook his head, pointed to the panting horse, and dragged
+himself onward.
+
+The poacher must have sent his arrows in a strange curve, for one
+quarter of an hour after another slipped by, and the top was not yet
+gained. Meantime it grew lighter and lighter, and the charcoal-burner,
+with increasing anxiety, ever and anon raised his head, and glanced
+aside. The sky was covered with clouds-the light overhead grey, dim,
+and blended with mist. The snow was still dazzling, though it no longer
+sparkled and glittered, but covered every object with the dull whiteness
+of chalk.
+
+Ulrich kept beside the sledge to push it. When Ruth heard him groan,
+she stroked the hand that grasped the edges, this pleased him; and he
+smiled.
+
+When they again stopped, this time on the crest of the ridge, Ulrich
+noticed that the charcoal-burner was sniffing the air like a hound, and
+asked:
+
+“What is it, Marxle?”
+
+The poacher grinned, as he answered: “It’s going to snow; I smell it.”
+
+The road now led down towards the valley, and, after a short walk, the
+charcoal-burner said:
+
+“We shall find shelter below with Jorg, and a warm fire too, you poor
+women.”
+
+These were cheering words, and came just at the right time, for large
+snow-flakes began to fill the air, and a light breeze drove them into
+the travellers’ faces. “There!” cried Ulrich, pointing to the snow
+covered roof of a wooden hut, that stood close before them in a clearing
+on the edge of the forest.
+
+Every face brightened, but Marx shook his head doubtfully, muttering:
+
+“No smoke, no barking; the place is empty. Jorg has gone. At
+Whitsuntide--how many years ago is it?--the boys left to act as
+raftsmen, but then he stayed here.”
+
+Reckoning time was not the charcoal-burner’s strong point; and the empty
+hut, the dreary open window-casements in the mouldering wooden walls,
+the holes in the roof, through which a quantity of snow had drifted into
+the only room in the deserted house, indicated that no human being had
+sought shelter here for many a winter.
+
+Old Rahel uttered a fresh wail of grief, when she saw this shelter; but
+after the men had removed the snow as well as they could, and covered
+the holes in the roof with pine-branches; when Adam had lighted a fire,
+and the sacks and coverlets were brought in from the sledge, and laid on
+a dry spot to furnish seats for the women, fresh courage entered their
+hearts, and Rahel, unasked, dragged herself to the hearth, and set the
+snow-filled pot on the fire.
+
+“The nag must have two hours’ rest,” Marx said, “then they could push on
+and reach the miller in the ravine before night. There they would find
+kind friends, for Jacklein had been with him among the ‘peasants.’”
+ The snow-water boiled, the doctor and his wife rested, Ulrich and
+Ruth brought wood, which the smith had split, to the fire to dry, when
+suddenly a terrible cry of grief rang outside of the hut.
+
+Costa hastily rose, the children followed, and old Rahel, whimpering,
+drew the upper kerchief on her head over her face.
+
+The little horse, its tiny legs stretched far apart, was lying in the
+snow by the sledge. Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his
+knee, and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal’s nostrils. The
+creature showed its yellow teeth, and put out its bluish tongue as if
+it wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal’s eyes
+started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time
+the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust
+themselves into the air, like the gaping mouth of a deserted bird.
+
+No farther progress was possible. The women sat trembling in the hut,
+roasting before the fire, and shivering when a draught touched them....
+Ruth wept for the poor little horse, and Marx sat as if utterly crushed
+beside his old friend’s stiffening body, heeding nothing, least of all
+the snow, which was making him whiter than the miller, with whom he had
+expected to rest that evening. The doctor gazed in mute despair at his
+dumb wife, who, with clasped hands, was praying fervently; the smith
+pressed his hand upon his brow, vainly pondering over what was to be
+done now, until his head ached; while, from the distance, echoed the
+howl of a hungry wolf, and a pair of ravens alighted on a white bough
+beside the little horse, gazing greedily at the corpse lying in the
+snow.
+
+Meantime, the abbot was sitting in his pleasantly-warmed study, which
+was pervaded by a faint, agreeable perfume, gazing now at the
+logs burning in the beautiful marble mantel-piece, and then at the
+magistrate, who had brought him strange tidings.
+
+The prelate’s white woollen morning-robe clung closely around his
+stately figure. Beside him lay, side by side, for comparison, two
+manuscript copies of his favorite book, the idyls of Theocritus, which,
+for his amusement, and to excel the translation of Coban Hesse, he was
+turning into Latin verse, as the duties of his office gave him leisure.
+
+The magistrate was standing by the fire-side. He was a thick-set man
+of middle height, with a large head, and clever but coarse features, as
+rudely moulded as if they had been carved from wood. He was one of the
+best informed lawyers in the country, and his words flowed as smoothly
+and clearly from his strong lips, as if every thought in his keen brain
+was born fully matured and beautifully finished.
+
+In the farthest corner of the room, awaiting a sign from his master,
+stood the magistrate’s clerk, a little man with a round head, and legs
+like the sickle of the waxing or waning moon. He carried under his short
+arms two portfolios, filled with important papers.
+
+“He comes from Portugal, and has lived under an assumed name?” So the
+abbot repeated, what he had just heard.
+
+“His name is Lopez, not Costa,” replied the other; “these papers prove
+it. Give me the portfolio, man! The diploma is in the brown one.”
+
+He handed a parchment to the prelate, who, after reading it, said
+firmly:
+
+“This Jew is a more important person than we supposed. They are not
+lavish with such praise in Coimbra. Are you taking good care of the
+doctor’s books Herr Conrad? I will look at them to-morrow.”
+
+“They are at your disposal. These papers....”
+
+“Leave them, leave them.”
+
+“There will be more than enough for the complaint without them,” said
+the magistrate. “Our town-clerk, who though no student is, as you
+know, a man of much experience, shares my opinion.” Then he continued
+pathetically: “Only he who has cause to fear the law hides his name,
+only he, who feels guilty, flees the judge.”
+
+A subtle smile, that was not wholly free from bitterness, hovered
+around the abbot’s lips, for he thought of the painful trial and the
+torture-chamber in the town hall, and no longer saw in the doctor merely
+the Jew, but the humanist and companion in study.
+
+His glance again fell on the diploma, and while the other continued his
+representations, the prelate stretched himself more comfortably in his
+arm-chair and gazed thoughtfully at the ground. Then, as if an idea had
+suddenly occurred to him, he touched his high forehead with the tips of
+his fingers, and suddenly interrupting the eager speaker, said:
+
+“Father Anselm came to us from Porto five years ago, and when there knew
+every one who understood Greek. Go, Gutbub, and tell the librarian to
+come.” The monk soon appeared.
+
+Tidings of Ulrich’s disappearance and the Jew’s flight had spread
+rapidly through the monastery; the news was discussed in the choir,
+the school, the stable and the kitchen; Father Anselm alone had heard
+nothing of the matter, though he had been busy in the library before
+daybreak, and the vexatious incident had been eagerly talked of there.
+
+It was evident, that the elderly man cared little for anything that
+happened in the world, outside of his manuscripts and printing. His
+long, narrow head rested on a thin neck, which did not stand erect, but
+grew out between the shoulders like a branch from the stem. His face was
+grey and lined with wrinkles, like pumice-stone, but large bright eyes
+lent meaning and attraction to the withered countenance.
+
+At first he listened indifferently to the abbot’s story, but as soon as
+the Jew’s name was mentioned, and he had read the diploma, as swiftly as
+if he possessed the gift of gathering the whole contents of ten lines at
+a single comprehensive glance, he said eagerly:
+
+“Lopez, Doctor Lopez was here! And we did not know it, and have not
+consulted with him! Where is he? What are people planning against him?”
+
+After he had learned that the Jew had fled, and the abbot requested
+him to tell all he knew about the doctor, he collected his thoughts and
+sorrowfully began:
+
+“To be sure, to be sure; the man committed a great offence. He is a
+great sinner in God’s eyes. You know his guilt?”
+
+“We know everything,” cried the magistrate, with a meaning glance at the
+prelate. Then, as if he sincerely pitied the criminal, he continued with
+well-feigned sympathy: “How did the learned man commit such a misdeed?”
+
+The abbot understood the stratagem, but Anselm’s words could not be
+recalled, and as he himself desired to learn more of the doctor’s
+history, he asked the monk to tell what he knew.
+
+The librarian, in his curt, dry manner, yet with a warmth unusual to
+him, described the doctor’s great learning and brilliant intellect,
+saying that his father, though a Jew, had been in his way an
+aristocratic man, allied with many a noble family, for until the reign
+of King Emanuel, who persecuted the Hebrews, they had enjoyed great
+distinction in Portugal. In those days it had been hard to distinguish
+Jews from Christians. At the time of the expulsion a few favored
+Israelites had been allowed to stay, among them the worthy Rodrigo, the
+doctor’s father, who had been the king’s physician and was held in high
+esteem by the sovereign. Lopez obtained the highest honors at Coimbra,
+but instead of following medicine, like his father, devoted himself to
+the humanities.
+
+“There was no need to earn his living--to earn his living,” continued
+the monk, speaking slowly and carefully, and repeating the conclusion
+of his sentence, as if he were in the act of collating two manuscripts,
+“for Rodrigo was one of the wealthiest men in Portugal. His son Lopez
+was rich, very rich in friends, and among them were numbered all to whom
+knowledge was dear. Even among the Christians he had many friends. Among
+us--I mean in our library--he also obtained great respect. I owe
+him many a hint, much aid; I mean in referring me to rare books, and
+explaining obscure passages. When he no longer visited us, I missed him
+sorely. I am not curious; or do you think I am? I am not curious, but
+I could not help inquiring about him, and then I heard very bad things.
+Women are to blame for everything; of course it was a woman again. A
+merchant from Flanders--a Christian--had settled in Porto. The doctor’s
+father visited his house; but you probably know all this?”
+
+“Of course! of course!” cried the magistrate. “But go on with your
+story.”
+
+“Old Doctor Rodrigo was the Netherlander’s physician, and closed his
+eyes on the death-bed. An orphan was left, a girl, who had not a single
+relative in Porto. They said--I mean the young doctors and students who
+had seen her--that she was pleasing, very pleasing to the eye. But it
+was not on that account, but because she was orphaned and desolate, that
+the physician took the child--I mean the girl.”
+
+“And reared her as a Jewess?” interrupted the magistrate, with a
+questioning glance.
+
+“As a Jewess?” replied the monk, excitedly. “Who says so? He did
+nothing of the sort. A Christian widow educated her in the physician’s
+country-house, not in the city. When the young doctor returned from
+Coimbra, he saw her there more than once--more than once; certainly,
+more often than was good for him. The devil had a finger in the matter.
+I know, too, how they were married. Before one Jew and two Christian
+witnesses, they plighted their troth to each other, and exchanged
+rings--rings as if it were a Christian ceremony, though he remained a
+Jew and she a Christian. He intended to go to the Netherlands with
+her, but one of the witnesses betrayed them--denounced them to the Holy
+Inquisition. This soon interposed of course, for there it interferes
+with everything, and in this case it was necessary; nay more--a
+Christian duty. The young wife was seized in the street with her
+attendant and thrown into prison; on the rack she entirely lost the
+power of speech. The old physician and the doctor were warned in time,
+and kept closely concealed. Through Chamberlain de Sa, her uncle--or was
+it only her cousin?--through de Sa the wife regained her liberty, and
+then I believe all three fled to France--the father, son and wife. But
+no, they must have come here....”
+
+“There you have it!” cried the magistrate, interrupting the monk, and
+glancing triumphantly at the prelate. “An old practitioner scents crime,
+as a tree frog smells rain. Now, for the first time, I can say with
+certainty: We have him, and the worst punishment is too little for his
+deserts. There shall be an unparalleled execution, something wonderful,
+magnificent, grand! You have given me important information, and I thank
+you, Father.”
+
+“Then you knew nothing?” faltered the librarian; and, raising his neck
+higher than usual, the vein in the centre of his forehead swelled with
+wrath.
+
+“No, Anselme!” said the abbot. “But it was your duty to speak, as,
+unfortunately, it was mine to listen. Come to me again, by and bye; I
+have something to say to you.”
+
+The librarian bowed silently, coldly and proudly, and without
+vouchsafing the magistrate a single glance, went back, not to his books,
+but to his cell, where he paced up and down a long time, sorrowfully
+murmuring Lopez’s name, striking himself on the mouth, pressing his
+clenched hand to his brow, and at last throwing himself on his knees to
+pray for the Jew, before the image of the crucified Redeemer.
+
+As soon as the monk had left the room, the magistrate exclaimed:
+
+“What unexpected aid! What series of sins lie before us! First the
+small ones. He had never worn the Jews’ badge, and allowed himself to be
+served by Christians, for Caspar’s daughters were often at the House
+to help in sewing. A sword was found in his dwelling, and the Jew, who
+carries weapons, renounces, since he uses self-protection, the aid of
+the authorities. Finally, we know that Lopez used an assumed name. Now
+we come to the great offences. They are divided into four parts. He has
+practised magic spells; he has sought to corrupt a Christian’s son by
+heresies; he has led a Christian woman into a marriage; and he has--I
+close with the worst--he has reared the daughter of a Christian woman, I
+mean his wife, a Jewess!”
+
+“Reared his child a Jewess? Do you know that positively?” asked the
+abbot.
+
+“She bears the Jewish name of Ruth. What I have taken the liberty to
+make prominent are well chosen, clearly-proved crimes, worthy of death.
+Your learning is great, Reverend Abbot, but I know the old writers,
+too. The Emperor Constantius made marriages between Jews and Christians
+punishable with death. I can show you the passage.”
+
+The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy
+and unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to
+see how the magistrate’s zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy
+criminal. So he rose, saying with cold hauteur:
+
+“Then do your duty.”
+
+“Rely upon it. We shall capture him and his family to-morrow. The
+town-clerk is full of zeal too. We shall not be able to harm the child,
+but it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education. It
+would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews. You
+know the Freiburg case. No less a personage than the great Ulrich
+Zasius has decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their
+father’s knowledge. I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall on
+Saturday as a witness.”
+
+“Very well,” replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness,
+that it justly surprised the magistrate. “Well then, catch the Jew;
+but take him alive. And one thing more! I wish to see and speak to the
+doctor, before you torture him.”
+
+“I will bring him to you day after to-morrow.”
+
+“The Nurembergers! the Nurembergers!...” replied the abbot, shrugging
+his shoulders.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“They don’t hang any one till they catch him.” The magistrate regarded
+these words as a challenge to put forth every effort for the Jew’s
+capture, so he answered eagerly: “We shall have him, Your Reverence, we
+shall surely have him. They are trapped in the snow. The sergeants are
+searching the roads; I shall summon your foresters and mine, and put
+them under Count Frohlinger’s command. It is his duty to aid us. What
+they cannot find with their attendants, squires, beaters and hounds, is
+not hidden in the forest. Your blessing, Holy Father, there is no time
+to lose.”
+
+The abbot was alone.
+
+He gazed thoughtfully at the coals in the fireplace, recalling
+everything he had just seen and heard, while his vivid power of
+imagination showed him the learned, unassuming man, who had spent long
+years in quiet seclusion, industriously devoting himself to the pursuit
+of knowledge. A slight feeling of envy stole into his heart; how
+rarely he himself was permitted to pursue undisturbed, and without
+interruption, the scientific subjects, in which alone he found pleasure.
+
+He was vexed with himself, that he could feel so little anger against a
+criminal, whose guilt was deserving of death, and reproached himself for
+lukewarmness. Then he remembered that the Jew had sinned for love, and
+that to him who has loved much, much should be forgiven. Finally,
+it seemed a great boon, that he was soon to be permitted to make the
+acquaintance of the worthy doctor from Coimbra. Never had the zealous
+magistrate appeared so repulsive as to-day, and when he remembered how
+the crafty man had outwitted poor Father Anselm in his presence, he felt
+as if he had himself committed an unworthy deed. And yet, yet--the Jew
+could not be saved, and had deserved what threatened him.
+
+A monk summoned him, but the abbot did not wish to be disturbed, and
+ordered that he should be left an hour alone.
+
+He now took in his hand a volume he called the mirror of his soul, and
+in which he noted many things “for the confession,” that he desired to
+determine to his own satisfaction. To-day he wrote:
+
+“It would be a duty to hate a Jew and criminal, zealously to persecute
+what Holy Church has condemned. Yet I cannot do so. Who is the
+magistrate, and what are Father Anselm and this learned doctor! The one
+narrow-minded, only familiar with the little world he knows and in which
+he lives, the others divinely-gifted, full of knowledge, rulers in the
+wide domain of thought. And the former outwits the latter, who show
+themselves children in comparison with him. How Anselm stood before
+him! The deceived child was great, the clever man small. What men call
+cleverness is only small-minded persons’ skill in life; simplicity is
+peculiar to the truly great man, because petty affairs are too small for
+him, and his eye does not count the grains of dust, but looks upward,
+and has a share in the infinitude stretching before us. Jesus Christ
+was gentle as a child and loved children, he was the Son of God, yet
+voluntarily yielded himself into the hands of men. The greatest of great
+men did not belong to the ranks of the clever. Blessed are the meek, He
+said. I understand those words. He is meek, whose soul is open, clear
+and pure as a mirror, and the greatest philosophers, the noblest minds I
+have met in life and history were also meek. The brute is clever; wisdom
+is the cleverness of the noble-minded. We must all follow the Saviour,
+and he among us, who unites wisdom to meekness, will come nearest to the
+Redeemer.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor
+had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he
+returned at noon with good news.
+
+A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg,
+the charcoal-burner, lived.
+
+The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach
+nearer the Rhine valley. Everything was ready for departure, but old
+Rahel objected to travelling further. She was sitting on a stone before
+the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and
+it seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses. Gazing into vacancy
+with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould
+dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour. She
+neither heard the doctor’s call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the
+former grasped her to compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek. At last
+the smith succeeded in persuading her to sit down on the sledge, and the
+party moved forward.
+
+Adam had harnessed himself to the front of the vehicle. Marx went to and
+fro, pushing when necessary. The dumb woman waded through the snow by
+her husband’s side. “Poor wife!” he said once; but she pressed his arm
+closer, looking up into his eyes as if she wished to say: “Surely I
+shall lack nothing, if only you are spared to me!”
+
+She enjoyed his presence as if it were a favor granted by destiny, but
+only at chance moments, for she could not banish her fear for him, and
+of the pursuers--her dread of uncertainty and wandering.
+
+If snow rattled from a pine-tree, if she noticed Lopez turn his head, or
+if old Rahel uttered a moan, she shuddered; and this was not unperceived
+by her husband, who told himself that she had every reason to look
+forward to the next few hours with grave anxiety. Each moment might
+bring imprisonment to him and all, and if they discovered--if it were
+disclosed who he, who Elizabeth was....
+
+Ulrich and Ruth brought up the rear, saying little to each other.
+
+At first the path ascended again, then led down to the valley. It had
+stopped snowing long before, and the farther they went the lighter the
+drifts became.
+
+They had journeyed in this way for two hours, when Ruth’s strength
+failed, and she stood still with tearful, imploring eyes. The
+charcoal-burner saw it, and growled:
+
+“Come here, little girl; I’ll carry you to the sleigh.”
+
+“No, let me,” Ulrich eagerly interposed. And Ruth exclaimed:
+
+“Yes, you, you shall carry me.”
+
+Marx grasped her around the waist, lifted her high into the air, and
+placed her in the boy’s arms. She clasped her hands around his neck, and
+as he walked on pressed her fresh, cool cheek to his. It pleased him,
+and the thought entered his mind that he had been parted from her a long
+time, and it was delightful to have her again.
+
+His heart swelled more and more; he felt that he would rather have
+Ruth than everything else in the world, and he drew her towards him as
+closely as if an invisible hand were already out-stretched to take her
+from him.
+
+To-day her dear, delicate little face was not pale, but glowed crimson
+after the long walk through the frosty, winter air. She was glad to
+have Ulrich clasp her so firmly, so she pressed her cheek closer to his,
+loosened her fingers from his neck, caressingly stroked his face with
+her cold hand, and murmured:
+
+“You are kind, Ulrich, and I love you!”
+
+It sounded so tender and loving, that Ulrich’s heart melted, for no one
+had spoken to him so since his mother went away.
+
+He felt strong and joyous, Ruth did not seem at all heavy, and when
+she again clasped her hands around his neck, he said: “I should like to
+carry you so always.”
+
+Ruth only nodded, as if the wish pleased her, but he continued:
+
+“In the monastery I had no one, who was very kind to me, for even Lips,
+well, he was a count--everybody is kind to you. You don’t know what it
+is, to be all alone, and have to struggle against every one. When I was
+in the monastery, I often wished that I was lying under the earth; now
+I don’t want to die, and we will stay with you--father told me so--and
+everything will be just as it was, and I shall learn no more Latin,
+but become a painter, or smith-artificer, or anything else, for aught I
+care, if I’m only not obliged to leave you again.”
+
+He felt Ruth raise her little head, and press her soft lips on his
+forehead just over his eyes; then he lowered the arms in which she
+rested, kissed her mouth, and said: “Now it seems as if I had my mother
+back again!”
+
+“Does it?” she asked, with sparkling eyes. “Now put me down. I am well
+again, and want to run.”
+
+So saying, she slipped to the ground, and he did not detain her.
+
+Ruth now walked stoutly on beside the lad, and made him tell her about
+the bad boys in the monastery, Count Lips, the pictures, the monks, and
+his own flight, until, just as it grew dark, they reached the goal of
+their walk.
+
+Jorg, the charcoal-burner, received them, and opened his hut, but only
+to go away himself, for though willing to give the fugitives shelter
+and act against the authorities, he did not wish to be present, if the
+refugees should be caught. Caught with them, hung with them! He knew the
+proverb, and went down to the village, with the florins Adam gave him.
+
+There was a hearth for cooking in the hut, and two rooms, one large and
+one small, for in summer the charcoal-burners’ wives and children live
+with them. The travellers needed rest and refreshment, and might have
+found both here, had not fear embittered the food and driven sleep from
+their weary eyes.
+
+Jorg was to return early the next morning with a team of horses. This
+was a great consolation. Old Rahel, too, had regained her self-control,
+and was sound asleep.
+
+The children followed her example, and at midnight Elizabeth slept too.
+
+Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange,
+snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from
+which the air is expiring.
+
+Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on
+a sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing
+with the words:
+
+“So you know who we are, and why we left our home. You are giving me
+your future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but
+first of all, it was due you that you should know my past.”
+
+Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked: “You are a Christian;
+will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?”
+
+Adam silently pressed the Jew’s right hand, and after remaining lost in
+thought for a time, said in a hollow tone:
+
+“If they catch you, and--Holy Virgin--if they discover... Ruth.... She
+is not really a Jew’s child... have you reared her as a Jewess?”
+
+“No; only as a good human child.”
+
+“Is she baptized?”
+
+Lopez answered this question also in the negative. The smith shook his
+head disapprovingly, but the doctor said: “She knows more about Jesus,
+than many a Christian child of her age. When she is grown up, she will
+be free to follow either her mother or her father.”
+
+“Why have you not become a Christian yourself? Forgive the question.
+Surely you are one at heart.”
+
+“That, that... you see, there are things.... Suppose that every male
+scion of your family, from generation to generation, for many hundred
+years, had been a smith, and now a boy should grow up, who said: I--I
+despise your trade?’”
+
+“If Ulrich should say: ‘I-I wish to be an artist;’ it would be agreeable
+to me.”
+
+“Even if smiths were persecuted like us Jews, and he ran from your guild
+to another out of fear?”
+
+“No--that would be base, and can scarcely be compared with your case;
+for see--you are acquainted with everything, even what is called
+Christianity; nay, the Saviour is dear to you; you have already told me
+so. Well then! Suppose you were a foundling and were shown our faith and
+yours, and asked for which you would decide, which would you choose?”
+
+“We pray for life and peace, and where peace exists, love cannot be
+lacking, and yet! Perhaps I might decide for yours.”
+
+“There you have it.”
+
+“No, no! We have not done with this question so speedily. See, I do
+not grudge you your faith, nor do I wish to disturb it. The child must
+believe, that all its parents do and require of him is right, but the
+stranger sees with different, keener eyes, than the son and daughter.
+You occupy a filial relation towards your Church--I do not. I know the
+doctrine of Jesus Christ, and if I had lived in Palestine in his time,
+should have been one of the first to follow the Master, but since, from
+those days to the present, much human work has mingled with his
+sublime teachings. This too must be dear to you, for it belongs to your
+parents--but it repels me. I have lived, labored and watched all night
+for the truth, and were I now to come before the baptismal font and say
+‘yes’ to everything the priests ask, I should be a liar.”
+
+“They have caused you bitter suffering; tortured your wife, driven you
+and your family from your home....”
+
+“I have borne all that patiently,” cried the doctor, deeply moved. “But
+there are many other sins now committed against me and mine, for which
+there is no forgiveness. I know the great Pagans and their works. Their
+need of love extends only to the nation, to which they belong, not to
+humanity. Unselfish justice, is to them the last thing man owes his
+fellow-man. Christ extended love to all nations, His heart was large
+enough to love all mankind. Human love, the purest and fairest of
+virtues, is the sublime gift, the noble heritage, he left behind to his
+brothers in sorrow. My heart, the poor heart under this black doublet,
+this heart was created for human love, this soul thirsted, with all its
+powers, to help its neighbors and lighten their sorrows. To exercise
+human love is to be good, but they no longer know it, and what is worse,
+a thousand times worse, they constantly destroy in me and mine the
+desire to be good, good in the sense of their own Master. Worldly wealth
+is trash--to be rich the poorest happiness. Yet the Jew is not forbidden
+to strive for this, they take scarcely half his gains;--nor can
+they deny him the pursuit of the pleasures of the intellect--pure
+knowledge--for our minds are not feebler or more idle, and soar no less
+boldly than theirs. The prophets came from the East! But the happiness
+of the soul--the right to exercise charity is denied to us. It is a part
+of charity for each man to regard his neighbor as himself--to feel for
+him, as it were, with his own heart--to lighten his burdens, minister
+unto him in his sorrows, and to gladden his happiness. This the
+Christian denies the Jew. Your love ceases when you meet me and mine,
+and if I sought to put myself on an equality with the Christian, from
+the pure desire to satisfy his Master’s most beautiful lesson, what
+would be my fate? The Jew is not permitted to be good. Not to be good!
+Whoever imposes that upon his brother, commits a sin for which I know no
+forgiveness. And if Jesus Christ should return to earth and see the pack
+that hunts us, surely He, who was human love incarnate, would open His
+arms wide, wide to us, and ask: ‘Who are these apostles of hate? I know
+them not!’”
+
+The doctor paused, for the door had opened, and he rose with flushed
+face to look into the adjoining room; but the smith held him back,
+saying:
+
+“Stay, stay! Marx went out into the open air. Ah, Sir! no doubt your
+words are true, but were they Jews who crucified the Saviour?”
+
+“And this crime is daily avenged,” replied Lopez. “How many wicked, how
+many low souls, who basely squander divine gifts to obtain worthless
+pelf, there are among my people! More than half of them are stripped of
+honor and dignity on your altar of vengeance, and thrust into the arms
+of repulsive avarice. And this, all this.... But enough of these things!
+They rouse my inmost soul to wrath, and I have other matters to discuss
+with you.”
+
+The scholar now began to speak to the smith, like a dying man, about
+the future of his family, told him where he had concealed his small
+property, and did not hide the fact, that his marriage had not only
+drawn upon him the persecution of the Christians, but the curse of his
+co-religionists. He took it upon himself to provide for Ulrich, as if
+he were his own child, should any misfortune befall the smith; and Adam
+promised, if he remained alive and at liberty, to do the same for the
+doctor’s wife and daughter.
+
+Meantime, a conversation of a very different nature was held before the
+hut.
+
+The poacher was sitting by the fire, when the door opened, and his name
+was called. He turned in alarm, but soon regained his composure, for it
+was Jorg who beckoned, and then drew him into the forest.
+
+Marx expected no good news, yet he started when his companion said:
+
+“I know now, who the man is you have brought. He’s a Jew. Don’t try to
+humbug me. The constable from the city has come to the village. The man,
+who captures the Israelite, will get fifteen florins. Fifteen florins,
+good money. The magistrate will count it, all on one board, and the
+vicar says....”
+
+“I don’t care much for your priests,” replied Marx. “I am from
+Weinsberg, and have found the Jew a worthy man. No one shall touch him.”
+
+“A Jew, and a good man!” cried Jurg, laughing. “If you won’t help, so
+much the worse for you. You’ll risk your neck, and the fifteen florins.
+... Will you go shares? Yes or no?”
+
+“Heaven’s thunder!” murmured the poacher, his crooked mouth watering.
+“How much is half of fifteen florins?”
+
+“About seven, I should say.”
+
+“A calf and a pig.”
+
+“A swine for the Jew, that will suit. You’ll keep him here in the trap.”
+
+“I can’t, Jorg; by my soul, I can’t! Let me alone!”
+
+“Very well, for aught I care; but the legal gentlemen. The gallows has
+waited for you long enough!”
+
+“I can’t; I can’t. I’ve been an honest man all my life, and the smith
+Adam and his dead father have shown me many a kindness.”
+
+“Who means the smith any harm?”
+
+“The receiver is as bad as the thief. If they catch him....”
+
+“He’ll be put in the stocks for a week. That’s the worst that can befall
+him.”
+
+“No, no. Let me alone,--or I’ll tell Adam what you’re plotting....”
+
+“Then I’ll denounce you first, you gallows’ fruit, you rogue, you
+poacher. They’ve suspected you a long time! Will you change your mind
+now, you blockhead?”
+
+“Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my
+own child.”
+
+“I’ll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away
+with me. When it’s all over, I’ll let him go.”
+
+“Then I’ll keep him. He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown
+man. Oh, dear, dear! The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and
+the little girl, Ruth....”
+
+“Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more. You’ve told me yourself, how
+the Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father’s day. So we’ll go
+shares. There’s a light in the room still. You’ll detain them. Count
+Frohlinger has been at his hunting-box since last evening.... If they
+insist on moving forward, guide them to the village.”
+
+“And I’ve been an honest man all my life,” whined the poacher, and then
+continued, threateningly: “If you harm a hair on Ulrich’s head....”
+
+“Fool that you are! I’ll willingly leave the big feeder to you. Go in
+now, then I’ll come and fetch the boy. There’s money at stake--fifteen
+florins!” Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the hut.
+
+The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
+that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find
+one elsewhere. They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the
+farm-houses in another village. Somebody would doubtless be found to
+risk his horses. The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants
+would take earnest-money from him. If he, Jorg, should show them
+florins, it would get him into a fine scrape. The people knew he was as
+poor as a beggar.
+
+The smith asked the poacher’s opinion, and the latter growled:
+
+“That will, doubtless, be a good plan.”
+
+He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
+him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
+Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
+florins to the four winds, but it was too late.
+
+The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: “Take good care of
+the boy!” And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: “You are a
+faithful fellow, Marx!” he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
+all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
+kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
+nor Jorg had come. Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
+soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
+smith’s anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
+Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched
+him--for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the
+silent man’s gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with
+strange, questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste
+unusual to him.
+
+“Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?”
+
+“Often!” replied Ruth.
+
+“And do you love Him?”
+
+“Dearly. Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him.”
+
+“Of course, of course!” replied the smith, blushing with shame for his
+own distrust.
+
+The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
+they were alone, she beckoned to him.
+
+Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand. The slender
+fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew
+her towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her
+eyes expressed bitter suffering and terrible dread.
+
+“Are you afraid?” he asked, tenderly.
+
+Elizabeth shuddered, threw her arms passionately around his neck, and
+nodded assent.
+
+“The wagon will convey us to the Rhine Valley, please God, this very
+day, and there we shall be safe,” he continued, soothingly. But she
+shook her head, her features assuming an expression of indifference and
+contempt. Lopez understood how to read their meaning, and asked: “So it
+is not the bailiffs you fear; something else is troubling you?”
+
+She nodded again, this time still more eagerly, drew out the crucifix,
+which she had hitherto kept concealed under her coverlid, showed it to
+him, then pointed upward towards heaven, lastly to herself and him, and
+shrugged her shoulders with an air of deep, mournful renunciation.
+
+“You are thinking of the other world,” said Lopez; then, fixing his eyes
+on the ground, he continued, in a lower tone: “I know you are tortured
+by the fear of not meeting me there.”
+
+“Yes,” she gasped, with a great effort, pressing her forehead against
+his shoulder.
+
+A hot tear fell on the doctor’s hand, and he felt as if his own heart
+was weeping with his beloved, anxious wife.
+
+He knew that this thought had often poisoned her life and, full of
+tender sympathy, turned her beautiful face towards him and pressed a
+long kiss on her closed eyes, then said, tenderly:
+
+“You are mine, I am yours, and if there is a life beyond the grave,
+and an eternal justice, the dumb will speak as they desire, and sing
+wondrous songs with the angels; the sorrowful will again be happy there.
+We will hope, we will both hope! Do you remember how I read Dante aloud
+to you, and tried to explain his divine creation, as we sat on the bench
+by the fig-tree. The sea roared below us, and our hearts swelled higher
+than its storm-lashed waves. How soft was the air, how bright the
+sunshine! This earth seemed doubly beautiful to you and me as, led by
+the hand of the divine seer and singer, we descended shuddering to the
+nether world. There the good and noble men of ancient times walked in a
+flowery meadow, and among them the poet beheld in solitary grandeur--do
+you still remember how the passage runs? ‘E solo in parte vidi ‘l
+Saladino.’ Among them he also saw the Moslem Saladin, the conqueror of
+the Christians. If any one possessed the key of the mysteries of the
+other world, Elizabeth, it was Dante. He assigned a lofty place to the
+pagan, who was a true man--a man with a pure mind, a zeal for goodness
+and right, and I think I shall have a place there too. Courage,
+Elizabeth, courage!”
+
+A beautiful smile had illumined the wife’s features, while she was
+reminded of the happiest hours of her life, but when he paused, gazed
+into her eyes, and clasped her right hand in his, she was seized with
+an intense longing to pray once, only once, with him to the Saviour so,
+drawing her fingers from his, she pressed the image of the Crucified
+One to her breast with her left hand, pleading with mute motions of her
+lips, ineligible to him alone, and with ardent entreaty in her large,
+tearful eyes: “Pray, pray with me, pray to the saviour.”
+
+Lopez was greatly agitated; his heart beat faster, and a strong impulse
+urged him to start up, cry “no,” and not allow himself to be moved, by
+an affectionate meakness, into bowing his manly soul before one, who, to
+him, was no more than human.
+
+The noble figure of the crucified Saviour, carved by an artist’s hand in
+ivory, hung from an ebony cross, and he thrust the image back, intending
+to turn proudly way, he gazed at the face and found there only pain,
+quiet endurance, and touching sorrow. Ah, his own heart had often bled,
+as the pure brow of this poor, persecuted, tortured saint bled beneath
+its crown of thorns. To defy this silent companion in suffering, was
+no manly deed--to pay homage, out of love, to Him, who had brought
+love into the world, seemed to possess a sweet, ensnaring charm--so he
+clasped his slender hands closely round his dumb wife’s fingers, pressed
+his dark curls against Elizabeth’s fair hair, and both, for the first
+and last time, repeated together a mute, fervent prayer.
+
+Before the hut, and surrounded by the forest, was a large clearing,
+where two roads crossed.
+
+Adam, Marx and Ruth had gazed first down one and then the other, to look
+for the wagon, but nothing was to be seen or heard. As, with increasing
+anxiety, they turned back to the first path, the poacher grew restless.
+His crooked mouth twisted to and fro in strange contortions, not a
+muscle of his coarse face was till, and this looked so odd and yet so
+horrible, that Ruth could not help laughing, and the smith asked what
+ailed him.
+
+Marx made no reply; his ear had caught the distant bay of a dog, and he
+knew what the sound meant. Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and
+the smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: “What ails
+you, man?”
+
+“I am freezing,” replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous
+expression.
+
+Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her
+hand to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: “There’s a dog barking,
+Meister Adam, I hear it.”
+
+The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly:
+“Believe me; I hear it. Now it’s barking again.”
+
+Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest. With lightning speed
+he loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up
+the clearing with her.
+
+Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.
+
+Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned. In his impatience he had
+gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the
+child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had
+happened to Ulrich.
+
+“Back, back!” shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his,
+also motioned and shrieked “Back, back!”
+
+The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned,
+when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the
+party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on
+horseback, burst from the thicket.
+
+The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god
+Siegfried. His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam
+rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air
+like a light cloud. He had opened and raised his arms, and holding
+the reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right. On
+perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant “Hallo, Halali!” rang from
+his bearded lips.
+
+To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a
+Jew.
+
+The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how
+stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.
+
+This was a morning’s work indeed!
+
+“Hallo, Halali!” he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had
+escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor’s side, exclaiming:
+
+“Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!”
+
+The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.
+
+As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he
+turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.
+
+Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam’s
+heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful
+arms around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him
+from his horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his
+belt, and with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the
+earth. Then he again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe.
+But Lopez would not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a
+tone of passionate entreaty:
+
+“Let him go, Adam, spare him.”
+
+As he spoke, he clung to the smith’s arm, and when the latter tried to
+release himself from his grasp, said earnestly:
+
+“We will not follow their example!”
+
+Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the
+smith’s arm, this time exclaiming imperiously:
+
+“Spare him, if you are my friend!”
+
+What was his strength in comparison with Adam’s? Yet as the hammer
+rose for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed,
+seizing the infuriated man’s wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he
+fell on his knees beside the count: “Think of Ulrich! This man’s son was
+the only one, the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich,
+your child--in the monastery--he was--his friend--among so many. Spare
+him--Ulrich! For Ulrich’s sake, spare him!”
+
+During this struggle the smith had held the count down with his left
+hand, and defended himself against Lopez with the right.
+
+One jerk, and the hand upraised for murder was free again--but he did
+not use it. His friend’s last words had paralyzed him.
+
+“Take it,” he said in a hollow tone, giving the hammer to the doctor.
+
+The latter seized it, and rising joyously, laid his hand on the shoulder
+of the smith, who was still kneeling on the count’s breast, and said
+beseechingly: “Let that suffice. The man is only....”
+
+He went no farther--a gurgling, piercing cry of pain escaped his lips,
+and pressing one hand to his breast, and the other to his brow, he sank
+on the snow beside the stump of a giant pine.
+
+A squire dashed from the forest--the archer, to whom this noble quarry
+had fallen a victim, appeared in the clearing, holding aloft the
+cross-bow from which he had sent the bolt. His arrow was fixed in the
+doctor’s breast; alas, the man had only sent the shaft, to save his
+fallen master from the hammer in the Jew’s hand.
+
+Count Frohlinger rose, struggling for breath; his hand sought his
+hunting-knife, but in the fall it had slipped from its sheath and was
+lying in the snow.
+
+Adam supported his dying friend in his arms, Ruth ran weeping to the
+hut, and before the nobleman had fully collected his thoughts, the
+squire reached his side, and young Count Lips, riding a swift bay-horse,
+dashed from the forest, closely followed by three mounted huntsmen.
+
+When the attendants saw their master on foot, they too sprang from their
+saddles, Lips did the same, and an eager interchange of question and
+answer began among them.
+
+The nobleman scarcely noticed his son, but greeted with angry words the
+man who had shot the Jew. Then, deeply excited, he hoarsely ordered his
+attendants to bind the smith, who made no resistance, but submitted to
+everything like a patient child.
+
+Lopez no longer needed his arms.
+
+The dumb wife sat on the stump, with her dying husband resting on her
+lap. She had thrown her arms around the bleeding form, and the feet hung
+limply down, touching the snow.
+
+Ruth, sobbing bitterly, crouched on the ground by her mother’s side, and
+old Rahel, who had entirely regained her self-control, pressed a cloth,
+wet with wine, on his forehead.
+
+The young count approached the dying Jew. His father slowly followed,
+drew the boy to his side, and said in a low, sad tone:
+
+“I am sorry for the man; he saved my life.”
+
+The wounded man opened his eyes, saw Count Frohlinger, his son and the
+fettered smith, felt his wife’s tears on his brow, and heard Ruth’s
+agonized weeping. A gentle smile hovered around his pale lips, and when
+he tried to raise his head Elizabeth helped him, pressing it gently to
+her breast.
+
+The feeble lips moved and Lopez raised his eyes to her face, as if
+to thank her, saying in a low voice: “The arrow--don’t touch it....
+Elizabeth--Ruth, we have clung together faithfully, but now--I shall
+leave you alone, I must leave you.” He paused, a shadow clouded his
+eyes, and the lids slowly fell. But he soon raised them again, and
+fixing his glance steadily on the count, said:
+
+“Hear me, my Lord; a dying man should be heard, even if he is a Jew.
+See! This is my wife, and this my child. They are Christians. They will
+soon be alone in the world, deserted, orphaned. The smith is their only
+friend. Set him free; they--they, they will need a protector. My wife
+is dumb, dumb... alone in the world. She can neither beseech nor demand.
+Set Adam free, for the sake of your Saviour, your son, free--yes, free.
+A wide, wide space must be between you; he must go away with them, far
+away. Set him free! I held his arm with the hammer.... You know--with
+the hammer. Set him free. My death--death atones for everything.”
+
+Again his voice failed, and the count, deeply moved, looked irresolutely
+now at him, now at the smith. Lips’s eyes filled with tears; and as
+he saw his father delay in fulfilling the dying man’s last wish, and a
+glance from the dim eyes met his, he pressed closer to the noble, who
+stood struggling with many contending emotions, and whispered, weeping:
+
+“My Lord and Father, my Lord and Father, tomorrow will be Christmas.
+For Christ’s sake, for love of me, grant his request: release Ulrich’s
+father, set him free! Do so, my noble Father; I want no other Christmas
+gift.”
+
+Count Frohlinger’s heart also overflowed, and when, raising his
+tear-dimmed eyes, he saw Elizabeth’s deep grief stamped on her gentle
+features, and beheld reclining on her breast, the mild, beautiful face
+of the dying man, it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother
+of God--and to-morrow would be Christmas. Wounded pride was silent, he
+forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if
+he wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death:
+
+“I thank you for your aid, man. Adam is free, and may go with your wife
+and child wherever he lists. My word upon it; you can close your eyes in
+peace!”
+
+Lopez smiled again, raised his hand as if in gratitude, then let it fall
+upon his child’s head, gazed lovingly at Ruth for the last time, and
+murmured in a low tone “Lift my head a little higher, Elizabeth.” When
+she had obeyed his wish, he gazed earnestly into her face, whispered
+softly: “A dreamless sleep--reanimated to new forms in the endless
+circle. No!--Do you see, do you hear.... Solo in parte’... with
+you... with you.... Oh, oh!--the arrow--draw the arrow from the wound.
+Elizabeth, Elizabeth--it aches. Well--well--how miserable we were, and
+yet, yet.... You--you--I--we--we know, what happiness is. You--I ...
+Forgive me! I forgive, forgive....”
+
+The dying man’s hand fell from his child’s head, his eyes closed, but
+the pleasant smile with which he had perished, hovered around his lips,
+even in death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Count Frohlinger added a low “amen” to the last words of the dying man,
+then approached the widow, and in the kindly, cordial manner natural to
+him, strove to comfort her.
+
+Finally he ordered his men, to loose the smith’s bonds, and instantly
+guide him to the frontier with the woman and child. He also spoke to
+Adam, but said only a few words, not cheery ones as usual, but grave and
+harsh in purport.
+
+They were a command to leave the country without delay, and never return
+to his home again.
+
+The Jew’s corpse was laid on a bier formed of pine, branches, and the
+bearers lifted it on their shoulders. Ruth clung closely to her mother,
+both trembling like leaves in the wind, while he who was dearest to them
+on earth was borne away, but only the child could weep.
+
+The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited
+patiently with the smith for his son’s return until noon, then they
+urged departure, and the party moved forward.
+
+Not a word was spoken, till the travellers stopped before the
+charcoal-burner’s house.
+
+Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and
+had gone back to the forest an hour before. The tavern could accommodate
+a great many people, she added, and they could wait for him there.
+
+The fugitives followed this advice, and after Adam had seen the women
+provided with shelter, he again sought the scene of the misfortune, and
+waited there for the boy until night.
+
+Beside the stump on which his friend had died, he prayed long and
+earnestly, vowing to his dead preserver to live henceforth solely for
+his family. Unbroken stillness surrounded him, it seemed as if he were
+in church, and every tree in the forest was a witness of the oath he
+swore.
+
+The next morning the smith again sought the charcoal-burner, and this
+time found him. Jorg laid the blame to Ulrich’s impatience, but promised
+to go to Marx in search of him and bring him to the smith. The men
+composing the escort urged haste, so Adam went on without Ulrich towards
+the north-west, to the valley of the Rhine.
+
+The charcoal-burner had lost the reward offered the informer, and could
+not even earn the money due a messenger.
+
+He had lured Ulrich to the attic and locked him in there, but during his
+absence the boy escaped. He was a nimble fellow, for he had risked the
+leap from the window, and then swung himself over the fence into the
+road.
+
+Jorg’s conjecture did not deceive him, for as soon as Ulrich perceived
+that he had been betrayed into a trap, he had leaped into the open air.
+
+He must warn his friends, and anxiety for them winged his feet.
+
+Once and again he lost his way, but at last found the right path, though
+he had wasted many hours, first in the village, then behind the locked
+door, and finally in searching for the right road.
+
+The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
+clearing.
+
+The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.
+
+Where had they gone?
+
+He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only
+too many. Here horses’ hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed
+the snow, yonder hounds had run, and--Great Heaven!--here, by the
+tree-stump, red blood stained the glimmering white ground.
+
+His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.
+
+Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass
+and brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there--Holy
+Virgin! What was this!--there lay his father’s hammer. He knew it only
+too well; it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two
+larger tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it a
+hundred times himself.
+
+His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
+and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
+himself: “The bier was made here,” and his vivid imagination showed
+him his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral
+procession. Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a
+slender, black-robed body, his father and his teacher. Then came the
+quiet, beautiful wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel.
+He distinctly saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of
+the women, and wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating
+locks and ran to and fro. Suddenly he thought that the troopers would
+return to seize him also. Away, away! anywhere--away! a voice roared and
+buzzed in his ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always
+towards the south.
+
+The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained
+at the charcoal-burner’s, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor
+thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.
+
+Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he
+still ran on--but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and
+shorter. The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet
+he still struggled forward.
+
+The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he
+followed southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed.
+His head and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold;
+but little snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight
+showed patches of bare, dark turf.
+
+Grief was forgotten. Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed
+the boy’s mind. He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road
+and sleep, but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and
+dragged himself on to the nearest village. The lights had long been
+extinguished; as he approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the
+melancholy lowing of a cow echoed from many a stable. He was again among
+human beings; the thought exerted a soothing influence; he regained his
+self-control, and sought a shelter for the night.
+
+At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the
+moonlight an open hatchway in the wall. If he could climb up to it! The
+framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to
+try it.
+
+Several times, when Half-way up, he slipped to the ground, but at last
+reached the top, and found a bed in the soft hay under a sheltering
+roof. Surrounded by the fragrance of the dried grasses, he soon fell
+asleep, and in a dream saw amidst various confused and repulsive shapes,
+first his father with a bleeding wound in his broad chest, and then the
+doctor, dancing with old Rahel. Last of all Ruth appeared; she led him
+into the forest to a juniper-bush, and showed him a nest full of young
+birds. But the half-naked creatures vexed him, and he trampled them
+under foot, over which the little girl lamented so loudly and bitterly,
+that he awoke.
+
+Morning was already dawning, his head ached, and he was very cold and
+hungry, but he had no desire nor thought except to proceed; so he again
+went out into the open air, brushed off the hay that still clung to his
+hair and clothes, and walked on towards the south.
+
+It had grown warmer and was beginning to snow heavily.
+
+Walking became more and more difficult; his headache grew unendurable,
+yet his feet still moved, though it seemed as if he wore heavy leaden
+shoes.
+
+Several freight-wagons with armed escorts, and a few peasants, with
+rosaries in their hands, who were on their way to church, met the lad,
+but no one had overtaken him.
+
+On the hinge of noon he heard behind him the tramp of horses’ hoofs and
+the rattle of wheels, approaching nearer and nearer with ominous haste.
+
+If it should be the troopers!
+
+Ulrich’s heart stood still, and turning to look back, he saw several
+horsemen, who were trotting past a spur of the hill around which the
+road wound.
+
+Through the falling flakes the boy perceived glittering weapons, gay
+doublets and scarfs, and now--now--all hope was over, they wore Count
+Frohlinger’s colors!
+
+Unless the earth should open before him, there was no escape. The road
+belonged to the horsemen; on the right lay a wide, snow-covered plain,
+on the left rose a cliff, kept from falling on the side towards the
+highway by a rude wall. It needed this support less on account of the
+road, than for the sake of a graveyard, for which the citizens of the
+neighboring borough used the gentle slope of the mountain.
+
+The graves, the bare elder-bushes and bushy cypresses in the cemetery
+were covered with snow, and the brighter the white covering that rested
+on every surrounding object, the stronger was the relief in which the
+black crosses stood forth against it.
+
+A small chapel in the rear of the graveyard caught Ulrich’s eye. If it
+was possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it. The horsemen
+were already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining
+strength, rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to
+clamber up.
+
+The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the
+cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to
+slip on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered
+plants growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.
+
+The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed: “A
+runaway! See how the young vagabond acts. I’ll seize him.”
+
+He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded
+in reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
+gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper’s hand and his comrades
+burst into a loud laugh. It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears
+of the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward. He
+leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone
+concealed by the snow.
+
+With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell
+once more, and now his will was paralyzed. In mortal terror he clung to
+a cross, and as his senses failed, thought of “the word.” It seemed
+as if some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and
+fatigue, he could not remember it.
+
+The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his
+comrades, by letting the vagabond escape. With a curt: “Stop, you
+rascal,” he threw the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the
+next man in the line; and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich’s
+side. He shook and jerked him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called
+to the others that the boy was probably dead.
+
+“People never die so quickly!” cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
+“Give him a blow.”
+
+The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad. He had looked into
+Ulrich’s face, and found something there that touched his heart. “No,
+no,” he shouted, “come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it’s all over
+with him, I say.”
+
+During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his
+old servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot. The former, a
+gentleman of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw
+with a single hasty glance the cause of the detention.
+
+Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
+the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.
+
+Ulrich’s head now lay in the soldier’s arms, and the traveller gazed
+at him with a look of deep sympathy. The steadfast glance of his bright
+eyes rested on the boy’s features as if spellbound, then he raised his
+hand, beckoned to the elder soldier, and exclaimed: “Lift him; we’ll
+take him with us; a corner can be found in the wagon.”
+
+The vehicle, of which the traveller spoke, was slow in coming. It was a
+long four-wheeled equipage, over which, as a protection against wind and
+storm, arched a round, sail-cloth cover. The driver crouched among the
+straw in a basket behind the horses, like a brooding hen.
+
+Under the sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad
+gentleman, sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the
+vehicle had gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company.
+
+The two Dominican friars, Magisters Sutor and Stubenrauch, had entered
+at Cologne, for the wagon came straight from Holland, and belonged
+to the artist Antonio Moor of Utrecht, who was going to King Philip’s
+court. The beautiful fur border on the black cap and velvet cloak showed
+that he had no occasion to practise economy; he preferred the back of a
+good horse to a seat in a jolting vehicle.
+
+The ecclesiastics had taken possession of the best places in the back
+of the wagon. They were inseparable brothers, and formed as it were one
+person, for they behaved like two bodies with one soul. In this
+double life, fat Magister Sutor represented the will, lean Stubenrauch
+reflection and execution. If the former proposed to be down or sit, eat
+or drink, sleep or talk, the latter instantly carried the suggestion
+into execution, rarely neglecting to establish, by wise words, for what
+reason the act in question should be performed precisely at that time.
+
+Farther towards the front, with his back resting against a chest, lay a
+fine-looking young Lansquenet. He was undoubtedly a gay, active fellow,
+but now sat mute and melancholy, supporting with his right hand his
+wounded left arm, as if it were some brittle vessel.
+
+Opposite to him rose a heap of loose straw, beneath which something
+stirred from time to time, and from which at short intervals a slight
+cough was heard.
+
+As soon as the door in the back of the vehicle opened, and the cold
+snowy air entered the dark, damp space under the tilt, Magister Sutor’s
+lips parted in a long-drawn “Ugh!” to which his lean companion instantly
+added a torrent of reproachful words about the delay, the draught, the
+danger of taking cold.
+
+When the artist’s head appeared in the opening, the priest paused, for
+Moor paid the travelling expenses; but when his companion Sutor drew
+his cloak around him with every token of discomfort and annoyance, he
+followed his example in a still more conspicuous way.
+
+The artist paid no heed to these gestures, but quietly requested his
+guests to make room for the boy.
+
+A muffled head was suddenly thrust out from under the straw, a voice
+cried: “A hospital on wheels!” then the head vanished again like that of
+a fish, which has risen to take a breath of air.
+
+“Very true,” replied the artist. “You need not draw up your limbs so
+far, my worthy Lansquenet, but I must request these reverend gentlemen
+to move a little farther apart, or closer together, and make room for
+the sick lad on the leather sack.”
+
+While these words were uttered, one of the escort laid the still
+senseless boy under the tilt.
+
+Magister Sutor noticed the snow that clung to Ulrich’s hair and
+clothing, and while struggling to rise, uttered a repellent “no,” while
+Stubenrauch hastily added reproachfully: “There will be a perfect pool
+here, when that melts; you gave us these places, Meister Moor, but we
+hardly expected to receive also dripping limbs and rheumatic pains....”
+
+Before he finished the sentence, the bandaged head again appeared from
+the straw, and the high, shrill voice of the man concealed under it,
+asked? “Was the blood of the wounded wayfarer, the good Samaritan picked
+up by the roadside, dry or wet?”
+
+An encouraging glance from Sutor requested Stubenrauch to make an
+appropriate answer, and the latter in an unctuous tone, hastily replied:
+“It was the Lord, who caused the Samaritan to find the wounded man by
+the roadside--this did not happen in our case, for the wet boy is forced
+upon us, and though we are Samaritans....”
+
+“You are not yet merciful,” cried the voice from the straw.
+
+The artist laughed, but the soldier, slapping his thigh with his sound
+hand, cried:
+
+“In with the boy, you fellows outside; here, put him on my right--move
+farther apart, you gentlemen down below; the water will do us no harm,
+if you’ll only give us some of the wine in your basket yonder.”
+
+The priests, willy-nilly, now permitted Ulrich to be laid on the
+leathern sack between them, and while first Sutor, and then Stubenrauch,
+shrunk away to mutter prayers over a rosary for the senseless lad’s
+restoration to consciousness, and to avoid coming in contact with
+his wet clothes, the artist entered the vehicle, and without asking
+permission, took the wine from the priests’ basket. The soldier helped
+him, and soon their united exertions, with the fiery liquor, revived the
+fainting boy.
+
+Moor rode forward, and the wagon jolted on until the day’s journey ended
+at Emmendingen. Count von Hochburg’s retainers, who were to serve as
+escort from this point, would not ride on Christmas day. The artist made
+no objection, but when they also declared that no horse should leave
+the stable on the morrow, which was a second holiday, he shrugged
+his shoulders and answered, without any show of anger, but in a firm,
+haughty tone, that he should then probably be obliged--if necessary with
+their master’s assistance,--to conduct them to Freiburg to-morrow.
+
+The inns at Emmendingen were among the largest and best in the
+neighborhood of Freiburg, and on account of the changes of escort,
+which frequently took place here, there was no lack of accommodation for
+numerous horses and guests.
+
+As soon as Ulrich was taken into the warm hostelry he fainted a second
+time, and the artist now cared for him as kindly as if he were the lad’s
+own father.
+
+Magister Sutor ordered the roast meats, and his companion Stubenrauch
+all the other requisites for a substantial meal, in which they had made
+considerable progress, while the artist was still engaged in ministering
+to the sick lad, in which kindly office the little man, who had been
+hidden under the straw in the wagon, stoutly assisted.
+
+He had been a buffoon, and his dress still bore many tokens of his
+former profession. His big head swayed upon his thin neck; his droll,
+though emaciated features constantly changed their expression, and even
+when he was not coughing, his mouth was continually in motion.
+
+As soon as Ulrich breathed calmly and regularly, he searched his
+clothing to find some clue to his residence, but everything he
+discovered in the lad’s pockets only led to more and more amusing and
+startling conjectures, for nothing can contain a greater variety of
+objects than a school-boy’s pockets, if we except a school-girl’s.
+
+There was a scrap of paper with a Latin exercise bristling with errors,
+a smooth stone, a shabby, notched knife, a bit of chalk for drawing, an
+iron arrow-head, a broken hobnail, and a falconer’s glove, which Count
+Lips had given his comrade. The ring the doctor’s wife had bestowed as a
+farewell token, was also discovered around his neck.
+
+All these things led Pellicanus--so the jester was named--to make many a
+conjecture, and he left none untried.
+
+As a mosaic picture is formed from stones, he by a hundred signs,
+conjured up a vision of the lad’s character, home, and the school from
+which he had run away.
+
+He called him the son of a noble of moderate property. In this he was
+of course mistaken, but in other respects perceived, with wonderful
+acuteness, how Ulrich had hitherto been circumstanced, nay even declared
+that he was a motherless child, a fact proved by many things he lacked.
+The boy had been sent to school too late--Pellicanus was a good Latin
+scholar--and perhaps had been too early initiated into the mysteries of
+riding, hunting, and woodcraft.
+
+The artist, merely by the boy’s appearance, gained a more accurate
+knowledge of his real nature, than the jester gathered from his
+investigations and inferences.
+
+Ulrich pleased him, and when he saw the pen-and-ink sketch on the
+back of the exercise, which Pellicanus showed him, he smiled and felt
+strengthened in the resolve to interest himself still more in the
+handsome boy, whom fate had thrown in his way. He now only needed to
+discover who the lad’s parents were, and what had driven him from the
+school.
+
+The surgeon of the little town had bled Ulrich, and soon after he fell
+into a sound sleep, and breathed quietly. The artist and jester now
+dined together, for the monks had finished their meal long before, and
+were taking a noonday nap. Moor ordered roast meat and wine for the
+Lansquenet, who sat modestly in one corner of the large public room,
+gazing sadly at his wounded arm.
+
+“Poor fellow!” said the jester, pointing to the handsome young man. “We
+are brothers in calamity; one just like the other; a cart with a broken
+wheel.”
+
+“His arm will soon heal,” replied the artist, “but your tool”--here he
+pointed to his own lips--“is stirring briskly enough now. The monks and
+I have both made its acquaintance within the past few days.”
+
+“Well, well,” replied Pellicanus, smiling bitterly, “yet they toss me
+into the rubbish heap.”
+
+“That would be....”
+
+“Ah, you think the wise would then be fools with the fools,” interrupted
+Pellicanus. “Not at all. Do you know what our masters expect of us?”
+
+“You are to shorten the time for them with wit and jest.”
+
+“But when must we be real fools, my Lord? Have you considered? Least
+of all in happy hours. Then we are expected to play the wise man, warn
+against excess, point out shadows. In sorrow, in times of trouble, then,
+fool, be a fool! The madder pranks you play, the better. Make every
+effort, and if you understand your trade well, and know your master,
+you must compel him to laugh till he cries, when he would fain wail for
+grief, like a little girl. You know princes too, sir, but I know them
+better. They are gods on earth, and won’t submit to the universal lot of
+mortals, to endure pain and anguish. When people are ill, the physician
+is summoned, and in trouble we are at hand. Things are as we take
+them--the gravest face may have a wart, upon which a jest can be made.
+When you have once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point.
+We deaden it--we light up the darkness--even though it be with a will
+‘o the wisp--and if we understand our business, manage to hack the lumpy
+dough of heavy sorrow into little pieces, which even a princely stomach
+can digest.”
+
+“A coughing fool can do that too, so long as there is nothing wanting in
+his upper story.”
+
+“You are mistaken, indeed you are. Great lords only wish to see the
+velvet side of life--of death’s doings, nothing at all. A man like
+me--do you hear--a cougher, whose marrow is being consumed--incarnate
+misery on two tottering legs--a piteous figure, whom one can no more
+imagine outside the grave, than a sportsman without a terrier, or
+hound--such a person calls into the ears of the ostrich, that shuts its
+eyes: ‘Death is pointing at you! Affliction is coming!’ It is my duty
+to draw a curtain between my lord and sorrow; instead of that, my own
+person brings incarnate suffering before his eyes. The elector was as
+wise as if he were his own fool, when he turned me out of the house.”
+
+“He graciously gave you leave of absence.”
+
+“And Gugelkopf is already installed in the palace as my successor! My
+gracious master knows that he won’t have to pay the pension long. He
+would willingly have supported me up yonder till I died; but my wish to
+go to Genoa suited him exactly. The more distance there is between his
+healthy highness and the miserable invalid, the better.”
+
+“Why didn’t you wait till spring, before taking your departure?”
+
+“Because Genoa is a hot-house, that the poor consumptive does not need
+in summer. It is pleasant to be there in winter. I learned that three
+years ago, when we visited the duke. Even in January the sun in Liguria
+warms your back, and makes it easier to breathe. I’m going by way of
+Marseilles. Will you give me the corner in your carriage as far as
+Avignon?”
+
+“With pleasure! Your health, Pellicanus! A good wish on Christmas day is
+apt to be fulfilled.”
+
+The artist’s deep voice sounded full and cordial, as he uttered the
+words. The young soldier heard them, and as Moor and the jester touched
+glasses, he raised his own goblet, drained it to the dregs, and asked
+modestly: “Will you listen to a few lines of mine, kind sir?”
+
+“Say them, say them!” cried the artist, filling his glass again, while
+the lansquenet, approaching the table, fixed his eyes steadily on the
+beaker, and in an embarrassed manner, repeated:
+
+       “On Christmas-day, when Jesus Christ,
+        To save us sinners came,
+        A poor, sore-wounded soldier dared
+        To call upon his name.
+        ‘Oh! hear,’ he said, ‘my earnest prayer,
+        For the kind, generous man,
+        Who gave the wounded soldier aid,
+        And bore him through the land.
+        So, in Thy shining chariot,
+        I pray, dear Jesus mine,
+        Thou’lt bear him through a happy life
+        To Paradise divine.’”
+
+“Capital, capital!” cried the artist, pledging the lansquenet and
+insisting that he should sit down between him and the jester.
+
+Pellicanus now gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, for what the wounded man
+could do, he too might surely accomplish. It was not only ambition, and
+the habit of answering every good saying he heard with a better one, but
+kindly feeling, that urged him to honor the generous benefactor with a
+speech.
+
+After a few minutes, which Moor spent in talking with the soldier,
+Pellicanus raised his glass, coughed again, and said, first calmly, then
+in an agitated voice, whose sharp tones grew more and more subdued:
+
+       “A rogue a fool must be, ‘t is true,
+        Rog’ry sans folly will not do;
+        Where folly joins with roguery,
+        There’s little harm, it seems to me.
+        The pope, the king, the youthful squire,
+        Each one the fool’s cap doth attire;
+        He who the bauble will not wear,
+        The worst of fools doth soon appear.
+        Thee may the motley still adorn,
+        When, an old man, the laurel crown
+        Thy head doth deck, while gifts less vain,
+        Thine age to bless will still remain.
+        When fair grandchildren thee delight,
+        Mayst then recall this Christmas night.
+        When added years bring whitening hair,
+        The draught of wisdom then wilt share,
+        But it will lack the flavor due,
+        Without a drop of folly too.
+        And if the drop is not at hand,
+        Remember poor old Pellican,
+        Who, half a rogue and half a fool,
+        Yet has a faithful heart and whole.”
+
+“Thanks, thanks!” cried the artist, shaking the jester’s hand. “Such
+a Christmas ought to be lauded! Wisdom, art, and courage at one table!
+Haven’t I fared like the man, who picked up stones by the way side, and
+to-they were changed to pure gold in his knapsack.”
+
+“The stone was crumbling,” replied the jester; “but as for the gold, it
+will stand the test with me, if you seek it in the heart, and not in the
+pocket. Holy Blasius! Would that my grave might lack filling, as long as
+my little strong-box here; I’d willingly allow it.”
+
+“And so would I!” laughed the soldier:
+
+“Then travelling will be easy for you,” said the artist. “There was a
+time, when my pouch was no fuller than yours. I know by the experience
+of those days how a poor man feels, and never wish to forget it. I still
+owe you my after-dinner speech, but you must let me off, for I can’t
+speak your language fluently. In brief, I wish you the recovery of
+your health, Pellican, and you a joyous life of happiness and honor, my
+worthy comrade. What is your name?”
+
+“Hans Eitelfritz von der Lucke, from Colln on the Spree,” replied the
+soldier. “And, no offence, Herr Moor, God will care for the monks, but
+there were three poor invalid fellows in your cart. One goblet more to
+the pretty sick boy in there.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+After dinner the artist went with his old servant, who had attended to
+the horses and then enjoyed a delicious Christmas roast, to Count von
+Hochburg, to obtain an escort for the next day.
+
+Pellicanus had undertaken to watch Ulrich, who was still sleeping
+quietly.
+
+The jester would gladly have gone to bed himself, for he felt cold and
+tired, but, though the room could not be heated, he remained faithfully
+at his post for hours. With benumbed hands and feet, he watched by the
+light of the night-lamp every breath the boy drew, often gazing at him
+as anxiously and sympathizingly, as if he were his own child.
+
+When Ulrich at last awoke, he timidly asked when he was, and when the
+jester had soothed him, begged for a bit of bread, he was so hungry.
+
+How famished he felt, the contents of the dish that were speedily placed
+before him, soon discovered Pellicanus wanted to feed him like a baby,
+but the boy took the spoon out of his hand, and the former smilingly
+watched the sturdy eater, without disturbing, him, until he was
+perfectly satisfied; then he began to perplex the lad with questions,
+that seemed to him neither very intelligible, nor calculated to inspire
+confidence.
+
+“Well, my little bird!” the jester began, joyously anticipating a
+confirmation of the clever inferences he had drawn, “I suppose it was
+a long flight to the churchyard, where we found you. On the grave is a
+better place than in it, and a bed at Emmendingen, with plenty of grits
+and veal, is preferable to being in the snow on the highway, with a
+grumbling stomach Speak freely, my lad! Where does your nest of robbers
+hang?”
+
+“Nest of robbers?” repeated Ulrich in amazement.
+
+“Well, castle or the like, for aught I care,” continued Pellicanus
+inquiringly. “Everybody is at home somewhere, except Mr. Nobody; but as
+you are somebody, Nobody cannot possibly be your father. Tell me about
+the old fellow!”
+
+“My father is dead,” replied the boy, and as the events of the preceding
+day rushed back upon his memory, he drew the coverlet over his face and
+wept.
+
+“Poor fellow!” murmured the jester, hastily drawing his sleeve across
+his eyes, and leaving the lad in peace, till he showed his face again.
+Then he continued: “But I suppose you have a mother at home?”
+
+Ulrich shook his head mournfully, and Pellicanus, to conceal his own
+emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very
+kindly, though not without a feeling of satisfaction at his own
+penetration:
+
+“So you are an orphan! Yes, yes! So long as the mother’s wings cover it,
+the young bird doesn’t fly so thoughtlessly out of the warm nest into
+the wide world. I suppose the Latin school grew too narrow for the young
+nobleman?”
+
+Ulrich raised himself, exclaiming in an eager, defiant tone:
+
+“I won’t go back to the monastery; that I will not.”
+
+“So that’s the way the hare jumps!” cried the fool laughing. “You’ve
+been a bad Latin scholar, and the timber in the forest is dearer to you,
+than the wood in the school-room benches. To be sure, they send out no
+green shoots. Dear Lord, how his face is burning!” So saying, Pellicanus
+laid his hand on the boy’s forehead and when he felt that it was hot,
+deemed it better to stop his examination for the day, and only asked his
+patient his name.
+
+“Ulrich,” was the reply.
+
+“And what else?”
+
+“Let me alone!” pleaded the boy, drawing the coverlet over his head
+again.
+
+The jester obeyed his wish, and opened the door leading into the
+tap-room, for some one had knocked. The artist’s servant entered, to
+fetch his master’s portmanteau. Old Count von Hochburg had invited Moor
+to be his guest, and the painter intended to spend the night at the
+castle. Pellicanus was to take care of the boy, and if necessary send
+for the surgeon again. An hour after, the sick jester lay shivering in
+his bed, coughing before sleeping and between naps. Ulrich too could
+obtain no slumber.
+
+At first he wept softly, for he now clearly realized, for the first
+time, that he had lost his father and should never see Ruth, the doctor,
+nor the doctor’s dumb wife Elizabeth again. Then he wondered how he had
+come to Einmendingen, what sort of a place it was, and who the queer
+little man could be, who had taken him for a young noble--the quaint
+little man with the cough, and a big head, whose eyes sparkled
+so through his tears. The jester’s mistake made him laugh, and he
+remembered that Ruth had once advised him to command the “word,” to
+transform him into a count.
+
+Suppose he should say to-morrow, that his father had been a knight?
+
+But the wicked thought only glided through his mind; even before he had
+reflected upon it, he felt ashamed of himself, for he was no liar.
+
+Deny his father! That was very wrong, and when he stretched himself
+out to sleep, the image of the valiant smith stood with tangible
+distinctness before his soul. Gravely and sternly he floated upon
+clouds, and looked exactly like the pictures Ulrich had seen of God the
+Father, only he wore the smith’s cap on his grey hair. Even in Paradise,
+the glorified spirit had not relinquished it.
+
+Ulrich raised his hands as if praying, but hastily let them fall again,
+for there was a great stir outside of the inn. The tramp of steeds,
+the loud voices of men, the sound of drums and fifes were audible, then
+there was rattling, marching and shouting in the court-yard.
+
+“A room for the clerk of the muster-roll and paymaster!” cried a voice.
+
+“Gently, gently, children!” said the deep tones of the provost, who was
+the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets. “A devout servant
+must not bluster at the holy Christmas-tide; he’s permitted to drink a
+glass, Heaven be praised. Your house is to be greatly honored, Landlord!
+The recruiting for our most gracious commander, Count von Oberstein,
+is--to be done here. Do you hear, man! Everything to be paid for in
+cash, and not a chicken will be lost; but the wine must be good! Do
+you understand? So this evening broach a cask of your best. Pardon me,
+children--the very best, I meant to say.”
+
+Ulrich now heard the door of the tap-room open, and fancied he could
+see the Lansquenets in gay costumes, each one different from the other,
+crowd into the apartment.
+
+The jester coughed loudly, scolding and muttering to himself; but
+Ulrich listened with sparkling eyes to the sounds that came through the
+ill-fitting door, by which he could hear what was passing in the next
+room.
+
+With the clerk of the muster-rolls, the paymaster and provost had
+appeared the drummers and fifers, who the day after to-morrow were to
+sound the license for recruiting, and besides these, twelve Lansquenets,
+who were evidently no novices.
+
+Many an exclamation of surprise and pleasure was heard directly after
+their entrance into the tap-room, and amid the confusion of voices, the
+name of Hans Eitelfritz fell more than once upon Ulrich’s ear.
+
+The provost’s voice sounded unusually cordial, as he greeted the brave
+fellow with the wounded hand--an honor of great value to the latter, for
+he had served five years in the same company with the provost, “Father
+Kanold,” who read the very depths of his soldiers’ hearts, and knew them
+all as if they were his own sons.
+
+Ulrich could not understand much amid the medley of voices in the
+adjoining room, but when Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked
+to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the
+provost oppose the clerk’s scruples, saying warmly “write, write; I’d
+rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two. He has
+fun and life in him. Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many
+a piece of armor.”
+
+Meantime the wine-cask must have been opened, for the clink of glasses,
+and soon after loud singing was audible.
+
+Just as the second song began, the boy fell asleep, but woke again two
+hours after, roused by the stillness that had suddenly succeeded the
+uproar.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had declared himself ready to give a new song in his
+best vein, and the provost commanded silence.
+
+The singing now began; during its continuance Ulrich raised himself
+higher and higher in bed, not a word escaped him, either of the song
+itself, or the chorus, which was repeated by the whole party, with
+exuberant gayety, amid the loud clinking of goblets. Never before had
+the lad heard such bold, joyous voices; even at the second verse his
+heart bounded and it seemed as if he must join in the tune, which he had
+quickly caught. The song ran as follows:
+
+        Who, who will venture to hold me back?
+        Drums beat, fifes are playing a merry tune!
+        Down hammer, down pen, what more need I, alack
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        Oh father, mother, dear sister mine,
+        Blue-eyed maid at the bridge-house, my fair one.
+        Weep not, ye must not at parting repine,
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The cannon roar loud, the sword flashes bright,
+        Who’ll dare meet the stroke of my falchion?
+        Close-ranked, horse and foot in battle unite,
+        In war, war, dwells fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The city is taken, the booty mine;
+        With red gold, I’ll deck--I know whom;
+        Pair maids’ cheeks burn red, red too glows the wine,
+        Fortune, Paradise of good fortune!
+
+        Deep, scarlet wounds, brave breasts adorn,
+        Impoverished, crippled age I shun
+        A death of honor, ‘mid glory won,
+        This too is good fortune, good fortune!
+
+        A soldier-lad composed this ditty
+        Hans Eitelfritz he, fair Colln’s son,
+        His kindred dwell in the goodly city,
+        But he himself in fortune, good fortune!
+
+“He himself in fortune, good fortune,” sang Ulrich also, and while, amid
+loud shouts of joy, the glasses again clinked against each other, he
+repeated the glad “fortune, good fortune.” Suddenly, it flashed upon him
+like a revelation, “Fortune,” that might be the word!
+
+Such exultant joy, such lark-like trilling, such inspiring promises
+of happiness had never echoed in any word, as they now did from the
+“fortune,” the young lansquenet so gaily and exultantly uttered.
+
+“Fortune, Fortune!” he exclaimed aloud, and the jester, who was lying
+sleepless in his bed and could not help smiling at the lad’s singing,
+raised himself, saying:
+
+“Do you like the word? Whoever understands how to seize it when it flits
+by, will always float on top of everything, like fat on the soup. Rods
+are cut from birches, willows, and knotted hazel-sticks-ho! ho! you know
+that, already;--but, for him who has good fortune, larded cakes, rolls
+and sausages grow. One bold turn of Fortune’s wheel will bring him,
+who has stood at the bottom, up to the top with the speed of lightning.
+Brother Queer-fellow says: ‘Up and down, like an avalanche.’ But now
+turn over and go to sleep. To-morrow will also be a Christmas-day, which
+will perhaps bring you Fortune as a Christmas gift.”
+
+It seemed as if Ulrich had not called upon Fortune in vain, for as soon
+as he closed his eyes, a pleasant dream bore him with gentle hands to
+the forge on the market-place, and his mother stood beside the lighted
+Christmas-tree, pointing to the new sky-blue suit she had made him, and
+the apples, nuts, hobby-horse, and jumping jack, with a head as round
+as a ball, huge ears, and tiny flat legs. He felt far too old for such
+childish toys, and yet took a certain pleasure in them. Then the vision
+changed, and he again saw his mother; but this time she was walking
+among the angels in Paradise. A royal crown adorned her golden hair, and
+she told him she was permitted to wear it there, because she had been so
+reviled, and endured so much disgrace on earth.
+
+When the artist returned from Count von Hochburg’s the next morning,
+he was not a little surprised to see Ulrich standing before the
+recruiting-table bright and well.
+
+The lad’s cheeks were glowing with shame and anger, for the clerk of the
+muster-rolls and paymaster had laughed in his face, when he expressed
+his desire to become a Lansquenet.
+
+The artist soon learned what was going on, and bade his protege
+accompany him out of doors. Kindly, and without either mockery or
+reproof, he represented to him that he was still far too young for
+military service, and after Ulrich had confirmed everything the
+painter had already heard from the jester, Moor asked who had given him
+instruction in drawing.
+
+“My father, and afterwards Father Lukas in the monastery,” replied the
+boy. “But don’t question me as the little man did last night.”
+
+“No, no,” said his protector. “But there are one or two more things I
+wish to know. Was your father an artist?”
+
+“No,” murmured the lad, blushing and hesitating. But when he met the
+stranger’s clear gaze, he quickly regained his composure, and said:
+
+“He only knew how to draw, because he understood how to forge beautiful,
+artistic things.”
+
+“And in what city did you live?”
+
+“In no city. Outside in the woods.”
+
+“Oho!” said the artist, smiling significantly, for he knew that many
+knights practised a trade. “Answer only two questions more; then you
+shall be left in peace until you voluntarily open your heart to me. What
+is your name?”
+
+“Ulrich.”
+
+“I know that; but your father’s?”
+
+“Adam.”
+
+“And what else?”
+
+Ulrich gazed silently at the ground, for the smith had borne no other
+name.
+
+“Well then,” said Moor, “we will call you Ulrich for the present; that
+will suffice. But have you no relatives? Is no one waiting for you at
+home?”
+
+“We have led such a solitary life--no one.”
+
+Moor looked fixedly into the boy’s face, then nodded, and with a
+well-satisfied expression, laid his hand on Ulrich’s curls, and said:
+
+“Look at me. I am an artist, and if you have any love for my profession,
+I will teach you.”
+
+“Oh!” cried the boy, clasping his hands in glad surprise.
+
+“Well then,” Moor continued, “you can’t learn much on the way, but we
+can work hard in Madrid. We are going now to King Philip of Spain.”
+
+“Spain, Portugal!” murmured Ulrich with sparkling eyes; all he had heard
+in the doctor’s house about these countries returned to his mind.
+
+“Fortune, good fortune!” cried an exultant voice in his heart. This was
+the “word,” it must be, it was already exerting its spell, and the spell
+was to prove its inherent power in the near future.
+
+That very day the party were to go to Count von Rappoltstein in the
+village of Rappolts, and this time Ulrich was not to plod along on
+foot, or he in a close baggage-wagon; no, he was to be allowed to ride
+a spirited horse. The escort would not consist of hired servants, but of
+picked men, and the count was going to join the train in person at the
+hill crowned by the castle, for Moor had promised to paint a portrait of
+the nobleman’s daughter, who had married Count von Rappoltstein. It was
+to be a costly Christmas gift, which the old gentleman intended to make
+himself and his faithful wife.
+
+The wagon was also made ready for the journey; but no one rode inside;
+the jester, closely muffled in wraps, had taken his seat beside the
+driver, and the monks were obliged to go on by way of Freiburg, and
+therefore could use the vehicle no longer.
+
+They scolded and complained about it, as if they had been greatly
+wronged, and when Sutor refused to shake hands with the artist,
+Stubenrauch angrily turned his back upon the kind-hearted man.
+
+The offended pair sullenly retired, but the Christmas sun shone none
+the less brightly from the clear sky, the party of travellers had a gay,
+spick and span, holiday aspect, and the world into which they now fared
+stoutly forth, was so wide and beautiful, that Ulrich forgot his grief,
+and joyously waved his new cap in answer to the Lansquenet’s farewell
+gesture.
+
+It was a merry ride, for on the way they met numerous travellers, who
+were going through the hamlet of Rappolts to the “three castles on the
+mountain” and saluted the old nobleman with lively songs. The Counts von
+Rappoltstein were the “piper-kings,” the patrons of the brotherhood of
+musicians and singers on the Upper Rhine. Usually these joyous birds met
+at the castle of their “king” on the 8th of September, to pay him their
+little tax and be generously entertained in return; but this year, on
+account of the plague in the autumn, the festival had been deferred
+until the third day after Christmas, but Ulrich believed ‘Fortune’ had
+arranged it so for him.
+
+There was plenty of singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and
+reed-pipes were never silent. One serenade followed another, and even at
+the table a new song rang out at each new course.
+
+The fiery wine, game and sweet cakes at the castle board undoubtedly
+pleased the palate of the artisan’s son, but he enjoyed feasting his
+ears still more. He felt as if he were in Heaven, and thought less and
+less of the grief he had endured.
+
+Day by day Fortune shook her horn of plenty, and flung new gifts down
+upon him.
+
+He had told the stable-keepers of his power over refractory horses, and
+after proving what he could do, was permitted to tame wild stallions and
+ride them about the castle-yard, before the eyes of the old and young
+count and the beautiful young lady. This brought him praise and gifts
+of new clothes. Many a delicate hand stroked his curls, and it always
+seemed to him as if his mighty spell could bestow nothing better.
+
+One day Moor took him aside, and told him that he had commenced a
+portrait of young Count Rappolstein too. The lad was obliged to be
+still, having broken his foot in a fall from his horse, and as Ulrich
+was of the same size and age, the artist wished him to put on the young
+count’s clothes and serve as a model.
+
+The smith’s son now received the best clothes belonging to his
+aristocratic companion in age. The suit was entirely black, but each
+garment of a different material, the stockings silk, the breeches satin,
+the doublet soft Flanders velvet. Golden-yellow puffs and slashes stood
+forth in beautiful relief against the darker stuff. Even the knots of
+ribbon on the breeches and shoes were as yellow as a blackbird’s beak.
+Delicate lace trimmed the neck and fell on the hands, and a clasp of
+real gems confined the black and yellow plumes in the velvet hat.
+
+All this finery was wonderfully becoming to the smith’s son, and he must
+have been blind, if he had not noticed how old and young nudged each
+other at sight of him. The spirit of vanity in his soul laughed in
+delight, and the lad soon knew the way to the large Venetian mirror,
+which was carefully kept in the hall of state. This wonderful glass
+showed Ulrich for the first time his whole figure and the image which
+looked back at him from the crystal, flattered and pleased him.
+
+But, more than aught else, he enjoyed watching the artist’s hand and eye
+during the sittings. Poor Father Lukas in the monastery must hide his
+head before this master. He seemed to actually grow while engaged in his
+work, his shoulders, which he usually liked to carry stooping forward,
+straightened, the broad, manly breast arched higher, and the kindly eyes
+grew stern, nay sometimes wore a terrible expression.
+
+Although little was said during the sittings, they were always too short
+for the boy. He did not stir, for it always seemed to him as if any
+movement would destroy the sacred act he witnessed, and when, in the
+pauses, he looked at the canvas and saw how swiftly and steadily the
+work progressed, he felt as if before his own eyes, he was being born
+again to a nobler existence. In the wassail-hall hung the portrait of
+a young Prince of Navarre, whose life had been saved in the chase by
+a Rappoltstein. Ulrich, attired in the count’s clothes, looked exactly
+like him. The jester had been the first to perceive this strange
+circumstance. Every one, even Moor, agreed with him, and so it happened
+that Pellicanus henceforth called his young friend the Navarrete. The
+name pleased the boy. Everything here pleased him, and he was full of
+happiness; only often at night he could not help grieving because, while
+his father was dead, he enjoyed such an overflowing abundance of good
+things, and because he had lost his mother, Ruth, and all who had loved
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Ulrich was obliged to share the jester’s sleeping-room, and as
+Pellicanus shrank from getting out of bed, while suffering from
+night-sweats, and often needed something, he roused Ulrich from his
+sleep, and the latter was always ready to assist him. This happened more
+frequently as they continued their journey, and the poor little man’s
+illness increased.
+
+The count had furnished Ulrich with a spirited young horse, that
+shortened the road for him by its tricks and capers. But the jester, who
+became more and more attached to the boy, also did his utmost to keep
+the feeling of happiness alive in his heart. On warm days he nestled in
+the rack before the tilt with the driver, and when Ulrich rode beside
+him, opened his eyes to everything that passed before him.
+
+The jester had a great deal to tell about the country and people, and
+he embellished the smallest trifle with tales invented by himself, or
+devised by others.
+
+While passing a grove of birches, he asked the lad if he knew why the
+trunks of these trees were white, and then explained the cause, as
+follows:
+
+“When Orpheus played so exquisitely on his lute, all the trees rushed
+forward to dance. The birches wanted to come too, but being vain,
+stopped to put on white dresses, to outdo the others. When they finally
+appeared on the dancing-ground, the singer had already gone--and now,
+summer and winter, year in and year out, they keep their white dresses
+on, to be prepared, when Orpheus returns and the lute sounds again.”
+
+A cross-bill was perched on a bough in a pine-wood, and the jester said
+that this bird was a very peculiar species. It had originally been grey,
+and its bill was as straight as a sparrow’s, but when the Saviour hung
+upon the cross, it pitied him, and with its little bill strove to draw
+the nails from the wounded hands. In memory of this friendly act, the
+Lord had marked its beak with the cross, and painted a dark-red spot
+on its breast, where the bird hall been sprinkled with His Son’s blood.
+Other rewards were bestowed upon it, for no other bird could hatch a
+brood of young ones in winter, and it also had the power of lessening
+the fever of those, who cherished it.
+
+A flock of wild geese flew over the road and the hills, and Pellicanus
+cried: “Look there! They always fly in two straight lines, and form a
+letter of the alphabet. This time it is an A. Can you see it? When the
+Lord was writing the laws on the tablets, a flock of wild geese flew
+across Mt. Sinai, and in doing so, one effaced a letter with its wing.
+Since that time, they always fly in the shape of a letter, and their
+whole race, that is, all geese, are compelled to let those people who
+wish to write, pluck the feathers from their wings.”
+
+Pellicanus was fond of talking to the boy in their bedroom. He always
+called him Navarrete, and the artist, when in a cheerful mood, followed
+his example.
+
+Ulrich felt great reverence for Moor; the jester, on the contrary, was
+only a good comrade, in whom he speedily reposed entire confidence.
+
+Many an allusion and jesting word showed that Pellicanus still believed
+him to be the son of a knight, and this at last became unendurable to
+the lad.
+
+One evening, when they were both in bed, he summoned up his courage and
+told him everything he knew about his past life.
+
+The jester listened attentively, without interrupting him, until Ulrich
+finished his story with the words “And while I was gone, the bailiffs
+and dogs tracked them, but my father resisted, and they killed him and
+the doctor.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” murmured the jester. “It’s a pity about Costa. Many a
+Christian might feel honored at resembling some Jews. It is only a
+misfortune to be born a Hebrew, and be deprived of eating ham. The Jews
+are compelled to wear an offensive badge, but many a Christian child is
+born with one. For instance, in Sparta they would have hurled me into
+the gulf, on account of my big head, and deformed shoulder. Nowadays,
+people are less merciful, and let men like us drag the cripple’s mark
+through life. God sees the heart; but men cannot forget their ancestor,
+the clod of earth--the outside is always more to them than the inside.
+If my head had only been smaller, and some angel had smoothed my
+shoulder, I might perhaps now be a cardinal, wear purple, and instead of
+riding under a grey tilt, drive in a golden coach, with well-fed black
+steeds. Your body was measured with a straight yard stick, but there’s
+trouble in other places. So your father’s name was Adam, and he really
+bore no other?”
+
+“No, certainly not.”
+
+“That’s too little by half. From this day we’ll call you in earnest
+Navarrete: Ulrich Navarrete. That will be something complete. The name
+is only a dress, but if half of it is taken from your body, you are left
+half-bare and exposed to mockery. The garment must be becoming too, so
+we adorn it as we choose. My father was called Kurschner, but at the
+Latin school Olearius and Faber and Luscinius sat beside me, so I
+raised myself to the rank of a Roman citizen, and turned Kurschner into
+Pellicanus....”
+
+The jester coughed violently, and continued One thing more. To expect
+gratitude is folly, nine times out of ten none is reaped, and he who is
+wise thinks only of himself, and usually omits to seek thanks; but every
+one ought to be grateful, for it is burdensome to have enemies, and
+there is no one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor we
+repay with ingratitude. You ought and must tell the artist your history,
+for he has deserved your confidence.
+
+The jester’s worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always
+praised as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy,
+yet many of them were impressed on his young soul. He followed the sick
+man’s advice the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it,
+for Moor treated him even more kindly than before.
+
+Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to
+Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the
+old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to
+bring him alive to the goal of his journey.
+
+The little man’s body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head
+larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned
+the centre of each.
+
+He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.
+
+He had originally been destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but
+though he surpassed all the other pupils in the school, he was deprived
+of the hope of ever becoming a priest, for the Church wants no cripples.
+He was the child of poor people, and had been obliged to fight his way
+through his career as a student, with great difficulty.
+
+“How shabby the broad top of my cap often was!” he said. “I was so much
+ashamed of it. I am so small. Dear me, anybody could see my head, and
+could not help noticing all the worn places in the velvet, if he cast
+his eyes down. How often have I sat beside the kitchen of a cook-shop,
+and seasoned dry bread with the smell of roast meat. Often too my
+poodledog went out and stole a sausage for me from the butcher.”
+
+At other times the little fellow had fared better; then, sitting in the
+taverns, he had given free-play to his wit, and imposed no constraint on
+his sharp tongue.
+
+Once he had been invited by a former boon-companion, to accompany him to
+his ancestral castle, to cheer his sick father; and so it happened
+that he became a buffoon, wandered from one great lord to another, and
+finally entered the elector’s service.
+
+He liked to pretend that he despised the world and hated men, but this
+assertion could not be taken literally, and was to be regarded in a
+general, rather than a special sense, for every beautiful thing in the
+world kindled eager enthusiasm in his heart, and he remained kindly
+disposed towards individuals to the end.
+
+When Moor once charged him with this, he said, smiling:
+
+“What would you have? Whoever condemns, feels himself superior to the
+person upon whom he sits in judgment, and how many fools, like me, fancy
+themselves great, when they stand on tiptoe, and find fault even with
+the works of God! ‘The world is evil,’ says the philosopher, and whoever
+listens to him, probably thinks carelessly: ‘Hear, hear! He would have
+made it better than our Father in heaven.’ Let me have my pleasure. I’m
+only a little man, but I deal in great things. To criticise a single
+insignificant human creature, seems to me scarcely worth while, but when
+we pronounce judgment on all humanity and the boundless universe, we can
+open our mouths-wonderfully wide!”
+
+Once his heart had been filled with love for a beautiful girl, but
+she had scornfully rejected his suit and married another. When she was
+widowed, and he found her in dire poverty, he helped her with a large
+share of his savings, and performed this kind service again, when the
+second worthless fellow she married had squandered her last penny.
+
+His life was rich in similar incidents.
+
+In his actions, the queer little man obeyed the dictates of his heart;
+in his speech, his head ruled his tongue, and this seemed to him the
+only sensible course. To practise unselfish generosity he regarded as a
+subtle, exquisite pleasure, which he ventured to allow himself, because
+he desired nothing more; others, to whom he did not grudge a prosperous
+career, he must warn against such folly.
+
+There was a keen, bitter expression on his large, thin face, and whoever
+saw him for the first time might easily have supposed him to be a
+wicked, spiteful man. He knew this, and delighted in frightening the
+men and maid-servants at the taverns by hideous grimaces--he boasted of
+being able to make ninety-five different faces--until the artist’s old
+valet at last dreaded him like the “Evil One.”
+
+He was particularly gay in Avignon, for he felt better than he had done
+for a long time, and ordered a seat to be engaged for him in a vehicle
+going to Marseilles.
+
+The evening before their separation, he described with sparkling
+vivacity, the charms of the Ligurian coast, and spoke of the future as
+if he were sure of entire recovery and a long life.
+
+In the night Ulrich heard him groaning louder than usual, and starting
+up, raised him, as he was in the habit of doing when the poor little man
+was tortured by difficulty of breathing. But this time Pellicanus did
+not swear and scold, but remained perfectly still, and when his heavy
+head fell like a pumpkin on the boy’s breast, he was greatly terrified
+and ran to call the artist.
+
+Moor was soon standing at the head of the sick-bed, holding a light, so
+that its rays could fall upon the face of the gasping man. The latter
+opened his eyes and made three grimaces in quick succession--very
+comical ones, yet tinged with sadness.
+
+Pellicanus probably noticed the artist’s troubled glance, for he tried
+to nod to him, but his head was too heavy and his strength too slight,
+so he only succeeded in moving it first to the right and then to the
+left, but his eyes expressed everything he desired to say. In this way
+several minutes elapsed, then Pellicanus smiled, and with a sorrowful
+gaze, though a mischievous expression hovered around his mouth, scanned:
+
+“‘Mox erit’ quiet and mute, ‘gui modo’ jester ‘erat’.” Then he said as
+softly as if every tone came, not from his chest, but merely from his
+lips--
+
+“Is it agreed, Navarrete, Ulrich Navarrete? I’ve made the Latin easy
+for you, eh? Your hand, boy. Yours, too, dear, dear master... Moor,
+Ethiopian--Blackskin....”
+
+The words died away in a low, rattling sound, and the dying man’s eyes
+became glazed, but it was several hours before he drew his last breath.
+
+A priest gave him Extreme Unction, but consciousness did not return.
+
+After the holy man had left him, his lips moved incessantly, but no one
+could understand what he said. Towards morning, the sun of Provence
+was shining warmly and brightly into the room and on his bed, when he
+suddenly threw his arm above his head, and half speaking, half singing
+to Hans Eitelfritz’s melody, let fall from his lips the words: “In
+fortune, good fortune.” A few minutes after he was dead.
+
+Moor closed his eyes. Ulrich knelt weeping beside the bed, and kissed
+his poor friend’s cold hand.
+
+When he rose, the artist was gazing with silent reverence at the
+jester’s features; Ulrich followed his eyes, and imagined he was
+standing in the presence of a miracle, for the harsh, bitter, troubled
+face had obtained a new expression, and was now the countenance of a
+peaceful, kindly man, who had fallen asleep with pleasant memories in
+his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+For the first time in his life Ulrich had witnessed the death of a human
+being.
+
+How often he had laughed at the fool, or thought his words absurd and
+wicked;--but the dead man inspired him with respect, and the thought of
+the old jester’s corpse exerted a far deeper and more lasting influence
+upon him, than his father’s supposed death. Hitherto he had only been
+able to imagine him as he had looked in life, but now the vision of him
+stretched at full length, stark and pale like the dead Pellicanus, often
+rose before his mind.
+
+The artist was a silent man, and understood how to think and speak in
+lines and colors, better than in words. He only became eloquent and
+animated, when the conversation turned upon subjects connected with his
+art.
+
+At Toulouse he purchased three new horses, and engaged the same number
+of French servants, then went to a jeweller and bought many articles. At
+the inn he put the chains and rings he had obtained, into pretty little
+boxes, and wrote on them in neat Gothic characters with special care:
+“Helena, Anna, Minerva, Europa and Lucia;” one name on each.
+
+Ulrich watched him and remarked that those were not his children’s
+names.
+
+Moor looked up, and answered smiling: “These are only young artists,
+six sisters, each one of whom is as dear to me as if she were my own
+daughter. I hope we shall find them in Madrid, one of them, Sophonisba,
+at any rate.”
+
+“But there are only five boxes,” observed the boy, “and you haven’t
+written Sophonisba on any of them.”
+
+“She is to have something better,” replied his patron smiling. “My
+portrait, which I began to paint yesterday, will be finished here. Hand
+me the mirror, the maul-stick, and the colors.”
+
+The picture was a superb likeness, absolutely faultless. The pure brow
+curved in lofty arches at the temples, the small eyes looked as clear
+and bright as they did in the mirror, the firm mouth shaded by a thin
+moustache, seemed as if it were just parting to utter a friendly word.
+The close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin rested closely upon the
+white ruff, which seemed to have just come from under the laundresses’
+smoothing-iron.
+
+How rapidly and firmly the master guided his brush! And Sophonisba, whom
+Moor distinguished by such a gift, how was he to imagine her? The other
+five sisters too! For their sakes he first anticipated with pleasure the
+arrival at Madrid.
+
+In Bayonne the artist left the baggage-wagon behind. His luggage was
+put on mules, and when the party of travellers started, it formed an
+imposing caravan.
+
+Ulrich expressed his surprise at such expenditure, and Moor answered
+kindly: “Pellicanus says: ‘Among fools one must be a fool.’ We enter
+Spain as the king’s guests, and courtiers have weak eyes, and only
+notice people who give themselves airs.”
+
+At Fuenterrabia, the first Spanish city they reached, the artist
+received many honors, and a splendid troop of cavalry escorted him
+thence to Madrid.
+
+Moor came as a guest to King Philip’s capital for the third time, and
+was received there with all the tokens of respect usually paid only to
+great noblemen.
+
+His old quarters in the treasury of the Alcazar, the palace of the kings
+of Castile, were again assigned to him. They consisted of a studio and
+suite of apartments, which by the monarch’s special command, had been
+fitted up for him with royal magnificence.
+
+Ulrich could not control his amazement. How poor and petty everything
+that a short time before, at Castle Rappolstein, had awakened his wonder
+and admiration now appeared.
+
+During the first few days the artist’s reception-room resembled a
+bee-hive; for aristocratic men and women, civil and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries passed in and out, pages and lackeys brought flowers,
+baskets of fruits, and other gifts. Every one attached to the court knew
+in what high favor the artist was held by His Majesty, and therefore
+hastened to win his good-will by attentions and presents. Every hour
+there was something new and astonishing to be seen, but the artist
+himself most awakened the boy’s surprise.
+
+The unassuming man, who on the journey had associated as familiarly with
+the poor invalids he had picked up by the wayside, the tavern-keepers,
+and soldiers of his escort, as if he were one of themselves, now seemed
+a very different person. True, he still dressed in black, but instead
+of cloth and silk, he wore velvet and satin, while two gold chains
+glittered beneath his ruff. He treated the greatest nobles as if he were
+doing them a favor by receiving them, and he himself were a person of
+unapproachable rank.
+
+On the first day Philip and his queen Isabella of Valois, had sent for
+him and adorned him with a costly new chain.
+
+On this occasion Ulrich saw the king. Dressed as a page he followed
+Moor, carrying the picture the latter intended for a gift to his royal
+host.
+
+At the time of their entrance into the great reception-hall, the monarch
+was sitting motionless, gazing into vacancy, as if all the persons
+gathered around him had no existence for him. His head was thrown far
+back, pressing down the stiff ruff, on which it seemed to rest as if it
+were a platter. The fair-haired man’s well-cut features wore the rigid,
+lifeless expression of a mask. The mouth and nostrils were slightly
+contracted, as if they shrank from breathing the same air with other
+human beings.
+
+The monarch’s face remained unmoved, while receiving the Pope’s legates
+and the ambassadors from the republic of Venice. When Moor was led
+before him, a faint smile was visible beneath the soft, drooping
+moustache and close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin; the prince’s
+dull eyes also gained some little animation.
+
+The day after the reception a bell rang in the studio, which was cleared
+of all present as quickly as possible, for it announced the approach
+of the king, who appeared entirely alone and spent two whole hours with
+Moor.
+
+All these marks of distinction might have turned a weaker brain, but
+Moor received them calmly, and as soon as he was alone with Ulrich or
+Sophonisba, appeared no less unassuming and kindly, than at Emmendingen
+and on the journey through France.
+
+A week after taking possession of the apartments in the treasury, the
+servants received orders to refuse admittance to every one, without
+distinction of rank or person, informing them that the artist was
+engaged in working for His Majesty.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola was the only person whom Moor never refused to
+see. He had greeted the strange girl on his arrival, as a father meets
+his child.
+
+Ulrich had been present when the artist gave her his portrait, and saw
+her, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, cover her face with her hands
+and burst into loud sobs.
+
+During Moor’s first visit to Madrid, the young girl had come from
+Cremona to the king’s court with her father and five sisters, and since
+then the task of supporting all six had rested on her shoulders.
+
+Old Cavaliere Anguisciola was a nobleman of aristocratic family, who had
+squandered his large patrimony, and now, as he was fond of saying, lived
+day by day “by trusting God.” A large portion of his oldest daughter’s
+earnings he wasted at the gaming table with dissolute nobles, relying
+with happy confidence upon the talent displayed also by his younger
+children, and on what he called “trust in God.” The gay, clever Italian
+was everywhere a welcome guest, and while Sophonisba toiled early and
+late, often without knowing how she was to obtain suitable food and
+clothing for her sisters and herself, his life was a series of banquets
+and festivals. Yet the noble girl retained the joyous courage inherited
+from her father, nay, more--even in necessity she did not cease to take
+a lofty view of art, and never permitted anything to leave her studio
+till she considered it finished.
+
+At first Moor watched her silently, then he invited her to work in his
+studio, and avail herself of his advice and assistance.
+
+So she had become his pupil, his friend.
+
+Soon the young girl had no secrets from him, and the glimpses of her
+domestic life thus afforded touched him and brought her nearer and
+nearer to his heart.
+
+The old Cavaliere praised the lucky accident, and was ready to show
+himself obliging, when Moor offered to let him and his daughters
+occupy a house he had purchased, that it might be kept in a habitable
+condition, and when the artist had induced the king to grant Sophonisba
+a larger annual salary, the father instantly bought a second horse.
+
+The young girl, in return for so many benefits, was gratefully devoted
+to the artist, but she would have loved him even without them. His
+society was her greatest pleasure. To be allowed to stay and paint with
+him, become absorbed in conversation about art, its problems, means and
+purposes, afforded her the highest, purest happiness.
+
+When she had discharged the duties imposed upon her by her attendance
+upon the queen, her heart drew her to the man she loved and honored.
+When she left him, it always seemed as if she had been in church, as if
+her soul had been steeped in purity and was effulgent. Moor had hoped
+to find her sisters with her in Madrid, but the old Cavaliere had taken
+them away with him to Italy. His “trust in God” was rewarded, for he
+had inherited a large fortune. What should he do longer in Madrid! To
+entertain the stiff, grave Spaniards and move them to laughter, was a
+far less pleasing occupation than to make merry with gay companions and
+be entertained himself at home.
+
+Sophonisba was provided for, and the beautiful, gay, famous maid of
+honor would have no lack of suitors. Against his daughter’s wish, he
+had given to the richest and most aristocratic among them, the Sicilian
+baron Don Fabrizio di Moncada, the hope of gaining her hand. “Conquer
+the fortress! When it yields--you can hold it,” were his last words; but
+the citadel remained impregnable, though the besieger could bring into
+the field as allies a knightly, aristocratic bearing, an unsullied
+character, a handsome, manly figure, winning manners, and great wealth.
+
+Ulrich felt a little disappointed not to find the five young girls, of
+whom he had dreamed, in Madrid; it would have been pleasant to have some
+pretty companions in the work now to begin.
+
+Adjoining the studio was a smaller apartment, separated from the former
+room by a corridor, that could be closed, and by a heavy curtain. Here a
+table, at which the five girls might easily have found room, was placed
+in a favorable light for Ulrich. He was to draw from plastic models,
+and there was no lack of these in the Alcazar, for here rose a high,
+three-story wing, to which when wearied by the intrigues of statecraft
+and the restraints of court etiquette, King Philip gladly retired,
+yielding himself to the only genial impulse of his gloomy soul, and
+enjoyed the noble forms of art.
+
+In the round hall on the lower floor countless plans, sketches, drawings
+and works of art were kept in walnut chests of excellent workmanship.
+Above this beautifully ornamented apartment--was the library, and in the
+third story the large hall containing the masterpieces of Titian.
+
+The restless statesman, Philip, was no less eager to collect and obtain
+new and beautiful works by the great Venetian, than to defend and
+increase his own power and that of the Church. But these treasures were
+kept jealously guarded, accessible to no human being except himself and
+his artists.
+
+Philip was all and all to himself; caring nothing for others, he did
+not deem it necessary, that they should share his pleasures. If anything
+outside the Church occupied a place in his regard, it was the artist,
+and therefore he did not grudge him what he denied to others.
+
+Not only in the upper story, but in the lower ones also antique and
+modern busts and statues were arranged in appropriate places, and Moor
+was at liberty to choose from among them, for the king permitted him to
+do what was granted to no one else.
+
+He often summoned him to the Titian Hall, and still more frequently
+rang the bell and entered the connecting corridor, accessible to himself
+alone, which led from the rooms devoted to art and science to the
+treasury and studio, where he spent hours with Moor. Ulrich eagerly
+devoted himself to the work, and his master watched his labor like an
+attentive, strict, and faithful teacher; meantime he carefully guarded
+against overtaxing the boy, allowed him to accompany him on many a ride,
+and advised him to look about the city. At first the lad liked to
+stroll through the streets and watch the long, brilliant processions,
+or timidly shrink back when closely-muffled men, their figures wholly
+invisible except the eyes and feet, bore a corpse along, or glided on
+mysterious missions through the streets. The bull-fights might have
+bewitched him, but he loved horses, and it grieved him to see the noble
+animal, wounded and killed.
+
+He soon wearied of the civil and religious ceremonies, that might be
+witnessed nearly every day, and which always exerted the same power of
+attraction to the inhabitants of Madrid. Priests swarmed in the Alcazar,
+and soldiers belonging to every branch of military service, daily
+guarded or marched by the palace.
+
+On the journey he had met plenty of mules with gay plumes and tassels,
+oddly-dressed peasants and citizens. Gentlemen in brilliant court
+uniforms, princes and princesses he saw daily in the court-yards, on the
+stairs, and in the park of the palace.
+
+At Toulouse and in other cities, through which he had passed, life
+had been far more busy, active, and gay than in quiet Madrid, where
+everything went on as if people were on their way to church, where a
+cheerful face was rarely seen, and men and women knew of no sight more
+beautiful and attractive, than seeing poor Jews and heretics burned.
+
+Ulrich did not need the city; the Alcazar was a world in itself, and
+offered him everything he desired.
+
+He liked to linger in the stables, for there he could distinguish
+himself; but it was also delightful to work, for Moor chose models and
+designs that pleased the lad, and Sophonisba Anguisciola, who often
+painted for hours in the studio by the master’s side, came to Ulrich
+in the intervals, looked at what he had finished, helped, praised, or
+scolded him, and never left him without a jest on her lips.
+
+True, he was often left to himself; for the king sometimes summoned the
+artist and then quitted the palace with him for several days, to visit
+secluded country houses, and there--the old Hollander had told the
+lad--painted under Moor’s instructions.
+
+On the whole, there were new, strange, and surprising things enough, to
+keep the sensation of “Fortune,” alive in Ulrich’s heart. Only it was
+vexatious that he found it so hard to make himself intelligible to
+people, but this too was soon to be remedied, for the pupil obtained two
+companions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Alonzo Sanchez Coello, a very distinguished Spanish artist, had his
+studio in the upper story of the treasury. The king was very friendly to
+him, and often took him also on his excursions. The gay, lively
+artist clung without envy, and with ardent reverence, to Moor,
+whose fellow-pupil he had been in Florence and Venice. During the
+Netherlander’s first visit to Madrid, he had not disdained to seek
+counsel and instruction from his senior, and even now frequently visited
+his studio, bringing with him his children Sanchez and Isabella as
+pupils, and watched the Master closely while he painted.
+
+At first Ulrich was not specially pleased with his new companions, for
+in the strangely visionary life he led, he had depended solely upon
+himself and “Fortune,” and the figures living in his imagination were
+the most enjoyable society to him.
+
+Formerly he had drawn eagerly in the morning, joyously anticipated
+Sophonisba’s visit, and then gazed out over his paper and dreamed.
+How delightful it had been to let his thoughts wander to his heart’s
+content. This could now be done no longer.
+
+So it happened, that at first he could feel no real confidence in
+Sanchez, who was three years his senior, for the latter’s thin limbs
+and close-cut dark hair made him look exactly like dark-browed Xaver.
+Therefore his relations with Isabella were all the more friendly.
+
+She was scarcely fourteen, a dear little creature, with awkward limbs,
+and a face so wonderfully changeful in expression, that it could not
+fail to be by turns pretty and repellent. She always had beautiful eyes;
+all her other features were unformed, and might grow charming or
+exactly the reverse. When her work engrossed her attention, she bit her
+protruded tongue, and her raven-black hair, usually remarkably smooth,
+often became so oddly dishevelled, that she looked like a kobold; when,
+on the other hand, she talked pleasantly or jested, no one could help
+being pleased.
+
+The child was rarely gifted, and her method of working was an exact
+contrast to that of the German lad. She progressed slowly, but finally
+accomplished something admirable; what Ulrich impetuously began had a
+showy, promising aspect, but in the execution the great idea shrivelled,
+and the work diminished in merit instead of increasing.
+
+Sanchez Coello remained far behind the other two, but to make amends, he
+knew many things of which Ulrich’s uncorrupted soul had no suspicion.
+
+Little Isabella had been given by her mother, for a duenna, a watchful,
+ill-tempered widow, Senora Catalina, who never left the girl while she
+remained with Moor’s pupils.
+
+Receiving instruction with others urged Ulrich to rivalry, and also
+improved his knowledge of Spanish. But he soon became familiar with the
+language in another way, for one day, as he came out of the stables,
+a thin man in black, priestly robes, advanced towards him, looked
+searchingly into his face, then greeted him as a countryman, declaring
+that it made him happy to speak his dear native tongue again. Finally,
+he invited the “artist” to visit him. His name was Magister Kochel and
+he lodged with the king’s almoner, for whom he was acting as clerk.
+
+The pallid man with the withered face, deep-set eyes and peculiar grin,
+which always showed the bluish-red gums above the teeth, did not please
+the boy, but the thought of being able to talk in his native language
+attracted him, and he went to the German’s.
+
+He soon thought that by so doing he was accomplishing something good and
+useful, for the former offered to teach him to write and speak Spanish.
+Ulrich was glad to have escaped from school, and declined this proposal;
+but when the German suggested that he should content himself with
+speaking the language, assuring him that it could be accomplished
+without any difficulty, Ulrich consented and went daily at twilight to
+the Magister.
+
+Instruction began at once and was pleasant enough, for Kochel let him
+translate merry tales and love stories from French and Italian books,
+which he read aloud in German, never scolded him, and after the first
+half-hour always laid the volume aside to talk with him.
+
+Moor thought it commendable and right, for Ulrich to take upon himself
+the labor and constraint of studying a language, and promised, when the
+lessons were over, to give a fitting payment to the Magister, who seemed
+to have scanty means of livelihood.
+
+The master ought to have been well disposed towards worthy Kochel,
+for the latter was an enthusiastic admirer of his works. He ranked the
+Netherlander above Titian and the other great Italian artists, called
+him the worthy friend of gods and kings, and encouraged his pupil to
+imitate him.
+
+“Industry, industry!” cried the Magister. “Only by industry is the
+summit of wealth and fame gained. To be sure, such success demands
+sacrifices. How rarely is the good man permitted to enjoy the blessing
+of mass. When did he go to church last?”
+
+Ulrich answered these and similar questions frankly and truthfully,
+and when Kochel praised the friendship uniting the artist to the king,
+calling them Orestes and Pylades, Ulrich, proud of the honor shown his
+master, told him how often Philip secretly visited the latter.
+
+At every succeeding interview Kochel asked, as if by chance, in the
+midst of a conversation about other things: “Has the king honored you
+again?” or “You happy people, it is reported that the king has shown you
+his face again.”
+
+This “you” flattered Ulrich, for it allowed a ray of the royal favor
+to fall upon him also, so he soon informed his countryman, unasked, of
+every one of the monarch’s visits to the treasury.
+
+Weeks and months elapsed.
+
+Towards the close of his first year’s residence in Madrid, Ulrich
+spoke Spanish with tolerable fluency, and could easily understand his
+fellow-pupils; nay, he had even begun to study Italian.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola still spent all her leisure hours in the studio,
+painting or conversing with Moor. Various dignitaries and grandees
+also went in and out of the studio, and among them frequently appeared,
+indeed usually when Sophonisba was present, her faithful admirer Don
+Fabrizio di Moncada.
+
+Once Ulrich, without listening, heard Moor through the open door of the
+school-room, represent to her, that it was unwise to reject a suitor
+like the baron; he was a noble, high-minded gentleman and his love
+beyond question.
+
+Her answer was long in coming; at last she rose, saying in an agitated
+voice: “We know each other, Master; I know your kind intentions. And
+yet, yet! Let me remain what I am, however insignificant that may be.
+I like the baron, but what better gifts can marriage bestow, than I
+already possess? My love belongs to Art, and you--you are my friend....
+My sisters are my children. Have I not gained the right to call them
+so? I shall have no lack of duties towards them, when my father has
+squandered his inheritance. My noble queen will provide for my future,
+and I am necessary to her. My heart is filled--filled to the brim; I do
+what I can, and is it not a beautiful thought, that I am permitted to
+be something to those I love? Let me remain your Sophonisba, and a free
+artist.”
+
+“Yes, yes, yes! Remain what you are, girl!” Moor exclaimed, and then for
+a long time silence reigned in the studio.
+
+Even before they could understand each other’s language, a friendly
+intercourse had existed between Isabella and her German fellow-pupil,
+for in leisure moments they had sketched each other more than once.
+
+These pictures caused much laughter and often occasional harmless
+scuffles between Ulrich and Sanchez, for the latter liked to lay hands
+on these portraits and turn them into hideous caricatures.
+
+Isabella often earned the artist’s unqualified praise, Ulrich sometimes
+received encouraging, sometimes reproving, and sometimes even harsh
+words. The latter Moor always addressed to him in German, but they
+deeply wounded the lad, haunting him for days.
+
+The “word” still remained obedient to him. Only in matters relating to
+art, the power of “fortune” seemed to fail, and deny its service.
+
+When the painter set him difficult tasks, which he could not readily
+accomplish, he called upon the “word;” but the more warmly and fervently
+he did so, the more surely he receded instead of advancing. When, on the
+contrary, he became angered against “fortune,” reproached, rejected it,
+and relied wholly on himself, he accomplished the hardest things and won
+Moor’s praise.
+
+He often thought, that he would gladly resign his untroubled, luxurious
+life, and all the other gifts of Fortune, if he could only succeed in
+accomplishing what Moor desired him to attain in art. He knew and felt
+that this was the right goal; but one thing was certain, he could never
+attain it with pencil and charcoal. What his soul dreamed, what his
+mental vision beheld was colored. Drawing, perpetual drawing, became
+burdensome, repulsive, hateful; but with palette and brush in his hand
+he could not fail to become an artist, perhaps an artist like Titian.
+
+He already used colors in secret; Sanchez Coello had been the cause of
+his making the first trial.
+
+This precocious youth was suing for a fair girl’s favor, and made Ulrich
+his confidant. One day, when Moor and Sanchez’s father had gone with
+the king to Toledo, he took him to a balcony in the upper story of the
+treasury, directly opposite to the gate-keeper’s lodgings, and only
+separated by a narrow court-yard from the window, where sat pretty
+Carmen, the porter’s handsome daughter.
+
+The girl was always to be found here, for her father’s room was very
+dark, and she was compelled to embroider priestly robes from morning
+till night. This pursuit brought in money, which was put to an excellent
+use by the old man, who offered sacrifices to his own comfort at the
+cook-shop, and enjoyed fish fried in oil with his Zamora wine. The
+better her father’s appetite was, the more industriously the daughter
+was obliged to embroider. Only on great festivals, or when an
+‘Auto-da-fe’ was proclaimed, was Carmen permitted to leave the palace
+with her old aunt; yet she had already found suitors. Nineteen-year-old
+Sanchez did not indeed care for her hand, but merely for her love, and
+when it began to grow dusk, he stationed himself on the balcony which he
+had discovered, made signs to her, and flung flowers or bonbons on her
+table.
+
+“She is still coy,” said the young Spaniard, telling Ulrich to wait at
+the narrow door, which opened upon the balcony. “There sits the angel!
+Just look! I gave her the pomegranate blossom in her magnificent
+hair--did you ever see more beautiful tresses? Take notice! She’ll soon
+melt; I know women!”
+
+Directly after a bouquet of roses fell into the embroiderer’s lap.
+Carmen uttered a low cry, and perceiving Sanchez, motioned him away with
+her head and hand, finally turning her back upon him.
+
+“She’s in a bad humor to-day,” said Sanchez; “but I beg you to notice
+that she’ll keep my roses. She’ll wear one to-morrow in her hair or on
+her bosom; what will you wager?”
+
+“That may be,” answered Ulrich. “She probably has no money to buy any
+for herself.”
+
+To be sure, the next day at twilight Carmen wore a rose in her hair.
+
+Sanchez exulted, and drew Ulrich out upon the balcony. The beauty
+glanced at him, blushed, and returned the fair-haired boy’s salutation
+with a slight bend of the head.
+
+The gate-keeper’s little daughter was a pretty child, and Ulrich had no
+fear of doing what Sanchez ventured.
+
+On the third day he again accompanied him to the balcony, and this time,
+after silently calling upon the “word,” pressed his hand upon his heart,
+just as Carmen looked at him.
+
+The young girl blushed again, waved her fan, and then bent her little
+head so low, that it almost touched the embroidery.
+
+The next evening she secretly kissed her fingers to Ulrich.
+
+From this time the young lover preferred to seek the balcony without
+Sanchez. He would gladly have called a few tender words across, or sung
+to his lute, but that would not do, for people were constantly passing
+to and fro in the court-yard.
+
+Then the thought occurred to him, that he could speak to the fair one by
+means of a picture.
+
+A small panel was soon found, he had plenty of brushes and colors to
+choose from, and in a few minutes, a burning heart, transfixed by an
+arrow, was completed. But the thing looked horribly red and ugly, so
+he rejected it, and painted--imitating one of Titian’s angels, which
+specially pleased him--a tiny Cupid, holding a heart in his hand.
+
+He had learned many things from the master, and as the little figure
+rounded into shape, it afforded him so much pleasure, that he could not
+leave it, and finished it the third day.
+
+It had not entered his mind to create a completed work of art, but the
+impetuosity of youth, revelling in good fortune, had guided his brush.
+The little Cupid bent joyously forward, drawing the right leg back,
+as if making a bow. Finally Ulrich draped about him a black and yellow
+scarf, such as he had often seen the young Austrian archduke wear, and
+besides the pierced heart, placed a rose in the tiny, ill-drawn hand.
+
+He could not help laughing at his “masterpiece” and hurried out on
+the balcony with the wet painting, to show it to Carmen. She laughed
+heartily too, answered his salutations with tender greetings, then
+laid aside her embroidery and went back into the room, but only to
+immediately reappear at the window again, holding up a prayer-book and
+extending towards him the eight fingers of her industrious little hands.
+
+He motioned that he understood her, and at eight o’clock the next
+morning was kneeling by her side at mass, where he took advantage of a
+favorable opportunity to whisper: “Beautiful Carmen!”
+
+The young girl blushed, but he vainly awaited an answer. Carmen now
+rose, and when Ulrich also stood up to permit her to pass, she dropped
+her prayer-book, as if by accident. He stooped with her to pick it up,
+and when their heads nearly touched, she whispered hurriedly: “Nine
+o’clock this evening in the shell grotto; the garden will be open.”
+
+Carmen awaited him at the appointed place.
+
+At first Ulrich’s heart throbbed so loudly and passionately, that he
+could find no words; but the young girl helped him, by telling him that
+he was a handsome fellow, whom it would be easy to love.
+
+Then he remembered the vows of tenderness he had translated at Kochel’s,
+falteringly repeated them, and fell on one knee before her, like all the
+heroes in adventures and romances.
+
+And behold! Carmen did exactly the same as the young ladies whose
+acquaintance he had made at his teacher’s, begged him to rise, and when
+he willingly obeyed the command--for he wore thin silk stockings and the
+grotto was paved with sharp stones--drew him to her heart, and tenderly
+stroked his hair back from his face with her dainty fingers, while he
+gladly permitted her to press her soft young lips to his.
+
+All this was delightful, and he had no occasion to speak at all; yet
+Ulrich felt timid and nervous. It seemed like a deliverance when the
+footsteps of the guard were heard, and Carmen drew him away through the
+gate with her into the court-yard.
+
+Before the little door leading into her father’s room she again pressed
+his hand, and then vanished as swiftly as a shadow.
+
+Ulrich remained alone, pacing slowly up and down before the treasury,
+for he knew that he had done something very wrong, and did not venture
+to appear before the artist.
+
+When he entered the dark garden, he had again summoned “fortune” to
+his aid; but now it would have pleased him better, if it had been less
+willing to come to his assistance.
+
+Candles were burning in the studio, and Moor sat in his arm-chair,
+holding--Ulrich would fain have bidden himself in the earth--the boy’s
+Cupid in his hands.
+
+The young culprit wanted to slip past his teacher with a low “good
+night,” but the latter called him, and pointing to the picture,
+smilingly asked: “Did you paint this?”
+
+Ulrich nodded, blushing furiously.
+
+The artist eyed him from top to toe, saying: “Well, well, it is really
+very pretty. I suppose it is time now for us to begin to paint.”
+
+The lad did not know what had happened, for a few weeks before Moor had
+harshly refused, when he asked the same thing now voluntarily offered.
+
+Scarcely able to control his surprise and joy, he bent over the artist’s
+hand to kiss it, but the latter withdrew it, gazed steadily into his
+eyes with paternal affection, and said: “We will try, my boy, but we
+must not give up drawing, for that is the father of our art. Drawing
+keeps us within the bounds assigned to what is true and beautiful. The
+morning you must spend as before; after dinner you shall be rewarded by
+using colors.” This plan was followed, and the pupil’s first love affair
+bore still another fruit--it gave a different form to his relations
+with Sanchez. The feeling that he had stood in his way and abused his
+confidence sorely disturbed Ulrich, so he did everything in his power to
+please his companion.
+
+He did not see the fair Carmen again, and in a few weeks the appointment
+was forgotten, for painting under Moor’s instruction absorbed him as
+nothing in his life had ever done before, and few things did after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Ulrich was now seventeen, and had been allowed to paint for four months.
+
+Sanchez Coello rarely appeared in the studio, for he had gone to study
+with the architect, Herrera; Isabella vied with Ulrich, but was speedily
+outstripped by the German.
+
+It seemed as if he had been born with the power to use the brush, and
+the young girl watched his progress with unfeigned pleasure. When Moor
+harshly condemned his drawing, her kind eyes grew dim with tears; if the
+master looked at his studies with an approving smile, and showed them
+to Sophonisba with words of praise, she was as glad as if they had been
+bestowed upon herself.
+
+The Italian came daily to the treasury as usual, to paint, talk or play
+chess with Moor; she rejoiced at Ulrich’s progress, and gave him many a
+useful suggestion.
+
+When the young artist once complained that he had no good models, she
+gaily offered to sit to him. This was a new and unexpected piece of
+good fortune. Day and night he thought only of Sophonisba. The sittings
+began.
+
+The Italian wore a red dress, trimmed with gold embroidery, and a high
+white lace ruff, that almost touched her cheeks. Her wavy brown hair
+clung closely to the beautiful oval head, its heavy braids covering the
+back of the neck; tiny curls fluttered around her ears and harmonized
+admirably with the lovely, mischievous expression of the mouth, that won
+all hearts. To paint the intelligent brown eyes was no easy matter, and
+she requested Ulrich to be careful about her small, rather prominent
+chin, which was anything but beautiful, and not make her unusually high,
+broad forehead too conspicuous; she had only put on the pearl diadem to
+relieve it.
+
+The young artist set about this task with fiery impetuosity, and the
+first sketch surpassed all expectations.
+
+Don Fabrizio thought the picture “startlingly” like the original. Moor
+was not dissatisfied, but feared that in the execution his pupil’s work
+would lose the bold freshness, which lent it a certain charm in his
+eyes, and was therefore glad when the bell rang, and soon after the king
+appeared, to whom he intended to show Ulrich’s work.
+
+Philip had not been in the studio for a long time, but the artist had
+reason to expect him; for yesterday the monarch must have received his
+letter, requesting that he would graciously grant him permission to
+leave Madrid.
+
+Moor had remained in Spain long enough, and his wife and child were
+urging his return. Yet departure was hard for him on Sophonisba’s
+account; but precisely because he felt that she was more to him than a
+beloved pupil and daughter, he had resolved to hasten his leave-taking.
+
+All present were quickly dismissed, the bolts were drawn and Philip
+appeared.
+
+He looked paler than usual, worn and weary.
+
+Moor greeted him respectfully, saying: “It is long since Your Majesty
+has visited the treasury.”
+
+“Not ‘Your Majesty;’ to you I am Philip,” replied the king. “And you
+wish to leave me, Antonio! Recall your letter! You must not go now.”
+
+The sovereign, without waiting for a reply, now burst into complaints
+about the tiresome, oppressive duties of his office, the incapacity
+of the magistrates, the selfishness, malice and baseness of men. He
+lamented that Moor was a Netherlander, and not a Spaniard, called him
+the only friend he possessed among the rebellious crew in Holland and
+Flanders, and stopped him when he tried to intercede for his countrymen,
+though repeatedly assuring him that he found in his society his best
+pleasure, his only real recreation; Moor must stay, out of friendship,
+compassion for him, a slave in the royal purple.
+
+After the artist had promised not to speak of departure during the next
+few days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but
+at the end of half an hour he threw down his brush. He called himself
+negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of
+using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church. Duty
+was his tyrant, his oppressor. When the day-laborer threw his hoe over
+his shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they
+pursued him everywhere, night and day. His son was a monster, his
+subjects were rebels or cringing hounds. Bands of heretics, like moles
+or senseless brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the
+throne and safeguard of society: the Church. To crush and vanquish
+was his profession, hatred his reward on earth. Then, after a moment’s
+silence, he pointed towards heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy: “There,
+there! with Him, with Her, with the Saints, for whom I fight!”
+
+The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood. He seemed to
+feel this too, and after recovering his self-control, said:
+
+“It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring
+to-day. Have you finished anything new?”
+
+Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after
+Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it
+with excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich’s portrait of
+Sophonisba, and asked, not without anxiety: “What does Your Majesty say
+to this attempt?”
+
+“Hm!” observed the monarch. “A little of Moor, something borrowed from
+Titian, yet a great deal that is original. The bluish-grey leaden tone
+comes from your shop. The thing is a wretched likeness! Sophonisba
+resembles a gardener’s boy. Who made it?”
+
+“My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete.”
+
+“How long has he been painting?”
+
+“For several months, Sire.”
+
+“And you think he will be an artist of note?”
+
+“Perhaps so. In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
+falls below them. He is a strange fellow.”
+
+“He is ambitious, at any rate.”
+
+“No small matter for the future artist. What he eagerly begins has a
+very grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution. His
+mind seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single
+hasty grasp....”
+
+“Rather too vehement, I should think.”
+
+“No fault at his age. What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
+he lacks. I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him.”
+
+“You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet
+meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place,
+in short your own art-spirit.”
+
+“And yours also, Sire. If you had begun to paint early, you would have
+possessed what Ulrich lacks.”
+
+“Perhaps so. Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with
+years. In your school, with zeal and industry....”
+
+“He will obtain, you think, what he lacks. I thought so too! But as I
+was saying: he is queerly constituted. What you have admitted to me more
+than once, the point we have started from in a hundred conversations--he
+cannot grasp: form is not the essence of art to him.”
+
+The king shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his forehead; but Moor
+continued: “Everything he creates must reflect anew, what he experienced
+at the first sight of the subject. Often the first sketch succeeds, but
+if it fails, he seeks without regard to truth and accuracy, by means
+of trivial, strange expedients, to accomplish his purpose. Sentiment,
+always sentiment! Line and tone are everything; that is our motto.
+Whoever masters them, can express the grandest things.”
+
+“Right, right! Keep him drawing constantly. Give him mouths, eyes, and
+hands to paint.”
+
+“That must be done in Antwerp.”
+
+“I’ll hear nothing about Antwerp! You will stay, Antonio, you will stay.
+Your wife and child-all honor to them. I have seen your wife’s portrait.
+Good, nourishing bread! Here you have ambrosia and manna. You know whom
+I mean; Sophonisba is attached to you; the queen says so.”
+
+“And I gratefully feel it. It is hard to leave your gracious Majesty and
+Sophonisba; but bread, Sire, bread--is necessary to life. I shall leave
+friends here, dear friends--it will be difficult, very difficult, to
+find new ones at my age.”
+
+“It is the same with me, and for that very reason you will stay, if you
+are my friend! No more! Farewell, Antonio, till we meet again, perhaps
+to-morrow, in spite of a chaos of business. Happy fellow that you are!
+In the twinkling of an eye you will be revelling in colors again, while
+the yoke, the iron yoke, weighs me down.”
+
+Moor thought he should be able to work undisturbed after the king had
+left him, and left the door unbolted. He was standing before the easel
+after dinner, engaged in painting, when the door of the corridor leading
+to the treasury was suddenly flung open, without the usual warning, and
+Philip again entered the studio. This time his cheeks wore a less pallid
+hue than in the morning, and his gait showed no traces of the solemn
+gravity, which had become a second nature to him,--on the contrary he
+was gay and animated.
+
+But the expression did not suit him; it seemed as if he had donned a
+borrowed, foreign garb, in which he was ill at ease and could not move
+freely.
+
+Waving a letter in his right hand, he pointed to it with his left,
+exclaiming:
+
+“They are coming. This time two marvels at once. Our Saviour praying in
+the garden of Gethsemane, and Diana at the Bath. Look, look! Even this
+is a treasure. These lines are from Titian’s own hand.”
+
+“A peerless old man,” Moor began; but Philip impetuously interrupted:
+“Old man, old man? A youth, a man, a vigorous man. How soon he will be
+ninety, and yet--yet; who will equal him?”
+
+As he uttered the last words, the monarch stopped before Sophonisba’s
+portrait, and pointing to it with the scornful chuckle peculiar to him,
+continued gaily:
+
+“There the answer meets me directly. That red! The Venetian’s laurels
+seem to have turned your high flown pupil’s head. A hideous picture!”
+
+“It doesn’t seem so bad to me,” replied Moor. “There is even something
+about it I like.”
+
+“You, you?” cried Philip. “Poor Sophonisba!”
+
+“Those carbuncle eyes! And a mouth, that looks as if she could eat
+nothing but sugar-plums. I don’t know what tickles me to-day. Give me
+the palette. The outlines are tolerably good, the colors fairly shriek.
+But what boy can understand a woman, a woman like your friend! I’ll
+paint over the monster, and if the picture isn’t Sophonisba, it may
+serve for a naval battle.”
+
+The king had snatched the palette from the artist’s hand, clipped his
+brush in the paint, and smiling pleasantly, was about to set to work;
+but Moor placed himself between the sovereign and the canvas; exclaiming
+gaily: “Paint me, Philip; but spare the portrait.”
+
+“No, no; it will do for the naval battle,” chuckled the king, and while
+he pushed the artist back, the latter, carried away by the monarch’s
+unusual freedom, struck him lightly on the shoulder with the maul-stick.
+
+The sovereign started, his lips grew white, he drew his small but
+stately figure to its full height. His unconstrained bearing was
+instantly transformed into one of unapproachable, icy dignity.
+
+Moor felt what was passing in the ruler’s mind.
+
+A slight shiver ran through his frame, but his calmness remained
+unshaken, and before the insulted monarch found time to give vent to
+his indignation in words, he said quickly, as if the offence he had
+committed was not worth mentioning:
+
+“Queer things are done among comrades in art. The painter’s war is
+over! Begin the naval battle, Sire, or still better, lend more charm and
+delicacy to the corners of the mouth. The pupil’s worst failure is in
+the chin; more practised hands might be wrecked on that cliff. Those
+eyes! Perhaps they sparkled just in that way, but we are agreed in
+one thing: the portrait ought not to represent the original at a given
+moment, ruled by a certain feeling or engaged in a special act, but
+should express the sum of the spiritual, intellectual and
+personal attributes of the subject--his soul and person, mind and
+character-feelings and nature. King Philip, pondering over complicated
+political combinations, would be a fascinating historical painting, but
+no likeness....”
+
+“Certainly not,” said the king in a low voice; “the portrait must reveal
+the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his
+artists. Take the palette, I beg. It is for you, the great Master,
+not for me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct the work of
+talented pupils.”
+
+There was a hypocritical sweetness in the tone of these words which had
+not escaped the artist.
+
+Philip had long been a master in the school of dissimulation, but Moor
+knew him thoroughly, and understood the art of reading his heart.
+
+This mode of expression from the king alarmed him more than a passionate
+outburst of rage. He only spoke in this way when concealing what was
+seething within. Besides, there was another token. The Netherlander
+had intentionally commenced a conversation on art, and it was almost
+unprecedented to find Philip disinclined to enter into one. The blow had
+been scarcely perceptible, but Majesty will not endure a touch.
+
+Philip did not wish to quarrel with the artist now, but he would
+remember the incident, and woe betide him, if in some gloomy hour the
+sovereign should recall the insult offered him here. Even the lightest
+blow from the paw of this slinking tiger could inflict deep wounds--even
+death.
+
+These thoughts had darted with the speed of lightning through the
+artist’s mind, and still lingered there as, respectfully declining to
+take the palette, he replied “I beseech you, Sire, keep the brush and
+colors, and correct what you dislike.”
+
+“That would mean to repaint the whole picture, and my time is limited,”
+ answered Philip. “You are responsible for your pupils’ faults, as well
+as for your own offences. Every one is granted, allowed, offered, what
+is his due; is it not so, dear master? Another time, then, you shall
+hear from me!” In the doorway the monarch kissed his hand to the artist,
+then disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Moor remained alone in the studio. How could he have played such a
+boyish prank!
+
+He was gazing anxiously at the floor, for he had good reason to be
+troubled, though the reflection that he had been alone with the king,
+and the unprecedented act had occurred without witnesses, somewhat
+soothed him. He could not know that a third person, Ulrich, had beheld
+the reckless, fateful contest.
+
+The boy had been drawing in the adjoining room, when loud voices were
+heard in the studio. He cherished a boundless reverence, bordering upon
+idolatry, for his first model, the beautiful Sophonisba, and supposing
+that it was she, discussing works of art with Moor, as often happened,
+he opened the door, pushed back the curtain, and saw the artist tap the
+chuckling king on the arm.
+
+The scene was a merry one, yet a thrill of fear ran through his limbs,
+and he went back to his plaster model more rapidly than he had come.
+
+At nightfall Moor sought Sophonisba. He had been invited to a ball
+given by the queen, and knew that he should find the maid of honor among
+Isabella’s attendants.
+
+The magnificent apartments were made as light as day by thousands of
+wax-candles in silver and bronze candelabra; costly Gobelin tapestry and
+purple Flanders hangings covered the walls, and the bright hues of
+the paintings were reflected from the polished floors, flooded with
+brilliant light.
+
+No dancing had ever been permitted at the court before Philip’s marriage
+with the French princess, who had been accustomed to greater freedom of
+manners; now a ball was sometimes given in the Alcazar. The first person
+who had ventured to dance the gaillarde before the eyes of the monarch
+and his horrified courtiers, was Sophonisba--her partner was Duke
+Gonzaga. Strangely enough, the gayest lady at the court was the very
+person, who gave the gossips the least occasion for scandal.
+
+A gavotte was just over, as Moor entered the superb rooms. In the first
+rank of the brilliant circle of distinguished ecclesiastics, ambassadors
+and grandees, who surrounded the queen, stood the Austrian archdukes,
+and the handsome, youthful figures of Alexander of Parma and of Don
+Juan, the half-brother of King Philip.
+
+Don Carlos, the deformed heir to the throne, was annoying with his
+coarse jests some ladies of the court, who were holding their fans
+before their faces, yet did not venture to make the sovereign’s son feel
+their displeasure.
+
+Velvet, silk and jewels glittered, delicate laces rose and drooped
+around the necks and hands of the ladies and gentlemen. Floating curls,
+sparkling eyes, noble and attractive features enslaved the eye, but the
+necks, throats and arms of the court dames were closely concealed under
+high ruffs and lace frills, stiff bodices and puffed sleeves.
+
+A subtile perfume filled the illuminated air of these festal halls;
+amidst the flirting of light fans, laughter, gay conversation, and
+slander reigned supreme. In an adjoining room golden zechins fell
+rattling and ringing on the gaming-table.
+
+The morose, bigoted court, hampered by rigid formality, had been invaded
+by worldly pleasure, which disported itself unabashed by the presence of
+the distinguished prelates in violet and scarlet robes, who paced with
+dignified bearing through the apartments, greeting the more prominent
+ladies and grandees.
+
+A flourish of trumpets was borne on the air, and Philip appeared. The
+cavaliers, bowing very low, suddenly stepped back from the fair dames,
+and the ladies curtsied to the floor. Perfect silence followed.
+
+It seemed as if an icy wind had passed over the flower-beds and bent all
+the blossoms at once.
+
+After a few minutes the gentlemen stood erect, and the ladies rose
+again, but even the oldest duchesses were not allowed the privilege of
+sitting in their sovereign’s presence.
+
+Gayety was stifled, conversation was carried on in whispers.
+
+The young people vainly waited for the signal to dance.
+
+It was long since Philip had been so proudly contemptuous, so morose as
+he was to-night. Experienced courtiers noticed that His Majesty held his
+head higher than usual, and kept out of his way. He walked as if engaged
+in scrutinizing the frescos on the ceiling, but nothing that he wished
+to see escaped his notice, and when he perceived Moor, he nodded
+graciously and smiled pleasantly upon him for a moment, but did not, as
+usual, beckon him to approach.
+
+This did not escape the artist or Sophonisba, whom Moor had informed of
+what had occurred.
+
+He trusted her as he did himself, and she deserved his confidence.
+
+The clever Italian had shared his anxiety, and as soon as the king
+entered another apartment, she beckoned to Moor and held a long
+conversation with him in a window-recess. She advised him to keep
+everything in readiness for departure, and she undertook to watch and
+give him timely warning.
+
+It was long after midnight, when Moor returned to his rooms. He sent the
+sleepy servant to rest, and paced anxiously to and fro for a short time;
+then he pushed Ulrich’s portrait of Sophonisba nearer the mantel-piece,
+where countless candles were burning in lofty sconces.
+
+This was his friend, and yet it was not. The thing lacking--yes, the
+king was right--was incomprehensible to a boy.
+
+We cannot represent, what we are unable to feel. Yet Philip’s censure
+had been too severe. With a few strokes of the brush Moor expected to
+make this picture a soul mirror of the beloved girl, from whom it was
+hard, unspeakably hard for him to part.
+
+“More than fifty!” he thought, a melancholy smile hovering around his
+mouth.--“More than fifty, an old husband and father, and yet--yet--good
+nourishing bread at home--God bless it, Heaven preserve it! It only this
+girl were my daughter! How long the human heart retains its functional
+power! Perhaps love is the pith of life--when it dries, the tree withers
+too!”
+
+Still absorbed in thought, Moor had seized his palette, and at intervals
+added a few short, almost imperceptible strokes to the mouth, eyes, and
+delicate nostrils of the portrait, before which he sat--but these few
+strokes lent charm and intellectual expression to his pupil’s work.
+
+When he at last rose and looked at what he had done, he could not help
+smiling, and asking himself how it was possible to imitate, with such
+trivial materials, the noblest possessions of man: mind and soul. Both
+now spoke to the spectator from these features. The right words were
+easy to the master, and with them he had given the clumsy sentence
+meaning and significance.
+
+The next morning Ulrich found Moor before Sophonisba’s portrait. The
+pupil’s sleep had been no less restless than the master’s, for the
+former had done something which lay heavy on his heart.
+
+After being an involuntary witness of the scene in the studio the day
+before he had taken a ride with Sanchez and had afterwards gone to
+Kochel’s to take a lesson. True, he now spoke Spanish with tolerable
+fluency and knew something of Italian, but Kochel entertained him so
+well, that he still visited him several times a week.
+
+On this occasion, there was no translating. The German first kindly
+upbraided him for his long absence, and then, after the conversation had
+turned upon his painting and Moor, sympathizingly asked what truth there
+was in the rumor, that the king had not visited the artist for a long
+time and had withdrawn his favor from him.
+
+“Withdrawn his favor!” Ulrich joyously exclaimed. “They are like
+two brothers! They wrestled together to-day, and the master, in all
+friendship, struck His Majesty a blow with the maul-stick.... But--for
+Heaven’s sake!--you will swear--fool, that I am--you will swear not to
+speak of it!”
+
+“Of course I will!” Kochel exclaimed with a loud laugh. “My hand upon it
+Navarrete. I’ll keep silence, but you! Don’t gossip about that! Not on
+any account! The jesting blow might do the master harm. Excuse me for
+to-day; there is a great deal of writing to be done for the almoner.”
+
+Ulrich went directly back to the studio. The conviction that he had
+committed a folly, nay, a crime, had taken possession of him directly
+after the last word escaped his lips, and now tortured him more and
+more. If Kochel, who was a very ordinary man, should not keep the
+secret, what might not Moor suffer from his treachery! The lad was
+usually no prattler, yet now, merely to boast of his master’s familiar
+intercourse with the king, he had forgotten all caution.
+
+After a restless night, his first thought had been to look at his
+portrait of Sophonisba. The picture lured, bewitched, enthralled him
+with an irresistible spell.
+
+Was this really his work?
+
+He recognized every stroke of the brush. And yet! Those thoughtful
+eyes, the light on the lofty brow, the delicate lips, which seemed
+about parting to utter some wise or witty word--he had not painted them,
+never, never could he have accomplished such a masterpiece. He became
+very anxious. Had “Fortune,” which usually left him in the lurch when
+creating, aided him on this occasion? Last evening, before he went
+to bed, the picture had been very different. Moor rarely painted by
+candlelight and he had heard him come home late, yet now--now....
+
+He was roused from these thoughts by the artist, who had been feasting
+his eyes a long time on the handsome lad, now rapidly developing into a
+youth, as he stood before the canvas as if spellbound. He felt what
+was passing in the awakening artist-soul, for a similar incident had
+happened to himself, when studying with his old master, Schorel.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Moor as quietly as usual, laying his hand
+upon the arm of his embarrassed pupil. “Your work seems to please you
+remarkably.”
+
+“It is-I don’t know”--stammered Ulrich. “It seems as if in the
+night....”
+
+“That often happens,” interrupted the master. “If a man devotes
+himself earnestly to his profession, and says to himself: ‘Art shall be
+everything to me, all else trivial interruptions,’ invisible powers aid
+him, and when he sees in the morning what he has created the day before,
+he imagines a miracle has happened.”
+
+At these words Ulrich grew red and pale by turns. At last, shaking
+his head, he murmured in an undertone: “Yes, but those shadows at
+the corners of the mouth--do you see?--that light on the brow, and
+there--just look at the nostrils--I certainly did not paint those.”
+
+“I don’t think them so much amiss,” replied Moor. “Whatever friendly
+spirits now work for you at night, you must learn in Antwerp to paint in
+broad day at any hour.”
+
+“In Antwerp?”
+
+“We shall prepare for departure this very day. It must be done with the
+utmost privacy. When Isabella has gone, pack your best clothes in the
+little knapsack. Perhaps we shall leave secretly; we have remained in
+Madrid long enough. Keep yourself always in readiness. No one, do you
+hear, no human being, not even the servants, must suspect what is going
+on. I know you; you are no babbler.”
+
+The artist suddenly paused and turned pale, for men’s loud, angry voices
+were heard outside the door of the studio.
+
+Ulrich too was startled.
+
+The master’s intention of leaving Madrid had pleased him, for it would
+withdraw the former from the danger that might result from his own
+imprudence. But as the strife in the anteroom grew louder, he already
+saw the alguazils forcing their way into the studio.
+
+Moor went towards the door, but it was thrown wide open ere he reached
+it, and a bearded lansquenet crossed the threshold.
+
+Laughing scornfully, he shouted a few derisive words at the French
+servants who had tried to stop him, then turning to the artist, and
+throwing back his broad chest, he held out his arms towards Moor, with
+passionate ardor, exclaiming: “These French flunkies--the varlets, tried
+to keep me from waiting upon my benefactor, my friend, the great Moor,
+to show my reverence for him. How you stare at me, Master! Have you
+forgotten Christmas-day at Emmendingen, and Hans Eitelfritz from Colln
+on the Spree?”
+
+Every trace of anxiety instantly vanished from the face of the artist,
+who certainly had not recognized in this braggart the modest companion
+of those days.
+
+Eitelfritz was strangely attired, so gaily and oddly dressed, that he
+could not fail to be conspicuous even among his comrades. One leg of his
+breeches, striped with red and blue, reached far below his knee, while
+the other, striped with yellow and green, enclosed the upper part of the
+limb, like a full muff. Then how many puffs, slashes and ribbons adorned
+his doublet! What gay plumes decked the pointed edge of his cap.
+
+Moor gave the faithful fellow a friendly welcome, and expressed his
+pleasure at meeting him so handsomely equipped. He held his head higher
+now, than he used to do under the wagon-tilt and in quarters, and
+doubtless he had earned a right to do so.
+
+“The fact is,” replied Hans Eitelfritz, “I’ve received double pay for
+the past nine months, and take a different view of life from that of a
+poor devil of a man-at-arms who goes fighting through the country. You
+know the ditty:
+
+       “‘There is one misery on earth,
+        Well, well for him, who knows it not!
+        With beggar’s staff to wander forth,
+        Imploring alms from spot to spot.’
+
+“And the last verse:
+
+       “‘And shall we never receive our due?
+        Will our sore trials never end?
+        Leader to victory, be true,
+        Come quickly, death, beloved friend.’
+
+“I often sang it in those days; but now: What does the world cost? A
+thousand zechins is not too much for me to pay for it!”
+
+“Have you gained booty, Hans?”
+
+“Better must come; but I’m faring tolerably well. Nothing but feasting!
+Three of us came here from Venice through Lombardy, by ship from Genoa
+to Barcelona, and thence through this barren, stony country here to
+Madrid.”
+
+“To take service?”
+
+“No, indeed. I’m satisfied with my company and regiment. We brought
+some pictures here, painted by the great master, Titian, whose fame must
+surely have reached you. See this little purse! hear its jingle--it’s
+all gold! If any one calls King Philip a niggard again, I’ll knock his
+teeth down his throat.”
+
+“Good tidings, good reward!” laughed Moor. “Have you had board and
+lodging too?”
+
+“A bed fit for the Roman Emperor,--and as for the rest?--I told you,
+nothing but feasting. Unluckily, the fun will be all over to-night, but
+to go without paying my respects to you.... Zounds! is that the little
+fellow--the Hop-o’my-Thumb-who pressed forward to the muster-table at
+Emmendingen?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly.”
+
+“Zounds, he has grown. We’ll gladly enlist you now, young sir. Can you
+remember me?”
+
+“Of course I do,” replied Ulrich. “You sang the song about ‘good
+fortune.’”
+
+“Have you recollected that?” asked the lansquenet. “Foolish stuff!
+Believe it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great
+sorrow and poverty, just to warm my heart. Now I’m prosperous, and can
+rarely succeed in writing a verse. Fires are not needed in summer.”
+
+“Where have you been lodged?”
+
+“Here in the ‘old cat.’ That’s a good name for this Goliath’s palace.”
+
+When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
+with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
+artist went to the city alone.
+
+At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio,
+and instantly noticed the change Sophonisba’s portrait had undergone.
+
+Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.
+
+The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
+pausing in her scrutiny to ask: “And you, you painted this--without the
+master?”
+
+Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: “I suppose he thinks it
+is my own work; and yet--I can’t understand it.”
+
+“But I can,” she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the
+portrait.
+
+At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at
+him with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost
+depths of Ulrich’s heart were stirred: “How glad I am! I could
+never accomplish such a work. You will become a great artist, a
+very distinguished one, like Moor. Take notice, you surely will. How
+beautiful that is!--I can find no words to express my admiration.”
+
+At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich’s brain, and either the fiery
+wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl’s prophetic words, or both,
+fairly intoxicated him. Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he
+seized Isabella’s little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and
+enthusiastically exclaimed: “Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled,
+Belica; I will be an artist. Art, Art alone! The master said everything
+else is vain--trivial. Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is
+right.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried Isabella; “you must become a great artist.”
+
+“And if I don’t succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this....”
+
+Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away,
+perhaps to-morrow, so he continued sadly, in a calmer tone: “Rely upon
+it; I will do what I can, and whatever happens, you will rejoice, will
+you not, if I succeed-and if it should be otherwise....”
+
+“No, no,” she eagerly exclaimed. “You can accomplish everything, and
+I--I; you don’t know how happy it makes me that you can do more than I!”
+
+Again he held out his hand, and as Isabella warmly clasped it, the
+watchful duenna’s harsh voice cried:
+
+“What does this mean, Senorita? To work, I beg of you. Your father says
+time is precious.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Time is precious! Magister Kochel had also doubtless said this to
+himself, as soon as Ulrich left him the day before. He had been hired by
+a secret power, with which however he was well acquainted, to watch the
+Netherland artist and collect evidence for a charge--a gravamen--against
+him.
+
+The spying and informing, which he had zealously pursued for years in
+the service of the Holy Inquisition, he called “serving the Church,” and
+hoped, sooner or later, to be rewarded with a benefice; but even if this
+escaped him, informing brought him as large an income as he required,
+and had become the greatest pleasure, indeed, a necessity of life to
+him.
+
+He had commenced his career in Cologne as a Dominican friar, and
+remained in communication with some of his old brethren of the Order.
+
+The monks, Sutor and Stubenrauch, whom Moor had hospitably received in
+his wagon at the last Advent season but one, sometimes answered Kochel’s
+letters of enquiry.
+
+The latter had long known that the unusual favor the king showed
+the artist was an abomination, not only to the heads of the Holy
+Inquisition, but also to the ambassadors and court dignitaries, yet
+Moor’s quiet, stainless life afforded no handle for attack. Soon,
+however, unexpected aid came to him from a distance.
+
+A letter arrived, dictated by Sutor, and written by Stubenrauch in the
+fluent bad Latin used by him and those of his ilk. Among other things
+it contained an account of a journey, in which much was said about Moor,
+whom the noble pair accused of having a heretical and evil mind. Instead
+of taking them to the goal of the journey, as he had promised, he
+had deserted them in a miserable tavern by the way-side, among rough,
+godless lansquenets, as the mother of Moses abandoned her babe. And such
+a man as this, they had heard with amazement at Cologne, was permitted
+to boast of the favor of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip. Kochel
+must take heed, that this leprous soul did not infect the whole flock,
+like a mangy sheep, or even turn the shepherd from the true pasture.
+
+This letter had induced Kochel to lure Ulrich into the snare. The
+monstrous thing learned from the lad that day, capped the climax of all
+he had heard, and might serve as a foundation for the charge, that
+the heretical Netherlander--and people were disposed to regard all
+Netherlanders as heretics--had deluded the king’s mind with magic arts,
+enslaved his soul and bound him with fetters forged by the Prince of
+Evil.
+
+His pen was swift, and that very evening he went to the palace of the
+Inquisition, with the documents and indictment, but was detained there
+a long time the following day, to have his verbal deposition recorded.
+When he left the gloomy building, he was animated with the joyous
+conviction that he had not toiled in vain, and that the Netherlander was
+a lost man.
+
+Preparations for departure were secretly made in the painter’s rooms in
+the Alcazar during the afternoon. Moor was full of anxiety, for one of
+the royal lackeys, who was greatly devoted to him, had told him that a
+disguised emissary of the Dominicans--he knew him well--had come to the
+door of the studio, and talked there with one of the French servants.
+This meant as imminent peril as fire under the roof, water rising in the
+hold of a ship, or the plague in the house.
+
+Sophonisba had told him that he would hear from her that day, but the
+sun was already low in the heavens, and neither she herself nor any
+message had arrived.
+
+He tried to paint, and finding the attempt useless, gazed into the
+garden and at the distant chain of the Guadarrama mountains; but to-day
+he remained unmoved by the delicate violet-blue mist that floated around
+the bare, naked peaks of the chain.
+
+It was wrath and impatience, mingled with bitter disappointment, that
+roused the tumult in his soul, not merely the dread of torture and
+death.
+
+There had been hours when his heart had throbbed with gratitude to
+Philip, and he had believed in his friendship. And now? The king cared
+for nothing about him, except his brush.
+
+He was still standing at the window, lost in gloomy thoughts, when
+Sophonisba was finally announced.
+
+She did not come alone, but leaning on the arm of Don Fabrizio di
+Moncada. During the last hours of the ball the night before she had
+voluntarily given the Sicilian her hand, and rewarded his faithful
+wooing by accepting his suit.
+
+Moor was rejoiced--yes, really glad at heart, and expressed his
+pleasure; nevertheless he felt a sharp pang, and when the baron, in his
+simple, aristocratic manner, thanked him for the faithful friendship
+he had always shown Sophonisba and her sisters, and then related how
+graciously the queen had joined their hands, he only listened with
+partial attention, for many doubts and suspicions beset him.
+
+Had Sophonisba’s heart uttered the “yes,” or had she made a heavy
+sacrifice for him and his safety? Perhaps she would find true happiness
+by the side of this worthy noble, but why had she given herself to
+him now, just now? Then the thought darted through his mind, that the
+widowed Marquesa Romero, the all-powerful friend of the Grand Inquisitor
+was Don Fabrizio’s sister.
+
+Sophonisba had left the conversation to her betrothed husband; but when
+the doors of the brightly-lighted reception-room were opened, and the
+candles in the studio lighted, the girl could no longer endure
+the restraint she had hitherto imposed upon herself, and whispered
+hurriedly, in broken accents:
+
+“Dismiss the servants, lock the studio, and follow us.”
+
+Moor did as he was requested, and, with the baron, obeyed her request
+to search the anterooms, to see that no unbidden visitor remained. She
+herself raised the curtains and looked up the chimney.
+
+Moor had rarely seen her so pale. Unable to control the muscles of
+her face, shoulders and hands, she went into the middle of the room,
+beckoned the men to come close to her, raised her fan to her face, and
+whispered:
+
+“Don Fabrizio and I are now one. God hears me! You, Master, are in great
+peril and surrounded by spies. Some one witnessed yesterday’s incident,
+and it is now the talk of the town. Don Fabrizio has made inquiries.
+There is an accusation against you, and the Inquisition will act upon
+it. The informers call you a heretic, a sorcerer, who has bewitched the
+king. They will seize you to-morrow, or the day after. The king is in a
+terrible mood. The Nuncio openly asked him whether it was true, that
+he had been offered an atrocious insult in your studio. Is everything
+ready? Can you fly?”
+
+Moor bent his head in assent.
+
+“Well then,” said the baron, interrupting Sophonisba; “I beg you to
+listen to me. I have obtained leave of absence, to go to Sicily to
+ask my father’s blessing. It will be no easy matter for me to leave
+my happiness, at the moment my most ardent wish is fulfilled--but
+Sophonisba commands and I obey. I obey gladly too, for if I succeed
+in saving you, a new and beautiful star will adorn the heaven of my
+memory.”
+
+“Quick, quick!” pleaded Sophonisba, clenching the back of a chair firmly
+with her hand. “You will yield, Master; I beseech you, I command you!”
+
+Moor bowed, and Don Fabrizio continued: “We will start at four o’clock
+in the morning. Instead of exchanging vows of love, we held a council
+of war. Everything is arranged. In an hour my servants will come and ask
+for the portrait of my betrothed bride; instead of the picture, you
+will put your baggage in the chest. Before midnight you will come to my
+apartments. I have passports for myself, six servants, the equerry, and
+a chaplain. Father Clement will remain safely concealed at my sister’s,
+and you will accompany me in priestly costume. May we rely upon your
+consent?”
+
+“With all the gratitude of a thankful heart, but...”
+
+“But?”
+
+“There is my old servant--and my pupil Ulrich Navarrete.”
+
+“The old man is taciturn, Don Fabrizio!” said Sophonisba. “If he is
+forbidden to speak at all.... He is necessary to the Master.”
+
+“Then he can accompany you,” said the baron. “As for your pupil, he must
+help us secure your flight, and lead the pursuers on a false trail. The
+king has honored you with a travelling-carriage.--At half-past eleven
+order horses to be put to it and leave the Alcazar. When you arrive
+before our palace, stop it, alight, and remain with me. Ulrich, whom
+everybody knows--who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in
+his gay clothes--will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the
+road towards Burgos, as far as it goes. A better decoy than he cannot be
+imagined, and besides he is nimble and an excellent horseman. Give
+him your own steed, the white Andalusian. If the blood-hounds should
+overtake him....”
+
+Here Moor interrupted the baron, saying gravely and firmly: “My grey
+head will be too dearly purchased at the cost of this young life. Change
+this part of your plan, I entreat you.”
+
+“Impossible!” exclaimed the Sicilian. “We have few hours at our command,
+and if they don’t follow him, they will pursue us, and you will be
+lost.”
+
+“Yet...” Moor began; but Sophonisba, scarcely able to command her voice,
+interrupted: “He owes everything to--you. I know him. Where is he?”
+
+“Let us maintain our self-control!” cried the Netherlander. “I do not
+rely upon the king’s mercy, but perhaps in the decisive hour, he will
+remember what we have been to each other; if Ulrich, on the contrary,
+robs the irritated lion of his prey and is seized....”
+
+“My sister shall watch over him,” said the baron but Sophonisba tore
+open the door, rushed into the studio, and called as loudly as she
+could: “Ulrich, Ulrich! Ulrich!”
+
+The men followed her, but scarcely had they crossed the threshold, when
+they heard her rap violently at the door of the school-room, and Ulrich
+asking: “What is it?”
+
+“Open the door!”
+
+Soon after, with pallid face and throbbing heart, he was standing before
+the others, asking: “What am I to do?”
+
+“Save your master!” cried Sophonisba. “Are you a contemptible Wight, or
+does a true artist’s heart beat in your breast? Would you fear to go,
+perhaps to your death, for this imperilled man?”
+
+“No, no!” cried the youth as joyously as if a hundred-pound weight had
+been lifted from his breast. “If it costs my life, so much the better!
+Here I am! Post me where you please, do with me as you will! He has
+given me everything, and I--I have betrayed him. I must confess, even
+if you kill me! I gossiped, babbled--like a fool, a child--about what
+I accidentally saw here yesterday. It is my fault, mine, if they pursue
+him. Forgive me, master, forgive me! Do with me what you will. Beat me,
+slay me, and I will bless you.”
+
+As he uttered the last words, the young artist, raising his clasped
+hands imploringly, fell on his knees before his beloved teacher. Moor
+bent towards him, saying with grave kindness:
+
+“Rise, poor lad. I am not angry with you.”
+
+When Ulrich again stood before him, he kissed his forehead and
+continued:
+
+“I have not been mistaken in you. Do you, Don Fabrizio, recommend
+Navarrete to the Marquesa’s protection, and tell him what we desire.
+It would scarcely redound to his happiness, if the deed, for which my
+imprudence and his thoughtlessness are to blame, should be revenged on
+me. It comforts us to atone for a wrong. Whether you save me, Ulrich,
+or I perish--no matter; you are and always will be, my dear, faithful
+friend.”
+
+Ulrich threw himself sobbing on the artist’s breast, and when he learned
+what was required of him, fairly glowed with delight and eagerness for
+action; he thought no greater joy could befall him than to die for the
+Master.
+
+As the bell of the palace-chapel was ringing for evening service,
+Sophonisba was obliged to leave her friend; for it was her duty to
+attend the nocturnus with the queen.
+
+Don Fabrizio turned away, while she bade Moor farewell.
+
+“If you desire my happiness, make him happy,” the artist whispered; but
+she could find no words to reply, and only nodded silently.
+
+He drew her gently towards him, kissed her brow, and said: “There is a
+hard and yet a consoling word Love is divine; but still more divine is
+sacrifice. To-day I am both your friend and father. Remember me to your
+sisters. God bless you, child!”
+
+“And you, you!” sobbed the girl.
+
+Never had any human being prayed so fervently for another’s welfare in
+the magnificent chapel of the Alcazar, as did Sophonisba Anguisciola on
+this evening. Don Fabrizio’s betrothed bride also pleaded for peace and
+calmness in her own heart, for power to forget and to do her duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Half an hour before midnight Moor entered the calash, and Ulrich
+Navarrete mounted the white Andalusian.
+
+The artist, deeply agitated, had already taken leave of his protege in
+the studio, had given him a purse of gold for his travelling-expenses
+and any other wants, and told him that he would always find with him in
+Flanders a home, a father, love, and instruction in his art.
+
+The painter alighted before Don Fabrizio’s palace; a short time after
+Ulrich noisily drew the leather curtain before the partition of the
+calash, and then called to the coachman, who had often driven Moor when
+he was unexpectedly summoned to one of the king’s pleasure-palaces at
+night: “Go ahead!”
+
+They were stopped at the gate, but the guards knew the favorite’s calash
+and fair-haired pupil, and granted the latter the escort he asked for
+his master. So they went forward; at first rapidly, then at a pace
+easy for the horses. He told the coachman that Moor had alighted at
+the second station, and would ride with His Majesty to Avila, where he
+wished to find the carriage.
+
+During the whole way, Ulrich thought little of himself, and all the
+more of the master. If the pursuers had set out the morning after the
+departure, and followed him instead of Don Fabrizio’s party, Moor might
+now be safe. He knew the names of the towns on the road to Valencia
+and thought: “Now he may be here, now he may be there, now he must be
+approaching Tarancon.”
+
+In the evening the calash reached the famous stronghold of Avila where,
+according to the agreement, Ulrich was to leave the carriage and try to
+make his own escape. The road led through the town, which was surrounded
+by high walls and deep ditches. There was no possibility of going round
+it, yet the drawbridges were already raised and the gates locked, so he
+boldly called the warder and showed his passport.
+
+An officer asked to see the artist. Ulrich said that he would follow
+him; but the soldier was not satisfied, and ordered him to alight and
+accompany him to the commandant.
+
+Ulrich struck his spurs into the Andalusian’s flanks and tried to go
+back over the road by which he had come; but the horse had scarcely
+begun to gallop, when a shot was fired, that stretched it on the ground.
+The rider was dragged into the guard-house as a prisoner, and subjected
+to a severe examination.
+
+He was suspected of having murdered Moor and of having stolen his money,
+for a purse filled with ducats was found on his person. While he was
+being fettered, the pursuers reached Avila.
+
+A new examination began, and now trial followed trial, torture, torture.
+
+Even at Avila a sack was thrown over his head, and only opened, when
+to keep him alive, he was fed with bread and water. Firmly bound in a
+two-wheeled cart, drawn by mules, he was dragged over stock and stones
+to Madrid.
+
+Often, in the darkness, oppressed for breath, jolted, bruised, unable to
+control his thoughts, or even his voice, he expected to perish; yet no
+fainting-fit, no moment of utter unconsciousness pityingly came to his
+relief, far less did any human heart have compassion on his suffering.
+
+At last, at last he was unbound, and led, still with his head covered,
+into a small, dark room.
+
+Here he was released from the sack, but again loaded with chains.
+
+When he was left alone and had regained the capacity to think, he felt
+convinced that he was in one of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Here
+were the damp walls, the wooden bench, the window in the ceiling, of
+which he had heard. He was soon to learn that he had judged correctly.
+
+His body was granted a week’s rest, but during this horrible week he did
+not cease to upbraid himself as a traitor, and execrate the fate which
+had used him a second time to hurl a friend and benefactor into ruin. He
+cursed himself, and when he thought of the “word” “fortune, fortune!” he
+gnashed his teeth scornfully and clenched his fist.
+
+His young soul was darkened, embittered, thrown off its balance. He saw
+no deliverance, no hope, no consolation. He tried to pray, to God, to
+Jesus Christ, to the Virgin, to the Saints; but they all stood before
+him, in a vision, with lifeless features and paralyzed arms. For him,
+who had relied on “Fortune,” and behaved like a fool, they felt no pity,
+no compassion, they would not lend their aid.
+
+But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his
+soul in prayer. He regained them during the torture, on the rack.
+
+Weeks, months elapsed. Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded
+with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking
+death in the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm
+determination to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with
+himself. On the rack he had regained the right to respect himself, and
+striven to win the master’s praise, the approval of the living and his
+beloved dead.
+
+The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned.
+The physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in
+amazement.
+
+Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot,
+on nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the
+stifling helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through
+whom and whither the master had escaped.
+
+They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should
+surely learn nothing, nothing at all. He was scarcely aware that he had
+a right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.
+
+Now he could think of the past again. The Holy Virgin once more wore his
+lost mother’s features; his father, Ruth, Pellicanus, Moor looked kindly
+at him. But the brightest light shone into his soul through the darkness
+of the dungeon, when he thought of art and his last work. It stood
+before him distinctly in brilliant hues, feature for feature, as on
+the canvas; he esteemed himself happy in having painted it, and would
+willingly have gone to the rack once, twice, thrice, if he could merely
+have obtained the certainty of creating other pictures like this, and
+perhaps still nobler, more beautiful ones.
+
+Art! Art! Perhaps this was the “word,” and if not, it was the highest,
+most exquisite, most precious thing in life, beside which everything
+else seemed small, pitiful and insipid. With what other word could God
+have created the world, human beings, animals, and plants? The doctor
+had often called every flower, every beetle, a work of art, and Ulrich
+now understood his meaning, and could imagine how the Almighty, with the
+thirst for creation and plastic hand of the greatest of all artists
+had formed the gigantic bodies of the stars, had given the sky its
+glittering blue, had indented and rounded the mountains, had bestowed
+form and color on everything that runs, creeps, flies, buds and
+blossoms, and had fashioned man--created in His own image--in the most
+majestic form of all.
+
+How wonderful the works of God appeared to him in the solitude of the
+dark dungeon--and if the world was beautiful, was it not the work of His
+Divine Art!
+
+Heaven and earth knew no word greater, more powerful, more mighty in
+creating beauty than: Art. What, compared with its gifts, were the
+miserable, delusive ones of Fortune: gay clothes, spiced dishes,
+magnificent rooms, and friendly glances from beautiful eyes, that smile
+on every one who pleases them! He would blow them all into the air,
+for the assistance of Art in joyous creating. Rather, a thousand times
+rather, would he beg his bread, and attain great things in Art, than
+riot and revel in good-fortune.
+
+Colors, colors, canvas, a model like Sophonisba, and success in the
+realm of Art! It was for these things he longed, these things made him
+yearn with such passionate eagerness for deliverance, liberty.
+
+Months glided by, maturing Ulrich’s mind as rapidly as if they had
+been years; but his inclination to retire within himself deepened into
+intense reserve.
+
+At last the day arrived on which, through the influence of the Marquesa
+Romero, the doors of his dungeon opened.
+
+It was soon after receiving a sharp warning to renounce his obstinacy at
+the next examination, that the youth was suddenly informed that he
+was free. The jailer took off his fetters, and helped him exchange his
+prison garb for the dress he had worn when captured; then disguised men
+threw a sack over his head and led him up and down stairs and across
+pavements, through dust and grass, into the little court-yard of a
+deserted house in the suburbs. There they left him, and he soon released
+his head from its covering.
+
+How delicious God’s free air seemed, as his chest heaved with grateful
+joy! He threw out his arms like a bird stretching its wings to fly, then
+he clasped his hands over his brow, and at last, as if a second time
+pursued, rushed out of the court-yard into the street. The passers-by
+looked after him, shaking their heads, and he certainly presented a
+singular spectacle, for the dress in which he had fled many months
+before, had sustained severe injuries on the journey from Avila; his hat
+was lost on the way, and had not been replaced by a new one. The cuffs
+and collar, which belonged to his doublet, were missing, and his thick,
+fair hair hung in dishevelled locks over his neck and temples; his full,
+rosy cheeks had grown thin, his eyes seemed to have enlarged, and during
+his imprisonment a soft down had grown on his cheeks and chin.
+
+He was now eighteen, but looked older, and the grave expression on his
+brow and in his eyes, gave him the appearance of a man.
+
+He had rushed straight forward, without asking himself whither; now he
+reached a busy street and checked his career. Was he in Madrid? Yes, for
+there rose the blue peaks of the Guadarrama chain, which he knew well.
+There were the little trees at which the denizen of the Black Forest had
+often smiled, but which to-day looked large and stately. Now a toreador,
+whom he had seen more than once in the arena, strutted past. This
+was the gate, through which he had ridden out of the city beside the
+master’s calash.
+
+He must go into the town, but what should he do there?
+
+Had they restored the master’s gold with the clothes?
+
+He searched the pockets, but instead of the purse, found only a few
+large silver coins, which he knew he had not possessed at the time of
+his capture.
+
+In a cook-shop behind the gate he enjoyed some meat and wine after his
+long deprivation, and after reflecting upon his situation he decided to
+call on Don Fabrizio.
+
+The porter refused him admittance, but after he had mentioned his name,
+kindly invited him into the porch, and told him that the baron and his
+wife were in the country with the Marquesa Romero. They were expected
+back on Tuesday, and would doubtless receive him then, for they had
+already asked about him several times. The young gentleman probably came
+from some foreign country; it was the custom to wear hats in Madrid.
+
+Ulrich now noticed what he lacked, but before leaving, to supply the
+want, asked the porter, if he knew what had become of Master Moor.
+
+Safe! He was safe! Several weeks before Donna Sophonisba had received a
+letter sent from Flanders, and Ulrich’s companion was well informed, for
+his wife served the baroness as ‘doncella’.
+
+Joyously, almost beside himself with pure, heart-cheering delight,
+the released prisoner hurried away, bought himself a new cap, and then
+sought the Alcazar.
+
+Before the treasury, in the place of old Santo, Carmen’s father, stood
+a tall, broad portero, still a young man, who rudely refused him
+admittance.
+
+“Master Moor has not been here for a long time,” said the gate-keeper
+angrily: “Artists don’t wear ragged clothes, and if you don’t wish to
+see the inside of a guard-house--a place you are doubtless familiar
+with--you had better leave at once.”
+
+Ulrich answered the gate-keeper’s insulting taunts indignantly and
+proudly, for he was no longer the yielding boy of former days, and the
+quarrel soon became serious.
+
+Just then a dainty little woman, neatly dressed for the evening
+promenade, with the mantilla on her curls, a pomegranate blossom in her
+hair, and another on her bosom, came out of the Alcazar. Waving her
+fan, and tripping over the pavement like a wag-tail, she came directly
+towards the disputants.
+
+Ulrich recognized her instantly; it was Carmen, the pretty embroiderer
+of the shell-grotto in the park, now the wife of the new porter, who had
+obtained his dead predecessor’s office, as well as his daughter.
+
+“Carmen!” exclaimed Ulrich, as soon as he saw the pretty little woman,
+then added confidently. “This young lady knows me.”
+
+“I?” asked the young wife, turning up her pretty little nose, and
+looking at the tall youth’s shabby costume. “Who are you?”
+
+“Master Moor’s pupil, Ulrich Navarrete; don’t you remember me?”
+
+“I? You must be mistaken!”
+
+With these words she shut her fan so abruptly, that it snapped loudly,
+and tripped on.
+
+Ulrich shrugged his shoulders, then turned to the porter more
+courteously, and this time succeeded in his purpose; for the artist
+Coello’s body-servant came out of the treasury, and willingly announced
+him to his master, who now, as court-artist, occupied Moor’s quarters.
+
+Ulrich followed the friendly Pablo into the palace, where every step he
+mounted reminded him of his old master and former days.
+
+When he at last stood in the anteroom, and the odor of the fresh
+oil-colors, which were being ground in an adjoining room, reached his
+nostrils, he inhaled it no less eagerly than, an hour before, he had
+breathed the fresh air, of which he had been so long deprived.
+
+What reception could he expect? The court-artist might easily shrink
+from coming in contact with the pupil of Moor, who had now lost the
+sovereign’s favor. Coello was a very different man from the Master, a
+child of the moment, varying every day. Sometimes haughty and repellent,
+on other occasions a gay, merry companion, who had jested with his
+own children and Ulrich also, as if all were on the same footing. If
+today... but Ulrich did not have much time for such reflections; a few
+minutes after Pablo left, the door was torn open, and the whole Coello
+family rushed joyously to meet him; Isabella first. Sanchez followed
+close behind her, then came the artist, next his stout, clumsy wife,
+whom Ulrich had rarely seen, because she usually spent the whole day
+lying on a couch with her lap-dog. Last of all appeared the duenna
+Catalina, a would-be sweet smile hovering around her lips.
+
+The reception given him by the others was all the more joyous and
+cordial.
+
+Isabella laid her hands on his arm, as if she wanted to feel that it was
+really he; and yet, when she looked at him more closely, she shook
+her head as if there was something strange in his appearance. Sanchez
+embraced him, whirling him round and round, Coello shook hands,
+murmuring many kind words, and the mother turned to the duenna,
+exclaiming:
+
+“Holy Virgin! what has happened to the pretty boy? How famished he
+looks! Go to the kitchen instantly, Catalina, and tell Diego to bring
+him food--food and drink.”
+
+At last they all pulled and pushed him into the sitting-room, where the
+mother immediately threw herself on the couch again; then the others
+questioned him, making him tell them how he had fared, whence he came,
+and many other particulars.
+
+He was no longer hungry, but Senora Petra insisted upon his seating
+himself near her couch and eating a capon, while he told his story.
+
+Every face expressed sympathy, approval, pity, and at last Coello said:
+
+“Remain here, Navarrete. The king longs for Moor, and you will be as
+safe with us, as if you were in Abraham’s lap. We have plenty for you to
+do. You come to me as opportunely, as if you had dropped from the skies.
+I was just going to write to Venice for an assistant. Holy Jacob! You
+can’t stay so, but thanks to the Madonna and Moor, you are not poor.
+We have ample means, my young sir. Donna Sophonisba gave me a hundred
+zechins for you; they are lying in yonder chest, and thank Heaven,
+haven’t grown impatient by waiting. They are at your disposal. Your
+master, my master, the noble master of all portrait-painters, our
+beloved Moor arranged it. You won’t go about the streets in this way any
+longer. Look, Isabella; this sleeve is hanging by two strings, and
+the elbow is peering out of the window. Such a dress is airy enough,
+certainly. Take him to the tailor’s at once, Sanchez, Oliverio, or...
+but no, no; we’ll all stay together to-day. Herrera is coming from the
+Escurial. You will endure the dress for the sake of the wearer, won’t
+you, ladies? Besides, who is to choose the velvet and cut for this young
+dandy? He always wore something unusual. I can still see the master’s
+smile, provoked by some of the lad’s new contrivances in puffs and
+slashes. It is pleasant to have you here, my boy! I ought to slay a
+calf, as the father did for the prodigal son; but we live in miniature.
+Instead of neat-cattle, only a capon!...”
+
+“But you’re not drinking, you’re not drinking! Isabella, fill his glass.
+Look! only see these scars on his hands and neck. It will need a great
+deal of lace to conceal them. No, no, they are marks of honor, you must
+show them. Come here, I will kiss this great scar, on your neck, my
+brave, faithful fellow, and some day a fair one will follow my example.
+If Antonio were only here! There’s a kiss for him, and another, there,
+there. Art bestows it, Art, for whom you have saved Moor!”
+
+A master’s kiss in the name of Art! It was sweeter than the beautiful
+Carmen’s lips!
+
+Coello was himself an artist, a great painter! Where could his peers
+be found--or those of Moor, and the architect Herrera, who entered
+soon after. Only those, who consecrated their lives to Art, the word of
+words, could be so noble, cheerful, kind.
+
+How happy he was when he went to bed! how gratefully he told his beloved
+dead, in spirit, what had fallen to his lot, and how joyously he could
+pray!
+
+The next morning he went with a full purse into the city, returning
+elegantly dressed, and with neatly-arranged locks. The peinador had
+given his budding moustache a bold twist upward.
+
+He still looked thin and somewhat awkward, but the tall youth promised
+to become a stately man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Towards noon Coello called Ulrich into Moor’s former studio; the youth
+could not fail to observe its altered appearance.
+
+Long cartoons, containing sketches of figures, large paintings, just
+commenced or half-finished, leaned against the easels; mannikins,
+movable wooden horse’s heads, and plaster-models stood on the floor, the
+tables, and in the windows. Stuffs, garments, tapestries, weapons
+hung over the backs of the chairs, or lay on chests, tables and the
+stone-floor. Withered laurel-wreaths, tied with long ribbons, fluttered
+over the mantel-piece; one had fallen, dropped over the bald head of
+Julius Caesar, and rested on the breast.
+
+The artist’s six cats glided about among the easels, or stretched their
+limbs on costly velvet and Arabian carpets.
+
+In one corner stood a small bed with silk curtains--the nursery of the
+master’s pets. A magnificent white cat was suckling her kittens in it.
+
+Two blue and yellow cockatoos and several parrots swung screaming in
+brass hoops before the open window, and Coello’s coal-black negro crept
+about, cleaning the floor of the spacious apartment, though it was
+already noon. While engaged in this occupation, he constantly shook his
+woolly head, displaying his teeth, for his master was singing loudly at
+his work, and the gaily-clad African loved music.
+
+What a transformation bad taken place in the Netherlander’s quiet,
+orderly, scrupulously neat studio! But, even amid this confusion,
+admirable works were created; nay, the Spaniard possessed a much more
+vivid imagination, and painted pictures, containing a larger number of
+figures and far more spirited than Moor’s, though they certainly were
+not pervaded by the depth and earnestness, the marvellous fidelity to
+nature, that characterized those of Ulrich’s beloved master.
+
+Coello called the youth to the easel, and pointing to the sketches in
+color, containing numerous figures, on which he was painting, said:
+
+“Look here, my son. This is to be a battle of the Centaurs, these are
+Parthian horsemen;--Saint George and the Dragon, and the Crusaders are
+not yet finished. The king wants the Apocalyptic riders too. Deuce
+take it! But it must be done. I shall commence them to-morrow. They are
+intended for the walls and ceiling of the new winter riding-school. One
+person gets along slowly with all this stuff, and I--I.... The orders
+oppress me. If a man could only double, quadruple himself! Diana of
+Ephesus had many breasts, and Cerberus three heads, but only two hands
+have grown on my wrists. I need help, and you are just the person to
+give it. You have had nothing to do with horses yet, Isabella tells me;
+but you are half a Centaur yourself. Set to work on the steeds now, and
+when you have progressed far enough, you shall transfer these sketches
+to the ceiling and walls of the riding-school. I will help you perfect
+the thing, and give it the finishing touch.”
+
+This invitation aroused more perplexity than pleasure in Ulrich’s
+mind, for it was not in accordance with Moor’s opinions. Fear of his
+fellow-men no longer restrained him, so he frankly said that he would
+rather sketch industriously from nature, and perhaps would do well
+to seek Moor in Flanders. Besides, he was afraid that Coello greatly
+overrated his powers.
+
+But the Spaniard eagerly cut him short:
+
+“I have seen your portrait of Sophonisba. You are no longer a pupil,
+but a rising artist. Moor is a peerless portrait-painter, and you have
+profited greatly by his teaching. But Art has still higher aims. Every
+living thing belongs to her. The Venus, the horse... which of those two
+pictures won Apelles the greater fame? Not only copying, but creating
+original ideas, leads to the pinnacle of art. Moor praised your vivid
+imagination. We must use what we possess. Remember Buonarotti, Raphael!
+Their compositions and frescos, have raised their names above all
+others. Antonio has tormented you sufficiently with drawing lifeless
+things. When you transfer these sketches, many times enlarged, to
+a broad surface, you will learn more than in years of copying
+plaster-casts. A man must have talent, courage and industry; everything
+else comes of its own accord, and thank Heaven, you’re a lucky fellow!
+Look at my horses--they are not so bad, yet I never sketched a
+living one in my life till I was commissioned to paint His Majesty on
+horseback. You shall have a better chance. Go to the stables and the old
+riding-school to-morrow. First try noble animals, then visit the market
+and shambles, and see how the knackers look. If you make good speed, you
+shall soon see the first ducats you yourself have earned.” The golden
+reward possessed little temptation for Ulrich, but he allowed himself to
+be persuaded by his senior, and drew and painted horses and mares with
+pleasure and success, working with Isabella and Coello’s pupil, Felice
+de Liano, when they sketched and painted from living models. When the
+scaffolding was erected in the winter riding-school, he went there under
+the court-artist’s direction, to measure, arrange and finally transfer
+the painter’s sketches to the wide surfaces.
+
+He did this with increasing satisfaction, for though Coello’s sketches
+possessed a certain hardness, they were boldly devised and pleased him.
+
+The farther he progressed, the more passionately interested he became
+in his work. To create on a grand scale delighted him, and the fully
+occupied life, as well as the slight fatigue after his work was
+done, which was sweetened by the joy of labor accomplished, were all
+beautiful, enjoyable things; yet Ulrich felt that this was not exactly
+the right course, that a steeper, more toilsome path must lead to the
+height he desired to attain.
+
+He lacked the sharp spurring to do better and better, the censure of a
+master, who was greatly his superior. Praise for things, which did not
+satisfy himself, vexed him and roused his distrust.
+
+Isabella, and--after his return--Sophonisba, were his confidantes.
+
+The former had long felt what he now expressed. Her young heart clung to
+him, but she loved in him the future great artist as much as the man.
+It was certainly no light matter for her to be deprived of Ulrich’s
+society, yet she unselfishly admitted that her father, in the vast
+works he had undertaken, could not be a teacher like Moor, and it would
+probably be best for him to seek his old master in Flanders, as soon as
+his task in the riding-school was completed.
+
+She said this, because she believed it to be her duty, though sadly and
+anxiously; but he joyously agreed with her, for Sophonisba had handed
+him a letter from the master, in which the latter cordially invited him
+to come to Antwerp.
+
+Don Fabrizio’s wife summoned him to her palace, and Ulrich found her as
+kind and sympathizing as when she had been a girl, but her gay, playful
+manner had given place to a more quiet dignity.
+
+She wished to be told in detail all he had suffered for Moor, how he
+employed himself, what he intended to do in the future; and she even
+sought him more than once in the riding-school, watched him at his work,
+and examined his drawings and sketches.
+
+Once she induced him to tell her the story of his youth.
+
+This was a boon to Ulrich; for, although we keep our best treasures most
+closely concealed, yet our happiest hours are those in which, with the
+certainty of being understood, we are permitted to display them.
+
+The youth could show this noble woman, this favorite of the Master, this
+artist, what he would not have confided to any man, so he permuted her
+to behold his childhood, and gaze deep into his soul.
+
+He did not even hide what he knew about the “word”--that he believed he
+had found the right one in the dungeon, and that Art would remain his
+guiding star, as long as he lived.
+
+Sophonisba’s cheeks flushed deeper and deeper, and never had he seen her
+so passionately excited, so earnest and enthusiastic, as now when she
+exclaimed:
+
+“Yes, Ulrich, yes! You have found the right word!
+
+“It is Art, and no other. Whoever knows it, whoever serves it, whoever
+impresses it deeply on his soul and only breathes and moves in it, no
+longer has any taint of baseness; he soars high above the earth, and
+knows nothing of misery and death. It is with Art the Divinity bridges
+space and descends to man, to draw him up ward to brighter worlds. This
+word transfigures everything, and brings fresh green shoots even from
+the dry wood of souls defrauded of love and hope. Life is a thorny
+rose-bush, and Art its flower. Here Mirth is melancholy--Joy is
+sorrowful and Liberty is dead. Here Art withers and--like an exotic--is
+prevented perishing outright only by artificial culture. But there is a
+land, I know it well, for it is my home--where Art buds and blossoms and
+throws its shade over all the highways. Favorite of Antonio, knight of
+the Word--you must go to Italy!”
+
+Sophonisba had spoken. He must go to Italy. The home of Titian! Raphael!
+Buonarotti! where also the Master went to school.
+
+“Oh, Word, Word!” he cried exultingly in his heart. “What other can
+disclose, even on earth, such a glimpse of the joys of Paradise.”
+
+When he left Sophonisba, he felt as if he were intoxicated.
+
+What still detained him in Madrid?
+
+Moor’s zechins were not yet exhausted, and he was sure of the assistance
+of the “word” upon the sacred soil of Italy.
+
+He unfolded his plan to Coello without delay, at first modestly, then
+firmly and defiantly. But the court-artist would not let him go. He
+knew how to maintain his composure, and even admitted that Ulrich must
+travel, but said it was still too soon. He must first finish the work
+he had undertaken in the riding-school, then he himself would smooth the
+way to Italy for him. To leave him, so heavily burdened, in the lurch
+now, would be treating him ungratefully and basely.
+
+Ulrich was forced to acknowledge this, and continued to paint on the
+scaffold, but his pleasure in creating was spoiled. He thought of
+nothing but Italy.
+
+Every hour in Madrid seemed lost. His lofty purposes were unsettled,
+and he began to seek diversion for his mind, especially at the
+fencing-school with Sanchez Coello.
+
+His eye was keen, his wrist pliant, and his arm was gaining more and
+more of his father’s strength, so he soon performed extraordinary feats.
+
+His remarkable skill, his reserved nature, and the natural charm of his
+manner soon awakened esteem and regard among the young Spaniards, with
+whom he associated.
+
+He was invited to the banquets given by the wealthier ones, and to
+join the wild pranks, in which they sometimes indulged, but spite of
+persuasions and entreaties, always in vain.
+
+Ulrich needed no comrades, and his zechins were sacred to him; he was
+keeping them for Italy.
+
+The others soon thought him an odd, arrogant fellow, with whom no
+friendly ties could be formed, and left him to his own resources. He
+wandered about the streets at night alone, serenaded fair ladies,
+and compelled many gentlemen, who offended him, to meet him in single
+combat.
+
+No one, not even Sanchez Coello, was permitted to know of these
+nocturnal adventures; they were his chief pleasure, stirred his blood,
+and gave him the blissful consciousness of superior strength.
+
+This mode of life increased his self-confidence, and expressed itself in
+his bearing, which gained a touch of the Spanish air. He was now fully
+grown, and when he entered his twentieth year, was taller than most
+Castilians, and carried his head as high as a grandee.
+
+Yet he was dissatisfied with himself, for he made slow progress in his
+art, and cherished the firm conviction that there was nothing more for
+him to learn in Madrid; Coello’s commissions were robbing him of the
+most precious time.
+
+The work in the riding-school was at last approaching completion. It had
+occupied far more than the year in which it was to have been finished,
+and His Majesty’s impatience had become so great, that Coello was
+compelled to leave everything else, to paint only there, and put his
+improving touches to Ulrich’s labor.
+
+The time for departure was drawing near. The hanging-scaffold, on which
+he had lain for months, working on the master’s pictures, had been
+removed, but there was still something to be done to the walls.
+
+Suddenly the court-artist was ordered to suspend the work, and have
+the beams, ladders and boards, which narrowed the space in the
+picadero,--[Riding School]--removed.
+
+The large enclosure was wanted during the next few days for a special
+purpose, and there were new things for Coello to do.
+
+Don Juan of Austria, the king’s chivalrous half-brother, had commenced
+his heroic career, and vanquished the rebellious Moors in Granada. A
+magnificent reception was to be prepared for the young conqueror,
+and Coello received the commission to adorn a triumphal arch with
+hastily-sketched, effective pictures.
+
+The designs were speedily completed, and the triumphal arch erected in
+a court-yard of the Alcazar, for here, within the narrow circle of the
+court, not publicly, before the whole population, had the suspicious
+monarch resolved to receive and honor the victor.
+
+Ulrich had again assisted Coello in the execution of his sketches.
+Everything was finished at the right time, and Don Juan’s reception
+brilliantly carried out with great pomp and dignity, through the whole
+programme of a Te Deum and three services, processions, bull-fights, a
+grand ‘Auto-da-fe’, and a tournament.
+
+After this festival, the king again resigned the riding-school to the
+artists, who instantly set to work. Everything was finished except the
+small figures at the bottom of the larger pictures, and these could be
+executed without scaffolding.
+
+Ulrich was again standing on the ladder, for the first time after this
+interruption, and Coello had just followed him into the picadero, when a
+great bustle was heard outside.
+
+The broad doors flew open, and the manege was soon filled with knights
+and ladies on foot and horseback.
+
+The most brilliant figures in all the stately throng were Don Juan
+himself, and his youthful nephew, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma.
+
+Ulrich feasted his eyes on the splendid train, and the majestic,
+haughty, yet vivacious manner of the conqueror.
+
+Never in his life, he thought, had he seen a more superb youthful
+figure. Don Juan stopped directly opposite to him, and bared his head.
+The thick, fair hair brushed back behind his ears, hung in wonderfully
+soft, waving locks down to his neck, and his features blended feminine
+grace with manly vigor.
+
+As, hat in hand, he swung himself from the saddle, unassisted, to
+greet the fair duchess of Medina Celi, there was such a charm in his
+movements, that the young artist felt inclined to believe all the tales
+related of the successful love affairs of this favorite of fortune, who
+was the son of the Emperor Charles, by a German washerwoman.
+
+Don Juan graciously requested his companion to retire to the back of the
+manege, assisted the ladies from their saddles and, offering his hand to
+the duchess, led her to the dais, then returning to the ring, he issued
+some orders to the mounted officers in his train, and stood conversing
+with the ladies, Alexander Farnese, and the grandees near him.
+
+Loud shouts and the tramp of horses hoofs were now heard outside of the
+picadero, and directly after nine bare-backed horses were led into the
+ring, all selected animals of the best blood of the Andalusian breed,
+the pearls of all the horses Don Juan had captured.
+
+Exclamations and cries of delight echoed through the building, growing
+louder and warmer, when the tenth and last prize, a coal-black young
+stallion, dragged the sinewy Moors that led him, into the ring, and
+rearing lifted them into the air with him.
+
+The brown-skinned young fellows resisted bravely; but Don Juan turning
+to Alexander Farnese, said: “What a superb animal! but alas, alas, he
+has a devilish temper, so we have called him Satan. He will bear neither
+saddle nor rider. How dare I venture... there he rears again.... It is
+quite impossible to offer him to His Majesty. Just look at those eyes,
+those crimson nostrils. A perfect monster!”
+
+“But there cannot be a more beautiful creature!” cried the prince,
+warmly. “That shining black coat, the small head, the neck, the croup,
+the carriage of his tail, the fetlocks and hoofs. Oh, oh, that was
+serious!” The vicious stallion had reared for the third time, pawing
+wildly with his fore-legs, and in so doing struck one of the Moors.
+Shrieking and wailing, the latter fell on the ground, and directly after
+the animal released itself from the second groom, and now dashed freely,
+with mighty leaps, around the course, rushing hither and thither as if
+mad, kicking furiously, and hurling sand and dust into the faces of
+the ladies on the dais. The latter shrieked loudly, and their screams
+increased the animal’s furious excitement. Several gentlemen drew back,
+and the master of the horse loudly ordered the other barebacked steeds
+to be led away.
+
+Don Juan and Alexander Farnese stood still; but the former drew his
+sword, exclaiming, vehemently:
+
+“Santiago! I’ll kill the brute!”
+
+He was not satisfied with words, but instantly rushed upon the stallion;
+the latter avoiding him, bounded now backward, now sideways, at every
+fresh leap throwing sand upon the dais.
+
+Ulrich could remain on the ladder no longer.
+
+Fully aware of his power over refractory horses, he boldly entered the
+ring and walked quietly towards the snorting, foaming steed. Driving the
+animal back, and following him, he watched his opportunity, and as Satan
+turned, reached his side and boldly seized his nostrils firmly with his
+hand.
+
+Satan plunged more and more furiously, but the smith’s son held him as
+firmly as if in a vise, breathed into his nostrils, and stroked his head
+and muzzle, whispering soothing words.
+
+The animal gradually became quieter, tried once more to release himself
+from his tamer’s iron hand, and when he again failed, began to tremble
+and meekly stood still with his fore legs stretched far apart.
+
+“Bravo! Bravamente!” cried the duchess, and praise from such lips
+intoxicated Ulrich. The impulse to make a display, inherited from his
+mother, urged him to take still greater risks. Carefully winding his
+left hand in the stallion’s mane, he released his nostrils and swung
+himself on his back. Taken by surprise Satan tried to rid himself of
+his burden, but the rider sat firm, leaned far over the steed’s neck,
+stroked--his head again, pressed his flanks and, after the lapse of a
+few minutes, guided him merely by the pressure of his thighs first at
+a walk, then at a trot over the track. At last springing off, he patted
+Satan, who pranced peacefully beside him, and led him by the bridle to
+Don Juan.
+
+The latter measured the tall, brave fellow with a hasty glance, and
+turning, half to him, half to Alexander Farnese, said:
+
+“An enviable trick, and admirable performance, by my love!”
+
+Then he approached the stallion, stroked and patted his shining neck,
+and continued:
+
+“I thank you, young man. You have saved my best horse. But for you I
+should have stabbed him. You are an artist?”
+
+“At your service, Your Highness.”
+
+“Your art is beautiful, and you alone know how it suits you. But much
+honor, perhaps also wealth and fame, can be gained among my troopers.
+Will you enlist?”
+
+“No, Your Highness,” replied Ulrich, with a low bow. “If I were not
+an artist, I should like best to be a soldier; but I cannot give up my
+art.”
+
+“Right, right! Yet... do you think your cure of Satan will be lasting;
+or will the dance begin again to-morrow?”
+
+“Perhaps so; but grant me a week, Your Highness, and the swarthy fellows
+can easily manage him. An hour’s training like this every morning, and
+the work will be accomplished. Satan will scarcely be transformed into
+an angel, but probably will become a perfectly steady horse.”
+
+“If you succeed,” replied Don Juan, joyously, “you will greatly
+oblige me. Come to me next week. If you bring good tidings... consider
+meantime, how I can serve you.”
+
+Ulrich did not need to consider long. A week would pass swiftly, and
+then--then the king’s brother should send him to Italy. Even his enemies
+knew that he was liberal and magnanimous.
+
+The week passed away, the horse was tamed and bore the saddle quietly.
+Don Juan received Ulrich’s petition kindly, and invited him to make
+the journey on the admiral’s galley, with the king’s ambassador and his
+secretary, de Soto.
+
+The very same day the happy artist obtained a bill of exchange on a
+house on the Rialto, and now it was settled, he was going to Italy.
+
+Coello was obliged to submit, and his kind heart again showed itself;
+for he wrote letters of introduction for Ulrich to his old artist
+friends in Venice, and induced the king to send the great Titian a
+present--which the ambassador was to deliver. The court-artist obtained
+from the latter a promise to present his pupil Navarrete to the
+grey-Haired prince of artists.
+
+Everything was now ready for departure; Ulrich again packed his
+belongings in the studio, but with very different feelings from the
+first time.
+
+He was a man, he now knew what the right “word” was, life lay open
+before him, and the paradise of Art was about to unclose its gates.
+
+The studies he had finished in Madrid aroused his compassion; in Italy
+he would first really begin to become an artist: there work must bring
+him what it had here denied: satisfaction, success! Gay as a boy, half
+frantic with joy, happiness and expectation, he crushed the sketches,
+which seemed to him too miserable, into the waste-paper basket with a
+maul-stick.
+
+During this work of destruction, Isabella entered the room.
+
+She was now sixteen. Her figure had developed early, but remained
+petite. Large, deep, earnest eyes looked forth from the little round
+face, and the fresh, tiny mouth could not help pleasing everyone. Her
+head now reached only to Ulrich’s breast, and if he had always treated
+her like a dear, sensible, clever child, her small stature had certainly
+been somewhat to blame for it. To-day she was paler than usual and her
+features were so grave, that the young man asked her in surprise, yet
+full of sympathy:
+
+“What is the matter, little one? Are you not well?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” she answered, quickly, “only I must talk with you once more
+alone.”
+
+“Do you wish to hear my confession, Belita?”
+
+“Cease jesting now. I am no longer a child. My heart aches, and I must
+not conceal the cause.”
+
+“Speak, speak! How you look! One might really be alarmed.”
+
+“If I only can! No one here tells you the truth; but I--I love you; so I
+will do it, ere it is too late. Don’t interrupt me now, or I shall lose
+courage, and I will, I must speak.”
+
+“My studies lately have not pleased you; nor me either. Your father....”
+
+“He has led you in false paths, and now you are going to Italy, and when
+you see what the greatest artists have created, you will wish to imitate
+them immediately and forget Meister Moor’s lessons. I know you, Ulrich,
+I know it! But I also know something else, and it must now be said
+frankly. If you allow yourself to be led on to paint pictures, if you do
+not submit to again become a modest pupil, and honestly torment
+yourself with studying, you will make no progress, you will never
+again accomplish a portrait like the one in the old days, like your
+Sophonisba. You will then be no great artist and you can, you must
+become one.”
+
+“I will, Belita, I will!”
+
+“Well, well; but first be a pupil! If I were in your place, I would,
+for aught I care, go to Venice and look about me, but from there I would
+ride to Flanders, to Moor, to the master.”
+
+“Give up Italy? Can you be in earnest? Your father, himself, told me,
+that I... well, yes... in portrait-painting, he too thinks I am no
+blunderer. Where do the Netherlanders go to learn anything new? To
+Italy, always to Italy! What do they create in Flanders? Portraits,
+portraits, nothing more. Moor is great, very great in this department,
+but I take a very different view of art; it has higher aims. My head is
+full of plans. Wait, only wait! In Italy I shall learn to fly, and when
+I have finished my Holy Family and my Temple of Art, with all the skill
+I intend to attain....”
+
+“Then, then, what will happen then?”
+
+“Then you will perhaps change your opinion and cease your tutoring,
+once for all. This fault-finding, this warning vexes me. It spoils
+my pleasure, it clouds my fancy. You are poisoning my happiness,
+you--you... the croaker’s voice is disagreeable to me.”
+
+Isabella sadly bent her head in silence. Ulrich approached her, saying:
+
+“I do not wish to wound you, Belita; indeed, I do not. You mean well,
+and you love me, a poor forsaken fellow; do you not, little girl?”
+
+“Yes, Ulrich, and that is just why I have told you what I think. You are
+rejoicing now in the thought of Italy....”
+
+“Very, very much, unspeakably! There, too, I will remember you, and
+what a dear, faithful, wise little creature you are. Let us part in
+friendship, Isabella. Come with me; that would be the best way!”
+
+The young girl flushed deeply, and made no answer except: “How gladly I
+would!”
+
+The words sounded so affectionate and came so tenderly from the inmost
+depths of the heart, that they entered his soul. And while she spoke,
+her eyes gazed so faithfully, lovingly, and yearningly into his, that he
+saw nothing else. He read in them love, true, self-sacrificing love; not
+like pretty Carmen’s or that given by the ladies, who had thrown flowers
+to him from their balconies. His heart swelled, and when he saw how
+the flush on Isabella’s dear face deepened under his answering glance,
+unspeakable gratitude and joy seized upon him, and he could not help
+clasping her in his arms and drawing her into his embrace.
+
+She permitted it, and when she looked up at him and her soft scarlet
+lips, from which gleamed two rows of dazzling white teeth, bloomed
+temptingly near him, he bent his, he knew not how, towards them. They
+kissed each other again and again, and Isabella flung her little hands
+around his neck, for she could not reach him with her arms, and said
+she had always loved him; he assured her in an agitated voice that he
+believed it, and that there was no better, sweeter, brighter creature
+on earth than she; only he forgot to say that he loved her. She gave, he
+received, and it seemed to him natural.
+
+She saw and felt nothing except him and her happiness; he was wholly
+absorbed by the bliss of being loved and the sweetness of her kiss; so
+neither noticed that Coello had opened the door and watched them for a
+minute, with mingled wrath and pleasure, irresolutely shaking his head.
+
+When the court-artist’s deep voice exclaimed loudly:
+
+“Why, why, these are strange doings!” they hastily started back.
+
+Startled, sobered, confused, Ulrich sought for words, and at last
+stammered:
+
+“We have, we wanted... the farewell.... Coello found no time to
+interrupt him, for his daughter had thrown herself on his breast,
+exclaiming amid tears:
+
+“Forgive us, father-forgive us; he loves me, and I, I love him so
+dearly, and now that we belong to each other, I am no longer anxious
+about him, he will not rest, and when he returns....”
+
+“Enough, enough!” interrupted Coello, pressing his hand upon her mouth.
+“That is why a duenna is kept for the child; and this is my sensible
+Belita! It is of no importance, that yonder youth has nothing, I myself
+courted your mother with only three reales in my pocket, but he cannot
+yet do any really good work, and that alters the case. It is not my way
+to dun debtors, I have been in debt too often myself for that; but you,
+Navarrete, have received many favors from me, when you were badly off,
+and if you are not a scamp, leave the girl in peace and do not see her
+again before your departure. When you have studied in Italy and become
+a real artist, the rest will take care of itself. You are already a
+handsome, well-formed fellow, and my race will not degenerate in you.
+There are very different women in Italy, from this dear little creature
+here. Shut your eyes, and beware of breaking her heart. Your promise!
+Your hand upon it! In a year and a half from to-day come here again,
+show what you can do, and stand the test. If you have become what I
+hope, I’ll give her to you; if not, you can quietly go your way. You
+will make no objection to this, you silly little, love-sick thing. Go to
+your room now, Belita, and you, Navarrete, come with me.”
+
+Ulrich followed the artist to his chamber, where the latter opened a
+chest, in which lay the gold he had earned. He did not know himself, how
+much it was, for it was neither counted, nor entered in books. Grasping
+the ducats, he gave Ulrich two handfuls, exclaiming:
+
+“This one is for your work here, the other to relieve you from any care
+concerning means of living, while pursuing your studies in Venice and
+Florence. Don’t make the child wretched, my lad; if you do, you will
+be a contemptible, dishonorable rascal, a scoundrel, a... but you don’t
+look like a rogue!”
+
+There was a great deal of bustle in Coello’s house that evening. The
+artist’s indolent wife was unusually animated. She could not control her
+surprise and wrath. Isabella had been from childhood a great favorite
+of Herrera, the first architect in Spain, who had already expressed his
+love for the young girl, and now this vagabond pauper, this immature
+boy, had come to destroy the prosperity of her child’s life.
+
+She upbraided Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and
+called him a thoughtless booby. Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal
+out of the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her
+poor, dazzled, innocent daughter’s husband. During the ensuing weeks,
+Senora Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; but
+the painter persisted in his resolution to give Isabella to Ulrich, if
+in a year and a half he returned from Italy a skilful artist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The admiral’s ship, which bore King Philip’s ambassador to Venice,
+reached its destination safely, though it had encountered many severe
+storms on the voyage, during which Ulrich was the only passenger, who
+amid the rolling and pitching of the vessel, remained as well as an old
+sailor.
+
+But, on the other hand his peace of mind was greatly impaired, and any
+one who had watched him leaning over the ship’s bulwark, gazing into the
+sea, or pacing up and down with restless bearing and gloomy eyes, would
+scarcely have suspected that this reserved, irritable youth, who was
+only too often under the dominion of melancholy moods, had won only
+a short time before a noble human heart, and was on the way to the
+realization of his boldest dreams, the fulfilment of his most ardent
+wishes.
+
+How differently he had hoped to enter “the Paradise of Art!”
+
+Never had he been so free, so vigorous, so rich, as in the dawn of the
+day, at whose close he was to unite Isabella’s life with his own--and
+now--now!
+
+He had expected to wander through Italy from place to place as
+untrammelled, gay, and free as the birds in the air; he had desired
+to see, admire, en joy, and after becoming familiar with all the great
+artists, choose a new master among them. Sophonisba’s home was to have
+become his, and it had never entered his mind to limit the period of his
+enjoyment and study on the sacred soil.
+
+How differently his life must now be ordered! Until he went on board of
+the ship in Valencia, the thought of calling a girl so good, sensible
+and loving as Isabella his own, rejoiced and inspired him, but
+during the solitary hours a sea-voyage so lavishly bestows, a strange
+transformation in his feelings occurred.
+
+The wider became the watery expanse between him and Spain, the farther
+receded Isabella’s memory, the less alluring and delightful grew the
+thought of possessing her hand.
+
+He now told himself that, before the fatal hour, he had rejoiced at
+the anticipation of escaping her pedantic criticism, and when he looked
+forward to the future and saw himself, handsome Ulrich Navarrete, whose
+superior height filled the smaller Castilians with envy, walking through
+the streets with his tiny wife, and perceived the smiles of the people
+they met, he was seized with fierce indignation against himself and his
+hard fate.
+
+He felt fettered like the galley-slaves, whose chains rattled and
+clanked, as they pulled at the oars in the ship’s waist. At other times
+he could not help recalling her large, beautiful, love-beaming eyes, her
+soft, red lips, and yearningly confess that it would have been sweet to
+hold her in his arms and kiss her, and, since he had forever lost his
+Ruth, he could find no more faithful, sensible, tender wife than she.
+
+But what should he, the student, the wandering disciple of Art, do with
+a bride, a wife? The best and fairest of her sex would now have seemed
+to him an impediment, a wearisome clog. The thought of being obliged to
+accomplish some fixed task within a certain time, and then be subjected
+to an examination, curbed his enjoyment, oppressed, angered him.
+
+Grey mists gathered more and more densely over the sunny land, for which
+he had longed with such passionate ardor, and it seemed as if in that
+luckless hour, he had been faithless to the “word,”--had deprived
+himself of its assistance forever.
+
+He often felt tempted to send Coello his ducats and tell him he had been
+hasty, and cherished no desire to wed his daughter; but perhaps that
+would break the heart of the poor, dear little thing, who loved him so
+tenderly! He would be no dishonorable ingrate, but bear the consequences
+of his own recklessness.
+
+Perhaps some miracle would happen in Italy, Art’s own domain. Perhaps
+the sublime goddess would again take him to her heart, and exert on him
+also the power Sophonisba had so fervently praised.
+
+The ambassador and his secretary, de Soto, thought Ulrich an unsocial
+dreamer; but nevertheless, after they reached Venice, the latter invited
+him to share his lodgings, for Don Juan had requested him to interest
+himself in the young artist.
+
+What could be the matter with the handsome fellow? The secretary tried
+to question him, but Ulrich did not betray what troubled him, only
+alluding in general terms to a great anxiety that burdened his mind.
+
+“But the time is now coming when the poorest of the poor, the most
+miserable of all forsaken mortals, cast aside their griefs!” cried de
+Soto. “Day after to morrow the joyous Carnival season will begin! Hold
+up your head, young man! Cast your sorrows into the Grand Canal, and
+until Ash-Wednesday, imagine that heaven has fallen upon earth!”
+
+Oh! blue sea, that washes the lagunes, oh! mast-thronged Lido, oh!
+palace of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward
+gazing, mind, oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold
+and paintings, oh! ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble
+palaces, for which the still surface of the placid water serves as a
+mirror, thou square of St. Mark, where, clad in velvet, silk and gold,
+the richest and freest of all races display their magnificence, with
+just pride! Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet
+of stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another,
+inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures
+by peaceful voyages and with shining blades. Oh! thou Rialto, where gold
+is stored, as wheat and rye are elsewhere;--ye proud nobles, ye fair
+dames with luxuriant tresses, whose raven hue pleases ye not, and which
+ye dye as bright golden as the glittering zechins ye squander with such
+small, yet lavish hands! Oh! Venice, Queen of the sea, mother of riches,
+throne of power, hall of fame, temple of art, who could escape thy
+spell!
+
+What wanton Spring is to the earth, thy carnival season is to thee! It
+transforms the magnificence of color of the lagune-city into a dazzling
+radiance, the smiles to Olympic laughter, the love-whispers to exultant
+songs, the noisy, busy life of the mighty commercial city into a mad
+whirlpool, which draws everything into its circle, and releases nothing
+it has once seized.
+
+De Soto urged and pushed the youth, who had already lost his mental
+equipoise, into the midst of the gulf, ere he had found the right
+current.
+
+On the barges, amid the throngs in the streets, at banquets, in
+ball-rooms, at the gaming-table, everywhere, the young, golden-haired,
+superbly-dressed artist, who was on intimate terms with the Spanish
+king’s ambassador, attracted the attention of men, and the eyes,
+curiosity and admiration of the women; though people as yet knew not
+whence he came.
+
+He chose the tallest and most stately of the slender dames of Venice
+to lead in the dance, or through the throng of masks and citizens
+intoxicated with the mirth of the carnival. Whithersoever he led the
+fairest followed.
+
+He wished to enjoy the respite before execution. To forget--to
+forget--to indemnify himself for future seasons of sacrifice, dulness,
+self-conquest, torment.
+
+Poor little Isabella! Your lover sought to enjoy the sensation of
+showing himself to the crowd with the stateliest woman in the company on
+his arm! And you, Ulrich, how did you feel when people exclaimed behind
+you: “A splendid pair! Look at that couple!”
+
+Amid this ecstasy, he needed no helping word, neither “fortune” nor
+“art;” without any magic spell he flew from pleasure to pleasure,
+through every changing scene, thinking only of the present and asking no
+questions about the future.
+
+Like one possessed he plunged into passion’s wild whirl. From the
+embrace of beautiful arms he rushed to the gaming-table, where the
+ducats he flung down soon became a pile of gold; the zechins filled his
+purse to overflowing.
+
+The quickly-won treasure melted like snow in the sun, and returned again
+like stray doves to their open cote.
+
+The works of art were only enjoyed with drunken eyes--yet, once more the
+gracious word exerted its wondrous power on the misguided youth.
+
+On Shrove-Tuesday, the ambassador took Ulrich to the great Titian.
+
+He stood face to face with the mighty monarch of colors, listened to
+gracious words from his lips, and saw the nonogenarian, whose tall
+figure was scarcely bowed, receive the king’s gifts.
+
+Never, never, to the close of his existence could he forget that face!
+
+The features were as delicately and as clearly outlined, as if cut with
+an engraver’s chisel from hard metal; but pallid, bloodless, untinged
+by the faintest trace of color. The long, silver-white beard of the tall
+venerable painter flowed in thick waves over his breast, and the eyes,
+with which he scanned Ulrich, were those of a vigorous, keen-sighted
+man. His voice did not sound harsh, but sad and melancholy; deep sorrow
+shadowed his glance, and stamped itself upon the mouth of him, whose
+thin, aged hand still ensnared the senses easily and surely with gay
+symphonies of color!
+
+The youth answered the distinguished Master’s questions with trembling
+lips, and when Titian invited him to share his meal, and Ulrich, seated
+at the lower end of the table in the brilliant banqueting-hall, was told
+by his neighbors with what great men he was permitted to eat, he felt so
+timid, small, and insignificant, that he scarcely ventured to touch the
+goblets and delicious viands the servants offered.
+
+He looked and listened; distinguishing his old master’s name, and
+hearing him praised without stint as a portrait-painter. He was
+questioned about him, and gave confused answers.
+
+Then the guests rose.
+
+The February sun was shining into the lofty window, where Titian seated
+himself to talk more gaily than before with Paolo Cagliari, Veronese,
+and other great artists and nobles.
+
+Again Ulrich heard Moor mentioned. Then the old man, from whom the youth
+had not averted his eyes for an instant, beckoned, and Cagliari called
+him, saying that he, the gallant Antonio Moor’s pupil, must now show
+what he could do; the Master, Titian, would give him a task.
+
+A shudder ran through his frame; cold drops of perspiration, extorted by
+fear, stood on his brow.
+
+The old man now invited him to accompany his nephew to the studio.
+Daylight would last an hour longer. He might paint a Jew; no usurer nor
+dealer in clothes, but one of the noble race of prophets, disciples,
+apostles.
+
+Ulrich stood before the easel.
+
+For the first time after a long period he again called upon the “word,”
+ and did so fervently, with all his heart. His beloved dead, who in the
+tumult of carnival mirth had vanished from his memory, again rose before
+his mind, among them the doctor, who gazed rebukingly at him with his
+clear, thoughtful eyes.
+
+Like an inspiration a thought darted through the youth’s brain. He could
+and would paint Costa, his friend and teacher, Ruth’s father.
+
+The portrait he had drawn when a boy appeared before his memory, feature
+for feature. A red pencil lay close at hand.
+
+Sketching the outlines with a few hasty strokes, he seized the brush,
+and while hurriedly guiding it and mixing the colors, he saw in fancy
+Costa standing before him, asking him to paint his portrait.
+
+Ulrich had never forgotten the mild expression of the eyes, the smile
+hovering about the delicate lips, and now delineated them as well as
+he could. The moments slipped by, and the portrait gained roundness and
+life. The youth stepped back to see what it still needed, and once more
+called upon the “word” from the inmost depths of his heart; at the same
+instant the door opened, and leaning on a younger painter, Titian, with
+several other artists, entered the studio.
+
+He looked at the picture, then at Ulrich, and said with an approving
+smile: “See, see! Not too much of the Jew, and a perfect apostle!
+A Paul, or with longer hair and a little more youthful aspect, an
+admirable St. John. Well done, well done! my son!”
+
+Well done, well done! These words from Titian had ennobled his work;
+they echoed loudly in his soul, and the measure of his bliss threatened
+to overflow, when no less a personage than the famous Paolo Veronese,
+invited him to come to his studio as a pupil on Saturday.
+
+Enraptured, animated by fresh hope, he threw himself into his gondola.
+
+Everyone had left the palace, where he lodged with de Soto. Who would
+remain at home on the evening of Shrove-Tuesday?
+
+The lonely rooms grew too confined for him.
+
+Quiet days would begin early the next morning, and on Saturday a new,
+fruitful life in the service of the only true word, Art, divine
+Art, would commence for him. He would enjoy this one more evening of
+pleasure, this night of joy; drain it to the dregs. He fancied he had
+won a right that day to taste every bliss earth could give.
+
+Torches, pitch-pans and lamps made the square of St. Mark’s as bright as
+day, and the maskers crowded upon its smooth pavement as if it were the
+floor of an immense ball-room.
+
+Intoxicating music, loud laughter, low, tender whispers, sweet odors
+from the floating tresses of fair women bewildered Ulrich’s senses,
+already confused by success and joy. He boldly accosted every one,
+and if he suspected that a fair face was concealed under a mask, drew
+nearer, touched the strings of a lute, that hung by a purple ribbon
+round his neck, and in the notes of a tender song besought love.
+
+Many a wave of the fan rewarded, many an angry glance from men’s dark
+eyes rebuked the bold wooer. A magnificent woman of queenly height now
+passed, leaning on the arm of a richly-dressed cavalier.
+
+Was not that the fair Claudia, who a short time before had lost enormous
+sums at the gaming-table in the name of the rich Grimani, and who had
+invited Ulrich to visit her later, during Lent?
+
+It was, he could not be mistaken, and now followed the pair like a
+shadow, growing bolder and bolder the more angrily the cavalier rebuffed
+him with wrathful glances and harsh words; for the lady did not cease
+to signify that she recognized him and enjoyed his playing. But the
+nobleman was not disposed to endure this offensive sport. Pausing in the
+middle of the square, he released his arm with a contemptuous gesture,
+saying: “The lute-player, or I, my fair one; you can decide----”
+
+The Venetian laughed loudly, laid her hand on Ulrich’s arm and said:
+“The rest of the Shrove-Tuesday night shall be yours, my merry singer.”
+
+Ulrich joined in her gayety, and taking the lute from his neck, offered
+it to the cavalier, with a defiant gesture, exclaiming:
+
+“It’s at your disposal, Mask; we have changed parts. But please hold it
+firmer than you held your lady.” High play went on in the gaming hall;
+Claudia was lucky with the artist’s gold.
+
+At midnight the banker laid down the cards. It was Ash-Wednesday, the
+hall must be cleared; the quiet Lenten season had begun.
+
+The players withdrew into the adjoining rooms, among them the
+much-envied couple.
+
+Claudia threw herself upon a couch; Ulrich left her to procure a
+gondola.
+
+As soon as he was gone, she was surrounded by a motley throng of
+suitors.
+
+How the beautiful woman’s dark eyes sparkled, how the gems on her
+full neck and dazzling arms glittered, how readily she uttered a witty
+repartee to each gay sally.
+
+“Claudia unaccompanied!” cried a young noble. “The strangest sight at
+this remarkable carnival!”
+
+“I am fasting,” she answered gaily; “and now that I long for meagre
+food, you come! What a lucky chance!”
+
+“Heavy Grimani has also become a very light man, with your assistance.”
+
+“That’s why he flew away. Suppose you follow him?”
+
+“Gladly, gladly, if you will accompany me.”
+
+“Excuse me to-day; there comes my knight.”
+
+Ulrich had remained absent a long time, but Claudia had not noticed
+it. Now he bowed to the gentlemen, offered her his arm, and as they
+descended the staircase, whispered: “The mask who escorted you just now
+detained me;--and there... see, they are picking him up down there in
+the court-yard.--He attacked me....”
+
+“You have--you....”
+
+“‘They came to his assistance immediately. He barred my way with his
+unsheathed blade.”
+
+Claudia hastily drew her hand from the artist’s arm, exclaiming in a
+low, anxious tone: “Go, go, unhappy man, whoever you may be! It was
+Luigi Grimani; it was a Grimani! You are lost, if they find you. Go, if
+you love your life, go at once!”
+
+So ended the Shrove-Tuesday, which had begun so gloriously for the young
+artist. Titian’s “well done” no longer sounded cheerfully in his ears,
+the “go, go,” of the venal woman echoed all the more loudly.
+
+De Soto was waiting for him, to repeat to him the high praise he had
+heard bestowed upon his art-test at Titian’s; but Ulrich heard nothing,
+for he gave the secretary no time to speak, and the latter could only
+echo the beautiful Claudia’s “go, go!” and then smooth the way for his
+flight.
+
+When the morning of Ash-Wednesday dawned cool and misty, Venice
+lay behind the young artist. Unpursued, but without finding rest or
+satisfaction, he went to Parma, Bologna, Pisa, Florence.
+
+Grimani’s death burdened his conscience but lightly. Duelling was a
+battle in miniature, to kill one’s foe no crime, but a victory. Far
+different anxieties tortured him.
+
+Venice, whither the “word” had led him, from which he had hoped and
+expected everything, was lost to him, and with it Titian’s favor and
+Cagliari’s instruction.
+
+He began to doubt himself, his future, the sublime word and its magic
+spell. The greater the works which the traveller’s eyes beheld, the more
+insignificant he felt, the more pitiful his own powers, his own skill
+appeared.
+
+“Draw, draw!” advised every master to whom he applied, as soon as he
+had seen his work. The great men, to whom he offered himself as a pupil,
+required years of persevering study. But his time was limited, for the
+misguided youth’s faithful German heart held firmly to one resolve; he
+must present himself to Coello at the end of the appointed time. The
+happiness of his life was forfeited, but no one should obtain the right
+to call him faithless to his word, or a scoundrel.
+
+In Florence he heard Sebastiano Filippi--who had been a pupil of Michael
+Angelo-praised as a good drawer; so he sought him in Ferrara and found
+him ready to teach him what he still lacked. But the works of the new
+master did not please him. The youth, accustomed to Moor’s wonderful
+clearness, Titian’s brilliant hues, found Filippi’s pictures indistinct,
+as if veiled by grey mists. Yet he forced himself to remain with him for
+months, for he was really remarkably skilful in drawing, and his studio
+never lacked nude models; he needed them for the preliminary studies for
+his “Day of Judgment.”
+
+Without satisfaction, without pleasure in the wearisome work, without
+love for the sickly master, who held aloof from any social intercourse
+with him when the hours of labor were over, he felt discontented, bored,
+disenchanted.
+
+In the evening he sought diversion at the gaming-table, and fortune
+favored him here as it had done in Venice. His purse overflowed with
+zechins; but with the red gold, Art withdrew from him her powerful ally,
+necessity, the pressing need of gaining a livelihood by the exertion of
+his own strength.
+
+He spent the hours appointed for study like a careless lover, and worked
+without inclination, without pleasure, without ardor, yet with visible
+increase of skill.
+
+In gambling he forgot what tortured him, it stirred his blood, dispelled
+weariness; the gold was nothing to him.
+
+The lion’s share of his gains he loaned to broken gamblers, without
+expectation of return, gave to starving artists, or flung with lavish
+hand to beggars.
+
+So the months in Ferrara glided by, and when the allotted time was over,
+he took leave of Sebastiano Filippi without regret. He returned by sea
+to Spain, and arrived in Madrid richer than he had gone away, but with
+impoverished confidence in his own powers, and doubting the omnipotence
+of Art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Ulrich again stood before the Alcazar, and recalled the hour when, a
+poor lad, just escaped from prison, he had been harshly rebuffed by
+the same porter, who now humbly saluted the young gentleman attired in
+costly velvet.
+
+And yet how gladly he would have crossed this threshold poor as in those
+days, but free and with a soul full of enthusiasm and hope; how joyfully
+he would have effaced from his life the years that lay between that time
+and the present.
+
+He dreaded meeting the Coellos; nothing but honor urged him to present
+himself to them.
+
+Yes--and if the old man rejected him?--so much the better!
+
+The old cheerful confusion reigned in the studio. He had a long time to
+wait there, and then heard through several doors Senora Petra’s scolding
+voice and her husband’s angry replies.
+
+At last Coello came to him and after greeting him, first formally, then
+cordially, and enquiring about his health and experiences, he shrugged
+his shoulders, saying:
+
+“My wife does not wish you to see Isabella again before the trial.
+You must show what you can do, of course; but I.... you look well and
+apparently have collected reales. Or is it true,” and he moved his hand
+as if shaking a dice-box. “He who wins is a good fellow, but we want no
+more to do with such people here! You find me the same as of old, and
+you have returned at the right time, that is something. De Soto has told
+me about your quarrel in Venice. The great masters were pleased with
+you and this, you Hotspur, you forfeited! Ferrara for Venice! A poor
+exchange. Filippi--understands drawing; but otherwise.... Michael
+Angelo’s pupil! Does he still write on his back? Every monk is God’s
+servant, but in how few does the Lord dwell! What have you drawn with
+Sebastiano?”
+
+Ulrich answered these questions in a subdued tone; and Coello listened
+with only partial attention, for he heard his wife telling the duenna
+Catalina in an adjoining room what she thought of her husband’s conduct.
+She did so very loudly, for she wished to be overheard by him and
+Ulrich. But she was not to obtain her purpose, for Coello suddenly
+interrupted the returned travellers story, saying:
+
+“This is getting beyond endurance. If she does her utmost, you shall
+see Isabella. A welcome, a grasp of the hand, nothing more. Poor young
+lovers! If only it did not require such a confounded number of things to
+live.... Well, we will see!”
+
+As soon as the artist had entered the adjoining room, a new and more
+violent quarrel arose there, but, though Senora Petra finally called a
+fainting-fit to her aid, her husband remained firm, and at last returned
+to the studio with Isabella.
+
+Ulrich had awaited her, as a criminal expects his sentence. Now she
+stood before him led by her father’s hand-and he, he struck his forehead
+with his fist, closed his eyes and opened them again to look at her--to
+gaze as if he beheld a wondrous apparition. Then feeling as if he should
+die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew
+not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save
+“I... I--I,” then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a madman:
+
+“You don’t know! I am not.... Give me time, master. Here, here, girl,
+you must, you shall, all must not be over!”
+
+He had opened his arms wide, and now hastily approached her with the
+eager look of the gambler, who has staked his last penny on a card.
+
+Coello’s daughter did not obey.
+
+She was no longer little, unassuming Belita; here stood no child, but
+a beautiful, blooming maiden. In eighteen months her figure had gained
+height; anxious yearning and constant contention with her mother had
+wasted her superabundance of flesh; her face had become oval, her
+bearing self-possessed. Her large, clear eyes now showed their full
+beauty, her half-developed features had acquired exquisite symmetry, and
+her raven-black hair floated, like a shining ornament, around her pale,
+charming face.
+
+“Happy will be the man, who is permitted to call this woman his own!”
+ cried a voice in the youth’s breast, but another voice whispered “Lost,
+lost, forfeited, trifled away!”
+
+Why did she not obey his call? Why did she not rush into his open arms?
+Why, why?
+
+He clenched his fists, bit his lips, for she did not stir, except to
+press closely to her father’s side.
+
+This handsome, splendidly-dressed gentleman, with the pointed beard,
+deep-set eyes, and stern, gloomy gaze, was an entirely different person
+from the gay enthusiastic follower of art, for whom her awakening heart
+had first throbbed more quickly; this was not the future master, who
+stood before her mind as a glorious favorite of fortune and the muse,
+transfigured by joyous creation and lofty success--this defiant giant
+did not look like an artist. No, no; yonder man no longer resembled the
+Ulrich, to whom, in the happiest hour of her life, she had so willingly,
+almost too willingly, offered her pure lips.
+
+Isabella’s young heart contracted with a chill, yet she saw that he
+longed for her; she knew, could not deny, that she had bound herself to
+him body and soul, and yet--yet, she would so gladly have loved him.
+
+She strove to speak, but could find no words, save “Ulrich, Ulrich,” and
+these did not sound gay and joyous, but confused and questioning.
+
+Coello felt her fingers press his shoulder closer and closer. She was
+surely seeking protection and aid from him, to keep her promise and
+resist her lover’s passionate appeal.
+
+Now his darling’s eyes filled with tears, and he felt the tremor of her
+limbs.
+
+Softened by affectionate weakness and no longer able to resist the
+impulse to see his little Belita happy, he whispered:
+
+“Poor thing, poor young lovers! Do as you choose, I won’t look.”
+
+But Isabella did not leave him; she only drew herself up higher,
+summoned all her courage and looking the returned traveller more
+steadily in the face, said:
+
+“You are so changed, so entirely changed, Ulrich I cannot tell what has
+come over me. I have anticipated this hour day and night, and now it is
+here;--what is this? What has placed itself between us?”
+
+“What, indeed!” he indignantly exclaimed, advancing towards her with a
+threatening air. “What? Surely you must know! Your mother has destroyed
+your regard for the poor bungler. Here I stand! Have I kept my promise,
+yes or no? Have I become a monster, a venomous serpent? Do not look at
+me so again, do not! It will do no good; to you or me. I will not allow
+myself to be trifled with!”
+
+Ulrich had shouted these words, as if some great injustice had been done
+him, and he believed himself in the right.
+
+Coello tried to release himself from his daughter, to confront the
+passionately excited man, but she held him back, and with a pale face
+and trembling voice, but proud and resolute manner, answered:
+
+“No one has trifled with you, I least of all; my love has been earnest,
+sacred earnest.”
+
+“Earnest!” interrupted Ulrich, with cutting irony.
+
+“Yes, yes, sacred earnest;--and when my mother told me you had killed a
+man and left Venice for a worthless woman’s sake, when it was rumored,
+that in Ferrara you had become a gambler, I thought: ‘I know him better,
+they are slandering him to destroy the love you bear in your heart.’ I
+did not believe it; but now I do. I believe it, and shall do so, till
+you have withstood your trial. For the gambler I am too good, to the
+artist Navarrete I will joyfully keep my promise. Not a word, I will
+hear no more. Come, father! If he loves me, he will understand how to
+win me. I am afraid of this man.”
+
+Ulrich now knew who was in fault, and who in the right. Strong impulse
+urged him away from the studio, away from Art and his betrothed bride;
+for he had forfeited all the best things in life.
+
+But Coello barred his way. He was not the man, for the sake of a brawl
+and luck at play, to break friendship with the faithful companion, who
+had shown distinctly enough how fondly he loved his darling. He had
+hidden behind these bushes himself in his youth, and yet become a
+skilful artist and good husband.
+
+He willingly yielded to his wife in small matters, in important ones
+he meant to remain master of the house. Herrera was a great scholar and
+artist, but an insignificant man; and he allowed himself to be paid
+like a bungler. Ulrich’s manly beauty had pleased him, and under his,
+Coello’s teaching, he would make his mark. He, the father knew better
+what suited Isabella than she herself. Girls do not sob so bitterly
+as she had done, as soon as the door of the studio closed behind her,
+unless they are in love.
+
+Whence did she obtain this cool judgment? Certainly not from him, far
+less from her mother.
+
+Perhaps she only wished to arouse Navarrete to do his best at the trial.
+Coello smiled; it was in his power to judge mildly.
+
+So he detained Ulrich with cheering words, and gave him a task in which
+he could probably succeed. He was to paint a Madonna and Child, and two
+months were allowed him for the work. There was a studio in the Casa
+del Campo, he could paint there and need only promise never to visit the
+Alcazar before the completion of the work.
+
+Ulrich consented. Isabella must be his. Scorn for scorn!
+
+She should learn which was the stronger.
+
+He knew not whether he loved or hated her, but her resistance had
+passionately inflamed his longing to call her his. He was determined,
+by summoning all his powers, to create a masterpiece. What Titian had
+approved must satisfy a Coello! so he began the task.
+
+A strong impulse urged him to sketch boldly and without long
+consideration, the picture of the Madonna, as it had once lived in his
+soul, but he restrained himself, repeating the warning words which had
+so often been dinned into his ears: Draw, draw!
+
+A female model was soon found; but instead of trusting his eyes and
+boldly reproducing what he beheld, he measured again and again, and
+effaced what the red pencil had finished. While painting his courage
+rose, for the hair, flesh, and dress seemed to him to become true to
+nature and effective. But he, who in better times had bound himself
+heart and soul to Art and served her with his whole soul, in this
+picture forced himself to a method of work, against which his inmost
+heart rebelled. His model was beautiful, but he could read nothing
+in the regular features, except that they were fair, and the lifeless
+countenance became distasteful to him. The boy too caused him great
+trouble, for he lacked appreciation of the charm of childish innocence,
+the spell of childish character.
+
+Meantime he felt great secret anxiety. The impulse that moved his brush
+was no longer the divine pleasure in creation of former days, but dread
+of failure, and ardent, daily increasing love for Isabella.
+
+Weeks elapsed.
+
+Ulrich lived in the lonely little palace to which he had retired,
+avoiding all society, toiling early and late with restless, joyless
+industry, at a work which pleased him less with every new day.
+
+Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park. Once the Emperor’s
+son called to him:
+
+“Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?”
+
+But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its
+omnipotence. The nearer the second month approached its close, the more
+frequently, the more fervently he called upon the “word,” but it did not
+hear.
+
+When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek
+brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield,
+and to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole
+hours, till the sacristan put out the lights.
+
+He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
+humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
+him.
+
+Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
+fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they
+were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the
+gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.
+
+One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted
+time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted
+into his brain like a revelation.
+
+A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.
+
+What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.
+
+Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been
+fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?
+
+He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
+remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette’s joyous expression,
+while the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth
+of the musician’s daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin’s lips.
+
+Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
+resembled his own!
+
+The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
+bright the painting seemed. He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
+transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
+Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams
+behind the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the
+Handsome nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother’s lap to set
+him on their shoulders.
+
+Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the “joyous art,” in whose
+honor Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian’s banquets, started up,
+drained a glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window
+into the canal.
+
+He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
+against Isabella. She had led him back into the right path, and it would
+be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
+gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.
+
+One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
+Madonna was completed.
+
+The Spanish artist appeared at noon, but did not come alone, and the
+man, who preceded him, was no less important a personage than the king
+himself.
+
+With throbbing heart, unable to utter a single word, Ulrich opened
+the door of the studio, bowing low before the monarch, who without
+vouchsafing him a single glance, walked solemnly to the painting.
+
+Coello drew aside the cloth that covered it, and the sarcastic chuckle
+Ulrich had so often heard instantly echoed from the king’s lips; then
+turning to Coello he angrily exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the
+young artist:
+
+“Scandalous! Insulting, offensive botchwork! A Bacchante in the garb of
+a Madonna! And the child! Look at those legs! When he grows up, he may
+become a dancing-master. He who paints such Madonnas should drop his
+colors! His place is the stable--among refractory horses.”
+
+Coello could make no reply, but the king, glancing at the picture again,
+cried wrathfully:
+
+“A Christian’s work, a Christian’s! What does the reptile who painted
+this know of the mother, the Virgin, the stainless lily, the thornless
+rose, the path by which God came to men, the mother of sorrow, who
+bought the world with her tears, as Christ did with His sacred blood. I
+have seen enough, more than enough! Escovedo is waiting for me outside!
+We will discuss the triumphal arch to-morrow!”
+
+Philip left the studio, the court-artist accompanying him to the door.
+
+When he returned, the unhappy youth was still standing in the same
+place, gazing, panting for breath, at his condemned work.
+
+“Poor fellow!” said Coello, compassionately, approaching him; but Ulrich
+interrupted, gasping in broken accents:
+
+“And you, you? Your verdict!”
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders and answered with sincere pity:
+
+“His Majesty is not indulgent; but come here and look yourself. I will
+not speak of the child, though it.... In God’s name, let us leave it as
+it is. The picture impresses me as it did the king, and the Madonna--I
+grieve to say it, she belongs anywhere rather than in Heaven. How
+often this subject is painted! If Meister Antonio, if Moor should see
+this....”
+
+“Then, then?” asked Ulrich, his eyes glowing with a gloomy fire.
+
+“He would compel you to begin at the beginning once more. I am sincerely
+sorry for you, and not less so for poor Belita. My wife will triumph!
+You know I have always upheld your cause; but this luckless work....”
+
+“Enough!” interrupted the youth. Rushing to the picture, he thrust his
+maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.
+
+Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with
+kindly words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:
+
+“It is all over with art, all over. A Dios, Master! Your daughter does
+not care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do
+with each other.”
+
+At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last
+held out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.
+
+The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured
+in an agitated, trembling voice:
+
+“Forgive this raving.... It is only.. I only feel, as if I was bearing
+all that had been dear to me to the grave. Thanks, Master, thanks
+for many kindnesses. I am, I have--my heart--my brain, everything is
+confused. I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me and
+I, I have--it will kill me yet! Good fortune gone! Art gone! A Dios,
+treacherous world! A Dios, divine art!”
+
+As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist’s
+grasp, rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his
+lips to the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture;
+then he dashed past Coello into the street.
+
+The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
+park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.
+
+Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
+She had stood there a long, long time.
+
+“Father!” she called.
+
+Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
+compassionately waving his hand.
+
+The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when
+the artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark
+eyes, which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and
+said in a low, firm tone:
+
+“I want to speak to him. You will take me to the picture. I must see
+it.”
+
+“He has thrust his maul-stick through it. Believe me, child, you would
+have condemned it yourself.”
+
+“And yet, yet! I must see it,” she answered earnestly, “see it
+with these eyes. I feel, I know--he is an artist. Wait, I’ll get my
+mantilla.”
+
+Isabella hurried back with flying feet, and when a short time after,
+wearing the black lace kerchief on her head, she descended the staircase
+by her father’s side, the private secretary de Soto came towards them,
+exclaiming:
+
+“Do you want to hear the latest news, Coello? Your pupil Navarrete has
+become faithless to you and the noble art of painting. Don Juan gave him
+the enlistment money fifteen minutes ago. Better be a good trooper, than
+a mediocre artist! What is the matter, Senorita?”
+
+“Nothing, nothing,” Isabella murmured gently, and fell fainting on her
+father’s breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Two years had passed. A beautiful October day was dawning; no cloud
+dimmed the azure sky, and the sun’s disk rose, glowing crimson, behind
+the narrow strait, that afforded ingress to the Gulf of Corinth.
+
+The rippling waves of the placid sea, which here washed the sunny shores
+of Hellas, yonder the shady coasts of the Peloponnesus, glittered like
+fresh blooming blue-bottles.
+
+Bare, parched rocks rise in naked beauty at the north of the bay, and
+the rays of the young day-star shot golden threads through the light
+white mists, that floated around them.
+
+The coast of Morea faces the north; so dense shadows still rested on the
+stony olive-groves and the dark foliage of the pink laurel and oleander
+bushes, whose dense clumps followed the course of the stream and filled
+the ravines.
+
+How still, how pleasant it usually was here in the early morning!
+
+White sea-gulls hovered peacefully over the waves, a fishing-boat or
+galley glided gently along, making shining furrows in the blue mirror
+of the water; but today the waves curled under the burden of countless
+ships, to-day thousands of long oars lashed the sea, till the surges
+splashed high in the air with a wailing, clashing sound. To-day there
+was a loud clanking, rattling, roaring on both sides of the water-gate,
+which afforded admittance to the Bay of Lepanto.
+
+The roaring and shouting reverberated in mighty echoes from the bare
+northern cliffs, but were subdued by the densely wooded southern shore.
+
+Two vast bodies of furious foes confronted each other like wrestlers,
+who stretch their sinewy arms to grasp and hurl their opponents to the
+ground.
+
+Pope Pius the Fifth had summoned Christianity to resist the
+land-devouring power of the Ottomans. Cyprus, Christian Cyprus, the last
+province Venice possessed in the Levant, had fallen into the hands
+of the Moslems. Spain and Venice had formed an alliance with Christ’s
+vicegerent; Genoese, other Italians, and the Knights of St. John were
+assembling in Messina to aid the league.
+
+The finest and largest Christian armada, which had left a Christian
+port for a long time, put forth to sea from this harbor. In spite of
+all intrigues, King Philip had entrusted the chief command to his young
+half-brother, Don Juan of Austria.
+
+The Ottomans too had not been idle, and with twelve myriads of soldiers
+on three hundred ships, awaited the foe in the Gulf of Lepanto.
+
+Don Juan made no delay. The Moslems had recently murdered thousands of
+Christians at Cyprus, an outrage the fiery hero could not endure, so he
+cast to the winds the warnings and letters of counsel from Madrid,
+which sought to curb his impetuous energy, his troops, especially the
+Venetians, were longing for vengeance.
+
+But the Moslems were no less eager for the fray, and at the close of his
+council-of-war, and contrary to its decision, Kapudan Pacha sailed to
+meet the enemy.
+
+On the morning of October 7th every ship, every man was ready for
+battle.
+
+The sun appeared, and from the Spanish ships musical bell-notes rose
+towards heaven, blending with the echoing chant: “Allahu akbar, allahu
+akbar, allahu akbar,” and the devout words: “There is no God save Allah,
+and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah; to prayer!”
+
+“To prayer!” The iron tongue of the bell uttered the summons, as well
+as the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the
+worshippers to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead
+of a ship. On both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and
+Christians thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One heard
+them.
+
+The bells and chanting died away, and a swift galley with Don Juan on
+board, moved from ship to ship. The young hero, holding a crucifix in
+his hand, shouted encouraging words to the Christian soldiers.
+
+The blare of trumpets, roll of drums, and shouts of command echoed from
+the rocky shores.
+
+The armada moved forward, the admiral’s galley, with Don Juan, at its
+head.
+
+The Turkish fleet advanced to meet it.
+
+The young lion no longer asked the wise counsel of the experienced
+admiral. He desired nothing, thought of nothing, issued no orders,
+except “forward,” “attack,” “board,” “kill,” “sink,” “destroy!”
+
+The hostile fleets clashed into the fight as bulls, bellowing sullenly,
+rush upon each other with lowered heads and bloodshot eyes.
+
+Who, on this day of vengeance, thought of Marco Antonio Colonna’s plan
+of battle, or the wise counsels of Doria, Venieri, Giustiniani?
+
+Not the clear brain and keen eye--but manly courage and strength would
+turn the scale to-day. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, had joined
+his young uncle a short time before, and now commanded a squadron of
+Genoese ships in the front. He was to keep back till Doria ordered
+him to enter the battle. But Don Juan had already boarded the vessel
+commanded by the Turkish admiral, scaled the deck, and with a heavy
+sword-stroke felled Kapudan Pacha. Alexander witnessed the scene, his
+impetuous, heroic courage bore him on, and he too ordered: “Forward!”
+
+What was the huge ship he was approaching? The silver crescent decked
+its scarlet pennon, rows of cannon poured destruction from its sides,
+and its lofty deck was doubly defended by bearded wearers of the turban.
+
+It was the treasure-galley of the Ottoman fleet. It would be a gallant
+achievement could the prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of
+the foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of
+its crew, than Farnese’s vessel. What did he care, what recked he of the
+shower of bullets and tar-hoops that awaited him?
+
+Up and at them.
+
+Doria made warning signals, but the prince paid no heed, he would
+neither see nor hear them.
+
+Brave soldiers fell bleeding and gasping on the deck beside him, his
+mast was split and came crashing down. “Who’ll follow me?” he shouted,
+resting his hand on the bulwark.
+
+The tried Spanish warriors, with whom Don Juan had manned his vessel,
+hesitated. Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging
+over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the
+tall youth’s eyes.
+
+Every one on board knew the fair-haired giant. It was the favorite of
+the commander in chief--it was Navarrete, who in the war against the
+Moors of Cadiz and Baza had performed many an envied deed of valor. His
+arm seemed made of steel; he valued his life no more than one of the
+plumes in his helmet, and risked it in battle as recklessly as he did
+his zechins at the gaming-table.
+
+Here, as well as there, he remained the winner.
+
+No one knew exactly whence he came as he never mentioned his family,
+for he was a reserved, unsocial man; but on the voyage to Lepanto he
+had formed a friendship with a sick soldier, Don Miguel Cervantes. The
+latter could tell marvellous tales, and had his own peculiar opinions
+about everything between heaven and earth.
+
+Navarrete, who carried his head as high as the proudest grandee, devoted
+every leisure hour to his suffering comrade, uniting the affection of a
+brother, with the duties of a servant.
+
+It was known that Navarrete had once been an artist, and he seemed
+one of the most fervent of the devout Castilians, for he entered every
+church and chapel the army passed, and remained standing a long, long
+time before many a Madonna and altar-painting as if spellbound.
+
+Even the boldest dared not attack him, for death hovered over his sword,
+yet his heart had not hardened. He gave winnings and booty with lavish
+hand, and every beggar was sure of assistance.
+
+He avoided women, but sought the society of the sick and wounded, often
+watching all night beside the couch of some sorely-injured comrade, and
+this led to the rumor that he liked to witness death.
+
+Ah, no! The heart of the proud, lonely man only sought a place where it
+might be permitted to soften; the soldier, bereft of love, needed some
+nook where he could exercise on others what was denied to himself:
+“devoted affection.”
+
+Alexander Farnese recognized in Navarrete the horse-tamer of the
+picadero in Madrid; he nodded approvingly to him, and mounted the
+bulwark. But the other did not follow instantly, for his friend Don
+Miguel had joined him, and asked to share the adventure. Navarrete and
+the captain strove to dissuade the sick man, but the latter suddenly
+felt cured of his fever, and with flashing eyes insisted on having his
+own way.
+
+Ulrich did not wait for the end of the dispute, for Farnese was now
+springing into the hostile ship, and the former, with a bold leap,
+followed.
+
+Alexander, like himself, carried a two-Banded sword, and both swung
+them as mowers do their scythes. They attacked, struck, felled, and
+the foremost foes shrank from the grim destroyers. Mustapha Pacha, the
+treasurer and captain of the galley, advanced in person to confront the
+terrible Christians, and a sword-stroke from Alexander shattered the
+hand that held the curved sabre, a second stretched the Moslem on the
+deck.
+
+But the Turks’ numbers were greatly superior and threatened to crush the
+heroes, when Don Miguel Cervantes, Ulrich’s friend, appeared with
+twelve fresh soldiers on the scene of battle, and cut their way to the
+hard-pressed champions. Other Spanish and Genoese warriors followed and
+the fray became still more furious.
+
+Ulrich had been forced far away from his royal companion-in-arms, and
+was now swinging his blade beside his invalid friend. Don Miguel’s
+breast was already bleeding from two wounds, and he now fell by Ulrich’s
+side; a bullet had broken his left arm.
+
+Ulrich stooped and raised him; his men surrounded him, and the Turks
+were scattered, as the tempest sweeps clouds from the mountain.
+
+Don Miguel tried to lift the sword, which had dropped from his grasp,
+but he only clutched the empty air, and raising his large eyes as if
+in ecstasy, pressed his hand upon his bleeding breast, exclaiming
+enthusiastically: “Wounds are stars; they point the way to the heaven of
+fame-of-fame....”
+
+His senses failed, and Ulrich bore him in his strong aims to a part of
+the treasure-ship, which was held by Genoese soldiers. Then he rushed
+into the fight again, while in his ears still rang his friend’s fervid
+words:
+
+“The heaven of fame!”
+
+That was the last, the highest aim of man! Fame, yes surely fame was the
+“word”; it should henceforth be his word!
+
+It seemed as if a gloomy multitude of heavy thunderclouds had gathered
+over the still, blue arm of the sea. The stifling smoke of powder
+darkened the clear sky like black vapors, while flashes of lightning and
+peals of thunder constantly illumined and shook the dusky atmosphere.
+
+Here a magazine flew through the air, there one ascended with a fierce
+crash towards the sky. Wails of pain and shouts of victory, the blare
+of trumpets, the crash of shattered ships and falling masts blended in
+hellish uproar.
+
+The sun’s light was obscured, but the gigantic frames of huge burning
+galleys served for torches to light the combatants.
+
+When twilight closed in, the Christians had gained a decisive victory.
+Don Juan had killed the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman force, Ali
+Pacha, as Farnese hewed down the treasurer. Uncle and nephew emerged
+from the battle as heroes worthy of renown, but the glory of this
+victory clung to Don Juan’s name.
+
+Farnese’s bold assault was kindly rebuked by the commander-in-chief,
+and when the former praised Navarrete’s heroic aid before Don Juan,
+the general gave the bold warrior and gallant trooper, the honorable
+commission of bearing tidings of the victory to the king. Two galleys
+stood out to sea in a westerly direction at the same time: a Spanish
+one, bearing Don Juan’s messenger, and a Venetian ship, conveying the
+courier of the Republic.
+
+The rowers of both vessels had much difficulty in forcing a way through
+the wreckage, broken masts and planks, the multitude of dead bodies and
+net work of cordage, which covered the surface of the water; but even
+amid these obstacles the race began.
+
+The wind and sea were equally favorable to both galleys; but the
+Venetians outstripped the Spaniards and dropped anchor at Alicante
+twenty-four hours before the latter.
+
+It was the rider’s task, to make up for the time lost by the sailors.
+The messenger of the Republic was far in advance of the general’s.
+Everywhere that Ulrich changed horses, displaying at short intervals
+the prophet’s banner, which he was to deliver to the king as the fairest
+trophy of victory--it was inscribed with Allah’s name twenty-eight
+thousand nine hundred times--he met rejoicing throngs, processions, and
+festal decorations.
+
+Don Juan’s name echoed from the lips of men and women, girls and
+children. This was fame, this was the omnipresence of a god; there could
+be no higher aspiration for him, who had obtained such honor.
+
+Fame, fame! again echoed in Ulrich’s soul; if there is a word, which
+raises a man above himself and implants his own being in that of
+millions of fellow-creatures, it is this.
+
+And now he urged one steed after another until it broke down, giving
+himself no rest even at night; half an hour’s ride outside of Madrid he
+overtook the Venetian, and passed by him with a courteous greeting.
+
+The king was not in the capital, and he went on without delay to the
+Escurial.
+
+Covered with dust, splashed from head to foot with mud, bruised,
+tortured as if on the rack, he clung to the saddle, yet never ceased to
+use whip and spur, and would trust his message to no other horseman.
+
+Now the barren peaks of the Guadarrama mountains lay close before him,
+now he reached the first workshops, where iron was being forged for the
+gigantic palace in process of building. How many chimneys smoked, how
+many hands were toiling for this edifice, which was to comprise a royal
+residence, a temple, a peerless library, a museum and a tomb.
+
+Numerous carts and sledges, on which blocks of light grey granite had
+been drawn hither, barred his way. He rode around them at the peril of
+falling with his horse over a precipice, and now found himself before
+a labyrinth of scaffolds and free-stone, in the midst of a wild, grey,
+treeless mountain valley. What kind of a man was this, who had chosen
+this desert for his home, in life as well as in death! The Escurial
+suited King Philip, as King Philip suited the Escurial. Here he felt
+most at ease, from here the royal spider ceaselessly entangled the world
+in his skilful nets.
+
+His majesty was attending vespers in the scarcely completed chapel. The
+chief officer of the palace, Fray Antonio de Villacastin, seeing
+Ulrich slip from his horse, hastened to receive the tottering soldier’s
+tidings, and led him to the church.
+
+The ‘confiteor’ had just commenced, but Fray Antonio motioned to the
+priests, who interrupted the Mass, and Ulrich, holding the prophet’s
+standard high aloft, exclaimed: “An unparalleled victory!--Don Juan ...
+October 7th...! at Lepanto--the Ottoman navy totally destroyed...!”
+
+Philip heard this great news and saw the standard, but seemed to have
+neither eyes nor ears; not a muscle in his face stirred, no movement
+betrayed that anything was passing in his mind. Murmuring in a
+sarcastic, rather than a joyous tone: “Don Juan has dared much,” he gave
+a sign, without opening the letter, to continue the Mass, remaining on
+his knees as if nothing had disturbed the sacred rite.
+
+The exhausted messenger sank into a pew and did not wake from his
+stupor, until the communion was over and the king had ordered a Te Deum
+for the victory of Lepanto.
+
+Then he rose, and as he came out of the pew a newly-married couple
+passed him, the architect, Herrera, and Isabella Coello, radiant in
+beauty.
+
+Ulrich clenched his fist, and the thought passed through his mind,
+that he would cast away good-fortune, art and fame as carelessly as
+soap-bubbles, if he could be in Herrera’s place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+What fame is--Ulrich was to learn!
+
+He saw in Messina the hero of Lepanto revered as a god. Wherever the
+victor appeared, fair hands strewed flowers in his path, balconies and
+windows were decked with hangings, and exulting women and girls, joyous
+children and grave men enthusiastically shouted his name and flung
+laurel-wreaths and branches to him. Messages, congratulations and gifts
+arrived from all the monarchs and great men of the world.
+
+When he saw the wonderful youth dash by, Ulrich marvelled that his steed
+did not put forth wings and soar away with him into the clouds. But he
+too, Navarrete, had done his duty, and was to enjoy the sweetness of
+renown. When he appeared on Don Juan’s most refractory steed, among
+the last of the victor’s train, he felt that he was not overlooked, and
+often heard people tell each other of his deeds.
+
+This made him raise his head, swelled his heart, urged him into new
+paths of fame.
+
+The commander-in-chief also longed to press forward, but found himself
+condemned to inactivity, while he saw the league dissolve, and the fruit
+of his victory wither. King Philip’s petty jealousy opposed his wishes,
+poisoned his hopes, and barred the realization of his dreams.
+
+Don Juan was satiated with fame. “Power” was the food for which he
+longed. The busy spider in the Escurial could not deprive him of the
+laurel, but his own “word,” his highest ambition in life, his power, he
+would consent to share with no mortal man, not even his brother.
+
+“Laurels are withering leaves, power is arable land,” said Don Juan to
+Escovedo.
+
+It befits an emperor’s son, thought Ulrich, to cherish such lofty
+wishes; to men of lower rank fame can remain the guiding star on life’s
+pathway.
+
+The elite of the army was in the Netherlands; there he could find what
+he desired.
+
+Don Juan let him go, and when fame was the word, Ulrich had no cause to
+complain of its ill-will.
+
+He bore the standard of the proud “Castilian” regiment, and when strange
+troops met him as he entered a city, one man whispered to another: “That
+is Navarrete, who was in the van at every assault on Haarlem, who, when
+all fell back before Alkmaar, assailed the walls again, it was not his
+fault that they were forced to retreat... he turned the scale with his
+men on Mook-Heath... have you heard the story? How, when struck by two
+bullets, he wrapped the banner around him, and fell with, and on it,
+upon the grass.”
+
+And now, when with the rebellious army he had left the island of
+Schouwen behind him and was marching through Brabant, it was said:
+
+“Navarrete! It was he, who led the way for the Spaniards with the
+standard on his head, when they waded through the sea that stormy night,
+to surprise Zierikzee.”
+
+Whoever bore arms in the Netherlands knew his name; but the citizens
+also knew who he was, and clenched their fists when they spoke of him.
+
+On the battle-field, in the water, on the ice, in the breaches of
+their firm walls, in burning cities, in streets and alleys, in
+council-chambers and plundered homes, he had confronted them as
+a murderer and destroyer. Yet, though the word fame had long been
+embittered to him, the inhumanity which clung to his deeds had the least
+share in it.
+
+He was the servant of his monarch, nothing more. All who bore the name
+of Netherlander were to him rebels and heretics, condemned by God,
+sentenced by his king; not worthy peasants, skilful, industrious
+citizens, noble men, who were risking property and life for religion and
+liberty.
+
+This impish crew disdained to pray to the merciful mother of God and the
+saints, these temple violators had robbed the churches of their statues,
+driven the pious monks and nuns from their cloisters! They called the
+Pope the Anti-Christ, and in every conquered city he found satirical
+songs and jeering verses about his lord, the king, his generals and all
+Spaniards.
+
+He had kept the faith of his childhood, which was shared by every
+one who bore arms with him, and had easily obtained absolution, nay,
+encouragement and praise, for the most terrible deeds of blood.
+
+In battle, in slaughter, when his wounds burned, in plundering, at the
+gaming-table, everywhere he called upon the Holy Virgin, and also, but
+very rarely, on the “word,” fame.
+
+He no longer believed in it, for it did not realize what he had
+anticipated. The laurel now rustled on his curls like withered leaves.
+Fame would not fill the void in his heart, failed to satisfy his
+discontented mind; power offered the lonely man no companionship of
+the soul, it could not even silence the voice which upbraided
+him--the unapproachable champion, him at whom no mortal dared to look
+askance--with being a miserable fool, defrauded of true happiness and
+the right ambition.
+
+This voice tortured him on the soft down beds in the town, on the straw
+in the camp, over his wine and on the march.
+
+Yet how many envied him. Ay! when he bore the standard at the head of
+the regiment he marched like a victorious demi-god! No one else could
+support so well as he the heavy pole, plated with gold, and the large
+embroidered silken banner, which might have served as a sail for a
+stately ship; but he held the staff with his right hand, as if the
+burden intrusted to him was an easily-managed toy. Meantime, with
+inimitable solemnity, he threw back the upper portion of the body and
+his curly head, placing his left hand on his hip. The arch of the broad
+chest stood forth in fine relief, and with it the breast-plate and
+points of his armor. He seemed like a proud ship under swelling sails,
+and even in hostile cities, read admiration in the glances of the gaping
+crowd. Yet he was a miserable, discontented man, and could not help
+thinking more and more frequently of Don Juan’s “word.”
+
+He no longer trusted to the magic power of a word, as in former times.
+Still, he told himself that the “arable field” of the emperor’s son,
+“power,” was some thing lofty and great-ay, the loftiest aim a man could
+hope to attain.
+
+Is not omnipotence God’s first attribute? And now, on the march from
+Schouwen through Brabant, power beckoned to him. He had already tasted
+it, when the mutinous army to which he belonged attempted to pillage a
+smithy. He had stepped before the spoilers and saved the artisan’s life
+and property. Whoever swung the hammer before the bellows was sacred to
+him; he had formerly shared gains and booty with many a plundered member
+of his father’s craft.
+
+He now carried a captain’s staff, but this was mere mummery, child’s
+play, nothing more. A merry soldier’s-cook wore a captain’s plume on the
+side of his tall hat. The field-officer, most of the captains and
+the lieutenants, had retired after the great mutiny on the island
+of Schouwen was accomplished, and their places were now occupied by
+ensigns, sergeants and quartermasters. The higher officers had gone
+to Brussels, and the mutinous army marched without any chief through
+Brabant.
+
+They had not received their well-earned pay for twenty-two months, and
+the starving regiments now sought means of support wherever they could
+find them.
+
+Two years since, after the battle of Mook-Heath, the army had helped
+itself, and at that time, as often happened on similar occasions,
+an Eletto--[The chosen one. The Italian form is used, instead of the
+Spanish ‘electo’.]--had been chosen from among the rebellious subaltern
+officers. Ulrich had then been lying seriously wounded, but after the
+end of the mutiny was told by many, that no other would have been made
+Eletto had he only been well and present. Now an Eletto was again to
+be chosen, and whoever was elected would have command of at least three
+thousand men, and possibly more, as it was expected that other regiments
+would join the insurrection. To command an army! This was power, this
+was the highest attainment; it was worth risking life to obtain it.
+
+The regiments pitched their camp at Herenthals, and here the election
+was to be held.
+
+In the arrangement of the tents, the distribution of the wagons which
+surrounded the camp like a wall, the stationing of field-pieces at
+the least protected places, Ulrich had the most authority, and while
+exercising it forced himself, for the first time in his life, to appear
+gentle and yielding, when he would far rather have uttered words of
+command. He lived in a state of feverish excitement; sleep deserted his
+couch, he imagined that every word he heard referred to himself and his
+election.
+
+During these days he learned to smile when he was angry, to speak
+pleasantly while curses were burning on his lips. He was careful not to
+betray by look, word, or deed what was passing in his mind, as he feared
+the ridicule that would ensue should he fail to achieve his purpose.
+
+One more day, one more night, and perhaps he would be
+commander-in-chief, able to conquer a kingdom and keep the world in
+terror. Perhaps, only perhaps; for another was seeking with dangerous
+means to obtain control of the army.
+
+This was Sergeant-Major and Quartermaster Zorrillo, an excellent
+and popular soldier, who had been chosen Eletto after the battle of
+Mook-Heath, but voluntarily resigned his office at the first serious
+opposition he encountered.
+
+It was said that he had done this by his wife’s counsel, and this woman
+was Ulrich’s most dangerous foe.
+
+Zorrillo belonged to another regiment, but Ulrich had long known him and
+his companion, the “campsibyl.”
+
+Wine was sold in the quartermaster’s tent, which, before the outbreak of
+the mutiny, had been the rendezvous of the officers and chaplains.
+
+The sibyl entertained the officers with her gay conversation, while they
+drank or sat at the gaining-table; she probably owed her name to the
+skill she displayed in telling fortunes by cards. The common soldiers
+liked her too, because she took care of their sick wives and children.
+
+Navarrete preferred to spend his time in his own regiment, so he did not
+meet the Zorrillos often until the mutiny at Schouwen and on the march
+through Brabant. He had never sought, and now avoided them; for he knew
+the sibyl was leaving no means untried to secure her partner’s election.
+Therefore he disliked them; yet he could not help occasionally entering
+their tent, for the leaders of the mutiny held their counsels there.
+Zorrillo always received him courteously; but his companion gazed at him
+so intently and searchingly, that an anxious feeling, very unusual to
+the bold fellow, stole over him.
+
+He could not help asking himself whether he had seen her before, and
+when the thought that she perhaps resembled his mother, once entered his
+mind, he angrily rejected it.
+
+The day before she had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused
+point-blank, for surely no good tidings could come to him from those
+lips.
+
+To-day she had asked what his Christian name was, and for the first
+time in years he remembered that he was also called “Ulrich.” Now he
+was nothing but “Navarrete,” to himself and others. He lived solely for
+himself, and the more reserved a man is, the more easily his Christian
+name is lost to him.
+
+As, years before, he had told the master that he was called nothing but
+Ulrich, he now gave the harsh answer: “I am Navarrete, that’s enough!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Towards evening, the members of the mutiny met at the Zorrillos to hold
+a council.
+
+The weather outside was hot and sultry, and the more people assembled,
+the heavier and more oppressive became the air within the spacious
+tent, the interior of which looked plain enough, for its whole furniture
+consisted of some small roughly-made tables, some benches and chairs,
+and one large table, and a superb ebony chest with ivory ornaments,
+evidently stolen property. On this work of art lay the pillows used
+at night, booty obtained at Haarlem; they were covered with bright but
+worn-out silk, which had long shown the need of the thrifty touch of
+a woman’s hand. Pictures of the saints were pasted on the walls, and a
+crucifix hung over the door.
+
+Behind the great table, between a basket and the wine cask, from which
+the sibyl replenished the mugs, stood a high-backed chair. A coarse
+barmaid, who had grown up in the camp, served the assembled men, but she
+had no occasion to hurry, for the Spaniards were slow drinkers.
+
+The guests sat, closely crowded together, in a circle, and seemed grave
+and taciturn; but their words sounded passionate, imperious, defiant,
+and the speakers often struck their coats of mail with their clenched
+fists, or pounded on the floor with their swords.
+
+If there was any difference of opinion, the disputants flew into a
+furious rage, and then a chorus of fierce, blustering voices rose like
+a tenfold echo. It often seemed as if the next instant swords must fly
+from their sheaths and a bloody brawl begin; but Zorrillo, who had been
+chosen to preside over the meeting, only needed to raise his baton
+and command order, to transform the roar into a low muttering; the
+weather-beaten, scarred, pitiless soldiers, even when mutineers, yielded
+willing obedience to the word of command and the iron constraint of
+discipline.
+
+On the sea and at Schouwen their splendid costumes had obtained a
+beggarly appearance. The velvet and brocade extorted from the rich
+citizens of Antwerp, now hung tattered and faded around their sinewy
+limbs. They looked like foot-pads, vagabonds, pirates, yet sat, as
+military custom required, exactly in the order of their rank; on the
+march and in the camp, every insurgent willingly obeyed the orders of
+the new leader, who by the fortune of war had thrown pairs-royal on the
+drumhead.
+
+One thing was certain: some decisive action must be taken. Every one
+needed doublets and shoes, money and good lodgings. But in what way
+could these be most easily procured? By parleying and submitting on
+acceptable conditions, said some; by remaining free and capturing a
+city, roared others; first wealthy Mechlin, which could be speedily
+reached. There they could get what they wanted without money. Zorrillo
+counselled prudent conduct; Navarrete impetuously advised bold action.
+They, the insurgents, he cried, were stronger than any other military
+force in the Netherlands, and need fear no one. If they begged and
+entreated they would be dismissed with copper coins; but if they
+enforced their demands they would become rich and prosperous.
+
+With flashing eyes he extolled what the troops, and he himself had done;
+he enlarged upon the hardships they had borne, the victories won for the
+king. He asked nothing but good pay for blood and toil, good pay, not
+coppers and worthless promises.
+
+Loud shouts of approval followed his speech, and a gunner, who now held
+the rank of captain, exclaimed enthusiastically:
+
+“Navarrete, the hero of Lepanto and Haarlem, is right! I know whom I
+will choose.”
+
+“Victor, victor Navarrete!” echoed from many a bearded lilt.
+
+But Zorrillo interrupted these declarations, exclaiming, not without
+dignity, while raising his baton still higher. “The election will take
+place to-morrow, gentlemen; we are holding a council to-day. It is
+very warm in here; I feel it as much as you do. But before we separate,
+listen a few minutes to a man, who means well.” Zorrillo now explained
+all the reasons, which induced him to counsel negotiations and a
+friendly agreement with the commander-in-chief. There was sound,
+statesmanlike logic in his words, yet his language did not lack warmth
+and charm. The men perceived that he was in earnest, and while he spoke
+the sibyl went behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and wiped the
+perspiration from his brow with her handkerchief. Zorrillo permitted
+it, and without interrupting himself, gave her a grateful, affectionate
+glance.
+
+The bronzed warriors liked to look at her, and even permitted her to
+utter a word of advice or warning during their discussions, for she was
+a wise woman, not one of the ordinary stamp. Her blue eyes sparkled
+with intelligence and mirth, her full lips seemed formed for quick, gay
+repartee, she was always kind and cheer ful in her manner even to the
+most insignificant. But whence came the deep lines about her red mouth
+and the outer corners of her eyes? She covered them with rouge every
+day, to conceal the evidence of the sorrowful hours she spent when
+alone? The lines were well disguised, yet they increased, and year by
+year grew deeper.
+
+No wrinkle had yet dared to appear on the narrow forehead; and the
+delicate features, dazzlingly-white teeth, girlish figure, and winning
+smile lent this woman a youthful aspect. She might be thirty, or perhaps
+even past forty.
+
+A pleasure made her younger by ten summers, a vexation transformed her
+into a matron. The snow white hair, carefully arranged on her forehead,
+seemed to indicate somewhat advanced age; but it was known that it
+had turned grey in a few days and nights, eight years before, when a
+discontented blackguard stabbed the quartermaster, and he lay for weeks
+at the point of death.
+
+This white hair harmonized admirably with the red cheeks of the
+camp-sibyl, who appreciating the fact, did not dye it.
+
+During Zorrillo’s speech her eyes more than once rested on Ulrich with a
+strangely intense expression. As soon as he paused, she went back again
+behind the table to the crying child, to cradle it in her arms.
+
+Zorrillo--perceiving that a new and violent argument was about to break
+forth among the men--closed the meeting. Before adjourning, however, it
+was unanimously decided that the election should be held on the morrow.
+
+While the soldiers noisily rose, some shaking hands with Zorrillo, some
+with Navarrete, the stately sergeant-major of a German lansquenet troop,
+which was stationed in Antwerp, and did not belong to the insurgents,
+entered the wide open door of the tent. His dress was gay and in good
+order; a fine Dalmatian dog followed him.
+
+A thunder-storm had begun, and it was raining violently. Some of the
+Spaniards were twisting their rosaries, and repeating prayers, but
+neither thunder, lightning, nor water seemed to have destroyed the
+German’s good temper, for he shook the drops from his plumed hat with a
+merry “phew,” gaily introducing himself to his comrades as an envoy from
+the Pollviller regiment.
+
+His companions, he said, were not disinclined to join the “free
+army”--he had come to ask how the masters of Schouwen fared.
+
+Zorrillo offered the sergeant-major a chair, and after the latter had
+raised and emptied two beakers from the barmaid’s pewter waiter in quick
+succession, he glanced around the circle of his rebel comrades. Some he
+had met before in various countries, and shook hands with them. Then he
+fixed his eyes on Ulrich, pondering where and under what standard he had
+seen this magnificent, fair-haired warrior.
+
+Navarrete recognizing the merry lansquenet, Hans Eitelfritz of Colln on
+the Spree, held out his hand, and cried in the Spanish language, which
+the lansquenet had also used:
+
+“You are Hans Eitelfritz! Do you remember Christmas in the Black Forest,
+Master Moor, and the Alcazar in Madrid?”
+
+“Ulrich, young Master Ulrich! Heavens and earth!” cried Eitelfritz;--but
+suddenly interrupted himself; for the sibyl, who had risen from the
+table to bring the envoy, with her own hands, a larger goblet of wine,
+dropped the beaker close beside him.
+
+Zorrillo and he hastily sprung to support the tottering woman, who was
+almost fainting. But she recovered herself, waving them back with a mute
+gesture.
+
+All eyes were fixed upon her, and every one was startled; for she stood
+as if benumbed, her bright, youthful face had suddenly become aged and
+haggard. “What is the matter?” asked Zorrillo anxiously. Recovering her
+self-control, she answered hastily “The thunder, the storm....”
+
+Then, with short, light steps, she went back to the table, and as she
+resumed her seat the bell for evening prayers was heard outside.
+
+Most of the company rose to obey the summons.
+
+“Good-bye till to-morrow morning, Sergeant! The election will take place
+early to-morrow.”
+
+“A Dios, a Dios, hasta mas ver, Sibila, a Dios!” was loudly shouted, and
+soon most of the guests had left the tent.
+
+Those who remained behind were scattered among the different tables.
+Ulrich sat at one alone with Hans Eitelfritz.
+
+The lansquenet had declined Zorrillo’s invitation to join him; an old
+friend from Madrid was present, with whom he wished to talk over happier
+days. The other willingly assented; for what he had intended to say
+to his companions was against Ulrich and his views. The longer the
+sergeant-major detained him the better. Everything that recalled
+Master Moor was dear to Ulrich, and as soon as he was alone with Hans
+Eitelfritz, he again greeted him in a strange mixture of Spanish
+and German. He had forgotten his home, but still retained a partial
+recollection of his native language. Every one supposed him to be a
+Spaniard, and he himself felt as if he were one.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had much to tell Ulrich; he had often met Moor in
+Antwerp, and been kindly received in his studio.
+
+What pleasure it afforded Navarrete to hear from the noble artist,
+how he enjoyed being able to speak German again after so many years,
+difficult as it was. It seemed as if a crust melted away from his heart,
+and none of those present had ever seen him so gay, so full of youthful
+vivacity. Only one person knew that he could laugh and play noisily, and
+this one was the beautiful woman at the long table, who knew not whether
+she should die of joy, or sink into the earth with shame.
+
+She had taken the year old infant from the basket. It was a pale, puny
+little creature, whose father had fallen in battle, and whose mother had
+deserted it.
+
+The handsome standard-bearer yonder was called Ulrich! He must be her
+son! Alas, and she could only cast stolen glances at him, listen by
+stealth to the German words that fell from the beloved lips. Nothing
+escaped her notice, yet while looking and listening, her thoughts
+wandered to a far distant country, long vanished days; beside the
+bearded giant she saw a beautiful, curly-haired child; besides the
+man’s deep voice she heard clear, sweet childish tones, that called her
+“mother” and rang out in joyous, silvery laughter.
+
+The pale child in her arms often raised its little hand to its cheek,
+which was wet with the tears of the woman; who tended it. How hard, how
+unspeakably, terribly hard it was for this woman, with the youthful face
+and white locks, to remain quiet! How she longed to start up and call
+joyously to the child, the man, her lover’s enemy, but her own, own
+Ulrich:
+
+“Look at me, look at me! I am your mother. You are mine! Come, come to
+my heart! I will never leave you more!”
+
+Ulrich now laughed heartily again, not suspecting what was passing in
+a mother’s heart, close beside him; he had no eyes for her, and only
+listened to the jests of the German lansquenet, with whom he drained
+beaker after beaker.
+
+The strange child served as a shield to protect the camp-sibyl from
+her son’s eyes, and also to conceal from him that she was watching,
+listening, weeping. Eitelfritz talked most and made one joke after
+another; but she did not laugh, and only wished he would stop and let
+Ulrich speak, that she might be permitted to hear his voice again.
+
+“Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle,” cried Hans
+Eitelfritz. “He’ll get his feet wet on the damp floor--for the rain
+is trickling in--and take cold. This choice fellow isn’t like ordinary
+dogs.”
+
+“Do you call the tiger Lelaps?” asked Ulrich. “An odd name.”
+
+“I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg,
+in exchange for an elephant’s tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes
+his name to the merry rogue. I tell you, he’s wiser than many learned
+men; he ought to be called Doctor Lelaps.”
+
+“He’s a pretty creature.”
+
+“Pretty! More, far more! For instance, at Naples we had the famous
+Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager
+conversation, I forgot him. What did my Lelaps do? He slipped quietly
+into the garden, returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth,
+and offered it to me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one.
+That meant: dogs liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him.
+What do you say to that show of sense?”
+
+“I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog’s sagacity.”
+
+“You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this
+true story?”
+
+“To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and
+faithfully trusts good-fortune--your good fortune--is ill-advised. Have
+you composed any new songs?”
+
+“‘That is all over now!” sighed the trooper. “See this scar! Since an
+infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses;
+yet it hasn’t grown quiet in my upper story on that account. I lie now,
+instead of composing. My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash,
+when I pour it forth at the tavern.”
+
+“And the broken skull: is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it....”
+
+“Look here! It’s the actual truth. It was a bad blow, but there’s a
+grain of good in everything evil. For instance, we were in the African
+desert just dying of thirst, for that belongs to the desert as much as
+the dot does to the letter i. Lelaps yonder was with me, and scented
+a spring. Then it was necessary to dig, but I had neither spade nor
+hatchet, so I took out the loose part of the skull, it was a hard piece
+of bone, and dug with it till the water gushed out of the sand, then I
+drank out of my brain-pan as if it were a goblet.”
+
+“Man, man!” exclaimed Ulrich, striking his clenched fist on the table.
+
+“Do you suppose a dog can’t scent a spring?” asked Eitelfritz, with
+comical wrath. “Lelaps here was born in Africa, the native land of
+tigers, and his mother....”
+
+“I thought you got him in Tubingen?”
+
+“I said just now that I tell lies. I imposed upon you, when I made you
+think Lelaps came from Swabia; he was really born in the desert, where
+the tigers live.
+
+“No offence, Herr Ulrich! We’ll keep our jests for another evening. As
+soon as I’m knocked down, I stop my nonsense. Now tell me, where shall
+I find Navarrete, the standard-bearer, the hero of Lepanto and Schouwen?
+He must be a bold fellow; they say Zorrillo and he....”
+
+The lansquenet had spoken loudly; the quartermaster, who caught the name
+Navarrete, turned, and his eyes met Ulrich’s.
+
+He must be on his guard against this man.
+
+The instant Zorrillo recognized him as a German, he would hold a
+powerful weapon. The Spaniards would give the command only to a
+Spaniard.
+
+This thought now occurred to him for the first time. It had needed
+the meeting with Hans Eitelfritz, to remind him that he belonged to a
+different nation from his comrades. Here was a danger to be encountered,
+so with the rapid decision, acquired in the school of war, he laid his
+hand heavily on his countryman’s, saying in a low, impressive tone: “You
+are my friend, Hans Eitelfritz, and have no wish to injure me.”
+
+“Zounds, no! What’s up?”
+
+“Well then, keep to yourself where and how we first met each other.
+Don’t interrupt me. I’ll tell you later in my tent, where you must take
+up your quarters, how I gained my name, and what I have experienced in
+life. Don’t show your surprise, and keep calm. I, Ulrich, the boy from
+the Black Forest, am the man you seek, I am Navarrete.”
+
+“You?” asked the lansquenet, opening his eyes in amazement. “Nonsense!
+You’re paying me off for the yarns I told you just now.”
+
+No, Hans Eitelfritz, no! I am not jesting, I mean it. I am Navarrete!
+Nay more! If you keep your mouth shut, and the devil doesn’t put his
+finger into the pie, I think, spite of all the Zorrillos, I shall be
+Eletto to-morrow.
+
+“You know the Spanish temper! The German Ulrich will be a very different
+person to them from the Castilian Navarrete. It is in your power to
+spoil my chance.”
+
+The other interrupted him by a peal of loud, joyous laughter, then
+shouted to the dog: “Up, Lelaps! My respects to Caballero Navarrete.”
+
+The Spaniards frowned, for they thought the German was drunk, but Hans
+Eitelfritz needed more liquor than that to upset his sobriety.
+
+Flashing a mischievous glance at Ulrich from his bright eyes, he
+whispered: “If necessary, I too can be silent. You man without a
+country! You soldier of fortune! A Swabian the commander of these
+stiffnecked braggarts. Now see how I’ll help you.”
+
+“What do you mean to do?” asked Ulrich; but Hans Eitelfritz had already
+raised the huge goblet, banging it down again so violently that the
+table shook. Then he struck the top with his clenched fist, and when
+the Spaniards fixed their eyes on him, shouted in their language: “Yes,
+indeed, it was delightful in those days, Caballero Navarrete. Your
+uncle, the noble Conde in what’s its name, that place in Castile, you
+know, and the Condesa and Condesilla. Splendid people! Do you remember
+the coal-black horses with snow-white tails in your father’s stable,
+and the old servant Enrique. There wasn’t a longer nose than his in
+all Castile! Once, when I was in Burgos, I saw a queer, longish shadow
+coming round a street corner, and two minutes after, first a nose and
+then old Enrique appeared.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” replied Ulrich, guessing the lansquenet’s purpose. “But it
+has grown late while we’ve been gossiping; let us go!”
+
+The woman at the table had not heard the whispers exchanged between the
+two men; but she guessed the object of the lansquenet’s loud words. As
+the latter slowly rose, she laid the child in the basket, drew a long
+breath, pressed her fingers tightly upon her eyes for a short time, and
+then went directly up to her son.
+
+Florette did not know herself, whether she owed the name of sibyl to her
+skill in telling fortunes by cards, or to her wise counsel. Twelve
+years before, while still sharing the tent of the Walloon captain
+Grandgagnage, it had been given her, she could not say how or by whom.
+The fortune-telling she had learned from a sea-captain’s widow, with
+whom she had lodged a long time.
+
+When her voice grew sharp and weaker, in order to retain consideration
+and make herself important, she devoted herself to predicting the
+future; her versatile mind, her ambition, and the knowledge of
+human-nature gained in the camp and during her wanderings from land to
+land, aided her to acquire remarkable skill in this strange pursuit.
+
+Officers of the highest rank had sat opposite to her cards, listening to
+her oracular sayings, and Zorrillo, the man who had now been her lover
+for ten years, owed it to her influence, that he did not lose his
+position as quartermaster after the last mutiny.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had heard of her skill and when, as he was leaving, she
+approached and offered to question the cards for him, he would not allow
+Ulrich to prevent him from casting a glance into the future.
+
+On the whole, what was predicted to him sounded favorable, but the
+prophetess did not keep entirely to the point, for in turning the cards
+she found much to say to Ulrich, and once, pointing to the red and green
+knaves, remarked thoughtfully: “That is you, Navarrete; that is this
+gentleman. You must have met each other on some Christmas day, and not
+here, but in Germany; if I see rightly, in Swabia.”
+
+She had just overheard all this.
+
+But a shudder ran through Ulrich’s frame when he heard it, and this
+woman, whose questioning glance had always disturbed him, now inspired
+him with a mysterious dread, which he could not control. He rose to
+withdraw; but she detained him, saying: “Now it is your turn, Captain.”
+
+“Some other time,” replied Ulrich, repellently. “Good fortune always
+comes in good time, and to know ill-luck in advance, is a misfortune I
+should think.”
+
+“I can read the past, too.”
+
+Ulrich started. He must learn what his rival’s companion knew of his
+former life, so he answered quickly, “Well, for aught I care, begin.”
+
+“Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the
+questioner. Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of
+an hour, Sergeant.”
+
+“Don’t believe everything she tells you, and don’t look too deep into
+her eyes. Come, Lelaps, my son!” cried the lansquenet, and did as he was
+requested.
+
+The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich
+thought: “Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do
+everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto’s baton.
+That’s the way blockheads are caught. We will keep to the past.”
+
+His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the
+last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying
+to meet his glance, asked:
+
+“How shall we begin? Do you still remember your childhood?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Your father?”
+
+“I have not seen him for a long time. Don’t the cards tell you, that he
+is dead?”
+
+“Dead, dead:--of course he’s dead. You had a mother too?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with
+this woman about his mother.
+
+She shrank back a little, and said sadly: “That sounds very harsh. Do
+you no longer like to think of your mother?”
+
+“What is that to you?”
+
+“I must know.”
+
+“No, what concerns my mother is... I will--is too good for juggling.”
+
+“Oh,” she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank. Then
+she silently laid down the last cards, and asked: “Do you want to hear
+anything about a sweetheart?”
+
+“I have none. But how you look at me! Have you grown tired of Zorrillo?
+I am ill-suited for a gallant.”
+
+She shuddered slightly. Her bright face had again grown old, so old
+and weary that he pitied her. But she soon regained her composure, and
+continued:
+
+“What are you saying? Ask the questions yourself now, if you please.”
+
+“Where is my native place?”
+
+“A wooded, mountainous region in Germany.”
+
+“Ah, ha! and what do you know of my father?”
+
+“You look like him, there is an astonishing resemblance in the forehead
+and eyes; his voice, too, was exactly like yours.”
+
+“A chip of the old block.”
+
+“Well, well. I see Adam before me....”
+
+“Adam?” asked Ulrich, and the blood left his cheeks.
+
+“Yes, his name was Adam,” she continued more boldly, with increasing
+vivacity: “there he stands. He wears a smith’s apron, a small leather
+cap rests on his fair hair. Auriculas and balsams stand in the
+bow-window. A roan horse is being shod in the market-place below.”
+
+The soldier’s head swam, the happiest period of his childhood, which he
+had not recalled for a long time, again rose before his memory; he saw
+his father stand before him, and the woman, the sibyl yonder, had the
+eyes and mouth, not of his mother, but of the Madonna he had destroyed
+with his maul-stick. Scarcely able to control himself, he grasped her
+hand, pressing it violently, and asked in German:
+
+“What is my name? And what did my mother call me?”
+
+She lowered her eyes as if in shame, and whispered softly in German:
+“Ulrich, Ulrich, my darling, my little boy, my lamb, Ulrich--my child!
+Condemn me, desert me, curse me, but call me once more ‘my mother.’”
+
+“My mother,” he said gently, covering his face with his hands--but she
+started up, hurried back to the pale baby in the cradle, and pressing
+her face upon the little one’s breast, moaned and wept bitterly.
+
+Meantime, Zorrillo had not averted his eyes from Navarrete and his
+companion. What could have passed between the two, what ailed the man?
+
+Rising slowly, he approached the basket before which the sibyl was
+kneeling, and asked anxiously: “What was it, Flora?”
+
+She pressed her face closer to the weeping child, that he might not see
+her tears, and answered quickly “I predicted things, things... go, I
+will tell you about it later.”
+
+He was satisfied with this answer, but she was now obliged to join the
+Spaniards, and Ulrich took leave of her with a silent salutation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The Spanish nature is contagious, thought Hans Eitelfritz, tossing on
+his couch in Ulrich’s tent. What a queer fellow the gay young lad has
+become! Sighs are cheap with him, and every word costs a ducat. He is
+worthy all honor as a soldier. If they make him Eletto, it will be worth
+while to join the free army.
+
+Ulrich had briefly told the lansquenet, how he had obtained the name
+of Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the
+Netherlands. Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.
+
+He had found his mother again. He now possessed the best gift Ruth
+had asked him to beseech of the “word.” The soldier’s sweetheart, the
+faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
+avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
+him birth. He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
+hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child
+of one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her
+finger. All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely
+enough, they melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the
+feeling of joy that he had his mother again.
+
+Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo’s tent, but framed
+by balsams and wall-flowers. His vivid imagination made her twenty years
+younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
+and smile. Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl’s
+beauty, good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came
+back freshly to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw
+himself on her bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the
+sweet, pet names, which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel
+the caress of her soft hands. How rich the solitary man felt, how
+surpassingly rich! He had been entirely alone, deserted even by his
+mother! Now he was so no longer, and pleasant dreams blended with his
+ambitious plans, like golden threads in dark cloth.
+
+When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
+his share of the booty. She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow.
+The little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and
+when his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there
+with her, recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care
+for her, make her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the
+full the happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother’s heart
+his own.
+
+At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer. Suddenly there was a
+rustling at the tent-door. He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
+raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: “Ulrich,
+Ulrich, it is I!”
+
+He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
+her in his arms, and let her stroke his curls, kiss his cheeks and eyes,
+as in the old happy days. Then he drew her into the tent, whispering
+“Softly, softly, the snorer yonder is the German.”
+
+She followed him, leaned against him, and raised his hand to her lips;
+he felt them grow wet with tears. They had not yet said anything to each
+other, except how happy, how glad, how thankful they were to have each
+other again; then a sentinel passed, and she started up, exclaiming
+anxiously: “So late, so late; Zorrillo will be waiting!”
+
+“Zorrillo!” cried Ulrich scornfully, “you have been a long time with
+him. If they give me the power....”
+
+“They will choose you, child, they shall choose you,” she hastily
+interrupted. “Oh, God! oh, God! perhaps this will bring you misfortune
+instead of blessing; but you desire it! Count Mannsfeld is coming
+tomorrow; Zorrillo knows it. He will bring a pardon for all; promotions
+too, but no money yet.”
+
+“Oh, ho!” cried Ulrich, “that may decide the matter.”
+
+“Perhaps so, you deserve to command them. You were born for some special
+purpose, and your card always turns up so strangely. Eletto! It sounds
+proud and grand, but many have been ruined by it....”
+
+“Because power was too hard for them.”
+
+“It must serve you. You are strong. A child of good fortune. Folly! I
+will not fear. You have probably fared well in life. Ah, my lamb, I have
+done little for you, but one thing I did unceasingly: I prayed for you,
+poor boy, morning and night; have you noticed, have you felt it?”
+
+He drew her to his heart again, but she released herself from his
+embrace, saying: “To-morrow, Ulrich; Zorrillo....”
+
+“Zorrillo, always Zorrillo,” he repeated, his blood boiling angrily.
+“You are mine and, if you love me, you will leave him.”
+
+“I cannot, Ulrich, it will not do. He is kind, you will yet be friends.”
+
+“We, we? On the day of judgment, nay, not even then! Are you more firmly
+bound to yon smooth fellow, than to my honest father? There stands
+something in the darkness, it is good steel, and if needful will cut the
+tie asunder.”
+
+“Ulrich, Ulrich!” wailed Flora, raising her hands beseechingly. “Not
+that, not that; it must not be. He is kind and sensible, and loves me
+fondly. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Ulrich! The mother has glided to her son at
+night, as if she were following forbidden paths. Oh, this is indeed a
+punishment. I know how heavily I have sinned, I deserve whatever may
+befall me; but you, you must not make me more wretched, than I already
+am. Your father, he... if he were still alive, for your sake I would
+crawl to him on my knees, and say: ‘Here I am, forgive me’--but he is
+dead. Pasquale, Zorrillo lives; do not think me a vain, deluded woman;
+Zorrillo cannot bear to have me leave him....”
+
+“And my father? He bore it. But do you know how? Shall I describe his
+life to you?”
+
+“No, no! Oh, child, how you torture me! I know how I sinned against your
+father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved me,
+and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly. But I cannot keep quiet a
+long time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in
+my blood; and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see
+nothing except himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the
+forest. One day a fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going
+forth--forth into the wide world, no matter with whom or whither. The
+soldier only needed to hint and I fell.--I did not stay with him long,
+he was a windy braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and
+accompanied the wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until
+he was shot. Then ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend,
+he shares my feelings, I am necessary to his existence. Do not laugh,
+Ulrich; I well know that youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet
+Pasquale loves me; since I have had him, I have been more content and,
+Holy Virgin! now--I love him in return. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven! Why is
+it so? This heart, this miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it did
+twenty years ago.”
+
+“You will not leave him?”
+
+“No, no, I love him, and I know why. Every one calls him a brave man,
+yet they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do. No one
+else is so good, so generous. You must let me speak! Do you suppose I
+ever forgot you? Never, never! But you have always been to me the dear
+little boy; I never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have
+you and longed so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to
+the soldiers’ orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of
+these poor things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same
+time. It would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo
+rejoices in my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon
+bequeathed me and his own booty to the soldiers’ widows and the little
+naked babies in the camp. He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases
+him. I will not, cannot leave him!”
+
+She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro,
+violently agitated. At last he said firmly: “Yet you must part from him.
+He or I! I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father’s wife.
+I am Adam’s son, and will be constant to him. Ah, mother, I have been
+deprived of you so long. You can tend strangers’ orphaned children, yet
+you make your own son an orphan. Will you do this? No, a thousand times,
+no, you cannot! Do not weep so, you must not weep! Hear me, hear me! For
+my sake, leave this Spaniard! You will not repent it. I have just been
+dreaming of the nest I will build for you. There I will cherish and care
+for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as you choose.
+Leave him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your child, your
+Ulrich!”
+
+“Oh, God! oh, God!” she sobbed. “I will try, yes, I will try.... My
+child, my dear child!”
+
+Ulrich clasped her closely in his arms, kissed her hair, and said,
+softly: “I know, I know, you need love, and you shall find it with me.”
+
+“With you!” she repeated, sobbing. Then releasing herself from his
+embrace she hurried to the feverish woman, at whose summons she had left
+her tent.
+
+As morning dawned, she returned home and found Zorrillo still awake.
+He enquired about her patient, and told her he had given the child
+something to drink while she was away.
+
+Flora could not help weeping bitterly again, and Zorrillo, noticing it,
+exclaimed chidingly: “Each has his own griefs to bear, it is not wise to
+take strangers’ troubles so deeply to heart.”
+
+“Strangers’ troubles,” she repeated, mournfully, and went to rest.
+
+White-haired woman, why have you remained so young? All the cares and
+sorrows of youth and age are torturing you at the same time! One love
+is fighting a mortal battle with another in your breast. Which will
+conquer?
+
+She knows, she knew it ere she entered the tent. The mother fled from
+the child, but she cannot abandon her new-found son. Oh, maternal love,
+thou dost hover in radiant bliss far above the clouds, and amid choirs
+of angels! Oh, maternal heart, thou dost bleed pierced with swords, more
+full of sorrows than any other!
+
+Poor, poor Florette! On this July morning she was enduring superhuman
+tortures, all the sins she had committed arrayed themselves against her,
+shrieking into her ear that she was a lost woman, and there could be no
+pardon for her either in this world or the next. Yet!--the clouds drift
+by, birds of passage migrate, the musician wanders singing from land
+to land, finds love, and remorselessly strips off light fetters to seek
+others. His child imitates the father, who had followed the example
+of his, the same thing occurring back to their remotest ancestors!
+But eternal justice? Will it measure the fluttering leaf by the same
+standard as the firmly-rooted plant?
+
+When Zorrillo saw Flora by the daylight, he said, kindly: “You have been
+weeping?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, fixing her eyes on the ground. He thought she was
+anxious, as on a former occasion, lest his election to the office of
+Eletto might prove his ruin, so he drew her towards him, exclaiming
+“Have no fear, Bonita. If they choose me, and Mannsfeld comes, as he
+promised, the play will end this very day. I hope, even at the twelfth
+hour, they will listen to reason, and allow themselves to be guided into
+the right course. If they make the young madcap Eletto--his head will be
+at stake, not mine. Are you ill? How you look, child! Surely, surely you
+must be suffering; you shall not go out at night to nurse sick people
+again!”
+
+The words came from an anxious heart, and sounded warm and gentle.
+They penetrated Florette’s inmost soul, and overwhelmed with passionate
+emotion she clasped his hands, kissed them, and exclaimed, softly
+“Thanks, thanks, Pasquale, for your love, for all. I will never, never
+forget it, whatever happens! Go, go; the drum is beating again.”
+
+Zorrillo fancied she was uttering mere feverish ravings, and begged her
+to calm herself; then he left the tent, and went to the place where the
+election was to be held.
+
+As soon as Flora was alone, she threw herself on her knees before the
+Madonna’s picture, but knew not whether it would be right to pray that
+her son might obtain an office, which had proved the ruin of so many;
+and when she besought the Virgin to give her strength to leave her
+lover, it seemed to her like treason to Pasquale.
+
+Her thoughts grew confused, and she could not pray. Her mobile mind
+wandered swiftly from lofty to petty things; she seized the cards to see
+whether fate would unite her to Zorrillo or to Ulrich, and the red ten,
+which represented herself, lay close beside the green knave, Pasquale.
+She angrily threw them down, determined, in spite of the oracle, to
+follow her son.
+
+Meantime in the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets
+blared, and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like
+the distant roar of the surf.
+
+A fresh burst of military music rang out, and now Florette started to
+her feet and listened. It seemed as if she heard Ulrich’s voice, and the
+rapid throbbing of her heart almost stopped her breath. She must go out,
+she must see and hear what was passing. Hastily pushing the white hair
+back from her brow, she threw a veil over it, and hurried through the
+camp to the spot where the election was taking place.
+
+The soldiers all knew her and made way for her. The leaders of the
+mutineers were standing on the wall of earth between the field-pieces,
+and amid the foremost rank, nay, in front of them all, her son was
+addressing the crowd.
+
+The choice wavered between him and Zorrillo. Ulrich had already been
+speaking a long time. His cheeks were glowing and he looked so handsome,
+so noble, in his golden helmet, from beneath which floated his thick,
+fair locks, that her heart swelled with joy, and as the night
+grows brighter when the black clouds are torn asunder and the moon
+victoriously appears, grief and pain were suddenly irradiated by
+maternal love and pride.
+
+Now he drew his tall figure up still higher, exclaiming: “Others are
+readier and bolder with the tongue than I, but I can speak with the
+sword as well as any one.”
+
+Then raising the heavy two-handed sword, which others laboriously
+managed with both hands, he swung it around his head, using only his
+right hand, in swift circles, until it fairly whistled through the air.
+
+The soldiers shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had
+lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly,
+while his breath came quick and short: “And where do the talkers, the
+parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters’
+feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I
+know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except
+what is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require
+for our bare feet, our ragged bodies; money, money he has not to offer!
+This is so, I swear it; if not, stand forth, you parleyers, and give
+me the lie! Have you inclination or courage to give the lie to
+Navarrete?--You are silent!--But we will speak! We will not suffer
+ourselves to be mocked and put off! What we demand is fair pay for good
+work. Whoever has patience, can wait. Mine is exhausted.
+
+“We are His Majesty’s obedient servants and wish to remain so. As soon
+as he keeps his bargain, he can rely upon us; but when he breaks it, we
+are bound to no one but ourselves, and Santiago! we are not the weaker
+party. We need money, and if His Majesty lacks ducats, a city where we
+can find what we want. Money or a city, a city or money! The demand
+is just, and if you elect me, I will stand by it, and not shrink if
+it rouses murmuring behind me or against me. Whoever has a brave heart
+under his armor, let him follow me; whoever wishes to creep after
+Zorrillo, can do so. Elect me, friends, and I will get you more than we
+need, with honor and fame to boot. Saint Jacob and the Madonna will aid
+us. Long live the king!”
+
+“Long live the king! Long live Navarrete! Navarrete! Hurrah for
+Navarrete!” echoed loudly, impetuously from a thousand bearded lips.
+
+Zorrillo had no opportunity to speak again. The election was made.
+
+Ulrich was chosen Eletto.
+
+As if on wings, he went from man to man, shaking hands with his
+comrades. Power, power, the highest prize on earth, was attained, was
+his! The whole throng, soldiers, tyros, women, girls and children,
+crowded around him, shouting his name; whoever wore a hat or cap, tossed
+it in the air, whoever had a kerchief, waved it. Drums beat, trumpets
+sounded, and the gunner ordered all the field-pieces to be discharged,
+for the choice pleased him.
+
+Ulrich stood, as if intoxicated, amid the shouts, shrieks of joy,
+military music, and thunder of the cannon. He raised his helmet, waved
+salutations to the crowd, and strove to speak, but the uproar drowned
+his words.
+
+After the election Florette slipped quietly away; first to the empty
+tent then to the sick woman who needed her care.
+
+The Eletto had no time to think of his mother; for scarcely had he given
+a solemn oath of loyalty to his comrades and received theirs, when Count
+Mannsfeld appeared.
+
+The general was received with every honor. He knew Navarrete, and the
+latter entered into negotiations with the manly dignity natural to
+him; but the count really had nothing but promises to offer, and the
+insurgents would not give up their demand: “Money or a city!”
+
+The nobleman reminded them of their oath of allegiance, made lavish
+use of kind words, threats and warnings, but the Eletto remained firm.
+Mannsfeld perceived that he had come in vain; the only concession he
+could obtain from Navarrete was, that some prudent man among the leaders
+should accompany him to Brussels, to explain the condition of the
+regiments to the council of state there, and receive fresh proposals.
+Then the count suggested that Zorrillo should be entrusted with the
+mission, and the Eletto ordered the quartermaster to prepare for
+departure at once. An hour after the general left the camp with Flora’s
+lover in his train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The fifth night after the Eletto’s election was closing in, a light
+rain was falling, and no sound was heard in the deserted streets of the
+encampment except now and then the footsteps of a sentinel, or the cries
+of a child. In Zorrillo’s tent, which was usually brightly lighted until
+a late hour of the night, only one miserable brand was burning, beside
+which sat the sleepy bar-maid, darning a hole in her frieze-jacket. The
+girl did not expect any one, and started when the door of the tent was
+violently torn open, and her master, followed by two newly-appointed
+captains, came straight up to her.
+
+Zorrillo held his hat in his hand, his hair, slightly tinged with grey,
+hung in a tangled mass over his forehead, but he carried himself as
+erect as ever. His body did not move, but his eyes wandered from one
+corner of the tent to another, and the girl crossed herself and held
+up two fingers towards him, for his dark glance fell upon her, as he at
+last exclaimed, in a hollow tone:
+
+“Where is the mistress?”
+
+“Gone, I could not help it” replied the girl.
+
+“Where?”
+
+“To the Eletto, to Navarrete.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“He came and took her and the child, directly after you had left the
+camp.”
+
+“And she has not returned?”
+
+“She has just sent a roast chicken, which I was to keep for you when
+you came home. There it is.” Zorrillo laughed. Then he turned to his
+companions, saying:
+
+“I thank you. You have now.... Is she still with the Eletto?”
+
+“Why, of course.”
+
+“And who--who saw her the night before the election--let me sit
+down--who saw her with him then?”
+
+“My brother,” replied one of the captains. “She was just coming out of
+the tent, as he passed with the guard.”
+
+“Don’t take the matter to heart,” said the other. “There are plenty of
+women! We are growing old, and can no longer cope with a handsome fellow
+like Navarrete.”
+
+“I thought the sibyl was more sensible,” added the younger captain. “I
+saw her in Naples sixteen years ago. Zounds, she was a beautiful woman
+then! A pretty creature even now; but Navarrete might almost be her
+son. And you always treated her kindly, Pasquale. Well, whoever expects
+gratitude from women....”
+
+Suddenly the quartermaster remembered the hour just before the election,
+when Florette had thrown herself upon his breast, and thanked him for
+his kindness; clenching his teeth, he groaned aloud.
+
+The others were about to leave him, but he regained his self-control,
+and said:
+
+“Take him the count’s letter, Renato. What I have to say to him, I will
+determine later.”
+
+Zorrillo was a long time unlacing his jerkin and taking out the paper.
+Both of his companions noticed how his fingers trembled, and looked at
+each other compassionately; but the older one said, as he received the
+letter:
+
+“Man, man, this will do no good. Women are like good fortune.”
+
+“Take the thing as a thousand others have taken it, and don’t come to
+blows. You wield a good blade, but to attack Navarrete is suicide. I’ll
+take him the letter. Be wise, Zorrillo, and look for another love at
+once.”
+
+“Directly, directly, of course,” replied the quartermaster; but as soon
+as he had sent the maid-servant away, and was entirely alone, he bowed
+his forehead upon the table and his shoulders heaved convulsively. He
+remained in this attitude a long time, then paced to and fro with forced
+calmness. Morning dawned long ere he sought his couch.
+
+Early the next day he made his report to the Eletto before the assembled
+council of war, and when it broke up, approached Navarrete, saying, in
+so loud a tone that no one could fail to hear:
+
+“I congratulate you on your new sweetheart.”
+
+“With good reason,” replied the Eletto. “Wait a little while, and I’ll
+wager that you’ll congratulate me more sincerely than you do to-day.”
+
+The offers from Brussels had again proved unacceptable. It was necessary
+now to act, and the insurgent commander profited by the time at his
+disposal. It seemed as if “power” doubled his elasticity and energy. It
+was so delightful, after the march, the council of war, and the day’s
+work were over, to rest with his mother, listen to her, and open his own
+heart. How had she preserved--yes, he might call it so--her aristocratic
+bearing, amid the turmoil, perils, and mire of camp-life, in spite of
+all, all! How cleverly and entertainingly she could talk about men and
+things, how comical the ideas, with which she understood how to spice
+the conversation, and how well versed he found her in everything that
+related to the situation of the regiments and his own position. She had
+not been the confidante of army leaders in vain.
+
+By her advice he relinquished his plan of capturing Mechlin, after
+learning from spies that it was prepared and expecting the attack of the
+insurgents.
+
+He could not enter upon a long siege with the means at his command;
+his first blow must not miss the mark. So he only showed himself near
+Brussels, sent Captain Montesdocca, who tried to parley again, back with
+his mission unaccomplished, marched in a new direction to mislead his
+foes, and then unexpectedly assailed wealthy Aalst in Flanders.
+
+The surprised inhabitants tried to defend their well-fortified city, but
+the citizens’ strength could not withstand the furious assault of the
+well-drilled, booty-seeking army.
+
+The conquered city belonged to the king. It was the pledge of what the
+rebels required, and they indemnified themselves in it for the pay that
+had been with held. All who attempted to offer resistance fell by the
+sword, all the citizens’ possessions were seized by the soldiers, as the
+wages that belonged to them.
+
+In the shops under the Belfry, the great tower from whence the bell
+summoned the inhabitants when danger threatened, lay plenty of cloth for
+new doublets. Nor was there any lack of gold or silver in the treasury
+of the guild-hall, the strong boxes of the merchants, the chests of the
+citizens. The silver table-utensils, the gold ornaments of the women,
+the children’s gifts from godparents fell into the hands of the
+conquerors, while a hundred and seventy rich villages near Aalst were
+compelled to furnish food for the mutineers.
+
+Navarrete did not forbid the plundering. According to his opinion, what
+soldiers took by assault was well-earned booty. To him the occupation of
+Aalst was an act of righteous self-defence, and the regiments shared his
+belief, and were pleased with their Eletto.
+
+The rebels sought and found quarters in the citizens’ houses, slept in
+their beds, eat from their dishes, and drank their wine-cellars empty.
+Pillage was permitted for three days. On the fifth discipline was
+restored, the quartermaster’s department organized, and the citizens
+were permitted to assemble at the guild-hall, pursue their trades and
+business, follow the pursuits to which they had been accustomed. The
+property they had saved was declared unassailable; besides, robbery had
+ceased to be very remunerative.
+
+The Eletto was at liberty to choose his own quarters, and there was no
+lack of stately dwellings in Aalst. Ulrich might have been tempted to
+occupy the palace of Baron de Hierges, but passed it by, selecting as
+a home for his mother and himself a pretty little house on the
+market-place, which reminded him of his father’s smithy. The
+bow-windowed room, with the view of the belfry and the stately
+guildhall, was pleasantly fitted up for his mother, and the city
+gardeners received orders to send the finest house-plants to his
+residence. Soon the sitting-room, adorned with flowers and enlivened by
+singing-birds, looked far handsomer and more cosy than the nest of which
+he had dreamed. A little white dog, exactly like the one Florette had
+possessed in the smithy, was also procured, and when in the evening the
+warm summer air floated into the open windows, and Ulrich sat alone
+with Florette, recalling memories of the past, or making plans for the
+future, it seemed as if a new spring had come to his soul. The citizens’
+distress did not trouble him. They were the losing party in the grim
+game of war, enemies--rebels. Among his own men he saw nothing but
+joyous faces; he exercised the power--they obeyed.
+
+Zorrillo bore him ill-will, Ulrich read it in his eyes; but he made him
+a captain, and the man performed his duty as quartermaster in the most
+exemplary manner. Florette wished to tell him that the Eletto was her
+son, but the latter begged her to wait till his power was more firmly
+established, and how could she refuse her darling anything? She had
+grieved deeply, very deeply, but this mood soon passed away, and now she
+could be happy in Ulrich’s society, and forget sorrow and heartache.
+
+What joy it was to have him back, to be loved by him! Where was there
+a more affectionate son, a pleasanter home than hers? The velvet and
+brocade dresses belonging to the Baroness de Hierges had fallen to the
+Eletto. How young Florette looked in them! When she glanced into the
+mirror, she was astonished at herself.
+
+Two beautiful riding-horses for ladies’ use and elegant trappings had
+been found in the baron’s stable. Ulrich had told her of it, and the
+desire to ride with him instantly arose in her mind. She had always
+accompanied Grandgagnage, and when she now went out, attired in a long
+velvet riding-habit, with floating plumes in her dainty little hat,
+beside her son, she soon noticed how admiringly even the hostile
+citizens and their wives looked after them. It was a pretty sight to
+behold the handsome soldier, full of pride and power, galloping on the
+most spirited stallion, beside the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose
+eyes sparkled with vivacious light.
+
+Zorrillo often met them, when they passed the guildhall, and Florette
+always gave him a friendly greeting with her whip, but he intentionally
+averted his eyes or if he could not avoid it, coldly returned her
+recognition.
+
+This wounded her deeply, and when alone, it often happened that she sunk
+into gloomy reverie and, with an aged, weary face, gazed fixedly at the
+floor. But Ulrich’s approach quickly cheered and rejuvenated her.
+
+Florette now knew what her son had experienced in life, what had moved
+his heart, his soul, and could not contradict him, when he told her that
+power was the highest prize of existence.
+
+The Eletto’s ambitious mind could not be satisfied with little Aalst.
+The mutineers had been outlawed by an edict from Brussels, but the king
+had nothing to do with this measure; the shameful proclamation was only
+intended to stop the wailing of the Netherlanders. They would have to
+pay dearly for it! There was a great scheme in view.
+
+The Antwerp of those days was called “as rich as the Indies;” the
+project under consideration was the possibility of manoeuvring this
+abode of wealth into the hands of the mutineers; the whole Spanish army
+in the Netherlands being about to follow the example of the regiments in
+Aalst.
+
+The mother was the friend and counsellor of the son. At every step he
+took he heard her opinion, and often yielded his own in its favor. This
+interest in the direction of great events occupied the sibyl’s versatile
+mind. When, on many occasions, pros and tons were equal in weight, she
+brought out the cards, and this oracle generally turned the scale.
+
+No high aim, no desire to accomplish good and great things in wider
+spheres, influenced the thoughts and actions of this couple.
+
+What cared they, that the weal and woe of thousands depended on their
+decision? The deadly weapon in their bands was to them only a valuable
+utensil in which they delighted, and with which fruits were plucked from
+the trees.
+
+Ulrich now saw the fulfilment of Don Juan’s words, that power was an
+arable field; for there were many full ears in Aalst for them both to
+harvest.
+
+Florette still nursed, with maternal care, the soldier’s orphan which
+she had taken to her son’s house; the child, born on a bed of straw--was
+now clothed in dainty linen, laces and other beautiful finery. It was
+necessary to her, for she occupied herself with the helpless little
+creature when, during the long morning hours of Ulrich’s absence,
+sorrowful thought troubled her too deeply.
+
+Ulrich often remained absent a long time, far longer than the service
+required. What was he doing? Visiting a sweetheart? Why not? She only
+marvelled that the fair women did not come from far and near to see the
+handsome man.
+
+Yes, the Eletto had found an old love. Art, which he had sullenly
+forsaken. News had reached his ears, that an artist had fallen in the
+defence of the city. He went to the dead man’s house to see his works,
+and how did he find the painter’s dwelling! Windows, furniture were
+shattered, the broken doors of the cupboards hung into the rooms on
+their bent hinges. The widow and her children were lying in the studio
+on a heap of straw. This touched his heart, and he gave alms with an
+open hand to the sorrowing woman. A few pictures of the saints, which
+the Spaniards had spared, hung on the walls; the easel, paints and
+brushes had been left untouched.
+
+A thought, which he instantly carried into execution, entered his mind.
+He would paint a new standard! How his heart beat, when he again stood
+before the easel!
+
+He regarded the heretics as heathens. The Spaniards were shortly going
+to fight against them and for the faith. So he painted the Saviour on
+one side of the standard, the Virgin on the other. The artist’s widow
+sat to him for the Madonna, a young soldier for the Christ.
+
+No scruples, no consideration for the criticisms of teachers now checked
+his creating hand; the power was his, and whatever he did must be right.
+
+He placed upon the Saviour’s bowed figure, Costa’s head, as he had
+painted it in Titian’s studio, and the Madonna, in defiance of the stern
+judges in Madrid, received the sibyl’s face, to please himself and do
+honor to his mother. He made her younger, transformed her white hair to
+gleaming golden tresses. One day he asked Flora to sit still and think
+of something very serious; he wanted to sketch her.
+
+She gaily placed herself in position, saying:
+
+“Be quick, for serious thoughts don’t last long with me.”
+
+A few days later both pictures were finished, and possessed no mean
+degree of merit; he rejoiced that after the long interval he could
+still accomplish something. His mother was delighted with her son’s
+masterpieces, especially the Madonna, for she instantly recognized
+herself, and was touched by this proof of his faithful remembrance. She
+had looked exactly like it when a young girl, she said; it was strange
+how precisely he had hit the color of her hair; but she was afraid it
+was blaspheming to paint a Madonna with her face; she was a poor sinner,
+nothing more.
+
+Florette was glad that the work was finished, for restlessness again
+began to torture her, and the mornings had been so lonely. Zorrillo--it
+caused her bitter pain--had not cast even a single glance at her, and
+she began to miss the society of men, to which she had been accustomed.
+But she never complained, and always showed Ulrich the same cheerful
+face, until the latter told her one day that he must leave her for some
+time.
+
+He had already defeated in little skirmishes small bodies of peasants
+and citizens, who had taken the field against the mutineers; now Colonel
+Romero called upon him to help oppose a large army of patriots, who had
+assembled between Lowen and Tirlemont, under the command of the noble
+Sieur de Floyon. It was said to consist Of students and other rebellious
+brawlers, and so it proved; but the “rebels” were the flower of the
+youth of the shamefully-oppressed nation, noble souls, who found it
+unbearable to see their native land enslaved by mutinous hordes.
+
+Ulrich’s parting with his mother was not a hard one. He felt sure of
+victory and of returning home, but the excitable woman burst into tears
+as she bade him farewell.
+
+The Eletto took the field with a large body of troops; the majority of
+the mutineers, with them. Captain and Quartermaster Zorrillo, remained
+behind to hold the citizens in check.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+A considerable, but hastily-collected army of patriots had been utterly
+routed at Tisnacq by a small force of disciplined Spaniards.
+
+Ulrich had assisted his countrymen to gain the speedy victory, and
+had been greeted by his old colonel, the brave Romero, the bold
+cavalry-commander, Mendoza, and other distinguished officers as one of
+themselves. Since these aristocrats had become mutineers, the Eletto
+was a brother, and they did not disdain to secure his cooperation in the
+attack they were planning upon Antwerp.
+
+He had shown great courage under fire, and wherever he appeared, his
+countrymen held out their hands to him, vowing obedience and loyalty
+unto death.
+
+Ulrich felt as if he were walking on air, mere existence was a joy to
+him. No prince could revel in the blissful consciousness of increasing
+power, more fully than he. The evening after the decision he had
+attended a splendid banquet with Romero, Vargas, Mendoza, Tassis, and
+the next morning the prisoners, who had fallen into the hands of his
+men, were brought before him.
+
+He had left the examination of the students, citizens’ sons, and
+peasants to his lieutenant; but there were also three noblemen, from
+whom large ransoms could be obtained. The two older ones had granted
+what he asked and been led away; the third, a tall man in knightly
+armor, was left last.
+
+Ulrich had personally encountered the latter. The prisoner, mounted upon
+a tall steed, had pressed him very closely; nay, the Eletto’s victory
+was not decided, until a musket-shot had stretched the other’s horse on
+the ground.
+
+The knight now carried his arm in a sling. In the centre of his coat of
+mail and on the shoulder-pieces of his armor, the ensigns armorial of a
+noble family were embossed.
+
+“You were dragged out from under your horse,” said the Eletto to the
+knight. “You wield an excellent blade.”
+
+He had spoken in Spanish, but the other shrugged his shoulders, and
+answered in the German language “I don’t understand Spanish.”
+
+“Are you a German?” Ulrich now asked in his native tongue. “How do you
+happen to be among the Netherland rebels?”
+
+The nobleman looked at the Eletto in surprise. But the latter, giving
+him no time for reflection, continued “I understand German; your
+answer?”
+
+“I had business in Antwerp?”
+
+“What business?”
+
+“That is my affair.”
+
+“Very well. Then we will drop courtesy and adopt a different tone.”
+
+“Nay, I am the vanquished party, and will answer you.”
+
+“Well then?”
+
+“I had stuffs to buy.”
+
+“Are you a merchant?”
+
+The knight shook his head and answered, smiling: “We have rebuilt our
+castle since the fire.”
+
+“And now you need hangings and artistic stuff. Did you expect to capture
+them from us?”
+
+“Scarcely, sir.”
+
+“Then what brought you among our enemies?”
+
+“Baron Floyon belongs to my mother’s family. He marched against you, and
+as I approved his cause....”
+
+“And pillage pleases you, you felt disposed to break a lance.”
+
+“Quite right.”
+
+“And you have done your cause no harm. Where do you live?”
+
+“Surely you know: in Germany.”
+
+“Germany is a very large country.”
+
+“In the Black Forest in Swabia.”
+
+“And your name?”
+
+The prisoner made no reply; but Ulrich fixed his eyes upon the coat of
+arms on the knight’s armor, looked at him more steadily, and a strange
+smile hovered around his lips as he approached him, saying in an altered
+tone: “You think the Navarrete will demand from Count von Frohlinger a
+ransom as large as his fields and forests?”
+
+“You know me?”
+
+“Perhaps so, Count Lips.”
+
+“By Heavens!”
+
+“Ah, ha, you went from the monastery to the field.”
+
+“From the monastery? How do you know that, sir?”
+
+“We are old acquaintances, Count Lips. Look me in the eyes.”
+
+The other gazed keenly at the Eletto, shook his head, and said: “You
+have not seemed a total stranger to me from the first; but I never was
+in Spain.”
+
+“But I have been in Swabia, and at that time you did me a kindness.
+Would your ransom be large enough to cover the cost of a broken church
+window?”
+
+The count opened his eyes in amazement and a bright smile flashed over
+his face as, clapping his hands, he exclaimed with sincere delight:
+
+“You, you--you are Ulrich! I’ll be damned, if I’m mistaken! But who the
+devil would discover a child of the Black Forest in the Spanish Eletto?”
+
+“That I am one, must remain a secret between us for the present,”
+ exclaimed Ulrich, extending his hand to the count. “Keep silence, and
+you will be free--the window will cover the ransom!”
+
+“Holy Virgin! If all the windows in the monastery were as dear, the
+monks might grow fat!” cried the count. “A Swabian heart remains half
+Swabian, even when it beats under a Spanish doublet. Its luck, Turk’s
+luck, that I followed Floyon;--and your old father, Adam? And Ruth--what
+a pleasure!”
+
+“You ought to know... my father is dead, died long, long ago!” said
+Ulrich, lowering his eyes.
+
+“Dead!” exclaimed the other. “And long ago? I saw him at the anvil three
+weeks since.”
+
+“My father? At the anvil? And Ruth?...” stammered Ulrich, gazing at the
+other with a pallid, questioning face.
+
+“They are alive, certainly they are alive! I met him again in Antwerp.
+No one else can make you such armor. The devil is in it, if you hav’nt
+heard of the Swabian armorer.”
+
+“The Swabian--the Swabian--is he my father?”
+
+“Your own father. How long ago is it? Thirteen years, for I was then
+sixteen. That was the last time I saw him, and yet I recognized him at
+the first glance. True, I shall never forget the hour, when the dumb
+woman drew the arrow from the Jew’s breast. The scene I witnessed that
+day in the forest still rises before my eyes, as if it were happening
+now.”
+
+“He lives, they did not kill him!” exclaimed the Eletto, now first
+beginning to rejoice over the surprising news. “Lips, man--Philipp!
+I have found my mother again, and now my father too. Wait, wait! I’ll
+speak to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride
+to Lier; there you will tell me the whole story. Holy Virgin! thanks, a
+thousand thanks! I shall see my father again, my father!”
+
+It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their
+wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier. The Eletto had not grown
+weary of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.
+
+Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had
+gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years. The
+Jew’s dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living
+with the old man and kept house for him. Navarrete had often heard the
+Swabian and his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.
+
+The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth. He acknowledged that
+he had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his
+beautiful daughter. The girl was slender as a fir-tree! And her face!
+once seen could never be forgotten. So might have looked the beautiful
+Judith, who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of
+Rome! She was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold
+as glass; and though she liked him on account of his old friendship for
+Ulrich and the affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at,
+not touch her. She would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still
+alive, and what he had become. And the smith, the smith! Nay, he would
+not go home now, but back to Antwerp to be Ulrich’s messenger! But now
+he too would like to relate his own experiences.
+
+He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly
+reverted to old days and his father. Every person whom they had both
+known was enquired for.
+
+Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from
+gout and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age.
+Hangemarx had grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by
+the rope, though by his own hand. Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the
+priesthood and was living in Rome in high esteem, as a member of a
+Spanish order. The abbot still presided over the monastery and had a
+great deal of time for his studies; for the school had been broken up
+and, as part of the property of the monastery had been confiscated, the
+number of monks had diminished. The magistrate had been falsely accused
+of embezzling minors’ money, remained in prison for a year and, after
+his liberation, died of a liver complaint.
+
+Morning was dawning when the friends separated. Count Philipp undertook
+to tell Ruth that Ulrich had found his mother again. She was to persuade
+the smith to forgive his wife, with whose praises her son’s lips were
+overflowing.
+
+At his departure Philipp tried to induce the Eletto to change his course
+betimes, for he was following a dangerous path; but Ulrich laughed in
+his face, exclaiming: “You know I have found the right word, and shall
+use it to the end. You were born to power in a small way; I have won
+mine myself, and shall not rest until I am permitted to exercise it on
+a great scale, nay, the grandest. If aught on earth affords a taste of
+heavenly joy, it is power!”
+
+In the camp the Eletto found the troops from Aalst prepared for
+departure, and as he rode along the road saw in imagination, sometimes
+his parents, his parents in a new and happy union, sometimes Ruth in the
+full splendor of her majestic beauty. He remembered how proudly he had
+watched his father and mother, when they went to church together on
+Sunday, how he had carried Ruth in his arms on their flight; and now he
+was to see and experience all this again.
+
+He gave his men only a short rest, for he longed to reach his mother.
+It was a glorious return home, to bring such tidings! How beautiful and
+charming he found life; how greatly he praised his destiny!
+
+The sun was setting behind pleasant Aalst as he approached, and the sky
+looked as if it was strewn with roses.
+
+“Beautiful, beautiful!” he murmured, pointing out to his lieutenant the
+brilliant hues in the western horizon.
+
+A messenger hastened on in advance, the thunder of artillery and fanfare
+of music greeted the victors, as they marched through the gate. Ulrich
+sprang from his horse in front of the guildhall and was received by the
+captain, who had commanded during his absence.
+
+The Eletto hastily described the course of the brilliant, victorious
+march, and then asked what had happened.
+
+The captain lowered his eyes in embarrassment, saying, in a low tone:
+“Nothing of great importance; but day before yesterday a wicked deed was
+committed, which will vex you. The woman you love, the camp sibyl....”
+
+“Who? What? What do you mean?”
+
+“She went to Zorrillo, and he--you must not be startled--he stabbed
+her.”
+
+Ulrich staggered back, repeating, in a hollow tone “Stabbed!” Then
+seizing the other by the shoulder, he shrieked: “Stabbed! That means
+murdered-killed!”
+
+“He thrust his dagger into her heart, she must have died as quickly as
+if struck by lightning. Then Zorrillo went away, God knows where. Who
+could suspect, that the quiet man....”
+
+“You let him escape, helped the murderer get off, you dogs!” raved the
+wretched man. “We will speak of this again. Where is she, where is her
+body?”
+
+The captain shrugged his shoulders, saying, in a soothing tone: “Calm
+yourself, Navarrete! We too grieve for the sibyl; many in the camp will
+miss her. As for Zorrillo, he had the password, and could go through the
+gate at any hour. The body is still lying in his quarters.”
+
+“Indeed!” faltered the Eletto. Then calming himself, he said,
+mournfully: “I wish to see her.”
+
+The captain walked silently by his side and opened the murderer’s
+dwelling.
+
+There, on a bed of pine-shavings, in a rude coffin made of rough planks,
+lay the woman who had given him birth, deserted him, and yet who so
+tenderly loved him. A poor soldier’s wife, to whom she had been kind,
+was watching beside the corpse, at whose head a singly brand burned with
+a smoky, yellow light. The little white dog had found its way to her,
+and was snuffing the floor, still red with its mistress’s blood.
+
+Ulrich snatched the brand from the bracket, and threw the light on the
+dead woman’s face. His tear-dimmed eyes sought his mother’s features,
+but only rested on them a moment--then he shuddered, turned away, and
+giving the torch to his companion, said, softly: “Cover her head.”
+
+The soldier’s wife spread her coarse apron over the face, which-had
+smiled so sweetly: but Ulrich threw himself on his knees beside the
+coffin, buried his face, and remained in this attitude for many minutes.
+
+At last he slowly rose, rubbed his eyes as if waking from some confused
+dream, drew himself up proudly, and scanned the place with searching
+eyes.
+
+He was the Eletto, and thus men honored the woman who was dear to him!
+
+His mother lay in a wretched pauper’s coffin, a ragged camp-follower
+watched beside her--no candles burned at her head, no priest prayed for
+the salvation of her soul!
+
+Grief was raging madly in his breast, now indignation joined this gloomy
+guest; giving vent to his passionate emotion, Ulrich wildly exclaimed:
+
+“Look here, captain! This corpse, this woman--proclaim it to every
+one--the sibyl was my mother yes, yes, my own mother! I demand respect
+for her, the same respect that is shown myself! Must I compel men to
+render her fitting honor? Here, bring torches. Prepare the catafalque in
+St. Martin’s church, and place it before the altar! Put candles around
+it, as many as can be found! It is still early! Lieutenant! I am glad
+you are there! Rouse the cathedral priests and go to the bishop. I
+command a solemn requiem for my mother! Everything is to be arranged
+precisely as it was at the funeral of the Duchess of Aerschot! Let
+trumpets give the signal for assembling. Order the bells to be rung! In
+an hour all must be ready at St. Martin’s cathedral! Bring torches here,
+I say! Have I the right to command--yes or no? A large oak coffin was
+standing at the joiner’s close by. Bring it here, here; I need a better
+death-couch for my mother. You poor, dear woman, how you loved flowers,
+and no one has brought you even one! Captain Ortis, I have issued my
+commands! Everything must be done, when I return;--Lieutenant, you have
+your orders!”
+
+He rushed from the death-chamber to the sitting-room in his own house,
+and hastily tore stalks and blossoms from the plants. The maid-servants
+watched him timidly, and he harshly ordered them to collect what he had
+gathered and take them to the house of death.
+
+His orders were obeyed, and when he next appeared at Zorrillo’s
+quarters, the soldiers, who had assembled there in throngs, parted to
+make way for him.
+
+He beckoned to them, and while he went from one to another, saying: “The
+sibyl was my mother--Zorrillo has murdered my mother,” the coffin was
+borne into the house.
+
+In the vestibule, he leaned his head against the wall, moaning and
+sighing, until Florette was laid in her last bed, and a soldier put his
+hand on his shoulder. Then Ulrich strewed flowers over the corpse, and
+the joiner came to nail up the coffin. The blows of the hammer actually
+hurt him, it seemed as if each one fell upon his own heart.
+
+The funeral procession passed through the ranks of soldiers, who
+filled the street. Several officers came to meet it, and Captain
+Ortis, approaching close to the Eletto, said: “The bishop refuses the
+catafalque and the solemn requiem you requested. Your mother died in
+sin, without the sacrament. He will grant as many masses for the repose
+of her soul as you desire, but such high honors....”
+
+“He refuses them to us?”
+
+“Not to us, to the sibyl.”
+
+“She was my mother, your Eletto’s mother. To the cathedral, forward!”
+
+“It is closed, and will remain so to-day, for the bishop....”
+
+“Then burst the doors! We’ll show them who has the power here.”
+
+“Are you out of your senses? The Holy Church!”
+
+“Forward, I say! Let him who is no cowardly wight, follow me!”
+
+Ulrich drew the commander’s baton from his belt and rushed forward, as
+if he were leading a storming-party; but Ortis cried: “We will not fight
+against St. Martin!” and a murmur of applause greeted him.
+
+Ulrich checked his pace, and gnashing his teeth, exclaimed: “Will not?
+Will not?” Then gazing around the circle of comrades, who surrounded
+him on all sides, he asked: “Has no one courage to help me to my rights?
+Ortis, de Vego, Diego, will you follow me, yes or no?”
+
+“No, not against the Church!”
+
+“Then I command you,” shouted the Eletto, furiously. “Obey, Lieutenant
+de Vega, forward with your company, and burst the cathedral doors.”
+
+But no one obeyed, and Ortis ordered: “Back, every man of you! Saint
+Martin is my patron saint; let all who value their souls refuse to
+attack the church and defend it with me.”
+
+The blood rushed to Ulrich’s brain, and incapable of longer
+self-control, he threw his baton into the ranks of the mutineers,
+shrieking: “I hurl it at your feet; whoever picks it up can keep it!”
+
+The soldiers hesitated; but Ortis repeated his “Back!” Other officers
+gave the same order, and their men obeyed. The street grew empty, and
+the Eletto’s mother was only followed by a few of her son’s friends; no
+priest led the procession. In the cemetery Ulrich threw three handfuls
+of earth into the open grave, then with drooping head returned home.
+
+How dreary, how desolate the bright, flower-decked room seemed now, for
+the first time the Eletto felt really deserted. No tears came to relieve
+his grief, for the insult offered him that day aroused his wrath, and he
+cherished it as if it were a consolation.
+
+He had thrown power aside with the staff of command. Power! It too was
+potter’s trash, which a stone might shatter, a flower in full bloom,
+whose leaves drop apart if touched by the finger! It was no noble metal,
+only yellow mica!
+
+The knocker on the door never stopped rapping. One officer after another
+came to soothe him, but he would not even admit his lieutenant.
+
+He rejoiced over his hasty deed. Fortune, he thought, cannot be escaped,
+art cannot be thrown aside; fame may be trampled under foot, yet still
+pursue us.
+
+Power has this advantage over all three, it can be flung off like a
+worn-out doublet. Let it fly! Had he owed it the happiness of the last
+few weeks? No, no! He would have been happy with his mother in a poor,
+plain house, without the office of Eletto, without flowers, horses or
+servants. It was to her, not to power, that he was indebted for every
+blissful hour, and now that she had gone, how desolate was the void in
+his heart!
+
+Suddenly the recollection of his father and Ruth illumined his misery
+like a sunbeam. The game of Eletto was now over, he would go to Antwerp
+the next day.
+
+Why had fate snatched his mother from him just now, why did it deny him
+the happiness of seeing his parents united? His father--she had sorely
+wronged him, but for what will not death atone? He must take him some
+remembrance of her, and went to her room to look through her chest.
+But it no longer stood in the old place--the owner of the house, a rich
+matron, who had been compelled to occupy an attic-room, while strangers
+were quartered in her residence, had taken charge of the pale orphan and
+the boxes after Florette’s death.
+
+The good Netherland dame provided for the adopted child and the property
+of her enemy, the man whose soldiers had pillaged her brothers and
+cousins. The death of the woman below had moved her deeply, for the
+wonderful charm of Florette’s manner had won her also.
+
+Towards midnight Ulrich took the lamp and went upstairs. He had long
+since forgotten to spare others, by denying himself a wish.
+
+The knocking at the door and the passing to and fro in the entry had
+kept Frau Geel awake. When she heard the Eletto’s heavy step, she sprang
+up from her spinning-wheel in alarm, and the maid-servant, half roused
+from sleep, threw herself on her knees.
+
+“Frau Geel!” called a voice outside.
+
+She recognized Navarrete’s tones, opened the door, and asked what he
+desired.
+
+“It was his mother,” thought the old lady as he threw clothes, linen
+and many a trifle on the floor. “It was his mother. Perhaps he wants her
+rosary or prayer book. He is her son! They looked like a happy couple
+when they were together. A wild soldier, but he isn’t a wicked man yet.”
+
+While he searched she held the light for him, shaking her head over the
+disorder among the articles where he rummaged.
+
+Ulrich had now reached the bottom of the chest. Here he found a valuable
+necklace, booty which Zorrillo had given his companion for use in case
+of need. This should be Ruth’s. Close beside it lay a small package,
+tied with rose-pink ribbon, containing a tiny infant’s shirt, a gay
+doll, and a slender gold circlet; her wedding-ring! The date showed
+that it had been given to her by his father, and the shirt and doll were
+mementos of him, her darling--of himself.
+
+He gazed at them, changing them from one hand to the other, till
+suddenly his heart overflowed, and without heeding Frau Geel, who was
+watching him, he wept softly, exclaiming: “Mother, dear mother!”
+
+A light hand touched his shoulder, and a woman’s kind voice said: “Poor
+fellow, poor fellow! Yes, she was a dear little thing, and a mother, a
+mother--that is enough!”
+
+The Eletto nodded assent with tearful eyes, and when she again gently
+repeated in a tone of sincere sympathy, her “poor fellow!” it sounded
+sweeter, than the loudest homage that had ever been offered to his fame
+and power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+The next morning while Ulrich was packing his luggage, assisted by his
+servant, the sound of drums and fifes, bursts of military music and loud
+cheers were heard in the street, and going to the window, he saw the
+whole body of mutineers drawn up in the best order.
+
+The companies stood in close ranks before his house, impetuous shouts
+and bursts of music made the windows rattle, and now the officers
+pressed into his room, holding out their swords, vowing fealty unto
+death, and entreating him to remain their commander.
+
+He now perceived, that power cannot be thrown aside like a worthless
+thing. His tortured heart was stirred with deep emotion, and the
+drooping wings of ambition unfolded with fresh energy. He reproached,
+raged, but yielded; and when Ortis on his knees, offered him the
+commander’s baton, he accepted it.
+
+Ulrich was again Eletto, but this need not prevent his seeing his father
+and Ruth once more, so he declared that he would retain his office,
+but should be obliged to ride to Antwerp that day, secretly inform
+the officers of the conspiracy against the city, and the necessity of
+negotiating with the commandant, that their share of the rich prize
+might not be lost.
+
+What many had suspected and hoped was now to become reality. Their
+Eletto was no idle man! When Navarrete appeared at noon in front of the
+troops with his own work, the standard, in his hand, he was received
+with shouts of joy, and no one murmured, though many recognized in the
+Madonna’s countenance the features of the murdered sibyl.
+
+Two days later Ulrich, full of eager expectation, rode into Antwerp,
+carrying in his portmanteau the mementos he had taken from his mother’s
+chest, while in imagination he beheld his father’s face, the smithy
+at Richtberg, the green forest, the mountains of his home, the Costas’
+house, and his little playfellow. Would he really be permitted to lean
+on his father’s broad breast once more?
+
+And Ruth, Ruth! Did she still care for him, had Philipp described her
+correctly?
+
+He went to the count without delay, and found him at home. Philipp
+received him cordially, yet with evident timidity and embarrassment.
+Ulrich too was grave, for he had to inform his companion of his mother’s
+death.
+
+“So that is settled,” said the count. “Your father is a gnarled old
+tree, a real obstinate Swabian. It’s not his way to forgive and forget.”
+
+“And did he know that my mother was so near to him, that she was in
+Aalst.”
+
+“All, all!”
+
+“He will forgive the dead. Surely, surely he will, if I beseech him,
+when we are united, if I tell him....”
+
+“Poor fellow! You think all this is so easy.--It is long since I have
+had so hard a task, yet I must speak plainly. He will have nothing to do
+with you, either.”
+
+“Nothing to do with me?” cried Ulrich.
+
+“Is he out of his senses? What sin have I committed, what does he....”
+
+“He knows that you are Navarrete, the Eletto of Herenthals, the
+conqueror of Aalst, and therefore....”
+
+“Therefore?”
+
+“Why of course. You see, Ulrich, when a man becomes famous like you, he
+is known for a long distance, everything he does makes a great hue and
+cry, and echo repeats it in every alley.”
+
+“To my honor before God and man.”
+
+“Before God? Perhaps so; certainly before the Spaniards. As for me--I
+was with the squadron myself, I call you a brave soldier; but--no
+offence--you have behaved ill in this country. The Netherlanders are
+human beings too.”
+
+“They are rebels, recreant heretics.”
+
+“Take care, or you will revile your own father. His faith has been
+shaken. A preacher, whom he met on his flight here, in some tavern, led
+him astray by inducing him to read the bible. Many things the Church
+condemns are sacred to him. He thinks the Netherlanders a free, noble
+nation. Your King Philip he considers a tyrant, oppressor, and ruthless
+destroyer. You who have served him and Alba--are in his eyes; but I will
+not wound you....”
+
+“What are we, I will hear.”
+
+“No, no, it would do no good. In short, to Adam the Spanish army is a
+bloody pest, nothing more.”
+
+“There never were braver soldiers.”
+
+“Very true; but every defeat, all the blood you have shed, has angered
+him and this nation, and wrath, which daily receives fresh food and to
+which men become accustomed, at last turns to hate. All great crimes
+committed in this war are associated with Alba’s name, many smaller ones
+with yours, and so your father....”
+
+“Then we will teach him a better opinion! I return to him an honest
+soldier, the commander of thousands of men! To see him once more, only
+to see him! A son remains a son! I learned that from my mother. We were
+rivals and enemies, when I met her! And then, then--alas, that is all
+over! Now I wish to find in my father what I have lost; will you go to
+the smithy with me?”
+
+“No, Ulrich, no. I have said everything to your father that can be urged
+in your defence, but he is so devoured with rage....”
+
+“Santiago!” exclaimed the Eletto, bursting into sudden fury, “I need no
+advocate! If the old man knows what share I have taken in this war, so
+much the better. I’ll fill up the gaps myself. I have been wherever the
+fight raged hottest! ‘Sdeath! that is my pride! I am no longer a boy and
+have fought my way through life without father or mother. What I am,
+I have made myself, and can defend with honor, even to the old man.
+He carries heavy guns, I know; but I am not accustomed to shoot with
+feather balls!”
+
+“Ulrich, Ulrich! He is an old man, and your father!”
+
+“I will remember that, as soon as he calls me his son.”
+
+One of the count’s servants showed Ulrich the way to the smith’s house.
+
+Adam had entirely given up the business of horseshoeing, for nothing
+was to be seen in the ground floor of the high, narrow house, except
+the large door, and a window on each side. Behind the closed one at
+the right were several pieces of armor, beautifully embossed, and some
+artistically-wrought iron articles. The left-hand one was partly open,
+granting entrance to the autumn sunshine. Ulrich dismissed the servant,
+took the mementos of his mother in his hand, and listened to the
+hammer-strokes, that echoed from within.
+
+The familiar sound recalled pleasant memories of his childhood and
+cooled his hot blood. Count Philipp was right. His father was an old
+man, and entitled to demand respect from his son. He must endure from
+him what he would tolerate from no one else. Nay, he again felt that it
+was a great happiness to be near the beloved one, from whom he had
+so long been parted; whatever separated him from his old father, must
+surely vanish into nothing, as soon as they looked into each other’s
+eyes.
+
+What a master in his trade, his father still was! No one else would have
+found it so easy to forge the steel coat of mail with the Medusa head
+in the centre. He was not working alone here as he did at Richtberg; for
+Ulrich heard more than one hammer striking iron in the workshop.
+
+Before touching the knocker, he looked into the open window.
+
+A woman’s tall figure was standing at the desk. Her back was turned, and
+he saw only the round outline of the head, the long black braids, the
+plain dress, bordered with velvet, and the lace in the neck. An elderly
+man in the costume of a merchant was just holding out his hand in
+farewell, and he heard him say: “You’ve bought too cheap again, far too
+cheap, Jungfer Ruth.”
+
+“Just a fair price,” she answered quietly. “You will have a good
+profit, and we can afford to pay it. I shall expect the iron day after
+to-morrow.”
+
+“It will be delivered before noon. Master Adam has a treasure in you,
+dear Jungfer. If my son were alive, I know where he would seek a wife.
+Wilhelm Ykens has told me of his troubles; he is a skilful goldsmith.
+Why do you give the poor fellow no hope? Consider! You are past twenty,
+and every year it grows harder to say yes to a lover.”
+
+“Nothing suits me better, than to stay with father,” she answered gaily.
+“He can’t do without me, you know, nor I without him. I have no dislike
+to Wilhelm, but it seems very easy to live without him. Farewell, Father
+Keulitz.”
+
+Ulrich withdrew from the window, until the merchant had vanished down
+a side street; then he again glanced into the narrow room. Ruth was now
+seated at the desk, but instead of looking over the open account book,
+her eyes were gazing dreamily into vacancy, and the Eletto now saw her
+beautiful, calm, noble face. He did not disturb her, for it seemed as if
+he could never weary of comparing her features with the fadeless image
+his memory had treasured during all the vicissitudes of life.
+
+Never, not even in Italy, had he beheld a nobler countenance. Philipp
+was right. There was something royal in her bearing. This was the wife
+of his dreams, the proud woman, with whom the Eletto desired to share
+power and grandeur. And he had already held her once in his arms! It
+seemed as if it were only yesterday. His heart throbbed higher and
+higher. As she now rose and thoughtfully approached the window, he could
+no longer contain himself, and exclaimed in a low tone: “Ruth, Ruth! Do
+you know me, girl? It is I--Ulrich!”
+
+She shrank back, putting out her hands with a repellent gesture; but
+only for a moment. Then, struggling to maintain her composure, she
+joyously uttered his name, and as he rushed into the room, cried
+“Ulrich!” “Ulrich!” and no longer able to control her feelings, suffered
+him to clasp her to his heart.
+
+She had daily expected him with ardent longing, yet secret dread: for he
+was the fierce Eletto, the commander of the insurgents, the bloody foe
+of the brave nation she loved. But at sight of his face all, all was
+forgotten, and she felt nothing but the bliss of being reunited to him
+whom she had never, never forgotten, the joy of seeing, feeling that he
+loved her.
+
+His heart too was overflowing with passionate delight. Faltering tender
+words, he drew her head to his breast, then raised it to press his mouth
+to her pure lips. But her intoxication of joy passed away--and before
+he could prevent it, she had escaped from his arms, saying sternly: “Not
+that, not that.... Many a crime lies between us and you.”
+
+“No, no!” he eagerly exclaimed. “Are you not near me? Your heart and
+mine have belonged to each other since that day in the snow. If my
+father is angry because I serve other masters than his, you, yes you,
+must reconcile us again. I could stay in Aalst no longer.”
+
+“With the mutineers?” she asked sadly. “Ulrich, Ulrich, that you should
+return to us thus!”
+
+He again seized her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it, only
+smiled, saying with the confidence of a man, who is sure of his cause:
+
+“Cast aside this foolish reserve. To-morrow you will freely give me, not
+only one hand, but both. I am not so bad as you think. The fortune of
+war flung me under the Spanish flag, and ‘whose bread I eat, his song I
+sing,’ says the soldier. What would you have? I served with honor, and
+have done some doughty deeds; let that content you.”
+
+This angered Ruth, who resolutely exclaimed:
+
+“No, a thousand times no! You are the Eletto of Aalst, the pillager of
+cities, and this cannot be swept aside as easily as the dust from the
+floor. I... I am only a feeble girl;--but father, he will never give his
+hand to the blood-stained man in Spanish garb! I know him, I know it.”
+
+Ulrich’s breath came quicker; but he repressed the angry emotion and
+replied, first reproachfully, then beseechingly:
+
+“You are the old man’s echo. What does he know of military honor and
+warlike fame; but you, Ruth, must understand me. Do you still remember
+our sport with the ‘word,’ the great word that accomplished everything?
+I have found it; and you shall enjoy with me what it procures. First
+help me appease my father; I shall succeed, if you aid me. It will
+doubtless be a hard task. He could not bring himself to forgive his poor
+wife--Count Philipp says so;--but now! You see, Ruth, my mother died
+a few days ago; she was a dear, loving woman and might have deserved a
+better fate.
+
+“I am alone again now, and long for love--so ardently, so sincerely,
+more than I can tell you. Where shall I find it, if not with you and my
+own father? You have always cared for me; you betray it, and after all
+you know I am not a bad man, do you not? Be content with my love and
+take me to my father, yourself. Help me persuade him to listen to me. I
+have something here which you can give him from me; you will see that it
+will soften his heart!”
+
+“Then give it to me,” replied Ruth, “but whatever it may be--believe
+me, Ulrich, so long as you command the Spanish mutineers, he will remain
+hard, hard as his own iron!”
+
+“Spaniards! Mutineers! Nonsense! Whoever wishes to love, can love; the
+rest may be settled afterwards. You don’t know how high my heart throbs,
+now that I am near you, now that I see and hear you. You are my good
+angel and must remain so, now look here. This is my mother’s legacy.
+This little shirt I once wore, when I was a tiny thing, the gay doll was
+my plaything, and this gold hoop is the wedding-ring my father gave his
+bride at the altar--she kept all these things to the last, and carried
+them like holy relics from land to land, from camp to camp. Will you
+take these mementos to him?”
+
+She nodded silently.
+
+“Now comes the best thing. Have you ever seen more beautiful
+workmanship? You must wear this necklace, Ruth, as my first gift.”
+
+He held up the costly ornament, but she shrank back, asking bitterly
+
+“Captured booty?”
+
+“In honorable war,” he answered, proudly, approaching to fasten the
+jewels round her neck with his own hands; but she pushed him back,
+snatched the ornament, and hurled it on the floor, exclaiming angrily:
+
+“I loathe the stolen thing. Pick it up. It may suit the camp-followers.”
+
+This destroyed his self-control, and seizing both her arms in an iron
+grasp, he muttered through his clenched teeth:
+
+“That is an insult to my mother; take it back.” But Ruth heard and saw
+nothing; full of indignation she only felt that violence was being done
+her, and vainly struggled against the irresistible strength, which held
+her fast.
+
+Meantime the door had opened wide, but neither noticed it until a man’s
+deep voice loudly and wrathfully exclaimed:
+
+“Back, you scoundrel! Come here, Ruth. This is the way the assassin
+greets his family; begone, begone! you disgrace of my house!”
+
+Adam had uttered the words, and now drew the hammer from the belt of his
+leather apron.
+
+Ulrich gazed mutely into his face. There stood his father, strong,
+gigantic, as he had looked thirteen years before. His head was a little
+bowed, his beard longer and whiter, his eyebrows were more bushy and his
+expression had grown more gloomy; otherwise he was wholly unchanged in
+every feature.
+
+The son’s eyes rested on the smith as if spellbound. It seemed as if
+some malicious fate had drawn him into a snare.
+
+He could say nothing except, “father, father,” and the smith found no
+other answer than the harsh “begone!”
+
+Ruth approached the armorer, clung to his side, and pleaded:
+
+“Hear him, don’t send him away so; he is your child, and if anger just
+now overpowered him....”
+
+“Spanish custom--to abuse women!” cried Adam. “I have no son Navarrete,
+or whatever the murderous monster calls himself. I am a burgher, and
+have no son, who struts about in the stolen clothes of noblemen; as
+to this man and his assassins, I hate them, hate them all. Your foot
+defiles my house. Out with you, knave, or I will use my hammer.”
+
+Ulrich again exclaimed, “father, father!” Then, regaining his
+self-control by a violent effort, he gasped:
+
+“Father, I came to you in good will, in love. I am an honest soldier
+and if any one but you--‘Sdeath--if any other had dared to offer me
+this....”
+
+“Murder the dog, you would have said,” interrupted the smith. “We know
+the Spanish blessing: a sandre, a carne!--[Blood, murder.]--Thanks for
+your forbearance. There is the door. Another word, and I can restrain
+myself no longer.”
+
+Ruth had clung firmly to the smith, and motioned Ulrich to go. The
+Eletto groaned aloud, struck his forehead with his clenched fist, and
+rushed into the open air.
+
+As soon as Adam was alone with Ruth she caught his hand, exclaiming
+beseechingly:
+
+“Father, father, he is your own son! Love your enemies, the Saviour
+commanded; and you....”
+
+“And I hate him,” said the smith, curtly and resolutely. “Did he hurt
+you?”
+
+“Your hate hurts me ten times as much! You judge without examining; yes,
+father, you do! When he assaulted me, he was in the right. He thought I
+had insulted his mother.”
+
+Adam shrugged his shoulders, and she continued “The poor woman is dead.
+Ulrich brought you yonder ring; she never parted with it.”
+
+The armorer started, seized the golden hoop, looked for the date inside,
+and when he had found it, clasped the ring in his hands and pressed them
+silently to his temples. He stood in this attitude a short time, then
+let his arms fall, and said softly:
+
+“The dead must be forgiven....”
+
+“And the living, father? You have punished him terribly, and he is not a
+wicked man, no, indeed he is not! If he comes back again, father?”
+
+“My apprentices shall show the Spanish mutineer the door,” cried the
+old man in a harsh, stern tone; “to the burgher’s repentant son my house
+will be always open.”
+
+Meantime the Eletto wandered from one street to another. He felt
+bewildered, disgraced.
+
+It was not grief--no quiet heartache that disturbed--but a confused
+blending of wrath and sorrow. He did not wish to appear before the
+friend of his youth, and even avoided Hans Eitelfritz, who came towards
+him. He was blind to the gay, joyous bustle of the capital; life seemed
+grey and hollow. His intention of communicating with the commandant
+of the citadel remained unexecuted; for he thought of nothing but his
+father’s anger, of Ruth, his own shame and misery.
+
+He could not leave so.
+
+His father must, yes, he must hear him, and when it grew dusk, he again
+sought the house to which he belonged, and from which he had been so
+cruelly expelled.
+
+The door was locked. In reply to his knock, a man’s unfamiliar voice
+asked who he was, and what he wanted.
+
+He asked to speak with Adam, and called himself Ulrich.
+
+After waiting a long time he heard a door torn open, and the smith
+angrily exclaim:
+
+“To your spinning-wheel! Whoever clings to him so long as he wears the
+Spanish dress, means evil to him as well as to me.”
+
+“But hear him! You must hear him, father!” cried Ruth.
+
+The door closed, heavy steps approached the door of the house; it
+opened, and again Adam confronted his son.
+
+“What do you want?” he asked harshly.
+
+“To speak to you, to tell you that you did wrong to insult me unheard.”
+
+“Are you still the Eletto? Answer!”
+
+“I am!”
+
+“And intend to remain so?”
+
+“Que como--puede ser--” faltered Ulrich, who confused by the question,
+had strayed into the language in which he had been long accustomed to
+think. But scarcely had the smith distinguished the foreign words, when
+fresh anger seized him.
+
+“Then go to perdition with your Spaniards!” was the furious answer.
+
+The door slammed so that the house shook, and by degrees the smith’s
+heavy tread died away in the vestibule.
+
+“All over, all over!” murmured the rejected son. Then calming himself,
+he clenched his fist and muttered through his set teeth: “There shall be
+no lack of ruin; whoever it befalls, can bear it.”
+
+While walking through the streets and across the squares, he devised
+plan after plan, imagining what must come. Sword in hand he would burst
+the old man’s door, and the only booty he asked for himself should be
+Ruth, for whom he longed, who in spite of everything loved him, who had
+belonged to him from her childhood.
+
+The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant
+of the Spanish forces in the citadel. The fate of the city was sealed!
+and when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with
+its proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower
+floor crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted:
+
+“A pretty little house, three stories high. And how the broad windows,
+between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!”
+
+Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts
+and horses, and continued:
+
+“Look closer and choose your quarters. Come with me! I’ll show you where
+the best things we need can be found. Haven’t we bled often enough for
+the pepper-sacks? Now it will be our turn to fleece them. The castles
+here, with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the guildhalls. There
+is gold enough in each one, to make the company rich. Now this way!
+Directly behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal. There live
+stiff-necked people, who dine off of silver every day. Notice the
+street!”
+
+Then he led him back to the square, and continued “The streets here all
+lead to the quay. Do you know it? Have you seen the warehouses? Filled
+to the very roof! The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might
+transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras.”
+
+Ulrich followed his guide from street to street. Wherever he looked, he
+saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz stopped before a jeweller’s shop, saying:
+
+“Look here! I particularly admire these things, these toys: the little
+dog, the sled, the lady with the hoopskirt, all these things are pure
+silver. When the pillage begins, I shall grasp these and take them to
+my sister’s little children in Colln; they will be delighted, and if it
+should ever be necessary, their mother can sell them.”
+
+What a throng crowded the most aristocratic streets! English, Spanish,
+Italian and Hanseatic merchants tried to outdo the Netherland traders in
+magnificent clothes and golden ornaments. Ulrich saw them all assembled
+in the Gothic exchange on the Mere, the handsomest square in the city.
+There they stood in the vast open hall, on the checkered marble floor,
+not by hundreds, but by thousands, dealing in goods which came from all
+quarters of the globe--from the most distant lands. Their offers and
+bids mingled in a noise audible at a long distance, which was borne
+across the square like the echo of ocean surges.
+
+Sums were discussed, which even the winged imagination of the
+lansquenet could scarcely grasp. This city was a remarkable treasure,
+a thousand-fold richer booty than had been garnered from the Ottoman
+treasure-ship on the sea at Lepanto.
+
+Here was the fortune the Eletto needed, to build the palace in which he
+intended to place Ruth. To whom else would fall the lion’s share of the
+enormous prize!
+
+His future happiness was to arise from the destruction of this proud
+city, stifling in its gold.
+
+These were ambitious brilliant plans, but he devised them with gloomy
+eyes, in a darkened mind. He intended to win by force what was denied
+him, so long as the power belonged to him.
+
+There could be no lack of flames and carnage; but that was part of his
+trade, as shavings belong to flames, hammer-strokes to smiths.
+
+Count Philipp had no suspicion of the assault, was not permitted
+to suspect anything. He attributed Ulrich’s agitated manner to the
+rejection he had encountered in his father’s house, and when he took
+leave of him on his departure to Swabia, talked kindly with his former
+schoolmate and advised him to leave the Spanish flag and try once more
+to be reconciled to the old man.
+
+Before the Eletto quitted the city, he gave Hans Eitelfritz, whose
+regiment had secretly joined the mutiny, letters of safeguard for his
+family and the artist, Moor.
+
+He had not forgotten the latter, but well-founded timidity withheld
+him from appearing before the honored man, while cherishing the gloomy
+thoughts that now filled his soul.
+
+In Aalst the mutineers received him with eager joy, harsh and repellent
+as he appeared, they cheerfully obeyed him; for he could hold out to
+them a prospect, which lured a bright smile to the bearded lips of the
+grimmest warrior.
+
+If power was the word, he scarcely understood how to use it aright,
+for wholly absorbed in himself, he led a joyless life of dissatisfied
+longing and gloomy reverie.
+
+It seemed to him as if he had lost one half of himself, and needed Ruth
+to become the whole man. Hours grew to days, days to weeks, and not
+until Roda’s messenger appeared from the citadel in Antwerp to summon
+him to action, did he revive and regain his old vivacity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards’ hands,
+and was cruelly pillaged. The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to make
+common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.
+
+Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city. Governor Champagny
+saw his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the
+despots in the fortress, which dominated the town. A Netherland army,
+composed principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable
+Marquis Havre, the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the
+capital, to prevent the worst.
+
+Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent
+treason, if he admitted the government troops--but the majority of
+the lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger
+hourly increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently
+pressed the matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.
+
+Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while
+intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers
+in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end.
+The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of
+lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal
+for revolt. The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and
+firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and
+murderers in his own escort.
+
+Champagny called upon the citizens to help themselves, and used their
+labor in throwing up a wall of defence in the open part of the city,
+which was most dangerously threatened by the citadel. Among the men and
+women who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam,
+the smith, his apprentices, and Ruth. The former, with his journeymen,
+wielded the spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl,
+with other women, braided gabions from willow-rods.
+
+She had lived through sorrowful days. Self-reproach, for having by her
+hasty fit of temper caused the father’s outburst of anger to his son,
+constantly tortured her.
+
+She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that
+Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his
+image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in
+the most sacred depths of her heart. He was all in all to her, the one
+person destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to
+the face, the heart to the breast.
+
+She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him,
+it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.
+
+A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did
+in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect.
+She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become
+his, expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after
+winter. Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief
+of her loving soul. Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be
+one in their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close
+his heart against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.
+
+The child’s vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden. Every
+leisure hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had
+talked to his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him
+return as a famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid
+ship.
+
+Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared. Now she
+found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here
+he was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he
+certainly was not base and mean.
+
+As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince,
+but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in
+plain burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside
+him at the forge. She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her
+stood the table she covered with food for him, and the water she gave
+him after his work. She heard the house shake under the mighty blows of
+his hammer, and in imagination beheld him lay his curly head in her lap,
+and say he had found love and peace with her.
+
+The cannonade from the citadel stopped the citizens’ work. Open
+hostilities had begun.
+
+On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the
+treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered
+the fortress. The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage
+and terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
+
+“He is keeping them back,” Ruth had said the day before. “Antwerp, our
+home, is sacred to him!”
+
+The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled;
+the boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers
+and citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of
+the artillery.
+
+Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still
+with fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion. Ruth remained calm.
+She detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words: “The
+men from Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back.” Just at that
+moment the young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed
+with dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping:
+
+“The men from Aalst are here. They crossed in peatboats and a galley.
+They wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in
+the van, bearing the standard. I saw them; terrible--horrible--sheathed
+in iron from top to toe.”
+
+He said no more, for Adam, with a savage imprecation, interrupted him,
+seized his huge hammer, and rushed out of the house.
+
+Ruth staggered back into the workshop.
+
+Adam hurried straight to the rampart. Here stood six thousand Walloons,
+to defend the half-finished wall, and behind them large bodies of armed
+citizens.
+
+“The men from Aalst have come!” echoed from lip to lip.
+
+Curses, wails of grief, yells of savage fury, blended with the thunder
+of the artillery and the ringing of the alarm bells.
+
+A fugitive now dashed from the counterscarp towards the Walloons,
+shouting:
+
+“They are here, they are here! The blood-hound, Navarrete, is leading
+them. They will neither eat nor drink, they say, till they dine in
+Paradise or Antwerp. Hark, hark! there they are!”
+
+And they were there, coming nearer and nearer; foremost of all marched
+the Eletto, holding the standard in his upraised hand.
+
+Behind him, from a thousand bearded lips, echoed furious, greedy,
+terrible cries; “Santiago, Espana, a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a
+saco!”--[St. Jago; Spain, blood, murder, fire, pillage]--but Navarrete
+was silent, striding onward, erect and haughty, as if he were
+proof against the bullets, that whistled around him on all sides.
+Consciousness of power and the fierce joy of battle sparkled in his
+eyes. Woe betide him, who received a blow from the two-handed sword the
+Eletto still held over his shoulder, now with his left hand.
+
+Adam stood with upraised hammer beside the front ranks of the Walloons!
+his eyes rested as if spellbound on his approaching son and the standard
+in his hand. The face of the guilty woman, who had defrauded him of the
+happiness of his life, gazed at him from the banner. He knew not whether
+he was awake, or the sport of some bewildering dream.
+
+Now, now his glance met the Eletto’s, and unable to restrain himself
+longer, he raised his hammer and tried to rush forward, but the Walloons
+forced him back.
+
+Yes, yes, he hated his own child, and trembling with rage, burning to
+rush upon him, he saw the Eletto spring on the lowest projection of the
+wall, to climb up. For a short time he was concealed from his eyes, then
+he saw the top of the standard, then the banner itself, and now his son
+stood on the highest part of the rampart, shouting: “Espana, Espana!”
+
+At this moment, with a deafening din, a hundred arquebuses were
+discharged close beside the smith, a dense cloud of smoke darkened the
+air, and when the wind dispersed it, Adam no longer beheld the standard.
+It lay on the ground; beside it the Eletto, with his face turned upward,
+mute and motionless.
+
+The father groaned aloud and closed his eyes; when he opened them,
+hundreds of iron-mailed mutineers had scaled the rampart. Beneath their
+feet lay his bleeding child.
+
+Corpse after corpse sank on the stone wall beside the fallen man, but
+the iron wedge of the Spaniards pressed farther and farther forward.
+
+“Espana, a sangre, a carne!”
+
+Now they had reached the Walloons, steel clashed against steel, but only
+for a moment, then the defenders of the city wavered, the furious wedge
+entered their ranks, they parted, yielded, and with loud shrieks took
+to flight. The Spanish swords raged among them, and overpowered by the
+general terror, the officers followed the example of the soldiers, the
+flying army, like a resistless torrent, carrying everything with it,
+even the smith.
+
+An unparalleled massacre began. Adam seeing a frantic horde rush into
+the houses, remembered Ruth, and half mad with terror hastened back to
+the smithy, where he told those left behind what he had witnessed. Then,
+arming himself and his journeymen with weapons forged by his own hand,
+he hurried out with them to renew the fight.
+
+Hours elapsed; the noise, the firing, the ringing of the alarm bells
+still continued; smoke and the smell of fire penetrated through the
+doors and windows.
+
+Evening came, and the richest, most flourishing commercial capital in
+the world was here a heap of ashes, there a ruin, everywhere a plundered
+treasury.
+
+Once the occupants of the smith’s shop heard a band of murderers raging
+and shouting outside of the smithy; but they passed by, and all day long
+no others entered the quiet street, which was inhabited only by workers
+in metal.
+
+Ruth and old Rahel had remained behind, under the protection of the
+brave foreman. Adam had told them to fly to the cellar, if any uproar
+arose outside the door. Ruth wore a dagger, determined in the worst
+extremity to turn it against her own breast. What did she care for life,
+since Ulrich had perished!
+
+Old Rahel, an aged dame of eighty, paced restlessly, with bowed figure,
+through the large room, saying compassionately, whenever her eyes
+met the girl’s: “Ulrich, our Ulrich!” then, straightening herself and
+looking upward. She no longer knew what had happened a few hours before,
+yet her memory faithfully retained the incidents that occurred many
+years previous. The maidservant, a native of Antwerp, had rushed home to
+her parents when the tumult began.
+
+As the day drew towards a close, the panes were less frequently shaken
+by the thunder of the artillery, the noise in the streets diminished,
+but the house became more and more filled with suffocating smoke.
+
+Night came, the lamp was lighted, the women started at every new sound,
+but anxiety for Adam now overpowered every other feeling in Ruth’s mind.
+Just then the door opened, and the smith’s deep voice called in the
+vestibule: “It is I! Don’t be frightened, it is I!”
+
+He had gone out with five journeymen: he returned with two. The others
+lay slain in the streets, and with them Count Oberstein’s soldiers,
+the only ones who had stoutly resisted the Spanish mutineers and their
+allies to the last man.
+
+Adam had swung his hammer on the Mere and by the Zucker Canal among the
+citizens, who fought desperately for the property and lives of their
+families;--but all was vain. Vargas’s troopers had stifled even the last
+breath of resistance.
+
+The streets ran blood, corpses lay in heaps before the doors and on the
+pavement--among them the bodies of the Margrave of Antwerp, Verreyck,
+Burgomaster van der Mere, and many senators and nobles. Conflagration
+after conflagration crimsoned the heavens, the superb city-hall was
+blazing, and from a thousand windows echoed the screams of the assailed,
+plundered, bleeding citizens, women and children.
+
+The smith hastily ate a few mouthfuls to restore his strength, then
+raised his head, saying: “No one has touched our house. The door and
+shutters of neighbor Ykens’ are shattered.”
+
+“A miracle!” cried old Rahel, raising her staff. “The generation of
+vipers scent richer booty than iron at the silversmith’s.”
+
+Just at that moment the knocker sounded. Adam started up, put on his
+coat of mail again, motioned to his journeymen and went to the door.
+
+Rahel shrieked loudly: “To the cellar, Ruth. Oh, God, oh, God, have
+mercy upon us! Quick--where’s my shawl?--They are attacking us!--Come,
+come! Oh, I am caught, I can go no farther!”
+
+Mortal terror had seized the old woman; she did not want to die. To the
+girl death was welcome, and she did not stir.
+
+Voices were now audible in the vestibule, but they sounded neither noisy
+nor threatening; yet Rahel shrieked in despair as a lansquenet, fully
+armed, entered the workshop with the armorer.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had come to look for Ulrich’s father. In his arms lay
+the dog Lelaps, which, bleeding from the wound made by a bullet, that
+grazed its neck, nestled trembling against its master.
+
+Bowing courteously to Ruth, the soldier said:
+
+“Take pity on this poor creature, fair maiden, and wash its wound with
+a little wine. It deserves it. I could tell you such tales of its
+cleverness! It came from distant India, where a pirate.... But you shall
+hear the story some other time. Thanks, thanks! As to your son, Meister,
+it’s a thousand pities about him. He was a splendid fellow, and we were
+like two brothers. He himself gave me the safeguard for you and the
+artist, Moor. I fastened them on the doors with my own hands, as soon
+as the fray began. My swordbearer got the paste, and now may the writing
+stick there as an honorable memento till the end of the world. Navarrete
+was a faithful fellow, who never forgot his friends! How much good that
+does Lelaps! See, see! He is licking your hands, that means, ‘I thank
+you.’”
+
+While Ruth had been washing the dog’s wound, and the lansquenet talked
+of Ulrich, her tearful eyes met the father’s.
+
+“They say he cut down twenty-one Walloons before he fell,” continued
+Hans.
+
+“No, sir,” interrupted Adam. “I saw him. He was shot before he raised
+his guilty sword.”
+
+“Ah, ah!--but it happened on the rampart.”
+
+“They rushed over him to the assault.”
+
+“And there he still lies; not a soul has cared for the dead and
+wounded.”
+
+The girl started, and laid the dog in the old man’s lap, exclaiming:
+“Suppose Ulrich should be alive! Perhaps he was not mortally wounded,
+perhaps....”
+
+“Yes, everything is possible,” interrupted the lansquenet. “I could tell
+you things... for instance, there was a countryman of mine whom, when
+we were in Africa, a Moorish Pacha struck... no lies now... perhaps! In
+earnest; it might happen that Ulrich... wait... at midnight I shall keep
+guard on the rampart with my company, then I’ll look....”
+
+“We, we will seek him!” cried Ruth, seizing the smith’s arm.
+
+“I will,” replied the smith; “you must stay here.”
+
+“No, father, I will go with you.”
+
+The lansquenet also shook his head, saying “Jungfer, Jungfer, you
+don’t know what a day this is. Thank Our Heavenly Father that you have
+hitherto escaped so well. The fierce lion has tasted blood. You are a
+pretty child, and if they should see you to-day....”
+
+“No matter,” interrupted the girl. “I know what I am asking. You will
+take me with you, father! Do so, if you love me! I will find him, if any
+one can!
+
+“Oh, sir, sir, you look kind and friendly! You have the guard. Escort
+us; let me seek Ulrich. I shall find him, I know; I must seek him--I
+must.”
+
+The girl’s cheeks were glowing; for before her she saw her playfellow,
+her lover, gasping for breath, with staring eyes, her name upon his
+dying lips.
+
+Adam sadly shook his head, but Hans Eitelfritz was touched by the girl’s
+eager longing to help the man who was dear to him, so he hastily taxed
+his inventive brain, saying:
+
+“Perhaps it might be risked... listen to me, Meister! You won’t be
+particularly safe in the streets, yourself, and could hardly reach the
+rampart without me. I shall lose precious time; but you are his father,
+and this girl--is she his sister?--No?--So much the better for him, if
+he lives! It isn’t an easy matter, but it can be done. Yonder good dame
+will take care of Lelaps for me. Poor dog! That feels good, doesn’t it?
+Well then... I can be here again at midnight. Have you a handcart in the
+house?”
+
+“For coal and iron.”
+
+“That will answer. Let the woman make a kettle of soup, and if you have
+a few hams....”
+
+“There are four in the store-room,” cried Ruth.
+
+“Take some bread, a few jugs of wine, and a keg of beer, too, and then
+follow me quietly. I have the password, my servant will accompany me,
+and I’ll make the Spaniards believe you belong to us, and are bringing
+my men their supper. Blacken your pretty face a little, my dear girl,
+wrap yourself up well, and if we find Ulrich we will put him in the
+empty cart, and I will accompany you home again. Take yonder spicesack,
+and if we find the poor fellow, dead or alive, hide him with it. The
+sack was intended for other things, but I shall be well content with
+this booty. Take care of these silver toys. What pretty things they are!
+How the little horse rears, and see the bird in the cage! Don’t look so
+fierce, Meister! In catching fish we must be content even with smelts;
+if I hadn’t taken these, others would have done so; they are for
+my sister’s children, and there is something else hidden here in my
+doublet; it shall help me to pass my leisure hours. One man’s meat is
+another man’s poison.”
+
+When Hans Eitelfritz returned at midnight, the cart with the food and
+liquor was ready. Adam’s warnings were unavailing. Ruth resolutely
+insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk
+safety and life as freely as he did himself.
+
+Old Rahel had done her best to conceal Ruth’s beauty.
+
+The dangerous nocturnal pilgrimage began.
+
+The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his
+sword-bearer, walking by her side. From time to time Spanish soldiers
+met and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and
+dispelled their suspicions.
+
+Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and
+mistrusted scenes of horror, that congealed her blood. But she bore up
+until they reached the rampart.
+
+Here Eitelfritz was among his own men.
+
+He delivered the meat and drink to them, told them to take it out of the
+cart, and invited them to fall to boldly. Then, seizing a lantern, he
+guided Ruth and the smith, who drew the light cart after them, through
+the intense darkness of the November night to the rampart.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz lighted the way, and all three searched. Corpse lay
+beside corpse. Wherever Ruth set her foot, it touched some fallen
+soldier. Dread, horror and loathing threatened to deprive her of
+consciousness; but the ardent longing, the one last hope of her soul
+sustained her, steeled her energy, sharpened her sight.
+
+They had reached the centre of the rampart, when she saw in the distance
+a tall figure stretched at full length.
+
+That, yes, that was he!
+
+Snatching the lantern from the lansquenet’s hand, she rushed to the
+prostrate form, threw herself on her knees beside it, and cast the light
+upon the face.
+
+What had she seen?
+
+Why did the shriek she uttered sound so agonized? The men were
+approaching, but Ruth knew that there was something else to be done,
+besides weeping and wailing.
+
+She pressed her ear close to the mailed breast to listen, and when
+she heard no breath, hurriedly unfastened the clasps and buckles that
+confined the armor.
+
+The cuirass fell rattling on the ground, and now--no, there was no
+deception, the wounded man’s chest rose under her ear, she heard the
+faint throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a gasping breach.
+
+Bursting into loud, convulsive weeping, she raised his head and pressed
+it to her bosom.
+
+“He is dead; I thought so!” said the lansquenet, and Adam sank on
+his knees before his wounded son. But Ruth’s sobs now changed to low,
+joyous, musical laughter, which echoed in her voice as she exclaimed:
+“Ulrich breathes, he lives! Oh, God! oh, God! how we thank Thee!”
+
+Then--was she deceived, could it be? She heard the inflexible man beside
+her sob, saw him bend over Ulrich, listen to the beating of his heart,
+and press his bearded lips first to his temples, then on the hand he had
+so harshly rejected.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz warned them to hasten, carried the senseless man, with
+Adam’s assistance, to the cart, and half an hour later the dangerously
+wounded, outcast son was lying in the most comfortable bed in the best
+room in his father’s house. His couch was in the upper story; down in
+the kitchen old Rahel was moving about the hearth, preparing her “good
+salve” herself. While thus engaged she often chuckled aloud, murmuring
+“Ulrich,” and while mixing and stirring the mixture could not keep her
+old feet still; it almost seemed as if she wanted to dance.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz promised Adam to tell no one what had become of his son,
+and then returned to his men. The next morning the mutineers from Aalst
+sought their fallen leader; but he had disappeared, and the legend
+now became wide-spread among them, that the Prince of Evil had carried
+Navarrete to his own abode. The dog Lelaps died of his wound, and
+scarcely a week after the pillage of flourishing Antwerp by the “Spanish
+Furies,” Hans Eitelfritz’s regiment was ordered to Ghent. He came with
+drooping head to the smithy, to take his leave. He had sold his costly
+booty, and, like so many other pillagers, gambled away the stolen
+property at the exchange. Nothing was left him of the great day in
+Antwerp, except the silver toys for his sister’s children in Colln on
+the Spree.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+The fire in the smithy was extinguished, no hammer fell on the anvil;
+for the wounded man lay in a burning fever; every loud noise disturbed
+him. Adam had noticed this himself, and gave no time to his work, for
+he had to assist in nursing his son, when it was necessary to raise his
+heavy body, and to relieve Ruth, when, after long night-watches, her
+vigorous strength was exhausted.
+
+The old man saw that the girl’s bands were more deft than his own
+toil-hardened ones, and let her take the principal charge-but the hours
+when she was resting in her room were the dearest to him, for then
+he was alone with Ulrich, could read his countenance undisturbed and
+rejoice in gazing at every feature, which reminded him of his child’s
+boyhood and of Flora.
+
+He often pressed his bearded lips to the invalid’s burning forehead
+or limp hand, and when the physician with an anxious face had left the
+house, he knelt beside Ulrich’s couch, buried his forehead among the
+pillows, and fervently prayed the Heavenly Father, to spare his child
+and take in exchange his own life and all that he possessed.
+
+He often thought the end had come, and gave himself up without
+resistance to his grief; Ruth, on the contrary, never lost hope, not
+even in the darkest hours. God had not let her find Ulrich, merely to
+take him from her again. The end of danger was to her the beginning of
+deliverance. When he recognized her the first time, she already saw
+him, leaning on her shoulder, walk through the room; when he could raise
+himself, she thought him cured.
+
+Her heart was overflowing with joy, yet her mind remained watchful and
+thoughtful during the long, toilsome nursing. She did not forget the
+smallest trifle, for before she undertook anything she saw in her mind
+every detail involved, as if it were already completed. Ulrich took no
+food which she had not prepared with her own hand, no drink which she
+had not herself brought from the cellar or the well. She perceived in
+advance what disturbed him, what pleased him, what he needed. If she
+opened or closed the curtain, she gave or withheld no more light than
+was agreeable to him; if she arranged the pillows behind him, she placed
+them neither too high nor too low, and bound up his wounds with a gentle
+yet firm hand, like an experienced physician. Whatever he felt--pain or
+comfort--she experienced with him.
+
+By degrees the fever vanished; consciousness returned, his pain
+lessened, he could move himself again, and began to feel stronger. At
+first he did not know where he was; then he recognized Ruth, and then
+his father.
+
+How still, how dusky, how clean everything that surrounded him was!
+Delightful repose stole over him, pleasant weariness soothed every
+stormy emotion of his heart. Whenever he opened his eyes, tender,
+anxious glances met him. Even when the pain returned he enjoyed
+peaceful, consoling mental happiness. Ruth felt this also, and regarded
+it as a peerless reward.
+
+When she entered the sick-room with fresh linen, and the odor of
+lavender her dead mother had liked floated softly to him from the clean
+sheets, he thought his boyhood had returned, and with it the wise,
+friendly doctor’s house. Elizabeth, the shady pine-woods of his home,
+its murmuring brooks and luxuriant meadows, again rose before his
+mind; he saw Ruth and himself listening to the birds, picking berries,
+gathering flowers, and beseeching beautiful gifts from the “word.” His
+father appeared even more kind, affectionate, and careful than in those
+days. The man became the boy again, and all his former good traits of
+character now sprang up freshly under the bright light and vivifying dew
+of love.
+
+He received Ruth’s unwearied attentions with ardent gratitude, and when
+he gazed into her faithful eyes, when her hand touched him, her soft,
+deep voice penetrated the depths of his soul, an unexampled sense of
+happiness filled his breast.
+
+Everything, from the least to the greatest, embraced his soul with the
+arms of love. It seemed as if the ardent yearning of his heart extended
+far beyond the earth, and rose to God, who fills the universe with
+His infinite paternal love. His every breath, Ulrich thought, must
+henceforth be a prayer, a prayer of gratitude to Him, who is love
+itself, the Love, through and in which he lived.
+
+He had sought love, to enjoy its gifts; now he was glad to make
+sacrifices for its sake. He saw how Ruth’s beautiful face saddened
+when he was suffering, and with manly strength of will concealed
+inexpressible agony under a grateful smile. He feigned sleep, to permit
+her and his father to rest, and when tortured by feverish restlessness,
+lay still to give his beloved nurses pleasure and repay their
+solicitude. Love urged him to goodness, gave him strength for all that
+is good. His convalescence advanced and, when he was permitted to leave
+his bed, his father was the first one to support him through the room
+and down the steps into the court-yard. He often felt with quiet emotion
+the old man stroke the hand that rested on his arm, and when, exhausted,
+he returned to the sick-room, he sank with a grateful heart into his
+comfortable seat, casting a look of pleasure at the flowers, which Ruth
+had taken from her chamber window and placed on the table beside him.
+
+His family now knew what he had endured and experienced, and the smith
+found a kind, soothing word for all that, a few months before, he had
+considered criminal and unpardonable.
+
+During such a conversation, Ulrich once exclaimed “War! You know not how
+it bears one along with it; it is a game whose stake is life. That of
+others is of as little value as your own; to do your worst to every one,
+is the watchword; but now--every thing has grown so calm in my soul,
+and I have a horror of the turmoil in the field. I was talking with Ruth
+yesterday about her father, and she reminded me of his favorite saying,
+which I had forgotten long ago. Do you know what it is? ‘Do unto others,
+as ye would that others should do unto you.’ I have not been cruel, and
+never drew the sword out of pleasure in slaying; but now I grieve for
+having brought woe to so many!
+
+“What things were done in Haarlem! If you had moved there instead of to
+Antwerp, and you and Ruth... I dare not think of it! Memories of those
+days torture me in many a sleepless hour, and there is much that fills
+me with bitter remorse. But I am permitted to live, and it seems as if
+I were new-born, and henceforth existence and doing good must be
+synonymous to me. You were right to be angry....”
+
+“That is all forgiven and forgotten,” interrupted the smith in a
+resonant voice, pressing his son’s fingers with his hard right hand.
+
+These words affected the convalescent like a strengthening potion,
+and when the hammers again moved in the smithy, Ulrich was no longer
+satisfied with his idle life, and began with Ruth to look forward to and
+discuss the future.
+
+“The words: ‘fortune,’ ‘fame,’ ‘power,’” he said once, “have deceived
+me; but art! You don’t know, Ruth, what art is! It does not bestow
+everything, but a great deal, a great deal. Meister Moor was indeed a
+teacher! I am too old to begin at the beginning once more. If it were
+not for that....”
+
+“Well, Ulrich?”
+
+“I should like to try painting again.”
+
+The girl exhorted him to take courage, and told his father of their
+conversation. The smith put on his Sunday clothes and went to the
+artist’s house. The latter was in Brussels, but was expected home soon.
+
+From this time, every third day, Adam donned his best clothes, which he
+disliked to wear, and went to the artist’s; but always in vain.
+
+In the month of February the invalid was playing chess with Ruth,--she
+had learned the game from the smith and Ulrich from her,--when Adam
+entered the room, saying: “when the game is over, I wish to speak to
+you, my son.”
+
+The young girl had the advantage, but instantly pushed the pieces
+together and left the two alone.
+
+She well knew what was passing in the father’s mind, for the day before
+he had brought all sorts of artist’s materials, and told her to arrange
+the little gable-room, with the large window facing towards the north,
+and put the easel and colors there. They had only smiled at each other,
+but they had long since learned to understand each other, even without
+words.
+
+“What is it?” asked Ulrich in surprise.
+
+The smith then told him what he had provided and arranged, adding: “the
+picture on the standard--you say you painted it yourself.”
+
+“Yes, father.”
+
+“It was your mother, exactly as she looked when... She did not treat
+either of us rightly--but she!--the Christian must forgive;--and as she
+was your mother--why--I should like... perhaps it is not possible; but
+if you could paint her picture, not as a Madonna, only as she looked
+when a young wife....”
+
+“I can, I will!” cried Ulrich, in joyous excitement. “Take me upstairs,
+is the canvas ready?”
+
+“In the frame, firmly in the frame! I am an old man, and you see,
+child, I remember how wonderfully sweet your mother was; but I can
+never succeed in recalling just how she looked then. I have tried, tried
+thousands and thousands of times; at--Richtberg, here, everywhere--deep
+as was my wrath!”
+
+“You shall see her again surely--surely!” interrupted Ulrich. “I see her
+before me, and what I see in my mind, I can paint!”
+
+The work was commenced the very same day. Ulrich now succeeded
+wonderfully, and lavished on the portrait all the wealth of love, with
+which his heart was filled.
+
+Never had he guided the brush so joyously; in painting this picture he
+only wished to give, to give--give his beloved father the best he could
+accomplish, so he succeeded.
+
+The young wife, attired in a burgher dress, stood with her bewitching
+eyes and a melancholy, half-tender, half-mournful smile on her lips.
+
+Adam was not permitted to enter the studio again until the portrait was
+completed. When Ulrich at last unveiled the picture, the old man--unable
+longer to control himself--burst into loud sobs and fell upon his
+son’s breast. It seemed to Adam that the pretty creature in the golden
+frame--far from needing his forgiveness--was entitled to his gratitude
+for many blissful hours.
+
+Soon after, Adam found Moor at home, and a few hours later took Ulrich
+to him. It was a happy and a quiet meeting, which was soon followed by a
+second interview in the smith’s house.
+
+Moor gazed long and searchingly at Ulrich’s work. When he had examined
+it sufficiently, he held out his hand to his pupil, saying warmly:
+
+“I always said so; you are an artist! From to-morrow we will work
+together again, daily, and you will win more glorious victories with the
+brush than with the sword.”
+
+Ulrich’s cheeks glowed with happiness and pride.
+
+Ruth had never before seen him look so, and as she gazed joyfully into
+his eyes, he held out his hands to her, exclaiming: “An artist, an
+artist again! Oh, would that I had always remained one! Now I lack only
+one thing more--yourself!”
+
+She rushed to his embrace, exclaiming joyously “Yours, yours! I have
+always been so, and always shall be, to-day, to-morrow, unto death,
+forever and ever!”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he answered gravely. “Our hearts are one and ever will be,
+nothing can separate them; but your fate shall not be linked to mine
+till, Moor himself calls me a master. Love imposes no condition--I am
+yours and you are mine--but I impose the trial on myself, and this time
+I know it will be passed.”
+
+A new spirit animated the pupil. He rushed to his work with tireless
+energy, and even the hardest task became easy, when he thought of the
+prize he sought. At the end of a year, Moor ceased to instruct him, and
+Ruth became the wife of Meister Ulrich Schwab.
+
+The famous artist-guild of Antwerp soon proudly numbered him among
+them, and even at the present day his pictures are highly esteemed by
+connoisseurs, though they are attributed to other painters, for he never
+signed his name to his works.
+
+Of the four words, which illumined his life-path as guiding-stars, he
+had learned to value fame and power least; fortune and art remained
+faithful to him, but as the earth does not shine by its own might, but
+receives its light from the sun, so they obtained brilliancy, charm and
+endearing power through love.
+
+The fierce Eletto, whose sword raged in war, following the teachings of
+his noble Master, became a truly Christian philanthropist.
+
+Many have gazed with quiet delight at the magnificent picture, which
+represents a beautiful mother, with a bright, intelligent face, leading
+her three blooming children towards a pleasant old man, who holds out
+his arms to them. The old man is Adam, the mother Ruth, the children are
+the armorer’s grandchildren; Ulrich Schwab was the artist.
+
+Meister Moor died soon after Ulrich’s marriage, and a few years after,
+Sophonisba di Moncada came to Antwerp to seek the grave of him she had
+loved. She knew from the dead man that he had met his dear Madrid pupil,
+and her first visit was to the latter.
+
+After looking at his works, she exclaimed:
+
+“The word! Do you remember, Meister? I told you then, that you had found
+the right one. You are greatly altered, and it is a pity that you have
+lost your flowing locks; but you look like a happy man, and to what do
+you owe it? To the word, the only right word: ‘Art!’”
+
+He let her finish the sentence, then answered gravely “There is still
+a loftier word, noble lady! Whoever owns it--is rich indeed. He will no
+longer wander--seek in doubt.
+
+“And this is?” she asked incredulously, with a smile of superior
+knowledge.
+
+“I have found it,” he answered firmly. “It is ‘Love.’”
+
+Sophonisba bent her head, saying softly and sadly: “yes, yes--love.”
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Among fools one must be a fool
+     He was steadfast in everything, even anger
+     No one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor
+     Once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point
+     To expect gratitude is folly
+     Whoever condemns, feels himself superior
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, COMPLETE ***
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      A Word, Only a Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Word Only A Word, Complete
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5577]
+Last Updated: August 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <h1>
+      A WORD, ONLY A WORD
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Georg Ebers
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word, only a word!&rdquo; cried a fresh, boyish voice, then two hands were
+      loudly clapped and a gay laugh echoed through the forest. Hitherto silence
+      had reigned under the boughs of the pines and tops of the beeches, but now
+      a wood-pigeon joined in the lad&rsquo;s laugh, and a jay, startled by the
+      clapping of hands, spread its brown wings, delicately flecked with blue,
+      and soared from one pine to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spring had entered the Black Forest a few weeks before. May was just over,
+      yet the weather was as sultry as in midsummer and clouds were gathering in
+      denser and denser masses. The sun was still some distance above the
+      horizon, but the valley was so narrow that the day star had disappeared,
+      before making its majestic entry into the portals of night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it set in a clear sky, it only gilded the border of pine trees on the
+      crest of the lofty western heights; to-day it was invisible, and the
+      occasional, quickly interrupted twittering of the birds seemed more in
+      harmony with the threatening clouds and sultry atmosphere than the lad&rsquo;s
+      gay laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every living creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious suspense,
+      but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare knee against
+      a bundle of faggots, cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me that stick, Ruth, that I may tie it up. How dry the stuff is, and
+      how it snaps! A word! To sit over books all day long for one stupid word&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      just nonsense!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all words are not alike,&rdquo; replied the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Piff is paff, and paff is puff!&rdquo; laughed Ulrich. &ldquo;When I snap the twigs,
+      you always hear them say &lsquo;knack, knack,&rsquo; and &lsquo;knack&rsquo; is a word too. The
+      juggler Caspar&rsquo;s magpie, can say twenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But father said so,&rdquo; replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks. &ldquo;He toils
+      hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words. You are always
+      wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up
+      courage to ask him, and now I know. I suppose he saw I was astonished, for
+      he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question at
+      lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not be
+      despised, for God had made the world out of one single word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich shook his head, and after pondering a few minutes, replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father said so,&rdquo; was the little girl&rsquo;s only answer. Her words expressed
+      the firm, immovable security of childish confidence, and the same feeling
+      sparkled in her eyes. She was probably about nine years old, and in every
+      respect a perfect contrast to her companion, her senior by several
+      summers, for the latter was strongly built, and from beneath his beautiful
+      fair locks a pair of big blue eyes flashed defiance at the world, while
+      Ruth was a delicate little creature, with slender limbs, pale cheeks, and
+      coal-black hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little girl wore a fashionably-made, though shabby dress, shoes and
+      stockings&mdash;the boy was barefoot, and his grey doublet looked scarcely
+      less worn than the short leather breeches, which hardly reached his knees;
+      yet he must have had some regard for his outer man, for a red knot of real
+      silk was fastened on his shoulder. He could scarcely be the child of a
+      peasant or woodland laborer&mdash;the brow was too high, the nose and red
+      lips were too delicately moulded, the bearing was too proud and free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth&rsquo;s last words had given him food for thought, but he left them
+      unanswered until the last bundle of sticks was tied up. Then he said
+      hesitatingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother&mdash;you know.... I dare not speak of her before father, he
+      goes into such a rage; my mother is said to be very wicked&mdash;but she
+      never was so to me, and I long for her day after day, very, very much, as
+      I long for nothing else. When I was so high, my mother told me a great
+      many things, such queer things! About a man, who wanted treasures, and
+      before whom mountains opened at a word he knew. Of course it&rsquo;s for such a
+      word your father is seeking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied the little girl. &ldquo;But the word out of which God
+      made the whole earth and sky and all the stars must have been a very great
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich nodded, then raising his eyes boldly, exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, if he should find it, and would not keep it to himself, but let you
+      tell me! I should know what I wanted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth looked at him enquiringly, but he cried laughingly: &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t tell.
+      But what would you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? I should ask to have my mother able to speak again like other people.
+      But you would wish....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t know what I would wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes. You would bring your mother back home again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I wasn&rsquo;t thinking of that,&rdquo; replied Ulrich, flushing scarlet and
+      fixing his eyes on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then? Tell me; I won&rsquo;t repeat it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to be one of the count&rsquo;s squires, and always ride with him
+      when he goes hunting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried Ruth. &ldquo;That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like you.
+      A squire! But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord of the
+      castle and a powerful count. You can have real velvet clothes, with gay
+      slashes, and a silk bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags and
+      deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I&rsquo;ll show
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the words,
+      he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a thunder-shower
+      was rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots, he
+      laid some on the little girl&rsquo;s shoulders, and went down with her towards
+      the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or lightning; but
+      Ruth trembled in every limb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still. The
+      moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a
+      reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; cried Ulrich, stepping on to the edge of the ravine, where stones
+      and sand, loosened by the wet, were now rattling down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rdquo; answered the little girl trembling. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s another flash
+      of lightning! Oh! dear, oh, dear! how it blazes!&mdash;oh! oh! that clap
+      of thunder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stooped as if the lightning had struck her, covered her face with her
+      little hands, and fell on her knees, the bundle of faggots slipping to the
+      ground. Filled with terror, she murmured as if she could command the
+      mighty word: &ldquo;Oh, Word, Word, get me home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich stamped impatiently, glanced at her with mingled anger and
+      contempt, and muttering reproaches, threw her bundle and his own into the
+      ravine, then roughly seized her hand and dragged her to the edge of the
+      cliff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-walking, half-slipping, with many an unkind word, though he was
+      always careful to support her, the boy scrambled down the steep slope with
+      his companion, and when they were at last standing in the water at the
+      bottom of the gully, picked up the dripping fagots and walked silently on,
+      carrying her burden as well as his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short walk through the running water and mass of earth and stones,
+      slowly sliding towards the valley, several shingled roofs appeared, and
+      the little girl uttered a sigh of relief; for in the row of shabby houses,
+      each standing by itself, that extended from the forest to the level end of
+      the ravine, was her own home and the forge belonging to her companion&rsquo;s
+      father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was still raining, but the thunder-storm had passed as quickly as it
+      rose, and twilight was already gathering over the mist-veiled houses and
+      spires of the little city, from which the street ran to the ravine. The
+      stillness of the evening was only interrupted by a few scattered notes of
+      bells, the finale of the mighty peal by which the warder had just been
+      trying to disperse the storm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The safety of the town in the narrow forest-valley was well secured, a
+      wall and ditch enclosed it; only the houses on the edge of the ravine were
+      unprotected. True, the mouth of the pass was covered by the field pieces
+      on the city wall, and the strong tower beside the gate, but it was not
+      incumbent on the citizens to provide for the safety of the row of houses
+      up there. It was called the Richtberg and nobody lived there except the
+      rabble, executioners, and poor folk who were not granted the rights of
+      citizenship. Adam, the smith, had forfeited his, and Ruth&rsquo;s father, Doctor
+      Costa, was a Jew, who ought to be thankful that he was tolerated in the
+      old forester&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The street was perfectly still. A few children were jumping over the
+      mud-puddles, and an old washerwoman was putting a wooden vessel under the
+      gutter, to collect the rain-water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth breathed more freely when once again in the street and among human
+      beings, and soon, clinging to the hand of her father, who had come to meet
+      her, she entered the house with him and Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While the boy flung the damp bundles of brushwood on the floor beside the
+      hearth in the doctor&rsquo;s kitchen, a servant from the monastery was leading
+      three horses under the rude shed in front of the smith Adam&rsquo;s work-shop
+      The stately grey-haired monk, who had ridden the strong cream-colored
+      steed, was already standing beside the embers of the fire, pressing his
+      hands upon the warm chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The forge stood open, but spite of knocking and shouting, neither the
+      master of the place, nor any other living soul appeared. Adam had gone
+      out, but could not be far away, for the door leading from the shop into
+      the sitting-room, was also unlocked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time was growing long to Father Benedict, so for occupation he tried
+      to lift the heavy hammer. It was a difficult task, though he was no
+      weakling, yet it was not hard for Adam&rsquo;s arm to swing and guide the
+      burden. If only the man had understood how to govern his life as well as
+      he managed his ponderous tool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not belong to Richtberg. What would his father have said, had he
+      lived to see his son dwell here?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk had known the old smith well, and he also knew many things about
+      the son and his destiny, yet no more than rumor entrusts to one person
+      concerning another&rsquo;s life. Even this was enough to explain why Adam had
+      become so reserved, misanthropic and silent a man, though even in his
+      youth he certainly had not been what is termed a gay fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The forge where he grew up, was still standing in the market-place of the
+      little city below; it had belonged to his grandfather and
+      great-grandfather. There had never been any lack of custom, to the
+      annoyance of the wise magistrates, whose discussions were disturbed by the
+      hammering that rang across the ill-paved square to the windows of the
+      council-chamber; but, on the other hand, the idle hours of the watchmen
+      under the arches of the ground-floor of the town-hall were sweetened by
+      the bustle before the smithy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How Adam had come from the market-place to the Richtberg, is a story
+      speedily told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the only child of his dead parents, and early learned his father&rsquo;s
+      trade. When his mother died, the old man gave his son and partner his
+      blessing, and some florins to pay his expenses, and sent him away. He went
+      directly to Nuremberg, which the old man praised as the high-school of the
+      smith&rsquo;s art, and there remained twelve years. When, at the end of that
+      time, news came to Adam that his father was dead, and he had inherited the
+      forge on the market-place, he wondered to find that he was thirty years
+      old, and had gone no farther than Nuremberg. True, everything that the
+      rest of the world could do in the art of forging might be learned there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a large, heavy man, and from childhood had moved slowly and
+      reluctantly from the place where he chanced to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If work was pressing, he could not be induced to leave the anvil, even
+      when evening had closed in; if it was pleasant to sit over the beer, he
+      remained till after the last man had gone. While working, he was as mute
+      as the dead to everything that was passing around him; in the tavern he
+      rarely spoke, and then said only a few words, yet the young artists,
+      sculptors, workers in gold and students liked to see the stout drinker and
+      good listener at the table, and the members of his guild only marvelled
+      how the sensible fellow, who joined in no foolish pranks, and worked in
+      such good earnest, held aloof from them to keep company with these
+      hairbrained folk, and remained a Papist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He might have taken possession of the shop on the market-place directly
+      after his father&rsquo;s death, but could not arrange his departure so quickly,
+      and it was fully eight months before he left Nuremberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the high-road before Schwabach a wagon, occupied by some strolling
+      performers, overtook the traveller. They belonged to the better class, for
+      they appeared before counts and princes, and were seven in number. The
+      father and four sons played the violin, viola and reboc, and the two
+      daughters sang to the lute and harp. The old man invited Adam to take the
+      eighth place in the vehicle, so he counted his pennies, and room was made
+      for him opposite Flora, called by her family Florette. The musicians were
+      going to the fair at Nordlingen, and the smith enjoyed himself so well
+      with them, that he remained several days after reaching the goal of the
+      journey. When he at last went away Florette wept, but he walked straight
+      on until noon, without looking back. Then he lay down under a blossoming
+      apple-tree, to rest and eat some lunch, but the lunch did not taste well;
+      and when he shut his eyes he could not sleep, for he thought constantly of
+      Florette. Of course! He had parted from her far too soon, and an eager
+      longing seized upon him for the young girl, with her red lips and
+      luxuriant hair. This hair was a perfect golden-yellow; he knew it well,
+      for she had often combed and braided it in the tavern-room beside the
+      straw where they all slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He yearned to hear her laugh too, and would have liked to see her weep
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he remembered the desolate smithy in the narrow market-place and the
+      dreary home, recollected that he was thirty years old, and still had no
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little wife of his own! A wife like Florette! Seventeen years old, a
+      complexion like milk and blood, a creature full of gayety and joyous life!
+      True, he was no light-hearted lad, but, lying under the apple-tree in the
+      month of May, he saw himself in imagination living happily and merrily in
+      the smithy by the market-place, with the fair-haired girl who had already
+      shed tears for him. At last he started up, and because he had determined
+      to go still farther on this day, did so, though for no other reason than
+      to carry out the plan formed the day before. The next morning, before
+      sunrise, he was again marching along the highway, this time not forward
+      towards the Black Forest, but back to Nordlingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That very evening Florette became his betrothed bride, and the following
+      Tuesday his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wedding was celebrated in the midst of the turmoil of the fair.
+      Strolling players, jugglers and buffoons were the witnesses, and there was
+      no lack of music and tinsel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quieter ceremony would have been more agreeable to the plain citizen and
+      sensible blacksmith, but this purgatory had to be passed to reach
+      Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Wednesday he went off in a fair wagon with his young wife, and in
+      Stuttgart bought with a portion of his savings many articles of household
+      furniture, less to stop the gossips&rsquo; tongues, of which he took no heed,
+      than to do her honor in his own eyes. These things, piled high in a wagon
+      of his own, he had sent into his native town as Florette&rsquo;s dowry, for her
+      whole outfit consisted of one pink and one grass-green gown, a lute and a
+      little white dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A delightful life now began in the smithy for Adam. The gossips avoided
+      his wife, but they stared at her in church, and among them she seemed to
+      him, not unjustly, like a rose amid vegetables. The marriage he had made
+      was an abomination to respectable citizens, but Adam did not heed them,
+      and Flora appeared to feel equally happy with him. When, before the close
+      of the first twelvemonth after their wedding, Ulrich was born, the smith
+      reached the summit of happiness and remained there for a whole year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, during that time, he stood in the bow-window amid the fresh balsam,
+      auricular and yellow wallflowers holding his boy on his shoulder, while
+      his wife leaned on his arm, and the pungent odor of scorched hoofs reached
+      his nostrils, and he saw his journeyman and apprentice shoeing a horse
+      below, he often thought how pleasant it had been pursuing the finer
+      branches of his craft in Nuremberg, and that he should like to forge a
+      flower again; but the blacksmith&rsquo;s trade was not to be despised either,
+      and surely life with one&rsquo;s wife and child was best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening he drank his beer at the Lamb, and once, when the surgeon
+      Siedler called life a miserable vale of tears, he laughed in his face and
+      answered: &ldquo;To him who knows how to take it right, it is a delightful
+      garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette was kind to her husband, and devoted herself to her child, so
+      long as he was an infant, with the most self-sacrificing love. Adam often
+      spoke of a little daughter, who must look exactly like its mother; but it
+      did not come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When little Ulrich at last began to run about in the street, the mother&rsquo;s
+      nomadic blood stirred, and she was constantly dinning it into her
+      husband&rsquo;s ears that he ought to leave this miserable place and go to
+      Augsburg or Cologne, where it would be pleasant; but he remained firm, and
+      though her power over him was great, she could not move his resolute will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often she would not cease her entreaties and representations, and when she
+      even complained that she was dying of solitude and weariness, his veins
+      swelled with wrath, and then she was frightened, fled to her room and
+      wept. If she happened to have a bold day, she threatened to go away and
+      seek her own relatives. This displeased him, and he made her feel it
+      bitterly, for he was steadfast in everything, even anger, and when he bore
+      ill-will it was not for hours, but months, nor at such times could he be
+      conciliated by coaxing or tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By degrees Florette learned to meet his discontent with a shrug of her
+      shoulders, and to arrange her life in her own way. Ulrich was her comfort,
+      pride and plaything, but sporting with him did not satisfy her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Adam was standing behind the anvil, she sat among the flowers in the
+      bow-window, and the watchmen now looked higher up than the forge, the
+      worthy magistrates no longer cast unfriendly glances at the smith&rsquo;s house,
+      for Florette grew more and more beautiful in the quiet life she now
+      enjoyed, and many a neighboring noble brought his horse to Adam to be
+      shod, merely to look into the eyes of the artisan&rsquo;s beautiful wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count von Frohlingen came most frequently of all, and Florette soon
+      learned to distinguish the hoof-beats of his horse from those of the other
+      steeds, and when he entered the shop, willingly found some pretext for
+      going there too. In the afternoons she often went with her child outside
+      the gate, and then always chose the road leading to the count&rsquo;s castle.
+      There was no lack of careful friends, who warned Adam, but he answered
+      them angrily, so they learned to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette had now grown gay again, and sometimes sang like a joyous bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seven years elapsed, and during the summer of the eighth a scattered troop
+      of soldiers came to the city and obtained admission. They were quartered
+      under the arches of the town-hall, but many also lay in the smithy, for
+      their helmets, breast-plates and other pieces of armor required plenty of
+      mending. The ensign, a handsome, proud young fellow, with a dainty
+      moustache, was Adam&rsquo;s most constant customer, and played very kindly with
+      Ulrich, when Florette appeared with him. At last the young soldier
+      departed, and the very same day Adam was summoned to the monastery, to
+      mend something in the grating before the treasury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, Florette had vanished; &ldquo;run after the ensign,&rdquo; people
+      said, and they were right. Adam did not attempt to wrest her from the
+      seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff that
+      is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand fibres, and
+      to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it has taken root,
+      and with it life itself. When he secretly cursed her and called her a
+      viper, he doubtless remembered how innocent, dear and joyous she had been,
+      and then the roots of the destroyed affection put forth new shoots, and he
+      saw before his mental vision ensnaring images, of which he felt ashamed as
+      soon as they had vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lightning and hail had entered the &ldquo;delightful garden&rdquo; of Adam&rsquo;s life
+      also, and he had been thrust forth from the little circle of the happy
+      into the great army of the wretched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Purifying powers dwell in undeserved suffering, but no one is made better
+      by unmerited disgrace, least of all a man like Adam. He had done what
+      seemed to him his duty, without looking to the right or the left, but now
+      the stainless man felt himself dishonored, and with morbid sensitiveness
+      referred everything he saw and heard to his own disgrace, while the
+      inhabitants of the little town made him feel that he had been ill-advised,
+      when he ventured to make a fiddler&rsquo;s daughter a citizen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he went out, it seemed to him&mdash;and usually unjustly&mdash;as if
+      people were nudging each other; hands, pointing out-stretched fingers at
+      him, appeared to grow from every eye. At home he found nothing but
+      desolation, vacuity, sorrow, and a child, who constantly tore open the
+      burning, gnawing wounds in his heart. Ulrich must forget &ldquo;the viper,&rdquo; and
+      he sternly forbade him to speak of his mother; but not a day passed on
+      which he would not fain have done so himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith did not stay long in the house on the market-place. He wished to
+      go to Freiburg or Ulm, any place where he had not been with her. A
+      purchaser for the dwelling, with its lucrative business, was speedily
+      found, the furniture was packed, and the new owner was to move in on
+      Wednesday, when on Monday Bolz, the jockey, came to Adam&rsquo;s workshop from
+      Richtberg. The man had been a good customer for years, and bought hundreds
+      of shoes, which he put on the horses at his own forge, for he knew
+      something about the trade. He came to say farewell; he had his own nest to
+      feather, and could do a more profitable business in the lowlands than up
+      here in the forest. Finally he offered Adam his property at a very low
+      price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith had smiled at the jockey&rsquo;s proposal, still he went to the
+      Richtberg the very next day to see the place. There stood the
+      executioner&rsquo;s house, from which the whole street was probably named. One
+      wretched hovel succeeded another. Yonder before a door, Wilhelm the idiot,
+      on whom the city boys played their pranks, smiled into vacancy just as
+      foolishly as he had done twenty years ago, here lodged Kathrin, with the
+      big goitre, who swept the gutters; in the three grey huts, from which hung
+      numerous articles of ragged clothing, lived two families of
+      charcoal-burners, and Caspar, the juggler, a strange man, whom as a boy he
+      had seen in the pillory, with his deformed daughters, who in winter washed
+      laces and in summer went with him to the fairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the hovels, before which numerous children were playing, lived honest,
+      but poor foresters. It was the home of want and misery. Only the jockey&rsquo;s
+      house and one other would have been allowed to exist in the city. The
+      latter was occupied by the Jew, Costa, who ten years before had come from
+      a distant country to the city with his aged father and a dumb wife, and
+      remained there, for a little daughter was born and the old man was
+      afterwards seized with a fatal illness. But the inhabitants would tolerate
+      no Jews among them, so the stranger moved into the forester&rsquo;s house on the
+      Richtberg which had stood empty because a better one had been built deeper
+      in the woods. The city treasury could use the rent and tax exacted from
+      Jews and demanded of the stranger. The Jew consented to the magistrate&rsquo;s
+      requirement, but as it soon became known that he pored over huge volumes
+      all day long and pursued no business, yet paid for everything in good
+      money, he was believed to be an alchemist and sorcerer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All who lived here were miserable or despised, and when Adam had left the
+      Richtberg he told himself that he no longer belonged among the proud and
+      unblemished and since he felt dishonored and took disgrace in the same
+      dogged earnest, that he did everything else, he believed the people in the
+      Richtberg were just the right neighbors for him. All knew what it is to be
+      wretched, and many had still heavier disgrace to bear. And then! If want
+      drove his miserable wife back to him, this was the right place for her and
+      those of her stamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he bought the jockey&rsquo;s house and well-supplied forge. There would be
+      customers enough for all he could do there in obscurity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no cause to repent his bargain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old nurse remained with him and took care of Ulrich, who throve
+      admirably. His own heart too grew lighter while engaged in designing or
+      executing many an artistic piece of work. He sometimes went to the city to
+      buy iron or coals, but usually avoided any intercourse with the citizens,
+      who shrugged their shoulders or pointed to their foreheads, when they
+      spoke of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About a year after his removal he had occasion to speak to the
+      file-cutter, and sought him at the Lamb, where a number of Count
+      Frolinger&rsquo;s retainers were sitting. Adam took no notice of them, but they
+      began to jeer and mock at him. For a time he succeeded in controlling
+      himself, but when red-haired Valentine went too far, a sudden fit of rage
+      overpowered him and he felled him to the floor. The others now attacked
+      him and dragged him to their master&rsquo;s castle, where he lay imprisoned for
+      six months. At last he was brought before the count, who restored him to
+      liberty &ldquo;for the sake of Florette&rsquo;s beautiful eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Years had passed since then, during which Adam had lived a quiet,
+      industrious life in the Richtberg with his son. He associated with no one,
+      except Doctor Costa, in whom he found the first and only real friend fate
+      had ever bestowed upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Father Benedict had last seen the smith soon after his return from
+      imprisonment, in the confessional of the monastery. As the monk in his
+      youth had served in a troop of the imperial cavalry, he now, spite of his
+      ecclesiastical dignity, managed the stables of the wealthy monastery, and
+      had formerly come to the smithy in the market-place with many a horse, but
+      since the monks had become involved in a quarrel with the city, Benedict
+      ordered the animals to be shod elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A difficult case reminded him of the skilful, half-forgotten artisan; and
+      when the latter came out of the shed with a sack of coal, Benedict greeted
+      him with sincere warmth. Adam, too, showed that he was glad to see the
+      unexpected visitor, and placed his skill at the disposal of the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has grown late, Adam,&rdquo; said the monk, loosening the belt he was
+      accustomed to wear when riding, which had become damp. &ldquo;The storm overtook
+      us on the way. The rolling and flashing overhead made the sorrel horse
+      almost tear Gotz&rsquo;s hands off the wrists. Three steps sideways and one
+      forward&mdash;so it has grown late, and you can&rsquo;t shoe the rascal in the
+      dark.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean the sorrel horse?&rdquo; asked Adam, in a deep, musical voice,
+      thrusting a blazing pine torch into the iron ring on the forge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Master Adam. He won&rsquo;t bear shoeing, yet he&rsquo;s very valuable. We have
+      nothing to equal him. None of us can control him, but you formerly
+      zounds!... you haven&rsquo;t grown younger in the last few years either, Adam!
+      Put on your cap; you&rsquo;ve lost your hair. Your forehead reaches down to your
+      neck, but your vigor has remained. Do you remember how you cleft the anvil
+      at Rodebach?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let that pass,&rdquo; replied Adam&mdash;not angrily, but firmly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll shoe
+      the horse early to-morrow; it&rsquo;s too late to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so!&rdquo; cried the other, clasping his hands excitedly. &ldquo;You know
+      how we stand towards the citizens on account of the tolls on the bridges.
+      I&rsquo;d rather lie on thorns than enter the miserable hole. The stable down
+      below is large enough! Haven&rsquo;t you a heap of straw for a poor brother in
+      Christ? I need nothing more; I&rsquo;ve brought food with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith lowered his eyes in embarrassment. He was not hospitable. No
+      stranger had rested under his roof, and everything that disturbed his
+      seclusion was repugnant to him. Yet he could not refuse; so he answered
+      coldly: &ldquo;I live alone here with my boy, but if you wish, room can be
+      made.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk accepted as eagerly, as if he had been cordially invited; and
+      after the horses and groom were supplied with shelter, followed his host
+      into the sitting-room next the shop, and placed his saddle-bags on the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is all right,&rdquo; he said, laughing, as he produced a roast fowl and
+      some white bread. &ldquo;But how about the wine? I need something warm inside
+      after my wet ride. Haven&rsquo;t you a drop in the cellar?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Father!&rdquo; replied the smith. But directly after a second thought
+      occurred to him, and he added: &ldquo;Yes, I can serve you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he opened the cupboard, and when, a short time after, the monk
+      emptied the first goblet, he uttered a long drawn &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; following the
+      course of the fiery potion with his hand, till it rested content near his
+      stomach. His lips quivered a little in the enjoyment of the flavor; then
+      he looked benignantly with his unusually round eyes at Adam, saying
+      cunningly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If such grapes grow on your pine-trees, I wish the good Lord had given
+      Father Noah a pine-tree instead of a vine. By the saints! The archbishop
+      has no better wine in his cellar! Give me one little sip more, and tell me
+      from whom you received the noble gift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Costa gave me the wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sorcerer&mdash;-the Jew?&rdquo; asked the monk, pushing the goblet away.
+      &ldquo;But, of course,&rdquo; he continued, in a half-earnest, half-jesting tone,
+      &ldquo;when one considers&mdash;the wine at the first holy communion, and at the
+      marriage of Cana, and the juice of the grapes King David enjoyed, once lay
+      in Jewish cellars!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benedict had doubtless expected a smile or approving word from his host,
+      but the smith&rsquo;s bearded face remained motionless, as if he were dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk looked less cheerful, as he began again &ldquo;You ought not to grudge
+      yourself a goblet either. Wine moderately enjoyed makes the heart glad;
+      and you don&rsquo;t look like a contented man. Everything in life has not gone
+      according to your wishes, but each has his own cross to bear; and as for
+      you, your name is Adam, and your trials also come from Eve!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words the smith moved his hand from his beard, and began to push
+      the round leather cap to and fro on his bald head. A harsh answer was
+      already on his lips, when he saw Ulrich, who had paused on the threshold
+      in bewilderment. The boy had never beheld any guest at his father&rsquo;s table
+      except the doctor, but hastily collecting his thoughts he kissed the
+      monk&rsquo;s hand. The priest took the handsome lad by the chin, bent his head
+      back, looked Adam also in the face, and exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His mouth, nose and eyes he has inherited from your wife, but the shape
+      of the brow and head is exactly like yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A faint flush suffused Adam&rsquo;s cheeks, and turning quickly to the boy as if
+      he had heard enough, he cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are late. Where have you been so long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the forest with Ruth. We were gathering faggots for Dr. Costa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rahel had baked some dumplings, so the doctor told me to stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then go to bed now. But first take some food to the groom in the stable,
+      and put fresh linen on my bed. Be in the workshop early to-morrow morning,
+      there is a horse to be shod.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy looked up thoughtfully and replied: &ldquo;Yes, but the doctor has
+      changed the hours; to-morrow the lesson will begin just after sunrise,
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, we&rsquo;ll do without you. Good-night then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk followed this conversation with interest and increasing
+      disapproval, his face assuming a totally different expression, for the
+      muscles between his nose and mouth drew farther back, forming with the
+      underlip an angle turning inward. Thus he gazed with mute reproach at the
+      smith for some time, then pushed the goblet far away, exclaiming with
+      sincere indignation:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What doings are these, friend Adam? I&rsquo;ll let the Jew&rsquo;s wine pass, and the
+      dumplings too for aught I care, though it doesn&rsquo;t make a Christian child
+      more pleasing in the sight of God, to eat from the same dish with those on
+      whom the Saviour&rsquo;s innocent blood rests. But that you, a believing
+      Christian, should permit an accursed Jew to lead a foolish lad. ...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let that pass,&rdquo; said the smith, interrupting the excited monk; but the
+      latter would not be restrained, and only continued still more loudly and
+      firmly: &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be stopped. Was such a thing ever heard of? A baptized
+      Christian, who sends his own son to be taught by the infidel
+      soul-destroyer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear me, Father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed. It&rsquo;s for you to hear&mdash;you! What was I saying? For you,
+      you who seek for your poor child a soul-destroying infidel as teacher. Do
+      you know what that is? A sin against the Holy Ghost&mdash;the worst of all
+      crimes. Such an abomination! You will have a heavy penance imposed upon
+      you in the confessional.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s no sin&mdash;no abomination!&rdquo; replied the smith defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The angry blood mounted into the monk&rsquo;s cheeks, and he cried:
+      threateningly: &ldquo;Oho! The chapter will teach you better to your sorrow.
+      Keep the boy away from the Jew, or...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or?&rdquo; repeated the smith, looking Father Benedict steadily in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter&rsquo;s lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied:
+      &ldquo;Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the
+      vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and it is long
+      since a Jew has been burned for an example to many.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words did not fail to produce an effect, for though Adam was a brave
+      man, the monk threatened him with things, against which he felt as
+      powerless as when confronted with the might of the tempest and the
+      lightning flashing from the clouds. His features now expressed deep mental
+      anguish, and stretching out his hands repellently towards his guest, he
+      cried anxiously &ldquo;No, no! Nothing more can happen to me. No
+      excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to
+      bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you to
+      cross my threshold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle
+      tone: &ldquo;You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you
+      going now? Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you
+      look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you? No one shall
+      have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest. See your
+      way clearly once more, and when you have come to your senses&mdash;why, we
+      monks have two eyes, that we may be able to close one when occasion
+      requires. Have you any special cause for gratitude to Costa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many, Father, many!&rdquo; cried the smith, his voice still trembling with only
+      too well founded anxiety for his friend. &ldquo;Listen, and when you know what
+      he has done for me, and are disposed to judge leniently, do not carry what
+      reaches your ears here before the chapter no, Father&mdash;I beseech you&mdash;do
+      not. For if it should be I, by whom the doctor came to ruin, I&mdash;I....&rdquo;
+       The man&rsquo;s voice failed, and his chest heaved so violently with his gasping
+      breath, that his stout leathern apron rose and fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be calm, Adam, be calm,&rdquo; said the monk, soothingly answering his
+      companion&rsquo;s broken words. &ldquo;All shall be well, all shall be well. Sit down,
+      man, and trust me. What is the terrible debt of gratitude you owe the
+      doctor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Spite of the other&rsquo;s invitation, the smith remained standing and with
+      downcast eyes, began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not good at talking. You know how I was thrown into a dungeon on
+      Valentine&rsquo;s account, but no one can understand my feelings during that
+      time. Ulrich was left alone here among this miserable rabble with nobody
+      to care for him, for our old maid-servant was seventy. I had buried my
+      money in a safe place and there was nothing in the house except a loaf of
+      bread and a few small coins, barely enough to last three days. The child
+      was always before my eyes; I saw him ragged, begging, starving. But my
+      anxiety tortured me most, after they had released me and I was going back
+      to my house from the castle. It was a walk of two hours, but each one
+      seemed as long as St. John&rsquo;s day. Should I find Ulrich or not? What had
+      become of him? It was already dark, when I at last stood before the house.
+      Everything was as silent as the grave, and the door was locked. Yet I must
+      get in, so I rapped with my fingers, and then pounded with my fist on the
+      door and shutters, but all in vain. Finally Spittellorle&mdash;[A
+      nickname; literally: &ldquo;Hospital Loura.&rdquo;]&mdash;came out of the red house
+      next mine, and I heard all. The old woman had become idiotic, and was in
+      the stocks. Ulrich was at the point of death, and Doctor Costa had taken
+      him home. When I heard this, I felt the same as you did just now; anger
+      seized upon me, and I was as much ashamed as if I were standing in the
+      pillory. My child with the Jew! There was not much time for reflection,
+      and I set off at full speed for the doctor&rsquo;s house. A light was shining
+      through the window. It was high above the street, but as it stood open and
+      I am tall, I could look in and see over the whole room. At the right side,
+      next the wall, was a bed, where amid the white pillows lay my boy. The
+      doctor sat by his side, holding the child&rsquo;s hand in his. Little Ruth
+      nestled to him, asking: &lsquo;Well, father?&rsquo; The man smiled. Do you know him,
+      Pater? He is about thirty years old, and has a pale, calm face. He smiled
+      and said so gratefully, so-so joyously, as if Ulrich were his own son:
+      &lsquo;Thank God, he will be spared to us!&rsquo; The little girl ran to her dumb
+      mother, who was sitting by the stove, winding yarn, exclaiming: &lsquo;Mother,
+      he&rsquo;ll get well again. I have prayed for him every day.&rsquo; The Jew bent over
+      my child and pressed his lips upon the boy&rsquo;s brow&mdash;and I, I&mdash;I
+      no longer clenched my fist, and was so overwhelmed with emotion, that I
+      could not help weeping, as if I were still a child myself, and since then,
+      Pater Benedictus, since....&rdquo; He paused; the monk rose, laid his hand on
+      the smith&rsquo;s shoulder, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has grown late, Adam. Show me to my couch. Another day will come early
+      to-morrow morning, and we should sleep over important matters. But one
+      thing is settled, and must remain so-under all circumstances: the boy is
+      no longer to be taught by the Jew. He must help you shoe the horses
+      to-morrow. You will be reasonable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith made no reply, but lighted the monk to the room where he and his
+      son usually slept. His own couch was covered with fresh linen for the
+      guest&mdash;Ulrich already lay in his bed, apparently asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no other room to give you,&rdquo; said Adam, pointing to the boy; but
+      the monk was content with his sleeping companions, and after his host had
+      left him, gazed earnestly at Ulrich&rsquo;s fresh, handsome face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith&rsquo;s story had moved him, and he did not go to rest at once, but
+      paced thoughtfully up and down the room, stepping lightly, that he might
+      not disturb the child&rsquo;s slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam had reason to be grateful to the man, and why should there not be
+      good Jews?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought of the patriarchs, Moses, Solomon, and the prophets, and had
+      not the Saviour himself, and John and Paul, whom he loved above all the
+      apostles, been the children of Jewish mothers, and grown up among Jews?
+      And Adam! the poor fellow had had more than his share of trouble, and he
+      who believes himself deserted by God, easily turns to the devil. He was
+      warned now, and the mischief to his son must be stopped once for all. What
+      might not the child hear from the Jew, in these times, when heresy
+      wandered about like a roaring lion, and sat by all the roads like a siren.
+      Only by a miracle had this secluded valley been spared the evil teachings,
+      but the peasants had already shown that they grudged the nobles the power,
+      the cities the rich gains, and the priesthood the authority and earthly
+      possessions, bestowed on them by God. He was disposed to let mildness
+      rule, and spare the Jew this time&mdash;but only on one condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he took off his cowl, he looked for a hook on which to hang it, and
+      while so doing, perceived on the shelf a row of boards. Taking one down,
+      he found a sketch of an artistic design for the enclosure of a fountain,
+      done by the smith&rsquo;s hand, and directly opposite his bed a linden-wood
+      panel, on which a portrait was drawn with charcoal. This roused his
+      curiosity, and, throwing the light of the torch upon it, he started back,
+      for it was a rudely executed, but wonderfully life-like head of Costa, the
+      Jew. He remembered him perfectly, for he had met him more than once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk shook his head angrily, but lifted the picture from the shelf and
+      examined more closely the doctor&rsquo;s delicately-cut nose, and the noble arch
+      of the brow. While so doing, he muttered unintelligible words, and when at
+      last, with little show of care, he restored the modest work of art to its
+      old place, Ulrich awoke, and, with a touch of pride, exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drew that myself, Father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; replied the monk. &ldquo;I know of better models for a pious lad. You
+      must go to sleep now, and to-morrow get up early and help your father. Do
+      you understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, with no gentle hand he turned the boy&rsquo;s head towards the wall.
+      The mildness awakened by Adam&rsquo;s story had all vanished to the winds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam allowed his son to practise idolatry with the Jew, and make pictures
+      of him. This was too much. He threw himself angrily on his couch, and
+      began to consider what was to be done in this difficult matter, but sleep
+      soon brought his reflections to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich rose very early, and when Benedict saw him again in the light of
+      the young day, and once more looked at the Jew&rsquo;s portrait, drawn by the
+      handsome boy, a thought came to him as if inspired by the saints
+      themselves&mdash;the thought of persuading the smith to give his son to
+      the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This morning Pater Benedictus was a totally different person from the man,
+      who had sat over the wine the night before. Coldly and formally he evaded
+      the smith&rsquo;s questions, until the latter had sent his son away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich, without making any objection, had helped his father shoe the
+      sorrel horse, and in a few minutes, by means of a little stroking over the
+      eyes and nose, slight caresses, and soothing words, rendered the
+      refractory stallion as docile as a lamb. No horse had ever resisted the
+      lad, from the time he was a little child, the smith said, though for what
+      reason he did not know. These words pleased the monk, for he was only too
+      familiar with two fillies, that were perfect fiends for refractoriness,
+      and the fair-haired boy could show his gratitude for the schooling he
+      received, by making himself useful in the stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich must go to the monastery, so Benedictus curtly declared with the
+      utmost positiveness, after the smith had finished his work. At midsummer a
+      place would be vacant in the school, and this should be reserved for the
+      boy. A great favor! What a prospect&mdash;to be reared there with
+      aristocratic companions, and instructed in the art of painting. Whether he
+      should become a priest, or follow some worldly pursuit, could be
+      determined later. In a few years the boy could choose without restraint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This plan would settle everything in the best possible way. The Jew need
+      not be injured, and the smith&rsquo;s imperiled son would be saved. The monk
+      would hear no objections. Either the accusation against the doctor should
+      be laid before the chapter, or Ulrich must go to the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In four weeks, on St. John&rsquo;s Day, so Benedictus declared, the smith and
+      his son might announce their names to the porter. Adam must have saved
+      many florins, and there would be time enough to get the lad shoes and
+      clothes, that he might hold his own in dress with the other scholars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this whole transaction the smith felt like a wild animal in the
+      hunter&rsquo;s toils, and could say neither &ldquo;yes&rdquo; nor &ldquo;no.&rdquo; The monk did not
+      insist upon a promise, but, as he rode away, flattered himself that he had
+      snatched a soul from the claws of Satan, and gained a prize for the
+      monastery-school and his stable&mdash;a reflection that made him very
+      cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam retrained alone beside the fire. Often, when his heart was heavy, he
+      had seized his huge hammer and deadened his sorrow by hard work; but
+      to-day he let the tool lie, for the consciousness of weakness and lack of
+      will paralyzed his lusty vigor, and he stood with drooping head, as if
+      utterly crushed. The thoughts that moved him could not be exactly
+      expressed in words, but doubtless a vision of the desolate forge, where he
+      would stand alone by the fire without Ulrich, rose before his mind. Once
+      the idea of closing his house, taking the boy by the hand, and wandering
+      out into the world with him, flitted through his brain. But then, what
+      would become of the Jew, and how could he leave this place? Where would
+      his miserable wife, the accursed, lovely sinner, find him, when she sought
+      him again? Ulrich had run out of doors long ago. Had he gone to study his
+      lessons with the Jew? He started in terror at the thought. Passing his
+      hands over his eyes, like a dreamer roused from sleep, he went into his
+      chamber, threw off his apron, cleansed his face and hands from the soot of
+      the forge, put on his burgher dress, which he only wore when he went to
+      church or visited the doctor, and entered the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thunder-storm had cleared the air, and the sun shone pleasantly on the
+      shingled roofs of the miserable houses of the Richtberg. Its rays were
+      reflected from the little round window-panes, and flickered over the
+      tree-tops on the edge of the ravine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The light-green hue of the fresh young foliage on the beeches glittered as
+      brightly against the dark pines, as if Spring had made them a token of her
+      mastery over the grave companions of Winter; yet even the pines were not
+      passed by, and where her finger had touched the tips of the branches in
+      benediction, appeared tender young shoots, fresh as the grass by the
+      brook, and green as chrysophase and emerald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stillness of morning reigned within the forest, yet it was full of
+      life, rich in singing, chirping and twittering. Light streamed from the
+      blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered and
+      danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been prisoned
+      in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows of the tall
+      trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant moss, and
+      ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds and grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nature had celebrated her festival of resurrection at Easter, and the day
+      after the morrow joyous Whitsuntide would begin. Fresh green life was
+      springing from the stump of every dead tree; even the rocks afforded
+      sustenance to a hundred roots, a mossy covering and network of thorny
+      tendrils clung closely to them. The wild vine twined boldly up many a
+      trunk, fruit was already forming on the bilberry bushes, though it still
+      glimmered with a faint pink hue amid the green of May. A thousand
+      blossoms, white, red, blue and yellow, swayed on their slender stalks,
+      opened their calixes to the bees, unfolded their stars to deck the
+      woodland carpet, or proudly stretched themselves up as straight as
+      candles. Grey fungi had shot up after the refreshing rain, and gathered
+      round the red-capped giants among the mushrooms. Under, over and around
+      all this luxuriant vegetation hopped, crawled, flew, fluttered, buzzed and
+      chirped millions of tiny, short-lived creatures. But who heeds them on a
+      sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
+      twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously? Murmuring
+      and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
+      amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley. The hurrying
+      water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew along
+      the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third species
+      of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and spun delicate
+      silk threads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
+      charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
+      below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
+      purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
+      sullied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
+      smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky. Little
+      clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles of
+      wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln. A moss-grown but stood
+      at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with the
+      coal-burner. People called this man &ldquo;Hangemarx,&rdquo; and in truth he looked in
+      his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that Nature should
+      deck herself in her Spring garb. He had a broad, peasant face, his mouth
+      was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in many places looked
+      washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow forehead, that it wholly
+      concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white brows. The eyes under them
+      needed to be taken on trust, they were so well concealed, but when they
+      peered through the narrow chink between the rows of lashes, not even a
+      mote escaped them. Ulrich was shaping an arrow, and meantime asking the
+      coal-burner numerous questions, and when the latter prepared to answer,
+      the boy laughed heartily, for before Hangemarx could speak, he was obliged
+      to straighten his crooked mouth by three jerking motions, in which his
+      nose and cheeks shared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
+      dissimilar companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again. Marx
+      knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the boy, that
+      he might shoot it. The host of the Lamb down in the town needed game, for
+      his Gretel was to be married on Tuesday. True, Marx could kill the animal
+      himself, but Ulrich had learned to shoot too, and if the place whence the
+      game came should be noised abroad, the charcoal-burner, without any
+      scruples of conscience, could swear that he did not shoot the buck, but
+      found it with the arrow in its heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People called the charcoal-burner a poacher, and he owed his ill-name of
+      &ldquo;Hangemarx&rdquo; to the circumstance that once, though long ago, he had adorned
+      a gallows. Yet he was not a dishonest man, only he remembered too
+      faithfully the bold motto, which, when a boy, one peasant wood-cutter or
+      charcoal-burner whispered to another:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forest, stream and meadow are free.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His dead father had joined the Bundschuh,&mdash;[A peasants&rsquo; league which
+      derived its name from the shoe, of peculiar shape, worn by its members.]&mdash;adopted
+      this motto, and clung fast to it and with it, to the belief that every
+      living thing in the forest belonged to him, as much as to the city, the
+      nobles, or the monastery. For this faith he had undergone much suffering,
+      and owed to it his crooked mouth and ill name, for just as his beard was
+      beginning to grow, the father of the reigning count came upon him, just
+      after he had killed a fawn in the &ldquo;free&rdquo; forest. The legs of the heavy
+      animal were tied together with ropes, and Marx was obliged to take the
+      ends of the knot between his teeth like a bridle, and drag the carcass to
+      the castle. While so doing his cheeks were torn open, and the evil deed
+      neither pleased him nor specially strengthened his love for the count.
+      When, a short time after, the rebellion broke out in Stuhlingen, and he
+      heard that everywhere the peasants were rising against the monks and
+      nobles, he, too, followed the black, red and yellow banner, first serving
+      with Hans Muller of Bulgenbach, then with Jacklein Rohrbach of Bockingen,
+      and participating with the multitude in the overthrow of the city and
+      castle of Neuenstein. At Weinsberg he saw Count Helfenstein rush upon the
+      spears, and when the noble countess was driven past him to Heilbronn in
+      the dung-cart, he tossed his cap in the air with the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant was to be lord now; the yoke of centuries was to be broken;
+      unjust imposts, taxes, tithes and villenage would be forever abolished,
+      while the fourth of the twelve articles he had heard read aloud more than
+      once, remained firmly fixed in his memory &ldquo;Game, birds and fish every one
+      is free to catch.&rdquo; Moreover, many a verse from the Gospel, unfavorable to
+      the rich, but promising the kingdom of heaven to the poor, and that the
+      last shall be first, had reached his ears. Doubtless many of the leaders
+      glowed with lofty enthusiasm for the liberation of the poor people from
+      unendurable serfdom and oppression; but when Marx, and men like him, left
+      wife and children and risked their lives, they remembered only the past,
+      and the injustice they had suffered, and were full of a fierce yearning to
+      trample the dainty, torturing demons under their heavy peasant feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The charcoal-burner had never lighted such bright fires, never tasted such
+      delicious meat and spicy wine, as during that period of his life, while
+      vengeance had a still sweeter savor than all the rest. When the castle
+      fell, and its noble mistress begged for mercy, he enjoyed a foretaste of
+      the promised paradise. Satan has also his Eden of fiery roses, but they do
+      not last long, and when they wither, put forth sharp thorns. The peasants
+      felt them soon enough, for at Sindelfingen they found their master in
+      Captain Georg Truchsess of Waldberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx fell into his troopers&rsquo; hands and was hung on the gallows, but only
+      in mockery and as a warning to others; for before he and his companions
+      perished, the men took them down, cut their oath-fingers from their hands,
+      and drove them back into their old servitude. When he at last returned
+      home, his house had been taken from his family, whom he found in extreme
+      poverty. The father of Adam, the smith, to whom he had formerly sold
+      charcoal, redeemed the house, gave him work, and once, when a band of
+      horsemen came to the city searching for rebellious peasants, the old man
+      did not forbid him to hide three whole days in his barn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since that time everything had been quiet in Swabia, and neither in
+      forest, stream nor meadow had any freedom existed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx had only himself to provide for; his wife was dead, and his sons were
+      raftsmen, who took pine logs to Mayence and Cologne, sometimes even as far
+      as Holland. He owed gratitude to no one but Adam, and showed in his way
+      that he was conscious of it, for he taught Ulrich all sorts of things
+      which were of no advantage to a boy, except to give him pleasure, though
+      even in so doing he did not forget his own profit. Ulrich was now fifteen,
+      and could manage a cross-bow and hit the mark like a skilful hunter, and
+      as the lad did not lack a love for the chase, Marx afforded him the
+      pleasure. All he had heard about the equal rights of men he engrafted into
+      the boy&rsquo;s soul, and when to-day, for the hundredth time, Ulrich expressed
+      a doubt whether it was not stealing to kill game that belonged to the
+      count, the charcoal-burner straightened his mouth, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forest, stream and meadow are free. Surely you know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy gazed thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fields too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fields?&rdquo; repeated Marx, in surprise. &ldquo;The fields? The fields are a
+      different matter.&rdquo; He glanced as he spoke, at the field of oats he had
+      sown in the autumn, and which now bore blades a finger long. &ldquo;The fields
+      are man&rsquo;s work and belong to him who tills them, but the forest, stream
+      and meadow were made by God. Do you understand? What God created for Adam
+      and Eve is everybody&rsquo;s property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the sun rose higher, and the cuckoo began to raise its voice, Ulrich&rsquo;s
+      name was shouted loudly several times in rapid succession through the
+      forest. The arrow he had been shaping flew into a corner, and with a hasty
+      &ldquo;When it grows dusk, Marxle!&rdquo; Ulrich dashed into the woods, and soon
+      joined his playmate Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair strolled slowly through the forest by the side of the stream,
+      enjoying the glorious morning, and gathering flowers to carry a bouquet to
+      the little girl&rsquo;s mother. Ruth culled the blossoms daintily with the tips
+      of her fingers; Ulrich wanted to help, and tore the slender stalks in
+      tufts from the roots by the handful. Meantime their tongues were not idle.
+      Ulrich boastfully told her that Pater Benedictus had seen his picture of
+      her father, recognized it instantly, and muttered something over it. His
+      mother&rsquo;s blood was strong in him; his imaginary world was a very different
+      one from that of the narrow-minded boys of the Richtberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father had told him much, and the doctor still more, about the wide,
+      wide world-kings, artists and great heroes. From Hangemarx he learned,
+      that he possessed the same rights and dignity as all other men, and Ruth&rsquo;s
+      wonderful power of imagination peopled his fancy with the strangest shapes
+      and figures. She made royal crowns of wreaths, transformed the little hut,
+      the lad had built of boughs, behind the doctor&rsquo;s house, into a glittering
+      imperial palace, converted round pebbles into ducats and golden zechins&mdash;bread
+      and apples into princely banquets; and when she had placed two stools
+      before the wooden bench on which she sat with Ulrich her fancy instantly
+      transformed them into a silver coronation coach with milk-white steeds.
+      When she was a fairy, Ulrich was obliged to be a magician; if she was the
+      queen, he was king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, to give vent to his animal spirits, Ulrich played with the Richtberg
+      boys, he always led them, but allowed himself to be guided by little Ruth.
+      He knew that the doctor was a despised Jew, that she was a Jewish child;
+      but his father honored the Hebrew, and the foreign atmosphere, the
+      aristocratic, secluded repose that pervaded the solitary scholar&rsquo;s house,
+      exerted a strange influence over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he entered it, a thrill ran through his frame; it seemed as if he
+      were penetrating into some forbidden sanctuary. He was the only one of all
+      his playfellows, who was permitted to cross this threshold, and he felt it
+      as a distinction, for, in spite of his youth, he realized that the quiet
+      doctor, who knew everything that existed in heaven and on earth, and yet
+      was as mild and gentle as a child, stood far, far above the miserable
+      drudges, who struggled with sinewy hands for mere existence on the
+      Richtberg. He expected everything from him, and Ruth also seemed a very
+      unusual creature, a delicate work of art, with whom he, and he only, was
+      allowed to play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might have happened, that when irritated he would upbraid her with
+      being a wretched Jewess, but it would scarcely have surprised him, if she
+      had suddenly stood before his eyes as a princess or a phoenix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Richtberg lay close beneath them, Ruth sat down on a stone,
+      placing her flowers in her lap. Ulrich threw his in too, and, as the
+      bouquet grew, she held it towards him, and he thought it very pretty; but
+      she said, sighing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish roses grew in the forest; not common hedge-roses, but like those
+      in Portugal&mdash;full, red, and with the real perfume. There is nothing
+      that smells sweeter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it always was with the pair. Ruth far outstripped Ulrich in her desires
+      and wants, thus luring him to follow her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A rose!&rdquo; repeated Ulrich. &ldquo;How astonished you look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her wish reminded him of the magic word she had mentioned the day before,
+      and they talked about it all the way home, Ulrich saying that he had waked
+      three times in the night on account of it. Ruth eagerly interrupted him,
+      exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of it again too, and if any one would tell the what it was, I
+      should know what to wish now. I would not have a single human being in the
+      world except you and me, and my father and mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my little mother!&rdquo; added Ulrich, earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your father, too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course, he, too!&rdquo; said the boy, as if to make hasty atonement for
+      his neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sun was shining brightly on the little windows of the Israelite&rsquo;s
+      sitting-room, which were half open to admit the Spring air, though lightly
+      shaded with green curtains, for Costa liked a subdued light, and was
+      always careful to protect his apartment from the eyes of passers-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing remarkable to be seen, for the walls were whitewashed,
+      and their only ornament was a garland of lavender leaves, whose perfume
+      Ruth&rsquo;s mother liked to inhale. The whole furniture consisted of a chest,
+      several stools, a bench covered with cushions, a table, and two plain
+      wooden arm-chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the latter had long been the scene of Adam&rsquo;s happiest hours, for he
+      used to sit in it when he played chess with Costa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had sometimes looked on at the noble game while in Nuremberg; but the
+      doctor understood it thoroughly, and had initiated him into all its rules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first two years Costa had remained far in advance of his pupil,
+      then he was compelled to defend himself in good earnest, and now it not
+      unfrequently happened that the smith vanquished the scholar. True, the
+      latter was much quicker than the former, who if the situation became
+      critical, pondered over it an unconscionably long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hands more unlike had rarely met over a chess-board; one suggested a
+      strong, dark plough-ox, the other a light, slender-limbed palfrey. The
+      Israelite&rsquo;s figure looked small in contrast with the smith&rsquo;s gigantic
+      frame. How coarse-grained, how heavy with thought the German&rsquo;s big, fair
+      head appeared, how delicately moulded and intellectual the Portuguese
+      Jew&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day the two men had again sat down to the game, but instead of playing,
+      had been talking very, very earnestly. In the course of the conversation
+      the doctor had left his place and was pacing restlessly to and fro. Adam
+      retained his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend&rsquo;s arguments had convinced him. Ulrich was to be sent to the
+      monastery-school. Costa had also been informed of the danger that
+      threatened his own person, and was deeply agitated. The peril was great,
+      very great, yet it was hard, cruelly hard, to quit this peaceful nook. The
+      smith understood what was passing in his mind, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard for you to go. What binds you here to the Richtberg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace, peace!&rdquo; cried the other. &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; he added more calmly, &ldquo;I have
+      gained land here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The large and small graves behind the executioner&rsquo;s house, they are my
+      estates.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard, hard to leave them,&rdquo; said the smith, with drooping head. &ldquo;All
+      this comes upon you on account of the kindness you have shown my boy; you
+      have had a poor reward from us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reward?&rdquo; asked the other, a subtle smile hovering around his lips. &ldquo;I
+      expect none, neither from you nor fate. I belong to a poor sect, that does
+      not consider whether its deeds will be repaid or not. We love goodness,
+      set a high value on it, and practise it, so far as our power extends,
+      because it is so beautiful. What have men called good? Only that which
+      keeps the soul calm. And what is evil? That which fills it with disquiet.
+      I tell you, that the hearts of those who pursue virtue, though they are
+      driven from their homes, hunted and tortured like noxious beasts, are more
+      tranquil than those of their powerful persecutors, who practise evil. He
+      who seeks any other reward for virtue, than virtue itself, will not lack
+      disappointment. It is neither you nor Ulrich, who drives me hence, but the
+      mysterious ancient curse, that pursues my people when they seek to rest;
+      it is, it is... Another time, to-morrow. This is enough for to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor was alone, he pressed his hand to his brow and groaned
+      aloud. His whole life passed before his mind, and he found in it, besides
+      terrible suffering, great and noble joys, and not an hour in which his
+      desire for virtue was weakened. He had spent happy years here in the peace
+      of his simple home, and now must again set forth and wander on and on,
+      with nothing before his eyes save an uncertain goal, at the end of a long,
+      toilsome road. What had hitherto been his happiness, increased his misery
+      in this hour. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to drag his wife and child
+      through want and sorrow, and could Elizabeth, his wife, bear it again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found her in the tiny garden behind the horse, kneeling before a
+      flower-bed to weed it. As he greeted her pleasantly, she rose and beckoned
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us sit down,&rdquo; he said, leading her to the bench before the hedge,
+      that separated the garden from the forest. There he meant to tell her,
+      that they must again shake the dust from their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had lost the power of speech on the rack in Portugal, and could only
+      falter a few unintelligible words, when greatly excited, but her hearing
+      had remained, and her husband understood how to read the expression of her
+      eyes. A great sorrow had drawn a deep line in the high, pure brow, and
+      this also was eloquent; for when she felt happy and at peace it was
+      scarcely perceptible, but if an anxious or sorrowful mood existed, the
+      furrow contracted and deepened. To-day it seemed to have entirely
+      disappeared. Her fair hair was drawn plainly and smoothly, over her
+      temples, and the slender, slightly stooping figure, resembled a young
+      tree, which the storm has bowed and deprived of strength and will to raise
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful!&rdquo; she exclaimed in a smothered tone, with much effort, but her
+      bright glance clearly expressed the joy that filled her soul, as she
+      pointed to the green foliage around her and the blue sky over their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delicious-delicious!&rdquo; he answered, cordially. &ldquo;The June day is reflected
+      in your dear face. You have learned to be contented here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth nodded eagerly, pressing both hands upon her heart, while her
+      eloquent glance told him how well, how grateful and happy, she felt here;
+      and when in reply to his timid question, whether it would be hard for her
+      to leave this place and seek another, a safer home, she gazed at first in
+      surprise, then anxiously into his face, and then, with an eager gesture of
+      refusal, gasped &ldquo;Not go&mdash;not go!&rdquo; He answered, soothingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; we are still safe here to-day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth knew her husband, and had keen eyes; a presentiment of
+      approaching danger seized upon her. Her features assumed an expression of
+      terrified expectation and deep grief. The furrow in her brow deepened, and
+      questioning glances and gestures united with the &ldquo;What?&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+       trembling on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not fear!&rdquo; he replied, tenderly. &ldquo;We must not spoil the present,
+      because the future might bring something that is not agreeable to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he uttered the words, she pressed closely to him, clutching his arm
+      with both hands, but he felt the rapid throbbing of her heart, and
+      perceived by the violent agitation expressed in every feature, what deep,
+      unconquerable horror was inspired by the thought of being compelled to go
+      out into the world again, hunted from country to country, from town to
+      town. All that she had suffered for his sake, came back to his memory, and
+      he clasped her trembling hands in his with passionate fervor. It seemed as
+      if it would be very, very easy, to die with her, but wholly impossible to
+      thrust her forth again into a foreign land and to an uncertain fate; so,
+      kissing her on her eyes, which were dilated with horrible fear, he
+      exclaimed, as if no peril, but merely a foolish wish had suggested the
+      desire to roam:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, child, it is best here. Let us be content with what we have. We will
+      stay!&mdash;yes, we will stay!&rdquo; Elizabeth drew a long breath, as if
+      relieved from an incubus, her brow became smooth, and it seemed as if the
+      dumb mouth joined the large upraised eyes in uttering an &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; that came
+      from the inmost depths of the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Costa&rsquo;s soul was saddened and sorely troubled, when he returned to the
+      house and his writing-table. The old maid-servant, who had accompanied him
+      from Portugal, entered at the same time, and watched his preparations,
+      shaking her head. She was a small, crippled Jewess, a grey-haired woman,
+      with youthful, bright, dark eyes, and restless hands, that fluttered about
+      her face with rapid, convulsive gestures, while she talked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had grown old in Portugal, and contracted rheumatism in the unusual
+      cold of the North, so even in Spring she wrapped her head in all the gay
+      kerchiefs she owned. She kept the house scrupulously neat, understood how
+      to prepare tempting dishes from very simple materials, and bought
+      everything she needed for the kitchen. This was no trifling matter for
+      her, since, though she had lived more than nine years in the black Forest,
+      she had learned few German words. Even these the neighbors mistook for
+      Portuguese, though they thought the language bore some distant resemblance
+      to German. Her gestures they understood perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had voluntarily followed the doctor&rsquo;s father, yet she could not
+      forgive the dead man, for having brought her out of the warm South into
+      this horrible country. Having been her present master&rsquo;s nurse, she took
+      many liberties with him, insisting upon knowing everything that went on in
+      the household, of which she felt herself the oldest, and therefore the
+      most distinguished member; and it was strange how quickly she could hear
+      when she chose, spite of her muffled ears!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing to
+      take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced around
+      to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in
+      Portuguese:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t begin that, Lopez. You must listen to me first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I?&rdquo; he asked, kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t choose to do it, I can go!&rdquo; she answered, angrily. &ldquo;To be
+      sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion? Do you feel inclined
+      to make the monks&rsquo; acquaintance once more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again? Go into the kitchen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Directly! Directly! But I will speak first. You pretend, that you are
+      only staying here to please your wife, but it&rsquo;s no such thing. It&rsquo;s yonder
+      writing that keeps you. I know life, but you and your wife are just like
+      two children. Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye, and blessing
+      is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna. What sort of a
+      creature have your books made you, since you came with the doctor&rsquo;s hat
+      from Coimbra? Then everybody said: &lsquo;Lopez, Senor Lopez. Heavenly Father,
+      what a shining light he&rsquo;ll be!&rsquo; And now! The Lord have mercy on us! You
+      work, work, and what does it bring you? Not an egg; not a rush! Go to your
+      uncle in the Netherlands. He&rsquo;ll forget the curse, if you submit! How many
+      of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the doctor interrupted the old woman&rsquo;s torrent of speech with a stern
+      &ldquo;enough!&rdquo; but she would not allow herself to be checked, and continued
+      with increasing volubility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my tongue
+      wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of your
+      senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to be sure it
+      isn&rsquo;t written in the books, that when people find out what happened in
+      Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a Christian
+      girl....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant&rsquo;s shoulder,
+      and said with grave, quiet earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it. Do you understand
+      me, Rahel? I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you: my wife is
+      content here, and danger is still far away. We shall stay. And besides:
+      since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed, the
+      Christians as a condemned man. The former close the doors, the latter
+      would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean. No Portuguese will
+      come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one monk and one Jew
+      from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find Elizabeth with me, it
+      will involve no less trifle than her life and mine. I shall stay here; you
+      now know why, and can go to your kitchen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
+      the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
+      more rapidly than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      St. John&rsquo;s day was close at hand. Ulrich was to go to the monastery the
+      following morning. Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no one
+      molested the doctor. Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted so
+      beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he now
+      felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into
+      connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this
+      purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native
+      place, but to the nearest large city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper&rsquo;s windows, and
+      the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before this
+      splendid show. As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected the
+      clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head to foot,
+      were blue on one side and yellow on the other. But Adam pushed them
+      angrily aside. Ulrich&rsquo;s pleasure in the gay stuff reminded him of his
+      wife&rsquo;s outfit, the pink and green gowns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he bought two dark suits, which fitted the lad&rsquo;s erect figure as if
+      moulded upon him, and when the latter stood before him in the inn, neatly
+      dressed, with shoes on his feet, and a student&rsquo;s cap on his head, Adam
+      could not help gazing at him almost idolatrously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tavern-keeper whispered to the smith, that it was long since he had
+      seen so handsome a young fellow, and the hostess, after bringing the beer,
+      stroked the boy&rsquo;s curls with her wet hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching home, Adam permitted his son to go to the doctor&rsquo;s in his new
+      clothes; Ruth screamed with joy when she saw him, walked round and round
+      him, and curiously felt the woollen stuff of the doublet and its blue
+      slashes, ever and anon clapping her hands in delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her parents had expected that the parting would excite her most painfully,
+      but she smiled joyously into her playmate&rsquo;s face, when he bade her
+      farewell, for she took the matter in her usual way, not as it really was,
+      but as she imagined it to be. Instead of the awkward Ulrich of the
+      present, the fairy-prince he was now to become stood before her; he was to
+      return without fail at Christmas, and then how delightful it would be to
+      play with him again. Of late they had been together even more than usual,
+      continually seeking for the word, and planning a thousand delightful
+      things he was to conjure up for her, and she for him and others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Sabbath, and on this day old Rahel always dressed the child in
+      a little yellow silk frock, while on Sunday her mother did the same. The
+      gown particularly pleased Ulrich&rsquo;s eye, and when she wore it, he always
+      became more yielding and obeyed her every wish. So Ruth rejoiced that it
+      chanced to be the Sabbath, and while she passed her hand over his doublet,
+      he stroked her silk dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not much to say to each other, for their tongues always faltered
+      in the presence of others. The doctor gave Ulrich many an admonitory word,
+      his wife kissed him, and as a parting remembrance hung a small gold ring,
+      with a glittering stone, about his neck, and old Rahel gave him a kerchief
+      full of freshly-baked cakes to eat on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At noon on St. John&rsquo;s day, Ulrich and his father stood before the gate of
+      the monastery. Servants and mettled steeds were waiting there, and the
+      porter, pointing to them, said: &ldquo;Count Frohlinger is within.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam turned pale, pressed his son so convulsively to his breast that he
+      groaned with pain, sent a laybrother to call Father Benedict, confided his
+      child to him, and walked towards home with drooping head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto Ulrich had not known whether to enjoy or dread the thought of
+      going to the monastery-school. The preparations had been pleasant enough,
+      and the prospect of sharing the same bench with the sons of noblemen and
+      aristocratic citizens, flattered his unity; but when he saw his father
+      depart, his heart melted and his eyes grew wet. The monk; noticing this,
+      drew him towards him, patted his shoulder, and said: &ldquo;Keep up your
+      courage! You will see that it is far pleasanter with us, than down in the
+      Richtberg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave Ulrich food for thought, and he did not glance around as the
+      Father led him up the steep stairs to the landing-place, and past the
+      refectory into the court-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monks were pacing silently up and down the corridors that surrounded it,
+      and one after another raised his shaven head higher over his white cowl,
+      to cast a look at the new pupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the court-yard stood the stately, gable-roofed building containing
+      the guest-rooms, and between it and the church lay the school-garden, a
+      meadow planted with fruit trees, separated from the highway by a wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benedictus opened the wooden gate, and pushed Ulrich into the playground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise there had been loud enough, but at his entrance the game
+      stopped, and his future companions nudged each other, scanning him with
+      scrutinizing glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk beckoned to several of the pupils, and made them acquainted with
+      the smith&rsquo;s son, then stroking Ulrich&rsquo;s curls again, left him alone with
+      the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On St. John&rsquo;s day the boys were given their liberty and allowed to play to
+      their hearts&rsquo; content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took no special notice of Ulrich, and after having stared
+      sufficiently and exchanged a few words with him, continued their
+      interrupted game of trying to throw stones over the church roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime Ulrich looked at his comrades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were large and small, fair and dark lads among them, but not one
+      with whom he could not have coped. To this point his scrutiny was first
+      directed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he turned his attention to the game. Many of the stones, that had
+      been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over the
+      church. The longer the unsuccessful efforts lasted, the more evident
+      became the superior smile on Ulrich&rsquo;s lips, the faster his heart throbbed.
+      His eyes searched the grass, and when he had discovered a flat,
+      sharp-edged stone, he hurriedly stooped, pressed silently into the ranks
+      of the players, and bending the upper part of his body far back, summoned
+      all his strength, and hurled the stone in a beautiful curve high into the
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forty sparkling eyes followed it, and a loud shout of joy rang out as it
+      vanished behind the church roof. One alone, a tall, thin, black-haired
+      lad, remained silent, and while the others were begging Ulrich to throw
+      again, searched for a stone, exerted all his power to equal the 11
+      &ldquo;greenhorn,&rdquo; and almost succeeded. Ulrich now sent a second stone after
+      the first, and, again the cast was successful. Dark-browed Xaver instantly
+      seized a new missile, and the contest that now followed so engrossed the
+      attention of all, that they saw and heard nothing until a deep voice, in a
+      firm, though not unkind tone, called: &ldquo;Stop, boys! No games must be played
+      with the church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words the younger boys hastily dropped the stones they had
+      gathered, for the man who had shouted, was no less a personage than the
+      Lord Abbot himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the lads approached to kiss the ecclesiastic&rsquo;s hand or sleeve, and
+      the stately priest, who understood how to guide those subject to him by a
+      glance of his dark eyes, graciously and kindly accepted the salutation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grave in office, and gay in sport&rdquo; was his device. Count von Frohlinger,
+      who had entered the garden with him, looked like one whose motto runs:
+      &ldquo;Never grave and always gay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobleman had not grown younger since Ulrich&rsquo;s mother fled into the
+      world, but his eyes still sparkled joyously and the brick-red hue that
+      tinged his handsome face between his thick white moustache and his eyes,
+      announced that he was no less friendly to wine than to fair women. How
+      well his satin clothes and velvet cloak became him, how beautifully the
+      white puffs were relieved against the deep blue of his dress! How proudly
+      the white and yellow plumes arched over his cap, and how delicate were the
+      laces on his collar and cuffs! His son, the very image of the handsome
+      father, stood beside him, and the count had laid his hand familiarly on
+      his shoulder, as if he were not his child, but a friend and comrade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A devil of a fellow!&rdquo; whispered the count to the abbot. &ldquo;Did you see the
+      fair-haired lad&rsquo;s throw? From what house does the young noble come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The prelate shrugged his shoulders, and answered smiling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the smithy at Richtberg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he belong to Adam?&rdquo; laughed the other. &ldquo;Zounds! I had a bitter hour
+      in the confessional on his mother&rsquo;s account. He has inherited the
+      beautiful Florette&rsquo;s hair and eyes; otherwise he looks like his father.
+      With your permission, my Lord Abbot, I&rsquo;ll call the boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afterwards, afterwards,&rdquo; replied the superior of the monastery in a tone
+      of friendly denial, which permitted no contradiction. &ldquo;First tell the
+      boys, what we have decided?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Frohlinger bowed respectfully, then drew his son closer to his side,
+      and waited for the boys, to whom the abbot beckoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as they had gathered in a group before him, the nobleman
+      exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have just bid this good-for-nothing farewell. What should you say, if
+      I left him among you till Christmas? The Lord Abbot will keep him, and
+      you, you....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had no time to finish the sentence. The pupils rushed upon him,
+      shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay here, Philipp! Count Lips must stay!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One little flaxen-headed fellow nestled closely to his regained protector,
+      another kissed the count&rsquo;s hand, and two larger boys seized Philipp by the
+      arm and tried to drag him away from his father, back into their circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot looked on at the tumult kindly, and bright tear-drops ran down
+      into the old count&rsquo;s beard, for his heart was easily touched. When he
+      recovered his composure, he exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lips shall stay, you rogues; he shall stay! And the Lord Abbot has given
+      you permission, to come with me to-day to my hunting-box and light a St.
+      John&rsquo;s fire. There shall be no lack of cakes and wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the count!&rdquo; shouted the pupils, and all who had
+      caps tossed them into the air. Ulrich was carried away by the enthusiasm
+      of the others; and all the evil words his father had so lavishly heaped on
+      the handsome, merry gentleman&mdash;all Hangemarx&rsquo;s abuse of knights and
+      nobles were forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot and his companion withdrew, but as soon as the boys knew that
+      they were unobserved, Count Lips cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You fellow yonder, you greenhorn, threw the stone over the roof. I saw
+      it. Come here. Over the roof? That should be my right. Whoever breaks the
+      first window in the steeple, shall be victor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith&rsquo;s son felt embarrassed, for he shrank from the mischief and
+      feared his father and the abbot. But when the young count held out his
+      closed hands, saying: &ldquo;If you choose the red stone, you shall throw
+      first,&rdquo; he pointed to his companion&rsquo;s right hand, and, as it concealed the
+      red pebble, began the contest. He threw the stone, and struck the window.
+      Amid loud shouts of exultation from the boys, more than one round pane of
+      glass, loosened from the leaden casing, rattled in broken fragments on the
+      church roof, and from thence fell silently on the grass. Count Lips
+      laughed aloud in his delight, and was preparing to follow Ulrich&rsquo;s
+      example, but the wooden gate was pushed violently open, and Brother
+      Hieronymus, the most severe of all the monks, appeared in the playground.
+      The zealous priest&rsquo;s cheeks glowed with anger, terrible were the threats
+      he uttered, and declaring that the festival of St. John should not be
+      celebrated, unless the shameless wretch, who had blasphemously shattered
+      the steeple window, confessed his fault, he scanned the pupils with
+      rolling eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Count Lips stepped boldly forward, saying beseechingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did it, Father&mdash;unintentionally! Forgive me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; asked the monk, his voice growing lower and more gentle, as he
+      continued: &ldquo;Folly and wantonness without end! When will you learn
+      discretion, Count Philipp? But as you did it unintentionally, I will let
+      it pass for to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words, the monk left the court-yard; and as soon as the gate
+      had closed behind him, Ulrich approached his generous companion, and said
+      in a tone that only he could hear, yet grateful to the inmost depths of
+      his heart:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will repay you some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; laughed the young count, throwing his arm over the shoulder of
+      the artisan&rsquo;s son. &ldquo;If the glass wouldn&rsquo;t rattle, I would throw now; but
+      there&rsquo;s another day coming to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Autumn had come. The yellow leaves were fluttering about the school
+      play-ground, the starlings were gathering in flocks on the church roof to
+      take their departure, and Ulrich would fain have gone with them, no matter
+      where. He could not feel at home in the monastery and among his
+      companions. Always first in Richtberg, he was rarely so here, most seldom
+      of all in school, for his father had forbidden the doctor to teach him
+      Latin, so in that study he was last of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often, when every one was asleep, the poor lad sat studying by the
+      ever-burning lamp in the lobby, but in vain. He could not come up with the
+      others, and the unpleasant feeling of remaining behind, in spite of the
+      most honest effort, spoiled his life and made him irritable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His comrades did not spare him, and when they called him &ldquo;horse-boy,&rdquo;
+       because he was often obliged to help Pater Benedictus in bringing
+      refractory horses to reason, he flew into a rage and used his superior
+      strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood on the worst terms of all with black-haired Xaver, to whom he
+      owed the nickname.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This boy&rsquo;s father was the chief magistrate of the little city, and was
+      allowed to take his son home with him at Michaelmas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the black-haired lad returned, he had many things to tell, gathered
+      from half-understood rumor, about Ulrich&rsquo;s parents. Words were now
+      uttered, that brought the blood to Ulrich&rsquo;s cheeks, yet he intentionally
+      pretended not to hear them, because he dared not contradict tales that
+      might be true. He well knew who had brought all these stories to the
+      others, and answered Xaver&rsquo;s malicious spite with open enmity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Lips did not trouble himself about any of these things, but remained
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s most intimate friend, and was fond of going with him to see the
+      horses. His vivacious intellect joyously sympathized with the smith&rsquo;s son,
+      when he told him about Ruth&rsquo;s imaginary visions, and often in the
+      play-ground he went apart with Ulrich from their companions; but this very
+      circumstance was a thing that many, who had formerly been on more intimate
+      terms with the aristocratic boy, were not disposed to forgive the
+      new-comer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xaver had never been friendly to the count&rsquo;s son, and succeeded in
+      irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied himself
+      better than they, and still more against Ulrich, who was half a servant,
+      yet presumed to play the master and offer them violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monks employed in the school soon noticed the ill terms, on which the
+      new pupil stood with his companions, and did not lack reasons for shaking
+      their heads over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benedictus had not been able to conceal, who had been Ulrich&rsquo;s teacher in
+      Richtberg; and the seeds the Jew had planted in the boy, seemed to be
+      bearing strange and vexatious fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Hieronymus, who instructed the pupils in religion, fairly raged,
+      when he spoke of the destructive doctrines, that haunted the new scholar&rsquo;s
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, soon after Ulrich&rsquo;s reception into the school, he had spoken of
+      Christ&rsquo;s work of redemption, and asked the boy: &ldquo;From what is the world to
+      be delivered by the Saviour&rsquo;s suffering?&rdquo; the answer was: &ldquo;From the
+      arrogance of the rich and great.&rdquo; Hieronymus had spoken of the holy
+      sacraments, and put the question: &ldquo;By what means can the Christian surely
+      obtain mercy, unless he bolts the door against it&mdash;that is, commits a
+      mortal sin?&rdquo; and Ulrich&rsquo;s answer was: &ldquo;By doing unto others, what you
+      would have others do unto you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such strange words might be heard by dozens from the boy&rsquo;s lips. Some were
+      repeated from Hangemarx&rsquo;s sayings, others from the doctor&rsquo;s; and when
+      asked where he obtained them, he quoted only the latter, for the monks
+      were not to be allowed to know anything about his intercourse with the
+      poacher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharp reproofs and severe penances were now bestowed, for many a word that
+      he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the poor,
+      tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to
+      have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear his
+      grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for help.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill
+      words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys a
+      right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure, holy
+      Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the abbot,
+      the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy, an opinion
+      strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose best pupil
+      Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who had lured this
+      nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and often urged the
+      abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to an examination by
+      torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the
+      heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement,
+      during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the
+      magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the doctor.
+      Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against the accused.
+      Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he heard from the
+      boy&rsquo;s lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the smith and his
+      son would be examined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot, who liked to linger over his books, was glad to know that the
+      matter was in the hands of the civil authorities, and enjoined Hieronymus
+      to pay strict attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the monastery.
+      His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the deep snow in
+      the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went directly to the
+      refectory and there asked for his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when
+      his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not have needed Xaver&rsquo;s bitter complaints, to rouse his father to
+      furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and he was
+      by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been excluded
+      for three weeks from the others&rsquo; sports, and placed on a very frugal diet.
+      He went furiously to the abbot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young
+      count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered
+      play-ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades,
+      pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated. The conspirators had
+      stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off his
+      shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his back,
+      pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and believed
+      his last hour had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing
+      off and seizing his tormentor. While the others fled, he wreaked his rage
+      on the magistrate&rsquo;s son to his heart&rsquo;s content, first with his fists, and
+      then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him. Meantime, snowballs had
+      rained upon his body and head from all directions, increasing his fury;
+      and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started up, exclaiming with
+      glowing cheeks and upraised fists:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, wait, you wicked fellows! The doctor in Richtberg knows a word, by
+      which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable rascals!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father,
+      cleverly enlarged with many a false word. The abbot listened to the
+      magistrate&rsquo;s complaint very quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter seemed
+      important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the meal-time had
+      already begun. The Jew had really spoken to his daughter about the magic
+      word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his companions with
+      it. So the investigation might begin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was led back to the prison-chamber, where some thin soup and bread
+      awaited him, but he touched neither. Food and drink disgusted him, and he
+      could neither work nor sit still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little bell, which, summoned all the occupants of the monastery, was
+      heard at an unusual hour, and about vespers the sound of sleigh-bells
+      attracted him to the window. The abbot and Father Hieronymus were talking
+      in undertones to the magistrate, who was just preparing to enter his
+      sleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were speaking of him and the doctor, and the pupils had just been
+      summoned to bear witness against him. No one had told him so, but he knew
+      it, and was seized with such anxiety about the doctor, that drops of
+      perspiration stood on his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was clearly aware that he had mingled his teacher&rsquo;s words with the
+      poacher&rsquo;s blasphemous sayings, and also that he had put the latter into
+      the mouth of Ruth&rsquo;s father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a traitor, a liar, a miserable scoundrel!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wished to go to the abbot and confess all, yet dared not, and so the
+      hours stole away until the time for the evening mass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While in church he strove to pray, not only for himself but for the
+      doctor, but in vain, he could think of nothing but the trial, and while
+      kneeling with his hands over his eyes, saw the Jew in fetters before him,
+      and he himself at the trial in the town-hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the mass ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich rose. Just before him hung the large crucifix, and the Saviour on
+      the cross, who with his head bowed on one side, usually gazed so gently
+      and mournfully upon the ground, to-day seemed to look at him with mingled
+      reproach and accusation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dormitory, his companions avoided him as if he had the plague, but
+      he scarcely noticed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moonlight and the reflection from the snow shone brightly through the
+      little window, but Ulrich longed for darkness, and buried his face in the
+      pillows. The clock in the steeple struck ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised himself and listened to the deep breathing of the sleepers on
+      his right and left, and the gnawing of a mouse under the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart throbbed faster and more anxiously, but suddenly seemed to stand
+      still, for a low voice had called his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich!&rdquo; it whispered again, and the young count, who lay beside him,
+      rose in bed and bent towards him. Ulrich had told him about the word, and
+      often indulged in wishes with him, as he had formerly done with Ruth.
+      Philipp now whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are going to attack the doctor. The abbot and magistrate questioned
+      us, as if it were a matter of life and death. I kept what I know about the
+      word to myself, for I&rsquo;m sorry for the Jew, but Xaver, spiteful fellow,
+      made it appear as if you really possessed the spell, and just now he came
+      to me and said his father would seize the Jew early to-morrow morning, and
+      then he would be tortured. Whether they will hang or burn him is the
+      question. His life is forfeited, his father said&mdash;and the
+      black-visaged rascal rejoiced over it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sileutium, turbatores!&rdquo; cried the sleepy voice of the monk in charge, and
+      the boys hastily drew back into the feathers and were silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young count soon fell asleep again, but Ulrich buried his head still
+      deeper among the pillows; it seemed as if he saw the mild, thoughtful face
+      of the man, from whom he had received so much affection, gazing
+      reproachfully at him; then the dumb wife appeared before his mind, and he
+      fancied her soft hand was lovingly stroking his cheeks as usual. Ruth also
+      appeared, not in the yellow silk dress, but clad in rags of a beggar, and
+      she wept, hiding her face in her mother&rsquo;s lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He groaned aloud. The clock struck eleven. He rose and listened. Nothing
+      stirred, and slipping on his clothes, he took his shoes in his hand and
+      tried to open the window at the head of his bed. It had stood open during
+      the day, but the frost fastened it firmly to the frame. Ulrich braced his
+      foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength, but it resisted
+      one jerk after another; at last it suddenly yielded and flew open, making
+      a slight creaking and rattling, but the monk on guard did not wake, only
+      murmured softly in his sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy stood motionless for a time, holding his breath, then swung
+      himself upon the parapet and looked out. The dormitory was in the second
+      story of the monastery, above the rampart, but a huge bank of snow rose
+      beside the wall, and this strengthened his courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With hurrying fingers he made the sign of the cross, a low: &ldquo;Mary, pray
+      for me,&rdquo; rose from his lips, then he shut his eyes and risked the leap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a buzzing, roaring sound in his ears, his mother&rsquo;s image blended
+      in strange distortion with the Jew&rsquo;s, then an icy sea swallowed him, and
+      it seemed as if body and soul were frozen. But this sensation overpowered
+      him only a few minutes, then working his way out of the mass of snow, he
+      drew on his shoes, and dashed as if pursued by a pack of wolves, down the
+      mountain, through the ravine, across the heights, and finally along the
+      river to the city and the Richtberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The magistrate&rsquo;s horses did not reach the city gate, from the monastery,
+      more quickly than Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the smith was roused from sleep by the boy&rsquo;s knock and
+      recognized his voice, he knew what was coming, and silently listened to
+      the lad&rsquo;s confessions, while he himself hurriedly yet carefully took out
+      his hidden hoard, filled a bag with the most necessary articles, thrust
+      his lightest hammer into his belt, and poured water on the glimmering
+      coals. Then, locking the door, he sent Ulrich to Hangemarx, with whom he
+      had already settled many things; for Caspar, the juggler, who learned more
+      through his daughters than any other man, had come to him the day before,
+      to tell him that something was being plotted against the Jew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam found the latter still awake and at work. He was prepared for the
+      danger that threatened him, and ready to fly. No word of complaint, not
+      even a hasty gesture betrayed the mental anguish of the persecuted man,
+      and the smith&rsquo;s heart melted, as he heard the doctor rouse his wife and
+      child from their sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The terrified moans of the startled wife, and Ruth&rsquo;s loud weeping and
+      curious questions, were soon drowned by the lamentations of old Rahel, who
+      wrapped in even more kerchiefs than usual, rushed into the sitting-room,
+      and while lamenting and scolding in a foreign tongue, gathered together
+      everything that lay at hand. She had dragged a large chest after her, and
+      now threw in candlesticks, jugs, and even the chessmen and Ruth&rsquo;s old doll
+      with a broken head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the third hour after midnight came, the doctor was ready for
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx&rsquo;s charcoal sledge, with its little horse, stopped before the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a strange animal, no larger than a calf, as thin as a goat, and
+      in some places woolly, in others as bare as a scraped poodle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith helped the dumb woman into the sleigh, the doctor put Ruth in
+      her lap, Ulrich consoled the child, who asked him all sorts of questions,
+      but the old woman would not part from the chest, and could scarcely be
+      induced to enter the vehicle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, across the mountains into the Rhine valley&mdash;no matter
+      where,&rdquo; Costa whispered to the poacher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hangemarx urged on his little horse, and answered, not turning to the
+      Israelite, who had addressed him, but to Adam, who he thought would
+      understand him better than the bookworm: &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do to go up the ravine,
+      without making any circuit. The count&rsquo;s hounds will track us, if they
+      follow. We&rsquo;ll go first up the high road by the Lautenhof. To-morrow will
+      be a fair-day. People will come early from the villages and tread down the
+      snow, so the dogs will lose the scent. If it would only snow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the smithy, the doctor held out his hand to Adam, saying: &ldquo;We part
+      here, friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go with you, if agreeable to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider,&rdquo; the other began warningly, but Adam interrupted him, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have considered everything; lost is lost. Ulrich, take the doctor&rsquo;s
+      sack from his shoulder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time nothing more was said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was clear and cold; the men&rsquo;s footsteps fell noiselessly on the
+      soft snow, nothing was heard except the creaking of the sledge, and ever
+      and anon Elizabeth&rsquo;s low moaning, or a louder word in the old woman&rsquo;s
+      soliloquy. Ruth had fallen asleep on her mother&rsquo;s lap, and was breathing
+      heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Lautenhof a narrow path led through the mountains deep into the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it grew steeper, the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the
+      little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down, as
+      if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very heavy
+      fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal&rsquo;s neck, and
+      whispered to the smith &ldquo;Twenty years old, and has the glanders besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little beast nodded slowly and mournfully, as if to say: &ldquo;Life is
+      hard; this will probably be the last time I draw a sleigh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The broad, heavy-laden pine-boughs drooped wearily by the roadside, the
+      gleaming surface of the snow stretched in a monotonous sheet of white
+      between the trunks of the trees, the tops of the dark rocks beside the way
+      bore smooth white caps of loose snow, the forest stream was frozen along
+      the edges, only in the centre did the water trickle through snow-crystals
+      and sharp icicles to the valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So long as the moon shone, flickering rays danced and sparkled on the ice
+      and snow, but afterwards only the tedious glimmer of the universal
+      snow-pall lighted the traveller&rsquo;s way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it would only snow!&rdquo; repeated the charcoal-burner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The higher they went, the deeper grew the snow, the more wearisome the
+      wading and climbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often, on the doctor&rsquo;s account, the smith called in a low voice, &ldquo;Halt!&rdquo;
+       and then Costa approached the sleigh and asked: &ldquo;How do you feel?&rdquo; or
+      said: &ldquo;We are getting on bravely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rahel screamed whenever a fox barked in the distance, a wolf howled, or an
+      owl flew through the treetops, brushing the snow from the branches with
+      its wings; but the others also started. Marx alone walked quietly and
+      undisturbed beside his little horse&rsquo;s thick head; he was familiar with all
+      the voices of the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It grew colder towards morning. Ruth woke and cried, and her father,
+      panting for breath, asked: &ldquo;When shall we rest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Behind the height; ten arrow-shots farther,&rdquo; replied the charcoal-burner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Courage,&rdquo; whispered the smith. &ldquo;Get on the sledge, doctor; we&rsquo;ll push.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Costa shook his head, pointed to the panting horse, and dragged
+      himself onward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poacher must have sent his arrows in a strange curve, for one quarter
+      of an hour after another slipped by, and the top was not yet gained.
+      Meantime it grew lighter and lighter, and the charcoal-burner, with
+      increasing anxiety, ever and anon raised his head, and glanced aside. The
+      sky was covered with clouds-the light overhead grey, dim, and blended with
+      mist. The snow was still dazzling, though it no longer sparkled and
+      glittered, but covered every object with the dull whiteness of chalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich kept beside the sledge to push it. When Ruth heard him groan, she
+      stroked the hand that grasped the edges, this pleased him; and he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they again stopped, this time on the crest of the ridge, Ulrich
+      noticed that the charcoal-burner was sniffing the air like a hound, and
+      asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Marxle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poacher grinned, as he answered: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to snow; I smell it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road now led down towards the valley, and, after a short walk, the
+      charcoal-burner said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall find shelter below with Jorg, and a warm fire too, you poor
+      women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were cheering words, and came just at the right time, for large
+      snow-flakes began to fill the air, and a light breeze drove them into the
+      travellers&rsquo; faces. &ldquo;There!&rdquo; cried Ulrich, pointing to the snow covered
+      roof of a wooden hut, that stood close before them in a clearing on the
+      edge of the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every face brightened, but Marx shook his head doubtfully, muttering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No smoke, no barking; the place is empty. Jorg has gone. At Whitsuntide&mdash;how
+      many years ago is it?&mdash;the boys left to act as raftsmen, but then he
+      stayed here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reckoning time was not the charcoal-burner&rsquo;s strong point; and the empty
+      hut, the dreary open window-casements in the mouldering wooden walls, the
+      holes in the roof, through which a quantity of snow had drifted into the
+      only room in the deserted house, indicated that no human being had sought
+      shelter here for many a winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rahel uttered a fresh wail of grief, when she saw this shelter; but
+      after the men had removed the snow as well as they could, and covered the
+      holes in the roof with pine-branches; when Adam had lighted a fire, and
+      the sacks and coverlets were brought in from the sledge, and laid on a dry
+      spot to furnish seats for the women, fresh courage entered their hearts,
+      and Rahel, unasked, dragged herself to the hearth, and set the snow-filled
+      pot on the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nag must have two hours&rsquo; rest,&rdquo; Marx said, &ldquo;then they could push on
+      and reach the miller in the ravine before night. There they would find
+      kind friends, for Jacklein had been with him among the &lsquo;peasants.&rsquo;&rdquo; The
+      snow-water boiled, the doctor and his wife rested, Ulrich and Ruth brought
+      wood, which the smith had split, to the fire to dry, when suddenly a
+      terrible cry of grief rang outside of the hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Costa hastily rose, the children followed, and old Rahel, whimpering, drew
+      the upper kerchief on her head over her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little horse, its tiny legs stretched far apart, was lying in the snow
+      by the sledge. Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his knee,
+      and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal&rsquo;s nostrils. The
+      creature showed its yellow teeth, and put out its bluish tongue as if it
+      wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal&rsquo;s eyes
+      started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time
+      the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust
+      themselves into the air, like the gaping mouth of a deserted bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No farther progress was possible. The women sat trembling in the hut,
+      roasting before the fire, and shivering when a draught touched them....
+      Ruth wept for the poor little horse, and Marx sat as if utterly crushed
+      beside his old friend&rsquo;s stiffening body, heeding nothing, least of all the
+      snow, which was making him whiter than the miller, with whom he had
+      expected to rest that evening. The doctor gazed in mute despair at his
+      dumb wife, who, with clasped hands, was praying fervently; the smith
+      pressed his hand upon his brow, vainly pondering over what was to be done
+      now, until his head ached; while, from the distance, echoed the howl of a
+      hungry wolf, and a pair of ravens alighted on a white bough beside the
+      little horse, gazing greedily at the corpse lying in the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, the abbot was sitting in his pleasantly-warmed study, which was
+      pervaded by a faint, agreeable perfume, gazing now at the logs burning in
+      the beautiful marble mantel-piece, and then at the magistrate, who had
+      brought him strange tidings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prelate&rsquo;s white woollen morning-robe clung closely around his stately
+      figure. Beside him lay, side by side, for comparison, two manuscript
+      copies of his favorite book, the idyls of Theocritus, which, for his
+      amusement, and to excel the translation of Coban Hesse, he was turning
+      into Latin verse, as the duties of his office gave him leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magistrate was standing by the fire-side. He was a thick-set man of
+      middle height, with a large head, and clever but coarse features, as
+      rudely moulded as if they had been carved from wood. He was one of the
+      best informed lawyers in the country, and his words flowed as smoothly and
+      clearly from his strong lips, as if every thought in his keen brain was
+      born fully matured and beautifully finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the farthest corner of the room, awaiting a sign from his master, stood
+      the magistrate&rsquo;s clerk, a little man with a round head, and legs like the
+      sickle of the waxing or waning moon. He carried under his short arms two
+      portfolios, filled with important papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He comes from Portugal, and has lived under an assumed name?&rdquo; So the
+      abbot repeated, what he had just heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Lopez, not Costa,&rdquo; replied the other; &ldquo;these papers prove it.
+      Give me the portfolio, man! The diploma is in the brown one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He handed a parchment to the prelate, who, after reading it, said firmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This Jew is a more important person than we supposed. They are not lavish
+      with such praise in Coimbra. Are you taking good care of the doctor&rsquo;s
+      books Herr Conrad? I will look at them to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are at your disposal. These papers....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave them, leave them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be more than enough for the complaint without them,&rdquo; said the
+      magistrate. &ldquo;Our town-clerk, who though no student is, as you know, a man
+      of much experience, shares my opinion.&rdquo; Then he continued pathetically:
+      &ldquo;Only he who has cause to fear the law hides his name, only he, who feels
+      guilty, flees the judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A subtle smile, that was not wholly free from bitterness, hovered around
+      the abbot&rsquo;s lips, for he thought of the painful trial and the
+      torture-chamber in the town hall, and no longer saw in the doctor merely
+      the Jew, but the humanist and companion in study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His glance again fell on the diploma, and while the other continued his
+      representations, the prelate stretched himself more comfortably in his
+      arm-chair and gazed thoughtfully at the ground. Then, as if an idea had
+      suddenly occurred to him, he touched his high forehead with the tips of
+      his fingers, and suddenly interrupting the eager speaker, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Anselm came to us from Porto five years ago, and when there knew
+      every one who understood Greek. Go, Gutbub, and tell the librarian to
+      come.&rdquo; The monk soon appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tidings of Ulrich&rsquo;s disappearance and the Jew&rsquo;s flight had spread rapidly
+      through the monastery; the news was discussed in the choir, the school,
+      the stable and the kitchen; Father Anselm alone had heard nothing of the
+      matter, though he had been busy in the library before daybreak, and the
+      vexatious incident had been eagerly talked of there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident, that the elderly man cared little for anything that
+      happened in the world, outside of his manuscripts and printing. His long,
+      narrow head rested on a thin neck, which did not stand erect, but grew out
+      between the shoulders like a branch from the stem. His face was grey and
+      lined with wrinkles, like pumice-stone, but large bright eyes lent meaning
+      and attraction to the withered countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he listened indifferently to the abbot&rsquo;s story, but as soon as
+      the Jew&rsquo;s name was mentioned, and he had read the diploma, as swiftly as
+      if he possessed the gift of gathering the whole contents of ten lines at a
+      single comprehensive glance, he said eagerly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lopez, Doctor Lopez was here! And we did not know it, and have not
+      consulted with him! Where is he? What are people planning against him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had learned that the Jew had fled, and the abbot requested him to
+      tell all he knew about the doctor, he collected his thoughts and
+      sorrowfully began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure, to be sure; the man committed a great offence. He is a great
+      sinner in God&rsquo;s eyes. You know his guilt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We know everything,&rdquo; cried the magistrate, with a meaning glance at the
+      prelate. Then, as if he sincerely pitied the criminal, he continued with
+      well-feigned sympathy: &ldquo;How did the learned man commit such a misdeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot understood the stratagem, but Anselm&rsquo;s words could not be
+      recalled, and as he himself desired to learn more of the doctor&rsquo;s history,
+      he asked the monk to tell what he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The librarian, in his curt, dry manner, yet with a warmth unusual to him,
+      described the doctor&rsquo;s great learning and brilliant intellect, saying that
+      his father, though a Jew, had been in his way an aristocratic man, allied
+      with many a noble family, for until the reign of King Emanuel, who
+      persecuted the Hebrews, they had enjoyed great distinction in Portugal. In
+      those days it had been hard to distinguish Jews from Christians. At the
+      time of the expulsion a few favored Israelites had been allowed to stay,
+      among them the worthy Rodrigo, the doctor&rsquo;s father, who had been the
+      king&rsquo;s physician and was held in high esteem by the sovereign. Lopez
+      obtained the highest honors at Coimbra, but instead of following medicine,
+      like his father, devoted himself to the humanities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no need to earn his living&mdash;to earn his living,&rdquo; continued
+      the monk, speaking slowly and carefully, and repeating the conclusion of
+      his sentence, as if he were in the act of collating two manuscripts, &ldquo;for
+      Rodrigo was one of the wealthiest men in Portugal. His son Lopez was rich,
+      very rich in friends, and among them were numbered all to whom knowledge
+      was dear. Even among the Christians he had many friends. Among us&mdash;I
+      mean in our library&mdash;he also obtained great respect. I owe him many a
+      hint, much aid; I mean in referring me to rare books, and explaining
+      obscure passages. When he no longer visited us, I missed him sorely. I am
+      not curious; or do you think I am? I am not curious, but I could not help
+      inquiring about him, and then I heard very bad things. Women are to blame
+      for everything; of course it was a woman again. A merchant from Flanders&mdash;a
+      Christian&mdash;had settled in Porto. The doctor&rsquo;s father visited his
+      house; but you probably know all this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course! of course!&rdquo; cried the magistrate. &ldquo;But go on with your story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old Doctor Rodrigo was the Netherlander&rsquo;s physician, and closed his eyes
+      on the death-bed. An orphan was left, a girl, who had not a single
+      relative in Porto. They said&mdash;I mean the young doctors and students
+      who had seen her&mdash;that she was pleasing, very pleasing to the eye.
+      But it was not on that account, but because she was orphaned and desolate,
+      that the physician took the child&mdash;I mean the girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And reared her as a Jewess?&rdquo; interrupted the magistrate, with a
+      questioning glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a Jewess?&rdquo; replied the monk, excitedly. &ldquo;Who says so? He did nothing
+      of the sort. A Christian widow educated her in the physician&rsquo;s
+      country-house, not in the city. When the young doctor returned from
+      Coimbra, he saw her there more than once&mdash;more than once; certainly,
+      more often than was good for him. The devil had a finger in the matter. I
+      know, too, how they were married. Before one Jew and two Christian
+      witnesses, they plighted their troth to each other, and exchanged rings&mdash;rings
+      as if it were a Christian ceremony, though he remained a Jew and she a
+      Christian. He intended to go to the Netherlands with her, but one of the
+      witnesses betrayed them&mdash;denounced them to the Holy Inquisition. This
+      soon interposed of course, for there it interferes with everything, and in
+      this case it was necessary; nay more&mdash;a Christian duty. The young
+      wife was seized in the street with her attendant and thrown into prison;
+      on the rack she entirely lost the power of speech. The old physician and
+      the doctor were warned in time, and kept closely concealed. Through
+      Chamberlain de Sa, her uncle&mdash;or was it only her cousin?&mdash;through
+      de Sa the wife regained her liberty, and then I believe all three fled to
+      France&mdash;the father, son and wife. But no, they must have come
+      here....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you have it!&rdquo; cried the magistrate, interrupting the monk, and
+      glancing triumphantly at the prelate. &ldquo;An old practitioner scents crime,
+      as a tree frog smells rain. Now, for the first time, I can say with
+      certainty: We have him, and the worst punishment is too little for his
+      deserts. There shall be an unparalleled execution, something wonderful,
+      magnificent, grand! You have given me important information, and I thank
+      you, Father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you knew nothing?&rdquo; faltered the librarian; and, raising his neck
+      higher than usual, the vein in the centre of his forehead swelled with
+      wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Anselme!&rdquo; said the abbot. &ldquo;But it was your duty to speak, as,
+      unfortunately, it was mine to listen. Come to me again, by and bye; I have
+      something to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The librarian bowed silently, coldly and proudly, and without vouchsafing
+      the magistrate a single glance, went back, not to his books, but to his
+      cell, where he paced up and down a long time, sorrowfully murmuring
+      Lopez&rsquo;s name, striking himself on the mouth, pressing his clenched hand to
+      his brow, and at last throwing himself on his knees to pray for the Jew,
+      before the image of the crucified Redeemer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the monk had left the room, the magistrate exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What unexpected aid! What series of sins lie before us! First the small
+      ones. He had never worn the Jews&rsquo; badge, and allowed himself to be served
+      by Christians, for Caspar&rsquo;s daughters were often at the House to help in
+      sewing. A sword was found in his dwelling, and the Jew, who carries
+      weapons, renounces, since he uses self-protection, the aid of the
+      authorities. Finally, we know that Lopez used an assumed name. Now we come
+      to the great offences. They are divided into four parts. He has practised
+      magic spells; he has sought to corrupt a Christian&rsquo;s son by heresies; he
+      has led a Christian woman into a marriage; and he has&mdash;I close with
+      the worst&mdash;he has reared the daughter of a Christian woman, I mean
+      his wife, a Jewess!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reared his child a Jewess? Do you know that positively?&rdquo; asked the abbot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She bears the Jewish name of Ruth. What I have taken the liberty to make
+      prominent are well chosen, clearly-proved crimes, worthy of death. Your
+      learning is great, Reverend Abbot, but I know the old writers, too. The
+      Emperor Constantius made marriages between Jews and Christians punishable
+      with death. I can show you the passage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy and
+      unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to see
+      how the magistrate&rsquo;s zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy
+      criminal. So he rose, saying with cold hauteur:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do your duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rely upon it. We shall capture him and his family to-morrow. The
+      town-clerk is full of zeal too. We shall not be able to harm the child,
+      but it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education. It
+      would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews. You know
+      the Freiburg case. No less a personage than the great Ulrich Zasius has
+      decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their father&rsquo;s
+      knowledge. I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall on Saturday as
+      a witness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness,
+      that it justly surprised the magistrate. &ldquo;Well then, catch the Jew; but
+      take him alive. And one thing more! I wish to see and speak to the doctor,
+      before you torture him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will bring him to you day after to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Nurembergers! the Nurembergers!...&rdquo; replied the abbot, shrugging his
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t hang any one till they catch him.&rdquo; The magistrate regarded
+      these words as a challenge to put forth every effort for the Jew&rsquo;s
+      capture, so he answered eagerly: &ldquo;We shall have him, Your Reverence, we
+      shall surely have him. They are trapped in the snow. The sergeants are
+      searching the roads; I shall summon your foresters and mine, and put them
+      under Count Frohlinger&rsquo;s command. It is his duty to aid us. What they
+      cannot find with their attendants, squires, beaters and hounds, is not
+      hidden in the forest. Your blessing, Holy Father, there is no time to
+      lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbot was alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gazed thoughtfully at the coals in the fireplace, recalling everything
+      he had just seen and heard, while his vivid power of imagination showed
+      him the learned, unassuming man, who had spent long years in quiet
+      seclusion, industriously devoting himself to the pursuit of knowledge. A
+      slight feeling of envy stole into his heart; how rarely he himself was
+      permitted to pursue undisturbed, and without interruption, the scientific
+      subjects, in which alone he found pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was vexed with himself, that he could feel so little anger against a
+      criminal, whose guilt was deserving of death, and reproached himself for
+      lukewarmness. Then he remembered that the Jew had sinned for love, and
+      that to him who has loved much, much should be forgiven. Finally, it
+      seemed a great boon, that he was soon to be permitted to make the
+      acquaintance of the worthy doctor from Coimbra. Never had the zealous
+      magistrate appeared so repulsive as to-day, and when he remembered how the
+      crafty man had outwitted poor Father Anselm in his presence, he felt as if
+      he had himself committed an unworthy deed. And yet, yet&mdash;the Jew
+      could not be saved, and had deserved what threatened him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A monk summoned him, but the abbot did not wish to be disturbed, and
+      ordered that he should be left an hour alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now took in his hand a volume he called the mirror of his soul, and in
+      which he noted many things &ldquo;for the confession,&rdquo; that he desired to
+      determine to his own satisfaction. To-day he wrote:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be a duty to hate a Jew and criminal, zealously to persecute
+      what Holy Church has condemned. Yet I cannot do so. Who is the magistrate,
+      and what are Father Anselm and this learned doctor! The one narrow-minded,
+      only familiar with the little world he knows and in which he lives, the
+      others divinely-gifted, full of knowledge, rulers in the wide domain of
+      thought. And the former outwits the latter, who show themselves children
+      in comparison with him. How Anselm stood before him! The deceived child
+      was great, the clever man small. What men call cleverness is only
+      small-minded persons&rsquo; skill in life; simplicity is peculiar to the truly
+      great man, because petty affairs are too small for him, and his eye does
+      not count the grains of dust, but looks upward, and has a share in the
+      infinitude stretching before us. Jesus Christ was gentle as a child and
+      loved children, he was the Son of God, yet voluntarily yielded himself
+      into the hands of men. The greatest of great men did not belong to the
+      ranks of the clever. Blessed are the meek, He said. I understand those
+      words. He is meek, whose soul is open, clear and pure as a mirror, and the
+      greatest philosophers, the noblest minds I have met in life and history
+      were also meek. The brute is clever; wisdom is the cleverness of the
+      noble-minded. We must all follow the Saviour, and he among us, who unites
+      wisdom to meekness, will come nearest to the Redeemer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor
+      had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he
+      returned at noon with good news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg, the
+      charcoal-burner, lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach
+      nearer the Rhine valley. Everything was ready for departure, but old Rahel
+      objected to travelling further. She was sitting on a stone before the hut,
+      for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and it seemed as
+      if terror had robbed her of her senses. Gazing into vacancy with wild eyes
+      and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould dumplings out of
+      the snow, which she probably took for flour. She neither heard the
+      doctor&rsquo;s call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the former grasped her to
+      compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek. At last the smith succeeded in
+      persuading her to sit down on the sledge, and the party moved forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam had harnessed himself to the front of the vehicle. Marx went to and
+      fro, pushing when necessary. The dumb woman waded through the snow by her
+      husband&rsquo;s side. &ldquo;Poor wife!&rdquo; he said once; but she pressed his arm closer,
+      looking up into his eyes as if she wished to say: &ldquo;Surely I shall lack
+      nothing, if only you are spared to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She enjoyed his presence as if it were a favor granted by destiny, but
+      only at chance moments, for she could not banish her fear for him, and of
+      the pursuers&mdash;her dread of uncertainty and wandering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If snow rattled from a pine-tree, if she noticed Lopez turn his head, or
+      if old Rahel uttered a moan, she shuddered; and this was not unperceived
+      by her husband, who told himself that she had every reason to look forward
+      to the next few hours with grave anxiety. Each moment might bring
+      imprisonment to him and all, and if they discovered&mdash;if it were
+      disclosed who he, who Elizabeth was....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich and Ruth brought up the rear, saying little to each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the path ascended again, then led down to the valley. It had
+      stopped snowing long before, and the farther they went the lighter the
+      drifts became.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had journeyed in this way for two hours, when Ruth&rsquo;s strength failed,
+      and she stood still with tearful, imploring eyes. The charcoal-burner saw
+      it, and growled:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, little girl; I&rsquo;ll carry you to the sleigh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, let me,&rdquo; Ulrich eagerly interposed. And Ruth exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you, you shall carry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx grasped her around the waist, lifted her high into the air, and
+      placed her in the boy&rsquo;s arms. She clasped her hands around his neck, and
+      as he walked on pressed her fresh, cool cheek to his. It pleased him, and
+      the thought entered his mind that he had been parted from her a long time,
+      and it was delightful to have her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart swelled more and more; he felt that he would rather have Ruth
+      than everything else in the world, and he drew her towards him as closely
+      as if an invisible hand were already out-stretched to take her from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day her dear, delicate little face was not pale, but glowed crimson
+      after the long walk through the frosty, winter air. She was glad to have
+      Ulrich clasp her so firmly, so she pressed her cheek closer to his,
+      loosened her fingers from his neck, caressingly stroked his face with her
+      cold hand, and murmured:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are kind, Ulrich, and I love you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It sounded so tender and loving, that Ulrich&rsquo;s heart melted, for no one
+      had spoken to him so since his mother went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt strong and joyous, Ruth did not seem at all heavy, and when she
+      again clasped her hands around his neck, he said: &ldquo;I should like to carry
+      you so always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth only nodded, as if the wish pleased her, but he continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the monastery I had no one, who was very kind to me, for even Lips,
+      well, he was a count&mdash;everybody is kind to you. You don&rsquo;t know what
+      it is, to be all alone, and have to struggle against every one. When I was
+      in the monastery, I often wished that I was lying under the earth; now I
+      don&rsquo;t want to die, and we will stay with you&mdash;father told me so&mdash;and
+      everything will be just as it was, and I shall learn no more Latin, but
+      become a painter, or smith-artificer, or anything else, for aught I care,
+      if I&rsquo;m only not obliged to leave you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt Ruth raise her little head, and press her soft lips on his
+      forehead just over his eyes; then he lowered the arms in which she rested,
+      kissed her mouth, and said: &ldquo;Now it seems as if I had my mother back
+      again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it?&rdquo; she asked, with sparkling eyes. &ldquo;Now put me down. I am well
+      again, and want to run.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, she slipped to the ground, and he did not detain her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth now walked stoutly on beside the lad, and made him tell her about the
+      bad boys in the monastery, Count Lips, the pictures, the monks, and his
+      own flight, until, just as it grew dark, they reached the goal of their
+      walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jorg, the charcoal-burner, received them, and opened his hut, but only to
+      go away himself, for though willing to give the fugitives shelter and act
+      against the authorities, he did not wish to be present, if the refugees
+      should be caught. Caught with them, hung with them! He knew the proverb,
+      and went down to the village, with the florins Adam gave him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a hearth for cooking in the hut, and two rooms, one large and
+      one small, for in summer the charcoal-burners&rsquo; wives and children live
+      with them. The travellers needed rest and refreshment, and might have
+      found both here, had not fear embittered the food and driven sleep from
+      their weary eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jorg was to return early the next morning with a team of horses. This was
+      a great consolation. Old Rahel, too, had regained her self-control, and
+      was sound asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The children followed her example, and at midnight Elizabeth slept too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange,
+      snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from
+      which the air is expiring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on a
+      sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing
+      with the words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you know who we are, and why we left our home. You are giving me your
+      future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but first
+      of all, it was due you that you should know my past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked: &ldquo;You are a Christian;
+      will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam silently pressed the Jew&rsquo;s right hand, and after remaining lost in
+      thought for a time, said in a hollow tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they catch you, and&mdash;Holy Virgin&mdash;if they discover...
+      Ruth.... She is not really a Jew&rsquo;s child... have you reared her as a
+      Jewess?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; only as a good human child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she baptized?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez answered this question also in the negative. The smith shook his
+      head disapprovingly, but the doctor said: &ldquo;She knows more about Jesus,
+      than many a Christian child of her age. When she is grown up, she will be
+      free to follow either her mother or her father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why have you not become a Christian yourself? Forgive the question.
+      Surely you are one at heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, that... you see, there are things.... Suppose that every male scion
+      of your family, from generation to generation, for many hundred years, had
+      been a smith, and now a boy should grow up, who said: I&mdash;I despise
+      your trade?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Ulrich should say: &lsquo;I-I wish to be an artist;&rsquo; it would be agreeable
+      to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if smiths were persecuted like us Jews, and he ran from your guild
+      to another out of fear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;that would be base, and can scarcely be compared with your case;
+      for see&mdash;you are acquainted with everything, even what is called
+      Christianity; nay, the Saviour is dear to you; you have already told me
+      so. Well then! Suppose you were a foundling and were shown our faith and
+      yours, and asked for which you would decide, which would you choose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We pray for life and peace, and where peace exists, love cannot be
+      lacking, and yet! Perhaps I might decide for yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no! We have not done with this question so speedily. See, I do not
+      grudge you your faith, nor do I wish to disturb it. The child must
+      believe, that all its parents do and require of him is right, but the
+      stranger sees with different, keener eyes, than the son and daughter. You
+      occupy a filial relation towards your Church&mdash;I do not. I know the
+      doctrine of Jesus Christ, and if I had lived in Palestine in his time,
+      should have been one of the first to follow the Master, but since, from
+      those days to the present, much human work has mingled with his sublime
+      teachings. This too must be dear to you, for it belongs to your parents&mdash;but
+      it repels me. I have lived, labored and watched all night for the truth,
+      and were I now to come before the baptismal font and say &lsquo;yes&rsquo; to
+      everything the priests ask, I should be a liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have caused you bitter suffering; tortured your wife, driven you and
+      your family from your home....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have borne all that patiently,&rdquo; cried the doctor, deeply moved. &ldquo;But
+      there are many other sins now committed against me and mine, for which
+      there is no forgiveness. I know the great Pagans and their works. Their
+      need of love extends only to the nation, to which they belong, not to
+      humanity. Unselfish justice, is to them the last thing man owes his
+      fellow-man. Christ extended love to all nations, His heart was large
+      enough to love all mankind. Human love, the purest and fairest of virtues,
+      is the sublime gift, the noble heritage, he left behind to his brothers in
+      sorrow. My heart, the poor heart under this black doublet, this heart was
+      created for human love, this soul thirsted, with all its powers, to help
+      its neighbors and lighten their sorrows. To exercise human love is to be
+      good, but they no longer know it, and what is worse, a thousand times
+      worse, they constantly destroy in me and mine the desire to be good, good
+      in the sense of their own Master. Worldly wealth is trash&mdash;to be rich
+      the poorest happiness. Yet the Jew is not forbidden to strive for this,
+      they take scarcely half his gains;&mdash;nor can they deny him the pursuit
+      of the pleasures of the intellect&mdash;pure knowledge&mdash;for our minds
+      are not feebler or more idle, and soar no less boldly than theirs. The
+      prophets came from the East! But the happiness of the soul&mdash;the right
+      to exercise charity is denied to us. It is a part of charity for each man
+      to regard his neighbor as himself&mdash;to feel for him, as it were, with
+      his own heart&mdash;to lighten his burdens, minister unto him in his
+      sorrows, and to gladden his happiness. This the Christian denies the Jew.
+      Your love ceases when you meet me and mine, and if I sought to put myself
+      on an equality with the Christian, from the pure desire to satisfy his
+      Master&rsquo;s most beautiful lesson, what would be my fate? The Jew is not
+      permitted to be good. Not to be good! Whoever imposes that upon his
+      brother, commits a sin for which I know no forgiveness. And if Jesus
+      Christ should return to earth and see the pack that hunts us, surely He,
+      who was human love incarnate, would open His arms wide, wide to us, and
+      ask: &lsquo;Who are these apostles of hate? I know them not!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor paused, for the door had opened, and he rose with flushed face
+      to look into the adjoining room; but the smith held him back, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay, stay! Marx went out into the open air. Ah, Sir! no doubt your words
+      are true, but were they Jews who crucified the Saviour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this crime is daily avenged,&rdquo; replied Lopez. &ldquo;How many wicked, how
+      many low souls, who basely squander divine gifts to obtain worthless pelf,
+      there are among my people! More than half of them are stripped of honor
+      and dignity on your altar of vengeance, and thrust into the arms of
+      repulsive avarice. And this, all this.... But enough of these things! They
+      rouse my inmost soul to wrath, and I have other matters to discuss with
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The scholar now began to speak to the smith, like a dying man, about the
+      future of his family, told him where he had concealed his small property,
+      and did not hide the fact, that his marriage had not only drawn upon him
+      the persecution of the Christians, but the curse of his co-religionists.
+      He took it upon himself to provide for Ulrich, as if he were his own
+      child, should any misfortune befall the smith; and Adam promised, if he
+      remained alive and at liberty, to do the same for the doctor&rsquo;s wife and
+      daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, a conversation of a very different nature was held before the
+      hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poacher was sitting by the fire, when the door opened, and his name
+      was called. He turned in alarm, but soon regained his composure, for it
+      was Jorg who beckoned, and then drew him into the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx expected no good news, yet he started when his companion said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know now, who the man is you have brought. He&rsquo;s a Jew. Don&rsquo;t try to
+      humbug me. The constable from the city has come to the village. The man,
+      who captures the Israelite, will get fifteen florins. Fifteen florins,
+      good money. The magistrate will count it, all on one board, and the vicar
+      says....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care much for your priests,&rdquo; replied Marx. &ldquo;I am from Weinsberg,
+      and have found the Jew a worthy man. No one shall touch him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Jew, and a good man!&rdquo; cried Jurg, laughing. &ldquo;If you won&rsquo;t help, so much
+      the worse for you. You&rsquo;ll risk your neck, and the fifteen florins. ...
+      Will you go shares? Yes or no?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven&rsquo;s thunder!&rdquo; murmured the poacher, his crooked mouth watering. &ldquo;How
+      much is half of fifteen florins?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About seven, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A calf and a pig.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A swine for the Jew, that will suit. You&rsquo;ll keep him here in the trap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t, Jorg; by my soul, I can&rsquo;t! Let me alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, for aught I care; but the legal gentlemen. The gallows has
+      waited for you long enough!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t; I can&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;ve been an honest man all my life, and the smith Adam
+      and his dead father have shown me many a kindness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who means the smith any harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The receiver is as bad as the thief. If they catch him....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be put in the stocks for a week. That&rsquo;s the worst that can befall
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. Let me alone,&mdash;or I&rsquo;ll tell Adam what you&rsquo;re plotting....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll denounce you first, you gallows&rsquo; fruit, you rogue, you poacher.
+      They&rsquo;ve suspected you a long time! Will you change your mind now, you
+      blockhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my own
+      child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away
+      with me. When it&rsquo;s all over, I&rsquo;ll let him go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll keep him. He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown
+      man. Oh, dear, dear! The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and the
+      little girl, Ruth....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more. You&rsquo;ve told me yourself, how the
+      Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father&rsquo;s day. So we&rsquo;ll go shares.
+      There&rsquo;s a light in the room still. You&rsquo;ll detain them. Count Frohlinger
+      has been at his hunting-box since last evening.... If they insist on
+      moving forward, guide them to the village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ve been an honest man all my life,&rdquo; whined the poacher, and then
+      continued, threateningly: &ldquo;If you harm a hair on Ulrich&rsquo;s head....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool that you are! I&rsquo;ll willingly leave the big feeder to you. Go in now,
+      then I&rsquo;ll come and fetch the boy. There&rsquo;s money at stake&mdash;fifteen
+      florins!&rdquo; Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
+      that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find one
+      elsewhere. They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the
+      farm-houses in another village. Somebody would doubtless be found to risk
+      his horses. The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants would
+      take earnest-money from him. If he, Jorg, should show them florins, it
+      would get him into a fine scrape. The people knew he was as poor as a
+      beggar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith asked the poacher&rsquo;s opinion, and the latter growled:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will, doubtless, be a good plan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
+      him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
+      Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
+      florins to the four winds, but it was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: &ldquo;Take good care of
+      the boy!&rdquo; And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: &ldquo;You are a
+      faithful fellow, Marx!&rdquo; he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
+      all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
+      kept silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle nor
+      Jorg had come. Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as soundly
+      as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the smith&rsquo;s
+      anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room. Ruth
+      followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched him&mdash;for
+      there had always been something unapproachable to her in the silent man&rsquo;s
+      gigantic figure&mdash;he looked at her from head to foot, with strange,
+      questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste unusual to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Often!&rdquo; replied Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you love Him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearly. Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, of course!&rdquo; replied the smith, blushing with shame for his own
+      distrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
+      they were alone, she beckoned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand. The slender
+      fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew her
+      towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her eyes
+      expressed bitter suffering and terrible dread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you afraid?&rdquo; he asked, tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth shuddered, threw her arms passionately around his neck, and
+      nodded assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wagon will convey us to the Rhine Valley, please God, this very day,
+      and there we shall be safe,&rdquo; he continued, soothingly. But she shook her
+      head, her features assuming an expression of indifference and contempt.
+      Lopez understood how to read their meaning, and asked: &ldquo;So it is not the
+      bailiffs you fear; something else is troubling you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded again, this time still more eagerly, drew out the crucifix,
+      which she had hitherto kept concealed under her coverlid, showed it to
+      him, then pointed upward towards heaven, lastly to herself and him, and
+      shrugged her shoulders with an air of deep, mournful renunciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are thinking of the other world,&rdquo; said Lopez; then, fixing his eyes
+      on the ground, he continued, in a lower tone: &ldquo;I know you are tortured by
+      the fear of not meeting me there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she gasped, with a great effort, pressing her forehead against his
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hot tear fell on the doctor&rsquo;s hand, and he felt as if his own heart was
+      weeping with his beloved, anxious wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew that this thought had often poisoned her life and, full of tender
+      sympathy, turned her beautiful face towards him and pressed a long kiss on
+      her closed eyes, then said, tenderly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mine, I am yours, and if there is a life beyond the grave, and an
+      eternal justice, the dumb will speak as they desire, and sing wondrous
+      songs with the angels; the sorrowful will again be happy there. We will
+      hope, we will both hope! Do you remember how I read Dante aloud to you,
+      and tried to explain his divine creation, as we sat on the bench by the
+      fig-tree. The sea roared below us, and our hearts swelled higher than its
+      storm-lashed waves. How soft was the air, how bright the sunshine! This
+      earth seemed doubly beautiful to you and me as, led by the hand of the
+      divine seer and singer, we descended shuddering to the nether world. There
+      the good and noble men of ancient times walked in a flowery meadow, and
+      among them the poet beheld in solitary grandeur&mdash;do you still
+      remember how the passage runs? &lsquo;E solo in parte vidi &lsquo;l Saladino.&rsquo; Among
+      them he also saw the Moslem Saladin, the conqueror of the Christians. If
+      any one possessed the key of the mysteries of the other world, Elizabeth,
+      it was Dante. He assigned a lofty place to the pagan, who was a true man&mdash;a
+      man with a pure mind, a zeal for goodness and right, and I think I shall
+      have a place there too. Courage, Elizabeth, courage!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A beautiful smile had illumined the wife&rsquo;s features, while she was
+      reminded of the happiest hours of her life, but when he paused, gazed into
+      her eyes, and clasped her right hand in his, she was seized with an
+      intense longing to pray once, only once, with him to the Saviour so,
+      drawing her fingers from his, she pressed the image of the Crucified One
+      to her breast with her left hand, pleading with mute motions of her lips,
+      ineligible to him alone, and with ardent entreaty in her large, tearful
+      eyes: &ldquo;Pray, pray with me, pray to the saviour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez was greatly agitated; his heart beat faster, and a strong impulse
+      urged him to start up, cry &ldquo;no,&rdquo; and not allow himself to be moved, by an
+      affectionate meakness, into bowing his manly soul before one, who, to him,
+      was no more than human.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noble figure of the crucified Saviour, carved by an artist&rsquo;s hand in
+      ivory, hung from an ebony cross, and he thrust the image back, intending
+      to turn proudly way, he gazed at the face and found there only pain, quiet
+      endurance, and touching sorrow. Ah, his own heart had often bled, as the
+      pure brow of this poor, persecuted, tortured saint bled beneath its crown
+      of thorns. To defy this silent companion in suffering, was no manly deed&mdash;to
+      pay homage, out of love, to Him, who had brought love into the world,
+      seemed to possess a sweet, ensnaring charm&mdash;so he clasped his slender
+      hands closely round his dumb wife&rsquo;s fingers, pressed his dark curls
+      against Elizabeth&rsquo;s fair hair, and both, for the first and last time,
+      repeated together a mute, fervent prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the hut, and surrounded by the forest, was a large clearing, where
+      two roads crossed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam, Marx and Ruth had gazed first down one and then the other, to look
+      for the wagon, but nothing was to be seen or heard. As, with increasing
+      anxiety, they turned back to the first path, the poacher grew restless.
+      His crooked mouth twisted to and fro in strange contortions, not a muscle
+      of his coarse face was till, and this looked so odd and yet so horrible,
+      that Ruth could not help laughing, and the smith asked what ailed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marx made no reply; his ear had caught the distant bay of a dog, and he
+      knew what the sound meant. Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and the
+      smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: &ldquo;What ails you,
+      man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am freezing,&rdquo; replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous
+      expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her hand
+      to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a dog barking,
+      Meister Adam, I hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly:
+      &ldquo;Believe me; I hear it. Now it&rsquo;s barking again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest. With lightning speed he
+      loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up the
+      clearing with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned. In his impatience he had
+      gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the
+      child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had
+      happened to Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back, back!&rdquo; shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his,
+      also motioned and shrieked &ldquo;Back, back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned,
+      when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the
+      party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on
+      horseback, burst from the thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god
+      Siegfried. His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam
+      rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air
+      like a light cloud. He had opened and raised his arms, and holding the
+      reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right. On
+      perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant &ldquo;Hallo, Halali!&rdquo; rang from his
+      bearded lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a Jew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how
+      stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a morning&rsquo;s work indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hallo, Halali!&rdquo; he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had
+      escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor&rsquo;s side, exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he
+      turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam&rsquo;s
+      heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful arms
+      around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him from his
+      horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his belt, and
+      with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the earth. Then he
+      again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe. But Lopez would
+      not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a tone of passionate
+      entreaty:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him go, Adam, spare him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, he clung to the smith&rsquo;s arm, and when the latter tried to
+      release himself from his grasp, said earnestly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will not follow their example!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the
+      smith&rsquo;s arm, this time exclaiming imperiously:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spare him, if you are my friend!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What was his strength in comparison with Adam&rsquo;s? Yet as the hammer rose
+      for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed, seizing
+      the infuriated man&rsquo;s wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he fell on his
+      knees beside the count: &ldquo;Think of Ulrich! This man&rsquo;s son was the only one,
+      the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich, your child&mdash;in
+      the monastery&mdash;he was&mdash;his friend&mdash;among so many. Spare him&mdash;Ulrich!
+      For Ulrich&rsquo;s sake, spare him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During this struggle the smith had held the count down with his left hand,
+      and defended himself against Lopez with the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One jerk, and the hand upraised for murder was free again&mdash;but he did
+      not use it. His friend&rsquo;s last words had paralyzed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it,&rdquo; he said in a hollow tone, giving the hammer to the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter seized it, and rising joyously, laid his hand on the shoulder
+      of the smith, who was still kneeling on the count&rsquo;s breast, and said
+      beseechingly: &ldquo;Let that suffice. The man is only....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went no farther&mdash;a gurgling, piercing cry of pain escaped his
+      lips, and pressing one hand to his breast, and the other to his brow, he
+      sank on the snow beside the stump of a giant pine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A squire dashed from the forest&mdash;the archer, to whom this noble
+      quarry had fallen a victim, appeared in the clearing, holding aloft the
+      cross-bow from which he had sent the bolt. His arrow was fixed in the
+      doctor&rsquo;s breast; alas, the man had only sent the shaft, to save his fallen
+      master from the hammer in the Jew&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Frohlinger rose, struggling for breath; his hand sought his
+      hunting-knife, but in the fall it had slipped from its sheath and was
+      lying in the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam supported his dying friend in his arms, Ruth ran weeping to the hut,
+      and before the nobleman had fully collected his thoughts, the squire
+      reached his side, and young Count Lips, riding a swift bay-horse, dashed
+      from the forest, closely followed by three mounted huntsmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the attendants saw their master on foot, they too sprang from their
+      saddles, Lips did the same, and an eager interchange of question and
+      answer began among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobleman scarcely noticed his son, but greeted with angry words the
+      man who had shot the Jew. Then, deeply excited, he hoarsely ordered his
+      attendants to bind the smith, who made no resistance, but submitted to
+      everything like a patient child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez no longer needed his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dumb wife sat on the stump, with her dying husband resting on her lap.
+      She had thrown her arms around the bleeding form, and the feet hung limply
+      down, touching the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth, sobbing bitterly, crouched on the ground by her mother&rsquo;s side, and
+      old Rahel, who had entirely regained her self-control, pressed a cloth,
+      wet with wine, on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young count approached the dying Jew. His father slowly followed, drew
+      the boy to his side, and said in a low, sad tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry for the man; he saved my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The wounded man opened his eyes, saw Count Frohlinger, his son and the
+      fettered smith, felt his wife&rsquo;s tears on his brow, and heard Ruth&rsquo;s
+      agonized weeping. A gentle smile hovered around his pale lips, and when he
+      tried to raise his head Elizabeth helped him, pressing it gently to her
+      breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feeble lips moved and Lopez raised his eyes to her face, as if to
+      thank her, saying in a low voice: &ldquo;The arrow&mdash;don&rsquo;t touch it....
+      Elizabeth&mdash;Ruth, we have clung together faithfully, but now&mdash;I
+      shall leave you alone, I must leave you.&rdquo; He paused, a shadow clouded his
+      eyes, and the lids slowly fell. But he soon raised them again, and fixing
+      his glance steadily on the count, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear me, my Lord; a dying man should be heard, even if he is a Jew. See!
+      This is my wife, and this my child. They are Christians. They will soon be
+      alone in the world, deserted, orphaned. The smith is their only friend.
+      Set him free; they&mdash;they, they will need a protector. My wife is
+      dumb, dumb... alone in the world. She can neither beseech nor demand. Set
+      Adam free, for the sake of your Saviour, your son, free&mdash;yes, free. A
+      wide, wide space must be between you; he must go away with them, far away.
+      Set him free! I held his arm with the hammer.... You know&mdash;with the
+      hammer. Set him free. My death&mdash;death atones for everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again his voice failed, and the count, deeply moved, looked irresolutely
+      now at him, now at the smith. Lips&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears; and as he saw
+      his father delay in fulfilling the dying man&rsquo;s last wish, and a glance
+      from the dim eyes met his, he pressed closer to the noble, who stood
+      struggling with many contending emotions, and whispered, weeping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord and Father, my Lord and Father, tomorrow will be Christmas. For
+      Christ&rsquo;s sake, for love of me, grant his request: release Ulrich&rsquo;s father,
+      set him free! Do so, my noble Father; I want no other Christmas gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Frohlinger&rsquo;s heart also overflowed, and when, raising his
+      tear-dimmed eyes, he saw Elizabeth&rsquo;s deep grief stamped on her gentle
+      features, and beheld reclining on her breast, the mild, beautiful face of
+      the dying man, it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother of
+      God&mdash;and to-morrow would be Christmas. Wounded pride was silent, he
+      forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if he
+      wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you for your aid, man. Adam is free, and may go with your wife
+      and child wherever he lists. My word upon it; you can close your eyes in
+      peace!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lopez smiled again, raised his hand as if in gratitude, then let it fall
+      upon his child&rsquo;s head, gazed lovingly at Ruth for the last time, and
+      murmured in a low tone &ldquo;Lift my head a little higher, Elizabeth.&rdquo; When she
+      had obeyed his wish, he gazed earnestly into her face, whispered softly:
+      &ldquo;A dreamless sleep&mdash;reanimated to new forms in the endless circle.
+      No!&mdash;Do you see, do you hear.... Solo in parte&rsquo;... with you... with
+      you.... Oh, oh!&mdash;the arrow&mdash;draw the arrow from the wound.
+      Elizabeth, Elizabeth&mdash;it aches. Well&mdash;well&mdash;how miserable
+      we were, and yet, yet.... You&mdash;you&mdash;I&mdash;we&mdash;we know,
+      what happiness is. You&mdash;I ... Forgive me! I forgive, forgive....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dying man&rsquo;s hand fell from his child&rsquo;s head, his eyes closed, but the
+      pleasant smile with which he had perished, hovered around his lips, even
+      in death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Count Frohlinger added a low &ldquo;amen&rdquo; to the last words of the dying man,
+      then approached the widow, and in the kindly, cordial manner natural to
+      him, strove to comfort her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally he ordered his men, to loose the smith&rsquo;s bonds, and instantly
+      guide him to the frontier with the woman and child. He also spoke to Adam,
+      but said only a few words, not cheery ones as usual, but grave and harsh
+      in purport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were a command to leave the country without delay, and never return
+      to his home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jew&rsquo;s corpse was laid on a bier formed of pine, branches, and the
+      bearers lifted it on their shoulders. Ruth clung closely to her mother,
+      both trembling like leaves in the wind, while he who was dearest to them
+      on earth was borne away, but only the child could weep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited
+      patiently with the smith for his son&rsquo;s return until noon, then they urged
+      departure, and the party moved forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a word was spoken, till the travellers stopped before the
+      charcoal-burner&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and
+      had gone back to the forest an hour before. The tavern could accommodate a
+      great many people, she added, and they could wait for him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fugitives followed this advice, and after Adam had seen the women
+      provided with shelter, he again sought the scene of the misfortune, and
+      waited there for the boy until night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside the stump on which his friend had died, he prayed long and
+      earnestly, vowing to his dead preserver to live henceforth solely for his
+      family. Unbroken stillness surrounded him, it seemed as if he were in
+      church, and every tree in the forest was a witness of the oath he swore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning the smith again sought the charcoal-burner, and this time
+      found him. Jorg laid the blame to Ulrich&rsquo;s impatience, but promised to go
+      to Marx in search of him and bring him to the smith. The men composing the
+      escort urged haste, so Adam went on without Ulrich towards the north-west,
+      to the valley of the Rhine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The charcoal-burner had lost the reward offered the informer, and could
+      not even earn the money due a messenger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had lured Ulrich to the attic and locked him in there, but during his
+      absence the boy escaped. He was a nimble fellow, for he had risked the
+      leap from the window, and then swung himself over the fence into the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jorg&rsquo;s conjecture did not deceive him, for as soon as Ulrich perceived
+      that he had been betrayed into a trap, he had leaped into the open air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must warn his friends, and anxiety for them winged his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once and again he lost his way, but at last found the right path, though
+      he had wasted many hours, first in the village, then behind the locked
+      door, and finally in searching for the right road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
+      clearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where had they gone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only too
+      many. Here horses&rsquo; hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed the snow,
+      yonder hounds had run, and&mdash;Great Heaven!&mdash;here, by the
+      tree-stump, red blood stained the glimmering white ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass and
+      brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there&mdash;Holy
+      Virgin! What was this!&mdash;there lay his father&rsquo;s hammer. He knew it
+      only too well; it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the
+      two larger tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it
+      a hundred times himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
+      and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
+      himself: &ldquo;The bier was made here,&rdquo; and his vivid imagination showed him
+      his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral procession.
+      Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a slender,
+      black-robed body, his father and his teacher. Then came the quiet,
+      beautiful wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel. He
+      distinctly saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of the
+      women, and wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating locks and
+      ran to and fro. Suddenly he thought that the troopers would return to
+      seize him also. Away, away! anywhere&mdash;away! a voice roared and buzzed
+      in his ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always towards the
+      south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained at
+      the charcoal-burner&rsquo;s, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor thirst,
+      and dashed on and on without heeding the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he still
+      ran on&mdash;but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and
+      shorter. The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet he
+      still struggled forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he followed
+      southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed. His head
+      and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold; but little
+      snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight showed
+      patches of bare, dark turf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grief was forgotten. Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed the
+      boy&rsquo;s mind. He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road and sleep,
+      but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and dragged himself
+      on to the nearest village. The lights had long been extinguished; as he
+      approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the melancholy lowing of a cow
+      echoed from many a stable. He was again among human beings; the thought
+      exerted a soothing influence; he regained his self-control, and sought a
+      shelter for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the
+      moonlight an open hatchway in the wall. If he could climb up to it! The
+      framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to try
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several times, when Half-way up, he slipped to the ground, but at last
+      reached the top, and found a bed in the soft hay under a sheltering roof.
+      Surrounded by the fragrance of the dried grasses, he soon fell asleep, and
+      in a dream saw amidst various confused and repulsive shapes, first his
+      father with a bleeding wound in his broad chest, and then the doctor,
+      dancing with old Rahel. Last of all Ruth appeared; she led him into the
+      forest to a juniper-bush, and showed him a nest full of young birds. But
+      the half-naked creatures vexed him, and he trampled them under foot, over
+      which the little girl lamented so loudly and bitterly, that he awoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morning was already dawning, his head ached, and he was very cold and
+      hungry, but he had no desire nor thought except to proceed; so he again
+      went out into the open air, brushed off the hay that still clung to his
+      hair and clothes, and walked on towards the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had grown warmer and was beginning to snow heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walking became more and more difficult; his headache grew unendurable, yet
+      his feet still moved, though it seemed as if he wore heavy leaden shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several freight-wagons with armed escorts, and a few peasants, with
+      rosaries in their hands, who were on their way to church, met the lad, but
+      no one had overtaken him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the hinge of noon he heard behind him the tramp of horses&rsquo; hoofs and
+      the rattle of wheels, approaching nearer and nearer with ominous haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it should be the troopers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s heart stood still, and turning to look back, he saw several
+      horsemen, who were trotting past a spur of the hill around which the road
+      wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the falling flakes the boy perceived glittering weapons, gay
+      doublets and scarfs, and now&mdash;now&mdash;all hope was over, they wore
+      Count Frohlinger&rsquo;s colors!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unless the earth should open before him, there was no escape. The road
+      belonged to the horsemen; on the right lay a wide, snow-covered plain, on
+      the left rose a cliff, kept from falling on the side towards the highway
+      by a rude wall. It needed this support less on account of the road, than
+      for the sake of a graveyard, for which the citizens of the neighboring
+      borough used the gentle slope of the mountain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The graves, the bare elder-bushes and bushy cypresses in the cemetery were
+      covered with snow, and the brighter the white covering that rested on
+      every surrounding object, the stronger was the relief in which the black
+      crosses stood forth against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small chapel in the rear of the graveyard caught Ulrich&rsquo;s eye. If it was
+      possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it. The horsemen were
+      already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining strength,
+      rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to clamber up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the
+      cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to slip
+      on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered plants
+      growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed: &ldquo;A
+      runaway! See how the young vagabond acts. I&rsquo;ll seize him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded in
+      reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
+      gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper&rsquo;s hand and his comrades
+      burst into a loud laugh. It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears of
+      the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward. He leaped
+      over two, five, ten graves&mdash;then he stumbled over a head-stone
+      concealed by the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell once
+      more, and now his will was paralyzed. In mortal terror he clung to a
+      cross, and as his senses failed, thought of &ldquo;the word.&rdquo; It seemed as if
+      some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and fatigue, he
+      could not remember it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his comrades,
+      by letting the vagabond escape. With a curt: &ldquo;Stop, you rascal,&rdquo; he threw
+      the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the next man in the line;
+      and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich&rsquo;s side. He shook and jerked
+      him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called to the others that the boy
+      was probably dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People never die so quickly!&rdquo; cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
+      &ldquo;Give him a blow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad. He had looked into
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s face, and found something there that touched his heart. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo;
+       he shouted, &ldquo;come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it&rsquo;s all over with
+      him, I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his old
+      servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot. The former, a gentleman
+      of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw with a single
+      hasty glance the cause of the detention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
+      the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s head now lay in the soldier&rsquo;s arms, and the traveller gazed at
+      him with a look of deep sympathy. The steadfast glance of his bright eyes
+      rested on the boy&rsquo;s features as if spellbound, then he raised his hand,
+      beckoned to the elder soldier, and exclaimed: &ldquo;Lift him; we&rsquo;ll take him
+      with us; a corner can be found in the wagon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The vehicle, of which the traveller spoke, was slow in coming. It was a
+      long four-wheeled equipage, over which, as a protection against wind and
+      storm, arched a round, sail-cloth cover. The driver crouched among the
+      straw in a basket behind the horses, like a brooding hen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad gentleman,
+      sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the vehicle had
+      gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two Dominican friars, Magisters Sutor and Stubenrauch, had entered at
+      Cologne, for the wagon came straight from Holland, and belonged to the
+      artist Antonio Moor of Utrecht, who was going to King Philip&rsquo;s court. The
+      beautiful fur border on the black cap and velvet cloak showed that he had
+      no occasion to practise economy; he preferred the back of a good horse to
+      a seat in a jolting vehicle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ecclesiastics had taken possession of the best places in the back of
+      the wagon. They were inseparable brothers, and formed as it were one
+      person, for they behaved like two bodies with one soul. In this double
+      life, fat Magister Sutor represented the will, lean Stubenrauch reflection
+      and execution. If the former proposed to be down or sit, eat or drink,
+      sleep or talk, the latter instantly carried the suggestion into execution,
+      rarely neglecting to establish, by wise words, for what reason the act in
+      question should be performed precisely at that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farther towards the front, with his back resting against a chest, lay a
+      fine-looking young Lansquenet. He was undoubtedly a gay, active fellow,
+      but now sat mute and melancholy, supporting with his right hand his
+      wounded left arm, as if it were some brittle vessel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite to him rose a heap of loose straw, beneath which something
+      stirred from time to time, and from which at short intervals a slight
+      cough was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the door in the back of the vehicle opened, and the cold snowy
+      air entered the dark, damp space under the tilt, Magister Sutor&rsquo;s lips
+      parted in a long-drawn &ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; to which his lean companion instantly added
+      a torrent of reproachful words about the delay, the draught, the danger of
+      taking cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the artist&rsquo;s head appeared in the opening, the priest paused, for
+      Moor paid the travelling expenses; but when his companion Sutor drew his
+      cloak around him with every token of discomfort and annoyance, he followed
+      his example in a still more conspicuous way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist paid no heed to these gestures, but quietly requested his
+      guests to make room for the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A muffled head was suddenly thrust out from under the straw, a voice
+      cried: &ldquo;A hospital on wheels!&rdquo; then the head vanished again like that of a
+      fish, which has risen to take a breath of air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very true,&rdquo; replied the artist. &ldquo;You need not draw up your limbs so far,
+      my worthy Lansquenet, but I must request these reverend gentlemen to move
+      a little farther apart, or closer together, and make room for the sick lad
+      on the leather sack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While these words were uttered, one of the escort laid the still senseless
+      boy under the tilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Magister Sutor noticed the snow that clung to Ulrich&rsquo;s hair and clothing,
+      and while struggling to rise, uttered a repellent &ldquo;no,&rdquo; while Stubenrauch
+      hastily added reproachfully: &ldquo;There will be a perfect pool here, when that
+      melts; you gave us these places, Meister Moor, but we hardly expected to
+      receive also dripping limbs and rheumatic pains....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he finished the sentence, the bandaged head again appeared from the
+      straw, and the high, shrill voice of the man concealed under it, asked?
+      &ldquo;Was the blood of the wounded wayfarer, the good Samaritan picked up by
+      the roadside, dry or wet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An encouraging glance from Sutor requested Stubenrauch to make an
+      appropriate answer, and the latter in an unctuous tone, hastily replied:
+      &ldquo;It was the Lord, who caused the Samaritan to find the wounded man by the
+      roadside&mdash;this did not happen in our case, for the wet boy is forced
+      upon us, and though we are Samaritans....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not yet merciful,&rdquo; cried the voice from the straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist laughed, but the soldier, slapping his thigh with his sound
+      hand, cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In with the boy, you fellows outside; here, put him on my right&mdash;move
+      farther apart, you gentlemen down below; the water will do us no harm, if
+      you&rsquo;ll only give us some of the wine in your basket yonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The priests, willy-nilly, now permitted Ulrich to be laid on the leathern
+      sack between them, and while first Sutor, and then Stubenrauch, shrunk
+      away to mutter prayers over a rosary for the senseless lad&rsquo;s restoration
+      to consciousness, and to avoid coming in contact with his wet clothes, the
+      artist entered the vehicle, and without asking permission, took the wine
+      from the priests&rsquo; basket. The soldier helped him, and soon their united
+      exertions, with the fiery liquor, revived the fainting boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor rode forward, and the wagon jolted on until the day&rsquo;s journey ended
+      at Emmendingen. Count von Hochburg&rsquo;s retainers, who were to serve as
+      escort from this point, would not ride on Christmas day. The artist made
+      no objection, but when they also declared that no horse should leave the
+      stable on the morrow, which was a second holiday, he shrugged his
+      shoulders and answered, without any show of anger, but in a firm, haughty
+      tone, that he should then probably be obliged&mdash;if necessary with
+      their master&rsquo;s assistance,&mdash;to conduct them to Freiburg to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The inns at Emmendingen were among the largest and best in the
+      neighborhood of Freiburg, and on account of the changes of escort, which
+      frequently took place here, there was no lack of accommodation for
+      numerous horses and guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Ulrich was taken into the warm hostelry he fainted a second
+      time, and the artist now cared for him as kindly as if he were the lad&rsquo;s
+      own father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Magister Sutor ordered the roast meats, and his companion Stubenrauch all
+      the other requisites for a substantial meal, in which they had made
+      considerable progress, while the artist was still engaged in ministering
+      to the sick lad, in which kindly office the little man, who had been
+      hidden under the straw in the wagon, stoutly assisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been a buffoon, and his dress still bore many tokens of his former
+      profession. His big head swayed upon his thin neck; his droll, though
+      emaciated features constantly changed their expression, and even when he
+      was not coughing, his mouth was continually in motion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Ulrich breathed calmly and regularly, he searched his clothing
+      to find some clue to his residence, but everything he discovered in the
+      lad&rsquo;s pockets only led to more and more amusing and startling conjectures,
+      for nothing can contain a greater variety of objects than a school-boy&rsquo;s
+      pockets, if we except a school-girl&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a scrap of paper with a Latin exercise bristling with errors, a
+      smooth stone, a shabby, notched knife, a bit of chalk for drawing, an iron
+      arrow-head, a broken hobnail, and a falconer&rsquo;s glove, which Count Lips had
+      given his comrade. The ring the doctor&rsquo;s wife had bestowed as a farewell
+      token, was also discovered around his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these things led Pellicanus&mdash;so the jester was named&mdash;to
+      make many a conjecture, and he left none untried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a mosaic picture is formed from stones, he by a hundred signs, conjured
+      up a vision of the lad&rsquo;s character, home, and the school from which he had
+      run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called him the son of a noble of moderate property. In this he was of
+      course mistaken, but in other respects perceived, with wonderful
+      acuteness, how Ulrich had hitherto been circumstanced, nay even declared
+      that he was a motherless child, a fact proved by many things he lacked.
+      The boy had been sent to school too late&mdash;Pellicanus was a good Latin
+      scholar&mdash;and perhaps had been too early initiated into the mysteries
+      of riding, hunting, and woodcraft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist, merely by the boy&rsquo;s appearance, gained a more accurate
+      knowledge of his real nature, than the jester gathered from his
+      investigations and inferences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich pleased him, and when he saw the pen-and-ink sketch on the back of
+      the exercise, which Pellicanus showed him, he smiled and felt strengthened
+      in the resolve to interest himself still more in the handsome boy, whom
+      fate had thrown in his way. He now only needed to discover who the lad&rsquo;s
+      parents were, and what had driven him from the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surgeon of the little town had bled Ulrich, and soon after he fell
+      into a sound sleep, and breathed quietly. The artist and jester now dined
+      together, for the monks had finished their meal long before, and were
+      taking a noonday nap. Moor ordered roast meat and wine for the Lansquenet,
+      who sat modestly in one corner of the large public room, gazing sadly at
+      his wounded arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; said the jester, pointing to the handsome young man. &ldquo;We
+      are brothers in calamity; one just like the other; a cart with a broken
+      wheel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His arm will soon heal,&rdquo; replied the artist, &ldquo;but your tool&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      he pointed to his own lips&mdash;&ldquo;is stirring briskly enough now. The
+      monks and I have both made its acquaintance within the past few days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; replied Pellicanus, smiling bitterly, &ldquo;yet they toss me into
+      the rubbish heap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you think the wise would then be fools with the fools,&rdquo; interrupted
+      Pellicanus. &ldquo;Not at all. Do you know what our masters expect of us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to shorten the time for them with wit and jest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when must we be real fools, my Lord? Have you considered? Least of
+      all in happy hours. Then we are expected to play the wise man, warn
+      against excess, point out shadows. In sorrow, in times of trouble, then,
+      fool, be a fool! The madder pranks you play, the better. Make every
+      effort, and if you understand your trade well, and know your master, you
+      must compel him to laugh till he cries, when he would fain wail for grief,
+      like a little girl. You know princes too, sir, but I know them better.
+      They are gods on earth, and won&rsquo;t submit to the universal lot of mortals,
+      to endure pain and anguish. When people are ill, the physician is
+      summoned, and in trouble we are at hand. Things are as we take them&mdash;the
+      gravest face may have a wart, upon which a jest can be made. When you have
+      once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point. We deaden it&mdash;we
+      light up the darkness&mdash;even though it be with a will &lsquo;o the wisp&mdash;and
+      if we understand our business, manage to hack the lumpy dough of heavy
+      sorrow into little pieces, which even a princely stomach can digest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A coughing fool can do that too, so long as there is nothing wanting in
+      his upper story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken, indeed you are. Great lords only wish to see the velvet
+      side of life&mdash;of death&rsquo;s doings, nothing at all. A man like me&mdash;do
+      you hear&mdash;a cougher, whose marrow is being consumed&mdash;incarnate
+      misery on two tottering legs&mdash;a piteous figure, whom one can no more
+      imagine outside the grave, than a sportsman without a terrier, or hound&mdash;such
+      a person calls into the ears of the ostrich, that shuts its eyes: &lsquo;Death
+      is pointing at you! Affliction is coming!&rsquo; It is my duty to draw a curtain
+      between my lord and sorrow; instead of that, my own person brings
+      incarnate suffering before his eyes. The elector was as wise as if he were
+      his own fool, when he turned me out of the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He graciously gave you leave of absence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Gugelkopf is already installed in the palace as my successor! My
+      gracious master knows that he won&rsquo;t have to pay the pension long. He would
+      willingly have supported me up yonder till I died; but my wish to go to
+      Genoa suited him exactly. The more distance there is between his healthy
+      highness and the miserable invalid, the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you wait till spring, before taking your departure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because Genoa is a hot-house, that the poor consumptive does not need in
+      summer. It is pleasant to be there in winter. I learned that three years
+      ago, when we visited the duke. Even in January the sun in Liguria warms
+      your back, and makes it easier to breathe. I&rsquo;m going by way of Marseilles.
+      Will you give me the corner in your carriage as far as Avignon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure! Your health, Pellicanus! A good wish on Christmas day is
+      apt to be fulfilled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist&rsquo;s deep voice sounded full and cordial, as he uttered the words.
+      The young soldier heard them, and as Moor and the jester touched glasses,
+      he raised his own goblet, drained it to the dregs, and asked modestly:
+      &ldquo;Will you listen to a few lines of mine, kind sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say them, say them!&rdquo; cried the artist, filling his glass again, while the
+      lansquenet, approaching the table, fixed his eyes steadily on the beaker,
+      and in an embarrassed manner, repeated:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;On Christmas-day, when Jesus Christ,
+        To save us sinners came,
+        A poor, sore-wounded soldier dared
+        To call upon his name.
+        &lsquo;Oh! hear,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;my earnest prayer,
+        For the kind, generous man,
+        Who gave the wounded soldier aid,
+        And bore him through the land.
+        So, in Thy shining chariot,
+        I pray, dear Jesus mine,
+        Thou&rsquo;lt bear him through a happy life
+        To Paradise divine.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Capital, capital!&rdquo; cried the artist, pledging the lansquenet and
+      insisting that he should sit down between him and the jester.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pellicanus now gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, for what the wounded man
+      could do, he too might surely accomplish. It was not only ambition, and
+      the habit of answering every good saying he heard with a better one, but
+      kindly feeling, that urged him to honor the generous benefactor with a
+      speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few minutes, which Moor spent in talking with the soldier,
+      Pellicanus raised his glass, coughed again, and said, first calmly, then
+      in an agitated voice, whose sharp tones grew more and more subdued:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;A rogue a fool must be, &lsquo;t is true,
+        Rog&rsquo;ry sans folly will not do;
+        Where folly joins with roguery,
+        There&rsquo;s little harm, it seems to me.
+        The pope, the king, the youthful squire,
+        Each one the fool&rsquo;s cap doth attire;
+        He who the bauble will not wear,
+        The worst of fools doth soon appear.
+        Thee may the motley still adorn,
+        When, an old man, the laurel crown
+        Thy head doth deck, while gifts less vain,
+        Thine age to bless will still remain.
+        When fair grandchildren thee delight,
+        Mayst then recall this Christmas night.
+        When added years bring whitening hair,
+        The draught of wisdom then wilt share,
+        But it will lack the flavor due,
+        Without a drop of folly too.
+        And if the drop is not at hand,
+        Remember poor old Pellican,
+        Who, half a rogue and half a fool,
+        Yet has a faithful heart and whole.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, thanks!&rdquo; cried the artist, shaking the jester&rsquo;s hand. &ldquo;Such a
+      Christmas ought to be lauded! Wisdom, art, and courage at one table!
+      Haven&rsquo;t I fared like the man, who picked up stones by the way side, and
+      to-they were changed to pure gold in his knapsack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The stone was crumbling,&rdquo; replied the jester; &ldquo;but as for the gold, it
+      will stand the test with me, if you seek it in the heart, and not in the
+      pocket. Holy Blasius! Would that my grave might lack filling, as long as
+      my little strong-box here; I&rsquo;d willingly allow it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so would I!&rdquo; laughed the soldier:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then travelling will be easy for you,&rdquo; said the artist. &ldquo;There was a
+      time, when my pouch was no fuller than yours. I know by the experience of
+      those days how a poor man feels, and never wish to forget it. I still owe
+      you my after-dinner speech, but you must let me off, for I can&rsquo;t speak
+      your language fluently. In brief, I wish you the recovery of your health,
+      Pellican, and you a joyous life of happiness and honor, my worthy comrade.
+      What is your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hans Eitelfritz von der Lucke, from Colln on the Spree,&rdquo; replied the
+      soldier. &ldquo;And, no offence, Herr Moor, God will care for the monks, but
+      there were three poor invalid fellows in your cart. One goblet more to the
+      pretty sick boy in there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After dinner the artist went with his old servant, who had attended to the
+      horses and then enjoyed a delicious Christmas roast, to Count von
+      Hochburg, to obtain an escort for the next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pellicanus had undertaken to watch Ulrich, who was still sleeping quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester would gladly have gone to bed himself, for he felt cold and
+      tired, but, though the room could not be heated, he remained faithfully at
+      his post for hours. With benumbed hands and feet, he watched by the light
+      of the night-lamp every breath the boy drew, often gazing at him as
+      anxiously and sympathizingly, as if he were his own child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ulrich at last awoke, he timidly asked when he was, and when the
+      jester had soothed him, begged for a bit of bread, he was so hungry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How famished he felt, the contents of the dish that were speedily placed
+      before him, soon discovered Pellicanus wanted to feed him like a baby, but
+      the boy took the spoon out of his hand, and the former smilingly watched
+      the sturdy eater, without disturbing, him, until he was perfectly
+      satisfied; then he began to perplex the lad with questions, that seemed to
+      him neither very intelligible, nor calculated to inspire confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my little bird!&rdquo; the jester began, joyously anticipating a
+      confirmation of the clever inferences he had drawn, &ldquo;I suppose it was a
+      long flight to the churchyard, where we found you. On the grave is a
+      better place than in it, and a bed at Emmendingen, with plenty of grits
+      and veal, is preferable to being in the snow on the highway, with a
+      grumbling stomach Speak freely, my lad! Where does your nest of robbers
+      hang?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nest of robbers?&rdquo; repeated Ulrich in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, castle or the like, for aught I care,&rdquo; continued Pellicanus
+      inquiringly. &ldquo;Everybody is at home somewhere, except Mr. Nobody; but as
+      you are somebody, Nobody cannot possibly be your father. Tell me about the
+      old fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father is dead,&rdquo; replied the boy, and as the events of the preceding
+      day rushed back upon his memory, he drew the coverlet over his face and
+      wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; murmured the jester, hastily drawing his sleeve across his
+      eyes, and leaving the lad in peace, till he showed his face again. Then he
+      continued: &ldquo;But I suppose you have a mother at home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich shook his head mournfully, and Pellicanus, to conceal his own
+      emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very kindly,
+      though not without a feeling of satisfaction at his own penetration:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are an orphan! Yes, yes! So long as the mother&rsquo;s wings cover it,
+      the young bird doesn&rsquo;t fly so thoughtlessly out of the warm nest into the
+      wide world. I suppose the Latin school grew too narrow for the young
+      nobleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich raised himself, exclaiming in an eager, defiant tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t go back to the monastery; that I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s the way the hare jumps!&rdquo; cried the fool laughing. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been
+      a bad Latin scholar, and the timber in the forest is dearer to you, than
+      the wood in the school-room benches. To be sure, they send out no green
+      shoots. Dear Lord, how his face is burning!&rdquo; So saying, Pellicanus laid
+      his hand on the boy&rsquo;s forehead and when he felt that it was hot, deemed it
+      better to stop his examination for the day, and only asked his patient his
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me alone!&rdquo; pleaded the boy, drawing the coverlet over his head again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester obeyed his wish, and opened the door leading into the tap-room,
+      for some one had knocked. The artist&rsquo;s servant entered, to fetch his
+      master&rsquo;s portmanteau. Old Count von Hochburg had invited Moor to be his
+      guest, and the painter intended to spend the night at the castle.
+      Pellicanus was to take care of the boy, and if necessary send for the
+      surgeon again. An hour after, the sick jester lay shivering in his bed,
+      coughing before sleeping and between naps. Ulrich too could obtain no
+      slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he wept softly, for he now clearly realized, for the first time,
+      that he had lost his father and should never see Ruth, the doctor, nor the
+      doctor&rsquo;s dumb wife Elizabeth again. Then he wondered how he had come to
+      Einmendingen, what sort of a place it was, and who the queer little man
+      could be, who had taken him for a young noble&mdash;the quaint little man
+      with the cough, and a big head, whose eyes sparkled so through his tears.
+      The jester&rsquo;s mistake made him laugh, and he remembered that Ruth had once
+      advised him to command the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; to transform him into a count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose he should say to-morrow, that his father had been a knight?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the wicked thought only glided through his mind; even before he had
+      reflected upon it, he felt ashamed of himself, for he was no liar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deny his father! That was very wrong, and when he stretched himself out to
+      sleep, the image of the valiant smith stood with tangible distinctness
+      before his soul. Gravely and sternly he floated upon clouds, and looked
+      exactly like the pictures Ulrich had seen of God the Father, only he wore
+      the smith&rsquo;s cap on his grey hair. Even in Paradise, the glorified spirit
+      had not relinquished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich raised his hands as if praying, but hastily let them fall again,
+      for there was a great stir outside of the inn. The tramp of steeds, the
+      loud voices of men, the sound of drums and fifes were audible, then there
+      was rattling, marching and shouting in the court-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A room for the clerk of the muster-roll and paymaster!&rdquo; cried a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gently, gently, children!&rdquo; said the deep tones of the provost, who was
+      the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets. &ldquo;A devout servant
+      must not bluster at the holy Christmas-tide; he&rsquo;s permitted to drink a
+      glass, Heaven be praised. Your house is to be greatly honored, Landlord!
+      The recruiting for our most gracious commander, Count von Oberstein, is&mdash;to
+      be done here. Do you hear, man! Everything to be paid for in cash, and not
+      a chicken will be lost; but the wine must be good! Do you understand? So
+      this evening broach a cask of your best. Pardon me, children&mdash;the
+      very best, I meant to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now heard the door of the tap-room open, and fancied he could see
+      the Lansquenets in gay costumes, each one different from the other, crowd
+      into the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester coughed loudly, scolding and muttering to himself; but Ulrich
+      listened with sparkling eyes to the sounds that came through the
+      ill-fitting door, by which he could hear what was passing in the next
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the clerk of the muster-rolls, the paymaster and provost had appeared
+      the drummers and fifers, who the day after to-morrow were to sound the
+      license for recruiting, and besides these, twelve Lansquenets, who were
+      evidently no novices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many an exclamation of surprise and pleasure was heard directly after
+      their entrance into the tap-room, and amid the confusion of voices, the
+      name of Hans Eitelfritz fell more than once upon Ulrich&rsquo;s ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The provost&rsquo;s voice sounded unusually cordial, as he greeted the brave
+      fellow with the wounded hand&mdash;an honor of great value to the latter,
+      for he had served five years in the same company with the provost, &ldquo;Father
+      Kanold,&rdquo; who read the very depths of his soldiers&rsquo; hearts, and knew them
+      all as if they were his own sons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich could not understand much amid the medley of voices in the
+      adjoining room, but when Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked
+      to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the
+      provost oppose the clerk&rsquo;s scruples, saying warmly &ldquo;write, write; I&rsquo;d
+      rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two. He has
+      fun and life in him. Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many a
+      piece of armor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the wine-cask must have been opened, for the clink of glasses,
+      and soon after loud singing was audible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the second song began, the boy fell asleep, but woke again two
+      hours after, roused by the stillness that had suddenly succeeded the
+      uproar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz had declared himself ready to give a new song in his best
+      vein, and the provost commanded silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The singing now began; during its continuance Ulrich raised himself higher
+      and higher in bed, not a word escaped him, either of the song itself, or
+      the chorus, which was repeated by the whole party, with exuberant gayety,
+      amid the loud clinking of goblets. Never before had the lad heard such
+      bold, joyous voices; even at the second verse his heart bounded and it
+      seemed as if he must join in the tune, which he had quickly caught. The
+      song ran as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Who, who will venture to hold me back?
+        Drums beat, fifes are playing a merry tune!
+        Down hammer, down pen, what more need I, alack
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        Oh father, mother, dear sister mine,
+        Blue-eyed maid at the bridge-house, my fair one.
+        Weep not, ye must not at parting repine,
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The cannon roar loud, the sword flashes bright,
+        Who&rsquo;ll dare meet the stroke of my falchion?
+        Close-ranked, horse and foot in battle unite,
+        In war, war, dwells fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The city is taken, the booty mine;
+        With red gold, I&rsquo;ll deck&mdash;I know whom;
+        Pair maids&rsquo; cheeks burn red, red too glows the wine,
+        Fortune, Paradise of good fortune!
+
+        Deep, scarlet wounds, brave breasts adorn,
+        Impoverished, crippled age I shun
+        A death of honor, &lsquo;mid glory won,
+        This too is good fortune, good fortune!
+
+        A soldier-lad composed this ditty
+        Hans Eitelfritz he, fair Colln&rsquo;s son,
+        His kindred dwell in the goodly city,
+        But he himself in fortune, good fortune!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He himself in fortune, good fortune,&rdquo; sang Ulrich also, and while, amid
+      loud shouts of joy, the glasses again clinked against each other, he
+      repeated the glad &ldquo;fortune, good fortune.&rdquo; Suddenly, it flashed upon him
+      like a revelation, &ldquo;Fortune,&rdquo; that might be the word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such exultant joy, such lark-like trilling, such inspiring promises of
+      happiness had never echoed in any word, as they now did from the
+      &ldquo;fortune,&rdquo; the young lansquenet so gaily and exultantly uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortune, Fortune!&rdquo; he exclaimed aloud, and the jester, who was lying
+      sleepless in his bed and could not help smiling at the lad&rsquo;s singing,
+      raised himself, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you like the word? Whoever understands how to seize it when it flits
+      by, will always float on top of everything, like fat on the soup. Rods are
+      cut from birches, willows, and knotted hazel-sticks-ho! ho! you know that,
+      already;&mdash;but, for him who has good fortune, larded cakes, rolls and
+      sausages grow. One bold turn of Fortune&rsquo;s wheel will bring him, who has
+      stood at the bottom, up to the top with the speed of lightning. Brother
+      Queer-fellow says: &lsquo;Up and down, like an avalanche.&rsquo; But now turn over and
+      go to sleep. To-morrow will also be a Christmas-day, which will perhaps
+      bring you Fortune as a Christmas gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed as if Ulrich had not called upon Fortune in vain, for as soon as
+      he closed his eyes, a pleasant dream bore him with gentle hands to the
+      forge on the market-place, and his mother stood beside the lighted
+      Christmas-tree, pointing to the new sky-blue suit she had made him, and
+      the apples, nuts, hobby-horse, and jumping jack, with a head as round as a
+      ball, huge ears, and tiny flat legs. He felt far too old for such childish
+      toys, and yet took a certain pleasure in them. Then the vision changed,
+      and he again saw his mother; but this time she was walking among the
+      angels in Paradise. A royal crown adorned her golden hair, and she told
+      him she was permitted to wear it there, because she had been so reviled,
+      and endured so much disgrace on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the artist returned from Count von Hochburg&rsquo;s the next morning, he
+      was not a little surprised to see Ulrich standing before the
+      recruiting-table bright and well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lad&rsquo;s cheeks were glowing with shame and anger, for the clerk of the
+      muster-rolls and paymaster had laughed in his face, when he expressed his
+      desire to become a Lansquenet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist soon learned what was going on, and bade his protege accompany
+      him out of doors. Kindly, and without either mockery or reproof, he
+      represented to him that he was still far too young for military service,
+      and after Ulrich had confirmed everything the painter had already heard
+      from the jester, Moor asked who had given him instruction in drawing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father, and afterwards Father Lukas in the monastery,&rdquo; replied the
+      boy. &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t question me as the little man did last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said his protector. &ldquo;But there are one or two more things I wish
+      to know. Was your father an artist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; murmured the lad, blushing and hesitating. But when he met the
+      stranger&rsquo;s clear gaze, he quickly regained his composure, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He only knew how to draw, because he understood how to forge beautiful,
+      artistic things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And in what city did you live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In no city. Outside in the woods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oho!&rdquo; said the artist, smiling significantly, for he knew that many
+      knights practised a trade. &ldquo;Answer only two questions more; then you shall
+      be left in peace until you voluntarily open your heart to me. What is your
+      name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that; but your father&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich gazed silently at the ground, for the smith had borne no other
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then,&rdquo; said Moor, &ldquo;we will call you Ulrich for the present; that
+      will suffice. But have you no relatives? Is no one waiting for you at
+      home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have led such a solitary life&mdash;no one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor looked fixedly into the boy&rsquo;s face, then nodded, and with a
+      well-satisfied expression, laid his hand on Ulrich&rsquo;s curls, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at me. I am an artist, and if you have any love for my profession, I
+      will teach you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried the boy, clasping his hands in glad surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then,&rdquo; Moor continued, &ldquo;you can&rsquo;t learn much on the way, but we can
+      work hard in Madrid. We are going now to King Philip of Spain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spain, Portugal!&rdquo; murmured Ulrich with sparkling eyes; all he had heard
+      in the doctor&rsquo;s house about these countries returned to his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortune, good fortune!&rdquo; cried an exultant voice in his heart. This was
+      the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; it must be, it was already exerting its spell, and the spell
+      was to prove its inherent power in the near future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That very day the party were to go to Count von Rappoltstein in the
+      village of Rappolts, and this time Ulrich was not to plod along on foot,
+      or he in a close baggage-wagon; no, he was to be allowed to ride a
+      spirited horse. The escort would not consist of hired servants, but of
+      picked men, and the count was going to join the train in person at the
+      hill crowned by the castle, for Moor had promised to paint a portrait of
+      the nobleman&rsquo;s daughter, who had married Count von Rappoltstein. It was to
+      be a costly Christmas gift, which the old gentleman intended to make
+      himself and his faithful wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wagon was also made ready for the journey; but no one rode inside; the
+      jester, closely muffled in wraps, had taken his seat beside the driver,
+      and the monks were obliged to go on by way of Freiburg, and therefore
+      could use the vehicle no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They scolded and complained about it, as if they had been greatly wronged,
+      and when Sutor refused to shake hands with the artist, Stubenrauch angrily
+      turned his back upon the kind-hearted man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The offended pair sullenly retired, but the Christmas sun shone none the
+      less brightly from the clear sky, the party of travellers had a gay, spick
+      and span, holiday aspect, and the world into which they now fared stoutly
+      forth, was so wide and beautiful, that Ulrich forgot his grief, and
+      joyously waved his new cap in answer to the Lansquenet&rsquo;s farewell gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a merry ride, for on the way they met numerous travellers, who were
+      going through the hamlet of Rappolts to the &ldquo;three castles on the
+      mountain&rdquo; and saluted the old nobleman with lively songs. The Counts von
+      Rappoltstein were the &ldquo;piper-kings,&rdquo; the patrons of the brotherhood of
+      musicians and singers on the Upper Rhine. Usually these joyous birds met
+      at the castle of their &ldquo;king&rdquo; on the 8th of September, to pay him their
+      little tax and be generously entertained in return; but this year, on
+      account of the plague in the autumn, the festival had been deferred until
+      the third day after Christmas, but Ulrich believed &lsquo;Fortune&rsquo; had arranged
+      it so for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was plenty of singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and
+      reed-pipes were never silent. One serenade followed another, and even at
+      the table a new song rang out at each new course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fiery wine, game and sweet cakes at the castle board undoubtedly
+      pleased the palate of the artisan&rsquo;s son, but he enjoyed feasting his ears
+      still more. He felt as if he were in Heaven, and thought less and less of
+      the grief he had endured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Day by day Fortune shook her horn of plenty, and flung new gifts down upon
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had told the stable-keepers of his power over refractory horses, and
+      after proving what he could do, was permitted to tame wild stallions and
+      ride them about the castle-yard, before the eyes of the old and young
+      count and the beautiful young lady. This brought him praise and gifts of
+      new clothes. Many a delicate hand stroked his curls, and it always seemed
+      to him as if his mighty spell could bestow nothing better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Moor took him aside, and told him that he had commenced a portrait
+      of young Count Rappolstein too. The lad was obliged to be still, having
+      broken his foot in a fall from his horse, and as Ulrich was of the same
+      size and age, the artist wished him to put on the young count&rsquo;s clothes
+      and serve as a model.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith&rsquo;s son now received the best clothes belonging to his
+      aristocratic companion in age. The suit was entirely black, but each
+      garment of a different material, the stockings silk, the breeches satin,
+      the doublet soft Flanders velvet. Golden-yellow puffs and slashes stood
+      forth in beautiful relief against the darker stuff. Even the knots of
+      ribbon on the breeches and shoes were as yellow as a blackbird&rsquo;s beak.
+      Delicate lace trimmed the neck and fell on the hands, and a clasp of real
+      gems confined the black and yellow plumes in the velvet hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this finery was wonderfully becoming to the smith&rsquo;s son, and he must
+      have been blind, if he had not noticed how old and young nudged each other
+      at sight of him. The spirit of vanity in his soul laughed in delight, and
+      the lad soon knew the way to the large Venetian mirror, which was
+      carefully kept in the hall of state. This wonderful glass showed Ulrich
+      for the first time his whole figure and the image which looked back at him
+      from the crystal, flattered and pleased him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, more than aught else, he enjoyed watching the artist&rsquo;s hand and eye
+      during the sittings. Poor Father Lukas in the monastery must hide his head
+      before this master. He seemed to actually grow while engaged in his work,
+      his shoulders, which he usually liked to carry stooping forward,
+      straightened, the broad, manly breast arched higher, and the kindly eyes
+      grew stern, nay sometimes wore a terrible expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although little was said during the sittings, they were always too short
+      for the boy. He did not stir, for it always seemed to him as if any
+      movement would destroy the sacred act he witnessed, and when, in the
+      pauses, he looked at the canvas and saw how swiftly and steadily the work
+      progressed, he felt as if before his own eyes, he was being born again to
+      a nobler existence. In the wassail-hall hung the portrait of a young
+      Prince of Navarre, whose life had been saved in the chase by a
+      Rappoltstein. Ulrich, attired in the count&rsquo;s clothes, looked exactly like
+      him. The jester had been the first to perceive this strange circumstance.
+      Every one, even Moor, agreed with him, and so it happened that Pellicanus
+      henceforth called his young friend the Navarrete. The name pleased the
+      boy. Everything here pleased him, and he was full of happiness; only often
+      at night he could not help grieving because, while his father was dead, he
+      enjoyed such an overflowing abundance of good things, and because he had
+      lost his mother, Ruth, and all who had loved him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was obliged to share the jester&rsquo;s sleeping-room, and as Pellicanus
+      shrank from getting out of bed, while suffering from night-sweats, and
+      often needed something, he roused Ulrich from his sleep, and the latter
+      was always ready to assist him. This happened more frequently as they
+      continued their journey, and the poor little man&rsquo;s illness increased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The count had furnished Ulrich with a spirited young horse, that shortened
+      the road for him by its tricks and capers. But the jester, who became more
+      and more attached to the boy, also did his utmost to keep the feeling of
+      happiness alive in his heart. On warm days he nestled in the rack before
+      the tilt with the driver, and when Ulrich rode beside him, opened his eyes
+      to everything that passed before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester had a great deal to tell about the country and people, and he
+      embellished the smallest trifle with tales invented by himself, or devised
+      by others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While passing a grove of birches, he asked the lad if he knew why the
+      trunks of these trees were white, and then explained the cause, as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When Orpheus played so exquisitely on his lute, all the trees rushed
+      forward to dance. The birches wanted to come too, but being vain, stopped
+      to put on white dresses, to outdo the others. When they finally appeared
+      on the dancing-ground, the singer had already gone&mdash;and now, summer
+      and winter, year in and year out, they keep their white dresses on, to be
+      prepared, when Orpheus returns and the lute sounds again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cross-bill was perched on a bough in a pine-wood, and the jester said
+      that this bird was a very peculiar species. It had originally been grey,
+      and its bill was as straight as a sparrow&rsquo;s, but when the Saviour hung
+      upon the cross, it pitied him, and with its little bill strove to draw the
+      nails from the wounded hands. In memory of this friendly act, the Lord had
+      marked its beak with the cross, and painted a dark-red spot on its breast,
+      where the bird hall been sprinkled with His Son&rsquo;s blood. Other rewards
+      were bestowed upon it, for no other bird could hatch a brood of young ones
+      in winter, and it also had the power of lessening the fever of those, who
+      cherished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A flock of wild geese flew over the road and the hills, and Pellicanus
+      cried: &ldquo;Look there! They always fly in two straight lines, and form a
+      letter of the alphabet. This time it is an A. Can you see it? When the
+      Lord was writing the laws on the tablets, a flock of wild geese flew
+      across Mt. Sinai, and in doing so, one effaced a letter with its wing.
+      Since that time, they always fly in the shape of a letter, and their whole
+      race, that is, all geese, are compelled to let those people who wish to
+      write, pluck the feathers from their wings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pellicanus was fond of talking to the boy in their bedroom. He always
+      called him Navarrete, and the artist, when in a cheerful mood, followed
+      his example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich felt great reverence for Moor; the jester, on the contrary, was
+      only a good comrade, in whom he speedily reposed entire confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many an allusion and jesting word showed that Pellicanus still believed
+      him to be the son of a knight, and this at last became unendurable to the
+      lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, when they were both in bed, he summoned up his courage and
+      told him everything he knew about his past life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester listened attentively, without interrupting him, until Ulrich
+      finished his story with the words &ldquo;And while I was gone, the bailiffs and
+      dogs tracked them, but my father resisted, and they killed him and the
+      doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; murmured the jester. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pity about Costa. Many a
+      Christian might feel honored at resembling some Jews. It is only a
+      misfortune to be born a Hebrew, and be deprived of eating ham. The Jews
+      are compelled to wear an offensive badge, but many a Christian child is
+      born with one. For instance, in Sparta they would have hurled me into the
+      gulf, on account of my big head, and deformed shoulder. Nowadays, people
+      are less merciful, and let men like us drag the cripple&rsquo;s mark through
+      life. God sees the heart; but men cannot forget their ancestor, the clod
+      of earth&mdash;the outside is always more to them than the inside. If my
+      head had only been smaller, and some angel had smoothed my shoulder, I
+      might perhaps now be a cardinal, wear purple, and instead of riding under
+      a grey tilt, drive in a golden coach, with well-fed black steeds. Your
+      body was measured with a straight yard stick, but there&rsquo;s trouble in other
+      places. So your father&rsquo;s name was Adam, and he really bore no other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, certainly not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s too little by half. From this day we&rsquo;ll call you in earnest
+      Navarrete: Ulrich Navarrete. That will be something complete. The name is
+      only a dress, but if half of it is taken from your body, you are left
+      half-bare and exposed to mockery. The garment must be becoming too, so we
+      adorn it as we choose. My father was called Kurschner, but at the Latin
+      school Olearius and Faber and Luscinius sat beside me, so I raised myself
+      to the rank of a Roman citizen, and turned Kurschner into Pellicanus....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester coughed violently, and continued One thing more. To expect
+      gratitude is folly, nine times out of ten none is reaped, and he who is
+      wise thinks only of himself, and usually omits to seek thanks; but every
+      one ought to be grateful, for it is burdensome to have enemies, and there
+      is no one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor we repay with
+      ingratitude. You ought and must tell the artist your history, for he has
+      deserved your confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jester&rsquo;s worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always praised
+      as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy, yet many of
+      them were impressed on his young soul. He followed the sick man&rsquo;s advice
+      the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it, for Moor treated
+      him even more kindly than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to
+      Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the
+      old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to
+      bring him alive to the goal of his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little man&rsquo;s body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head
+      larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned
+      the centre of each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had originally been destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but
+      though he surpassed all the other pupils in the school, he was deprived of
+      the hope of ever becoming a priest, for the Church wants no cripples. He
+      was the child of poor people, and had been obliged to fight his way
+      through his career as a student, with great difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shabby the broad top of my cap often was!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was so much
+      ashamed of it. I am so small. Dear me, anybody could see my head, and
+      could not help noticing all the worn places in the velvet, if he cast his
+      eyes down. How often have I sat beside the kitchen of a cook-shop, and
+      seasoned dry bread with the smell of roast meat. Often too my poodledog
+      went out and stole a sausage for me from the butcher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At other times the little fellow had fared better; then, sitting in the
+      taverns, he had given free-play to his wit, and imposed no constraint on
+      his sharp tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he had been invited by a former boon-companion, to accompany him to
+      his ancestral castle, to cheer his sick father; and so it happened that he
+      became a buffoon, wandered from one great lord to another, and finally
+      entered the elector&rsquo;s service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He liked to pretend that he despised the world and hated men, but this
+      assertion could not be taken literally, and was to be regarded in a
+      general, rather than a special sense, for every beautiful thing in the
+      world kindled eager enthusiasm in his heart, and he remained kindly
+      disposed towards individuals to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Moor once charged him with this, he said, smiling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have? Whoever condemns, feels himself superior to the
+      person upon whom he sits in judgment, and how many fools, like me, fancy
+      themselves great, when they stand on tiptoe, and find fault even with the
+      works of God! &lsquo;The world is evil,&rsquo; says the philosopher, and whoever
+      listens to him, probably thinks carelessly: &lsquo;Hear, hear! He would have
+      made it better than our Father in heaven.&rsquo; Let me have my pleasure. I&rsquo;m
+      only a little man, but I deal in great things. To criticise a single
+      insignificant human creature, seems to me scarcely worth while, but when
+      we pronounce judgment on all humanity and the boundless universe, we can
+      open our mouths-wonderfully wide!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once his heart had been filled with love for a beautiful girl, but she had
+      scornfully rejected his suit and married another. When she was widowed,
+      and he found her in dire poverty, he helped her with a large share of his
+      savings, and performed this kind service again, when the second worthless
+      fellow she married had squandered her last penny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His life was rich in similar incidents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his actions, the queer little man obeyed the dictates of his heart; in
+      his speech, his head ruled his tongue, and this seemed to him the only
+      sensible course. To practise unselfish generosity he regarded as a subtle,
+      exquisite pleasure, which he ventured to allow himself, because he desired
+      nothing more; others, to whom he did not grudge a prosperous career, he
+      must warn against such folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a keen, bitter expression on his large, thin face, and whoever
+      saw him for the first time might easily have supposed him to be a wicked,
+      spiteful man. He knew this, and delighted in frightening the men and
+      maid-servants at the taverns by hideous grimaces&mdash;he boasted of being
+      able to make ninety-five different faces&mdash;until the artist&rsquo;s old
+      valet at last dreaded him like the &ldquo;Evil One.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was particularly gay in Avignon, for he felt better than he had done
+      for a long time, and ordered a seat to be engaged for him in a vehicle
+      going to Marseilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evening before their separation, he described with sparkling vivacity,
+      the charms of the Ligurian coast, and spoke of the future as if he were
+      sure of entire recovery and a long life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the night Ulrich heard him groaning louder than usual, and starting up,
+      raised him, as he was in the habit of doing when the poor little man was
+      tortured by difficulty of breathing. But this time Pellicanus did not
+      swear and scold, but remained perfectly still, and when his heavy head
+      fell like a pumpkin on the boy&rsquo;s breast, he was greatly terrified and ran
+      to call the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor was soon standing at the head of the sick-bed, holding a light, so
+      that its rays could fall upon the face of the gasping man. The latter
+      opened his eyes and made three grimaces in quick succession&mdash;very
+      comical ones, yet tinged with sadness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pellicanus probably noticed the artist&rsquo;s troubled glance, for he tried to
+      nod to him, but his head was too heavy and his strength too slight, so he
+      only succeeded in moving it first to the right and then to the left, but
+      his eyes expressed everything he desired to say. In this way several
+      minutes elapsed, then Pellicanus smiled, and with a sorrowful gaze, though
+      a mischievous expression hovered around his mouth, scanned:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Mox erit&rsquo; quiet and mute, &lsquo;gui modo&rsquo; jester &lsquo;erat&rsquo;.&rdquo; Then he said as
+      softly as if every tone came, not from his chest, but merely from his lips&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it agreed, Navarrete, Ulrich Navarrete? I&rsquo;ve made the Latin easy for
+      you, eh? Your hand, boy. Yours, too, dear, dear master... Moor, Ethiopian&mdash;Blackskin....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words died away in a low, rattling sound, and the dying man&rsquo;s eyes
+      became glazed, but it was several hours before he drew his last breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A priest gave him Extreme Unction, but consciousness did not return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the holy man had left him, his lips moved incessantly, but no one
+      could understand what he said. Towards morning, the sun of Provence was
+      shining warmly and brightly into the room and on his bed, when he suddenly
+      threw his arm above his head, and half speaking, half singing to Hans
+      Eitelfritz&rsquo;s melody, let fall from his lips the words: &ldquo;In fortune, good
+      fortune.&rdquo; A few minutes after he was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor closed his eyes. Ulrich knelt weeping beside the bed, and kissed his
+      poor friend&rsquo;s cold hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he rose, the artist was gazing with silent reverence at the jester&rsquo;s
+      features; Ulrich followed his eyes, and imagined he was standing in the
+      presence of a miracle, for the harsh, bitter, troubled face had obtained a
+      new expression, and was now the countenance of a peaceful, kindly man, who
+      had fallen asleep with pleasant memories in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the first time in his life Ulrich had witnessed the death of a human
+      being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How often he had laughed at the fool, or thought his words absurd and
+      wicked;&mdash;but the dead man inspired him with respect, and the thought
+      of the old jester&rsquo;s corpse exerted a far deeper and more lasting influence
+      upon him, than his father&rsquo;s supposed death. Hitherto he had only been able
+      to imagine him as he had looked in life, but now the vision of him
+      stretched at full length, stark and pale like the dead Pellicanus, often
+      rose before his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist was a silent man, and understood how to think and speak in
+      lines and colors, better than in words. He only became eloquent and
+      animated, when the conversation turned upon subjects connected with his
+      art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Toulouse he purchased three new horses, and engaged the same number of
+      French servants, then went to a jeweller and bought many articles. At the
+      inn he put the chains and rings he had obtained, into pretty little boxes,
+      and wrote on them in neat Gothic characters with special care: &ldquo;Helena,
+      Anna, Minerva, Europa and Lucia;&rdquo; one name on each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich watched him and remarked that those were not his children&rsquo;s names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor looked up, and answered smiling: &ldquo;These are only young artists, six
+      sisters, each one of whom is as dear to me as if she were my own daughter.
+      I hope we shall find them in Madrid, one of them, Sophonisba, at any
+      rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there are only five boxes,&rdquo; observed the boy, &ldquo;and you haven&rsquo;t
+      written Sophonisba on any of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is to have something better,&rdquo; replied his patron smiling. &ldquo;My
+      portrait, which I began to paint yesterday, will be finished here. Hand me
+      the mirror, the maul-stick, and the colors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The picture was a superb likeness, absolutely faultless. The pure brow
+      curved in lofty arches at the temples, the small eyes looked as clear and
+      bright as they did in the mirror, the firm mouth shaded by a thin
+      moustache, seemed as if it were just parting to utter a friendly word. The
+      close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin rested closely upon the white
+      ruff, which seemed to have just come from under the laundresses&rsquo; 
+      smoothing-iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How rapidly and firmly the master guided his brush! And Sophonisba, whom
+      Moor distinguished by such a gift, how was he to imagine her? The other
+      five sisters too! For their sakes he first anticipated with pleasure the
+      arrival at Madrid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Bayonne the artist left the baggage-wagon behind. His luggage was put
+      on mules, and when the party of travellers started, it formed an imposing
+      caravan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich expressed his surprise at such expenditure, and Moor answered
+      kindly: &ldquo;Pellicanus says: &lsquo;Among fools one must be a fool.&rsquo; We enter Spain
+      as the king&rsquo;s guests, and courtiers have weak eyes, and only notice people
+      who give themselves airs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At Fuenterrabia, the first Spanish city they reached, the artist received
+      many honors, and a splendid troop of cavalry escorted him thence to
+      Madrid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor came as a guest to King Philip&rsquo;s capital for the third time, and was
+      received there with all the tokens of respect usually paid only to great
+      noblemen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His old quarters in the treasury of the Alcazar, the palace of the kings
+      of Castile, were again assigned to him. They consisted of a studio and
+      suite of apartments, which by the monarch&rsquo;s special command, had been
+      fitted up for him with royal magnificence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich could not control his amazement. How poor and petty everything that
+      a short time before, at Castle Rappolstein, had awakened his wonder and
+      admiration now appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first few days the artist&rsquo;s reception-room resembled a
+      bee-hive; for aristocratic men and women, civil and ecclesiastical
+      dignitaries passed in and out, pages and lackeys brought flowers, baskets
+      of fruits, and other gifts. Every one attached to the court knew in what
+      high favor the artist was held by His Majesty, and therefore hastened to
+      win his good-will by attentions and presents. Every hour there was
+      something new and astonishing to be seen, but the artist himself most
+      awakened the boy&rsquo;s surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unassuming man, who on the journey had associated as familiarly with
+      the poor invalids he had picked up by the wayside, the tavern-keepers, and
+      soldiers of his escort, as if he were one of themselves, now seemed a very
+      different person. True, he still dressed in black, but instead of cloth
+      and silk, he wore velvet and satin, while two gold chains glittered
+      beneath his ruff. He treated the greatest nobles as if he were doing them
+      a favor by receiving them, and he himself were a person of unapproachable
+      rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the first day Philip and his queen Isabella of Valois, had sent for him
+      and adorned him with a costly new chain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion Ulrich saw the king. Dressed as a page he followed Moor,
+      carrying the picture the latter intended for a gift to his royal host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of their entrance into the great reception-hall, the monarch
+      was sitting motionless, gazing into vacancy, as if all the persons
+      gathered around him had no existence for him. His head was thrown far
+      back, pressing down the stiff ruff, on which it seemed to rest as if it
+      were a platter. The fair-haired man&rsquo;s well-cut features wore the rigid,
+      lifeless expression of a mask. The mouth and nostrils were slightly
+      contracted, as if they shrank from breathing the same air with other human
+      beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarch&rsquo;s face remained unmoved, while receiving the Pope&rsquo;s legates
+      and the ambassadors from the republic of Venice. When Moor was led before
+      him, a faint smile was visible beneath the soft, drooping moustache and
+      close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin; the prince&rsquo;s dull eyes also
+      gained some little animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after the reception a bell rang in the studio, which was cleared
+      of all present as quickly as possible, for it announced the approach of
+      the king, who appeared entirely alone and spent two whole hours with Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these marks of distinction might have turned a weaker brain, but Moor
+      received them calmly, and as soon as he was alone with Ulrich or
+      Sophonisba, appeared no less unassuming and kindly, than at Emmendingen
+      and on the journey through France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week after taking possession of the apartments in the treasury, the
+      servants received orders to refuse admittance to every one, without
+      distinction of rank or person, informing them that the artist was engaged
+      in working for His Majesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba Anguisciola was the only person whom Moor never refused to see.
+      He had greeted the strange girl on his arrival, as a father meets his
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had been present when the artist gave her his portrait, and saw
+      her, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, cover her face with her hands and
+      burst into loud sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During Moor&rsquo;s first visit to Madrid, the young girl had come from Cremona
+      to the king&rsquo;s court with her father and five sisters, and since then the
+      task of supporting all six had rested on her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Cavaliere Anguisciola was a nobleman of aristocratic family, who had
+      squandered his large patrimony, and now, as he was fond of saying, lived
+      day by day &ldquo;by trusting God.&rdquo; A large portion of his oldest daughter&rsquo;s
+      earnings he wasted at the gaming table with dissolute nobles, relying with
+      happy confidence upon the talent displayed also by his younger children,
+      and on what he called &ldquo;trust in God.&rdquo; The gay, clever Italian was
+      everywhere a welcome guest, and while Sophonisba toiled early and late,
+      often without knowing how she was to obtain suitable food and clothing for
+      her sisters and herself, his life was a series of banquets and festivals.
+      Yet the noble girl retained the joyous courage inherited from her father,
+      nay, more&mdash;even in necessity she did not cease to take a lofty view
+      of art, and never permitted anything to leave her studio till she
+      considered it finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Moor watched her silently, then he invited her to work in his
+      studio, and avail herself of his advice and assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she had become his pupil, his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the young girl had no secrets from him, and the glimpses of her
+      domestic life thus afforded touched him and brought her nearer and nearer
+      to his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Cavaliere praised the lucky accident, and was ready to show
+      himself obliging, when Moor offered to let him and his daughters occupy a
+      house he had purchased, that it might be kept in a habitable condition,
+      and when the artist had induced the king to grant Sophonisba a larger
+      annual salary, the father instantly bought a second horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl, in return for so many benefits, was gratefully devoted to
+      the artist, but she would have loved him even without them. His society
+      was her greatest pleasure. To be allowed to stay and paint with him,
+      become absorbed in conversation about art, its problems, means and
+      purposes, afforded her the highest, purest happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had discharged the duties imposed upon her by her attendance upon
+      the queen, her heart drew her to the man she loved and honored. When she
+      left him, it always seemed as if she had been in church, as if her soul
+      had been steeped in purity and was effulgent. Moor had hoped to find her
+      sisters with her in Madrid, but the old Cavaliere had taken them away with
+      him to Italy. His &ldquo;trust in God&rdquo; was rewarded, for he had inherited a
+      large fortune. What should he do longer in Madrid! To entertain the stiff,
+      grave Spaniards and move them to laughter, was a far less pleasing
+      occupation than to make merry with gay companions and be entertained
+      himself at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba was provided for, and the beautiful, gay, famous maid of honor
+      would have no lack of suitors. Against his daughter&rsquo;s wish, he had given
+      to the richest and most aristocratic among them, the Sicilian baron Don
+      Fabrizio di Moncada, the hope of gaining her hand. &ldquo;Conquer the fortress!
+      When it yields&mdash;you can hold it,&rdquo; were his last words; but the
+      citadel remained impregnable, though the besieger could bring into the
+      field as allies a knightly, aristocratic bearing, an unsullied character,
+      a handsome, manly figure, winning manners, and great wealth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich felt a little disappointed not to find the five young girls, of
+      whom he had dreamed, in Madrid; it would have been pleasant to have some
+      pretty companions in the work now to begin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adjoining the studio was a smaller apartment, separated from the former
+      room by a corridor, that could be closed, and by a heavy curtain. Here a
+      table, at which the five girls might easily have found room, was placed in
+      a favorable light for Ulrich. He was to draw from plastic models, and
+      there was no lack of these in the Alcazar, for here rose a high,
+      three-story wing, to which when wearied by the intrigues of statecraft and
+      the restraints of court etiquette, King Philip gladly retired, yielding
+      himself to the only genial impulse of his gloomy soul, and enjoyed the
+      noble forms of art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the round hall on the lower floor countless plans, sketches, drawings
+      and works of art were kept in walnut chests of excellent workmanship.
+      Above this beautifully ornamented apartment&mdash;was the library, and in
+      the third story the large hall containing the masterpieces of Titian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The restless statesman, Philip, was no less eager to collect and obtain
+      new and beautiful works by the great Venetian, than to defend and increase
+      his own power and that of the Church. But these treasures were kept
+      jealously guarded, accessible to no human being except himself and his
+      artists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip was all and all to himself; caring nothing for others, he did not
+      deem it necessary, that they should share his pleasures. If anything
+      outside the Church occupied a place in his regard, it was the artist, and
+      therefore he did not grudge him what he denied to others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only in the upper story, but in the lower ones also antique and modern
+      busts and statues were arranged in appropriate places, and Moor was at
+      liberty to choose from among them, for the king permitted him to do what
+      was granted to no one else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often summoned him to the Titian Hall, and still more frequently rang
+      the bell and entered the connecting corridor, accessible to himself alone,
+      which led from the rooms devoted to art and science to the treasury and
+      studio, where he spent hours with Moor. Ulrich eagerly devoted himself to
+      the work, and his master watched his labor like an attentive, strict, and
+      faithful teacher; meantime he carefully guarded against overtaxing the
+      boy, allowed him to accompany him on many a ride, and advised him to look
+      about the city. At first the lad liked to stroll through the streets and
+      watch the long, brilliant processions, or timidly shrink back when
+      closely-muffled men, their figures wholly invisible except the eyes and
+      feet, bore a corpse along, or glided on mysterious missions through the
+      streets. The bull-fights might have bewitched him, but he loved horses,
+      and it grieved him to see the noble animal, wounded and killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He soon wearied of the civil and religious ceremonies, that might be
+      witnessed nearly every day, and which always exerted the same power of
+      attraction to the inhabitants of Madrid. Priests swarmed in the Alcazar,
+      and soldiers belonging to every branch of military service, daily guarded
+      or marched by the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the journey he had met plenty of mules with gay plumes and tassels,
+      oddly-dressed peasants and citizens. Gentlemen in brilliant court
+      uniforms, princes and princesses he saw daily in the court-yards, on the
+      stairs, and in the park of the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Toulouse and in other cities, through which he had passed, life had
+      been far more busy, active, and gay than in quiet Madrid, where everything
+      went on as if people were on their way to church, where a cheerful face
+      was rarely seen, and men and women knew of no sight more beautiful and
+      attractive, than seeing poor Jews and heretics burned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich did not need the city; the Alcazar was a world in itself, and
+      offered him everything he desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He liked to linger in the stables, for there he could distinguish himself;
+      but it was also delightful to work, for Moor chose models and designs that
+      pleased the lad, and Sophonisba Anguisciola, who often painted for hours
+      in the studio by the master&rsquo;s side, came to Ulrich in the intervals,
+      looked at what he had finished, helped, praised, or scolded him, and never
+      left him without a jest on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True, he was often left to himself; for the king sometimes summoned the
+      artist and then quitted the palace with him for several days, to visit
+      secluded country houses, and there&mdash;the old Hollander had told the
+      lad&mdash;painted under Moor&rsquo;s instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole, there were new, strange, and surprising things enough, to
+      keep the sensation of &ldquo;Fortune,&rdquo; alive in Ulrich&rsquo;s heart. Only it was
+      vexatious that he found it so hard to make himself intelligible to people,
+      but this too was soon to be remedied, for the pupil obtained two
+      companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Alonzo Sanchez Coello, a very distinguished Spanish artist, had his studio
+      in the upper story of the treasury. The king was very friendly to him, and
+      often took him also on his excursions. The gay, lively artist clung
+      without envy, and with ardent reverence, to Moor, whose fellow-pupil he
+      had been in Florence and Venice. During the Netherlander&rsquo;s first visit to
+      Madrid, he had not disdained to seek counsel and instruction from his
+      senior, and even now frequently visited his studio, bringing with him his
+      children Sanchez and Isabella as pupils, and watched the Master closely
+      while he painted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Ulrich was not specially pleased with his new companions, for in
+      the strangely visionary life he led, he had depended solely upon himself
+      and &ldquo;Fortune,&rdquo; and the figures living in his imagination were the most
+      enjoyable society to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly he had drawn eagerly in the morning, joyously anticipated
+      Sophonisba&rsquo;s visit, and then gazed out over his paper and dreamed. How
+      delightful it had been to let his thoughts wander to his heart&rsquo;s content.
+      This could now be done no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened, that at first he could feel no real confidence in Sanchez,
+      who was three years his senior, for the latter&rsquo;s thin limbs and close-cut
+      dark hair made him look exactly like dark-browed Xaver. Therefore his
+      relations with Isabella were all the more friendly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was scarcely fourteen, a dear little creature, with awkward limbs, and
+      a face so wonderfully changeful in expression, that it could not fail to
+      be by turns pretty and repellent. She always had beautiful eyes; all her
+      other features were unformed, and might grow charming or exactly the
+      reverse. When her work engrossed her attention, she bit her protruded
+      tongue, and her raven-black hair, usually remarkably smooth, often became
+      so oddly dishevelled, that she looked like a kobold; when, on the other
+      hand, she talked pleasantly or jested, no one could help being pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child was rarely gifted, and her method of working was an exact
+      contrast to that of the German lad. She progressed slowly, but finally
+      accomplished something admirable; what Ulrich impetuously began had a
+      showy, promising aspect, but in the execution the great idea shrivelled,
+      and the work diminished in merit instead of increasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sanchez Coello remained far behind the other two, but to make amends, he
+      knew many things of which Ulrich&rsquo;s uncorrupted soul had no suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Isabella had been given by her mother, for a duenna, a watchful,
+      ill-tempered widow, Senora Catalina, who never left the girl while she
+      remained with Moor&rsquo;s pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Receiving instruction with others urged Ulrich to rivalry, and also
+      improved his knowledge of Spanish. But he soon became familiar with the
+      language in another way, for one day, as he came out of the stables, a
+      thin man in black, priestly robes, advanced towards him, looked
+      searchingly into his face, then greeted him as a countryman, declaring
+      that it made him happy to speak his dear native tongue again. Finally, he
+      invited the &ldquo;artist&rdquo; to visit him. His name was Magister Kochel and he
+      lodged with the king&rsquo;s almoner, for whom he was acting as clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pallid man with the withered face, deep-set eyes and peculiar grin,
+      which always showed the bluish-red gums above the teeth, did not please
+      the boy, but the thought of being able to talk in his native language
+      attracted him, and he went to the German&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He soon thought that by so doing he was accomplishing something good and
+      useful, for the former offered to teach him to write and speak Spanish.
+      Ulrich was glad to have escaped from school, and declined this proposal;
+      but when the German suggested that he should content himself with speaking
+      the language, assuring him that it could be accomplished without any
+      difficulty, Ulrich consented and went daily at twilight to the Magister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instruction began at once and was pleasant enough, for Kochel let him
+      translate merry tales and love stories from French and Italian books,
+      which he read aloud in German, never scolded him, and after the first
+      half-hour always laid the volume aside to talk with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor thought it commendable and right, for Ulrich to take upon himself the
+      labor and constraint of studying a language, and promised, when the
+      lessons were over, to give a fitting payment to the Magister, who seemed
+      to have scanty means of livelihood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The master ought to have been well disposed towards worthy Kochel, for the
+      latter was an enthusiastic admirer of his works. He ranked the
+      Netherlander above Titian and the other great Italian artists, called him
+      the worthy friend of gods and kings, and encouraged his pupil to imitate
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Industry, industry!&rdquo; cried the Magister. &ldquo;Only by industry is the summit
+      of wealth and fame gained. To be sure, such success demands sacrifices.
+      How rarely is the good man permitted to enjoy the blessing of mass. When
+      did he go to church last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich answered these and similar questions frankly and truthfully, and
+      when Kochel praised the friendship uniting the artist to the king, calling
+      them Orestes and Pylades, Ulrich, proud of the honor shown his master,
+      told him how often Philip secretly visited the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At every succeeding interview Kochel asked, as if by chance, in the midst
+      of a conversation about other things: &ldquo;Has the king honored you again?&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;You happy people, it is reported that the king has shown you his face
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This &ldquo;you&rdquo; flattered Ulrich, for it allowed a ray of the royal favor to
+      fall upon him also, so he soon informed his countryman, unasked, of every
+      one of the monarch&rsquo;s visits to the treasury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weeks and months elapsed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the close of his first year&rsquo;s residence in Madrid, Ulrich spoke
+      Spanish with tolerable fluency, and could easily understand his
+      fellow-pupils; nay, he had even begun to study Italian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba Anguisciola still spent all her leisure hours in the studio,
+      painting or conversing with Moor. Various dignitaries and grandees also
+      went in and out of the studio, and among them frequently appeared, indeed
+      usually when Sophonisba was present, her faithful admirer Don Fabrizio di
+      Moncada.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once Ulrich, without listening, heard Moor through the open door of the
+      school-room, represent to her, that it was unwise to reject a suitor like
+      the baron; he was a noble, high-minded gentleman and his love beyond
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her answer was long in coming; at last she rose, saying in an agitated
+      voice: &ldquo;We know each other, Master; I know your kind intentions. And yet,
+      yet! Let me remain what I am, however insignificant that may be. I like
+      the baron, but what better gifts can marriage bestow, than I already
+      possess? My love belongs to Art, and you&mdash;you are my friend.... My
+      sisters are my children. Have I not gained the right to call them so? I
+      shall have no lack of duties towards them, when my father has squandered
+      his inheritance. My noble queen will provide for my future, and I am
+      necessary to her. My heart is filled&mdash;filled to the brim; I do what I
+      can, and is it not a beautiful thought, that I am permitted to be
+      something to those I love? Let me remain your Sophonisba, and a free
+      artist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, yes! Remain what you are, girl!&rdquo; Moor exclaimed, and then for a
+      long time silence reigned in the studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even before they could understand each other&rsquo;s language, a friendly
+      intercourse had existed between Isabella and her German fellow-pupil, for
+      in leisure moments they had sketched each other more than once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These pictures caused much laughter and often occasional harmless scuffles
+      between Ulrich and Sanchez, for the latter liked to lay hands on these
+      portraits and turn them into hideous caricatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella often earned the artist&rsquo;s unqualified praise, Ulrich sometimes
+      received encouraging, sometimes reproving, and sometimes even harsh words.
+      The latter Moor always addressed to him in German, but they deeply wounded
+      the lad, haunting him for days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;word&rdquo; still remained obedient to him. Only in matters relating to
+      art, the power of &ldquo;fortune&rdquo; seemed to fail, and deny its service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the painter set him difficult tasks, which he could not readily
+      accomplish, he called upon the &ldquo;word;&rdquo; but the more warmly and fervently
+      he did so, the more surely he receded instead of advancing. When, on the
+      contrary, he became angered against &ldquo;fortune,&rdquo; reproached, rejected it,
+      and relied wholly on himself, he accomplished the hardest things and won
+      Moor&rsquo;s praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often thought, that he would gladly resign his untroubled, luxurious
+      life, and all the other gifts of Fortune, if he could only succeed in
+      accomplishing what Moor desired him to attain in art. He knew and felt
+      that this was the right goal; but one thing was certain, he could never
+      attain it with pencil and charcoal. What his soul dreamed, what his mental
+      vision beheld was colored. Drawing, perpetual drawing, became burdensome,
+      repulsive, hateful; but with palette and brush in his hand he could not
+      fail to become an artist, perhaps an artist like Titian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He already used colors in secret; Sanchez Coello had been the cause of his
+      making the first trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This precocious youth was suing for a fair girl&rsquo;s favor, and made Ulrich
+      his confidant. One day, when Moor and Sanchez&rsquo;s father had gone with the
+      king to Toledo, he took him to a balcony in the upper story of the
+      treasury, directly opposite to the gate-keeper&rsquo;s lodgings, and only
+      separated by a narrow court-yard from the window, where sat pretty Carmen,
+      the porter&rsquo;s handsome daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was always to be found here, for her father&rsquo;s room was very dark,
+      and she was compelled to embroider priestly robes from morning till night.
+      This pursuit brought in money, which was put to an excellent use by the
+      old man, who offered sacrifices to his own comfort at the cook-shop, and
+      enjoyed fish fried in oil with his Zamora wine. The better her father&rsquo;s
+      appetite was, the more industriously the daughter was obliged to
+      embroider. Only on great festivals, or when an &lsquo;Auto-da-fe&rsquo; was
+      proclaimed, was Carmen permitted to leave the palace with her old aunt;
+      yet she had already found suitors. Nineteen-year-old Sanchez did not
+      indeed care for her hand, but merely for her love, and when it began to
+      grow dusk, he stationed himself on the balcony which he had discovered,
+      made signs to her, and flung flowers or bonbons on her table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is still coy,&rdquo; said the young Spaniard, telling Ulrich to wait at the
+      narrow door, which opened upon the balcony. &ldquo;There sits the angel! Just
+      look! I gave her the pomegranate blossom in her magnificent hair&mdash;did
+      you ever see more beautiful tresses? Take notice! She&rsquo;ll soon melt; I know
+      women!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Directly after a bouquet of roses fell into the embroiderer&rsquo;s lap. Carmen
+      uttered a low cry, and perceiving Sanchez, motioned him away with her head
+      and hand, finally turning her back upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s in a bad humor to-day,&rdquo; said Sanchez; &ldquo;but I beg you to notice that
+      she&rsquo;ll keep my roses. She&rsquo;ll wear one to-morrow in her hair or on her
+      bosom; what will you wager?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That may be,&rdquo; answered Ulrich. &ldquo;She probably has no money to buy any for
+      herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To be sure, the next day at twilight Carmen wore a rose in her hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sanchez exulted, and drew Ulrich out upon the balcony. The beauty glanced
+      at him, blushed, and returned the fair-haired boy&rsquo;s salutation with a
+      slight bend of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gate-keeper&rsquo;s little daughter was a pretty child, and Ulrich had no
+      fear of doing what Sanchez ventured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the third day he again accompanied him to the balcony, and this time,
+      after silently calling upon the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; pressed his hand upon his heart,
+      just as Carmen looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl blushed again, waved her fan, and then bent her little head
+      so low, that it almost touched the embroidery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next evening she secretly kissed her fingers to Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this time the young lover preferred to seek the balcony without
+      Sanchez. He would gladly have called a few tender words across, or sung to
+      his lute, but that would not do, for people were constantly passing to and
+      fro in the court-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the thought occurred to him, that he could speak to the fair one by
+      means of a picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small panel was soon found, he had plenty of brushes and colors to
+      choose from, and in a few minutes, a burning heart, transfixed by an
+      arrow, was completed. But the thing looked horribly red and ugly, so he
+      rejected it, and painted&mdash;imitating one of Titian&rsquo;s angels, which
+      specially pleased him&mdash;a tiny Cupid, holding a heart in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had learned many things from the master, and as the little figure
+      rounded into shape, it afforded him so much pleasure, that he could not
+      leave it, and finished it the third day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had not entered his mind to create a completed work of art, but the
+      impetuosity of youth, revelling in good fortune, had guided his brush. The
+      little Cupid bent joyously forward, drawing the right leg back, as if
+      making a bow. Finally Ulrich draped about him a black and yellow scarf,
+      such as he had often seen the young Austrian archduke wear, and besides
+      the pierced heart, placed a rose in the tiny, ill-drawn hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not help laughing at his &ldquo;masterpiece&rdquo; and hurried out on the
+      balcony with the wet painting, to show it to Carmen. She laughed heartily
+      too, answered his salutations with tender greetings, then laid aside her
+      embroidery and went back into the room, but only to immediately reappear
+      at the window again, holding up a prayer-book and extending towards him
+      the eight fingers of her industrious little hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He motioned that he understood her, and at eight o&rsquo;clock the next morning
+      was kneeling by her side at mass, where he took advantage of a favorable
+      opportunity to whisper: &ldquo;Beautiful Carmen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl blushed, but he vainly awaited an answer. Carmen now rose,
+      and when Ulrich also stood up to permit her to pass, she dropped her
+      prayer-book, as if by accident. He stooped with her to pick it up, and
+      when their heads nearly touched, she whispered hurriedly: &ldquo;Nine o&rsquo;clock
+      this evening in the shell grotto; the garden will be open.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carmen awaited him at the appointed place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Ulrich&rsquo;s heart throbbed so loudly and passionately, that he could
+      find no words; but the young girl helped him, by telling him that he was a
+      handsome fellow, whom it would be easy to love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he remembered the vows of tenderness he had translated at Kochel&rsquo;s,
+      falteringly repeated them, and fell on one knee before her, like all the
+      heroes in adventures and romances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And behold! Carmen did exactly the same as the young ladies whose
+      acquaintance he had made at his teacher&rsquo;s, begged him to rise, and when he
+      willingly obeyed the command&mdash;for he wore thin silk stockings and the
+      grotto was paved with sharp stones&mdash;drew him to her heart, and
+      tenderly stroked his hair back from his face with her dainty fingers,
+      while he gladly permitted her to press her soft young lips to his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was delightful, and he had no occasion to speak at all; yet
+      Ulrich felt timid and nervous. It seemed like a deliverance when the
+      footsteps of the guard were heard, and Carmen drew him away through the
+      gate with her into the court-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the little door leading into her father&rsquo;s room she again pressed
+      his hand, and then vanished as swiftly as a shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich remained alone, pacing slowly up and down before the treasury, for
+      he knew that he had done something very wrong, and did not venture to
+      appear before the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he entered the dark garden, he had again summoned &ldquo;fortune&rdquo; to his
+      aid; but now it would have pleased him better, if it had been less willing
+      to come to his assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Candles were burning in the studio, and Moor sat in his arm-chair, holding&mdash;Ulrich
+      would fain have bidden himself in the earth&mdash;the boy&rsquo;s Cupid in his
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young culprit wanted to slip past his teacher with a low &ldquo;good night,&rdquo;
+       but the latter called him, and pointing to the picture, smilingly asked:
+      &ldquo;Did you paint this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich nodded, blushing furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist eyed him from top to toe, saying: &ldquo;Well, well, it is really
+      very pretty. I suppose it is time now for us to begin to paint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lad did not know what had happened, for a few weeks before Moor had
+      harshly refused, when he asked the same thing now voluntarily offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely able to control his surprise and joy, he bent over the artist&rsquo;s
+      hand to kiss it, but the latter withdrew it, gazed steadily into his eyes
+      with paternal affection, and said: &ldquo;We will try, my boy, but we must not
+      give up drawing, for that is the father of our art. Drawing keeps us
+      within the bounds assigned to what is true and beautiful. The morning you
+      must spend as before; after dinner you shall be rewarded by using colors.&rdquo;
+       This plan was followed, and the pupil&rsquo;s first love affair bore still
+      another fruit&mdash;it gave a different form to his relations with
+      Sanchez. The feeling that he had stood in his way and abused his
+      confidence sorely disturbed Ulrich, so he did everything in his power to
+      please his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not see the fair Carmen again, and in a few weeks the appointment
+      was forgotten, for painting under Moor&rsquo;s instruction absorbed him as
+      nothing in his life had ever done before, and few things did after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Ulrich was now seventeen, and had been allowed to paint for four months.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sanchez Coello rarely appeared in the studio, for he had gone to study
+      with the architect, Herrera; Isabella vied with Ulrich, but was speedily
+      outstripped by the German.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed as if he had been born with the power to use the brush, and the
+      young girl watched his progress with unfeigned pleasure. When Moor harshly
+      condemned his drawing, her kind eyes grew dim with tears; if the master
+      looked at his studies with an approving smile, and showed them to
+      Sophonisba with words of praise, she was as glad as if they had been
+      bestowed upon herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Italian came daily to the treasury as usual, to paint, talk or play
+      chess with Moor; she rejoiced at Ulrich&rsquo;s progress, and gave him many a
+      useful suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the young artist once complained that he had no good models, she
+      gaily offered to sit to him. This was a new and unexpected piece of good
+      fortune. Day and night he thought only of Sophonisba. The sittings began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Italian wore a red dress, trimmed with gold embroidery, and a high
+      white lace ruff, that almost touched her cheeks. Her wavy brown hair clung
+      closely to the beautiful oval head, its heavy braids covering the back of
+      the neck; tiny curls fluttered around her ears and harmonized admirably
+      with the lovely, mischievous expression of the mouth, that won all hearts.
+      To paint the intelligent brown eyes was no easy matter, and she requested
+      Ulrich to be careful about her small, rather prominent chin, which was
+      anything but beautiful, and not make her unusually high, broad forehead
+      too conspicuous; she had only put on the pearl diadem to relieve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young artist set about this task with fiery impetuosity, and the first
+      sketch surpassed all expectations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Fabrizio thought the picture &ldquo;startlingly&rdquo; like the original. Moor was
+      not dissatisfied, but feared that in the execution his pupil&rsquo;s work would
+      lose the bold freshness, which lent it a certain charm in his eyes, and
+      was therefore glad when the bell rang, and soon after the king appeared,
+      to whom he intended to show Ulrich&rsquo;s work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip had not been in the studio for a long time, but the artist had
+      reason to expect him; for yesterday the monarch must have received his
+      letter, requesting that he would graciously grant him permission to leave
+      Madrid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor had remained in Spain long enough, and his wife and child were urging
+      his return. Yet departure was hard for him on Sophonisba&rsquo;s account; but
+      precisely because he felt that she was more to him than a beloved pupil
+      and daughter, he had resolved to hasten his leave-taking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All present were quickly dismissed, the bolts were drawn and Philip
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked paler than usual, worn and weary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor greeted him respectfully, saying: &ldquo;It is long since Your Majesty has
+      visited the treasury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not &lsquo;Your Majesty;&rsquo; to you I am Philip,&rdquo; replied the king. &ldquo;And you wish
+      to leave me, Antonio! Recall your letter! You must not go now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sovereign, without waiting for a reply, now burst into complaints
+      about the tiresome, oppressive duties of his office, the incapacity of the
+      magistrates, the selfishness, malice and baseness of men. He lamented that
+      Moor was a Netherlander, and not a Spaniard, called him the only friend he
+      possessed among the rebellious crew in Holland and Flanders, and stopped
+      him when he tried to intercede for his countrymen, though repeatedly
+      assuring him that he found in his society his best pleasure, his only real
+      recreation; Moor must stay, out of friendship, compassion for him, a slave
+      in the royal purple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the artist had promised not to speak of departure during the next
+      few days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but at
+      the end of half an hour he threw down his brush. He called himself
+      negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of
+      using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church. Duty was
+      his tyrant, his oppressor. When the day-laborer threw his hoe over his
+      shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they pursued
+      him everywhere, night and day. His son was a monster, his subjects were
+      rebels or cringing hounds. Bands of heretics, like moles or senseless
+      brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the throne and safeguard
+      of society: the Church. To crush and vanquish was his profession, hatred
+      his reward on earth. Then, after a moment&rsquo;s silence, he pointed towards
+      heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy: &ldquo;There, there! with Him, with Her,
+      with the Saints, for whom I fight!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood. He seemed to feel
+      this too, and after recovering his self-control, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring
+      to-day. Have you finished anything new?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after
+      Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it with
+      excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich&rsquo;s portrait of Sophonisba,
+      and asked, not without anxiety: &ldquo;What does Your Majesty say to this
+      attempt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hm!&rdquo; observed the monarch. &ldquo;A little of Moor, something borrowed from
+      Titian, yet a great deal that is original. The bluish-grey leaden tone
+      comes from your shop. The thing is a wretched likeness! Sophonisba
+      resembles a gardener&rsquo;s boy. Who made it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long has he been painting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For several months, Sire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you think he will be an artist of note?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so. In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
+      falls below them. He is a strange fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is ambitious, at any rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No small matter for the future artist. What he eagerly begins has a very
+      grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution. His mind
+      seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single hasty
+      grasp....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather too vehement, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No fault at his age. What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
+      he lacks. I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet
+      meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place, in
+      short your own art-spirit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yours also, Sire. If you had begun to paint early, you would have
+      possessed what Ulrich lacks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so. Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with
+      years. In your school, with zeal and industry....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will obtain, you think, what he lacks. I thought so too! But as I was
+      saying: he is queerly constituted. What you have admitted to me more than
+      once, the point we have started from in a hundred conversations&mdash;he
+      cannot grasp: form is not the essence of art to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The king shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his forehead; but Moor
+      continued: &ldquo;Everything he creates must reflect anew, what he experienced
+      at the first sight of the subject. Often the first sketch succeeds, but if
+      it fails, he seeks without regard to truth and accuracy, by means of
+      trivial, strange expedients, to accomplish his purpose. Sentiment, always
+      sentiment! Line and tone are everything; that is our motto. Whoever
+      masters them, can express the grandest things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, right! Keep him drawing constantly. Give him mouths, eyes, and
+      hands to paint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That must be done in Antwerp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hear nothing about Antwerp! You will stay, Antonio, you will stay.
+      Your wife and child-all honor to them. I have seen your wife&rsquo;s portrait.
+      Good, nourishing bread! Here you have ambrosia and manna. You know whom I
+      mean; Sophonisba is attached to you; the queen says so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I gratefully feel it. It is hard to leave your gracious Majesty and
+      Sophonisba; but bread, Sire, bread&mdash;is necessary to life. I shall
+      leave friends here, dear friends&mdash;it will be difficult, very
+      difficult, to find new ones at my age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the same with me, and for that very reason you will stay, if you
+      are my friend! No more! Farewell, Antonio, till we meet again, perhaps
+      to-morrow, in spite of a chaos of business. Happy fellow that you are! In
+      the twinkling of an eye you will be revelling in colors again, while the
+      yoke, the iron yoke, weighs me down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor thought he should be able to work undisturbed after the king had left
+      him, and left the door unbolted. He was standing before the easel after
+      dinner, engaged in painting, when the door of the corridor leading to the
+      treasury was suddenly flung open, without the usual warning, and Philip
+      again entered the studio. This time his cheeks wore a less pallid hue than
+      in the morning, and his gait showed no traces of the solemn gravity, which
+      had become a second nature to him,&mdash;on the contrary he was gay and
+      animated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the expression did not suit him; it seemed as if he had donned a
+      borrowed, foreign garb, in which he was ill at ease and could not move
+      freely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waving a letter in his right hand, he pointed to it with his left,
+      exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are coming. This time two marvels at once. Our Saviour praying in
+      the garden of Gethsemane, and Diana at the Bath. Look, look! Even this is
+      a treasure. These lines are from Titian&rsquo;s own hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A peerless old man,&rdquo; Moor began; but Philip impetuously interrupted: &ldquo;Old
+      man, old man? A youth, a man, a vigorous man. How soon he will be ninety,
+      and yet&mdash;yet; who will equal him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he uttered the last words, the monarch stopped before Sophonisba&rsquo;s
+      portrait, and pointing to it with the scornful chuckle peculiar to him,
+      continued gaily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There the answer meets me directly. That red! The Venetian&rsquo;s laurels seem
+      to have turned your high flown pupil&rsquo;s head. A hideous picture!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem so bad to me,&rdquo; replied Moor. &ldquo;There is even something
+      about it I like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, you?&rdquo; cried Philip. &ldquo;Poor Sophonisba!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those carbuncle eyes! And a mouth, that looks as if she could eat nothing
+      but sugar-plums. I don&rsquo;t know what tickles me to-day. Give me the palette.
+      The outlines are tolerably good, the colors fairly shriek. But what boy
+      can understand a woman, a woman like your friend! I&rsquo;ll paint over the
+      monster, and if the picture isn&rsquo;t Sophonisba, it may serve for a naval
+      battle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had snatched the palette from the artist&rsquo;s hand, clipped his
+      brush in the paint, and smiling pleasantly, was about to set to work; but
+      Moor placed himself between the sovereign and the canvas; exclaiming
+      gaily: &ldquo;Paint me, Philip; but spare the portrait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; it will do for the naval battle,&rdquo; chuckled the king, and while he
+      pushed the artist back, the latter, carried away by the monarch&rsquo;s unusual
+      freedom, struck him lightly on the shoulder with the maul-stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sovereign started, his lips grew white, he drew his small but stately
+      figure to its full height. His unconstrained bearing was instantly
+      transformed into one of unapproachable, icy dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor felt what was passing in the ruler&rsquo;s mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A slight shiver ran through his frame, but his calmness remained unshaken,
+      and before the insulted monarch found time to give vent to his indignation
+      in words, he said quickly, as if the offence he had committed was not
+      worth mentioning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Queer things are done among comrades in art. The painter&rsquo;s war is over!
+      Begin the naval battle, Sire, or still better, lend more charm and
+      delicacy to the corners of the mouth. The pupil&rsquo;s worst failure is in the
+      chin; more practised hands might be wrecked on that cliff. Those eyes!
+      Perhaps they sparkled just in that way, but we are agreed in one thing:
+      the portrait ought not to represent the original at a given moment, ruled
+      by a certain feeling or engaged in a special act, but should express the
+      sum of the spiritual, intellectual and personal attributes of the subject&mdash;his
+      soul and person, mind and character-feelings and nature. King Philip,
+      pondering over complicated political combinations, would be a fascinating
+      historical painting, but no likeness....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not,&rdquo; said the king in a low voice; &ldquo;the portrait must reveal
+      the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his
+      artists. Take the palette, I beg. It is for you, the great Master, not for
+      me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct the work of talented
+      pupils.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a hypocritical sweetness in the tone of these words which had
+      not escaped the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip had long been a master in the school of dissimulation, but Moor
+      knew him thoroughly, and understood the art of reading his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This mode of expression from the king alarmed him more than a passionate
+      outburst of rage. He only spoke in this way when concealing what was
+      seething within. Besides, there was another token. The Netherlander had
+      intentionally commenced a conversation on art, and it was almost
+      unprecedented to find Philip disinclined to enter into one. The blow had
+      been scarcely perceptible, but Majesty will not endure a touch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip did not wish to quarrel with the artist now, but he would remember
+      the incident, and woe betide him, if in some gloomy hour the sovereign
+      should recall the insult offered him here. Even the lightest blow from the
+      paw of this slinking tiger could inflict deep wounds&mdash;even death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These thoughts had darted with the speed of lightning through the artist&rsquo;s
+      mind, and still lingered there as, respectfully declining to take the
+      palette, he replied &ldquo;I beseech you, Sire, keep the brush and colors, and
+      correct what you dislike.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would mean to repaint the whole picture, and my time is limited,&rdquo;
+       answered Philip. &ldquo;You are responsible for your pupils&rsquo; faults, as well as
+      for your own offences. Every one is granted, allowed, offered, what is his
+      due; is it not so, dear master? Another time, then, you shall hear from
+      me!&rdquo; In the doorway the monarch kissed his hand to the artist, then
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Moor remained alone in the studio. How could he have played such a boyish
+      prank!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was gazing anxiously at the floor, for he had good reason to be
+      troubled, though the reflection that he had been alone with the king, and
+      the unprecedented act had occurred without witnesses, somewhat soothed
+      him. He could not know that a third person, Ulrich, had beheld the
+      reckless, fateful contest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy had been drawing in the adjoining room, when loud voices were
+      heard in the studio. He cherished a boundless reverence, bordering upon
+      idolatry, for his first model, the beautiful Sophonisba, and supposing
+      that it was she, discussing works of art with Moor, as often happened, he
+      opened the door, pushed back the curtain, and saw the artist tap the
+      chuckling king on the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene was a merry one, yet a thrill of fear ran through his limbs, and
+      he went back to his plaster model more rapidly than he had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nightfall Moor sought Sophonisba. He had been invited to a ball given
+      by the queen, and knew that he should find the maid of honor among
+      Isabella&rsquo;s attendants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magnificent apartments were made as light as day by thousands of
+      wax-candles in silver and bronze candelabra; costly Gobelin tapestry and
+      purple Flanders hangings covered the walls, and the bright hues of the
+      paintings were reflected from the polished floors, flooded with brilliant
+      light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No dancing had ever been permitted at the court before Philip&rsquo;s marriage
+      with the French princess, who had been accustomed to greater freedom of
+      manners; now a ball was sometimes given in the Alcazar. The first person
+      who had ventured to dance the gaillarde before the eyes of the monarch and
+      his horrified courtiers, was Sophonisba&mdash;her partner was Duke
+      Gonzaga. Strangely enough, the gayest lady at the court was the very
+      person, who gave the gossips the least occasion for scandal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gavotte was just over, as Moor entered the superb rooms. In the first
+      rank of the brilliant circle of distinguished ecclesiastics, ambassadors
+      and grandees, who surrounded the queen, stood the Austrian archdukes, and
+      the handsome, youthful figures of Alexander of Parma and of Don Juan, the
+      half-brother of King Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Carlos, the deformed heir to the throne, was annoying with his coarse
+      jests some ladies of the court, who were holding their fans before their
+      faces, yet did not venture to make the sovereign&rsquo;s son feel their
+      displeasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Velvet, silk and jewels glittered, delicate laces rose and drooped around
+      the necks and hands of the ladies and gentlemen. Floating curls, sparkling
+      eyes, noble and attractive features enslaved the eye, but the necks,
+      throats and arms of the court dames were closely concealed under high
+      ruffs and lace frills, stiff bodices and puffed sleeves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A subtile perfume filled the illuminated air of these festal halls; amidst
+      the flirting of light fans, laughter, gay conversation, and slander
+      reigned supreme. In an adjoining room golden zechins fell rattling and
+      ringing on the gaming-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morose, bigoted court, hampered by rigid formality, had been invaded
+      by worldly pleasure, which disported itself unabashed by the presence of
+      the distinguished prelates in violet and scarlet robes, who paced with
+      dignified bearing through the apartments, greeting the more prominent
+      ladies and grandees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A flourish of trumpets was borne on the air, and Philip appeared. The
+      cavaliers, bowing very low, suddenly stepped back from the fair dames, and
+      the ladies curtsied to the floor. Perfect silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed as if an icy wind had passed over the flower-beds and bent all
+      the blossoms at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few minutes the gentlemen stood erect, and the ladies rose again,
+      but even the oldest duchesses were not allowed the privilege of sitting in
+      their sovereign&rsquo;s presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gayety was stifled, conversation was carried on in whispers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young people vainly waited for the signal to dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long since Philip had been so proudly contemptuous, so morose as he
+      was to-night. Experienced courtiers noticed that His Majesty held his head
+      higher than usual, and kept out of his way. He walked as if engaged in
+      scrutinizing the frescos on the ceiling, but nothing that he wished to see
+      escaped his notice, and when he perceived Moor, he nodded graciously and
+      smiled pleasantly upon him for a moment, but did not, as usual, beckon him
+      to approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This did not escape the artist or Sophonisba, whom Moor had informed of
+      what had occurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He trusted her as he did himself, and she deserved his confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clever Italian had shared his anxiety, and as soon as the king entered
+      another apartment, she beckoned to Moor and held a long conversation with
+      him in a window-recess. She advised him to keep everything in readiness
+      for departure, and she undertook to watch and give him timely warning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long after midnight, when Moor returned to his rooms. He sent the
+      sleepy servant to rest, and paced anxiously to and fro for a short time;
+      then he pushed Ulrich&rsquo;s portrait of Sophonisba nearer the mantel-piece,
+      where countless candles were burning in lofty sconces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was his friend, and yet it was not. The thing lacking&mdash;yes, the
+      king was right&mdash;was incomprehensible to a boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We cannot represent, what we are unable to feel. Yet Philip&rsquo;s censure had
+      been too severe. With a few strokes of the brush Moor expected to make
+      this picture a soul mirror of the beloved girl, from whom it was hard,
+      unspeakably hard for him to part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than fifty!&rdquo; he thought, a melancholy smile hovering around his
+      mouth.&mdash;&ldquo;More than fifty, an old husband and father, and yet&mdash;yet&mdash;good
+      nourishing bread at home&mdash;God bless it, Heaven preserve it! It only
+      this girl were my daughter! How long the human heart retains its
+      functional power! Perhaps love is the pith of life&mdash;when it dries,
+      the tree withers too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still absorbed in thought, Moor had seized his palette, and at intervals
+      added a few short, almost imperceptible strokes to the mouth, eyes, and
+      delicate nostrils of the portrait, before which he sat&mdash;but these few
+      strokes lent charm and intellectual expression to his pupil&rsquo;s work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he at last rose and looked at what he had done, he could not help
+      smiling, and asking himself how it was possible to imitate, with such
+      trivial materials, the noblest possessions of man: mind and soul. Both now
+      spoke to the spectator from these features. The right words were easy to
+      the master, and with them he had given the clumsy sentence meaning and
+      significance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning Ulrich found Moor before Sophonisba&rsquo;s portrait. The
+      pupil&rsquo;s sleep had been no less restless than the master&rsquo;s, for the former
+      had done something which lay heavy on his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After being an involuntary witness of the scene in the studio the day
+      before he had taken a ride with Sanchez and had afterwards gone to
+      Kochel&rsquo;s to take a lesson. True, he now spoke Spanish with tolerable
+      fluency and knew something of Italian, but Kochel entertained him so well,
+      that he still visited him several times a week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, there was no translating. The German first kindly
+      upbraided him for his long absence, and then, after the conversation had
+      turned upon his painting and Moor, sympathizingly asked what truth there
+      was in the rumor, that the king had not visited the artist for a long time
+      and had withdrawn his favor from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Withdrawn his favor!&rdquo; Ulrich joyously exclaimed. &ldquo;They are like two
+      brothers! They wrestled together to-day, and the master, in all
+      friendship, struck His Majesty a blow with the maul-stick.... But&mdash;for
+      Heaven&rsquo;s sake!&mdash;you will swear&mdash;fool, that I am&mdash;you will
+      swear not to speak of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I will!&rdquo; Kochel exclaimed with a loud laugh. &ldquo;My hand upon it
+      Navarrete. I&rsquo;ll keep silence, but you! Don&rsquo;t gossip about that! Not on any
+      account! The jesting blow might do the master harm. Excuse me for to-day;
+      there is a great deal of writing to be done for the almoner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich went directly back to the studio. The conviction that he had
+      committed a folly, nay, a crime, had taken possession of him directly
+      after the last word escaped his lips, and now tortured him more and more.
+      If Kochel, who was a very ordinary man, should not keep the secret, what
+      might not Moor suffer from his treachery! The lad was usually no prattler,
+      yet now, merely to boast of his master&rsquo;s familiar intercourse with the
+      king, he had forgotten all caution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a restless night, his first thought had been to look at his portrait
+      of Sophonisba. The picture lured, bewitched, enthralled him with an
+      irresistible spell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was this really his work?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recognized every stroke of the brush. And yet! Those thoughtful eyes,
+      the light on the lofty brow, the delicate lips, which seemed about parting
+      to utter some wise or witty word&mdash;he had not painted them, never,
+      never could he have accomplished such a masterpiece. He became very
+      anxious. Had &ldquo;Fortune,&rdquo; which usually left him in the lurch when creating,
+      aided him on this occasion? Last evening, before he went to bed, the
+      picture had been very different. Moor rarely painted by candlelight and he
+      had heard him come home late, yet now&mdash;now....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was roused from these thoughts by the artist, who had been feasting his
+      eyes a long time on the handsome lad, now rapidly developing into a youth,
+      as he stood before the canvas as if spellbound. He felt what was passing
+      in the awakening artist-soul, for a similar incident had happened to
+      himself, when studying with his old master, Schorel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo; asked Moor as quietly as usual, laying his hand upon
+      the arm of his embarrassed pupil. &ldquo;Your work seems to please you
+      remarkably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is-I don&rsquo;t know&rdquo;&mdash;stammered Ulrich. &ldquo;It seems as if in the
+      night....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That often happens,&rdquo; interrupted the master. &ldquo;If a man devotes himself
+      earnestly to his profession, and says to himself: &lsquo;Art shall be everything
+      to me, all else trivial interruptions,&rsquo; invisible powers aid him, and when
+      he sees in the morning what he has created the day before, he imagines a
+      miracle has happened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words Ulrich grew red and pale by turns. At last, shaking his
+      head, he murmured in an undertone: &ldquo;Yes, but those shadows at the corners
+      of the mouth&mdash;do you see?&mdash;that light on the brow, and there&mdash;just
+      look at the nostrils&mdash;I certainly did not paint those.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think them so much amiss,&rdquo; replied Moor. &ldquo;Whatever friendly
+      spirits now work for you at night, you must learn in Antwerp to paint in
+      broad day at any hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Antwerp?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall prepare for departure this very day. It must be done with the
+      utmost privacy. When Isabella has gone, pack your best clothes in the
+      little knapsack. Perhaps we shall leave secretly; we have remained in
+      Madrid long enough. Keep yourself always in readiness. No one, do you
+      hear, no human being, not even the servants, must suspect what is going
+      on. I know you; you are no babbler.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist suddenly paused and turned pale, for men&rsquo;s loud, angry voices
+      were heard outside the door of the studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich too was startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The master&rsquo;s intention of leaving Madrid had pleased him, for it would
+      withdraw the former from the danger that might result from his own
+      imprudence. But as the strife in the anteroom grew louder, he already saw
+      the alguazils forcing their way into the studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor went towards the door, but it was thrown wide open ere he reached it,
+      and a bearded lansquenet crossed the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughing scornfully, he shouted a few derisive words at the French
+      servants who had tried to stop him, then turning to the artist, and
+      throwing back his broad chest, he held out his arms towards Moor, with
+      passionate ardor, exclaiming: &ldquo;These French flunkies&mdash;the varlets,
+      tried to keep me from waiting upon my benefactor, my friend, the great
+      Moor, to show my reverence for him. How you stare at me, Master! Have you
+      forgotten Christmas-day at Emmendingen, and Hans Eitelfritz from Colln on
+      the Spree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every trace of anxiety instantly vanished from the face of the artist, who
+      certainly had not recognized in this braggart the modest companion of
+      those days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eitelfritz was strangely attired, so gaily and oddly dressed, that he
+      could not fail to be conspicuous even among his comrades. One leg of his
+      breeches, striped with red and blue, reached far below his knee, while the
+      other, striped with yellow and green, enclosed the upper part of the limb,
+      like a full muff. Then how many puffs, slashes and ribbons adorned his
+      doublet! What gay plumes decked the pointed edge of his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor gave the faithful fellow a friendly welcome, and expressed his
+      pleasure at meeting him so handsomely equipped. He held his head higher
+      now, than he used to do under the wagon-tilt and in quarters, and
+      doubtless he had earned a right to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; replied Hans Eitelfritz, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve received double pay for the
+      past nine months, and take a different view of life from that of a poor
+      devil of a man-at-arms who goes fighting through the country. You know the
+      ditty:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;&lsquo;There is one misery on earth,
+        Well, well for him, who knows it not!
+        With beggar&rsquo;s staff to wander forth,
+        Imploring alms from spot to spot.&rsquo; 
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the last verse:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;&lsquo;And shall we never receive our due?
+        Will our sore trials never end?
+        Leader to victory, be true,
+        Come quickly, death, beloved friend.&rsquo; 
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I often sang it in those days; but now: What does the world cost? A
+      thousand zechins is not too much for me to pay for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you gained booty, Hans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better must come; but I&rsquo;m faring tolerably well. Nothing but feasting!
+      Three of us came here from Venice through Lombardy, by ship from Genoa to
+      Barcelona, and thence through this barren, stony country here to Madrid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To take service?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed. I&rsquo;m satisfied with my company and regiment. We brought some
+      pictures here, painted by the great master, Titian, whose fame must surely
+      have reached you. See this little purse! hear its jingle&mdash;it&rsquo;s all
+      gold! If any one calls King Philip a niggard again, I&rsquo;ll knock his teeth
+      down his throat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good tidings, good reward!&rdquo; laughed Moor. &ldquo;Have you had board and lodging
+      too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bed fit for the Roman Emperor,&mdash;and as for the rest?&mdash;I told
+      you, nothing but feasting. Unluckily, the fun will be all over to-night,
+      but to go without paying my respects to you.... Zounds! is that the little
+      fellow&mdash;the Hop-o&rsquo;my-Thumb-who pressed forward to the muster-table at
+      Emmendingen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zounds, he has grown. We&rsquo;ll gladly enlist you now, young sir. Can you
+      remember me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do,&rdquo; replied Ulrich. &ldquo;You sang the song about &lsquo;good
+      fortune.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you recollected that?&rdquo; asked the lansquenet. &ldquo;Foolish stuff! Believe
+      it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great sorrow and
+      poverty, just to warm my heart. Now I&rsquo;m prosperous, and can rarely succeed
+      in writing a verse. Fires are not needed in summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where have you been lodged?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here in the &lsquo;old cat.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s a good name for this Goliath&rsquo;s palace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
+      with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
+      artist went to the city alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio, and
+      instantly noticed the change Sophonisba&rsquo;s portrait had undergone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
+      pausing in her scrutiny to ask: &ldquo;And you, you painted this&mdash;without
+      the master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: &ldquo;I suppose he thinks it is
+      my own work; and yet&mdash;I can&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can,&rdquo; she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the portrait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at him
+      with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost depths
+      of Ulrich&rsquo;s heart were stirred: &ldquo;How glad I am! I could never accomplish
+      such a work. You will become a great artist, a very distinguished one,
+      like Moor. Take notice, you surely will. How beautiful that is!&mdash;I
+      can find no words to express my admiration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich&rsquo;s brain, and either the fiery
+      wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl&rsquo;s prophetic words, or both,
+      fairly intoxicated him. Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he seized
+      Isabella&rsquo;s little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and
+      enthusiastically exclaimed: &ldquo;Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled,
+      Belica; I will be an artist. Art, Art alone! The master said everything
+      else is vain&mdash;trivial. Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; cried Isabella; &ldquo;you must become a great artist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I don&rsquo;t succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away,
+      perhaps to-morrow, so he continued sadly, in a calmer tone: &ldquo;Rely upon it;
+      I will do what I can, and whatever happens, you will rejoice, will you
+      not, if I succeed-and if it should be otherwise....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she eagerly exclaimed. &ldquo;You can accomplish everything, and I&mdash;I;
+      you don&rsquo;t know how happy it makes me that you can do more than I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he held out his hand, and as Isabella warmly clasped it, the
+      watchful duenna&rsquo;s harsh voice cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does this mean, Senorita? To work, I beg of you. Your father says
+      time is precious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Time is precious! Magister Kochel had also doubtless said this to himself,
+      as soon as Ulrich left him the day before. He had been hired by a secret
+      power, with which however he was well acquainted, to watch the Netherland
+      artist and collect evidence for a charge&mdash;a gravamen&mdash;against
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spying and informing, which he had zealously pursued for years in the
+      service of the Holy Inquisition, he called &ldquo;serving the Church,&rdquo; and
+      hoped, sooner or later, to be rewarded with a benefice; but even if this
+      escaped him, informing brought him as large an income as he required, and
+      had become the greatest pleasure, indeed, a necessity of life to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had commenced his career in Cologne as a Dominican friar, and remained
+      in communication with some of his old brethren of the Order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monks, Sutor and Stubenrauch, whom Moor had hospitably received in his
+      wagon at the last Advent season but one, sometimes answered Kochel&rsquo;s
+      letters of enquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter had long known that the unusual favor the king showed the
+      artist was an abomination, not only to the heads of the Holy Inquisition,
+      but also to the ambassadors and court dignitaries, yet Moor&rsquo;s quiet,
+      stainless life afforded no handle for attack. Soon, however, unexpected
+      aid came to him from a distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter arrived, dictated by Sutor, and written by Stubenrauch in the
+      fluent bad Latin used by him and those of his ilk. Among other things it
+      contained an account of a journey, in which much was said about Moor, whom
+      the noble pair accused of having a heretical and evil mind. Instead of
+      taking them to the goal of the journey, as he had promised, he had
+      deserted them in a miserable tavern by the way-side, among rough, godless
+      lansquenets, as the mother of Moses abandoned her babe. And such a man as
+      this, they had heard with amazement at Cologne, was permitted to boast of
+      the favor of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip. Kochel must take
+      heed, that this leprous soul did not infect the whole flock, like a mangy
+      sheep, or even turn the shepherd from the true pasture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter had induced Kochel to lure Ulrich into the snare. The
+      monstrous thing learned from the lad that day, capped the climax of all he
+      had heard, and might serve as a foundation for the charge, that the
+      heretical Netherlander&mdash;and people were disposed to regard all
+      Netherlanders as heretics&mdash;had deluded the king&rsquo;s mind with magic
+      arts, enslaved his soul and bound him with fetters forged by the Prince of
+      Evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His pen was swift, and that very evening he went to the palace of the
+      Inquisition, with the documents and indictment, but was detained there a
+      long time the following day, to have his verbal deposition recorded. When
+      he left the gloomy building, he was animated with the joyous conviction
+      that he had not toiled in vain, and that the Netherlander was a lost man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Preparations for departure were secretly made in the painter&rsquo;s rooms in
+      the Alcazar during the afternoon. Moor was full of anxiety, for one of the
+      royal lackeys, who was greatly devoted to him, had told him that a
+      disguised emissary of the Dominicans&mdash;he knew him well&mdash;had come
+      to the door of the studio, and talked there with one of the French
+      servants. This meant as imminent peril as fire under the roof, water
+      rising in the hold of a ship, or the plague in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba had told him that he would hear from her that day, but the sun
+      was already low in the heavens, and neither she herself nor any message
+      had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to paint, and finding the attempt useless, gazed into the garden
+      and at the distant chain of the Guadarrama mountains; but to-day he
+      remained unmoved by the delicate violet-blue mist that floated around the
+      bare, naked peaks of the chain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was wrath and impatience, mingled with bitter disappointment, that
+      roused the tumult in his soul, not merely the dread of torture and death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been hours when his heart had throbbed with gratitude to Philip,
+      and he had believed in his friendship. And now? The king cared for nothing
+      about him, except his brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still standing at the window, lost in gloomy thoughts, when
+      Sophonisba was finally announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not come alone, but leaning on the arm of Don Fabrizio di Moncada.
+      During the last hours of the ball the night before she had voluntarily
+      given the Sicilian her hand, and rewarded his faithful wooing by accepting
+      his suit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor was rejoiced&mdash;yes, really glad at heart, and expressed his
+      pleasure; nevertheless he felt a sharp pang, and when the baron, in his
+      simple, aristocratic manner, thanked him for the faithful friendship he
+      had always shown Sophonisba and her sisters, and then related how
+      graciously the queen had joined their hands, he only listened with partial
+      attention, for many doubts and suspicions beset him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Sophonisba&rsquo;s heart uttered the &ldquo;yes,&rdquo; or had she made a heavy
+      sacrifice for him and his safety? Perhaps she would find true happiness by
+      the side of this worthy noble, but why had she given herself to him now,
+      just now? Then the thought darted through his mind, that the widowed
+      Marquesa Romero, the all-powerful friend of the Grand Inquisitor was Don
+      Fabrizio&rsquo;s sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba had left the conversation to her betrothed husband; but when
+      the doors of the brightly-lighted reception-room were opened, and the
+      candles in the studio lighted, the girl could no longer endure the
+      restraint she had hitherto imposed upon herself, and whispered hurriedly,
+      in broken accents:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dismiss the servants, lock the studio, and follow us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor did as he was requested, and, with the baron, obeyed her request to
+      search the anterooms, to see that no unbidden visitor remained. She
+      herself raised the curtains and looked up the chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor had rarely seen her so pale. Unable to control the muscles of her
+      face, shoulders and hands, she went into the middle of the room, beckoned
+      the men to come close to her, raised her fan to her face, and whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don Fabrizio and I are now one. God hears me! You, Master, are in great
+      peril and surrounded by spies. Some one witnessed yesterday&rsquo;s incident,
+      and it is now the talk of the town. Don Fabrizio has made inquiries. There
+      is an accusation against you, and the Inquisition will act upon it. The
+      informers call you a heretic, a sorcerer, who has bewitched the king. They
+      will seize you to-morrow, or the day after. The king is in a terrible
+      mood. The Nuncio openly asked him whether it was true, that he had been
+      offered an atrocious insult in your studio. Is everything ready? Can you
+      fly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor bent his head in assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then,&rdquo; said the baron, interrupting Sophonisba; &ldquo;I beg you to listen
+      to me. I have obtained leave of absence, to go to Sicily to ask my
+      father&rsquo;s blessing. It will be no easy matter for me to leave my happiness,
+      at the moment my most ardent wish is fulfilled&mdash;but Sophonisba
+      commands and I obey. I obey gladly too, for if I succeed in saving you, a
+      new and beautiful star will adorn the heaven of my memory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick, quick!&rdquo; pleaded Sophonisba, clenching the back of a chair firmly
+      with her hand. &ldquo;You will yield, Master; I beseech you, I command you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor bowed, and Don Fabrizio continued: &ldquo;We will start at four o&rsquo;clock in
+      the morning. Instead of exchanging vows of love, we held a council of war.
+      Everything is arranged. In an hour my servants will come and ask for the
+      portrait of my betrothed bride; instead of the picture, you will put your
+      baggage in the chest. Before midnight you will come to my apartments. I
+      have passports for myself, six servants, the equerry, and a chaplain.
+      Father Clement will remain safely concealed at my sister&rsquo;s, and you will
+      accompany me in priestly costume. May we rely upon your consent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all the gratitude of a thankful heart, but...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is my old servant&mdash;and my pupil Ulrich Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old man is taciturn, Don Fabrizio!&rdquo; said Sophonisba. &ldquo;If he is
+      forbidden to speak at all.... He is necessary to the Master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he can accompany you,&rdquo; said the baron. &ldquo;As for your pupil, he must
+      help us secure your flight, and lead the pursuers on a false trail. The
+      king has honored you with a travelling-carriage.&mdash;At half-past eleven
+      order horses to be put to it and leave the Alcazar. When you arrive before
+      our palace, stop it, alight, and remain with me. Ulrich, whom everybody
+      knows&mdash;who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in his gay
+      clothes&mdash;will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the road
+      towards Burgos, as far as it goes. A better decoy than he cannot be
+      imagined, and besides he is nimble and an excellent horseman. Give him
+      your own steed, the white Andalusian. If the blood-hounds should overtake
+      him....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Moor interrupted the baron, saying gravely and firmly: &ldquo;My grey head
+      will be too dearly purchased at the cost of this young life. Change this
+      part of your plan, I entreat you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; exclaimed the Sicilian. &ldquo;We have few hours at our command,
+      and if they don&rsquo;t follow him, they will pursue us, and you will be lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet...&rdquo; Moor began; but Sophonisba, scarcely able to command her voice,
+      interrupted: &ldquo;He owes everything to&mdash;you. I know him. Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us maintain our self-control!&rdquo; cried the Netherlander. &ldquo;I do not rely
+      upon the king&rsquo;s mercy, but perhaps in the decisive hour, he will remember
+      what we have been to each other; if Ulrich, on the contrary, robs the
+      irritated lion of his prey and is seized....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister shall watch over him,&rdquo; said the baron but Sophonisba tore open
+      the door, rushed into the studio, and called as loudly as she could:
+      &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich! Ulrich!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men followed her, but scarcely had they crossed the threshold, when
+      they heard her rap violently at the door of the school-room, and Ulrich
+      asking: &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open the door!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after, with pallid face and throbbing heart, he was standing before
+      the others, asking: &ldquo;What am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Save your master!&rdquo; cried Sophonisba. &ldquo;Are you a contemptible Wight, or
+      does a true artist&rsquo;s heart beat in your breast? Would you fear to go,
+      perhaps to your death, for this imperilled man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; cried the youth as joyously as if a hundred-pound weight had
+      been lifted from his breast. &ldquo;If it costs my life, so much the better!
+      Here I am! Post me where you please, do with me as you will! He has given
+      me everything, and I&mdash;I have betrayed him. I must confess, even if
+      you kill me! I gossiped, babbled&mdash;like a fool, a child&mdash;about
+      what I accidentally saw here yesterday. It is my fault, mine, if they
+      pursue him. Forgive me, master, forgive me! Do with me what you will. Beat
+      me, slay me, and I will bless you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he uttered the last words, the young artist, raising his clasped hands
+      imploringly, fell on his knees before his beloved teacher. Moor bent
+      towards him, saying with grave kindness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rise, poor lad. I am not angry with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ulrich again stood before him, he kissed his forehead and continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not been mistaken in you. Do you, Don Fabrizio, recommend
+      Navarrete to the Marquesa&rsquo;s protection, and tell him what we desire. It
+      would scarcely redound to his happiness, if the deed, for which my
+      imprudence and his thoughtlessness are to blame, should be revenged on me.
+      It comforts us to atone for a wrong. Whether you save me, Ulrich, or I
+      perish&mdash;no matter; you are and always will be, my dear, faithful
+      friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich threw himself sobbing on the artist&rsquo;s breast, and when he learned
+      what was required of him, fairly glowed with delight and eagerness for
+      action; he thought no greater joy could befall him than to die for the
+      Master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the bell of the palace-chapel was ringing for evening service,
+      Sophonisba was obliged to leave her friend; for it was her duty to attend
+      the nocturnus with the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Fabrizio turned away, while she bade Moor farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you desire my happiness, make him happy,&rdquo; the artist whispered; but
+      she could find no words to reply, and only nodded silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew her gently towards him, kissed her brow, and said: &ldquo;There is a
+      hard and yet a consoling word Love is divine; but still more divine is
+      sacrifice. To-day I am both your friend and father. Remember me to your
+      sisters. God bless you, child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, you!&rdquo; sobbed the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had any human being prayed so fervently for another&rsquo;s welfare in the
+      magnificent chapel of the Alcazar, as did Sophonisba Anguisciola on this
+      evening. Don Fabrizio&rsquo;s betrothed bride also pleaded for peace and
+      calmness in her own heart, for power to forget and to do her duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour before midnight Moor entered the calash, and Ulrich Navarrete
+      mounted the white Andalusian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist, deeply agitated, had already taken leave of his protege in the
+      studio, had given him a purse of gold for his travelling-expenses and any
+      other wants, and told him that he would always find with him in Flanders a
+      home, a father, love, and instruction in his art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The painter alighted before Don Fabrizio&rsquo;s palace; a short time after
+      Ulrich noisily drew the leather curtain before the partition of the
+      calash, and then called to the coachman, who had often driven Moor when he
+      was unexpectedly summoned to one of the king&rsquo;s pleasure-palaces at night:
+      &ldquo;Go ahead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were stopped at the gate, but the guards knew the favorite&rsquo;s calash
+      and fair-haired pupil, and granted the latter the escort he asked for his
+      master. So they went forward; at first rapidly, then at a pace easy for
+      the horses. He told the coachman that Moor had alighted at the second
+      station, and would ride with His Majesty to Avila, where he wished to find
+      the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the whole way, Ulrich thought little of himself, and all the more
+      of the master. If the pursuers had set out the morning after the
+      departure, and followed him instead of Don Fabrizio&rsquo;s party, Moor might
+      now be safe. He knew the names of the towns on the road to Valencia and
+      thought: &ldquo;Now he may be here, now he may be there, now he must be
+      approaching Tarancon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening the calash reached the famous stronghold of Avila where,
+      according to the agreement, Ulrich was to leave the carriage and try to
+      make his own escape. The road led through the town, which was surrounded
+      by high walls and deep ditches. There was no possibility of going round
+      it, yet the drawbridges were already raised and the gates locked, so he
+      boldly called the warder and showed his passport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An officer asked to see the artist. Ulrich said that he would follow him;
+      but the soldier was not satisfied, and ordered him to alight and accompany
+      him to the commandant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich struck his spurs into the Andalusian&rsquo;s flanks and tried to go back
+      over the road by which he had come; but the horse had scarcely begun to
+      gallop, when a shot was fired, that stretched it on the ground. The rider
+      was dragged into the guard-house as a prisoner, and subjected to a severe
+      examination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was suspected of having murdered Moor and of having stolen his money,
+      for a purse filled with ducats was found on his person. While he was being
+      fettered, the pursuers reached Avila.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A new examination began, and now trial followed trial, torture, torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at Avila a sack was thrown over his head, and only opened, when to
+      keep him alive, he was fed with bread and water. Firmly bound in a
+      two-wheeled cart, drawn by mules, he was dragged over stock and stones to
+      Madrid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often, in the darkness, oppressed for breath, jolted, bruised, unable to
+      control his thoughts, or even his voice, he expected to perish; yet no
+      fainting-fit, no moment of utter unconsciousness pityingly came to his
+      relief, far less did any human heart have compassion on his suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at last he was unbound, and led, still with his head covered,
+      into a small, dark room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he was released from the sack, but again loaded with chains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was left alone and had regained the capacity to think, he felt
+      convinced that he was in one of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Here were
+      the damp walls, the wooden bench, the window in the ceiling, of which he
+      had heard. He was soon to learn that he had judged correctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His body was granted a week&rsquo;s rest, but during this horrible week he did
+      not cease to upbraid himself as a traitor, and execrate the fate which had
+      used him a second time to hurl a friend and benefactor into ruin. He
+      cursed himself, and when he thought of the &ldquo;word&rdquo; &ldquo;fortune, fortune!&rdquo; he
+      gnashed his teeth scornfully and clenched his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His young soul was darkened, embittered, thrown off its balance. He saw no
+      deliverance, no hope, no consolation. He tried to pray, to God, to Jesus
+      Christ, to the Virgin, to the Saints; but they all stood before him, in a
+      vision, with lifeless features and paralyzed arms. For him, who had relied
+      on &ldquo;Fortune,&rdquo; and behaved like a fool, they felt no pity, no compassion,
+      they would not lend their aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his soul
+      in prayer. He regained them during the torture, on the rack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weeks, months elapsed. Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded
+      with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking death in
+      the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm determination
+      to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with himself. On the rack
+      he had regained the right to respect himself, and striven to win the
+      master&rsquo;s praise, the approval of the living and his beloved dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned. The
+      physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in
+      amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot, on
+      nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the stifling
+      helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through whom and
+      whither the master had escaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should
+      surely learn nothing, nothing at all. He was scarcely aware that he had a
+      right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he could think of the past again. The Holy Virgin once more wore his
+      lost mother&rsquo;s features; his father, Ruth, Pellicanus, Moor looked kindly
+      at him. But the brightest light shone into his soul through the darkness
+      of the dungeon, when he thought of art and his last work. It stood before
+      him distinctly in brilliant hues, feature for feature, as on the canvas;
+      he esteemed himself happy in having painted it, and would willingly have
+      gone to the rack once, twice, thrice, if he could merely have obtained the
+      certainty of creating other pictures like this, and perhaps still nobler,
+      more beautiful ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Art! Art! Perhaps this was the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; and if not, it was the highest,
+      most exquisite, most precious thing in life, beside which everything else
+      seemed small, pitiful and insipid. With what other word could God have
+      created the world, human beings, animals, and plants? The doctor had often
+      called every flower, every beetle, a work of art, and Ulrich now
+      understood his meaning, and could imagine how the Almighty, with the
+      thirst for creation and plastic hand of the greatest of all artists had
+      formed the gigantic bodies of the stars, had given the sky its glittering
+      blue, had indented and rounded the mountains, had bestowed form and color
+      on everything that runs, creeps, flies, buds and blossoms, and had
+      fashioned man&mdash;created in His own image&mdash;in the most majestic
+      form of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How wonderful the works of God appeared to him in the solitude of the dark
+      dungeon&mdash;and if the world was beautiful, was it not the work of His
+      Divine Art!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heaven and earth knew no word greater, more powerful, more mighty in
+      creating beauty than: Art. What, compared with its gifts, were the
+      miserable, delusive ones of Fortune: gay clothes, spiced dishes,
+      magnificent rooms, and friendly glances from beautiful eyes, that smile on
+      every one who pleases them! He would blow them all into the air, for the
+      assistance of Art in joyous creating. Rather, a thousand times rather,
+      would he beg his bread, and attain great things in Art, than riot and
+      revel in good-fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colors, colors, canvas, a model like Sophonisba, and success in the realm
+      of Art! It was for these things he longed, these things made him yearn
+      with such passionate eagerness for deliverance, liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Months glided by, maturing Ulrich&rsquo;s mind as rapidly as if they had been
+      years; but his inclination to retire within himself deepened into intense
+      reserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the day arrived on which, through the influence of the Marquesa
+      Romero, the doors of his dungeon opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was soon after receiving a sharp warning to renounce his obstinacy at
+      the next examination, that the youth was suddenly informed that he was
+      free. The jailer took off his fetters, and helped him exchange his prison
+      garb for the dress he had worn when captured; then disguised men threw a
+      sack over his head and led him up and down stairs and across pavements,
+      through dust and grass, into the little court-yard of a deserted house in
+      the suburbs. There they left him, and he soon released his head from its
+      covering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How delicious God&rsquo;s free air seemed, as his chest heaved with grateful
+      joy! He threw out his arms like a bird stretching its wings to fly, then
+      he clasped his hands over his brow, and at last, as if a second time
+      pursued, rushed out of the court-yard into the street. The passers-by
+      looked after him, shaking their heads, and he certainly presented a
+      singular spectacle, for the dress in which he had fled many months before,
+      had sustained severe injuries on the journey from Avila; his hat was lost
+      on the way, and had not been replaced by a new one. The cuffs and collar,
+      which belonged to his doublet, were missing, and his thick, fair hair hung
+      in dishevelled locks over his neck and temples; his full, rosy cheeks had
+      grown thin, his eyes seemed to have enlarged, and during his imprisonment
+      a soft down had grown on his cheeks and chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now eighteen, but looked older, and the grave expression on his
+      brow and in his eyes, gave him the appearance of a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had rushed straight forward, without asking himself whither; now he
+      reached a busy street and checked his career. Was he in Madrid? Yes, for
+      there rose the blue peaks of the Guadarrama chain, which he knew well.
+      There were the little trees at which the denizen of the Black Forest had
+      often smiled, but which to-day looked large and stately. Now a toreador,
+      whom he had seen more than once in the arena, strutted past. This was the
+      gate, through which he had ridden out of the city beside the master&rsquo;s
+      calash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must go into the town, but what should he do there?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had they restored the master&rsquo;s gold with the clothes?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He searched the pockets, but instead of the purse, found only a few large
+      silver coins, which he knew he had not possessed at the time of his
+      capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a cook-shop behind the gate he enjoyed some meat and wine after his
+      long deprivation, and after reflecting upon his situation he decided to
+      call on Don Fabrizio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The porter refused him admittance, but after he had mentioned his name,
+      kindly invited him into the porch, and told him that the baron and his
+      wife were in the country with the Marquesa Romero. They were expected back
+      on Tuesday, and would doubtless receive him then, for they had already
+      asked about him several times. The young gentleman probably came from some
+      foreign country; it was the custom to wear hats in Madrid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now noticed what he lacked, but before leaving, to supply the want,
+      asked the porter, if he knew what had become of Master Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Safe! He was safe! Several weeks before Donna Sophonisba had received a
+      letter sent from Flanders, and Ulrich&rsquo;s companion was well informed, for
+      his wife served the baroness as &lsquo;doncella&rsquo;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joyously, almost beside himself with pure, heart-cheering delight, the
+      released prisoner hurried away, bought himself a new cap, and then sought
+      the Alcazar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the treasury, in the place of old Santo, Carmen&rsquo;s father, stood a
+      tall, broad portero, still a young man, who rudely refused him admittance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Master Moor has not been here for a long time,&rdquo; said the gate-keeper
+      angrily: &ldquo;Artists don&rsquo;t wear ragged clothes, and if you don&rsquo;t wish to see
+      the inside of a guard-house&mdash;a place you are doubtless familiar with&mdash;you
+      had better leave at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich answered the gate-keeper&rsquo;s insulting taunts indignantly and
+      proudly, for he was no longer the yielding boy of former days, and the
+      quarrel soon became serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then a dainty little woman, neatly dressed for the evening promenade,
+      with the mantilla on her curls, a pomegranate blossom in her hair, and
+      another on her bosom, came out of the Alcazar. Waving her fan, and
+      tripping over the pavement like a wag-tail, she came directly towards the
+      disputants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich recognized her instantly; it was Carmen, the pretty embroiderer of
+      the shell-grotto in the park, now the wife of the new porter, who had
+      obtained his dead predecessor&rsquo;s office, as well as his daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carmen!&rdquo; exclaimed Ulrich, as soon as he saw the pretty little woman,
+      then added confidently. &ldquo;This young lady knows me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; asked the young wife, turning up her pretty little nose, and looking
+      at the tall youth&rsquo;s shabby costume. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Master Moor&rsquo;s pupil, Ulrich Navarrete; don&rsquo;t you remember me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? You must be mistaken!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words she shut her fan so abruptly, that it snapped loudly, and
+      tripped on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich shrugged his shoulders, then turned to the porter more courteously,
+      and this time succeeded in his purpose; for the artist Coello&rsquo;s
+      body-servant came out of the treasury, and willingly announced him to his
+      master, who now, as court-artist, occupied Moor&rsquo;s quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich followed the friendly Pablo into the palace, where every step he
+      mounted reminded him of his old master and former days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he at last stood in the anteroom, and the odor of the fresh
+      oil-colors, which were being ground in an adjoining room, reached his
+      nostrils, he inhaled it no less eagerly than, an hour before, he had
+      breathed the fresh air, of which he had been so long deprived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What reception could he expect? The court-artist might easily shrink from
+      coming in contact with the pupil of Moor, who had now lost the sovereign&rsquo;s
+      favor. Coello was a very different man from the Master, a child of the
+      moment, varying every day. Sometimes haughty and repellent, on other
+      occasions a gay, merry companion, who had jested with his own children and
+      Ulrich also, as if all were on the same footing. If today... but Ulrich
+      did not have much time for such reflections; a few minutes after Pablo
+      left, the door was torn open, and the whole Coello family rushed joyously
+      to meet him; Isabella first. Sanchez followed close behind her, then came
+      the artist, next his stout, clumsy wife, whom Ulrich had rarely seen,
+      because she usually spent the whole day lying on a couch with her lap-dog.
+      Last of all appeared the duenna Catalina, a would-be sweet smile hovering
+      around her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reception given him by the others was all the more joyous and cordial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella laid her hands on his arm, as if she wanted to feel that it was
+      really he; and yet, when she looked at him more closely, she shook her
+      head as if there was something strange in his appearance. Sanchez embraced
+      him, whirling him round and round, Coello shook hands, murmuring many kind
+      words, and the mother turned to the duenna, exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy Virgin! what has happened to the pretty boy? How famished he looks!
+      Go to the kitchen instantly, Catalina, and tell Diego to bring him food&mdash;food
+      and drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they all pulled and pushed him into the sitting-room, where the
+      mother immediately threw herself on the couch again; then the others
+      questioned him, making him tell them how he had fared, whence he came, and
+      many other particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was no longer hungry, but Senora Petra insisted upon his seating
+      himself near her couch and eating a capon, while he told his story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every face expressed sympathy, approval, pity, and at last Coello said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remain here, Navarrete. The king longs for Moor, and you will be as safe
+      with us, as if you were in Abraham&rsquo;s lap. We have plenty for you to do.
+      You come to me as opportunely, as if you had dropped from the skies. I was
+      just going to write to Venice for an assistant. Holy Jacob! You can&rsquo;t stay
+      so, but thanks to the Madonna and Moor, you are not poor. We have ample
+      means, my young sir. Donna Sophonisba gave me a hundred zechins for you;
+      they are lying in yonder chest, and thank Heaven, haven&rsquo;t grown impatient
+      by waiting. They are at your disposal. Your master, my master, the noble
+      master of all portrait-painters, our beloved Moor arranged it. You won&rsquo;t
+      go about the streets in this way any longer. Look, Isabella; this sleeve
+      is hanging by two strings, and the elbow is peering out of the window.
+      Such a dress is airy enough, certainly. Take him to the tailor&rsquo;s at once,
+      Sanchez, Oliverio, or... but no, no; we&rsquo;ll all stay together to-day.
+      Herrera is coming from the Escurial. You will endure the dress for the
+      sake of the wearer, won&rsquo;t you, ladies? Besides, who is to choose the
+      velvet and cut for this young dandy? He always wore something unusual. I
+      can still see the master&rsquo;s smile, provoked by some of the lad&rsquo;s new
+      contrivances in puffs and slashes. It is pleasant to have you here, my
+      boy! I ought to slay a calf, as the father did for the prodigal son; but
+      we live in miniature. Instead of neat-cattle, only a capon!...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;re not drinking, you&rsquo;re not drinking! Isabella, fill his glass.
+      Look! only see these scars on his hands and neck. It will need a great
+      deal of lace to conceal them. No, no, they are marks of honor, you must
+      show them. Come here, I will kiss this great scar, on your neck, my brave,
+      faithful fellow, and some day a fair one will follow my example. If
+      Antonio were only here! There&rsquo;s a kiss for him, and another, there, there.
+      Art bestows it, Art, for whom you have saved Moor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A master&rsquo;s kiss in the name of Art! It was sweeter than the beautiful
+      Carmen&rsquo;s lips!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello was himself an artist, a great painter! Where could his peers be
+      found&mdash;or those of Moor, and the architect Herrera, who entered soon
+      after. Only those, who consecrated their lives to Art, the word of words,
+      could be so noble, cheerful, kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How happy he was when he went to bed! how gratefully he told his beloved
+      dead, in spirit, what had fallen to his lot, and how joyously he could
+      pray!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he went with a full purse into the city, returning
+      elegantly dressed, and with neatly-arranged locks. The peinador had given
+      his budding moustache a bold twist upward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He still looked thin and somewhat awkward, but the tall youth promised to
+      become a stately man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Towards noon Coello called Ulrich into Moor&rsquo;s former studio; the youth
+      could not fail to observe its altered appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long cartoons, containing sketches of figures, large paintings, just
+      commenced or half-finished, leaned against the easels; mannikins, movable
+      wooden horse&rsquo;s heads, and plaster-models stood on the floor, the tables,
+      and in the windows. Stuffs, garments, tapestries, weapons hung over the
+      backs of the chairs, or lay on chests, tables and the stone-floor.
+      Withered laurel-wreaths, tied with long ribbons, fluttered over the
+      mantel-piece; one had fallen, dropped over the bald head of Julius Caesar,
+      and rested on the breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist&rsquo;s six cats glided about among the easels, or stretched their
+      limbs on costly velvet and Arabian carpets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one corner stood a small bed with silk curtains&mdash;the nursery of
+      the master&rsquo;s pets. A magnificent white cat was suckling her kittens in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two blue and yellow cockatoos and several parrots swung screaming in brass
+      hoops before the open window, and Coello&rsquo;s coal-black negro crept about,
+      cleaning the floor of the spacious apartment, though it was already noon.
+      While engaged in this occupation, he constantly shook his woolly head,
+      displaying his teeth, for his master was singing loudly at his work, and
+      the gaily-clad African loved music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a transformation bad taken place in the Netherlander&rsquo;s quiet,
+      orderly, scrupulously neat studio! But, even amid this confusion,
+      admirable works were created; nay, the Spaniard possessed a much more
+      vivid imagination, and painted pictures, containing a larger number of
+      figures and far more spirited than Moor&rsquo;s, though they certainly were not
+      pervaded by the depth and earnestness, the marvellous fidelity to nature,
+      that characterized those of Ulrich&rsquo;s beloved master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello called the youth to the easel, and pointing to the sketches in
+      color, containing numerous figures, on which he was painting, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, my son. This is to be a battle of the Centaurs, these are
+      Parthian horsemen;&mdash;Saint George and the Dragon, and the Crusaders
+      are not yet finished. The king wants the Apocalyptic riders too. Deuce
+      take it! But it must be done. I shall commence them to-morrow. They are
+      intended for the walls and ceiling of the new winter riding-school. One
+      person gets along slowly with all this stuff, and I&mdash;I.... The orders
+      oppress me. If a man could only double, quadruple himself! Diana of
+      Ephesus had many breasts, and Cerberus three heads, but only two hands
+      have grown on my wrists. I need help, and you are just the person to give
+      it. You have had nothing to do with horses yet, Isabella tells me; but you
+      are half a Centaur yourself. Set to work on the steeds now, and when you
+      have progressed far enough, you shall transfer these sketches to the
+      ceiling and walls of the riding-school. I will help you perfect the thing,
+      and give it the finishing touch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This invitation aroused more perplexity than pleasure in Ulrich&rsquo;s mind,
+      for it was not in accordance with Moor&rsquo;s opinions. Fear of his fellow-men
+      no longer restrained him, so he frankly said that he would rather sketch
+      industriously from nature, and perhaps would do well to seek Moor in
+      Flanders. Besides, he was afraid that Coello greatly overrated his powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Spaniard eagerly cut him short:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen your portrait of Sophonisba. You are no longer a pupil, but a
+      rising artist. Moor is a peerless portrait-painter, and you have profited
+      greatly by his teaching. But Art has still higher aims. Every living thing
+      belongs to her. The Venus, the horse... which of those two pictures won
+      Apelles the greater fame? Not only copying, but creating original ideas,
+      leads to the pinnacle of art. Moor praised your vivid imagination. We must
+      use what we possess. Remember Buonarotti, Raphael! Their compositions and
+      frescos, have raised their names above all others. Antonio has tormented
+      you sufficiently with drawing lifeless things. When you transfer these
+      sketches, many times enlarged, to a broad surface, you will learn more
+      than in years of copying plaster-casts. A man must have talent, courage
+      and industry; everything else comes of its own accord, and thank Heaven,
+      you&rsquo;re a lucky fellow! Look at my horses&mdash;they are not so bad, yet I
+      never sketched a living one in my life till I was commissioned to paint
+      His Majesty on horseback. You shall have a better chance. Go to the
+      stables and the old riding-school to-morrow. First try noble animals, then
+      visit the market and shambles, and see how the knackers look. If you make
+      good speed, you shall soon see the first ducats you yourself have earned.&rdquo;
+       The golden reward possessed little temptation for Ulrich, but he allowed
+      himself to be persuaded by his senior, and drew and painted horses and
+      mares with pleasure and success, working with Isabella and Coello&rsquo;s pupil,
+      Felice de Liano, when they sketched and painted from living models. When
+      the scaffolding was erected in the winter riding-school, he went there
+      under the court-artist&rsquo;s direction, to measure, arrange and finally
+      transfer the painter&rsquo;s sketches to the wide surfaces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did this with increasing satisfaction, for though Coello&rsquo;s sketches
+      possessed a certain hardness, they were boldly devised and pleased him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farther he progressed, the more passionately interested he became in
+      his work. To create on a grand scale delighted him, and the fully occupied
+      life, as well as the slight fatigue after his work was done, which was
+      sweetened by the joy of labor accomplished, were all beautiful, enjoyable
+      things; yet Ulrich felt that this was not exactly the right course, that a
+      steeper, more toilsome path must lead to the height he desired to attain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lacked the sharp spurring to do better and better, the censure of a
+      master, who was greatly his superior. Praise for things, which did not
+      satisfy himself, vexed him and roused his distrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella, and&mdash;after his return&mdash;Sophonisba, were his
+      confidantes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The former had long felt what he now expressed. Her young heart clung to
+      him, but she loved in him the future great artist as much as the man. It
+      was certainly no light matter for her to be deprived of Ulrich&rsquo;s society,
+      yet she unselfishly admitted that her father, in the vast works he had
+      undertaken, could not be a teacher like Moor, and it would probably be
+      best for him to seek his old master in Flanders, as soon as his task in
+      the riding-school was completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this, because she believed it to be her duty, though sadly and
+      anxiously; but he joyously agreed with her, for Sophonisba had handed him
+      a letter from the master, in which the latter cordially invited him to
+      come to Antwerp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Fabrizio&rsquo;s wife summoned him to her palace, and Ulrich found her as
+      kind and sympathizing as when she had been a girl, but her gay, playful
+      manner had given place to a more quiet dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wished to be told in detail all he had suffered for Moor, how he
+      employed himself, what he intended to do in the future; and she even
+      sought him more than once in the riding-school, watched him at his work,
+      and examined his drawings and sketches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once she induced him to tell her the story of his youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a boon to Ulrich; for, although we keep our best treasures most
+      closely concealed, yet our happiest hours are those in which, with the
+      certainty of being understood, we are permitted to display them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The youth could show this noble woman, this favorite of the Master, this
+      artist, what he would not have confided to any man, so he permuted her to
+      behold his childhood, and gaze deep into his soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not even hide what he knew about the &ldquo;word&rdquo;&mdash;that he believed
+      he had found the right one in the dungeon, and that Art would remain his
+      guiding star, as long as he lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba&rsquo;s cheeks flushed deeper and deeper, and never had he seen her
+      so passionately excited, so earnest and enthusiastic, as now when she
+      exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Ulrich, yes! You have found the right word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Art, and no other. Whoever knows it, whoever serves it, whoever
+      impresses it deeply on his soul and only breathes and moves in it, no
+      longer has any taint of baseness; he soars high above the earth, and knows
+      nothing of misery and death. It is with Art the Divinity bridges space and
+      descends to man, to draw him up ward to brighter worlds. This word
+      transfigures everything, and brings fresh green shoots even from the dry
+      wood of souls defrauded of love and hope. Life is a thorny rose-bush, and
+      Art its flower. Here Mirth is melancholy&mdash;Joy is sorrowful and
+      Liberty is dead. Here Art withers and&mdash;like an exotic&mdash;is
+      prevented perishing outright only by artificial culture. But there is a
+      land, I know it well, for it is my home&mdash;where Art buds and blossoms
+      and throws its shade over all the highways. Favorite of Antonio, knight of
+      the Word&mdash;you must go to Italy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba had spoken. He must go to Italy. The home of Titian! Raphael!
+      Buonarotti! where also the Master went to school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Word, Word!&rdquo; he cried exultingly in his heart. &ldquo;What other can
+      disclose, even on earth, such a glimpse of the joys of Paradise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he left Sophonisba, he felt as if he were intoxicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What still detained him in Madrid?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor&rsquo;s zechins were not yet exhausted, and he was sure of the assistance
+      of the &ldquo;word&rdquo; upon the sacred soil of Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He unfolded his plan to Coello without delay, at first modestly, then
+      firmly and defiantly. But the court-artist would not let him go. He knew
+      how to maintain his composure, and even admitted that Ulrich must travel,
+      but said it was still too soon. He must first finish the work he had
+      undertaken in the riding-school, then he himself would smooth the way to
+      Italy for him. To leave him, so heavily burdened, in the lurch now, would
+      be treating him ungratefully and basely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was forced to acknowledge this, and continued to paint on the
+      scaffold, but his pleasure in creating was spoiled. He thought of nothing
+      but Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every hour in Madrid seemed lost. His lofty purposes were unsettled, and
+      he began to seek diversion for his mind, especially at the fencing-school
+      with Sanchez Coello.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye was keen, his wrist pliant, and his arm was gaining more and more
+      of his father&rsquo;s strength, so he soon performed extraordinary feats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His remarkable skill, his reserved nature, and the natural charm of his
+      manner soon awakened esteem and regard among the young Spaniards, with
+      whom he associated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was invited to the banquets given by the wealthier ones, and to join
+      the wild pranks, in which they sometimes indulged, but spite of
+      persuasions and entreaties, always in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich needed no comrades, and his zechins were sacred to him; he was
+      keeping them for Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The others soon thought him an odd, arrogant fellow, with whom no friendly
+      ties could be formed, and left him to his own resources. He wandered about
+      the streets at night alone, serenaded fair ladies, and compelled many
+      gentlemen, who offended him, to meet him in single combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one, not even Sanchez Coello, was permitted to know of these nocturnal
+      adventures; they were his chief pleasure, stirred his blood, and gave him
+      the blissful consciousness of superior strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This mode of life increased his self-confidence, and expressed itself in
+      his bearing, which gained a touch of the Spanish air. He was now fully
+      grown, and when he entered his twentieth year, was taller than most
+      Castilians, and carried his head as high as a grandee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet he was dissatisfied with himself, for he made slow progress in his
+      art, and cherished the firm conviction that there was nothing more for him
+      to learn in Madrid; Coello&rsquo;s commissions were robbing him of the most
+      precious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work in the riding-school was at last approaching completion. It had
+      occupied far more than the year in which it was to have been finished, and
+      His Majesty&rsquo;s impatience had become so great, that Coello was compelled to
+      leave everything else, to paint only there, and put his improving touches
+      to Ulrich&rsquo;s labor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time for departure was drawing near. The hanging-scaffold, on which he
+      had lain for months, working on the master&rsquo;s pictures, had been removed,
+      but there was still something to be done to the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the court-artist was ordered to suspend the work, and have the
+      beams, ladders and boards, which narrowed the space in the picadero,&mdash;[Riding
+      School]&mdash;removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large enclosure was wanted during the next few days for a special
+      purpose, and there were new things for Coello to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan of Austria, the king&rsquo;s chivalrous half-brother, had commenced his
+      heroic career, and vanquished the rebellious Moors in Granada. A
+      magnificent reception was to be prepared for the young conqueror, and
+      Coello received the commission to adorn a triumphal arch with
+      hastily-sketched, effective pictures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The designs were speedily completed, and the triumphal arch erected in a
+      court-yard of the Alcazar, for here, within the narrow circle of the
+      court, not publicly, before the whole population, had the suspicious
+      monarch resolved to receive and honor the victor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had again assisted Coello in the execution of his sketches.
+      Everything was finished at the right time, and Don Juan&rsquo;s reception
+      brilliantly carried out with great pomp and dignity, through the whole
+      programme of a Te Deum and three services, processions, bull-fights, a
+      grand &lsquo;Auto-da-fe&rsquo;, and a tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this festival, the king again resigned the riding-school to the
+      artists, who instantly set to work. Everything was finished except the
+      small figures at the bottom of the larger pictures, and these could be
+      executed without scaffolding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was again standing on the ladder, for the first time after this
+      interruption, and Coello had just followed him into the picadero, when a
+      great bustle was heard outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The broad doors flew open, and the manege was soon filled with knights and
+      ladies on foot and horseback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most brilliant figures in all the stately throng were Don Juan
+      himself, and his youthful nephew, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich feasted his eyes on the splendid train, and the majestic, haughty,
+      yet vivacious manner of the conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never in his life, he thought, had he seen a more superb youthful figure.
+      Don Juan stopped directly opposite to him, and bared his head. The thick,
+      fair hair brushed back behind his ears, hung in wonderfully soft, waving
+      locks down to his neck, and his features blended feminine grace with manly
+      vigor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As, hat in hand, he swung himself from the saddle, unassisted, to greet
+      the fair duchess of Medina Celi, there was such a charm in his movements,
+      that the young artist felt inclined to believe all the tales related of
+      the successful love affairs of this favorite of fortune, who was the son
+      of the Emperor Charles, by a German washerwoman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan graciously requested his companion to retire to the back of the
+      manege, assisted the ladies from their saddles and, offering his hand to
+      the duchess, led her to the dais, then returning to the ring, he issued
+      some orders to the mounted officers in his train, and stood conversing
+      with the ladies, Alexander Farnese, and the grandees near him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud shouts and the tramp of horses hoofs were now heard outside of the
+      picadero, and directly after nine bare-backed horses were led into the
+      ring, all selected animals of the best blood of the Andalusian breed, the
+      pearls of all the horses Don Juan had captured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exclamations and cries of delight echoed through the building, growing
+      louder and warmer, when the tenth and last prize, a coal-black young
+      stallion, dragged the sinewy Moors that led him, into the ring, and
+      rearing lifted them into the air with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brown-skinned young fellows resisted bravely; but Don Juan turning to
+      Alexander Farnese, said: &ldquo;What a superb animal! but alas, alas, he has a
+      devilish temper, so we have called him Satan. He will bear neither saddle
+      nor rider. How dare I venture... there he rears again.... It is quite
+      impossible to offer him to His Majesty. Just look at those eyes, those
+      crimson nostrils. A perfect monster!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there cannot be a more beautiful creature!&rdquo; cried the prince, warmly.
+      &ldquo;That shining black coat, the small head, the neck, the croup, the
+      carriage of his tail, the fetlocks and hoofs. Oh, oh, that was serious!&rdquo;
+       The vicious stallion had reared for the third time, pawing wildly with his
+      fore-legs, and in so doing struck one of the Moors. Shrieking and wailing,
+      the latter fell on the ground, and directly after the animal released
+      itself from the second groom, and now dashed freely, with mighty leaps,
+      around the course, rushing hither and thither as if mad, kicking
+      furiously, and hurling sand and dust into the faces of the ladies on the
+      dais. The latter shrieked loudly, and their screams increased the animal&rsquo;s
+      furious excitement. Several gentlemen drew back, and the master of the
+      horse loudly ordered the other barebacked steeds to be led away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan and Alexander Farnese stood still; but the former drew his sword,
+      exclaiming, vehemently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Santiago! I&rsquo;ll kill the brute!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not satisfied with words, but instantly rushed upon the stallion;
+      the latter avoiding him, bounded now backward, now sideways, at every
+      fresh leap throwing sand upon the dais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich could remain on the ladder no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fully aware of his power over refractory horses, he boldly entered the
+      ring and walked quietly towards the snorting, foaming steed. Driving the
+      animal back, and following him, he watched his opportunity, and as Satan
+      turned, reached his side and boldly seized his nostrils firmly with his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan plunged more and more furiously, but the smith&rsquo;s son held him as
+      firmly as if in a vise, breathed into his nostrils, and stroked his head
+      and muzzle, whispering soothing words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The animal gradually became quieter, tried once more to release himself
+      from his tamer&rsquo;s iron hand, and when he again failed, began to tremble and
+      meekly stood still with his fore legs stretched far apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bravo! Bravamente!&rdquo; cried the duchess, and praise from such lips
+      intoxicated Ulrich. The impulse to make a display, inherited from his
+      mother, urged him to take still greater risks. Carefully winding his left
+      hand in the stallion&rsquo;s mane, he released his nostrils and swung himself on
+      his back. Taken by surprise Satan tried to rid himself of his burden, but
+      the rider sat firm, leaned far over the steed&rsquo;s neck, stroked&mdash;his
+      head again, pressed his flanks and, after the lapse of a few minutes,
+      guided him merely by the pressure of his thighs first at a walk, then at a
+      trot over the track. At last springing off, he patted Satan, who pranced
+      peacefully beside him, and led him by the bridle to Don Juan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter measured the tall, brave fellow with a hasty glance, and
+      turning, half to him, half to Alexander Farnese, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An enviable trick, and admirable performance, by my love!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he approached the stallion, stroked and patted his shining neck, and
+      continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, young man. You have saved my best horse. But for you I
+      should have stabbed him. You are an artist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, Your Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your art is beautiful, and you alone know how it suits you. But much
+      honor, perhaps also wealth and fame, can be gained among my troopers. Will
+      you enlist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Your Highness,&rdquo; replied Ulrich, with a low bow. &ldquo;If I were not an
+      artist, I should like best to be a soldier; but I cannot give up my art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, right! Yet... do you think your cure of Satan will be lasting; or
+      will the dance begin again to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so; but grant me a week, Your Highness, and the swarthy fellows
+      can easily manage him. An hour&rsquo;s training like this every morning, and the
+      work will be accomplished. Satan will scarcely be transformed into an
+      angel, but probably will become a perfectly steady horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you succeed,&rdquo; replied Don Juan, joyously, &ldquo;you will greatly oblige me.
+      Come to me next week. If you bring good tidings... consider meantime, how
+      I can serve you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich did not need to consider long. A week would pass swiftly, and then&mdash;then
+      the king&rsquo;s brother should send him to Italy. Even his enemies knew that he
+      was liberal and magnanimous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The week passed away, the horse was tamed and bore the saddle quietly. Don
+      Juan received Ulrich&rsquo;s petition kindly, and invited him to make the
+      journey on the admiral&rsquo;s galley, with the king&rsquo;s ambassador and his
+      secretary, de Soto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very same day the happy artist obtained a bill of exchange on a house
+      on the Rialto, and now it was settled, he was going to Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello was obliged to submit, and his kind heart again showed itself; for
+      he wrote letters of introduction for Ulrich to his old artist friends in
+      Venice, and induced the king to send the great Titian a present&mdash;which
+      the ambassador was to deliver. The court-artist obtained from the latter a
+      promise to present his pupil Navarrete to the grey-Haired prince of
+      artists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was now ready for departure; Ulrich again packed his belongings
+      in the studio, but with very different feelings from the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a man, he now knew what the right &ldquo;word&rdquo; was, life lay open before
+      him, and the paradise of Art was about to unclose its gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The studies he had finished in Madrid aroused his compassion; in Italy he
+      would first really begin to become an artist: there work must bring him
+      what it had here denied: satisfaction, success! Gay as a boy, half frantic
+      with joy, happiness and expectation, he crushed the sketches, which seemed
+      to him too miserable, into the waste-paper basket with a maul-stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this work of destruction, Isabella entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now sixteen. Her figure had developed early, but remained petite.
+      Large, deep, earnest eyes looked forth from the little round face, and the
+      fresh, tiny mouth could not help pleasing everyone. Her head now reached
+      only to Ulrich&rsquo;s breast, and if he had always treated her like a dear,
+      sensible, clever child, her small stature had certainly been somewhat to
+      blame for it. To-day she was paler than usual and her features were so
+      grave, that the young man asked her in surprise, yet full of sympathy:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, little one? Are you not well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she answered, quickly, &ldquo;only I must talk with you once more
+      alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish to hear my confession, Belita?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cease jesting now. I am no longer a child. My heart aches, and I must not
+      conceal the cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, speak! How you look! One might really be alarmed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I only can! No one here tells you the truth; but I&mdash;I love you;
+      so I will do it, ere it is too late. Don&rsquo;t interrupt me now, or I shall
+      lose courage, and I will, I must speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My studies lately have not pleased you; nor me either. Your father....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has led you in false paths, and now you are going to Italy, and when
+      you see what the greatest artists have created, you will wish to imitate
+      them immediately and forget Meister Moor&rsquo;s lessons. I know you, Ulrich, I
+      know it! But I also know something else, and it must now be said frankly.
+      If you allow yourself to be led on to paint pictures, if you do not submit
+      to again become a modest pupil, and honestly torment yourself with
+      studying, you will make no progress, you will never again accomplish a
+      portrait like the one in the old days, like your Sophonisba. You will then
+      be no great artist and you can, you must become one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, Belita, I will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well; but first be a pupil! If I were in your place, I would, for
+      aught I care, go to Venice and look about me, but from there I would ride
+      to Flanders, to Moor, to the master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give up Italy? Can you be in earnest? Your father, himself, told me, that
+      I... well, yes... in portrait-painting, he too thinks I am no blunderer.
+      Where do the Netherlanders go to learn anything new? To Italy, always to
+      Italy! What do they create in Flanders? Portraits, portraits, nothing
+      more. Moor is great, very great in this department, but I take a very
+      different view of art; it has higher aims. My head is full of plans. Wait,
+      only wait! In Italy I shall learn to fly, and when I have finished my Holy
+      Family and my Temple of Art, with all the skill I intend to attain....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, then, what will happen then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will perhaps change your opinion and cease your tutoring, once
+      for all. This fault-finding, this warning vexes me. It spoils my pleasure,
+      it clouds my fancy. You are poisoning my happiness, you&mdash;you... the
+      croaker&rsquo;s voice is disagreeable to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella sadly bent her head in silence. Ulrich approached her, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to wound you, Belita; indeed, I do not. You mean well, and
+      you love me, a poor forsaken fellow; do you not, little girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Ulrich, and that is just why I have told you what I think. You are
+      rejoicing now in the thought of Italy....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very, very much, unspeakably! There, too, I will remember you, and what a
+      dear, faithful, wise little creature you are. Let us part in friendship,
+      Isabella. Come with me; that would be the best way!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl flushed deeply, and made no answer except: &ldquo;How gladly I
+      would!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words sounded so affectionate and came so tenderly from the inmost
+      depths of the heart, that they entered his soul. And while she spoke, her
+      eyes gazed so faithfully, lovingly, and yearningly into his, that he saw
+      nothing else. He read in them love, true, self-sacrificing love; not like
+      pretty Carmen&rsquo;s or that given by the ladies, who had thrown flowers to him
+      from their balconies. His heart swelled, and when he saw how the flush on
+      Isabella&rsquo;s dear face deepened under his answering glance, unspeakable
+      gratitude and joy seized upon him, and he could not help clasping her in
+      his arms and drawing her into his embrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She permitted it, and when she looked up at him and her soft scarlet lips,
+      from which gleamed two rows of dazzling white teeth, bloomed temptingly
+      near him, he bent his, he knew not how, towards them. They kissed each
+      other again and again, and Isabella flung her little hands around his
+      neck, for she could not reach him with her arms, and said she had always
+      loved him; he assured her in an agitated voice that he believed it, and
+      that there was no better, sweeter, brighter creature on earth than she;
+      only he forgot to say that he loved her. She gave, he received, and it
+      seemed to him natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw and felt nothing except him and her happiness; he was wholly
+      absorbed by the bliss of being loved and the sweetness of her kiss; so
+      neither noticed that Coello had opened the door and watched them for a
+      minute, with mingled wrath and pleasure, irresolutely shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the court-artist&rsquo;s deep voice exclaimed loudly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, why, these are strange doings!&rdquo; they hastily started back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Startled, sobered, confused, Ulrich sought for words, and at last
+      stammered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have, we wanted... the farewell.... Coello found no time to interrupt
+      him, for his daughter had thrown herself on his breast, exclaiming amid
+      tears:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive us, father-forgive us; he loves me, and I, I love him so dearly,
+      and now that we belong to each other, I am no longer anxious about him, he
+      will not rest, and when he returns....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, enough!&rdquo; interrupted Coello, pressing his hand upon her mouth.
+      &ldquo;That is why a duenna is kept for the child; and this is my sensible
+      Belita! It is of no importance, that yonder youth has nothing, I myself
+      courted your mother with only three reales in my pocket, but he cannot yet
+      do any really good work, and that alters the case. It is not my way to dun
+      debtors, I have been in debt too often myself for that; but you,
+      Navarrete, have received many favors from me, when you were badly off, and
+      if you are not a scamp, leave the girl in peace and do not see her again
+      before your departure. When you have studied in Italy and become a real
+      artist, the rest will take care of itself. You are already a handsome,
+      well-formed fellow, and my race will not degenerate in you. There are very
+      different women in Italy, from this dear little creature here. Shut your
+      eyes, and beware of breaking her heart. Your promise! Your hand upon it!
+      In a year and a half from to-day come here again, show what you can do,
+      and stand the test. If you have become what I hope, I&rsquo;ll give her to you;
+      if not, you can quietly go your way. You will make no objection to this,
+      you silly little, love-sick thing. Go to your room now, Belita, and you,
+      Navarrete, come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich followed the artist to his chamber, where the latter opened a
+      chest, in which lay the gold he had earned. He did not know himself, how
+      much it was, for it was neither counted, nor entered in books. Grasping
+      the ducats, he gave Ulrich two handfuls, exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This one is for your work here, the other to relieve you from any care
+      concerning means of living, while pursuing your studies in Venice and
+      Florence. Don&rsquo;t make the child wretched, my lad; if you do, you will be a
+      contemptible, dishonorable rascal, a scoundrel, a... but you don&rsquo;t look
+      like a rogue!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a great deal of bustle in Coello&rsquo;s house that evening. The
+      artist&rsquo;s indolent wife was unusually animated. She could not control her
+      surprise and wrath. Isabella had been from childhood a great favorite of
+      Herrera, the first architect in Spain, who had already expressed his love
+      for the young girl, and now this vagabond pauper, this immature boy, had
+      come to destroy the prosperity of her child&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She upbraided Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and called
+      him a thoughtless booby. Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal out of
+      the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her poor,
+      dazzled, innocent daughter&rsquo;s husband. During the ensuing weeks, Senora
+      Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; but the
+      painter persisted in his resolution to give Isabella to Ulrich, if in a
+      year and a half he returned from Italy a skilful artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The admiral&rsquo;s ship, which bore King Philip&rsquo;s ambassador to Venice, reached
+      its destination safely, though it had encountered many severe storms on
+      the voyage, during which Ulrich was the only passenger, who amid the
+      rolling and pitching of the vessel, remained as well as an old sailor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, on the other hand his peace of mind was greatly impaired, and any one
+      who had watched him leaning over the ship&rsquo;s bulwark, gazing into the sea,
+      or pacing up and down with restless bearing and gloomy eyes, would
+      scarcely have suspected that this reserved, irritable youth, who was only
+      too often under the dominion of melancholy moods, had won only a short
+      time before a noble human heart, and was on the way to the realization of
+      his boldest dreams, the fulfilment of his most ardent wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How differently he had hoped to enter &ldquo;the Paradise of Art!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had he been so free, so vigorous, so rich, as in the dawn of the
+      day, at whose close he was to unite Isabella&rsquo;s life with his own&mdash;and
+      now&mdash;now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had expected to wander through Italy from place to place as
+      untrammelled, gay, and free as the birds in the air; he had desired to
+      see, admire, en joy, and after becoming familiar with all the great
+      artists, choose a new master among them. Sophonisba&rsquo;s home was to have
+      become his, and it had never entered his mind to limit the period of his
+      enjoyment and study on the sacred soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How differently his life must now be ordered! Until he went on board of
+      the ship in Valencia, the thought of calling a girl so good, sensible and
+      loving as Isabella his own, rejoiced and inspired him, but during the
+      solitary hours a sea-voyage so lavishly bestows, a strange transformation
+      in his feelings occurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wider became the watery expanse between him and Spain, the farther
+      receded Isabella&rsquo;s memory, the less alluring and delightful grew the
+      thought of possessing her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now told himself that, before the fatal hour, he had rejoiced at the
+      anticipation of escaping her pedantic criticism, and when he looked
+      forward to the future and saw himself, handsome Ulrich Navarrete, whose
+      superior height filled the smaller Castilians with envy, walking through
+      the streets with his tiny wife, and perceived the smiles of the people
+      they met, he was seized with fierce indignation against himself and his
+      hard fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt fettered like the galley-slaves, whose chains rattled and clanked,
+      as they pulled at the oars in the ship&rsquo;s waist. At other times he could
+      not help recalling her large, beautiful, love-beaming eyes, her soft, red
+      lips, and yearningly confess that it would have been sweet to hold her in
+      his arms and kiss her, and, since he had forever lost his Ruth, he could
+      find no more faithful, sensible, tender wife than she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what should he, the student, the wandering disciple of Art, do with a
+      bride, a wife? The best and fairest of her sex would now have seemed to
+      him an impediment, a wearisome clog. The thought of being obliged to
+      accomplish some fixed task within a certain time, and then be subjected to
+      an examination, curbed his enjoyment, oppressed, angered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey mists gathered more and more densely over the sunny land, for which
+      he had longed with such passionate ardor, and it seemed as if in that
+      luckless hour, he had been faithless to the &ldquo;word,&rdquo;&mdash;had deprived
+      himself of its assistance forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often felt tempted to send Coello his ducats and tell him he had been
+      hasty, and cherished no desire to wed his daughter; but perhaps that would
+      break the heart of the poor, dear little thing, who loved him so tenderly!
+      He would be no dishonorable ingrate, but bear the consequences of his own
+      recklessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps some miracle would happen in Italy, Art&rsquo;s own domain. Perhaps the
+      sublime goddess would again take him to her heart, and exert on him also
+      the power Sophonisba had so fervently praised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ambassador and his secretary, de Soto, thought Ulrich an unsocial
+      dreamer; but nevertheless, after they reached Venice, the latter invited
+      him to share his lodgings, for Don Juan had requested him to interest
+      himself in the young artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be the matter with the handsome fellow? The secretary tried to
+      question him, but Ulrich did not betray what troubled him, only alluding
+      in general terms to a great anxiety that burdened his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the time is now coming when the poorest of the poor, the most
+      miserable of all forsaken mortals, cast aside their griefs!&rdquo; cried de
+      Soto. &ldquo;Day after to morrow the joyous Carnival season will begin! Hold up
+      your head, young man! Cast your sorrows into the Grand Canal, and until
+      Ash-Wednesday, imagine that heaven has fallen upon earth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! blue sea, that washes the lagunes, oh! mast-thronged Lido, oh! palace
+      of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward gazing, mind,
+      oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold and paintings, oh!
+      ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble palaces, for which
+      the still surface of the placid water serves as a mirror, thou square of
+      St. Mark, where, clad in velvet, silk and gold, the richest and freest of
+      all races display their magnificence, with just pride! Thou harbor, thou
+      forest of masts, thou countless fleet of stately galleys, which bind one
+      quarter of the globe to another, inspiring terror, compelling obedience,
+      and gaining boundless treasures by peaceful voyages and with shining
+      blades. Oh! thou Rialto, where gold is stored, as wheat and rye are
+      elsewhere;&mdash;ye proud nobles, ye fair dames with luxuriant tresses,
+      whose raven hue pleases ye not, and which ye dye as bright golden as the
+      glittering zechins ye squander with such small, yet lavish hands! Oh!
+      Venice, Queen of the sea, mother of riches, throne of power, hall of fame,
+      temple of art, who could escape thy spell!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What wanton Spring is to the earth, thy carnival season is to thee! It
+      transforms the magnificence of color of the lagune-city into a dazzling
+      radiance, the smiles to Olympic laughter, the love-whispers to exultant
+      songs, the noisy, busy life of the mighty commercial city into a mad
+      whirlpool, which draws everything into its circle, and releases nothing it
+      has once seized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Soto urged and pushed the youth, who had already lost his mental
+      equipoise, into the midst of the gulf, ere he had found the right current.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the barges, amid the throngs in the streets, at banquets, in
+      ball-rooms, at the gaming-table, everywhere, the young, golden-haired,
+      superbly-dressed artist, who was on intimate terms with the Spanish king&rsquo;s
+      ambassador, attracted the attention of men, and the eyes, curiosity and
+      admiration of the women; though people as yet knew not whence he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He chose the tallest and most stately of the slender dames of Venice to
+      lead in the dance, or through the throng of masks and citizens intoxicated
+      with the mirth of the carnival. Whithersoever he led the fairest followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wished to enjoy the respite before execution. To forget&mdash;to forget&mdash;to
+      indemnify himself for future seasons of sacrifice, dulness, self-conquest,
+      torment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor little Isabella! Your lover sought to enjoy the sensation of showing
+      himself to the crowd with the stateliest woman in the company on his arm!
+      And you, Ulrich, how did you feel when people exclaimed behind you: &ldquo;A
+      splendid pair! Look at that couple!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid this ecstasy, he needed no helping word, neither &ldquo;fortune&rdquo; nor &ldquo;art;&rdquo;
+       without any magic spell he flew from pleasure to pleasure, through every
+      changing scene, thinking only of the present and asking no questions about
+      the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like one possessed he plunged into passion&rsquo;s wild whirl. From the embrace
+      of beautiful arms he rushed to the gaming-table, where the ducats he flung
+      down soon became a pile of gold; the zechins filled his purse to
+      overflowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The quickly-won treasure melted like snow in the sun, and returned again
+      like stray doves to their open cote.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The works of art were only enjoyed with drunken eyes&mdash;yet, once more
+      the gracious word exerted its wondrous power on the misguided youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Shrove-Tuesday, the ambassador took Ulrich to the great Titian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood face to face with the mighty monarch of colors, listened to
+      gracious words from his lips, and saw the nonogenarian, whose tall figure
+      was scarcely bowed, receive the king&rsquo;s gifts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never, never, to the close of his existence could he forget that face!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The features were as delicately and as clearly outlined, as if cut with an
+      engraver&rsquo;s chisel from hard metal; but pallid, bloodless, untinged by the
+      faintest trace of color. The long, silver-white beard of the tall
+      venerable painter flowed in thick waves over his breast, and the eyes,
+      with which he scanned Ulrich, were those of a vigorous, keen-sighted man.
+      His voice did not sound harsh, but sad and melancholy; deep sorrow
+      shadowed his glance, and stamped itself upon the mouth of him, whose thin,
+      aged hand still ensnared the senses easily and surely with gay symphonies
+      of color!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The youth answered the distinguished Master&rsquo;s questions with trembling
+      lips, and when Titian invited him to share his meal, and Ulrich, seated at
+      the lower end of the table in the brilliant banqueting-hall, was told by
+      his neighbors with what great men he was permitted to eat, he felt so
+      timid, small, and insignificant, that he scarcely ventured to touch the
+      goblets and delicious viands the servants offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked and listened; distinguishing his old master&rsquo;s name, and hearing
+      him praised without stint as a portrait-painter. He was questioned about
+      him, and gave confused answers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the guests rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The February sun was shining into the lofty window, where Titian seated
+      himself to talk more gaily than before with Paolo Cagliari, Veronese, and
+      other great artists and nobles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Ulrich heard Moor mentioned. Then the old man, from whom the youth
+      had not averted his eyes for an instant, beckoned, and Cagliari called
+      him, saying that he, the gallant Antonio Moor&rsquo;s pupil, must now show what
+      he could do; the Master, Titian, would give him a task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A shudder ran through his frame; cold drops of perspiration, extorted by
+      fear, stood on his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man now invited him to accompany his nephew to the studio.
+      Daylight would last an hour longer. He might paint a Jew; no usurer nor
+      dealer in clothes, but one of the noble race of prophets, disciples,
+      apostles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich stood before the easel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time after a long period he again called upon the &ldquo;word,&rdquo;
+       and did so fervently, with all his heart. His beloved dead, who in the
+      tumult of carnival mirth had vanished from his memory, again rose before
+      his mind, among them the doctor, who gazed rebukingly at him with his
+      clear, thoughtful eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like an inspiration a thought darted through the youth&rsquo;s brain. He could
+      and would paint Costa, his friend and teacher, Ruth&rsquo;s father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portrait he had drawn when a boy appeared before his memory, feature
+      for feature. A red pencil lay close at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sketching the outlines with a few hasty strokes, he seized the brush, and
+      while hurriedly guiding it and mixing the colors, he saw in fancy Costa
+      standing before him, asking him to paint his portrait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had never forgotten the mild expression of the eyes, the smile
+      hovering about the delicate lips, and now delineated them as well as he
+      could. The moments slipped by, and the portrait gained roundness and life.
+      The youth stepped back to see what it still needed, and once more called
+      upon the &ldquo;word&rdquo; from the inmost depths of his heart; at the same instant
+      the door opened, and leaning on a younger painter, Titian, with several
+      other artists, entered the studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at the picture, then at Ulrich, and said with an approving
+      smile: &ldquo;See, see! Not too much of the Jew, and a perfect apostle! A Paul,
+      or with longer hair and a little more youthful aspect, an admirable St.
+      John. Well done, well done! my son!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well done, well done! These words from Titian had ennobled his work; they
+      echoed loudly in his soul, and the measure of his bliss threatened to
+      overflow, when no less a personage than the famous Paolo Veronese, invited
+      him to come to his studio as a pupil on Saturday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enraptured, animated by fresh hope, he threw himself into his gondola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone had left the palace, where he lodged with de Soto. Who would
+      remain at home on the evening of Shrove-Tuesday?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lonely rooms grew too confined for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quiet days would begin early the next morning, and on Saturday a new,
+      fruitful life in the service of the only true word, Art, divine Art, would
+      commence for him. He would enjoy this one more evening of pleasure, this
+      night of joy; drain it to the dregs. He fancied he had won a right that
+      day to taste every bliss earth could give.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Torches, pitch-pans and lamps made the square of St. Mark&rsquo;s as bright as
+      day, and the maskers crowded upon its smooth pavement as if it were the
+      floor of an immense ball-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Intoxicating music, loud laughter, low, tender whispers, sweet odors from
+      the floating tresses of fair women bewildered Ulrich&rsquo;s senses, already
+      confused by success and joy. He boldly accosted every one, and if he
+      suspected that a fair face was concealed under a mask, drew nearer,
+      touched the strings of a lute, that hung by a purple ribbon round his
+      neck, and in the notes of a tender song besought love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many a wave of the fan rewarded, many an angry glance from men&rsquo;s dark eyes
+      rebuked the bold wooer. A magnificent woman of queenly height now passed,
+      leaning on the arm of a richly-dressed cavalier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was not that the fair Claudia, who a short time before had lost enormous
+      sums at the gaming-table in the name of the rich Grimani, and who had
+      invited Ulrich to visit her later, during Lent?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, he could not be mistaken, and now followed the pair like a shadow,
+      growing bolder and bolder the more angrily the cavalier rebuffed him with
+      wrathful glances and harsh words; for the lady did not cease to signify
+      that she recognized him and enjoyed his playing. But the nobleman was not
+      disposed to endure this offensive sport. Pausing in the middle of the
+      square, he released his arm with a contemptuous gesture, saying: &ldquo;The
+      lute-player, or I, my fair one; you can decide&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Venetian laughed loudly, laid her hand on Ulrich&rsquo;s arm and said: &ldquo;The
+      rest of the Shrove-Tuesday night shall be yours, my merry singer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich joined in her gayety, and taking the lute from his neck, offered it
+      to the cavalier, with a defiant gesture, exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s at your disposal, Mask; we have changed parts. But please hold it
+      firmer than you held your lady.&rdquo; High play went on in the gaming hall;
+      Claudia was lucky with the artist&rsquo;s gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At midnight the banker laid down the cards. It was Ash-Wednesday, the hall
+      must be cleared; the quiet Lenten season had begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players withdrew into the adjoining rooms, among them the much-envied
+      couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Claudia threw herself upon a couch; Ulrich left her to procure a gondola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he was gone, she was surrounded by a motley throng of suitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How the beautiful woman&rsquo;s dark eyes sparkled, how the gems on her full
+      neck and dazzling arms glittered, how readily she uttered a witty repartee
+      to each gay sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Claudia unaccompanied!&rdquo; cried a young noble. &ldquo;The strangest sight at this
+      remarkable carnival!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am fasting,&rdquo; she answered gaily; &ldquo;and now that I long for meagre food,
+      you come! What a lucky chance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavy Grimani has also become a very light man, with your assistance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why he flew away. Suppose you follow him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gladly, gladly, if you will accompany me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me to-day; there comes my knight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had remained absent a long time, but Claudia had not noticed it.
+      Now he bowed to the gentlemen, offered her his arm, and as they descended
+      the staircase, whispered: &ldquo;The mask who escorted you just now detained me;&mdash;and
+      there... see, they are picking him up down there in the court-yard.&mdash;He
+      attacked me....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have&mdash;you....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;They came to his assistance immediately. He barred my way with his
+      unsheathed blade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Claudia hastily drew her hand from the artist&rsquo;s arm, exclaiming in a low,
+      anxious tone: &ldquo;Go, go, unhappy man, whoever you may be! It was Luigi
+      Grimani; it was a Grimani! You are lost, if they find you. Go, if you love
+      your life, go at once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So ended the Shrove-Tuesday, which had begun so gloriously for the young
+      artist. Titian&rsquo;s &ldquo;well done&rdquo; no longer sounded cheerfully in his ears, the
+      &ldquo;go, go,&rdquo; of the venal woman echoed all the more loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Soto was waiting for him, to repeat to him the high praise he had heard
+      bestowed upon his art-test at Titian&rsquo;s; but Ulrich heard nothing, for he
+      gave the secretary no time to speak, and the latter could only echo the
+      beautiful Claudia&rsquo;s &ldquo;go, go!&rdquo; and then smooth the way for his flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the morning of Ash-Wednesday dawned cool and misty, Venice lay behind
+      the young artist. Unpursued, but without finding rest or satisfaction, he
+      went to Parma, Bologna, Pisa, Florence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grimani&rsquo;s death burdened his conscience but lightly. Duelling was a battle
+      in miniature, to kill one&rsquo;s foe no crime, but a victory. Far different
+      anxieties tortured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Venice, whither the &ldquo;word&rdquo; had led him, from which he had hoped and
+      expected everything, was lost to him, and with it Titian&rsquo;s favor and
+      Cagliari&rsquo;s instruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to doubt himself, his future, the sublime word and its magic
+      spell. The greater the works which the traveller&rsquo;s eyes beheld, the more
+      insignificant he felt, the more pitiful his own powers, his own skill
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Draw, draw!&rdquo; advised every master to whom he applied, as soon as he had
+      seen his work. The great men, to whom he offered himself as a pupil,
+      required years of persevering study. But his time was limited, for the
+      misguided youth&rsquo;s faithful German heart held firmly to one resolve; he
+      must present himself to Coello at the end of the appointed time. The
+      happiness of his life was forfeited, but no one should obtain the right to
+      call him faithless to his word, or a scoundrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Florence he heard Sebastiano Filippi&mdash;who had been a pupil of
+      Michael Angelo-praised as a good drawer; so he sought him in Ferrara and
+      found him ready to teach him what he still lacked. But the works of the
+      new master did not please him. The youth, accustomed to Moor&rsquo;s wonderful
+      clearness, Titian&rsquo;s brilliant hues, found Filippi&rsquo;s pictures indistinct,
+      as if veiled by grey mists. Yet he forced himself to remain with him for
+      months, for he was really remarkably skilful in drawing, and his studio
+      never lacked nude models; he needed them for the preliminary studies for
+      his &ldquo;Day of Judgment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without satisfaction, without pleasure in the wearisome work, without love
+      for the sickly master, who held aloof from any social intercourse with him
+      when the hours of labor were over, he felt discontented, bored,
+      disenchanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening he sought diversion at the gaming-table, and fortune
+      favored him here as it had done in Venice. His purse overflowed with
+      zechins; but with the red gold, Art withdrew from him her powerful ally,
+      necessity, the pressing need of gaining a livelihood by the exertion of
+      his own strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spent the hours appointed for study like a careless lover, and worked
+      without inclination, without pleasure, without ardor, yet with visible
+      increase of skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In gambling he forgot what tortured him, it stirred his blood, dispelled
+      weariness; the gold was nothing to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lion&rsquo;s share of his gains he loaned to broken gamblers, without
+      expectation of return, gave to starving artists, or flung with lavish hand
+      to beggars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the months in Ferrara glided by, and when the allotted time was over,
+      he took leave of Sebastiano Filippi without regret. He returned by sea to
+      Spain, and arrived in Madrid richer than he had gone away, but with
+      impoverished confidence in his own powers, and doubting the omnipotence of
+      Art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich again stood before the Alcazar, and recalled the hour when, a poor
+      lad, just escaped from prison, he had been harshly rebuffed by the same
+      porter, who now humbly saluted the young gentleman attired in costly
+      velvet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet how gladly he would have crossed this threshold poor as in those
+      days, but free and with a soul full of enthusiasm and hope; how joyfully
+      he would have effaced from his life the years that lay between that time
+      and the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dreaded meeting the Coellos; nothing but honor urged him to present
+      himself to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes&mdash;and if the old man rejected him?&mdash;so much the better!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old cheerful confusion reigned in the studio. He had a long time to
+      wait there, and then heard through several doors Senora Petra&rsquo;s scolding
+      voice and her husband&rsquo;s angry replies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Coello came to him and after greeting him, first formally, then
+      cordially, and enquiring about his health and experiences, he shrugged his
+      shoulders, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife does not wish you to see Isabella again before the trial. You
+      must show what you can do, of course; but I.... you look well and
+      apparently have collected reales. Or is it true,&rdquo; and he moved his hand as
+      if shaking a dice-box. &ldquo;He who wins is a good fellow, but we want no more
+      to do with such people here! You find me the same as of old, and you have
+      returned at the right time, that is something. De Soto has told me about
+      your quarrel in Venice. The great masters were pleased with you and this,
+      you Hotspur, you forfeited! Ferrara for Venice! A poor exchange. Filippi&mdash;understands
+      drawing; but otherwise.... Michael Angelo&rsquo;s pupil! Does he still write on
+      his back? Every monk is God&rsquo;s servant, but in how few does the Lord dwell!
+      What have you drawn with Sebastiano?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich answered these questions in a subdued tone; and Coello listened
+      with only partial attention, for he heard his wife telling the duenna
+      Catalina in an adjoining room what she thought of her husband&rsquo;s conduct.
+      She did so very loudly, for she wished to be overheard by him and Ulrich.
+      But she was not to obtain her purpose, for Coello suddenly interrupted the
+      returned travellers story, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is getting beyond endurance. If she does her utmost, you shall see
+      Isabella. A welcome, a grasp of the hand, nothing more. Poor young lovers!
+      If only it did not require such a confounded number of things to live....
+      Well, we will see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the artist had entered the adjoining room, a new and more
+      violent quarrel arose there, but, though Senora Petra finally called a
+      fainting-fit to her aid, her husband remained firm, and at last returned
+      to the studio with Isabella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had awaited her, as a criminal expects his sentence. Now she stood
+      before him led by her father&rsquo;s hand-and he, he struck his forehead with
+      his fist, closed his eyes and opened them again to look at her&mdash;to
+      gaze as if he beheld a wondrous apparition. Then feeling as if he should
+      die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew
+      not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save
+      &ldquo;I... I&mdash;I,&rdquo; then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a
+      madman:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know! I am not.... Give me time, master. Here, here, girl, you
+      must, you shall, all must not be over!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had opened his arms wide, and now hastily approached her with the eager
+      look of the gambler, who has staked his last penny on a card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello&rsquo;s daughter did not obey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was no longer little, unassuming Belita; here stood no child, but a
+      beautiful, blooming maiden. In eighteen months her figure had gained
+      height; anxious yearning and constant contention with her mother had
+      wasted her superabundance of flesh; her face had become oval, her bearing
+      self-possessed. Her large, clear eyes now showed their full beauty, her
+      half-developed features had acquired exquisite symmetry, and her
+      raven-black hair floated, like a shining ornament, around her pale,
+      charming face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy will be the man, who is permitted to call this woman his own!&rdquo;
+       cried a voice in the youth&rsquo;s breast, but another voice whispered &ldquo;Lost,
+      lost, forfeited, trifled away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Why did she not obey his call? Why did she not rush into his open arms?
+      Why, why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He clenched his fists, bit his lips, for she did not stir, except to press
+      closely to her father&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This handsome, splendidly-dressed gentleman, with the pointed beard,
+      deep-set eyes, and stern, gloomy gaze, was an entirely different person
+      from the gay enthusiastic follower of art, for whom her awakening heart
+      had first throbbed more quickly; this was not the future master, who stood
+      before her mind as a glorious favorite of fortune and the muse,
+      transfigured by joyous creation and lofty success&mdash;this defiant giant
+      did not look like an artist. No, no; yonder man no longer resembled the
+      Ulrich, to whom, in the happiest hour of her life, she had so willingly,
+      almost too willingly, offered her pure lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella&rsquo;s young heart contracted with a chill, yet she saw that he longed
+      for her; she knew, could not deny, that she had bound herself to him body
+      and soul, and yet&mdash;yet, she would so gladly have loved him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She strove to speak, but could find no words, save &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich,&rdquo; and
+      these did not sound gay and joyous, but confused and questioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello felt her fingers press his shoulder closer and closer. She was
+      surely seeking protection and aid from him, to keep her promise and resist
+      her lover&rsquo;s passionate appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now his darling&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears, and he felt the tremor of her
+      limbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Softened by affectionate weakness and no longer able to resist the impulse
+      to see his little Belita happy, he whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor thing, poor young lovers! Do as you choose, I won&rsquo;t look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Isabella did not leave him; she only drew herself up higher, summoned
+      all her courage and looking the returned traveller more steadily in the
+      face, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are so changed, so entirely changed, Ulrich I cannot tell what has
+      come over me. I have anticipated this hour day and night, and now it is
+      here;&mdash;what is this? What has placed itself between us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, indeed!&rdquo; he indignantly exclaimed, advancing towards her with a
+      threatening air. &ldquo;What? Surely you must know! Your mother has destroyed
+      your regard for the poor bungler. Here I stand! Have I kept my promise,
+      yes or no? Have I become a monster, a venomous serpent? Do not look at me
+      so again, do not! It will do no good; to you or me. I will not allow
+      myself to be trifled with!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had shouted these words, as if some great injustice had been done
+      him, and he believed himself in the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello tried to release himself from his daughter, to confront the
+      passionately excited man, but she held him back, and with a pale face and
+      trembling voice, but proud and resolute manner, answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one has trifled with you, I least of all; my love has been earnest,
+      sacred earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Earnest!&rdquo; interrupted Ulrich, with cutting irony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, sacred earnest;&mdash;and when my mother told me you had killed
+      a man and left Venice for a worthless woman&rsquo;s sake, when it was rumored,
+      that in Ferrara you had become a gambler, I thought: &lsquo;I know him better,
+      they are slandering him to destroy the love you bear in your heart.&rsquo; I did
+      not believe it; but now I do. I believe it, and shall do so, till you have
+      withstood your trial. For the gambler I am too good, to the artist
+      Navarrete I will joyfully keep my promise. Not a word, I will hear no
+      more. Come, father! If he loves me, he will understand how to win me. I am
+      afraid of this man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now knew who was in fault, and who in the right. Strong impulse
+      urged him away from the studio, away from Art and his betrothed bride; for
+      he had forfeited all the best things in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Coello barred his way. He was not the man, for the sake of a brawl and
+      luck at play, to break friendship with the faithful companion, who had
+      shown distinctly enough how fondly he loved his darling. He had hidden
+      behind these bushes himself in his youth, and yet become a skilful artist
+      and good husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He willingly yielded to his wife in small matters, in important ones he
+      meant to remain master of the house. Herrera was a great scholar and
+      artist, but an insignificant man; and he allowed himself to be paid like a
+      bungler. Ulrich&rsquo;s manly beauty had pleased him, and under his, Coello&rsquo;s
+      teaching, he would make his mark. He, the father knew better what suited
+      Isabella than she herself. Girls do not sob so bitterly as she had done,
+      as soon as the door of the studio closed behind her, unless they are in
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whence did she obtain this cool judgment? Certainly not from him, far less
+      from her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps she only wished to arouse Navarrete to do his best at the trial.
+      Coello smiled; it was in his power to judge mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he detained Ulrich with cheering words, and gave him a task in which he
+      could probably succeed. He was to paint a Madonna and Child, and two
+      months were allowed him for the work. There was a studio in the Casa del
+      Campo, he could paint there and need only promise never to visit the
+      Alcazar before the completion of the work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich consented. Isabella must be his. Scorn for scorn!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She should learn which was the stronger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew not whether he loved or hated her, but her resistance had
+      passionately inflamed his longing to call her his. He was determined, by
+      summoning all his powers, to create a masterpiece. What Titian had
+      approved must satisfy a Coello! so he began the task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strong impulse urged him to sketch boldly and without long
+      consideration, the picture of the Madonna, as it had once lived in his
+      soul, but he restrained himself, repeating the warning words which had so
+      often been dinned into his ears: Draw, draw!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A female model was soon found; but instead of trusting his eyes and boldly
+      reproducing what he beheld, he measured again and again, and effaced what
+      the red pencil had finished. While painting his courage rose, for the
+      hair, flesh, and dress seemed to him to become true to nature and
+      effective. But he, who in better times had bound himself heart and soul to
+      Art and served her with his whole soul, in this picture forced himself to
+      a method of work, against which his inmost heart rebelled. His model was
+      beautiful, but he could read nothing in the regular features, except that
+      they were fair, and the lifeless countenance became distasteful to him.
+      The boy too caused him great trouble, for he lacked appreciation of the
+      charm of childish innocence, the spell of childish character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime he felt great secret anxiety. The impulse that moved his brush
+      was no longer the divine pleasure in creation of former days, but dread of
+      failure, and ardent, daily increasing love for Isabella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weeks elapsed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich lived in the lonely little palace to which he had retired, avoiding
+      all society, toiling early and late with restless, joyless industry, at a
+      work which pleased him less with every new day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park. Once the Emperor&rsquo;s son
+      called to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its
+      omnipotence. The nearer the second month approached its close, the more
+      frequently, the more fervently he called upon the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; but it did not
+      hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek
+      brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield, and
+      to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole hours,
+      till the sacristan put out the lights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
+      humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
+      fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they were
+      actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the gentle,
+      tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted time,
+      a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted into his
+      brain like a revelation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been
+      fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
+      remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette&rsquo;s joyous expression, while
+      the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth of the
+      musician&rsquo;s daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin&rsquo;s lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
+      resembled his own!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
+      bright the painting seemed. He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
+      transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
+      Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams behind
+      the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the Handsome
+      nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother&rsquo;s lap to set him on their
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the &ldquo;joyous art,&rdquo; in whose honor
+      Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian&rsquo;s banquets, started up, drained a
+      glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window into the
+      canal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
+      against Isabella. She had led him back into the right path, and it would
+      be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
+      gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
+      Madonna was completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Spanish artist appeared at noon, but did not come alone, and the man,
+      who preceded him, was no less important a personage than the king himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With throbbing heart, unable to utter a single word, Ulrich opened the
+      door of the studio, bowing low before the monarch, who without vouchsafing
+      him a single glance, walked solemnly to the painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello drew aside the cloth that covered it, and the sarcastic chuckle
+      Ulrich had so often heard instantly echoed from the king&rsquo;s lips; then
+      turning to Coello he angrily exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the
+      young artist:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scandalous! Insulting, offensive botchwork! A Bacchante in the garb of a
+      Madonna! And the child! Look at those legs! When he grows up, he may
+      become a dancing-master. He who paints such Madonnas should drop his
+      colors! His place is the stable&mdash;among refractory horses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello could make no reply, but the king, glancing at the picture again,
+      cried wrathfully:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Christian&rsquo;s work, a Christian&rsquo;s! What does the reptile who painted this
+      know of the mother, the Virgin, the stainless lily, the thornless rose,
+      the path by which God came to men, the mother of sorrow, who bought the
+      world with her tears, as Christ did with His sacred blood. I have seen
+      enough, more than enough! Escovedo is waiting for me outside! We will
+      discuss the triumphal arch to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip left the studio, the court-artist accompanying him to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, the unhappy youth was still standing in the same place,
+      gazing, panting for breath, at his condemned work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; said Coello, compassionately, approaching him; but Ulrich
+      interrupted, gasping in broken accents:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, you? Your verdict!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other shrugged his shoulders and answered with sincere pity:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Majesty is not indulgent; but come here and look yourself. I will not
+      speak of the child, though it.... In God&rsquo;s name, let us leave it as it is.
+      The picture impresses me as it did the king, and the Madonna&mdash;I
+      grieve to say it, she belongs anywhere rather than in Heaven. How often
+      this subject is painted! If Meister Antonio, if Moor should see this....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, then?&rdquo; asked Ulrich, his eyes glowing with a gloomy fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would compel you to begin at the beginning once more. I am sincerely
+      sorry for you, and not less so for poor Belita. My wife will triumph! You
+      know I have always upheld your cause; but this luckless work....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough!&rdquo; interrupted the youth. Rushing to the picture, he thrust his
+      maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with kindly
+      words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all over with art, all over. A Dios, Master! Your daughter does not
+      care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do with each
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last held
+      out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured
+      in an agitated, trembling voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive this raving.... It is only.. I only feel, as if I was bearing all
+      that had been dear to me to the grave. Thanks, Master, thanks for many
+      kindnesses. I am, I have&mdash;my heart&mdash;my brain, everything is
+      confused. I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me and I,
+      I have&mdash;it will kill me yet! Good fortune gone! Art gone! A Dios,
+      treacherous world! A Dios, divine art!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist&rsquo;s grasp,
+      rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his lips to
+      the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture; then he
+      dashed past Coello into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
+      park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
+      She had stood there a long, long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father!&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
+      compassionately waving his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when the
+      artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark eyes,
+      which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and said in a
+      low, firm tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to speak to him. You will take me to the picture. I must see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has thrust his maul-stick through it. Believe me, child, you would
+      have condemned it yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, yet! I must see it,&rdquo; she answered earnestly, &ldquo;see it with these
+      eyes. I feel, I know&mdash;he is an artist. Wait, I&rsquo;ll get my mantilla.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabella hurried back with flying feet, and when a short time after,
+      wearing the black lace kerchief on her head, she descended the staircase
+      by her father&rsquo;s side, the private secretary de Soto came towards them,
+      exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to hear the latest news, Coello? Your pupil Navarrete has
+      become faithless to you and the noble art of painting. Don Juan gave him
+      the enlistment money fifteen minutes ago. Better be a good trooper, than a
+      mediocre artist! What is the matter, Senorita?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, nothing,&rdquo; Isabella murmured gently, and fell fainting on her
+      father&rsquo;s breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Two years had passed. A beautiful October day was dawning; no cloud dimmed
+      the azure sky, and the sun&rsquo;s disk rose, glowing crimson, behind the narrow
+      strait, that afforded ingress to the Gulf of Corinth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rippling waves of the placid sea, which here washed the sunny shores
+      of Hellas, yonder the shady coasts of the Peloponnesus, glittered like
+      fresh blooming blue-bottles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bare, parched rocks rise in naked beauty at the north of the bay, and the
+      rays of the young day-star shot golden threads through the light white
+      mists, that floated around them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coast of Morea faces the north; so dense shadows still rested on the
+      stony olive-groves and the dark foliage of the pink laurel and oleander
+      bushes, whose dense clumps followed the course of the stream and filled
+      the ravines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How still, how pleasant it usually was here in the early morning!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      White sea-gulls hovered peacefully over the waves, a fishing-boat or
+      galley glided gently along, making shining furrows in the blue mirror of
+      the water; but today the waves curled under the burden of countless ships,
+      to-day thousands of long oars lashed the sea, till the surges splashed
+      high in the air with a wailing, clashing sound. To-day there was a loud
+      clanking, rattling, roaring on both sides of the water-gate, which
+      afforded admittance to the Bay of Lepanto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roaring and shouting reverberated in mighty echoes from the bare
+      northern cliffs, but were subdued by the densely wooded southern shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two vast bodies of furious foes confronted each other like wrestlers, who
+      stretch their sinewy arms to grasp and hurl their opponents to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pope Pius the Fifth had summoned Christianity to resist the land-devouring
+      power of the Ottomans. Cyprus, Christian Cyprus, the last province Venice
+      possessed in the Levant, had fallen into the hands of the Moslems. Spain
+      and Venice had formed an alliance with Christ&rsquo;s vicegerent; Genoese, other
+      Italians, and the Knights of St. John were assembling in Messina to aid
+      the league.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The finest and largest Christian armada, which had left a Christian port
+      for a long time, put forth to sea from this harbor. In spite of all
+      intrigues, King Philip had entrusted the chief command to his young
+      half-brother, Don Juan of Austria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ottomans too had not been idle, and with twelve myriads of soldiers on
+      three hundred ships, awaited the foe in the Gulf of Lepanto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan made no delay. The Moslems had recently murdered thousands of
+      Christians at Cyprus, an outrage the fiery hero could not endure, so he
+      cast to the winds the warnings and letters of counsel from Madrid, which
+      sought to curb his impetuous energy, his troops, especially the Venetians,
+      were longing for vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Moslems were no less eager for the fray, and at the close of his
+      council-of-war, and contrary to its decision, Kapudan Pacha sailed to meet
+      the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of October 7th every ship, every man was ready for battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun appeared, and from the Spanish ships musical bell-notes rose
+      towards heaven, blending with the echoing chant: &ldquo;Allahu akbar, allahu
+      akbar, allahu akbar,&rdquo; and the devout words: &ldquo;There is no God save Allah,
+      and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah; to prayer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To prayer!&rdquo; The iron tongue of the bell uttered the summons, as well as
+      the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the worshippers
+      to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead of a ship. On
+      both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and Christians
+      thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One heard them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bells and chanting died away, and a swift galley with Don Juan on
+      board, moved from ship to ship. The young hero, holding a crucifix in his
+      hand, shouted encouraging words to the Christian soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blare of trumpets, roll of drums, and shouts of command echoed from
+      the rocky shores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The armada moved forward, the admiral&rsquo;s galley, with Don Juan, at its
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Turkish fleet advanced to meet it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lion no longer asked the wise counsel of the experienced
+      admiral. He desired nothing, thought of nothing, issued no orders, except
+      &ldquo;forward,&rdquo; &ldquo;attack,&rdquo; &ldquo;board,&rdquo; &ldquo;kill,&rdquo; &ldquo;sink,&rdquo; &ldquo;destroy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hostile fleets clashed into the fight as bulls, bellowing sullenly,
+      rush upon each other with lowered heads and bloodshot eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who, on this day of vengeance, thought of Marco Antonio Colonna&rsquo;s plan of
+      battle, or the wise counsels of Doria, Venieri, Giustiniani?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not the clear brain and keen eye&mdash;but manly courage and strength
+      would turn the scale to-day. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, had
+      joined his young uncle a short time before, and now commanded a squadron
+      of Genoese ships in the front. He was to keep back till Doria ordered him
+      to enter the battle. But Don Juan had already boarded the vessel commanded
+      by the Turkish admiral, scaled the deck, and with a heavy sword-stroke
+      felled Kapudan Pacha. Alexander witnessed the scene, his impetuous, heroic
+      courage bore him on, and he too ordered: &ldquo;Forward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the huge ship he was approaching? The silver crescent decked its
+      scarlet pennon, rows of cannon poured destruction from its sides, and its
+      lofty deck was doubly defended by bearded wearers of the turban.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the treasure-galley of the Ottoman fleet. It would be a gallant
+      achievement could the prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of the
+      foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of its
+      crew, than Farnese&rsquo;s vessel. What did he care, what recked he of the
+      shower of bullets and tar-hoops that awaited him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up and at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doria made warning signals, but the prince paid no heed, he would neither
+      see nor hear them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brave soldiers fell bleeding and gasping on the deck beside him, his mast
+      was split and came crashing down. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;ll follow me?&rdquo; he shouted, resting
+      his hand on the bulwark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tried Spanish warriors, with whom Don Juan had manned his vessel,
+      hesitated. Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging
+      over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the
+      tall youth&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one on board knew the fair-haired giant. It was the favorite of the
+      commander in chief&mdash;it was Navarrete, who in the war against the
+      Moors of Cadiz and Baza had performed many an envied deed of valor. His
+      arm seemed made of steel; he valued his life no more than one of the
+      plumes in his helmet, and risked it in battle as recklessly as he did his
+      zechins at the gaming-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, as well as there, he remained the winner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one knew exactly whence he came as he never mentioned his family, for
+      he was a reserved, unsocial man; but on the voyage to Lepanto he had
+      formed a friendship with a sick soldier, Don Miguel Cervantes. The latter
+      could tell marvellous tales, and had his own peculiar opinions about
+      everything between heaven and earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Navarrete, who carried his head as high as the proudest grandee, devoted
+      every leisure hour to his suffering comrade, uniting the affection of a
+      brother, with the duties of a servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was known that Navarrete had once been an artist, and he seemed one of
+      the most fervent of the devout Castilians, for he entered every church and
+      chapel the army passed, and remained standing a long, long time before
+      many a Madonna and altar-painting as if spellbound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the boldest dared not attack him, for death hovered over his sword,
+      yet his heart had not hardened. He gave winnings and booty with lavish
+      hand, and every beggar was sure of assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He avoided women, but sought the society of the sick and wounded, often
+      watching all night beside the couch of some sorely-injured comrade, and
+      this led to the rumor that he liked to witness death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, no! The heart of the proud, lonely man only sought a place where it
+      might be permitted to soften; the soldier, bereft of love, needed some
+      nook where he could exercise on others what was denied to himself:
+      &ldquo;devoted affection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexander Farnese recognized in Navarrete the horse-tamer of the picadero
+      in Madrid; he nodded approvingly to him, and mounted the bulwark. But the
+      other did not follow instantly, for his friend Don Miguel had joined him,
+      and asked to share the adventure. Navarrete and the captain strove to
+      dissuade the sick man, but the latter suddenly felt cured of his fever,
+      and with flashing eyes insisted on having his own way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich did not wait for the end of the dispute, for Farnese was now
+      springing into the hostile ship, and the former, with a bold leap,
+      followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexander, like himself, carried a two-Banded sword, and both swung them
+      as mowers do their scythes. They attacked, struck, felled, and the
+      foremost foes shrank from the grim destroyers. Mustapha Pacha, the
+      treasurer and captain of the galley, advanced in person to confront the
+      terrible Christians, and a sword-stroke from Alexander shattered the hand
+      that held the curved sabre, a second stretched the Moslem on the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Turks&rsquo; numbers were greatly superior and threatened to crush the
+      heroes, when Don Miguel Cervantes, Ulrich&rsquo;s friend, appeared with twelve
+      fresh soldiers on the scene of battle, and cut their way to the
+      hard-pressed champions. Other Spanish and Genoese warriors followed and
+      the fray became still more furious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had been forced far away from his royal companion-in-arms, and was
+      now swinging his blade beside his invalid friend. Don Miguel&rsquo;s breast was
+      already bleeding from two wounds, and he now fell by Ulrich&rsquo;s side; a
+      bullet had broken his left arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich stooped and raised him; his men surrounded him, and the Turks were
+      scattered, as the tempest sweeps clouds from the mountain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Miguel tried to lift the sword, which had dropped from his grasp, but
+      he only clutched the empty air, and raising his large eyes as if in
+      ecstasy, pressed his hand upon his bleeding breast, exclaiming
+      enthusiastically: &ldquo;Wounds are stars; they point the way to the heaven of
+      fame-of-fame....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His senses failed, and Ulrich bore him in his strong aims to a part of the
+      treasure-ship, which was held by Genoese soldiers. Then he rushed into the
+      fight again, while in his ears still rang his friend&rsquo;s fervid words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The heaven of fame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the last, the highest aim of man! Fame, yes surely fame was the
+      &ldquo;word&rdquo;; it should henceforth be his word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed as if a gloomy multitude of heavy thunderclouds had gathered
+      over the still, blue arm of the sea. The stifling smoke of powder darkened
+      the clear sky like black vapors, while flashes of lightning and peals of
+      thunder constantly illumined and shook the dusky atmosphere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a magazine flew through the air, there one ascended with a fierce
+      crash towards the sky. Wails of pain and shouts of victory, the blare of
+      trumpets, the crash of shattered ships and falling masts blended in
+      hellish uproar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun&rsquo;s light was obscured, but the gigantic frames of huge burning
+      galleys served for torches to light the combatants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When twilight closed in, the Christians had gained a decisive victory. Don
+      Juan had killed the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman force, Ali Pacha, as
+      Farnese hewed down the treasurer. Uncle and nephew emerged from the battle
+      as heroes worthy of renown, but the glory of this victory clung to Don
+      Juan&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnese&rsquo;s bold assault was kindly rebuked by the commander-in-chief, and
+      when the former praised Navarrete&rsquo;s heroic aid before Don Juan, the
+      general gave the bold warrior and gallant trooper, the honorable
+      commission of bearing tidings of the victory to the king. Two galleys
+      stood out to sea in a westerly direction at the same time: a Spanish one,
+      bearing Don Juan&rsquo;s messenger, and a Venetian ship, conveying the courier
+      of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rowers of both vessels had much difficulty in forcing a way through
+      the wreckage, broken masts and planks, the multitude of dead bodies and
+      net work of cordage, which covered the surface of the water; but even amid
+      these obstacles the race began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind and sea were equally favorable to both galleys; but the Venetians
+      outstripped the Spaniards and dropped anchor at Alicante twenty-four hours
+      before the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the rider&rsquo;s task, to make up for the time lost by the sailors. The
+      messenger of the Republic was far in advance of the general&rsquo;s. Everywhere
+      that Ulrich changed horses, displaying at short intervals the prophet&rsquo;s
+      banner, which he was to deliver to the king as the fairest trophy of
+      victory&mdash;it was inscribed with Allah&rsquo;s name twenty-eight thousand
+      nine hundred times&mdash;he met rejoicing throngs, processions, and festal
+      decorations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan&rsquo;s name echoed from the lips of men and women, girls and children.
+      This was fame, this was the omnipresence of a god; there could be no
+      higher aspiration for him, who had obtained such honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fame, fame! again echoed in Ulrich&rsquo;s soul; if there is a word, which
+      raises a man above himself and implants his own being in that of millions
+      of fellow-creatures, it is this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now he urged one steed after another until it broke down, giving
+      himself no rest even at night; half an hour&rsquo;s ride outside of Madrid he
+      overtook the Venetian, and passed by him with a courteous greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king was not in the capital, and he went on without delay to the
+      Escurial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Covered with dust, splashed from head to foot with mud, bruised, tortured
+      as if on the rack, he clung to the saddle, yet never ceased to use whip
+      and spur, and would trust his message to no other horseman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the barren peaks of the Guadarrama mountains lay close before him, now
+      he reached the first workshops, where iron was being forged for the
+      gigantic palace in process of building. How many chimneys smoked, how many
+      hands were toiling for this edifice, which was to comprise a royal
+      residence, a temple, a peerless library, a museum and a tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Numerous carts and sledges, on which blocks of light grey granite had been
+      drawn hither, barred his way. He rode around them at the peril of falling
+      with his horse over a precipice, and now found himself before a labyrinth
+      of scaffolds and free-stone, in the midst of a wild, grey, treeless
+      mountain valley. What kind of a man was this, who had chosen this desert
+      for his home, in life as well as in death! The Escurial suited King
+      Philip, as King Philip suited the Escurial. Here he felt most at ease,
+      from here the royal spider ceaselessly entangled the world in his skilful
+      nets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His majesty was attending vespers in the scarcely completed chapel. The
+      chief officer of the palace, Fray Antonio de Villacastin, seeing Ulrich
+      slip from his horse, hastened to receive the tottering soldier&rsquo;s tidings,
+      and led him to the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &lsquo;confiteor&rsquo; had just commenced, but Fray Antonio motioned to the
+      priests, who interrupted the Mass, and Ulrich, holding the prophet&rsquo;s
+      standard high aloft, exclaimed: &ldquo;An unparalleled victory!&mdash;Don Juan
+      ... October 7th...! at Lepanto&mdash;the Ottoman navy totally
+      destroyed...!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip heard this great news and saw the standard, but seemed to have
+      neither eyes nor ears; not a muscle in his face stirred, no movement
+      betrayed that anything was passing in his mind. Murmuring in a sarcastic,
+      rather than a joyous tone: &ldquo;Don Juan has dared much,&rdquo; he gave a sign,
+      without opening the letter, to continue the Mass, remaining on his knees
+      as if nothing had disturbed the sacred rite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exhausted messenger sank into a pew and did not wake from his stupor,
+      until the communion was over and the king had ordered a Te Deum for the
+      victory of Lepanto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he rose, and as he came out of the pew a newly-married couple passed
+      him, the architect, Herrera, and Isabella Coello, radiant in beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich clenched his fist, and the thought passed through his mind, that he
+      would cast away good-fortune, art and fame as carelessly as soap-bubbles,
+      if he could be in Herrera&rsquo;s place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      What fame is&mdash;Ulrich was to learn!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      He saw in Messina the hero of Lepanto revered as a god. Wherever the
+      victor appeared, fair hands strewed flowers in his path, balconies and
+      windows were decked with hangings, and exulting women and girls, joyous
+      children and grave men enthusiastically shouted his name and flung
+      laurel-wreaths and branches to him. Messages, congratulations and gifts
+      arrived from all the monarchs and great men of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he saw the wonderful youth dash by, Ulrich marvelled that his steed
+      did not put forth wings and soar away with him into the clouds. But he
+      too, Navarrete, had done his duty, and was to enjoy the sweetness of
+      renown. When he appeared on Don Juan&rsquo;s most refractory steed, among the
+      last of the victor&rsquo;s train, he felt that he was not overlooked, and often
+      heard people tell each other of his deeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made him raise his head, swelled his heart, urged him into new paths
+      of fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander-in-chief also longed to press forward, but found himself
+      condemned to inactivity, while he saw the league dissolve, and the fruit
+      of his victory wither. King Philip&rsquo;s petty jealousy opposed his wishes,
+      poisoned his hopes, and barred the realization of his dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan was satiated with fame. &ldquo;Power&rdquo; was the food for which he longed.
+      The busy spider in the Escurial could not deprive him of the laurel, but
+      his own &ldquo;word,&rdquo; his highest ambition in life, his power, he would consent
+      to share with no mortal man, not even his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Laurels are withering leaves, power is arable land,&rdquo; said Don Juan to
+      Escovedo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It befits an emperor&rsquo;s son, thought Ulrich, to cherish such lofty wishes;
+      to men of lower rank fame can remain the guiding star on life&rsquo;s pathway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elite of the army was in the Netherlands; there he could find what he
+      desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don Juan let him go, and when fame was the word, Ulrich had no cause to
+      complain of its ill-will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bore the standard of the proud &ldquo;Castilian&rdquo; regiment, and when strange
+      troops met him as he entered a city, one man whispered to another: &ldquo;That
+      is Navarrete, who was in the van at every assault on Haarlem, who, when
+      all fell back before Alkmaar, assailed the walls again, it was not his
+      fault that they were forced to retreat... he turned the scale with his men
+      on Mook-Heath... have you heard the story? How, when struck by two
+      bullets, he wrapped the banner around him, and fell with, and on it, upon
+      the grass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, when with the rebellious army he had left the island of Schouwen
+      behind him and was marching through Brabant, it was said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Navarrete! It was he, who led the way for the Spaniards with the standard
+      on his head, when they waded through the sea that stormy night, to
+      surprise Zierikzee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whoever bore arms in the Netherlands knew his name; but the citizens also
+      knew who he was, and clenched their fists when they spoke of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the battle-field, in the water, on the ice, in the breaches of their
+      firm walls, in burning cities, in streets and alleys, in council-chambers
+      and plundered homes, he had confronted them as a murderer and destroyer.
+      Yet, though the word fame had long been embittered to him, the inhumanity
+      which clung to his deeds had the least share in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the servant of his monarch, nothing more. All who bore the name of
+      Netherlander were to him rebels and heretics, condemned by God, sentenced
+      by his king; not worthy peasants, skilful, industrious citizens, noble
+      men, who were risking property and life for religion and liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This impish crew disdained to pray to the merciful mother of God and the
+      saints, these temple violators had robbed the churches of their statues,
+      driven the pious monks and nuns from their cloisters! They called the Pope
+      the Anti-Christ, and in every conquered city he found satirical songs and
+      jeering verses about his lord, the king, his generals and all Spaniards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had kept the faith of his childhood, which was shared by every one who
+      bore arms with him, and had easily obtained absolution, nay, encouragement
+      and praise, for the most terrible deeds of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In battle, in slaughter, when his wounds burned, in plundering, at the
+      gaming-table, everywhere he called upon the Holy Virgin, and also, but
+      very rarely, on the &ldquo;word,&rdquo; fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He no longer believed in it, for it did not realize what he had
+      anticipated. The laurel now rustled on his curls like withered leaves.
+      Fame would not fill the void in his heart, failed to satisfy his
+      discontented mind; power offered the lonely man no companionship of the
+      soul, it could not even silence the voice which upbraided him&mdash;the
+      unapproachable champion, him at whom no mortal dared to look askance&mdash;with
+      being a miserable fool, defrauded of true happiness and the right
+      ambition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This voice tortured him on the soft down beds in the town, on the straw in
+      the camp, over his wine and on the march.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet how many envied him. Ay! when he bore the standard at the head of the
+      regiment he marched like a victorious demi-god! No one else could support
+      so well as he the heavy pole, plated with gold, and the large embroidered
+      silken banner, which might have served as a sail for a stately ship; but
+      he held the staff with his right hand, as if the burden intrusted to him
+      was an easily-managed toy. Meantime, with inimitable solemnity, he threw
+      back the upper portion of the body and his curly head, placing his left
+      hand on his hip. The arch of the broad chest stood forth in fine relief,
+      and with it the breast-plate and points of his armor. He seemed like a
+      proud ship under swelling sails, and even in hostile cities, read
+      admiration in the glances of the gaping crowd. Yet he was a miserable,
+      discontented man, and could not help thinking more and more frequently of
+      Don Juan&rsquo;s &ldquo;word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He no longer trusted to the magic power of a word, as in former times.
+      Still, he told himself that the &ldquo;arable field&rdquo; of the emperor&rsquo;s son,
+      &ldquo;power,&rdquo; was some thing lofty and great-ay, the loftiest aim a man could
+      hope to attain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is not omnipotence God&rsquo;s first attribute? And now, on the march from
+      Schouwen through Brabant, power beckoned to him. He had already tasted it,
+      when the mutinous army to which he belonged attempted to pillage a smithy.
+      He had stepped before the spoilers and saved the artisan&rsquo;s life and
+      property. Whoever swung the hammer before the bellows was sacred to him;
+      he had formerly shared gains and booty with many a plundered member of his
+      father&rsquo;s craft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now carried a captain&rsquo;s staff, but this was mere mummery, child&rsquo;s play,
+      nothing more. A merry soldier&rsquo;s-cook wore a captain&rsquo;s plume on the side of
+      his tall hat. The field-officer, most of the captains and the lieutenants,
+      had retired after the great mutiny on the island of Schouwen was
+      accomplished, and their places were now occupied by ensigns, sergeants and
+      quartermasters. The higher officers had gone to Brussels, and the mutinous
+      army marched without any chief through Brabant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not received their well-earned pay for twenty-two months, and the
+      starving regiments now sought means of support wherever they could find
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years since, after the battle of Mook-Heath, the army had helped
+      itself, and at that time, as often happened on similar occasions, an
+      Eletto&mdash;[The chosen one. The Italian form is used, instead of the
+      Spanish &lsquo;electo&rsquo;.]&mdash;had been chosen from among the rebellious
+      subaltern officers. Ulrich had then been lying seriously wounded, but
+      after the end of the mutiny was told by many, that no other would have
+      been made Eletto had he only been well and present. Now an Eletto was
+      again to be chosen, and whoever was elected would have command of at least
+      three thousand men, and possibly more, as it was expected that other
+      regiments would join the insurrection. To command an army! This was power,
+      this was the highest attainment; it was worth risking life to obtain it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regiments pitched their camp at Herenthals, and here the election was
+      to be held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the arrangement of the tents, the distribution of the wagons which
+      surrounded the camp like a wall, the stationing of field-pieces at the
+      least protected places, Ulrich had the most authority, and while
+      exercising it forced himself, for the first time in his life, to appear
+      gentle and yielding, when he would far rather have uttered words of
+      command. He lived in a state of feverish excitement; sleep deserted his
+      couch, he imagined that every word he heard referred to himself and his
+      election.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these days he learned to smile when he was angry, to speak
+      pleasantly while curses were burning on his lips. He was careful not to
+      betray by look, word, or deed what was passing in his mind, as he feared
+      the ridicule that would ensue should he fail to achieve his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One more day, one more night, and perhaps he would be commander-in-chief,
+      able to conquer a kingdom and keep the world in terror. Perhaps, only
+      perhaps; for another was seeking with dangerous means to obtain control of
+      the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Sergeant-Major and Quartermaster Zorrillo, an excellent and
+      popular soldier, who had been chosen Eletto after the battle of
+      Mook-Heath, but voluntarily resigned his office at the first serious
+      opposition he encountered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was said that he had done this by his wife&rsquo;s counsel, and this woman
+      was Ulrich&rsquo;s most dangerous foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo belonged to another regiment, but Ulrich had long known him and
+      his companion, the &ldquo;campsibyl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wine was sold in the quartermaster&rsquo;s tent, which, before the outbreak of
+      the mutiny, had been the rendezvous of the officers and chaplains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sibyl entertained the officers with her gay conversation, while they
+      drank or sat at the gaining-table; she probably owed her name to the skill
+      she displayed in telling fortunes by cards. The common soldiers liked her
+      too, because she took care of their sick wives and children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Navarrete preferred to spend his time in his own regiment, so he did not
+      meet the Zorrillos often until the mutiny at Schouwen and on the march
+      through Brabant. He had never sought, and now avoided them; for he knew
+      the sibyl was leaving no means untried to secure her partner&rsquo;s election.
+      Therefore he disliked them; yet he could not help occasionally entering
+      their tent, for the leaders of the mutiny held their counsels there.
+      Zorrillo always received him courteously; but his companion gazed at him
+      so intently and searchingly, that an anxious feeling, very unusual to the
+      bold fellow, stole over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not help asking himself whether he had seen her before, and when
+      the thought that she perhaps resembled his mother, once entered his mind,
+      he angrily rejected it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day before she had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused
+      point-blank, for surely no good tidings could come to him from those lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day she had asked what his Christian name was, and for the first time
+      in years he remembered that he was also called &ldquo;Ulrich.&rdquo; Now he was
+      nothing but &ldquo;Navarrete,&rdquo; to himself and others. He lived solely for
+      himself, and the more reserved a man is, the more easily his Christian
+      name is lost to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As, years before, he had told the master that he was called nothing but
+      Ulrich, he now gave the harsh answer: &ldquo;I am Navarrete, that&rsquo;s enough!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening, the members of the mutiny met at the Zorrillos to hold a
+      council.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather outside was hot and sultry, and the more people assembled, the
+      heavier and more oppressive became the air within the spacious tent, the
+      interior of which looked plain enough, for its whole furniture consisted
+      of some small roughly-made tables, some benches and chairs, and one large
+      table, and a superb ebony chest with ivory ornaments, evidently stolen
+      property. On this work of art lay the pillows used at night, booty
+      obtained at Haarlem; they were covered with bright but worn-out silk,
+      which had long shown the need of the thrifty touch of a woman&rsquo;s hand.
+      Pictures of the saints were pasted on the walls, and a crucifix hung over
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the great table, between a basket and the wine cask, from which the
+      sibyl replenished the mugs, stood a high-backed chair. A coarse barmaid,
+      who had grown up in the camp, served the assembled men, but she had no
+      occasion to hurry, for the Spaniards were slow drinkers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guests sat, closely crowded together, in a circle, and seemed grave
+      and taciturn; but their words sounded passionate, imperious, defiant, and
+      the speakers often struck their coats of mail with their clenched fists,
+      or pounded on the floor with their swords.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there was any difference of opinion, the disputants flew into a furious
+      rage, and then a chorus of fierce, blustering voices rose like a tenfold
+      echo. It often seemed as if the next instant swords must fly from their
+      sheaths and a bloody brawl begin; but Zorrillo, who had been chosen to
+      preside over the meeting, only needed to raise his baton and command
+      order, to transform the roar into a low muttering; the weather-beaten,
+      scarred, pitiless soldiers, even when mutineers, yielded willing obedience
+      to the word of command and the iron constraint of discipline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the sea and at Schouwen their splendid costumes had obtained a beggarly
+      appearance. The velvet and brocade extorted from the rich citizens of
+      Antwerp, now hung tattered and faded around their sinewy limbs. They
+      looked like foot-pads, vagabonds, pirates, yet sat, as military custom
+      required, exactly in the order of their rank; on the march and in the
+      camp, every insurgent willingly obeyed the orders of the new leader, who
+      by the fortune of war had thrown pairs-royal on the drumhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing was certain: some decisive action must be taken. Every one
+      needed doublets and shoes, money and good lodgings. But in what way could
+      these be most easily procured? By parleying and submitting on acceptable
+      conditions, said some; by remaining free and capturing a city, roared
+      others; first wealthy Mechlin, which could be speedily reached. There they
+      could get what they wanted without money. Zorrillo counselled prudent
+      conduct; Navarrete impetuously advised bold action. They, the insurgents,
+      he cried, were stronger than any other military force in the Netherlands,
+      and need fear no one. If they begged and entreated they would be dismissed
+      with copper coins; but if they enforced their demands they would become
+      rich and prosperous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With flashing eyes he extolled what the troops, and he himself had done;
+      he enlarged upon the hardships they had borne, the victories won for the
+      king. He asked nothing but good pay for blood and toil, good pay, not
+      coppers and worthless promises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud shouts of approval followed his speech, and a gunner, who now held
+      the rank of captain, exclaimed enthusiastically:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Navarrete, the hero of Lepanto and Haarlem, is right! I know whom I will
+      choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Victor, victor Navarrete!&rdquo; echoed from many a bearded lilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Zorrillo interrupted these declarations, exclaiming, not without
+      dignity, while raising his baton still higher. &ldquo;The election will take
+      place to-morrow, gentlemen; we are holding a council to-day. It is very
+      warm in here; I feel it as much as you do. But before we separate, listen
+      a few minutes to a man, who means well.&rdquo; Zorrillo now explained all the
+      reasons, which induced him to counsel negotiations and a friendly
+      agreement with the commander-in-chief. There was sound, statesmanlike
+      logic in his words, yet his language did not lack warmth and charm. The
+      men perceived that he was in earnest, and while he spoke the sibyl went
+      behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and wiped the perspiration from
+      his brow with her handkerchief. Zorrillo permitted it, and without
+      interrupting himself, gave her a grateful, affectionate glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bronzed warriors liked to look at her, and even permitted her to utter
+      a word of advice or warning during their discussions, for she was a wise
+      woman, not one of the ordinary stamp. Her blue eyes sparkled with
+      intelligence and mirth, her full lips seemed formed for quick, gay
+      repartee, she was always kind and cheer ful in her manner even to the most
+      insignificant. But whence came the deep lines about her red mouth and the
+      outer corners of her eyes? She covered them with rouge every day, to
+      conceal the evidence of the sorrowful hours she spent when alone? The
+      lines were well disguised, yet they increased, and year by year grew
+      deeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No wrinkle had yet dared to appear on the narrow forehead; and the
+      delicate features, dazzlingly-white teeth, girlish figure, and winning
+      smile lent this woman a youthful aspect. She might be thirty, or perhaps
+      even past forty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pleasure made her younger by ten summers, a vexation transformed her
+      into a matron. The snow white hair, carefully arranged on her forehead,
+      seemed to indicate somewhat advanced age; but it was known that it had
+      turned grey in a few days and nights, eight years before, when a
+      discontented blackguard stabbed the quartermaster, and he lay for weeks at
+      the point of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This white hair harmonized admirably with the red cheeks of the
+      camp-sibyl, who appreciating the fact, did not dye it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During Zorrillo&rsquo;s speech her eyes more than once rested on Ulrich with a
+      strangely intense expression. As soon as he paused, she went back again
+      behind the table to the crying child, to cradle it in her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo&mdash;perceiving that a new and violent argument was about to
+      break forth among the men&mdash;closed the meeting. Before adjourning,
+      however, it was unanimously decided that the election should be held on
+      the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the soldiers noisily rose, some shaking hands with Zorrillo, some
+      with Navarrete, the stately sergeant-major of a German lansquenet troop,
+      which was stationed in Antwerp, and did not belong to the insurgents,
+      entered the wide open door of the tent. His dress was gay and in good
+      order; a fine Dalmatian dog followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thunder-storm had begun, and it was raining violently. Some of the
+      Spaniards were twisting their rosaries, and repeating prayers, but neither
+      thunder, lightning, nor water seemed to have destroyed the German&rsquo;s good
+      temper, for he shook the drops from his plumed hat with a merry &ldquo;phew,&rdquo;
+       gaily introducing himself to his comrades as an envoy from the Pollviller
+      regiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His companions, he said, were not disinclined to join the &ldquo;free army&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      had come to ask how the masters of Schouwen fared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo offered the sergeant-major a chair, and after the latter had
+      raised and emptied two beakers from the barmaid&rsquo;s pewter waiter in quick
+      succession, he glanced around the circle of his rebel comrades. Some he
+      had met before in various countries, and shook hands with them. Then he
+      fixed his eyes on Ulrich, pondering where and under what standard he had
+      seen this magnificent, fair-haired warrior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Navarrete recognizing the merry lansquenet, Hans Eitelfritz of Colln on
+      the Spree, held out his hand, and cried in the Spanish language, which the
+      lansquenet had also used:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are Hans Eitelfritz! Do you remember Christmas in the Black Forest,
+      Master Moor, and the Alcazar in Madrid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich, young Master Ulrich! Heavens and earth!&rdquo; cried Eitelfritz;&mdash;but
+      suddenly interrupted himself; for the sibyl, who had risen from the table
+      to bring the envoy, with her own hands, a larger goblet of wine, dropped
+      the beaker close beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo and he hastily sprung to support the tottering woman, who was
+      almost fainting. But she recovered herself, waving them back with a mute
+      gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All eyes were fixed upon her, and every one was startled; for she stood as
+      if benumbed, her bright, youthful face had suddenly become aged and
+      haggard. &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo; asked Zorrillo anxiously. Recovering her
+      self-control, she answered hastily &ldquo;The thunder, the storm....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, with short, light steps, she went back to the table, and as she
+      resumed her seat the bell for evening prayers was heard outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most of the company rose to obey the summons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye till to-morrow morning, Sergeant! The election will take place
+      early to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Dios, a Dios, hasta mas ver, Sibila, a Dios!&rdquo; was loudly shouted, and
+      soon most of the guests had left the tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who remained behind were scattered among the different tables.
+      Ulrich sat at one alone with Hans Eitelfritz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lansquenet had declined Zorrillo&rsquo;s invitation to join him; an old
+      friend from Madrid was present, with whom he wished to talk over happier
+      days. The other willingly assented; for what he had intended to say to his
+      companions was against Ulrich and his views. The longer the sergeant-major
+      detained him the better. Everything that recalled Master Moor was dear to
+      Ulrich, and as soon as he was alone with Hans Eitelfritz, he again greeted
+      him in a strange mixture of Spanish and German. He had forgotten his home,
+      but still retained a partial recollection of his native language. Every
+      one supposed him to be a Spaniard, and he himself felt as if he were one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz had much to tell Ulrich; he had often met Moor in Antwerp,
+      and been kindly received in his studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What pleasure it afforded Navarrete to hear from the noble artist, how he
+      enjoyed being able to speak German again after so many years, difficult as
+      it was. It seemed as if a crust melted away from his heart, and none of
+      those present had ever seen him so gay, so full of youthful vivacity. Only
+      one person knew that he could laugh and play noisily, and this one was the
+      beautiful woman at the long table, who knew not whether she should die of
+      joy, or sink into the earth with shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had taken the year old infant from the basket. It was a pale, puny
+      little creature, whose father had fallen in battle, and whose mother had
+      deserted it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handsome standard-bearer yonder was called Ulrich! He must be her son!
+      Alas, and she could only cast stolen glances at him, listen by stealth to
+      the German words that fell from the beloved lips. Nothing escaped her
+      notice, yet while looking and listening, her thoughts wandered to a far
+      distant country, long vanished days; beside the bearded giant she saw a
+      beautiful, curly-haired child; besides the man&rsquo;s deep voice she heard
+      clear, sweet childish tones, that called her &ldquo;mother&rdquo; and rang out in
+      joyous, silvery laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale child in her arms often raised its little hand to its cheek,
+      which was wet with the tears of the woman; who tended it. How hard, how
+      unspeakably, terribly hard it was for this woman, with the youthful face
+      and white locks, to remain quiet! How she longed to start up and call
+      joyously to the child, the man, her lover&rsquo;s enemy, but her own, own
+      Ulrich:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at me, look at me! I am your mother. You are mine! Come, come to my
+      heart! I will never leave you more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now laughed heartily again, not suspecting what was passing in a
+      mother&rsquo;s heart, close beside him; he had no eyes for her, and only
+      listened to the jests of the German lansquenet, with whom he drained
+      beaker after beaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strange child served as a shield to protect the camp-sibyl from her
+      son&rsquo;s eyes, and also to conceal from him that she was watching, listening,
+      weeping. Eitelfritz talked most and made one joke after another; but she
+      did not laugh, and only wished he would stop and let Ulrich speak, that
+      she might be permitted to hear his voice again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle,&rdquo; cried Hans
+      Eitelfritz. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll get his feet wet on the damp floor&mdash;for the rain
+      is trickling in&mdash;and take cold. This choice fellow isn&rsquo;t like
+      ordinary dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call the tiger Lelaps?&rdquo; asked Ulrich. &ldquo;An odd name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg, in
+      exchange for an elephant&rsquo;s tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes his
+      name to the merry rogue. I tell you, he&rsquo;s wiser than many learned men; he
+      ought to be called Doctor Lelaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a pretty creature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty! More, far more! For instance, at Naples we had the famous
+      Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager conversation,
+      I forgot him. What did my Lelaps do? He slipped quietly into the garden,
+      returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth, and offered it to
+      me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one. That meant: dogs
+      liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him. What do you say to
+      that show of sense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog&rsquo;s sagacity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this
+      true story?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and
+      faithfully trusts good-fortune&mdash;your good fortune&mdash;is
+      ill-advised. Have you composed any new songs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;That is all over now!&rdquo; sighed the trooper. &ldquo;See this scar! Since an
+      infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses; yet
+      it hasn&rsquo;t grown quiet in my upper story on that account. I lie now,
+      instead of composing. My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash, when
+      I pour it forth at the tavern.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the broken skull: is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here! It&rsquo;s the actual truth. It was a bad blow, but there&rsquo;s a grain
+      of good in everything evil. For instance, we were in the African desert
+      just dying of thirst, for that belongs to the desert as much as the dot
+      does to the letter i. Lelaps yonder was with me, and scented a spring.
+      Then it was necessary to dig, but I had neither spade nor hatchet, so I
+      took out the loose part of the skull, it was a hard piece of bone, and dug
+      with it till the water gushed out of the sand, then I drank out of my
+      brain-pan as if it were a goblet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man, man!&rdquo; exclaimed Ulrich, striking his clenched fist on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose a dog can&rsquo;t scent a spring?&rdquo; asked Eitelfritz, with
+      comical wrath. &ldquo;Lelaps here was born in Africa, the native land of tigers,
+      and his mother....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you got him in Tubingen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said just now that I tell lies. I imposed upon you, when I made you
+      think Lelaps came from Swabia; he was really born in the desert, where the
+      tigers live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No offence, Herr Ulrich! We&rsquo;ll keep our jests for another evening. As
+      soon as I&rsquo;m knocked down, I stop my nonsense. Now tell me, where shall I
+      find Navarrete, the standard-bearer, the hero of Lepanto and Schouwen? He
+      must be a bold fellow; they say Zorrillo and he....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lansquenet had spoken loudly; the quartermaster, who caught the name
+      Navarrete, turned, and his eyes met Ulrich&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must be on his guard against this man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instant Zorrillo recognized him as a German, he would hold a powerful
+      weapon. The Spaniards would give the command only to a Spaniard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This thought now occurred to him for the first time. It had needed the
+      meeting with Hans Eitelfritz, to remind him that he belonged to a
+      different nation from his comrades. Here was a danger to be encountered,
+      so with the rapid decision, acquired in the school of war, he laid his
+      hand heavily on his countryman&rsquo;s, saying in a low, impressive tone: &ldquo;You
+      are my friend, Hans Eitelfritz, and have no wish to injure me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zounds, no! What&rsquo;s up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, keep to yourself where and how we first met each other. Don&rsquo;t
+      interrupt me. I&rsquo;ll tell you later in my tent, where you must take up your
+      quarters, how I gained my name, and what I have experienced in life. Don&rsquo;t
+      show your surprise, and keep calm. I, Ulrich, the boy from the Black
+      Forest, am the man you seek, I am Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; asked the lansquenet, opening his eyes in amazement. &ldquo;Nonsense!
+      You&rsquo;re paying me off for the yarns I told you just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, Hans Eitelfritz, no! I am not jesting, I mean it. I am Navarrete! Nay
+      more! If you keep your mouth shut, and the devil doesn&rsquo;t put his finger
+      into the pie, I think, spite of all the Zorrillos, I shall be Eletto
+      to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the Spanish temper! The German Ulrich will be a very different
+      person to them from the Castilian Navarrete. It is in your power to spoil
+      my chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other interrupted him by a peal of loud, joyous laughter, then shouted
+      to the dog: &ldquo;Up, Lelaps! My respects to Caballero Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Spaniards frowned, for they thought the German was drunk, but Hans
+      Eitelfritz needed more liquor than that to upset his sobriety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flashing a mischievous glance at Ulrich from his bright eyes, he
+      whispered: &ldquo;If necessary, I too can be silent. You man without a country!
+      You soldier of fortune! A Swabian the commander of these stiffnecked
+      braggarts. Now see how I&rsquo;ll help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean to do?&rdquo; asked Ulrich; but Hans Eitelfritz had already
+      raised the huge goblet, banging it down again so violently that the table
+      shook. Then he struck the top with his clenched fist, and when the
+      Spaniards fixed their eyes on him, shouted in their language: &ldquo;Yes,
+      indeed, it was delightful in those days, Caballero Navarrete. Your uncle,
+      the noble Conde in what&rsquo;s its name, that place in Castile, you know, and
+      the Condesa and Condesilla. Splendid people! Do you remember the
+      coal-black horses with snow-white tails in your father&rsquo;s stable, and the
+      old servant Enrique. There wasn&rsquo;t a longer nose than his in all Castile!
+      Once, when I was in Burgos, I saw a queer, longish shadow coming round a
+      street corner, and two minutes after, first a nose and then old Enrique
+      appeared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; replied Ulrich, guessing the lansquenet&rsquo;s purpose. &ldquo;But it has
+      grown late while we&rsquo;ve been gossiping; let us go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman at the table had not heard the whispers exchanged between the
+      two men; but she guessed the object of the lansquenet&rsquo;s loud words. As the
+      latter slowly rose, she laid the child in the basket, drew a long breath,
+      pressed her fingers tightly upon her eyes for a short time, and then went
+      directly up to her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette did not know herself, whether she owed the name of sibyl to her
+      skill in telling fortunes by cards, or to her wise counsel. Twelve years
+      before, while still sharing the tent of the Walloon captain Grandgagnage,
+      it had been given her, she could not say how or by whom. The
+      fortune-telling she had learned from a sea-captain&rsquo;s widow, with whom she
+      had lodged a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When her voice grew sharp and weaker, in order to retain consideration and
+      make herself important, she devoted herself to predicting the future; her
+      versatile mind, her ambition, and the knowledge of human-nature gained in
+      the camp and during her wanderings from land to land, aided her to acquire
+      remarkable skill in this strange pursuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Officers of the highest rank had sat opposite to her cards, listening to
+      her oracular sayings, and Zorrillo, the man who had now been her lover for
+      ten years, owed it to her influence, that he did not lose his position as
+      quartermaster after the last mutiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz had heard of her skill and when, as he was leaving, she
+      approached and offered to question the cards for him, he would not allow
+      Ulrich to prevent him from casting a glance into the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole, what was predicted to him sounded favorable, but the
+      prophetess did not keep entirely to the point, for in turning the cards
+      she found much to say to Ulrich, and once, pointing to the red and green
+      knaves, remarked thoughtfully: &ldquo;That is you, Navarrete; that is this
+      gentleman. You must have met each other on some Christmas day, and not
+      here, but in Germany; if I see rightly, in Swabia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had just overheard all this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a shudder ran through Ulrich&rsquo;s frame when he heard it, and this woman,
+      whose questioning glance had always disturbed him, now inspired him with a
+      mysterious dread, which he could not control. He rose to withdraw; but she
+      detained him, saying: &ldquo;Now it is your turn, Captain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some other time,&rdquo; replied Ulrich, repellently. &ldquo;Good fortune always comes
+      in good time, and to know ill-luck in advance, is a misfortune I should
+      think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can read the past, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich started. He must learn what his rival&rsquo;s companion knew of his
+      former life, so he answered quickly, &ldquo;Well, for aught I care, begin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the
+      questioner. Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of an
+      hour, Sergeant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t believe everything she tells you, and don&rsquo;t look too deep into her
+      eyes. Come, Lelaps, my son!&rdquo; cried the lansquenet, and did as he was
+      requested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich
+      thought: &ldquo;Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do
+      everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto&rsquo;s baton.
+      That&rsquo;s the way blockheads are caught. We will keep to the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the
+      last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying
+      to meet his glance, asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shall we begin? Do you still remember your childhood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen him for a long time. Don&rsquo;t the cards tell you, that he is
+      dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead, dead:&mdash;of course he&rsquo;s dead. You had a mother too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with
+      this woman about his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank back a little, and said sadly: &ldquo;That sounds very harsh. Do you
+      no longer like to think of your mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, what concerns my mother is... I will&mdash;is too good for juggling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank. Then
+      she silently laid down the last cards, and asked: &ldquo;Do you want to hear
+      anything about a sweetheart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have none. But how you look at me! Have you grown tired of Zorrillo? I
+      am ill-suited for a gallant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shuddered slightly. Her bright face had again grown old, so old and
+      weary that he pitied her. But she soon regained her composure, and
+      continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying? Ask the questions yourself now, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my native place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wooded, mountainous region in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, ha! and what do you know of my father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look like him, there is an astonishing resemblance in the forehead
+      and eyes; his voice, too, was exactly like yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chip of the old block.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well. I see Adam before me....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adam?&rdquo; asked Ulrich, and the blood left his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, his name was Adam,&rdquo; she continued more boldly, with increasing
+      vivacity: &ldquo;there he stands. He wears a smith&rsquo;s apron, a small leather cap
+      rests on his fair hair. Auriculas and balsams stand in the bow-window. A
+      roan horse is being shod in the market-place below.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier&rsquo;s head swam, the happiest period of his childhood, which he
+      had not recalled for a long time, again rose before his memory; he saw his
+      father stand before him, and the woman, the sibyl yonder, had the eyes and
+      mouth, not of his mother, but of the Madonna he had destroyed with his
+      maul-stick. Scarcely able to control himself, he grasped her hand,
+      pressing it violently, and asked in German:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is my name? And what did my mother call me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her eyes as if in shame, and whispered softly in German:
+      &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich, my darling, my little boy, my lamb, Ulrich&mdash;my
+      child! Condemn me, desert me, curse me, but call me once more &lsquo;my
+      mother.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother,&rdquo; he said gently, covering his face with his hands&mdash;but
+      she started up, hurried back to the pale baby in the cradle, and pressing
+      her face upon the little one&rsquo;s breast, moaned and wept bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, Zorrillo had not averted his eyes from Navarrete and his
+      companion. What could have passed between the two, what ailed the man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rising slowly, he approached the basket before which the sibyl was
+      kneeling, and asked anxiously: &ldquo;What was it, Flora?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her face closer to the weeping child, that he might not see
+      her tears, and answered quickly &ldquo;I predicted things, things... go, I will
+      tell you about it later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was satisfied with this answer, but she was now obliged to join the
+      Spaniards, and Ulrich took leave of her with a silent salutation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Spanish nature is contagious, thought Hans Eitelfritz, tossing on his
+      couch in Ulrich&rsquo;s tent. What a queer fellow the gay young lad has become!
+      Sighs are cheap with him, and every word costs a ducat. He is worthy all
+      honor as a soldier. If they make him Eletto, it will be worth while to
+      join the free army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had briefly told the lansquenet, how he had obtained the name of
+      Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the Netherlands.
+      Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had found his mother again. He now possessed the best gift Ruth had
+      asked him to beseech of the &ldquo;word.&rdquo; The soldier&rsquo;s sweetheart, the
+      faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
+      avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
+      him birth. He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
+      hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child of
+      one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her finger.
+      All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely enough, they
+      melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the feeling of joy
+      that he had his mother again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo&rsquo;s tent, but framed by
+      balsams and wall-flowers. His vivid imagination made her twenty years
+      younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
+      and smile. Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl&rsquo;s beauty,
+      good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came back freshly
+      to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw himself on her
+      bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the sweet, pet names,
+      which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel the caress of her soft
+      hands. How rich the solitary man felt, how surpassingly rich! He had been
+      entirely alone, deserted even by his mother! Now he was so no longer, and
+      pleasant dreams blended with his ambitious plans, like golden threads in
+      dark cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
+      his share of the booty. She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow. The
+      little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and when
+      his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there with her,
+      recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care for her, make
+      her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the full the
+      happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother&rsquo;s heart his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer. Suddenly there was a
+      rustling at the tent-door. He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
+      raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: &ldquo;Ulrich,
+      Ulrich, it is I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
+      her in his arms, and let her stroke his curls, kiss his cheeks and eyes,
+      as in the old happy days. Then he drew her into the tent, whispering
+      &ldquo;Softly, softly, the snorer yonder is the German.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed him, leaned against him, and raised his hand to her lips; he
+      felt them grow wet with tears. They had not yet said anything to each
+      other, except how happy, how glad, how thankful they were to have each
+      other again; then a sentinel passed, and she started up, exclaiming
+      anxiously: &ldquo;So late, so late; Zorrillo will be waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zorrillo!&rdquo; cried Ulrich scornfully, &ldquo;you have been a long time with him.
+      If they give me the power....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will choose you, child, they shall choose you,&rdquo; she hastily
+      interrupted. &ldquo;Oh, God! oh, God! perhaps this will bring you misfortune
+      instead of blessing; but you desire it! Count Mannsfeld is coming
+      tomorrow; Zorrillo knows it. He will bring a pardon for all; promotions
+      too, but no money yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, ho!&rdquo; cried Ulrich, &ldquo;that may decide the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so, you deserve to command them. You were born for some special
+      purpose, and your card always turns up so strangely. Eletto! It sounds
+      proud and grand, but many have been ruined by it....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because power was too hard for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must serve you. You are strong. A child of good fortune. Folly! I will
+      not fear. You have probably fared well in life. Ah, my lamb, I have done
+      little for you, but one thing I did unceasingly: I prayed for you, poor
+      boy, morning and night; have you noticed, have you felt it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew her to his heart again, but she released herself from his embrace,
+      saying: &ldquo;To-morrow, Ulrich; Zorrillo....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zorrillo, always Zorrillo,&rdquo; he repeated, his blood boiling angrily. &ldquo;You
+      are mine and, if you love me, you will leave him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot, Ulrich, it will not do. He is kind, you will yet be friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We, we? On the day of judgment, nay, not even then! Are you more firmly
+      bound to yon smooth fellow, than to my honest father? There stands
+      something in the darkness, it is good steel, and if needful will cut the
+      tie asunder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich!&rdquo; wailed Flora, raising her hands beseechingly. &ldquo;Not that,
+      not that; it must not be. He is kind and sensible, and loves me fondly.
+      Oh, Heaven! Oh, Ulrich! The mother has glided to her son at night, as if
+      she were following forbidden paths. Oh, this is indeed a punishment. I
+      know how heavily I have sinned, I deserve whatever may befall me; but you,
+      you must not make me more wretched, than I already am. Your father, he...
+      if he were still alive, for your sake I would crawl to him on my knees,
+      and say: &lsquo;Here I am, forgive me&rsquo;&mdash;but he is dead. Pasquale, Zorrillo
+      lives; do not think me a vain, deluded woman; Zorrillo cannot bear to have
+      me leave him....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my father? He bore it. But do you know how? Shall I describe his life
+      to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no! Oh, child, how you torture me! I know how I sinned against your
+      father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved me,
+      and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly. But I cannot keep quiet a long
+      time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in my blood;
+      and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see nothing except
+      himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the forest. One day a
+      fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going forth&mdash;forth into
+      the wide world, no matter with whom or whither. The soldier only needed to
+      hint and I fell.&mdash;I did not stay with him long, he was a windy
+      braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and accompanied the
+      wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until he was shot. Then
+      ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend, he shares my feelings,
+      I am necessary to his existence. Do not laugh, Ulrich; I well know that
+      youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet Pasquale loves me; since I have
+      had him, I have been more content and, Holy Virgin! now&mdash;I love him
+      in return. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven! Why is it so? This heart, this
+      miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it did twenty years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not leave him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, I love him, and I know why. Every one calls him a brave man, yet
+      they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do. No one else is
+      so good, so generous. You must let me speak! Do you suppose I ever forgot
+      you? Never, never! But you have always been to me the dear little boy; I
+      never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have you and longed
+      so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to the soldiers&rsquo; 
+      orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of these poor
+      things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same time. It
+      would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo rejoices in
+      my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon bequeathed me and
+      his own booty to the soldiers&rsquo; widows and the little naked babies in the
+      camp. He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases him. I will not, cannot
+      leave him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro,
+      violently agitated. At last he said firmly: &ldquo;Yet you must part from him.
+      He or I! I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father&rsquo;s wife. I
+      am Adam&rsquo;s son, and will be constant to him. Ah, mother, I have been
+      deprived of you so long. You can tend strangers&rsquo; orphaned children, yet
+      you make your own son an orphan. Will you do this? No, a thousand times,
+      no, you cannot! Do not weep so, you must not weep! Hear me, hear me! For
+      my sake, leave this Spaniard! You will not repent it. I have just been
+      dreaming of the nest I will build for you. There I will cherish and care
+      for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as you choose. Leave
+      him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your child, your Ulrich!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, God! oh, God!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;I will try, yes, I will try.... My child,
+      my dear child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich clasped her closely in his arms, kissed her hair, and said, softly:
+      &ldquo;I know, I know, you need love, and you shall find it with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With you!&rdquo; she repeated, sobbing. Then releasing herself from his embrace
+      she hurried to the feverish woman, at whose summons she had left her tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As morning dawned, she returned home and found Zorrillo still awake. He
+      enquired about her patient, and told her he had given the child something
+      to drink while she was away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flora could not help weeping bitterly again, and Zorrillo, noticing it,
+      exclaimed chidingly: &ldquo;Each has his own griefs to bear, it is not wise to
+      take strangers&rsquo; troubles so deeply to heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strangers&rsquo; troubles,&rdquo; she repeated, mournfully, and went to rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      White-haired woman, why have you remained so young? All the cares and
+      sorrows of youth and age are torturing you at the same time! One love is
+      fighting a mortal battle with another in your breast. Which will conquer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knows, she knew it ere she entered the tent. The mother fled from the
+      child, but she cannot abandon her new-found son. Oh, maternal love, thou
+      dost hover in radiant bliss far above the clouds, and amid choirs of
+      angels! Oh, maternal heart, thou dost bleed pierced with swords, more full
+      of sorrows than any other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor, poor Florette! On this July morning she was enduring superhuman
+      tortures, all the sins she had committed arrayed themselves against her,
+      shrieking into her ear that she was a lost woman, and there could be no
+      pardon for her either in this world or the next. Yet!&mdash;the clouds
+      drift by, birds of passage migrate, the musician wanders singing from land
+      to land, finds love, and remorselessly strips off light fetters to seek
+      others. His child imitates the father, who had followed the example of
+      his, the same thing occurring back to their remotest ancestors! But
+      eternal justice? Will it measure the fluttering leaf by the same standard
+      as the firmly-rooted plant?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Zorrillo saw Flora by the daylight, he said, kindly: &ldquo;You have been
+      weeping?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered, fixing her eyes on the ground. He thought she was
+      anxious, as on a former occasion, lest his election to the office of
+      Eletto might prove his ruin, so he drew her towards him, exclaiming &ldquo;Have
+      no fear, Bonita. If they choose me, and Mannsfeld comes, as he promised,
+      the play will end this very day. I hope, even at the twelfth hour, they
+      will listen to reason, and allow themselves to be guided into the right
+      course. If they make the young madcap Eletto&mdash;his head will be at
+      stake, not mine. Are you ill? How you look, child! Surely, surely you must
+      be suffering; you shall not go out at night to nurse sick people again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words came from an anxious heart, and sounded warm and gentle. They
+      penetrated Florette&rsquo;s inmost soul, and overwhelmed with passionate emotion
+      she clasped his hands, kissed them, and exclaimed, softly &ldquo;Thanks, thanks,
+      Pasquale, for your love, for all. I will never, never forget it, whatever
+      happens! Go, go; the drum is beating again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo fancied she was uttering mere feverish ravings, and begged her to
+      calm herself; then he left the tent, and went to the place where the
+      election was to be held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Flora was alone, she threw herself on her knees before the
+      Madonna&rsquo;s picture, but knew not whether it would be right to pray that her
+      son might obtain an office, which had proved the ruin of so many; and when
+      she besought the Virgin to give her strength to leave her lover, it seemed
+      to her like treason to Pasquale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her thoughts grew confused, and she could not pray. Her mobile mind
+      wandered swiftly from lofty to petty things; she seized the cards to see
+      whether fate would unite her to Zorrillo or to Ulrich, and the red ten,
+      which represented herself, lay close beside the green knave, Pasquale. She
+      angrily threw them down, determined, in spite of the oracle, to follow her
+      son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime in the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets blared,
+      and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like the
+      distant roar of the surf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fresh burst of military music rang out, and now Florette started to her
+      feet and listened. It seemed as if she heard Ulrich&rsquo;s voice, and the rapid
+      throbbing of her heart almost stopped her breath. She must go out, she
+      must see and hear what was passing. Hastily pushing the white hair back
+      from her brow, she threw a veil over it, and hurried through the camp to
+      the spot where the election was taking place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers all knew her and made way for her. The leaders of the
+      mutineers were standing on the wall of earth between the field-pieces, and
+      amid the foremost rank, nay, in front of them all, her son was addressing
+      the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The choice wavered between him and Zorrillo. Ulrich had already been
+      speaking a long time. His cheeks were glowing and he looked so handsome,
+      so noble, in his golden helmet, from beneath which floated his thick, fair
+      locks, that her heart swelled with joy, and as the night grows brighter
+      when the black clouds are torn asunder and the moon victoriously appears,
+      grief and pain were suddenly irradiated by maternal love and pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he drew his tall figure up still higher, exclaiming: &ldquo;Others are
+      readier and bolder with the tongue than I, but I can speak with the sword
+      as well as any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then raising the heavy two-handed sword, which others laboriously managed
+      with both hands, he swung it around his head, using only his right hand,
+      in swift circles, until it fairly whistled through the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had
+      lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly,
+      while his breath came quick and short: &ldquo;And where do the talkers, the
+      parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters&rsquo; 
+      feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I
+      know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except what
+      is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require for
+      our bare feet, our ragged bodies; money, money he has not to offer! This
+      is so, I swear it; if not, stand forth, you parleyers, and give me the
+      lie! Have you inclination or courage to give the lie to Navarrete?&mdash;You
+      are silent!&mdash;But we will speak! We will not suffer ourselves to be
+      mocked and put off! What we demand is fair pay for good work. Whoever has
+      patience, can wait. Mine is exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are His Majesty&rsquo;s obedient servants and wish to remain so. As soon as
+      he keeps his bargain, he can rely upon us; but when he breaks it, we are
+      bound to no one but ourselves, and Santiago! we are not the weaker party.
+      We need money, and if His Majesty lacks ducats, a city where we can find
+      what we want. Money or a city, a city or money! The demand is just, and if
+      you elect me, I will stand by it, and not shrink if it rouses murmuring
+      behind me or against me. Whoever has a brave heart under his armor, let
+      him follow me; whoever wishes to creep after Zorrillo, can do so. Elect
+      me, friends, and I will get you more than we need, with honor and fame to
+      boot. Saint Jacob and the Madonna will aid us. Long live the king!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long live the king! Long live Navarrete! Navarrete! Hurrah for
+      Navarrete!&rdquo; echoed loudly, impetuously from a thousand bearded lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo had no opportunity to speak again. The election was made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was chosen Eletto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As if on wings, he went from man to man, shaking hands with his comrades.
+      Power, power, the highest prize on earth, was attained, was his! The whole
+      throng, soldiers, tyros, women, girls and children, crowded around him,
+      shouting his name; whoever wore a hat or cap, tossed it in the air,
+      whoever had a kerchief, waved it. Drums beat, trumpets sounded, and the
+      gunner ordered all the field-pieces to be discharged, for the choice
+      pleased him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich stood, as if intoxicated, amid the shouts, shrieks of joy, military
+      music, and thunder of the cannon. He raised his helmet, waved salutations
+      to the crowd, and strove to speak, but the uproar drowned his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the election Florette slipped quietly away; first to the empty tent
+      then to the sick woman who needed her care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto had no time to think of his mother; for scarcely had he given a
+      solemn oath of loyalty to his comrades and received theirs, when Count
+      Mannsfeld appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general was received with every honor. He knew Navarrete, and the
+      latter entered into negotiations with the manly dignity natural to him;
+      but the count really had nothing but promises to offer, and the insurgents
+      would not give up their demand: &ldquo;Money or a city!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobleman reminded them of their oath of allegiance, made lavish use of
+      kind words, threats and warnings, but the Eletto remained firm. Mannsfeld
+      perceived that he had come in vain; the only concession he could obtain
+      from Navarrete was, that some prudent man among the leaders should
+      accompany him to Brussels, to explain the condition of the regiments to
+      the council of state there, and receive fresh proposals. Then the count
+      suggested that Zorrillo should be entrusted with the mission, and the
+      Eletto ordered the quartermaster to prepare for departure at once. An hour
+      after the general left the camp with Flora&rsquo;s lover in his train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The fifth night after the Eletto&rsquo;s election was closing in, a light rain
+      was falling, and no sound was heard in the deserted streets of the
+      encampment except now and then the footsteps of a sentinel, or the cries
+      of a child. In Zorrillo&rsquo;s tent, which was usually brightly lighted until a
+      late hour of the night, only one miserable brand was burning, beside which
+      sat the sleepy bar-maid, darning a hole in her frieze-jacket. The girl did
+      not expect any one, and started when the door of the tent was violently
+      torn open, and her master, followed by two newly-appointed captains, came
+      straight up to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo held his hat in his hand, his hair, slightly tinged with grey,
+      hung in a tangled mass over his forehead, but he carried himself as erect
+      as ever. His body did not move, but his eyes wandered from one corner of
+      the tent to another, and the girl crossed herself and held up two fingers
+      towards him, for his dark glance fell upon her, as he at last exclaimed,
+      in a hollow tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the mistress?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone, I could not help it&rdquo; replied the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the Eletto, to Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He came and took her and the child, directly after you had left the
+      camp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she has not returned?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has just sent a roast chicken, which I was to keep for you when you
+      came home. There it is.&rdquo; Zorrillo laughed. Then he turned to his
+      companions, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you. You have now.... Is she still with the Eletto?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who&mdash;who saw her the night before the election&mdash;let me sit
+      down&mdash;who saw her with him then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother,&rdquo; replied one of the captains. &ldquo;She was just coming out of the
+      tent, as he passed with the guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t take the matter to heart,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;There are plenty of
+      women! We are growing old, and can no longer cope with a handsome fellow
+      like Navarrete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought the sibyl was more sensible,&rdquo; added the younger captain. &ldquo;I saw
+      her in Naples sixteen years ago. Zounds, she was a beautiful woman then! A
+      pretty creature even now; but Navarrete might almost be her son. And you
+      always treated her kindly, Pasquale. Well, whoever expects gratitude from
+      women....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the quartermaster remembered the hour just before the election,
+      when Florette had thrown herself upon his breast, and thanked him for his
+      kindness; clenching his teeth, he groaned aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The others were about to leave him, but he regained his self-control, and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take him the count&rsquo;s letter, Renato. What I have to say to him, I will
+      determine later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo was a long time unlacing his jerkin and taking out the paper.
+      Both of his companions noticed how his fingers trembled, and looked at
+      each other compassionately; but the older one said, as he received the
+      letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man, man, this will do no good. Women are like good fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take the thing as a thousand others have taken it, and don&rsquo;t come to
+      blows. You wield a good blade, but to attack Navarrete is suicide. I&rsquo;ll
+      take him the letter. Be wise, Zorrillo, and look for another love at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Directly, directly, of course,&rdquo; replied the quartermaster; but as soon as
+      he had sent the maid-servant away, and was entirely alone, he bowed his
+      forehead upon the table and his shoulders heaved convulsively. He remained
+      in this attitude a long time, then paced to and fro with forced calmness.
+      Morning dawned long ere he sought his couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early the next day he made his report to the Eletto before the assembled
+      council of war, and when it broke up, approached Navarrete, saying, in so
+      loud a tone that no one could fail to hear:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I congratulate you on your new sweetheart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With good reason,&rdquo; replied the Eletto. &ldquo;Wait a little while, and I&rsquo;ll
+      wager that you&rsquo;ll congratulate me more sincerely than you do to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The offers from Brussels had again proved unacceptable. It was necessary
+      now to act, and the insurgent commander profited by the time at his
+      disposal. It seemed as if &ldquo;power&rdquo; doubled his elasticity and energy. It
+      was so delightful, after the march, the council of war, and the day&rsquo;s work
+      were over, to rest with his mother, listen to her, and open his own heart.
+      How had she preserved&mdash;yes, he might call it so&mdash;her
+      aristocratic bearing, amid the turmoil, perils, and mire of camp-life, in
+      spite of all, all! How cleverly and entertainingly she could talk about
+      men and things, how comical the ideas, with which she understood how to
+      spice the conversation, and how well versed he found her in everything
+      that related to the situation of the regiments and his own position. She
+      had not been the confidante of army leaders in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By her advice he relinquished his plan of capturing Mechlin, after
+      learning from spies that it was prepared and expecting the attack of the
+      insurgents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not enter upon a long siege with the means at his command; his
+      first blow must not miss the mark. So he only showed himself near
+      Brussels, sent Captain Montesdocca, who tried to parley again, back with
+      his mission unaccomplished, marched in a new direction to mislead his
+      foes, and then unexpectedly assailed wealthy Aalst in Flanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surprised inhabitants tried to defend their well-fortified city, but
+      the citizens&rsquo; strength could not withstand the furious assault of the
+      well-drilled, booty-seeking army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquered city belonged to the king. It was the pledge of what the
+      rebels required, and they indemnified themselves in it for the pay that
+      had been with held. All who attempted to offer resistance fell by the
+      sword, all the citizens&rsquo; possessions were seized by the soldiers, as the
+      wages that belonged to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the shops under the Belfry, the great tower from whence the bell
+      summoned the inhabitants when danger threatened, lay plenty of cloth for
+      new doublets. Nor was there any lack of gold or silver in the treasury of
+      the guild-hall, the strong boxes of the merchants, the chests of the
+      citizens. The silver table-utensils, the gold ornaments of the women, the
+      children&rsquo;s gifts from godparents fell into the hands of the conquerors,
+      while a hundred and seventy rich villages near Aalst were compelled to
+      furnish food for the mutineers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Navarrete did not forbid the plundering. According to his opinion, what
+      soldiers took by assault was well-earned booty. To him the occupation of
+      Aalst was an act of righteous self-defence, and the regiments shared his
+      belief, and were pleased with their Eletto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebels sought and found quarters in the citizens&rsquo; houses, slept in
+      their beds, eat from their dishes, and drank their wine-cellars empty.
+      Pillage was permitted for three days. On the fifth discipline was
+      restored, the quartermaster&rsquo;s department organized, and the citizens were
+      permitted to assemble at the guild-hall, pursue their trades and business,
+      follow the pursuits to which they had been accustomed. The property they
+      had saved was declared unassailable; besides, robbery had ceased to be
+      very remunerative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto was at liberty to choose his own quarters, and there was no
+      lack of stately dwellings in Aalst. Ulrich might have been tempted to
+      occupy the palace of Baron de Hierges, but passed it by, selecting as a
+      home for his mother and himself a pretty little house on the market-place,
+      which reminded him of his father&rsquo;s smithy. The bow-windowed room, with the
+      view of the belfry and the stately guildhall, was pleasantly fitted up for
+      his mother, and the city gardeners received orders to send the finest
+      house-plants to his residence. Soon the sitting-room, adorned with flowers
+      and enlivened by singing-birds, looked far handsomer and more cosy than
+      the nest of which he had dreamed. A little white dog, exactly like the one
+      Florette had possessed in the smithy, was also procured, and when in the
+      evening the warm summer air floated into the open windows, and Ulrich sat
+      alone with Florette, recalling memories of the past, or making plans for
+      the future, it seemed as if a new spring had come to his soul. The
+      citizens&rsquo; distress did not trouble him. They were the losing party in the
+      grim game of war, enemies&mdash;rebels. Among his own men he saw nothing
+      but joyous faces; he exercised the power&mdash;they obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo bore him ill-will, Ulrich read it in his eyes; but he made him a
+      captain, and the man performed his duty as quartermaster in the most
+      exemplary manner. Florette wished to tell him that the Eletto was her son,
+      but the latter begged her to wait till his power was more firmly
+      established, and how could she refuse her darling anything? She had
+      grieved deeply, very deeply, but this mood soon passed away, and now she
+      could be happy in Ulrich&rsquo;s society, and forget sorrow and heartache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What joy it was to have him back, to be loved by him! Where was there a
+      more affectionate son, a pleasanter home than hers? The velvet and brocade
+      dresses belonging to the Baroness de Hierges had fallen to the Eletto. How
+      young Florette looked in them! When she glanced into the mirror, she was
+      astonished at herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two beautiful riding-horses for ladies&rsquo; use and elegant trappings had been
+      found in the baron&rsquo;s stable. Ulrich had told her of it, and the desire to
+      ride with him instantly arose in her mind. She had always accompanied
+      Grandgagnage, and when she now went out, attired in a long velvet
+      riding-habit, with floating plumes in her dainty little hat, beside her
+      son, she soon noticed how admiringly even the hostile citizens and their
+      wives looked after them. It was a pretty sight to behold the handsome
+      soldier, full of pride and power, galloping on the most spirited stallion,
+      beside the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose eyes sparkled with
+      vivacious light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zorrillo often met them, when they passed the guildhall, and Florette
+      always gave him a friendly greeting with her whip, but he intentionally
+      averted his eyes or if he could not avoid it, coldly returned her
+      recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This wounded her deeply, and when alone, it often happened that she sunk
+      into gloomy reverie and, with an aged, weary face, gazed fixedly at the
+      floor. But Ulrich&rsquo;s approach quickly cheered and rejuvenated her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette now knew what her son had experienced in life, what had moved his
+      heart, his soul, and could not contradict him, when he told her that power
+      was the highest prize of existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto&rsquo;s ambitious mind could not be satisfied with little Aalst. The
+      mutineers had been outlawed by an edict from Brussels, but the king had
+      nothing to do with this measure; the shameful proclamation was only
+      intended to stop the wailing of the Netherlanders. They would have to pay
+      dearly for it! There was a great scheme in view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Antwerp of those days was called &ldquo;as rich as the Indies;&rdquo; the project
+      under consideration was the possibility of manoeuvring this abode of
+      wealth into the hands of the mutineers; the whole Spanish army in the
+      Netherlands being about to follow the example of the regiments in Aalst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother was the friend and counsellor of the son. At every step he took
+      he heard her opinion, and often yielded his own in its favor. This
+      interest in the direction of great events occupied the sibyl&rsquo;s versatile
+      mind. When, on many occasions, pros and tons were equal in weight, she
+      brought out the cards, and this oracle generally turned the scale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No high aim, no desire to accomplish good and great things in wider
+      spheres, influenced the thoughts and actions of this couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What cared they, that the weal and woe of thousands depended on their
+      decision? The deadly weapon in their bands was to them only a valuable
+      utensil in which they delighted, and with which fruits were plucked from
+      the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now saw the fulfilment of Don Juan&rsquo;s words, that power was an
+      arable field; for there were many full ears in Aalst for them both to
+      harvest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette still nursed, with maternal care, the soldier&rsquo;s orphan which she
+      had taken to her son&rsquo;s house; the child, born on a bed of straw&mdash;was
+      now clothed in dainty linen, laces and other beautiful finery. It was
+      necessary to her, for she occupied herself with the helpless little
+      creature when, during the long morning hours of Ulrich&rsquo;s absence,
+      sorrowful thought troubled her too deeply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich often remained absent a long time, far longer than the service
+      required. What was he doing? Visiting a sweetheart? Why not? She only
+      marvelled that the fair women did not come from far and near to see the
+      handsome man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, the Eletto had found an old love. Art, which he had sullenly
+      forsaken. News had reached his ears, that an artist had fallen in the
+      defence of the city. He went to the dead man&rsquo;s house to see his works, and
+      how did he find the painter&rsquo;s dwelling! Windows, furniture were shattered,
+      the broken doors of the cupboards hung into the rooms on their bent
+      hinges. The widow and her children were lying in the studio on a heap of
+      straw. This touched his heart, and he gave alms with an open hand to the
+      sorrowing woman. A few pictures of the saints, which the Spaniards had
+      spared, hung on the walls; the easel, paints and brushes had been left
+      untouched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thought, which he instantly carried into execution, entered his mind. He
+      would paint a new standard! How his heart beat, when he again stood before
+      the easel!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded the heretics as heathens. The Spaniards were shortly going to
+      fight against them and for the faith. So he painted the Saviour on one
+      side of the standard, the Virgin on the other. The artist&rsquo;s widow sat to
+      him for the Madonna, a young soldier for the Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No scruples, no consideration for the criticisms of teachers now checked
+      his creating hand; the power was his, and whatever he did must be right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He placed upon the Saviour&rsquo;s bowed figure, Costa&rsquo;s head, as he had painted
+      it in Titian&rsquo;s studio, and the Madonna, in defiance of the stern judges in
+      Madrid, received the sibyl&rsquo;s face, to please himself and do honor to his
+      mother. He made her younger, transformed her white hair to gleaming golden
+      tresses. One day he asked Flora to sit still and think of something very
+      serious; he wanted to sketch her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gaily placed herself in position, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be quick, for serious thoughts don&rsquo;t last long with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days later both pictures were finished, and possessed no mean degree
+      of merit; he rejoiced that after the long interval he could still
+      accomplish something. His mother was delighted with her son&rsquo;s
+      masterpieces, especially the Madonna, for she instantly recognized
+      herself, and was touched by this proof of his faithful remembrance. She
+      had looked exactly like it when a young girl, she said; it was strange how
+      precisely he had hit the color of her hair; but she was afraid it was
+      blaspheming to paint a Madonna with her face; she was a poor sinner,
+      nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florette was glad that the work was finished, for restlessness again began
+      to torture her, and the mornings had been so lonely. Zorrillo&mdash;it
+      caused her bitter pain&mdash;had not cast even a single glance at her, and
+      she began to miss the society of men, to which she had been accustomed.
+      But she never complained, and always showed Ulrich the same cheerful face,
+      until the latter told her one day that he must leave her for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had already defeated in little skirmishes small bodies of peasants and
+      citizens, who had taken the field against the mutineers; now Colonel
+      Romero called upon him to help oppose a large army of patriots, who had
+      assembled between Lowen and Tirlemont, under the command of the noble
+      Sieur de Floyon. It was said to consist Of students and other rebellious
+      brawlers, and so it proved; but the &ldquo;rebels&rdquo; were the flower of the youth
+      of the shamefully-oppressed nation, noble souls, who found it unbearable
+      to see their native land enslaved by mutinous hordes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s parting with his mother was not a hard one. He felt sure of
+      victory and of returning home, but the excitable woman burst into tears as
+      she bade him farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto took the field with a large body of troops; the majority of the
+      mutineers, with them. Captain and Quartermaster Zorrillo, remained behind
+      to hold the citizens in check.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A considerable, but hastily-collected army of patriots had been utterly
+      routed at Tisnacq by a small force of disciplined Spaniards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had assisted his countrymen to gain the speedy victory, and had
+      been greeted by his old colonel, the brave Romero, the bold
+      cavalry-commander, Mendoza, and other distinguished officers as one of
+      themselves. Since these aristocrats had become mutineers, the Eletto was a
+      brother, and they did not disdain to secure his cooperation in the attack
+      they were planning upon Antwerp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had shown great courage under fire, and wherever he appeared, his
+      countrymen held out their hands to him, vowing obedience and loyalty unto
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich felt as if he were walking on air, mere existence was a joy to him.
+      No prince could revel in the blissful consciousness of increasing power,
+      more fully than he. The evening after the decision he had attended a
+      splendid banquet with Romero, Vargas, Mendoza, Tassis, and the next
+      morning the prisoners, who had fallen into the hands of his men, were
+      brought before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had left the examination of the students, citizens&rsquo; sons, and peasants
+      to his lieutenant; but there were also three noblemen, from whom large
+      ransoms could be obtained. The two older ones had granted what he asked
+      and been led away; the third, a tall man in knightly armor, was left last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had personally encountered the latter. The prisoner, mounted upon a
+      tall steed, had pressed him very closely; nay, the Eletto&rsquo;s victory was
+      not decided, until a musket-shot had stretched the other&rsquo;s horse on the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knight now carried his arm in a sling. In the centre of his coat of
+      mail and on the shoulder-pieces of his armor, the ensigns armorial of a
+      noble family were embossed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were dragged out from under your horse,&rdquo; said the Eletto to the
+      knight. &ldquo;You wield an excellent blade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had spoken in Spanish, but the other shrugged his shoulders, and
+      answered in the German language &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand Spanish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a German?&rdquo; Ulrich now asked in his native tongue. &ldquo;How do you
+      happen to be among the Netherland rebels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobleman looked at the Eletto in surprise. But the latter, giving him
+      no time for reflection, continued &ldquo;I understand German; your answer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had business in Antwerp?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is my affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Then we will drop courtesy and adopt a different tone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I am the vanquished party, and will answer you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had stuffs to buy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a merchant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The knight shook his head and answered, smiling: &ldquo;We have rebuilt our
+      castle since the fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now you need hangings and artistic stuff. Did you expect to capture
+      them from us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what brought you among our enemies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baron Floyon belongs to my mother&rsquo;s family. He marched against you, and
+      as I approved his cause....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pillage pleases you, you felt disposed to break a lance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have done your cause no harm. Where do you live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you know: in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Germany is a very large country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the Black Forest in Swabia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoner made no reply; but Ulrich fixed his eyes upon the coat of
+      arms on the knight&rsquo;s armor, looked at him more steadily, and a strange
+      smile hovered around his lips as he approached him, saying in an altered
+      tone: &ldquo;You think the Navarrete will demand from Count von Frohlinger a
+      ransom as large as his fields and forests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so, Count Lips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Heavens!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, ha, you went from the monastery to the field.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the monastery? How do you know that, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are old acquaintances, Count Lips. Look me in the eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other gazed keenly at the Eletto, shook his head, and said: &ldquo;You have
+      not seemed a total stranger to me from the first; but I never was in
+      Spain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have been in Swabia, and at that time you did me a kindness. Would
+      your ransom be large enough to cover the cost of a broken church window?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The count opened his eyes in amazement and a bright smile flashed over his
+      face as, clapping his hands, he exclaimed with sincere delight:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, you&mdash;you are Ulrich! I&rsquo;ll be damned, if I&rsquo;m mistaken! But who
+      the devil would discover a child of the Black Forest in the Spanish
+      Eletto?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I am one, must remain a secret between us for the present,&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Ulrich, extending his hand to the count. &ldquo;Keep silence, and you
+      will be free&mdash;the window will cover the ransom!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy Virgin! If all the windows in the monastery were as dear, the monks
+      might grow fat!&rdquo; cried the count. &ldquo;A Swabian heart remains half Swabian,
+      even when it beats under a Spanish doublet. Its luck, Turk&rsquo;s luck, that I
+      followed Floyon;&mdash;and your old father, Adam? And Ruth&mdash;what a
+      pleasure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to know... my father is dead, died long, long ago!&rdquo; said
+      Ulrich, lowering his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; exclaimed the other. &ldquo;And long ago? I saw him at the anvil three
+      weeks since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father? At the anvil? And Ruth?...&rdquo; stammered Ulrich, gazing at the
+      other with a pallid, questioning face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are alive, certainly they are alive! I met him again in Antwerp. No
+      one else can make you such armor. The devil is in it, if you hav&rsquo;nt heard
+      of the Swabian armorer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Swabian&mdash;the Swabian&mdash;is he my father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your own father. How long ago is it? Thirteen years, for I was then
+      sixteen. That was the last time I saw him, and yet I recognized him at the
+      first glance. True, I shall never forget the hour, when the dumb woman
+      drew the arrow from the Jew&rsquo;s breast. The scene I witnessed that day in
+      the forest still rises before my eyes, as if it were happening now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lives, they did not kill him!&rdquo; exclaimed the Eletto, now first
+      beginning to rejoice over the surprising news. &ldquo;Lips, man&mdash;Philipp! I
+      have found my mother again, and now my father too. Wait, wait! I&rsquo;ll speak
+      to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride to Lier;
+      there you will tell me the whole story. Holy Virgin! thanks, a thousand
+      thanks! I shall see my father again, my father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their
+      wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier. The Eletto had not grown weary
+      of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had
+      gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years. The Jew&rsquo;s
+      dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living with the
+      old man and kept house for him. Navarrete had often heard the Swabian and
+      his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth. He acknowledged that he
+      had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his
+      beautiful daughter. The girl was slender as a fir-tree! And her face! once
+      seen could never be forgotten. So might have looked the beautiful Judith,
+      who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of Rome! She
+      was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold as glass; and
+      though she liked him on account of his old friendship for Ulrich and the
+      affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at, not touch her. She
+      would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still alive, and what he had
+      become. And the smith, the smith! Nay, he would not go home now, but back
+      to Antwerp to be Ulrich&rsquo;s messenger! But now he too would like to relate
+      his own experiences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly
+      reverted to old days and his father. Every person whom they had both known
+      was enquired for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from gout
+      and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age. Hangemarx had
+      grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by the rope, though by his
+      own hand. Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the priesthood and was living in
+      Rome in high esteem, as a member of a Spanish order. The abbot still
+      presided over the monastery and had a great deal of time for his studies;
+      for the school had been broken up and, as part of the property of the
+      monastery had been confiscated, the number of monks had diminished. The
+      magistrate had been falsely accused of embezzling minors&rsquo; money, remained
+      in prison for a year and, after his liberation, died of a liver complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morning was dawning when the friends separated. Count Philipp undertook to
+      tell Ruth that Ulrich had found his mother again. She was to persuade the
+      smith to forgive his wife, with whose praises her son&rsquo;s lips were
+      overflowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his departure Philipp tried to induce the Eletto to change his course
+      betimes, for he was following a dangerous path; but Ulrich laughed in his
+      face, exclaiming: &ldquo;You know I have found the right word, and shall use it
+      to the end. You were born to power in a small way; I have won mine myself,
+      and shall not rest until I am permitted to exercise it on a great scale,
+      nay, the grandest. If aught on earth affords a taste of heavenly joy, it
+      is power!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the camp the Eletto found the troops from Aalst prepared for departure,
+      and as he rode along the road saw in imagination, sometimes his parents,
+      his parents in a new and happy union, sometimes Ruth in the full splendor
+      of her majestic beauty. He remembered how proudly he had watched his
+      father and mother, when they went to church together on Sunday, how he had
+      carried Ruth in his arms on their flight; and now he was to see and
+      experience all this again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave his men only a short rest, for he longed to reach his mother. It
+      was a glorious return home, to bring such tidings! How beautiful and
+      charming he found life; how greatly he praised his destiny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun was setting behind pleasant Aalst as he approached, and the sky
+      looked as if it was strewn with roses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful, beautiful!&rdquo; he murmured, pointing out to his lieutenant the
+      brilliant hues in the western horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A messenger hastened on in advance, the thunder of artillery and fanfare
+      of music greeted the victors, as they marched through the gate. Ulrich
+      sprang from his horse in front of the guildhall and was received by the
+      captain, who had commanded during his absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto hastily described the course of the brilliant, victorious
+      march, and then asked what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain lowered his eyes in embarrassment, saying, in a low tone:
+      &ldquo;Nothing of great importance; but day before yesterday a wicked deed was
+      committed, which will vex you. The woman you love, the camp sibyl....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? What? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went to Zorrillo, and he&mdash;you must not be startled&mdash;he
+      stabbed her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich staggered back, repeating, in a hollow tone &ldquo;Stabbed!&rdquo; Then seizing
+      the other by the shoulder, he shrieked: &ldquo;Stabbed! That means
+      murdered-killed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He thrust his dagger into her heart, she must have died as quickly as if
+      struck by lightning. Then Zorrillo went away, God knows where. Who could
+      suspect, that the quiet man....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You let him escape, helped the murderer get off, you dogs!&rdquo; raved the
+      wretched man. &ldquo;We will speak of this again. Where is she, where is her
+      body?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain shrugged his shoulders, saying, in a soothing tone: &ldquo;Calm
+      yourself, Navarrete! We too grieve for the sibyl; many in the camp will
+      miss her. As for Zorrillo, he had the password, and could go through the
+      gate at any hour. The body is still lying in his quarters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; faltered the Eletto. Then calming himself, he said, mournfully:
+      &ldquo;I wish to see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain walked silently by his side and opened the murderer&rsquo;s
+      dwelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, on a bed of pine-shavings, in a rude coffin made of rough planks,
+      lay the woman who had given him birth, deserted him, and yet who so
+      tenderly loved him. A poor soldier&rsquo;s wife, to whom she had been kind, was
+      watching beside the corpse, at whose head a singly brand burned with a
+      smoky, yellow light. The little white dog had found its way to her, and
+      was snuffing the floor, still red with its mistress&rsquo;s blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich snatched the brand from the bracket, and threw the light on the
+      dead woman&rsquo;s face. His tear-dimmed eyes sought his mother&rsquo;s features, but
+      only rested on them a moment&mdash;then he shuddered, turned away, and
+      giving the torch to his companion, said, softly: &ldquo;Cover her head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier&rsquo;s wife spread her coarse apron over the face, which-had smiled
+      so sweetly: but Ulrich threw himself on his knees beside the coffin,
+      buried his face, and remained in this attitude for many minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he slowly rose, rubbed his eyes as if waking from some confused
+      dream, drew himself up proudly, and scanned the place with searching eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the Eletto, and thus men honored the woman who was dear to him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother lay in a wretched pauper&rsquo;s coffin, a ragged camp-follower
+      watched beside her&mdash;no candles burned at her head, no priest prayed
+      for the salvation of her soul!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grief was raging madly in his breast, now indignation joined this gloomy
+      guest; giving vent to his passionate emotion, Ulrich wildly exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, captain! This corpse, this woman&mdash;proclaim it to every
+      one&mdash;the sibyl was my mother yes, yes, my own mother! I demand
+      respect for her, the same respect that is shown myself! Must I compel men
+      to render her fitting honor? Here, bring torches. Prepare the catafalque
+      in St. Martin&rsquo;s church, and place it before the altar! Put candles around
+      it, as many as can be found! It is still early! Lieutenant! I am glad you
+      are there! Rouse the cathedral priests and go to the bishop. I command a
+      solemn requiem for my mother! Everything is to be arranged precisely as it
+      was at the funeral of the Duchess of Aerschot! Let trumpets give the
+      signal for assembling. Order the bells to be rung! In an hour all must be
+      ready at St. Martin&rsquo;s cathedral! Bring torches here, I say! Have I the
+      right to command&mdash;yes or no? A large oak coffin was standing at the
+      joiner&rsquo;s close by. Bring it here, here; I need a better death-couch for my
+      mother. You poor, dear woman, how you loved flowers, and no one has
+      brought you even one! Captain Ortis, I have issued my commands! Everything
+      must be done, when I return;&mdash;Lieutenant, you have your orders!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rushed from the death-chamber to the sitting-room in his own house, and
+      hastily tore stalks and blossoms from the plants. The maid-servants
+      watched him timidly, and he harshly ordered them to collect what he had
+      gathered and take them to the house of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His orders were obeyed, and when he next appeared at Zorrillo&rsquo;s quarters,
+      the soldiers, who had assembled there in throngs, parted to make way for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He beckoned to them, and while he went from one to another, saying: &ldquo;The
+      sibyl was my mother&mdash;Zorrillo has murdered my mother,&rdquo; the coffin was
+      borne into the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the vestibule, he leaned his head against the wall, moaning and
+      sighing, until Florette was laid in her last bed, and a soldier put his
+      hand on his shoulder. Then Ulrich strewed flowers over the corpse, and the
+      joiner came to nail up the coffin. The blows of the hammer actually hurt
+      him, it seemed as if each one fell upon his own heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The funeral procession passed through the ranks of soldiers, who filled
+      the street. Several officers came to meet it, and Captain Ortis,
+      approaching close to the Eletto, said: &ldquo;The bishop refuses the catafalque
+      and the solemn requiem you requested. Your mother died in sin, without the
+      sacrament. He will grant as many masses for the repose of her soul as you
+      desire, but such high honors....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He refuses them to us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to us, to the sibyl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was my mother, your Eletto&rsquo;s mother. To the cathedral, forward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is closed, and will remain so to-day, for the bishop....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then burst the doors! We&rsquo;ll show them who has the power here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you out of your senses? The Holy Church!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forward, I say! Let him who is no cowardly wight, follow me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich drew the commander&rsquo;s baton from his belt and rushed forward, as if
+      he were leading a storming-party; but Ortis cried: &ldquo;We will not fight
+      against St. Martin!&rdquo; and a murmur of applause greeted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich checked his pace, and gnashing his teeth, exclaimed: &ldquo;Will not?
+      Will not?&rdquo; Then gazing around the circle of comrades, who surrounded him
+      on all sides, he asked: &ldquo;Has no one courage to help me to my rights?
+      Ortis, de Vego, Diego, will you follow me, yes or no?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not against the Church!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I command you,&rdquo; shouted the Eletto, furiously. &ldquo;Obey, Lieutenant de
+      Vega, forward with your company, and burst the cathedral doors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But no one obeyed, and Ortis ordered: &ldquo;Back, every man of you! Saint
+      Martin is my patron saint; let all who value their souls refuse to attack
+      the church and defend it with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blood rushed to Ulrich&rsquo;s brain, and incapable of longer self-control,
+      he threw his baton into the ranks of the mutineers, shrieking: &ldquo;I hurl it
+      at your feet; whoever picks it up can keep it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers hesitated; but Ortis repeated his &ldquo;Back!&rdquo; Other officers gave
+      the same order, and their men obeyed. The street grew empty, and the
+      Eletto&rsquo;s mother was only followed by a few of her son&rsquo;s friends; no priest
+      led the procession. In the cemetery Ulrich threw three handfuls of earth
+      into the open grave, then with drooping head returned home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How dreary, how desolate the bright, flower-decked room seemed now, for
+      the first time the Eletto felt really deserted. No tears came to relieve
+      his grief, for the insult offered him that day aroused his wrath, and he
+      cherished it as if it were a consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had thrown power aside with the staff of command. Power! It too was
+      potter&rsquo;s trash, which a stone might shatter, a flower in full bloom, whose
+      leaves drop apart if touched by the finger! It was no noble metal, only
+      yellow mica!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knocker on the door never stopped rapping. One officer after another
+      came to soothe him, but he would not even admit his lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rejoiced over his hasty deed. Fortune, he thought, cannot be escaped,
+      art cannot be thrown aside; fame may be trampled under foot, yet still
+      pursue us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Power has this advantage over all three, it can be flung off like a
+      worn-out doublet. Let it fly! Had he owed it the happiness of the last few
+      weeks? No, no! He would have been happy with his mother in a poor, plain
+      house, without the office of Eletto, without flowers, horses or servants.
+      It was to her, not to power, that he was indebted for every blissful hour,
+      and now that she had gone, how desolate was the void in his heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the recollection of his father and Ruth illumined his misery like
+      a sunbeam. The game of Eletto was now over, he would go to Antwerp the
+      next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why had fate snatched his mother from him just now, why did it deny him
+      the happiness of seeing his parents united? His father&mdash;she had
+      sorely wronged him, but for what will not death atone? He must take him
+      some remembrance of her, and went to her room to look through her chest.
+      But it no longer stood in the old place&mdash;the owner of the house, a
+      rich matron, who had been compelled to occupy an attic-room, while
+      strangers were quartered in her residence, had taken charge of the pale
+      orphan and the boxes after Florette&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good Netherland dame provided for the adopted child and the property
+      of her enemy, the man whose soldiers had pillaged her brothers and
+      cousins. The death of the woman below had moved her deeply, for the
+      wonderful charm of Florette&rsquo;s manner had won her also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards midnight Ulrich took the lamp and went upstairs. He had long since
+      forgotten to spare others, by denying himself a wish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knocking at the door and the passing to and fro in the entry had kept
+      Frau Geel awake. When she heard the Eletto&rsquo;s heavy step, she sprang up
+      from her spinning-wheel in alarm, and the maid-servant, half roused from
+      sleep, threw herself on her knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frau Geel!&rdquo; called a voice outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She recognized Navarrete&rsquo;s tones, opened the door, and asked what he
+      desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was his mother,&rdquo; thought the old lady as he threw clothes, linen and
+      many a trifle on the floor. &ldquo;It was his mother. Perhaps he wants her
+      rosary or prayer book. He is her son! They looked like a happy couple when
+      they were together. A wild soldier, but he isn&rsquo;t a wicked man yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he searched she held the light for him, shaking her head over the
+      disorder among the articles where he rummaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich had now reached the bottom of the chest. Here he found a valuable
+      necklace, booty which Zorrillo had given his companion for use in case of
+      need. This should be Ruth&rsquo;s. Close beside it lay a small package, tied
+      with rose-pink ribbon, containing a tiny infant&rsquo;s shirt, a gay doll, and a
+      slender gold circlet; her wedding-ring! The date showed that it had been
+      given to her by his father, and the shirt and doll were mementos of him,
+      her darling&mdash;of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gazed at them, changing them from one hand to the other, till suddenly
+      his heart overflowed, and without heeding Frau Geel, who was watching him,
+      he wept softly, exclaiming: &ldquo;Mother, dear mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A light hand touched his shoulder, and a woman&rsquo;s kind voice said: &ldquo;Poor
+      fellow, poor fellow! Yes, she was a dear little thing, and a mother, a
+      mother&mdash;that is enough!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Eletto nodded assent with tearful eyes, and when she again gently
+      repeated in a tone of sincere sympathy, her &ldquo;poor fellow!&rdquo; it sounded
+      sweeter, than the loudest homage that had ever been offered to his fame
+      and power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next morning while Ulrich was packing his luggage, assisted by his
+      servant, the sound of drums and fifes, bursts of military music and loud
+      cheers were heard in the street, and going to the window, he saw the whole
+      body of mutineers drawn up in the best order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The companies stood in close ranks before his house, impetuous shouts and
+      bursts of music made the windows rattle, and now the officers pressed into
+      his room, holding out their swords, vowing fealty unto death, and
+      entreating him to remain their commander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now perceived, that power cannot be thrown aside like a worthless
+      thing. His tortured heart was stirred with deep emotion, and the drooping
+      wings of ambition unfolded with fresh energy. He reproached, raged, but
+      yielded; and when Ortis on his knees, offered him the commander&rsquo;s baton,
+      he accepted it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich was again Eletto, but this need not prevent his seeing his father
+      and Ruth once more, so he declared that he would retain his office, but
+      should be obliged to ride to Antwerp that day, secretly inform the
+      officers of the conspiracy against the city, and the necessity of
+      negotiating with the commandant, that their share of the rich prize might
+      not be lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What many had suspected and hoped was now to become reality. Their Eletto
+      was no idle man! When Navarrete appeared at noon in front of the troops
+      with his own work, the standard, in his hand, he was received with shouts
+      of joy, and no one murmured, though many recognized in the Madonna&rsquo;s
+      countenance the features of the murdered sibyl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later Ulrich, full of eager expectation, rode into Antwerp,
+      carrying in his portmanteau the mementos he had taken from his mother&rsquo;s
+      chest, while in imagination he beheld his father&rsquo;s face, the smithy at
+      Richtberg, the green forest, the mountains of his home, the Costas&rsquo; house,
+      and his little playfellow. Would he really be permitted to lean on his
+      father&rsquo;s broad breast once more?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Ruth, Ruth! Did she still care for him, had Philipp described her
+      correctly?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the count without delay, and found him at home. Philipp
+      received him cordially, yet with evident timidity and embarrassment.
+      Ulrich too was grave, for he had to inform his companion of his mother&rsquo;s
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that is settled,&rdquo; said the count. &ldquo;Your father is a gnarled old tree,
+      a real obstinate Swabian. It&rsquo;s not his way to forgive and forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did he know that my mother was so near to him, that she was in
+      Aalst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All, all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will forgive the dead. Surely, surely he will, if I beseech him, when
+      we are united, if I tell him....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow! You think all this is so easy.&mdash;It is long since I have
+      had so hard a task, yet I must speak plainly. He will have nothing to do
+      with you, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing to do with me?&rdquo; cried Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he out of his senses? What sin have I committed, what does he....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows that you are Navarrete, the Eletto of Herenthals, the conqueror
+      of Aalst, and therefore....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Therefore?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why of course. You see, Ulrich, when a man becomes famous like you, he is
+      known for a long distance, everything he does makes a great hue and cry,
+      and echo repeats it in every alley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my honor before God and man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before God? Perhaps so; certainly before the Spaniards. As for me&mdash;I
+      was with the squadron myself, I call you a brave soldier; but&mdash;no
+      offence&mdash;you have behaved ill in this country. The Netherlanders are
+      human beings too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are rebels, recreant heretics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, or you will revile your own father. His faith has been shaken.
+      A preacher, whom he met on his flight here, in some tavern, led him astray
+      by inducing him to read the bible. Many things the Church condemns are
+      sacred to him. He thinks the Netherlanders a free, noble nation. Your King
+      Philip he considers a tyrant, oppressor, and ruthless destroyer. You who
+      have served him and Alba&mdash;are in his eyes; but I will not wound
+      you....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are we, I will hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, it would do no good. In short, to Adam the Spanish army is a
+      bloody pest, nothing more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There never were braver soldiers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very true; but every defeat, all the blood you have shed, has angered him
+      and this nation, and wrath, which daily receives fresh food and to which
+      men become accustomed, at last turns to hate. All great crimes committed
+      in this war are associated with Alba&rsquo;s name, many smaller ones with yours,
+      and so your father....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we will teach him a better opinion! I return to him an honest
+      soldier, the commander of thousands of men! To see him once more, only to
+      see him! A son remains a son! I learned that from my mother. We were
+      rivals and enemies, when I met her! And then, then&mdash;alas, that is all
+      over! Now I wish to find in my father what I have lost; will you go to the
+      smithy with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ulrich, no. I have said everything to your father that can be urged
+      in your defence, but he is so devoured with rage....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Santiago!&rdquo; exclaimed the Eletto, bursting into sudden fury, &ldquo;I need no
+      advocate! If the old man knows what share I have taken in this war, so
+      much the better. I&rsquo;ll fill up the gaps myself. I have been wherever the
+      fight raged hottest! &lsquo;Sdeath! that is my pride! I am no longer a boy and
+      have fought my way through life without father or mother. What I am, I
+      have made myself, and can defend with honor, even to the old man. He
+      carries heavy guns, I know; but I am not accustomed to shoot with feather
+      balls!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich! He is an old man, and your father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will remember that, as soon as he calls me his son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the count&rsquo;s servants showed Ulrich the way to the smith&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam had entirely given up the business of horseshoeing, for nothing was
+      to be seen in the ground floor of the high, narrow house, except the large
+      door, and a window on each side. Behind the closed one at the right were
+      several pieces of armor, beautifully embossed, and some
+      artistically-wrought iron articles. The left-hand one was partly open,
+      granting entrance to the autumn sunshine. Ulrich dismissed the servant,
+      took the mementos of his mother in his hand, and listened to the
+      hammer-strokes, that echoed from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The familiar sound recalled pleasant memories of his childhood and cooled
+      his hot blood. Count Philipp was right. His father was an old man, and
+      entitled to demand respect from his son. He must endure from him what he
+      would tolerate from no one else. Nay, he again felt that it was a great
+      happiness to be near the beloved one, from whom he had so long been
+      parted; whatever separated him from his old father, must surely vanish
+      into nothing, as soon as they looked into each other&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a master in his trade, his father still was! No one else would have
+      found it so easy to forge the steel coat of mail with the Medusa head in
+      the centre. He was not working alone here as he did at Richtberg; for
+      Ulrich heard more than one hammer striking iron in the workshop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before touching the knocker, he looked into the open window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman&rsquo;s tall figure was standing at the desk. Her back was turned, and
+      he saw only the round outline of the head, the long black braids, the
+      plain dress, bordered with velvet, and the lace in the neck. An elderly
+      man in the costume of a merchant was just holding out his hand in
+      farewell, and he heard him say: &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve bought too cheap again, far too
+      cheap, Jungfer Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a fair price,&rdquo; she answered quietly. &ldquo;You will have a good profit,
+      and we can afford to pay it. I shall expect the iron day after to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be delivered before noon. Master Adam has a treasure in you, dear
+      Jungfer. If my son were alive, I know where he would seek a wife. Wilhelm
+      Ykens has told me of his troubles; he is a skilful goldsmith. Why do you
+      give the poor fellow no hope? Consider! You are past twenty, and every
+      year it grows harder to say yes to a lover.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing suits me better, than to stay with father,&rdquo; she answered gaily.
+      &ldquo;He can&rsquo;t do without me, you know, nor I without him. I have no dislike to
+      Wilhelm, but it seems very easy to live without him. Farewell, Father
+      Keulitz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich withdrew from the window, until the merchant had vanished down a
+      side street; then he again glanced into the narrow room. Ruth was now
+      seated at the desk, but instead of looking over the open account book, her
+      eyes were gazing dreamily into vacancy, and the Eletto now saw her
+      beautiful, calm, noble face. He did not disturb her, for it seemed as if
+      he could never weary of comparing her features with the fadeless image his
+      memory had treasured during all the vicissitudes of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never, not even in Italy, had he beheld a nobler countenance. Philipp was
+      right. There was something royal in her bearing. This was the wife of his
+      dreams, the proud woman, with whom the Eletto desired to share power and
+      grandeur. And he had already held her once in his arms! It seemed as if it
+      were only yesterday. His heart throbbed higher and higher. As she now rose
+      and thoughtfully approached the window, he could no longer contain
+      himself, and exclaimed in a low tone: &ldquo;Ruth, Ruth! Do you know me, girl?
+      It is I&mdash;Ulrich!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank back, putting out her hands with a repellent gesture; but only
+      for a moment. Then, struggling to maintain her composure, she joyously
+      uttered his name, and as he rushed into the room, cried &ldquo;Ulrich!&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Ulrich!&rdquo; and no longer able to control her feelings, suffered him to
+      clasp her to his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had daily expected him with ardent longing, yet secret dread: for he
+      was the fierce Eletto, the commander of the insurgents, the bloody foe of
+      the brave nation she loved. But at sight of his face all, all was
+      forgotten, and she felt nothing but the bliss of being reunited to him
+      whom she had never, never forgotten, the joy of seeing, feeling that he
+      loved her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart too was overflowing with passionate delight. Faltering tender
+      words, he drew her head to his breast, then raised it to press his mouth
+      to her pure lips. But her intoxication of joy passed away&mdash;and before
+      he could prevent it, she had escaped from his arms, saying sternly: &ldquo;Not
+      that, not that.... Many a crime lies between us and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; he eagerly exclaimed. &ldquo;Are you not near me? Your heart and mine
+      have belonged to each other since that day in the snow. If my father is
+      angry because I serve other masters than his, you, yes you, must reconcile
+      us again. I could stay in Aalst no longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the mutineers?&rdquo; she asked sadly. &ldquo;Ulrich, Ulrich, that you should
+      return to us thus!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He again seized her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it, only smiled,
+      saying with the confidence of a man, who is sure of his cause:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cast aside this foolish reserve. To-morrow you will freely give me, not
+      only one hand, but both. I am not so bad as you think. The fortune of war
+      flung me under the Spanish flag, and &lsquo;whose bread I eat, his song I sing,&rsquo; 
+      says the soldier. What would you have? I served with honor, and have done
+      some doughty deeds; let that content you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This angered Ruth, who resolutely exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, a thousand times no! You are the Eletto of Aalst, the pillager of
+      cities, and this cannot be swept aside as easily as the dust from the
+      floor. I... I am only a feeble girl;&mdash;but father, he will never give
+      his hand to the blood-stained man in Spanish garb! I know him, I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s breath came quicker; but he repressed the angry emotion and
+      replied, first reproachfully, then beseechingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the old man&rsquo;s echo. What does he know of military honor and
+      warlike fame; but you, Ruth, must understand me. Do you still remember our
+      sport with the &lsquo;word,&rsquo; the great word that accomplished everything? I have
+      found it; and you shall enjoy with me what it procures. First help me
+      appease my father; I shall succeed, if you aid me. It will doubtless be a
+      hard task. He could not bring himself to forgive his poor wife&mdash;Count
+      Philipp says so;&mdash;but now! You see, Ruth, my mother died a few days
+      ago; she was a dear, loving woman and might have deserved a better fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am alone again now, and long for love&mdash;so ardently, so sincerely,
+      more than I can tell you. Where shall I find it, if not with you and my
+      own father? You have always cared for me; you betray it, and after all you
+      know I am not a bad man, do you not? Be content with my love and take me
+      to my father, yourself. Help me persuade him to listen to me. I have
+      something here which you can give him from me; you will see that it will
+      soften his heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then give it to me,&rdquo; replied Ruth, &ldquo;but whatever it may be&mdash;believe
+      me, Ulrich, so long as you command the Spanish mutineers, he will remain
+      hard, hard as his own iron!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spaniards! Mutineers! Nonsense! Whoever wishes to love, can love; the
+      rest may be settled afterwards. You don&rsquo;t know how high my heart throbs,
+      now that I am near you, now that I see and hear you. You are my good angel
+      and must remain so, now look here. This is my mother&rsquo;s legacy. This little
+      shirt I once wore, when I was a tiny thing, the gay doll was my plaything,
+      and this gold hoop is the wedding-ring my father gave his bride at the
+      altar&mdash;she kept all these things to the last, and carried them like
+      holy relics from land to land, from camp to camp. Will you take these
+      mementos to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now comes the best thing. Have you ever seen more beautiful workmanship?
+      You must wear this necklace, Ruth, as my first gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held up the costly ornament, but she shrank back, asking bitterly
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captured booty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In honorable war,&rdquo; he answered, proudly, approaching to fasten the jewels
+      round her neck with his own hands; but she pushed him back, snatched the
+      ornament, and hurled it on the floor, exclaiming angrily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I loathe the stolen thing. Pick it up. It may suit the camp-followers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This destroyed his self-control, and seizing both her arms in an iron
+      grasp, he muttered through his clenched teeth:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is an insult to my mother; take it back.&rdquo; But Ruth heard and saw
+      nothing; full of indignation she only felt that violence was being done
+      her, and vainly struggled against the irresistible strength, which held
+      her fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the door had opened wide, but neither noticed it until a man&rsquo;s
+      deep voice loudly and wrathfully exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back, you scoundrel! Come here, Ruth. This is the way the assassin greets
+      his family; begone, begone! you disgrace of my house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam had uttered the words, and now drew the hammer from the belt of his
+      leather apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich gazed mutely into his face. There stood his father, strong,
+      gigantic, as he had looked thirteen years before. His head was a little
+      bowed, his beard longer and whiter, his eyebrows were more bushy and his
+      expression had grown more gloomy; otherwise he was wholly unchanged in
+      every feature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The son&rsquo;s eyes rested on the smith as if spellbound. It seemed as if some
+      malicious fate had drawn him into a snare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could say nothing except, &ldquo;father, father,&rdquo; and the smith found no
+      other answer than the harsh &ldquo;begone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth approached the armorer, clung to his side, and pleaded:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear him, don&rsquo;t send him away so; he is your child, and if anger just now
+      overpowered him....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spanish custom&mdash;to abuse women!&rdquo; cried Adam. &ldquo;I have no son
+      Navarrete, or whatever the murderous monster calls himself. I am a
+      burgher, and have no son, who struts about in the stolen clothes of
+      noblemen; as to this man and his assassins, I hate them, hate them all.
+      Your foot defiles my house. Out with you, knave, or I will use my hammer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich again exclaimed, &ldquo;father, father!&rdquo; Then, regaining his self-control
+      by a violent effort, he gasped:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, I came to you in good will, in love. I am an honest soldier and
+      if any one but you&mdash;&lsquo;Sdeath&mdash;if any other had dared to offer me
+      this....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder the dog, you would have said,&rdquo; interrupted the smith. &ldquo;We know the
+      Spanish blessing: a sandre, a carne!&mdash;[Blood, murder.]&mdash;Thanks
+      for your forbearance. There is the door. Another word, and I can restrain
+      myself no longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth had clung firmly to the smith, and motioned Ulrich to go. The Eletto
+      groaned aloud, struck his forehead with his clenched fist, and rushed into
+      the open air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Adam was alone with Ruth she caught his hand, exclaiming
+      beseechingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, father, he is your own son! Love your enemies, the Saviour
+      commanded; and you....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I hate him,&rdquo; said the smith, curtly and resolutely. &ldquo;Did he hurt
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your hate hurts me ten times as much! You judge without examining; yes,
+      father, you do! When he assaulted me, he was in the right. He thought I
+      had insulted his mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam shrugged his shoulders, and she continued &ldquo;The poor woman is dead.
+      Ulrich brought you yonder ring; she never parted with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The armorer started, seized the golden hoop, looked for the date inside,
+      and when he had found it, clasped the ring in his hands and pressed them
+      silently to his temples. He stood in this attitude a short time, then let
+      his arms fall, and said softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dead must be forgiven....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the living, father? You have punished him terribly, and he is not a
+      wicked man, no, indeed he is not! If he comes back again, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My apprentices shall show the Spanish mutineer the door,&rdquo; cried the old
+      man in a harsh, stern tone; &ldquo;to the burgher&rsquo;s repentant son my house will
+      be always open.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the Eletto wandered from one street to another. He felt
+      bewildered, disgraced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not grief&mdash;no quiet heartache that disturbed&mdash;but a
+      confused blending of wrath and sorrow. He did not wish to appear before
+      the friend of his youth, and even avoided Hans Eitelfritz, who came
+      towards him. He was blind to the gay, joyous bustle of the capital; life
+      seemed grey and hollow. His intention of communicating with the commandant
+      of the citadel remained unexecuted; for he thought of nothing but his
+      father&rsquo;s anger, of Ruth, his own shame and misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not leave so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father must, yes, he must hear him, and when it grew dusk, he again
+      sought the house to which he belonged, and from which he had been so
+      cruelly expelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was locked. In reply to his knock, a man&rsquo;s unfamiliar voice asked
+      who he was, and what he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked to speak with Adam, and called himself Ulrich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After waiting a long time he heard a door torn open, and the smith angrily
+      exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your spinning-wheel! Whoever clings to him so long as he wears the
+      Spanish dress, means evil to him as well as to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But hear him! You must hear him, father!&rdquo; cried Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed, heavy steps approached the door of the house; it opened,
+      and again Adam confronted his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; he asked harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To speak to you, to tell you that you did wrong to insult me unheard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you still the Eletto? Answer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And intend to remain so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Que como&mdash;puede ser&mdash;&rdquo; faltered Ulrich, who confused by the
+      question, had strayed into the language in which he had been long
+      accustomed to think. But scarcely had the smith distinguished the foreign
+      words, when fresh anger seized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then go to perdition with your Spaniards!&rdquo; was the furious answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door slammed so that the house shook, and by degrees the smith&rsquo;s heavy
+      tread died away in the vestibule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All over, all over!&rdquo; murmured the rejected son. Then calming himself, he
+      clenched his fist and muttered through his set teeth: &ldquo;There shall be no
+      lack of ruin; whoever it befalls, can bear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While walking through the streets and across the squares, he devised plan
+      after plan, imagining what must come. Sword in hand he would burst the old
+      man&rsquo;s door, and the only booty he asked for himself should be Ruth, for
+      whom he longed, who in spite of everything loved him, who had belonged to
+      him from her childhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant of
+      the Spanish forces in the citadel. The fate of the city was sealed! and
+      when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with its
+      proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower floor
+      crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty little house, three stories high. And how the broad windows,
+      between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts and
+      horses, and continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look closer and choose your quarters. Come with me! I&rsquo;ll show you where
+      the best things we need can be found. Haven&rsquo;t we bled often enough for the
+      pepper-sacks? Now it will be our turn to fleece them. The castles here,
+      with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the guildhalls. There is gold
+      enough in each one, to make the company rich. Now this way! Directly
+      behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal. There live stiff-necked
+      people, who dine off of silver every day. Notice the street!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he led him back to the square, and continued &ldquo;The streets here all
+      lead to the quay. Do you know it? Have you seen the warehouses? Filled to
+      the very roof! The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might
+      transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich followed his guide from street to street. Wherever he looked, he
+      saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz stopped before a jeweller&rsquo;s shop, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here! I particularly admire these things, these toys: the little
+      dog, the sled, the lady with the hoopskirt, all these things are pure
+      silver. When the pillage begins, I shall grasp these and take them to my
+      sister&rsquo;s little children in Colln; they will be delighted, and if it
+      should ever be necessary, their mother can sell them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What a throng crowded the most aristocratic streets! English, Spanish,
+      Italian and Hanseatic merchants tried to outdo the Netherland traders in
+      magnificent clothes and golden ornaments. Ulrich saw them all assembled in
+      the Gothic exchange on the Mere, the handsomest square in the city. There
+      they stood in the vast open hall, on the checkered marble floor, not by
+      hundreds, but by thousands, dealing in goods which came from all quarters
+      of the globe&mdash;from the most distant lands. Their offers and bids
+      mingled in a noise audible at a long distance, which was borne across the
+      square like the echo of ocean surges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sums were discussed, which even the winged imagination of the lansquenet
+      could scarcely grasp. This city was a remarkable treasure, a thousand-fold
+      richer booty than had been garnered from the Ottoman treasure-ship on the
+      sea at Lepanto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the fortune the Eletto needed, to build the palace in which he
+      intended to place Ruth. To whom else would fall the lion&rsquo;s share of the
+      enormous prize!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His future happiness was to arise from the destruction of this proud city,
+      stifling in its gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were ambitious brilliant plans, but he devised them with gloomy
+      eyes, in a darkened mind. He intended to win by force what was denied him,
+      so long as the power belonged to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There could be no lack of flames and carnage; but that was part of his
+      trade, as shavings belong to flames, hammer-strokes to smiths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Philipp had no suspicion of the assault, was not permitted to
+      suspect anything. He attributed Ulrich&rsquo;s agitated manner to the rejection
+      he had encountered in his father&rsquo;s house, and when he took leave of him on
+      his departure to Swabia, talked kindly with his former schoolmate and
+      advised him to leave the Spanish flag and try once more to be reconciled
+      to the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the Eletto quitted the city, he gave Hans Eitelfritz, whose
+      regiment had secretly joined the mutiny, letters of safeguard for his
+      family and the artist, Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not forgotten the latter, but well-founded timidity withheld him
+      from appearing before the honored man, while cherishing the gloomy
+      thoughts that now filled his soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Aalst the mutineers received him with eager joy, harsh and repellent as
+      he appeared, they cheerfully obeyed him; for he could hold out to them a
+      prospect, which lured a bright smile to the bearded lips of the grimmest
+      warrior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If power was the word, he scarcely understood how to use it aright, for
+      wholly absorbed in himself, he led a joyless life of dissatisfied longing
+      and gloomy reverie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to him as if he had lost one half of himself, and needed Ruth to
+      become the whole man. Hours grew to days, days to weeks, and not until
+      Roda&rsquo;s messenger appeared from the citadel in Antwerp to summon him to
+      action, did he revive and regain his old vivacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards&rsquo; hands, and
+      was cruelly pillaged. The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to make
+      common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city. Governor Champagny saw
+      his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the despots
+      in the fortress, which dominated the town. A Netherland army, composed
+      principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable Marquis Havre,
+      the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the capital, to
+      prevent the worst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent
+      treason, if he admitted the government troops&mdash;but the majority of
+      the lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger
+      hourly increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently
+      pressed the matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while
+      intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers in
+      the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end. The
+      regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of
+      lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal
+      for revolt. The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and
+      firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and
+      murderers in his own escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Champagny called upon the citizens to help themselves, and used their
+      labor in throwing up a wall of defence in the open part of the city, which
+      was most dangerously threatened by the citadel. Among the men and women
+      who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam, the smith,
+      his apprentices, and Ruth. The former, with his journeymen, wielded the
+      spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl, with other
+      women, braided gabions from willow-rods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had lived through sorrowful days. Self-reproach, for having by her
+      hasty fit of temper caused the father&rsquo;s outburst of anger to his son,
+      constantly tortured her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that
+      Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his
+      image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in the
+      most sacred depths of her heart. He was all in all to her, the one person
+      destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to the
+      face, the heart to the breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him,
+      it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did
+      in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect. She
+      did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his,
+      expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter.
+      Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief of her
+      loving soul. Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be one in
+      their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close his heart
+      against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child&rsquo;s vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden. Every leisure
+      hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had talked to
+      his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him return as a
+      famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid ship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared. Now she
+      found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here he
+      was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he
+      certainly was not base and mean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince,
+      but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in plain
+      burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside him at the
+      forge. She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her stood the
+      table she covered with food for him, and the water she gave him after his
+      work. She heard the house shake under the mighty blows of his hammer, and
+      in imagination beheld him lay his curly head in her lap, and say he had
+      found love and peace with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cannonade from the citadel stopped the citizens&rsquo; work. Open
+      hostilities had begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the
+      treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered the
+      fortress. The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage and
+      terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is keeping them back,&rdquo; Ruth had said the day before. &ldquo;Antwerp, our
+      home, is sacred to him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled; the
+      boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers and
+      citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of the
+      artillery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still with
+      fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion. Ruth remained calm. She
+      detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words: &ldquo;The men from
+      Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back.&rdquo; Just at that moment the
+      young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed with
+      dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men from Aalst are here. They crossed in peatboats and a galley. They
+      wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in the van,
+      bearing the standard. I saw them; terrible&mdash;horrible&mdash;sheathed
+      in iron from top to toe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said no more, for Adam, with a savage imprecation, interrupted him,
+      seized his huge hammer, and rushed out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth staggered back into the workshop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam hurried straight to the rampart. Here stood six thousand Walloons, to
+      defend the half-finished wall, and behind them large bodies of armed
+      citizens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men from Aalst have come!&rdquo; echoed from lip to lip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Curses, wails of grief, yells of savage fury, blended with the thunder of
+      the artillery and the ringing of the alarm bells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fugitive now dashed from the counterscarp towards the Walloons,
+      shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are here, they are here! The blood-hound, Navarrete, is leading
+      them. They will neither eat nor drink, they say, till they dine in
+      Paradise or Antwerp. Hark, hark! there they are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And they were there, coming nearer and nearer; foremost of all marched the
+      Eletto, holding the standard in his upraised hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind him, from a thousand bearded lips, echoed furious, greedy, terrible
+      cries; &ldquo;Santiago, Espana, a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a saco!&rdquo;&mdash;[St.
+      Jago; Spain, blood, murder, fire, pillage]&mdash;but Navarrete was silent,
+      striding onward, erect and haughty, as if he were proof against the
+      bullets, that whistled around him on all sides. Consciousness of power and
+      the fierce joy of battle sparkled in his eyes. Woe betide him, who
+      received a blow from the two-handed sword the Eletto still held over his
+      shoulder, now with his left hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam stood with upraised hammer beside the front ranks of the Walloons!
+      his eyes rested as if spellbound on his approaching son and the standard
+      in his hand. The face of the guilty woman, who had defrauded him of the
+      happiness of his life, gazed at him from the banner. He knew not whether
+      he was awake, or the sport of some bewildering dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, now his glance met the Eletto&rsquo;s, and unable to restrain himself
+      longer, he raised his hammer and tried to rush forward, but the Walloons
+      forced him back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, yes, he hated his own child, and trembling with rage, burning to rush
+      upon him, he saw the Eletto spring on the lowest projection of the wall,
+      to climb up. For a short time he was concealed from his eyes, then he saw
+      the top of the standard, then the banner itself, and now his son stood on
+      the highest part of the rampart, shouting: &ldquo;Espana, Espana!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, with a deafening din, a hundred arquebuses were discharged
+      close beside the smith, a dense cloud of smoke darkened the air, and when
+      the wind dispersed it, Adam no longer beheld the standard. It lay on the
+      ground; beside it the Eletto, with his face turned upward, mute and
+      motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father groaned aloud and closed his eyes; when he opened them,
+      hundreds of iron-mailed mutineers had scaled the rampart. Beneath their
+      feet lay his bleeding child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corpse after corpse sank on the stone wall beside the fallen man, but the
+      iron wedge of the Spaniards pressed farther and farther forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Espana, a sangre, a carne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now they had reached the Walloons, steel clashed against steel, but only
+      for a moment, then the defenders of the city wavered, the furious wedge
+      entered their ranks, they parted, yielded, and with loud shrieks took to
+      flight. The Spanish swords raged among them, and overpowered by the
+      general terror, the officers followed the example of the soldiers, the
+      flying army, like a resistless torrent, carrying everything with it, even
+      the smith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An unparalleled massacre began. Adam seeing a frantic horde rush into the
+      houses, remembered Ruth, and half mad with terror hastened back to the
+      smithy, where he told those left behind what he had witnessed. Then,
+      arming himself and his journeymen with weapons forged by his own hand, he
+      hurried out with them to renew the fight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hours elapsed; the noise, the firing, the ringing of the alarm bells still
+      continued; smoke and the smell of fire penetrated through the doors and
+      windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evening came, and the richest, most flourishing commercial capital in the
+      world was here a heap of ashes, there a ruin, everywhere a plundered
+      treasury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once the occupants of the smith&rsquo;s shop heard a band of murderers raging
+      and shouting outside of the smithy; but they passed by, and all day long
+      no others entered the quiet street, which was inhabited only by workers in
+      metal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth and old Rahel had remained behind, under the protection of the brave
+      foreman. Adam had told them to fly to the cellar, if any uproar arose
+      outside the door. Ruth wore a dagger, determined in the worst extremity to
+      turn it against her own breast. What did she care for life, since Ulrich
+      had perished!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rahel, an aged dame of eighty, paced restlessly, with bowed figure,
+      through the large room, saying compassionately, whenever her eyes met the
+      girl&rsquo;s: &ldquo;Ulrich, our Ulrich!&rdquo; then, straightening herself and looking
+      upward. She no longer knew what had happened a few hours before, yet her
+      memory faithfully retained the incidents that occurred many years
+      previous. The maidservant, a native of Antwerp, had rushed home to her
+      parents when the tumult began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the day drew towards a close, the panes were less frequently shaken by
+      the thunder of the artillery, the noise in the streets diminished, but the
+      house became more and more filled with suffocating smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night came, the lamp was lighted, the women started at every new sound,
+      but anxiety for Adam now overpowered every other feeling in Ruth&rsquo;s mind.
+      Just then the door opened, and the smith&rsquo;s deep voice called in the
+      vestibule: &ldquo;It is I! Don&rsquo;t be frightened, it is I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had gone out with five journeymen: he returned with two. The others lay
+      slain in the streets, and with them Count Oberstein&rsquo;s soldiers, the only
+      ones who had stoutly resisted the Spanish mutineers and their allies to
+      the last man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam had swung his hammer on the Mere and by the Zucker Canal among the
+      citizens, who fought desperately for the property and lives of their
+      families;&mdash;but all was vain. Vargas&rsquo;s troopers had stifled even the
+      last breath of resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets ran blood, corpses lay in heaps before the doors and on the
+      pavement&mdash;among them the bodies of the Margrave of Antwerp, Verreyck,
+      Burgomaster van der Mere, and many senators and nobles. Conflagration
+      after conflagration crimsoned the heavens, the superb city-hall was
+      blazing, and from a thousand windows echoed the screams of the assailed,
+      plundered, bleeding citizens, women and children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith hastily ate a few mouthfuls to restore his strength, then raised
+      his head, saying: &ldquo;No one has touched our house. The door and shutters of
+      neighbor Ykens&rsquo; are shattered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A miracle!&rdquo; cried old Rahel, raising her staff. &ldquo;The generation of vipers
+      scent richer booty than iron at the silversmith&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just at that moment the knocker sounded. Adam started up, put on his coat
+      of mail again, motioned to his journeymen and went to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rahel shrieked loudly: &ldquo;To the cellar, Ruth. Oh, God, oh, God, have mercy
+      upon us! Quick&mdash;where&rsquo;s my shawl?&mdash;They are attacking us!&mdash;Come,
+      come! Oh, I am caught, I can go no farther!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mortal terror had seized the old woman; she did not want to die. To the
+      girl death was welcome, and she did not stir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Voices were now audible in the vestibule, but they sounded neither noisy
+      nor threatening; yet Rahel shrieked in despair as a lansquenet, fully
+      armed, entered the workshop with the armorer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz had come to look for Ulrich&rsquo;s father. In his arms lay the
+      dog Lelaps, which, bleeding from the wound made by a bullet, that grazed
+      its neck, nestled trembling against its master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bowing courteously to Ruth, the soldier said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take pity on this poor creature, fair maiden, and wash its wound with a
+      little wine. It deserves it. I could tell you such tales of its
+      cleverness! It came from distant India, where a pirate.... But you shall
+      hear the story some other time. Thanks, thanks! As to your son, Meister,
+      it&rsquo;s a thousand pities about him. He was a splendid fellow, and we were
+      like two brothers. He himself gave me the safeguard for you and the
+      artist, Moor. I fastened them on the doors with my own hands, as soon as
+      the fray began. My swordbearer got the paste, and now may the writing
+      stick there as an honorable memento till the end of the world. Navarrete
+      was a faithful fellow, who never forgot his friends! How much good that
+      does Lelaps! See, see! He is licking your hands, that means, &lsquo;I thank
+      you.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Ruth had been washing the dog&rsquo;s wound, and the lansquenet talked of
+      Ulrich, her tearful eyes met the father&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say he cut down twenty-one Walloons before he fell,&rdquo; continued Hans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; interrupted Adam. &ldquo;I saw him. He was shot before he raised his
+      guilty sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, ah!&mdash;but it happened on the rampart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They rushed over him to the assault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there he still lies; not a soul has cared for the dead and wounded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl started, and laid the dog in the old man&rsquo;s lap, exclaiming:
+      &ldquo;Suppose Ulrich should be alive! Perhaps he was not mortally wounded,
+      perhaps....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, everything is possible,&rdquo; interrupted the lansquenet. &ldquo;I could tell
+      you things... for instance, there was a countryman of mine whom, when we
+      were in Africa, a Moorish Pacha struck... no lies now... perhaps! In
+      earnest; it might happen that Ulrich... wait... at midnight I shall keep
+      guard on the rampart with my company, then I&rsquo;ll look....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We, we will seek him!&rdquo; cried Ruth, seizing the smith&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; replied the smith; &ldquo;you must stay here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, father, I will go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lansquenet also shook his head, saying &ldquo;Jungfer, Jungfer, you don&rsquo;t
+      know what a day this is. Thank Our Heavenly Father that you have hitherto
+      escaped so well. The fierce lion has tasted blood. You are a pretty child,
+      and if they should see you to-day....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; interrupted the girl. &ldquo;I know what I am asking. You will take
+      me with you, father! Do so, if you love me! I will find him, if any one
+      can!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, sir, you look kind and friendly! You have the guard. Escort us;
+      let me seek Ulrich. I shall find him, I know; I must seek him&mdash;I
+      must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl&rsquo;s cheeks were glowing; for before her she saw her playfellow, her
+      lover, gasping for breath, with staring eyes, her name upon his dying
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam sadly shook his head, but Hans Eitelfritz was touched by the girl&rsquo;s
+      eager longing to help the man who was dear to him, so he hastily taxed his
+      inventive brain, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it might be risked... listen to me, Meister! You won&rsquo;t be
+      particularly safe in the streets, yourself, and could hardly reach the
+      rampart without me. I shall lose precious time; but you are his father,
+      and this girl&mdash;is she his sister?&mdash;No?&mdash;So much the better
+      for him, if he lives! It isn&rsquo;t an easy matter, but it can be done. Yonder
+      good dame will take care of Lelaps for me. Poor dog! That feels good,
+      doesn&rsquo;t it? Well then... I can be here again at midnight. Have you a
+      handcart in the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For coal and iron.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will answer. Let the woman make a kettle of soup, and if you have a
+      few hams....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are four in the store-room,&rdquo; cried Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take some bread, a few jugs of wine, and a keg of beer, too, and then
+      follow me quietly. I have the password, my servant will accompany me, and
+      I&rsquo;ll make the Spaniards believe you belong to us, and are bringing my men
+      their supper. Blacken your pretty face a little, my dear girl, wrap
+      yourself up well, and if we find Ulrich we will put him in the empty cart,
+      and I will accompany you home again. Take yonder spicesack, and if we find
+      the poor fellow, dead or alive, hide him with it. The sack was intended
+      for other things, but I shall be well content with this booty. Take care
+      of these silver toys. What pretty things they are! How the little horse
+      rears, and see the bird in the cage! Don&rsquo;t look so fierce, Meister! In
+      catching fish we must be content even with smelts; if I hadn&rsquo;t taken
+      these, others would have done so; they are for my sister&rsquo;s children, and
+      there is something else hidden here in my doublet; it shall help me to
+      pass my leisure hours. One man&rsquo;s meat is another man&rsquo;s poison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hans Eitelfritz returned at midnight, the cart with the food and
+      liquor was ready. Adam&rsquo;s warnings were unavailing. Ruth resolutely
+      insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk
+      safety and life as freely as he did himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rahel had done her best to conceal Ruth&rsquo;s beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dangerous nocturnal pilgrimage began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his
+      sword-bearer, walking by her side. From time to time Spanish soldiers met
+      and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and
+      dispelled their suspicions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and mistrusted
+      scenes of horror, that congealed her blood. But she bore up until they
+      reached the rampart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Eitelfritz was among his own men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He delivered the meat and drink to them, told them to take it out of the
+      cart, and invited them to fall to boldly. Then, seizing a lantern, he
+      guided Ruth and the smith, who drew the light cart after them, through the
+      intense darkness of the November night to the rampart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz lighted the way, and all three searched. Corpse lay beside
+      corpse. Wherever Ruth set her foot, it touched some fallen soldier. Dread,
+      horror and loathing threatened to deprive her of consciousness; but the
+      ardent longing, the one last hope of her soul sustained her, steeled her
+      energy, sharpened her sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had reached the centre of the rampart, when she saw in the distance a
+      tall figure stretched at full length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That, yes, that was he!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Snatching the lantern from the lansquenet&rsquo;s hand, she rushed to the
+      prostrate form, threw herself on her knees beside it, and cast the light
+      upon the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What had she seen?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why did the shriek she uttered sound so agonized? The men were
+      approaching, but Ruth knew that there was something else to be done,
+      besides weeping and wailing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her ear close to the mailed breast to listen, and when she
+      heard no breath, hurriedly unfastened the clasps and buckles that confined
+      the armor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cuirass fell rattling on the ground, and now&mdash;no, there was no
+      deception, the wounded man&rsquo;s chest rose under her ear, she heard the faint
+      throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a gasping breach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bursting into loud, convulsive weeping, she raised his head and pressed it
+      to her bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is dead; I thought so!&rdquo; said the lansquenet, and Adam sank on his
+      knees before his wounded son. But Ruth&rsquo;s sobs now changed to low, joyous,
+      musical laughter, which echoed in her voice as she exclaimed: &ldquo;Ulrich
+      breathes, he lives! Oh, God! oh, God! how we thank Thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then&mdash;was she deceived, could it be? She heard the inflexible man
+      beside her sob, saw him bend over Ulrich, listen to the beating of his
+      heart, and press his bearded lips first to his temples, then on the hand
+      he had so harshly rejected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz warned them to hasten, carried the senseless man, with
+      Adam&rsquo;s assistance, to the cart, and half an hour later the dangerously
+      wounded, outcast son was lying in the most comfortable bed in the best
+      room in his father&rsquo;s house. His couch was in the upper story; down in the
+      kitchen old Rahel was moving about the hearth, preparing her &ldquo;good salve&rdquo;
+       herself. While thus engaged she often chuckled aloud, murmuring &ldquo;Ulrich,&rdquo;
+       and while mixing and stirring the mixture could not keep her old feet
+      still; it almost seemed as if she wanted to dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hans Eitelfritz promised Adam to tell no one what had become of his son,
+      and then returned to his men. The next morning the mutineers from Aalst
+      sought their fallen leader; but he had disappeared, and the legend now
+      became wide-spread among them, that the Prince of Evil had carried
+      Navarrete to his own abode. The dog Lelaps died of his wound, and scarcely
+      a week after the pillage of flourishing Antwerp by the &ldquo;Spanish Furies,&rdquo;
+       Hans Eitelfritz&rsquo;s regiment was ordered to Ghent. He came with drooping
+      head to the smithy, to take his leave. He had sold his costly booty, and,
+      like so many other pillagers, gambled away the stolen property at the
+      exchange. Nothing was left him of the great day in Antwerp, except the
+      silver toys for his sister&rsquo;s children in Colln on the Spree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The fire in the smithy was extinguished, no hammer fell on the anvil; for
+      the wounded man lay in a burning fever; every loud noise disturbed him.
+      Adam had noticed this himself, and gave no time to his work, for he had to
+      assist in nursing his son, when it was necessary to raise his heavy body,
+      and to relieve Ruth, when, after long night-watches, her vigorous strength
+      was exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man saw that the girl&rsquo;s bands were more deft than his own
+      toil-hardened ones, and let her take the principal charge-but the hours
+      when she was resting in her room were the dearest to him, for then he was
+      alone with Ulrich, could read his countenance undisturbed and rejoice in
+      gazing at every feature, which reminded him of his child&rsquo;s boyhood and of
+      Flora.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often pressed his bearded lips to the invalid&rsquo;s burning forehead or
+      limp hand, and when the physician with an anxious face had left the house,
+      he knelt beside Ulrich&rsquo;s couch, buried his forehead among the pillows, and
+      fervently prayed the Heavenly Father, to spare his child and take in
+      exchange his own life and all that he possessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He often thought the end had come, and gave himself up without resistance
+      to his grief; Ruth, on the contrary, never lost hope, not even in the
+      darkest hours. God had not let her find Ulrich, merely to take him from
+      her again. The end of danger was to her the beginning of deliverance. When
+      he recognized her the first time, she already saw him, leaning on her
+      shoulder, walk through the room; when he could raise himself, she thought
+      him cured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart was overflowing with joy, yet her mind remained watchful and
+      thoughtful during the long, toilsome nursing. She did not forget the
+      smallest trifle, for before she undertook anything she saw in her mind
+      every detail involved, as if it were already completed. Ulrich took no
+      food which she had not prepared with her own hand, no drink which she had
+      not herself brought from the cellar or the well. She perceived in advance
+      what disturbed him, what pleased him, what he needed. If she opened or
+      closed the curtain, she gave or withheld no more light than was agreeable
+      to him; if she arranged the pillows behind him, she placed them neither
+      too high nor too low, and bound up his wounds with a gentle yet firm hand,
+      like an experienced physician. Whatever he felt&mdash;pain or comfort&mdash;she
+      experienced with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By degrees the fever vanished; consciousness returned, his pain lessened,
+      he could move himself again, and began to feel stronger. At first he did
+      not know where he was; then he recognized Ruth, and then his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How still, how dusky, how clean everything that surrounded him was!
+      Delightful repose stole over him, pleasant weariness soothed every stormy
+      emotion of his heart. Whenever he opened his eyes, tender, anxious glances
+      met him. Even when the pain returned he enjoyed peaceful, consoling mental
+      happiness. Ruth felt this also, and regarded it as a peerless reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she entered the sick-room with fresh linen, and the odor of lavender
+      her dead mother had liked floated softly to him from the clean sheets, he
+      thought his boyhood had returned, and with it the wise, friendly doctor&rsquo;s
+      house. Elizabeth, the shady pine-woods of his home, its murmuring brooks
+      and luxuriant meadows, again rose before his mind; he saw Ruth and himself
+      listening to the birds, picking berries, gathering flowers, and beseeching
+      beautiful gifts from the &ldquo;word.&rdquo; His father appeared even more kind,
+      affectionate, and careful than in those days. The man became the boy
+      again, and all his former good traits of character now sprang up freshly
+      under the bright light and vivifying dew of love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He received Ruth&rsquo;s unwearied attentions with ardent gratitude, and when he
+      gazed into her faithful eyes, when her hand touched him, her soft, deep
+      voice penetrated the depths of his soul, an unexampled sense of happiness
+      filled his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything, from the least to the greatest, embraced his soul with the
+      arms of love. It seemed as if the ardent yearning of his heart extended
+      far beyond the earth, and rose to God, who fills the universe with His
+      infinite paternal love. His every breath, Ulrich thought, must henceforth
+      be a prayer, a prayer of gratitude to Him, who is love itself, the Love,
+      through and in which he lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had sought love, to enjoy its gifts; now he was glad to make sacrifices
+      for its sake. He saw how Ruth&rsquo;s beautiful face saddened when he was
+      suffering, and with manly strength of will concealed inexpressible agony
+      under a grateful smile. He feigned sleep, to permit her and his father to
+      rest, and when tortured by feverish restlessness, lay still to give his
+      beloved nurses pleasure and repay their solicitude. Love urged him to
+      goodness, gave him strength for all that is good. His convalescence
+      advanced and, when he was permitted to leave his bed, his father was the
+      first one to support him through the room and down the steps into the
+      court-yard. He often felt with quiet emotion the old man stroke the hand
+      that rested on his arm, and when, exhausted, he returned to the sick-room,
+      he sank with a grateful heart into his comfortable seat, casting a look of
+      pleasure at the flowers, which Ruth had taken from her chamber window and
+      placed on the table beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His family now knew what he had endured and experienced, and the smith
+      found a kind, soothing word for all that, a few months before, he had
+      considered criminal and unpardonable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During such a conversation, Ulrich once exclaimed &ldquo;War! You know not how
+      it bears one along with it; it is a game whose stake is life. That of
+      others is of as little value as your own; to do your worst to every one,
+      is the watchword; but now&mdash;every thing has grown so calm in my soul,
+      and I have a horror of the turmoil in the field. I was talking with Ruth
+      yesterday about her father, and she reminded me of his favorite saying,
+      which I had forgotten long ago. Do you know what it is? &lsquo;Do unto others,
+      as ye would that others should do unto you.&rsquo; I have not been cruel, and
+      never drew the sword out of pleasure in slaying; but now I grieve for
+      having brought woe to so many!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What things were done in Haarlem! If you had moved there instead of to
+      Antwerp, and you and Ruth... I dare not think of it! Memories of those
+      days torture me in many a sleepless hour, and there is much that fills me
+      with bitter remorse. But I am permitted to live, and it seems as if I were
+      new-born, and henceforth existence and doing good must be synonymous to
+      me. You were right to be angry....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all forgiven and forgotten,&rdquo; interrupted the smith in a resonant
+      voice, pressing his son&rsquo;s fingers with his hard right hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words affected the convalescent like a strengthening potion, and
+      when the hammers again moved in the smithy, Ulrich was no longer satisfied
+      with his idle life, and began with Ruth to look forward to and discuss the
+      future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The words: &lsquo;fortune,&rsquo; &lsquo;fame,&rsquo; &lsquo;power,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said once, &ldquo;have deceived me;
+      but art! You don&rsquo;t know, Ruth, what art is! It does not bestow everything,
+      but a great deal, a great deal. Meister Moor was indeed a teacher! I am
+      too old to begin at the beginning once more. If it were not for that....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Ulrich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to try painting again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl exhorted him to take courage, and told his father of their
+      conversation. The smith put on his Sunday clothes and went to the artist&rsquo;s
+      house. The latter was in Brussels, but was expected home soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this time, every third day, Adam donned his best clothes, which he
+      disliked to wear, and went to the artist&rsquo;s; but always in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of February the invalid was playing chess with Ruth,&mdash;she
+      had learned the game from the smith and Ulrich from her,&mdash;when Adam
+      entered the room, saying: &ldquo;when the game is over, I wish to speak to you,
+      my son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl had the advantage, but instantly pushed the pieces together
+      and left the two alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She well knew what was passing in the father&rsquo;s mind, for the day before he
+      had brought all sorts of artist&rsquo;s materials, and told her to arrange the
+      little gable-room, with the large window facing towards the north, and put
+      the easel and colors there. They had only smiled at each other, but they
+      had long since learned to understand each other, even without words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Ulrich in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smith then told him what he had provided and arranged, adding: &ldquo;the
+      picture on the standard&mdash;you say you painted it yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was your mother, exactly as she looked when... She did not treat
+      either of us rightly&mdash;but she!&mdash;the Christian must forgive;&mdash;and
+      as she was your mother&mdash;why&mdash;I should like... perhaps it is not
+      possible; but if you could paint her picture, not as a Madonna, only as
+      she looked when a young wife....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can, I will!&rdquo; cried Ulrich, in joyous excitement. &ldquo;Take me upstairs, is
+      the canvas ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the frame, firmly in the frame! I am an old man, and you see, child, I
+      remember how wonderfully sweet your mother was; but I can never succeed in
+      recalling just how she looked then. I have tried, tried thousands and
+      thousands of times; at&mdash;Richtberg, here, everywhere&mdash;deep as was
+      my wrath!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall see her again surely&mdash;surely!&rdquo; interrupted Ulrich. &ldquo;I see
+      her before me, and what I see in my mind, I can paint!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The work was commenced the very same day. Ulrich now succeeded
+      wonderfully, and lavished on the portrait all the wealth of love, with
+      which his heart was filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had he guided the brush so joyously; in painting this picture he
+      only wished to give, to give&mdash;give his beloved father the best he
+      could accomplish, so he succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young wife, attired in a burgher dress, stood with her bewitching eyes
+      and a melancholy, half-tender, half-mournful smile on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam was not permitted to enter the studio again until the portrait was
+      completed. When Ulrich at last unveiled the picture, the old man&mdash;unable
+      longer to control himself&mdash;burst into loud sobs and fell upon his
+      son&rsquo;s breast. It seemed to Adam that the pretty creature in the golden
+      frame&mdash;far from needing his forgiveness&mdash;was entitled to his
+      gratitude for many blissful hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after, Adam found Moor at home, and a few hours later took Ulrich to
+      him. It was a happy and a quiet meeting, which was soon followed by a
+      second interview in the smith&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moor gazed long and searchingly at Ulrich&rsquo;s work. When he had examined it
+      sufficiently, he held out his hand to his pupil, saying warmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always said so; you are an artist! From to-morrow we will work together
+      again, daily, and you will win more glorious victories with the brush than
+      with the sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulrich&rsquo;s cheeks glowed with happiness and pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth had never before seen him look so, and as she gazed joyfully into his
+      eyes, he held out his hands to her, exclaiming: &ldquo;An artist, an artist
+      again! Oh, would that I had always remained one! Now I lack only one thing
+      more&mdash;yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rushed to his embrace, exclaiming joyously &ldquo;Yours, yours! I have
+      always been so, and always shall be, to-day, to-morrow, unto death,
+      forever and ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he answered gravely. &ldquo;Our hearts are one and ever will be,
+      nothing can separate them; but your fate shall not be linked to mine till,
+      Moor himself calls me a master. Love imposes no condition&mdash;I am yours
+      and you are mine&mdash;but I impose the trial on myself, and this time I
+      know it will be passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A new spirit animated the pupil. He rushed to his work with tireless
+      energy, and even the hardest task became easy, when he thought of the
+      prize he sought. At the end of a year, Moor ceased to instruct him, and
+      Ruth became the wife of Meister Ulrich Schwab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The famous artist-guild of Antwerp soon proudly numbered him among them,
+      and even at the present day his pictures are highly esteemed by
+      connoisseurs, though they are attributed to other painters, for he never
+      signed his name to his works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the four words, which illumined his life-path as guiding-stars, he had
+      learned to value fame and power least; fortune and art remained faithful
+      to him, but as the earth does not shine by its own might, but receives its
+      light from the sun, so they obtained brilliancy, charm and endearing power
+      through love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fierce Eletto, whose sword raged in war, following the teachings of
+      his noble Master, became a truly Christian philanthropist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many have gazed with quiet delight at the magnificent picture, which
+      represents a beautiful mother, with a bright, intelligent face, leading
+      her three blooming children towards a pleasant old man, who holds out his
+      arms to them. The old man is Adam, the mother Ruth, the children are the
+      armorer&rsquo;s grandchildren; Ulrich Schwab was the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meister Moor died soon after Ulrich&rsquo;s marriage, and a few years after,
+      Sophonisba di Moncada came to Antwerp to seek the grave of him she had
+      loved. She knew from the dead man that he had met his dear Madrid pupil,
+      and her first visit was to the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After looking at his works, she exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The word! Do you remember, Meister? I told you then, that you had found
+      the right one. You are greatly altered, and it is a pity that you have
+      lost your flowing locks; but you look like a happy man, and to what do you
+      owe it? To the word, the only right word: &lsquo;Art!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He let her finish the sentence, then answered gravely &ldquo;There is still a
+      loftier word, noble lady! Whoever owns it&mdash;is rich indeed. He will no
+      longer wander&mdash;seek in doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is?&rdquo; she asked incredulously, with a smile of superior
+      knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found it,&rdquo; he answered firmly. &ldquo;It is &lsquo;Love.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sophonisba bent her head, saying softly and sadly: &ldquo;yes, yes&mdash;love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ETEXT EDITOR&rsquo;S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Among fools one must be a fool
+     He was steadfast in everything, even anger
+     No one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor
+     Once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point
+     To expect gratitude is folly
+     Whoever condemns, feels himself superior
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
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+</pre>
+    <p>
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Word Only A Word, Complete
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Last Updated: March 10, 2009
+Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5577]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD, Complete
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+
+Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"A word, only a word!" cried a fresh, boyish voice, then two hands
+were loudly clapped and a gay laugh echoed through the forest. Hitherto
+silence had reigned under the boughs of the pines and tops of the
+beeches, but now a wood-pigeon joined in the lad's laugh, and a jay,
+startled by the clapping of hands, spread its brown wings, delicately
+flecked with blue, and soared from one pine to another.
+
+Spring had entered the Black Forest a few weeks before. May was just
+over, yet the weather was as sultry as in midsummer and clouds were
+gathering in denser and denser masses. The sun was still some distance
+above the horizon, but the valley was so narrow that the day star had
+disappeared, before making its majestic entry into the portals of night.
+
+When it set in a clear sky, it only gilded the border of pine trees on
+the crest of the lofty western heights; to-day it was invisible, and the
+occasional, quickly interrupted twittering of the birds seemed more in
+harmony with the threatening clouds and sultry atmosphere than the lad's
+gay laughter.
+
+Every living creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious
+suspense, but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare
+knee against a bundle of faggots, cried:
+
+"Give me that stick, Ruth, that I may tie it up. How dry the stuff is,
+and how it snaps! A word! To sit over books all day long for one stupid
+word--that's just nonsense!"
+
+"But all words are not alike," replied the girl.
+
+"Piff is paff, and paff is puff!" laughed Ulrich. "When I snap the
+twigs, you always hear them say 'knack, knack,' and 'knack' is a word
+too. The juggler Caspar's magpie, can say twenty."
+
+"But father said so," replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks. "He toils
+hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words. You are always
+wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up
+courage to ask him, and now I know. I suppose he saw I was astonished,
+for he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question
+at lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not
+be despised, for God had made the world out of one single word."
+
+Ulrich shook his head, and after pondering a few minutes, replied.
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"Father said so," was the little girl's only answer. Her words expressed
+the firm, immovable security of childish confidence, and the same
+feeling sparkled in her eyes. She was probably about nine years old,
+and in every respect a perfect contrast to her companion, her senior by
+several summers, for the latter was strongly built, and from beneath
+his beautiful fair locks a pair of big blue eyes flashed defiance at the
+world, while Ruth was a delicate little creature, with slender limbs,
+pale cheeks, and coal-black hair.
+
+The little girl wore a fashionably-made, though shabby dress, shoes and
+stockings--the boy was barefoot, and his grey doublet looked scarcely
+less worn than the short leather breeches, which hardly reached his
+knees; yet he must have had some regard for his outer man, for a red
+knot of real silk was fastened on his shoulder. He could scarcely be the
+child of a peasant or woodland laborer--the brow was too high, the nose
+and red lips were too delicately moulded, the bearing was too proud and
+free.
+
+Ruth's last words had given him food for thought, but he left them
+unanswered until the last bundle of sticks was tied up. Then he said
+hesitatingly:
+
+"My mother--you know.... I dare not speak of her before father, he goes
+into such a rage; my mother is said to be very wicked--but she never was
+so to me, and I long for her day after day, very, very much, as I long
+for nothing else. When I was so high, my mother told me a great many
+things, such queer things! About a man, who wanted treasures, and before
+whom mountains opened at a word he knew. Of course it's for such a word
+your father is seeking."
+
+"I don't know," replied the little girl. "But the word out of which God
+made the whole earth and sky and all the stars must have been a very
+great one."
+
+Ulrich nodded, then raising his eyes boldly, exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, if he should find it, and would not keep it to himself, but let you
+tell me! I should know what I wanted."
+
+Ruth looked at him enquiringly, but he cried laughingly: "I shan't tell.
+But what would you ask?"
+
+"I? I should ask to have my mother able to speak again like other
+people. But you would wish...."
+
+"You can't know what I would wish."
+
+"Yes, yes. You would bring your mother back home again."
+
+"No, I wasn't thinking of that," replied Ulrich, flushing scarlet and
+fixing his eyes on the ground.
+
+"What, then? Tell me; I won't repeat it."
+
+"I should like to be one of the count's squires, and always ride with
+him when he goes hunting."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth. "That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like
+you. A squire! But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord
+of the castle and a powerful count. You can have real velvet clothes,
+with gay slashes, and a silk bed."
+
+"And I'll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags
+and deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I'll
+show them!"
+
+Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the
+words, he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a
+thunder-shower was rising.
+
+Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots,
+he laid some on the little girl's shoulders, and went down with her
+towards the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or
+lightning; but Ruth trembled in every limb.
+
+At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still.
+The moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a
+reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.
+
+"Come!" cried Ulrich, stepping on to the edge of the ravine, where
+stones and sand, loosened by the wet, were now rattling down.
+
+"I'm afraid," answered the little girl trembling. "There's another flash
+of lightning! Oh! dear, oh, dear! how it blazes!--oh! oh! that clap of
+thunder!"
+
+She stooped as if the lightning had struck her, covered her face with
+her little hands, and fell on her knees, the bundle of faggots slipping
+to the ground. Filled with terror, she murmured as if she could command
+the mighty word: "Oh, Word, Word, get me home!"
+
+Ulrich stamped impatiently, glanced at her with mingled anger and
+contempt, and muttering reproaches, threw her bundle and his own into
+the ravine, then roughly seized her hand and dragged her to the edge of
+the cliff.
+
+Half-walking, half-slipping, with many an unkind word, though he was
+always careful to support her, the boy scrambled down the steep slope
+with his companion, and when they were at last standing in the water
+at the bottom of the gully, picked up the dripping fagots and walked
+silently on, carrying her burden as well as his own.
+
+After a short walk through the running water and mass of earth and
+stones, slowly sliding towards the valley, several shingled roofs
+appeared, and the little girl uttered a sigh of relief; for in the row
+of shabby houses, each standing by itself, that extended from the forest
+to the level end of the ravine, was her own home and the forge belonging
+to her companion's father.
+
+It was still raining, but the thunder-storm had passed as quickly as it
+rose, and twilight was already gathering over the mist-veiled houses and
+spires of the little city, from which the street ran to the ravine. The
+stillness of the evening was only interrupted by a few scattered notes
+of bells, the finale of the mighty peal by which the warder had just
+been trying to disperse the storm.
+
+The safety of the town in the narrow forest-valley was well secured, a
+wall and ditch enclosed it; only the houses on the edge of the ravine
+were unprotected. True, the mouth of the pass was covered by the field
+pieces on the city wall, and the strong tower beside the gate, but it
+was not incumbent on the citizens to provide for the safety of the row
+of houses up there. It was called the Richtberg and nobody lived there
+except the rabble, executioners, and poor folk who were not granted the
+rights of citizenship. Adam, the smith, had forfeited his, and Ruth's
+father, Doctor Costa, was a Jew, who ought to be thankful that he was
+tolerated in the old forester's house.
+
+The street was perfectly still. A few children were jumping over the
+mud-puddles, and an old washerwoman was putting a wooden vessel under
+the gutter, to collect the rain-water.
+
+Ruth breathed more freely when once again in the street and among human
+beings, and soon, clinging to the hand of her father, who had come to
+meet her, she entered the house with him and Ulrich.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+While the boy flung the damp bundles of brushwood on the floor beside
+the hearth in the doctor's kitchen, a servant from the monastery was
+leading three horses under the rude shed in front of the smith Adam's
+work-shop The stately grey-haired monk, who had ridden the strong
+cream-colored steed, was already standing beside the embers of the fire,
+pressing his hands upon the warm chimney.
+
+The forge stood open, but spite of knocking and shouting, neither the
+master of the place, nor any other living soul appeared. Adam had gone
+out, but could not be far away, for the door leading from the shop into
+the sitting-room, was also unlocked.
+
+The time was growing long to Father Benedict, so for occupation he tried
+to lift the heavy hammer. It was a difficult task, though he was no
+weakling, yet it was not hard for Adam's arm to swing and guide the
+burden. If only the man had understood how to govern his life as well as
+he managed his ponderous tool!
+
+He did not belong to Richtberg. What would his father have said, had he
+lived to see his son dwell here?
+
+The monk had known the old smith well, and he also knew many things
+about the son and his destiny, yet no more than rumor entrusts to one
+person concerning another's life. Even this was enough to explain why
+Adam had become so reserved, misanthropic and silent a man, though even
+in his youth he certainly had not been what is termed a gay fellow.
+
+The forge where he grew up, was still standing in the market-place
+of the little city below; it had belonged to his grandfather and
+great-grandfather. There had never been any lack of custom, to the
+annoyance of the wise magistrates, whose discussions were disturbed by
+the hammering that rang across the ill-paved square to the windows
+of the council-chamber; but, on the other hand, the idle hours of the
+watchmen under the arches of the ground-floor of the town-hall were
+sweetened by the bustle before the smithy.
+
+How Adam had come from the market-place to the Richtberg, is a story
+speedily told.
+
+He was the only child of his dead parents, and early learned his
+father's trade. When his mother died, the old man gave his son and
+partner his blessing, and some florins to pay his expenses, and sent him
+away. He went directly to Nuremberg, which the old man praised as the
+high-school of the smith's art, and there remained twelve years. When,
+at the end of that time, news came to Adam that his father was dead, and
+he had inherited the forge on the market-place, he wondered to find that
+he was thirty years old, and had gone no farther than Nuremberg. True,
+everything that the rest of the world could do in the art of forging
+might be learned there.
+
+He was a large, heavy man, and from childhood had moved slowly and
+reluctantly from the place where he chanced to be.
+
+If work was pressing, he could not be induced to leave the anvil, even
+when evening had closed in; if it was pleasant to sit over the beer, he
+remained till after the last man had gone. While working, he was as mute
+as the dead to everything that was passing around him; in the tavern
+he rarely spoke, and then said only a few words, yet the young artists,
+sculptors, workers in gold and students liked to see the stout drinker
+and good listener at the table, and the members of his guild only
+marvelled how the sensible fellow, who joined in no foolish pranks, and
+worked in such good earnest, held aloof from them to keep company with
+these hairbrained folk, and remained a Papist.
+
+He might have taken possession of the shop on the market-place directly
+after his father's death, but could not arrange his departure so
+quickly, and it was fully eight months before he left Nuremberg.
+
+On the high-road before Schwabach a wagon, occupied by some strolling
+performers, overtook the traveller. They belonged to the better class,
+for they appeared before counts and princes, and were seven in number.
+The father and four sons played the violin, viola and reboc, and the two
+daughters sang to the lute and harp. The old man invited Adam to take
+the eighth place in the vehicle, so he counted his pennies, and room
+was made for him opposite Flora, called by her family Florette. The
+musicians were going to the fair at Nordlingen, and the smith enjoyed
+himself so well with them, that he remained several days after reaching
+the goal of the journey. When he at last went away Florette wept, but
+he walked straight on until noon, without looking back. Then he lay down
+under a blossoming apple-tree, to rest and eat some lunch, but the lunch
+did not taste well; and when he shut his eyes he could not sleep, for
+he thought constantly of Florette. Of course! He had parted from her far
+too soon, and an eager longing seized upon him for the young girl, with
+her red lips and luxuriant hair. This hair was a perfect golden-yellow;
+he knew it well, for she had often combed and braided it in the
+tavern-room beside the straw where they all slept.
+
+He yearned to hear her laugh too, and would have liked to see her weep
+again.
+
+Then he remembered the desolate smithy in the narrow market-place and
+the dreary home, recollected that he was thirty years old, and still had
+no wife.
+
+A little wife of his own! A wife like Florette! Seventeen years old,
+a complexion like milk and blood, a creature full of gayety and joyous
+life! True, he was no light-hearted lad, but, lying under the apple-tree
+in the month of May, he saw himself in imagination living happily and
+merrily in the smithy by the market-place, with the fair-haired girl who
+had already shed tears for him. At last he started up, and because he
+had determined to go still farther on this day, did so, though for no
+other reason than to carry out the plan formed the day before. The next
+morning, before sunrise, he was again marching along the highway, this
+time not forward towards the Black Forest, but back to Nordlingen.
+
+That very evening Florette became his betrothed bride, and the following
+Tuesday his wife.
+
+The wedding was celebrated in the midst of the turmoil of the fair.
+Strolling players, jugglers and buffoons were the witnesses, and there
+was no lack of music and tinsel.
+
+A quieter ceremony would have been more agreeable to the plain citizen
+and sensible blacksmith, but this purgatory had to be passed to reach
+Paradise.
+
+On Wednesday he went off in a fair wagon with his young wife, and
+in Stuttgart bought with a portion of his savings many articles of
+household furniture, less to stop the gossips' tongues, of which he took
+no heed, than to do her honor in his own eyes. These things, piled high
+in a wagon of his own, he had sent into his native town as Florette's
+dowry, for her whole outfit consisted of one pink and one grass-green
+gown, a lute and a little white dog.
+
+A delightful life now began in the smithy for Adam. The gossips avoided
+his wife, but they stared at her in church, and among them she seemed to
+him, not unjustly, like a rose amid vegetables. The marriage he had made
+was an abomination to respectable citizens, but Adam did not heed them,
+and Flora appeared to feel equally happy with him. When, before the
+close of the first twelvemonth after their wedding, Ulrich was born,
+the smith reached the summit of happiness and remained there for a whole
+year.
+
+When, during that time, he stood in the bow-window amid the fresh
+balsam, auricular and yellow wallflowers holding his boy on his
+shoulder, while his wife leaned on his arm, and the pungent odor of
+scorched hoofs reached his nostrils, and he saw his journeyman and
+apprentice shoeing a horse below, he often thought how pleasant it had
+been pursuing the finer branches of his craft in Nuremberg, and that he
+should like to forge a flower again; but the blacksmith's trade was not
+to be despised either, and surely life with one's wife and child was
+best.
+
+In the evening he drank his beer at the Lamb, and once, when the surgeon
+Siedler called life a miserable vale of tears, he laughed in his face
+and answered: "To him who knows how to take it right, it is a delightful
+garden."
+
+Florette was kind to her husband, and devoted herself to her child,
+so long as he was an infant, with the most self-sacrificing love. Adam
+often spoke of a little daughter, who must look exactly like its mother;
+but it did not come.
+
+When little Ulrich at last began to run about in the street, the
+mother's nomadic blood stirred, and she was constantly dinning it into
+her husband's ears that he ought to leave this miserable place and go to
+Augsburg or Cologne, where it would be pleasant; but he remained firm,
+and though her power over him was great, she could not move his resolute
+will.
+
+Often she would not cease her entreaties and representations, and when
+she even complained that she was dying of solitude and weariness, his
+veins swelled with wrath, and then she was frightened, fled to her room
+and wept. If she happened to have a bold day, she threatened to go away
+and seek her own relatives. This displeased him, and he made her feel
+it bitterly, for he was steadfast in everything, even anger, and when he
+bore ill-will it was not for hours, but months, nor at such times could
+he be conciliated by coaxing or tears.
+
+By degrees Florette learned to meet his discontent with a shrug of
+her shoulders, and to arrange her life in her own way. Ulrich was her
+comfort, pride and plaything, but sporting with him did not satisfy her.
+
+While Adam was standing behind the anvil, she sat among the flowers in
+the bow-window, and the watchmen now looked higher up than the forge,
+the worthy magistrates no longer cast unfriendly glances at the smith's
+house, for Florette grew more and more beautiful in the quiet life she
+now enjoyed, and many a neighboring noble brought his horse to Adam to
+be shod, merely to look into the eyes of the artisan's beautiful wife.
+
+Count von Frohlingen came most frequently of all, and Florette soon
+learned to distinguish the hoof-beats of his horse from those of the
+other steeds, and when he entered the shop, willingly found some pretext
+for going there too. In the afternoons she often went with her child
+outside the gate, and then always chose the road leading to the count's
+castle. There was no lack of careful friends, who warned Adam, but he
+answered them angrily, so they learned to be silent.
+
+Florette had now grown gay again, and sometimes sang like a joyous bird.
+
+Seven years elapsed, and during the summer of the eighth a scattered
+troop of soldiers came to the city and obtained admission. They were
+quartered under the arches of the town-hall, but many also lay in the
+smithy, for their helmets, breast-plates and other pieces of armor
+required plenty of mending. The ensign, a handsome, proud young fellow,
+with a dainty moustache, was Adam's most constant customer, and played
+very kindly with Ulrich, when Florette appeared with him. At last the
+young soldier departed, and the very same day Adam was summoned to the
+monastery, to mend something in the grating before the treasury.
+
+When he returned, Florette had vanished; "run after the ensign," people
+said, and they were right. Adam did not attempt to wrest her from the
+seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff
+that is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand
+fibres, and to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it
+has taken root, and with it life itself. When he secretly cursed her
+and called her a viper, he doubtless remembered how innocent, dear and
+joyous she had been, and then the roots of the destroyed affection put
+forth new shoots, and he saw before his mental vision ensnaring images,
+of which he felt ashamed as soon as they had vanished.
+
+Lightning and hail had entered the "delightful garden" of Adam's life
+also, and he had been thrust forth from the little circle of the happy
+into the great army of the wretched.
+
+Purifying powers dwell in undeserved suffering, but no one is made
+better by unmerited disgrace, least of all a man like Adam. He had done
+what seemed to him his duty, without looking to the right or the left,
+but now the stainless man felt himself dishonored, and with morbid
+sensitiveness referred everything he saw and heard to his own disgrace,
+while the inhabitants of the little town made him feel that he had been
+ill-advised, when he ventured to make a fiddler's daughter a citizen.
+
+When he went out, it seemed to him--and usually unjustly--as if people
+were nudging each other; hands, pointing out-stretched fingers at
+him, appeared to grow from every eye. At home he found nothing but
+desolation, vacuity, sorrow, and a child, who constantly tore open the
+burning, gnawing wounds in his heart. Ulrich must forget "the viper,"
+and he sternly forbade him to speak of his mother; but not a day passed
+on which he would not fain have done so himself.
+
+The smith did not stay long in the house on the market-place. He wished
+to go to Freiburg or Ulm, any place where he had not been with her. A
+purchaser for the dwelling, with its lucrative business, was speedily
+found, the furniture was packed, and the new owner was to move in on
+Wednesday, when on Monday Bolz, the jockey, came to Adam's workshop
+from Richtberg. The man had been a good customer for years, and bought
+hundreds of shoes, which he put on the horses at his own forge, for he
+knew something about the trade. He came to say farewell; he had his own
+nest to feather, and could do a more profitable business in the lowlands
+than up here in the forest. Finally he offered Adam his property at a
+very low price.
+
+The smith had smiled at the jockey's proposal, still he went to
+the Richtberg the very next day to see the place. There stood the
+executioner's house, from which the whole street was probably named.
+One wretched hovel succeeded another. Yonder before a door, Wilhelm the
+idiot, on whom the city boys played their pranks, smiled into vacancy
+just as foolishly as he had done twenty years ago, here lodged Kathrin,
+with the big goitre, who swept the gutters; in the three grey huts, from
+which hung numerous articles of ragged clothing, lived two families of
+charcoal-burners, and Caspar, the juggler, a strange man, whom as a boy
+he had seen in the pillory, with his deformed daughters, who in winter
+washed laces and in summer went with him to the fairs.
+
+In the hovels, before which numerous children were playing, lived
+honest, but poor foresters. It was the home of want and misery. Only
+the jockey's house and one other would have been allowed to exist in the
+city. The latter was occupied by the Jew, Costa, who ten years before
+had come from a distant country to the city with his aged father and a
+dumb wife, and remained there, for a little daughter was born and the
+old man was afterwards seized with a fatal illness. But the inhabitants
+would tolerate no Jews among them, so the stranger moved into the
+forester's house on the Richtberg which had stood empty because a better
+one had been built deeper in the woods. The city treasury could use the
+rent and tax exacted from Jews and demanded of the stranger. The Jew
+consented to the magistrate's requirement, but as it soon became known
+that he pored over huge volumes all day long and pursued no business,
+yet paid for everything in good money, he was believed to be an
+alchemist and sorcerer.
+
+All who lived here were miserable or despised, and when Adam had left
+the Richtberg he told himself that he no longer belonged among the proud
+and unblemished and since he felt dishonored and took disgrace in the
+same dogged earnest, that he did everything else, he believed the people
+in the Richtberg were just the right neighbors for him. All knew what
+it is to be wretched, and many had still heavier disgrace to bear. And
+then! If want drove his miserable wife back to him, this was the right
+place for her and those of her stamp.
+
+So he bought the jockey's house and well-supplied forge. There would be
+customers enough for all he could do there in obscurity.
+
+He had no cause to repent his bargain.
+
+The old nurse remained with him and took care of Ulrich, who throve
+admirably. His own heart too grew lighter while engaged in designing or
+executing many an artistic piece of work. He sometimes went to the
+city to buy iron or coals, but usually avoided any intercourse with the
+citizens, who shrugged their shoulders or pointed to their foreheads,
+when they spoke of him.
+
+About a year after his removal he had occasion to speak to the
+file-cutter, and sought him at the Lamb, where a number of Count
+Frolinger's retainers were sitting. Adam took no notice of them,
+but they began to jeer and mock at him. For a time he succeeded in
+controlling himself, but when red-haired Valentine went too far, a
+sudden fit of rage overpowered him and he felled him to the floor. The
+others now attacked him and dragged him to their master's castle, where
+he lay imprisoned for six months. At last he was brought before the
+count, who restored him to liberty "for the sake of Florette's beautiful
+eyes."
+
+Years had passed since then, during which Adam had lived a quiet,
+industrious life in the Richtberg with his son. He associated with
+no one, except Doctor Costa, in whom he found the first and only real
+friend fate had ever bestowed upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Benedict had last seen the smith soon after his return from
+imprisonment, in the confessional of the monastery. As the monk in his
+youth had served in a troop of the imperial cavalry, he now, spite
+of his ecclesiastical dignity, managed the stables of the wealthy
+monastery, and had formerly come to the smithy in the market-place with
+many a horse, but since the monks had become involved in a quarrel with
+the city, Benedict ordered the animals to be shod elsewhere.
+
+A difficult case reminded him of the skilful, half-forgotten artisan;
+and when the latter came out of the shed with a sack of coal, Benedict
+greeted him with sincere warmth. Adam, too, showed that he was glad to
+see the unexpected visitor, and placed his skill at the disposal of the
+monastery.
+
+"It has grown late, Adam," said the monk, loosening the belt he was
+accustomed to wear when riding, which had become damp. "The storm
+overtook us on the way. The rolling and flashing overhead made the
+sorrel horse almost tear Gotz's hands off the wrists. Three steps
+sideways and one forward--so it has grown late, and you can't shoe the
+rascal in the dark."
+
+"Do you mean the sorrel horse?" asked Adam, in a deep, musical voice,
+thrusting a blazing pine torch into the iron ring on the forge.
+
+"Yes, Master Adam. He won't bear shoeing, yet he's very valuable. We
+have nothing to equal him. None of us can control him, but you formerly
+zounds!... you haven't grown younger in the last few years either, Adam!
+Put on your cap; you've lost your hair. Your forehead reaches down to
+your neck, but your vigor has remained. Do you remember how you cleft
+the anvil at Rodebach?"
+
+"Let that pass," replied Adam--not angrily, but firmly. "I'll shoe the
+horse early to-morrow; it's too late to-day."
+
+"I thought so!" cried the other, clasping his hands excitedly. "You
+know how we stand towards the citizens on account of the tolls on the
+bridges. I'd rather lie on thorns than enter the miserable hole. The
+stable down below is large enough! Haven't you a heap of straw for a
+poor brother in Christ? I need nothing more; I've brought food with me."
+
+The smith lowered his eyes in embarrassment. He was not hospitable. No
+stranger had rested under his roof, and everything that disturbed his
+seclusion was repugnant to him. Yet he could not refuse; so he answered
+coldly: "I live alone here with my boy, but if you wish, room can be
+made."
+
+The monk accepted as eagerly, as if he had been cordially invited; and
+after the horses and groom were supplied with shelter, followed his host
+into the sitting-room next the shop, and placed his saddle-bags on the
+table.
+
+"This is all right," he said, laughing, as he produced a roast fowl and
+some white bread. "But how about the wine? I need something warm inside
+after my wet ride. Haven't you a drop in the cellar?"
+
+"No, Father!" replied the smith. But directly after a second thought
+occurred to him, and he added: "Yes, I can serve you."
+
+So saying, he opened the cupboard, and when, a short time after, the
+monk emptied the first goblet, he uttered a long drawn "Ah!" following
+the course of the fiery potion with his hand, till it rested content
+near his stomach. His lips quivered a little in the enjoyment of the
+flavor; then he looked benignantly with his unusually round eyes at
+Adam, saying cunningly:
+
+"If such grapes grow on your pine-trees, I wish the good Lord had given
+Father Noah a pine-tree instead of a vine. By the saints! The archbishop
+has no better wine in his cellar! Give me one little sip more, and tell
+me from whom you received the noble gift?"
+
+"Costa gave me the wine."
+
+"The sorcerer---the Jew?" asked the monk, pushing the goblet away. "But,
+of course," he continued, in a half-earnest, half-jesting tone, "when
+one considers--the wine at the first holy communion, and at the marriage
+of Cana, and the juice of the grapes King David enjoyed, once lay in
+Jewish cellars!"
+
+Benedict had doubtless expected a smile or approving word from his host,
+but the smith's bearded face remained motionless, as if he were dead.
+
+The monk looked less cheerful, as he began again "You ought not to
+grudge yourself a goblet either. Wine moderately enjoyed makes the heart
+glad; and you don't look like a contented man. Everything in life has
+not gone according to your wishes, but each has his own cross to bear;
+and as for you, your name is Adam, and your trials also come from Eve!"
+
+At these words the smith moved his hand from his beard, and began to
+push the round leather cap to and fro on his bald head. A harsh answer
+was already on his lips, when he saw Ulrich, who had paused on the
+threshold in bewilderment. The boy had never beheld any guest at his
+father's table except the doctor, but hastily collecting his thoughts
+he kissed the monk's hand. The priest took the handsome lad by the chin,
+bent his head back, looked Adam also in the face, and exclaimed:
+
+"His mouth, nose and eyes he has inherited from your wife, but the shape
+of the brow and head is exactly like yours."
+
+A faint flush suffused Adam's cheeks, and turning quickly to the boy as
+if he had heard enough, he cried:
+
+"You are late. Where have you been so long?"
+
+"In the forest with Ruth. We were gathering faggots for Dr. Costa."
+
+"Until now?"
+
+"Rahel had baked some dumplings, so the doctor told me to stay."
+
+"Then go to bed now. But first take some food to the groom in the
+stable, and put fresh linen on my bed. Be in the workshop early
+to-morrow morning, there is a horse to be shod."
+
+The boy looked up thoughtfully and replied: "Yes, but the doctor has
+changed the hours; to-morrow the lesson will begin just after sunrise,
+father."
+
+"Very well, we'll do without you. Good-night then."
+
+The monk followed this conversation with interest and increasing
+disapproval, his face assuming a totally different expression, for the
+muscles between his nose and mouth drew farther back, forming with the
+underlip an angle turning inward. Thus he gazed with mute reproach at
+the smith for some time, then pushed the goblet far away, exclaiming
+with sincere indignation:
+
+"What doings are these, friend Adam? I'll let the Jew's wine pass, and
+the dumplings too for aught I care, though it doesn't make a Christian
+child more pleasing in the sight of God, to eat from the same dish
+with those on whom the Saviour's innocent blood rests. But that you,
+a believing Christian, should permit an accursed Jew to lead a foolish
+lad. ..."
+
+"Let that pass," said the smith, interrupting the excited monk; but the
+latter would not be restrained, and only continued still more loudly and
+firmly: "I won't be stopped. Was such a thing ever heard of? A
+baptized Christian, who sends his own son to be taught by the infidel
+soul-destroyer!"
+
+"Hear me, Father!"
+
+"No indeed. It's for you to hear--you! What was I saying? For you, you
+who seek for your poor child a soul-destroying infidel as teacher. Do
+you know what that is? A sin against the Holy Ghost--the worst of all
+crimes. Such an abomination! You will have a heavy penance imposed upon
+you in the confessional."
+
+"It's no sin--no abomination!" replied the smith defiantly.
+
+The angry blood mounted into the monk's cheeks, and he cried:
+threateningly: "Oho! The chapter will teach you better to your sorrow.
+Keep the boy away from the Jew, or..."
+
+"Or?" repeated the smith, looking Father Benedict steadily in the face.
+
+The latter's lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he
+replied: "Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you
+and the vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and
+it is long since a Jew has been burned for an example to many."
+
+These words did not fail to produce an effect, for though Adam was a
+brave man, the monk threatened him with things, against which he felt
+as powerless as when confronted with the might of the tempest and the
+lightning flashing from the clouds. His features now expressed deep
+mental anguish, and stretching out his hands repellently towards his
+guest, he cried anxiously "No, no! Nothing more can happen to me. No
+excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to
+bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you
+to cross my threshold."
+
+The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle
+tone: "You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you
+going now? Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you
+look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you? No one shall
+have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest. See
+your way clearly once more, and when you have come to your senses--why,
+we monks have two eyes, that we may be able to close one when occasion
+requires. Have you any special cause for gratitude to Costa?"
+
+"Many, Father, many!" cried the smith, his voice still trembling with
+only too well founded anxiety for his friend. "Listen, and when you know
+what he has done for me, and are disposed to judge leniently, do not
+carry what reaches your ears here before the chapter no, Father--I
+beseech you--do not. For if it should be I, by whom the doctor came
+to ruin, I--I...." The man's voice failed, and his chest heaved so
+violently with his gasping breath, that his stout leathern apron rose
+and fell.
+
+"Be calm, Adam, be calm," said the monk, soothingly answering his
+companion's broken words. "All shall be well, all shall be well. Sit
+down, man, and trust me. What is the terrible debt of gratitude you owe
+the doctor?"
+
+Spite of the other's invitation, the smith remained standing and with
+downcast eyes, began:
+
+"I am not good at talking. You know how I was thrown into a dungeon on
+Valentine's account, but no one can understand my feelings during that
+time. Ulrich was left alone here among this miserable rabble with nobody
+to care for him, for our old maid-servant was seventy. I had buried my
+money in a safe place and there was nothing in the house except a loaf
+of bread and a few small coins, barely enough to last three days. The
+child was always before my eyes; I saw him ragged, begging, starving.
+But my anxiety tortured me most, after they had released me and I was
+going back to my house from the castle. It was a walk of two hours, but
+each one seemed as long as St. John's day. Should I find Ulrich or not?
+What had become of him? It was already dark, when I at last stood before
+the house. Everything was as silent as the grave, and the door was
+locked. Yet I must get in, so I rapped with my fingers, and then
+pounded with my fist on the door and shutters, but all in vain. Finally
+Spittellorle--[A nickname; literally: "Hospital Loura."]--came out
+of the red house next mine, and I heard all. The old woman had become
+idiotic, and was in the stocks. Ulrich was at the point of death, and
+Doctor Costa had taken him home. When I heard this, I felt the same as
+you did just now; anger seized upon me, and I was as much ashamed as
+if I were standing in the pillory. My child with the Jew! There was not
+much time for reflection, and I set off at full speed for the doctor's
+house. A light was shining through the window. It was high above the
+street, but as it stood open and I am tall, I could look in and see over
+the whole room. At the right side, next the wall, was a bed, where amid
+the white pillows lay my boy. The doctor sat by his side, holding the
+child's hand in his. Little Ruth nestled to him, asking: 'Well, father?'
+The man smiled. Do you know him, Pater? He is about thirty years old,
+and has a pale, calm face. He smiled and said so gratefully, so-so
+joyously, as if Ulrich were his own son: 'Thank God, he will be spared
+to us!' The little girl ran to her dumb mother, who was sitting by the
+stove, winding yarn, exclaiming: 'Mother, he'll get well again. I have
+prayed for him every day.' The Jew bent over my child and pressed his
+lips upon the boy's brow--and I, I--I no longer clenched my fist, and
+was so overwhelmed with emotion, that I could not help weeping, as if I
+were still a child myself, and since then, Pater Benedictus, since...."
+He paused; the monk rose, laid his hand on the smith's shoulder, and
+said:
+
+"It has grown late, Adam. Show me to my couch. Another day will come
+early to-morrow morning, and we should sleep over important matters. But
+one thing is settled, and must remain so-under all circumstances: the
+boy is no longer to be taught by the Jew. He must help you shoe the
+horses to-morrow. You will be reasonable!"
+
+The smith made no reply, but lighted the monk to the room where he and
+his son usually slept. His own couch was covered with fresh linen for
+the guest--Ulrich already lay in his bed, apparently asleep.
+
+"We have no other room to give you," said Adam, pointing to the boy; but
+the monk was content with his sleeping companions, and after his host
+had left him, gazed earnestly at Ulrich's fresh, handsome face.
+
+The smith's story had moved him, and he did not go to rest at once, but
+paced thoughtfully up and down the room, stepping lightly, that he might
+not disturb the child's slumber.
+
+Adam had reason to be grateful to the man, and why should there not be
+good Jews?
+
+He thought of the patriarchs, Moses, Solomon, and the prophets, and had
+not the Saviour himself, and John and Paul, whom he loved above all the
+apostles, been the children of Jewish mothers, and grown up among Jews?
+And Adam! the poor fellow had had more than his share of trouble, and he
+who believes himself deserted by God, easily turns to the devil. He was
+warned now, and the mischief to his son must be stopped once for all.
+What might not the child hear from the Jew, in these times, when heresy
+wandered about like a roaring lion, and sat by all the roads like a
+siren. Only by a miracle had this secluded valley been spared the evil
+teachings, but the peasants had already shown that they grudged the
+nobles the power, the cities the rich gains, and the priesthood the
+authority and earthly possessions, bestowed on them by God. He was
+disposed to let mildness rule, and spare the Jew this time--but only on
+one condition.
+
+When he took off his cowl, he looked for a hook on which to hang it, and
+while so doing, perceived on the shelf a row of boards. Taking one down,
+he found a sketch of an artistic design for the enclosure of a fountain,
+done by the smith's hand, and directly opposite his bed a linden-wood
+panel, on which a portrait was drawn with charcoal. This roused his
+curiosity, and, throwing the light of the torch upon it, he started
+back, for it was a rudely executed, but wonderfully life-like head of
+Costa, the Jew. He remembered him perfectly, for he had met him more
+than once.
+
+The monk shook his head angrily, but lifted the picture from the shelf
+and examined more closely the doctor's delicately-cut nose, and the
+noble arch of the brow. While so doing, he muttered unintelligible
+words, and when at last, with little show of care, he restored the
+modest work of art to its old place, Ulrich awoke, and, with a touch of
+pride, exclaimed:
+
+"I drew that myself, Father!"
+
+"Indeed!" replied the monk. "I know of better models for a pious lad.
+You must go to sleep now, and to-morrow get up early and help your
+father. Do you understand?"
+
+So saying, with no gentle hand he turned the boy's head towards the
+wall. The mildness awakened by Adam's story had all vanished to the
+winds.
+
+Adam allowed his son to practise idolatry with the Jew, and make
+pictures of him. This was too much. He threw himself angrily on his
+couch, and began to consider what was to be done in this difficult
+matter, but sleep soon brought his reflections to an end.
+
+Ulrich rose very early, and when Benedict saw him again in the light of
+the young day, and once more looked at the Jew's portrait, drawn by
+the handsome boy, a thought came to him as if inspired by the saints
+themselves--the thought of persuading the smith to give his son to the
+monastery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+This morning Pater Benedictus was a totally different person from the
+man, who had sat over the wine the night before. Coldly and formally he
+evaded the smith's questions, until the latter had sent his son away.
+
+Ulrich, without making any objection, had helped his father shoe the
+sorrel horse, and in a few minutes, by means of a little stroking over
+the eyes and nose, slight caresses, and soothing words, rendered the
+refractory stallion as docile as a lamb. No horse had ever resisted the
+lad, from the time he was a little child, the smith said, though for
+what reason he did not know. These words pleased the monk, for he
+was only too familiar with two fillies, that were perfect fiends for
+refractoriness, and the fair-haired boy could show his gratitude for the
+schooling he received, by making himself useful in the stable.
+
+Ulrich must go to the monastery, so Benedictus curtly declared with the
+utmost positiveness, after the smith had finished his work. At midsummer
+a place would be vacant in the school, and this should be reserved
+for the boy. A great favor! What a prospect--to be reared there with
+aristocratic companions, and instructed in the art of painting. Whether
+he should become a priest, or follow some worldly pursuit, could be
+determined later. In a few years the boy could choose without restraint.
+
+This plan would settle everything in the best possible way. The Jew need
+not be injured, and the smith's imperiled son would be saved. The monk
+would hear no objections. Either the accusation against the doctor
+should be laid before the chapter, or Ulrich must go to the school.
+
+In four weeks, on St. John's Day, so Benedictus declared, the smith and
+his son might announce their names to the porter. Adam must have saved
+many florins, and there would be time enough to get the lad shoes and
+clothes, that he might hold his own in dress with the other scholars.
+
+During this whole transaction the smith felt like a wild animal in the
+hunter's toils, and could say neither "yes" nor "no." The monk did not
+insist upon a promise, but, as he rode away, flattered himself that he
+had snatched a soul from the claws of Satan, and gained a prize for
+the monastery-school and his stable--a reflection that made him very
+cheerful.
+
+Adam retrained alone beside the fire. Often, when his heart was heavy,
+he had seized his huge hammer and deadened his sorrow by hard work; but
+to-day he let the tool lie, for the consciousness of weakness and lack
+of will paralyzed his lusty vigor, and he stood with drooping head, as
+if utterly crushed. The thoughts that moved him could not be exactly
+expressed in words, but doubtless a vision of the desolate forge, where
+he would stand alone by the fire without Ulrich, rose before his mind.
+Once the idea of closing his house, taking the boy by the hand, and
+wandering out into the world with him, flitted through his brain. But
+then, what would become of the Jew, and how could he leave this place?
+Where would his miserable wife, the accursed, lovely sinner, find him,
+when she sought him again? Ulrich had run out of doors long ago. Had
+he gone to study his lessons with the Jew? He started in terror at the
+thought. Passing his hands over his eyes, like a dreamer roused from
+sleep, he went into his chamber, threw off his apron, cleansed his face
+and hands from the soot of the forge, put on his burgher dress, which he
+only wore when he went to church or visited the doctor, and entered the
+street.
+
+The thunder-storm had cleared the air, and the sun shone pleasantly on
+the shingled roofs of the miserable houses of the Richtberg. Its rays
+were reflected from the little round window-panes, and flickered over
+the tree-tops on the edge of the ravine.
+
+The light-green hue of the fresh young foliage on the beeches glittered
+as brightly against the dark pines, as if Spring had made them a token
+of her mastery over the grave companions of Winter; yet even the pines
+were not passed by, and where her finger had touched the tips of the
+branches in benediction, appeared tender young shoots, fresh as the
+grass by the brook, and green as chrysophase and emerald.
+
+The stillness of morning reigned within the forest, yet it was full of
+life, rich in singing, chirping and twittering. Light streamed from the
+blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered
+and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been
+prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows
+of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant
+moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds and grass.
+
+Nature had celebrated her festival of resurrection at Easter, and the
+day after the morrow joyous Whitsuntide would begin. Fresh green life
+was springing from the stump of every dead tree; even the rocks afforded
+sustenance to a hundred roots, a mossy covering and network of thorny
+tendrils clung closely to them. The wild vine twined boldly up many a
+trunk, fruit was already forming on the bilberry bushes, though it
+still glimmered with a faint pink hue amid the green of May. A thousand
+blossoms, white, red, blue and yellow, swayed on their slender stalks,
+opened their calixes to the bees, unfolded their stars to deck the
+woodland carpet, or proudly stretched themselves up as straight as
+candles. Grey fungi had shot up after the refreshing rain, and gathered
+round the red-capped giants among the mushrooms. Under, over and around
+all this luxuriant vegetation hopped, crawled, flew, fluttered, buzzed
+and chirped millions of tiny, short-lived creatures. But who heeds them
+on a sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
+twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously? Murmuring
+and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
+amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley. The hurrying
+water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew
+along the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third
+species of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and
+spun delicate silk threads.
+
+In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
+charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
+below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
+purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
+sullied.
+
+It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
+smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky. Little
+clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles
+of wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln. A moss-grown but
+stood at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with
+the coal-burner. People called this man "Hangemarx," and in truth he
+looked in his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that
+Nature should deck herself in her Spring garb. He had a broad, peasant
+face, his mouth was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in
+many places looked washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow
+forehead, that it wholly concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white
+brows. The eyes under them needed to be taken on trust, they were so
+well concealed, but when they peered through the narrow chink between
+the rows of lashes, not even a mote escaped them. Ulrich was shaping an
+arrow, and meantime asking the coal-burner numerous questions, and when
+the latter prepared to answer, the boy laughed heartily, for before
+Hangemarx could speak, he was obliged to straighten his crooked mouth by
+three jerking motions, in which his nose and cheeks shared.
+
+An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
+dissimilar companions.
+
+After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again.
+Marx knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the
+boy, that he might shoot it. The host of the Lamb down in the town
+needed game, for his Gretel was to be married on Tuesday. True, Marx
+could kill the animal himself, but Ulrich had learned to shoot too,
+and if the place whence the game came should be noised abroad, the
+charcoal-burner, without any scruples of conscience, could swear that he
+did not shoot the buck, but found it with the arrow in its heart.
+
+People called the charcoal-burner a poacher, and he owed his ill-name
+of "Hangemarx" to the circumstance that once, though long ago, he had
+adorned a gallows. Yet he was not a dishonest man, only he remembered
+too faithfully the bold motto, which, when a boy, one peasant
+wood-cutter or charcoal-burner whispered to another:
+
+"Forest, stream and meadow are free."
+
+His dead father had joined the Bundschuh,--[A peasants' league
+which derived its name from the shoe, of peculiar shape, worn by its
+members.]--adopted this motto, and clung fast to it and with it, to the
+belief that every living thing in the forest belonged to him, as much
+as to the city, the nobles, or the monastery. For this faith he had
+undergone much suffering, and owed to it his crooked mouth and ill name,
+for just as his beard was beginning to grow, the father of the reigning
+count came upon him, just after he had killed a fawn in the "free"
+forest. The legs of the heavy animal were tied together with ropes, and
+Marx was obliged to take the ends of the knot between his teeth like a
+bridle, and drag the carcass to the castle. While so doing his cheeks
+were torn open, and the evil deed neither pleased him nor specially
+strengthened his love for the count. When, a short time after, the
+rebellion broke out in Stuhlingen, and he heard that everywhere the
+peasants were rising against the monks and nobles, he, too, followed
+the black, red and yellow banner, first serving with Hans Muller of
+Bulgenbach, then with Jacklein Rohrbach of Bockingen, and participating
+with the multitude in the overthrow of the city and castle of
+Neuenstein. At Weinsberg he saw Count Helfenstein rush upon the spears,
+and when the noble countess was driven past him to Heilbronn in the
+dung-cart, he tossed his cap in the air with the rest.
+
+The peasant was to be lord now; the yoke of centuries was to be broken;
+unjust imposts, taxes, tithes and villenage would be forever abolished,
+while the fourth of the twelve articles he had heard read aloud more
+than once, remained firmly fixed in his memory "Game, birds and fish
+every one is free to catch." Moreover, many a verse from the Gospel,
+unfavorable to the rich, but promising the kingdom of heaven to the
+poor, and that the last shall be first, had reached his ears. Doubtless
+many of the leaders glowed with lofty enthusiasm for the liberation of
+the poor people from unendurable serfdom and oppression; but when Marx,
+and men like him, left wife and children and risked their lives, they
+remembered only the past, and the injustice they had suffered, and were
+full of a fierce yearning to trample the dainty, torturing demons under
+their heavy peasant feet.
+
+The charcoal-burner had never lighted such bright fires, never tasted
+such delicious meat and spicy wine, as during that period of his life,
+while vengeance had a still sweeter savor than all the rest. When the
+castle fell, and its noble mistress begged for mercy, he enjoyed a
+foretaste of the promised paradise. Satan has also his Eden of fiery
+roses, but they do not last long, and when they wither, put forth sharp
+thorns. The peasants felt them soon enough, for at Sindelfingen they
+found their master in Captain Georg Truchsess of Waldberg.
+
+Marx fell into his troopers' hands and was hung on the gallows, but only
+in mockery and as a warning to others; for before he and his companions
+perished, the men took them down, cut their oath-fingers from their
+hands, and drove them back into their old servitude. When he at last
+returned home, his house had been taken from his family, whom he found
+in extreme poverty. The father of Adam, the smith, to whom he had
+formerly sold charcoal, redeemed the house, gave him work, and once,
+when a band of horsemen came to the city searching for rebellious
+peasants, the old man did not forbid him to hide three whole days in his
+barn.
+
+Since that time everything had been quiet in Swabia, and neither in
+forest, stream nor meadow had any freedom existed.
+
+Marx had only himself to provide for; his wife was dead, and his sons
+were raftsmen, who took pine logs to Mayence and Cologne, sometimes even
+as far as Holland. He owed gratitude to no one but Adam, and showed in
+his way that he was conscious of it, for he taught Ulrich all sorts of
+things which were of no advantage to a boy, except to give him pleasure,
+though even in so doing he did not forget his own profit. Ulrich was now
+fifteen, and could manage a cross-bow and hit the mark like a skilful
+hunter, and as the lad did not lack a love for the chase, Marx afforded
+him the pleasure. All he had heard about the equal rights of men he
+engrafted into the boy's soul, and when to-day, for the hundredth time,
+Ulrich expressed a doubt whether it was not stealing to kill game that
+belonged to the count, the charcoal-burner straightened his mouth, and
+said:
+
+"Forest, stream and meadow are free. Surely you know that."
+
+The boy gazed thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then asked:
+
+"The fields too?"
+
+"The fields?" repeated Marx, in surprise. "The fields? The fields are a
+different matter." He glanced as he spoke, at the field of oats he had
+sown in the autumn, and which now bore blades a finger long. "The fields
+are man's work and belong to him who tills them, but the forest, stream
+and meadow were made by God. Do you understand? What God created for
+Adam and Eve is everybody's property."
+
+As the sun rose higher, and the cuckoo began to raise its voice,
+Ulrich's name was shouted loudly several times in rapid succession
+through the forest. The arrow he had been shaping flew into a corner,
+and with a hasty "When it grows dusk, Marxle!" Ulrich dashed into the
+woods, and soon joined his playmate Ruth.
+
+The pair strolled slowly through the forest by the side of the stream,
+enjoying the glorious morning, and gathering flowers to carry a bouquet
+to the little girl's mother. Ruth culled the blossoms daintily with the
+tips of her fingers; Ulrich wanted to help, and tore the slender stalks
+in tufts from the roots by the handful. Meantime their tongues were
+not idle. Ulrich boastfully told her that Pater Benedictus had seen his
+picture of her father, recognized it instantly, and muttered something
+over it. His mother's blood was strong in him; his imaginary world was a
+very different one from that of the narrow-minded boys of the Richtberg.
+
+His father had told him much, and the doctor still more, about the wide,
+wide world-kings, artists and great heroes. From Hangemarx he learned,
+that he possessed the same rights and dignity as all other men, and
+Ruth's wonderful power of imagination peopled his fancy with the
+strangest shapes and figures. She made royal crowns of wreaths,
+transformed the little hut, the lad had built of boughs, behind the
+doctor's house, into a glittering imperial palace, converted round
+pebbles into ducats and golden zechins--bread and apples into princely
+banquets; and when she had placed two stools before the wooden bench on
+which she sat with Ulrich her fancy instantly transformed them into a
+silver coronation coach with milk-white steeds. When she was a fairy,
+Ulrich was obliged to be a magician; if she was the queen, he was king.
+
+When, to give vent to his animal spirits, Ulrich played with the
+Richtberg boys, he always led them, but allowed himself to be guided by
+little Ruth. He knew that the doctor was a despised Jew, that she was
+a Jewish child; but his father honored the Hebrew, and the foreign
+atmosphere, the aristocratic, secluded repose that pervaded the solitary
+scholar's house, exerted a strange influence over him.
+
+When he entered it, a thrill ran through his frame; it seemed as if he
+were penetrating into some forbidden sanctuary. He was the only one of
+all his playfellows, who was permitted to cross this threshold, and he
+felt it as a distinction, for, in spite of his youth, he realized that
+the quiet doctor, who knew everything that existed in heaven and on
+earth, and yet was as mild and gentle as a child, stood far, far
+above the miserable drudges, who struggled with sinewy hands for mere
+existence on the Richtberg. He expected everything from him, and Ruth
+also seemed a very unusual creature, a delicate work of art, with whom
+he, and he only, was allowed to play.
+
+It might have happened, that when irritated he would upbraid her with
+being a wretched Jewess, but it would scarcely have surprised him, if
+she had suddenly stood before his eyes as a princess or a phoenix.
+
+When the Richtberg lay close beneath them, Ruth sat down on a stone,
+placing her flowers in her lap. Ulrich threw his in too, and, as the
+bouquet grew, she held it towards him, and he thought it very pretty;
+but she said, sighing:
+
+"I wish roses grew in the forest; not common hedge-roses, but like those
+in Portugal--full, red, and with the real perfume. There is nothing that
+smells sweeter."
+
+So it always was with the pair. Ruth far outstripped Ulrich in her
+desires and wants, thus luring him to follow her.
+
+"A rose!" repeated Ulrich. "How astonished you look!"
+
+Her wish reminded him of the magic word she had mentioned the day
+before, and they talked about it all the way home, Ulrich saying that
+he had waked three times in the night on account of it. Ruth eagerly
+interrupted him, exclaiming:
+
+"I thought of it again too, and if any one would tell the what it was,
+I should know what to wish now. I would not have a single human being in
+the world except you and me, and my father and mother."
+
+"And my little mother!" added Ulrich, earnestly.
+
+"And your father, too!"
+
+"Why, of course, he, too!" said the boy, as if to make hasty atonement
+for his neglect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The sun was shining brightly on the little windows of the Israelite's
+sitting-room, which were half open to admit the Spring air, though
+lightly shaded with green curtains, for Costa liked a subdued light, and
+was always careful to protect his apartment from the eyes of passers-by.
+
+There was nothing remarkable to be seen, for the walls were whitewashed,
+and their only ornament was a garland of lavender leaves, whose perfume
+Ruth's mother liked to inhale. The whole furniture consisted of a chest,
+several stools, a bench covered with cushions, a table, and two plain
+wooden arm-chairs.
+
+One of the latter had long been the scene of Adam's happiest hours, for
+he used to sit in it when he played chess with Costa.
+
+He had sometimes looked on at the noble game while in Nuremberg; but
+the doctor understood it thoroughly, and had initiated him into all its
+rules.
+
+For the first two years Costa had remained far in advance of his pupil,
+then he was compelled to defend himself in good earnest, and now it not
+unfrequently happened that the smith vanquished the scholar. True, the
+latter was much quicker than the former, who if the situation became
+critical, pondered over it an unconscionably long time.
+
+Two hands more unlike had rarely met over a chess-board; one suggested
+a strong, dark plough-ox, the other a light, slender-limbed palfrey. The
+Israelite's figure looked small in contrast with the smith's gigantic
+frame. How coarse-grained, how heavy with thought the German's big, fair
+head appeared, how delicately moulded and intellectual the Portuguese
+Jew's.
+
+To-day the two men had again sat down to the game, but instead of
+playing, had been talking very, very earnestly. In the course of the
+conversation the doctor had left his place and was pacing restlessly to
+and fro. Adam retained his seat.
+
+His friend's arguments had convinced him. Ulrich was to be sent to
+the monastery-school. Costa had also been informed of the danger that
+threatened his own person, and was deeply agitated. The peril was great,
+very great, yet it was hard, cruelly hard, to quit this peaceful nook.
+The smith understood what was passing in his mind, and said:
+
+"It is hard for you to go. What binds you here to the Richtberg?"
+
+"Peace, peace!" cried the other. "And then," he added more calmly, "I
+have gained land here."
+
+"You?"
+
+"The large and small graves behind the executioner's house, they are my
+estates."
+
+"It is hard, hard to leave them," said the smith, with drooping head.
+"All this comes upon you on account of the kindness you have shown my
+boy; you have had a poor reward from us."
+
+"Reward?" asked the other, a subtle smile hovering around his lips. "I
+expect none, neither from you nor fate. I belong to a poor sect, that
+does not consider whether its deeds will be repaid or not. We love
+goodness, set a high value on it, and practise it, so far as our power
+extends, because it is so beautiful. What have men called good? Only
+that which keeps the soul calm. And what is evil? That which fills it
+with disquiet. I tell you, that the hearts of those who pursue virtue,
+though they are driven from their homes, hunted and tortured like
+noxious beasts, are more tranquil than those of their powerful
+persecutors, who practise evil. He who seeks any other reward for
+virtue, than virtue itself, will not lack disappointment. It is neither
+you nor Ulrich, who drives me hence, but the mysterious ancient curse,
+that pursues my people when they seek to rest; it is, it is... Another
+time, to-morrow. This is enough for to-day."
+
+When the doctor was alone, he pressed his hand to his brow and groaned
+aloud. His whole life passed before his mind, and he found in it,
+besides terrible suffering, great and noble joys, and not an hour in
+which his desire for virtue was weakened. He had spent happy years here
+in the peace of his simple home, and now must again set forth and wander
+on and on, with nothing before his eyes save an uncertain goal, at the
+end of a long, toilsome road. What had hitherto been his happiness,
+increased his misery in this hour. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to
+drag his wife and child through want and sorrow, and could Elizabeth,
+his wife, bear it again?
+
+He found her in the tiny garden behind the horse, kneeling before
+a flower-bed to weed it. As he greeted her pleasantly, she rose and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Let us sit down," he said, leading her to the bench before the hedge,
+that separated the garden from the forest. There he meant to tell her,
+that they must again shake the dust from their feet.
+
+She had lost the power of speech on the rack in Portugal, and could only
+falter a few unintelligible words, when greatly excited, but her hearing
+had remained, and her husband understood how to read the expression of
+her eyes. A great sorrow had drawn a deep line in the high, pure brow,
+and this also was eloquent; for when she felt happy and at peace it was
+scarcely perceptible, but if an anxious or sorrowful mood existed,
+the furrow contracted and deepened. To-day it seemed to have entirely
+disappeared. Her fair hair was drawn plainly and smoothly, over her
+temples, and the slender, slightly stooping figure, resembled a young
+tree, which the storm has bowed and deprived of strength and will to
+raise itself.
+
+"Beautiful!" she exclaimed in a smothered tone, with much effort, but
+her bright glance clearly expressed the joy that filled her soul, as
+she pointed to the green foliage around her and the blue sky over their
+heads.
+
+"Delicious-delicious!" he answered, cordially. "The June day is
+reflected in your dear face. You have learned to be contented here?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded eagerly, pressing both hands upon her heart, while
+her eloquent glance told him how well, how grateful and happy, she felt
+here; and when in reply to his timid question, whether it would be hard
+for her to leave this place and seek another, a safer home, she gazed at
+first in surprise, then anxiously into his face, and then, with an eager
+gesture of refusal, gasped "Not go--not go!" He answered, soothingly:
+
+"No, no; we are still safe here to-day!"
+
+Elizabeth knew her husband, and had keen eyes; a presentiment of
+approaching danger seized upon her. Her features assumed an expression
+of terrified expectation and deep grief. The furrow in her brow
+deepened, and questioning glances and gestures united with the
+"What?--what?" trembling on her lips.
+
+"Do not fear!" he replied, tenderly. "We must not spoil the present,
+because the future might bring something that is not agreeable to us."
+
+As he uttered the words, she pressed closely to him, clutching his
+arm with both hands, but he felt the rapid throbbing of her heart, and
+perceived by the violent agitation expressed in every feature, what
+deep, unconquerable horror was inspired by the thought of being
+compelled to go out into the world again, hunted from country to
+country, from town to town. All that she had suffered for his sake,
+came back to his memory, and he clasped her trembling hands in his with
+passionate fervor. It seemed as if it would be very, very easy, to die
+with her, but wholly impossible to thrust her forth again into a foreign
+land and to an uncertain fate; so, kissing her on her eyes, which were
+dilated with horrible fear, he exclaimed, as if no peril, but merely a
+foolish wish had suggested the desire to roam:
+
+"Yes, child, it is best here. Let us be content with what we have. We
+will stay!--yes, we will stay!" Elizabeth drew a long breath, as if
+relieved from an incubus, her brow became smooth, and it seemed as if
+the dumb mouth joined the large upraised eyes in uttering an "Amen,"
+that came from the inmost depths of the heart.
+
+Costa's soul was saddened and sorely troubled, when he returned to the
+house and his writing-table. The old maid-servant, who had accompanied
+him from Portugal, entered at the same time, and watched his
+preparations, shaking her head. She was a small, crippled Jewess, a
+grey-haired woman, with youthful, bright, dark eyes, and restless hands,
+that fluttered about her face with rapid, convulsive gestures, while she
+talked.
+
+She had grown old in Portugal, and contracted rheumatism in the unusual
+cold of the North, so even in Spring she wrapped her head in all the gay
+kerchiefs she owned. She kept the house scrupulously neat, understood
+how to prepare tempting dishes from very simple materials, and bought
+everything she needed for the kitchen. This was no trifling matter
+for her, since, though she had lived more than nine years in the black
+Forest, she had learned few German words. Even these the neighbors
+mistook for Portuguese, though they thought the language bore some
+distant resemblance to German. Her gestures they understood perfectly.
+
+She had voluntarily followed the doctor's father, yet she could not
+forgive the dead man, for having brought her out of the warm South into
+this horrible country. Having been her present master's nurse, she took
+many liberties with him, insisting upon knowing everything that went on
+in the household, of which she felt herself the oldest, and therefore
+the most distinguished member; and it was strange how quickly she could
+hear when she chose, spite of her muffled ears!
+
+To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing
+to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced
+around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in
+Portuguese:
+
+"Don't begin that, Lopez. You must listen to me first."
+
+"Must I?" he asked, kindly.
+
+"If you don't choose to do it, I can go!" she answered, angrily. "To be
+sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion? Do you feel inclined
+to make the monks' acquaintance once more?"
+
+"Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again? Go into the kitchen!"
+
+"Directly! Directly! But I will speak first. You pretend, that you are
+only staying here to please your wife, but it's no such thing. It's
+yonder writing that keeps you. I know life, but you and your wife are
+just like two children. Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye,
+and blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna.
+What sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with
+the doctor's hat from Coimbra? Then everybody said: 'Lopez, Senor Lopez.
+Heavenly Father, what a shining light he'll be!' And now! The Lord have
+mercy on us! You work, work, and what does it bring you? Not an egg; not
+a rush! Go to your uncle in the Netherlands. He'll forget the curse, if
+you submit! How many of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?"
+
+Here the doctor interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with
+a stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and
+continued with increasing volubility.
+
+"Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my
+tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of
+your senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to
+be sure it isn't written in the books, that when people find out what
+happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a
+Christian girl...."
+
+At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant's
+shoulder, and said with grave, quiet earnestness.
+
+"Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it. Do you understand
+me, Rahel? I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you: my
+wife is content here, and danger is still far away. We shall stay. And
+besides: since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed,
+the Christians as a condemned man. The former close the doors,
+the latter would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean. No
+Portuguese will come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one
+monk and one Jew from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find
+Elizabeth with me, it will involve no less trifle than her life and
+mine. I shall stay here; you now know why, and can go to your kitchen."
+
+Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
+the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
+more rapidly than usual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+St. John's day was close at hand. Ulrich was to go to the monastery the
+following morning. Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no
+one molested the doctor. Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted
+so beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he
+now felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into
+connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.
+
+The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this
+purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native
+place, but to the nearest large city.
+
+There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper's windows, and
+the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before
+this splendid show. As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected
+the clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head
+to foot, were blue on one side and yellow on the other. But Adam pushed
+them angrily aside. Ulrich's pleasure in the gay stuff reminded him of
+his wife's outfit, the pink and green gowns.
+
+So he bought two dark suits, which fitted the lad's erect figure as
+if moulded upon him, and when the latter stood before him in the inn,
+neatly dressed, with shoes on his feet, and a student's cap on his head,
+Adam could not help gazing at him almost idolatrously.
+
+The tavern-keeper whispered to the smith, that it was long since he had
+seen so handsome a young fellow, and the hostess, after bringing the
+beer, stroked the boy's curls with her wet hand.
+
+On reaching home, Adam permitted his son to go to the doctor's in his
+new clothes; Ruth screamed with joy when she saw him, walked round and
+round him, and curiously felt the woollen stuff of the doublet and its
+blue slashes, ever and anon clapping her hands in delight.
+
+Her parents had expected that the parting would excite her most
+painfully, but she smiled joyously into her playmate's face, when he
+bade her farewell, for she took the matter in her usual way, not as it
+really was, but as she imagined it to be. Instead of the awkward Ulrich
+of the present, the fairy-prince he was now to become stood before her;
+he was to return without fail at Christmas, and then how delightful it
+would be to play with him again. Of late they had been together even
+more than usual, continually seeking for the word, and planning a
+thousand delightful things he was to conjure up for her, and she for him
+and others.
+
+It was the Sabbath, and on this day old Rahel always dressed the child
+in a little yellow silk frock, while on Sunday her mother did the same.
+The gown particularly pleased Ulrich's eye, and when she wore it, he
+always became more yielding and obeyed her every wish. So Ruth rejoiced
+that it chanced to be the Sabbath, and while she passed her hand over
+his doublet, he stroked her silk dress.
+
+They had not much to say to each other, for their tongues always
+faltered in the presence of others. The doctor gave Ulrich many an
+admonitory word, his wife kissed him, and as a parting remembrance hung
+a small gold ring, with a glittering stone, about his neck, and old
+Rahel gave him a kerchief full of freshly-baked cakes to eat on his way.
+
+At noon on St. John's day, Ulrich and his father stood before the gate
+of the monastery. Servants and mettled steeds were waiting there, and
+the porter, pointing to them, said: "Count Frohlinger is within."
+
+Adam turned pale, pressed his son so convulsively to his breast that he
+groaned with pain, sent a laybrother to call Father Benedict, confided
+his child to him, and walked towards home with drooping head.
+
+Hitherto Ulrich had not known whether to enjoy or dread the thought
+of going to the monastery-school. The preparations had been pleasant
+enough, and the prospect of sharing the same bench with the sons of
+noblemen and aristocratic citizens, flattered his unity; but when he
+saw his father depart, his heart melted and his eyes grew wet. The monk;
+noticing this, drew him towards him, patted his shoulder, and said:
+"Keep up your courage! You will see that it is far pleasanter with us,
+than down in the Richtberg."
+
+This gave Ulrich food for thought, and he did not glance around as the
+Father led him up the steep stairs to the landing-place, and past the
+refectory into the court-yard.
+
+Monks were pacing silently up and down the corridors that surrounded it,
+and one after another raised his shaven head higher over his white cowl,
+to cast a look at the new pupil.
+
+Behind the court-yard stood the stately, gable-roofed building
+containing the guest-rooms, and between it and the church lay the
+school-garden, a meadow planted with fruit trees, separated from the
+highway by a wall.
+
+Benedictus opened the wooden gate, and pushed Ulrich into the
+playground.
+
+The noise there had been loud enough, but at his entrance the game
+stopped, and his future companions nudged each other, scanning him with
+scrutinizing glances.
+
+The monk beckoned to several of the pupils, and made them acquainted
+with the smith's son, then stroking Ulrich's curls again, left him alone
+with the others.
+
+On St. John's day the boys were given their liberty and allowed to play
+to their hearts' content.
+
+They took no special notice of Ulrich, and after having stared
+sufficiently and exchanged a few words with him, continued their
+interrupted game of trying to throw stones over the church roof.
+
+Meantime Ulrich looked at his comrades.
+
+There were large and small, fair and dark lads among them, but not one
+with whom he could not have coped. To this point his scrutiny was first
+directed.
+
+At last he turned his attention to the game. Many of the stones, that
+had been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over
+the church. The longer the unsuccessful efforts lasted, the more
+evident became the superior smile on Ulrich's lips, the faster his heart
+throbbed. His eyes searched the grass, and when he had discovered a
+flat, sharp-edged stone, he hurriedly stooped, pressed silently into the
+ranks of the players, and bending the upper part of his body far back,
+summoned all his strength, and hurled the stone in a beautiful curve
+high into the air.
+
+Forty sparkling eyes followed it, and a loud shout of joy rang out as it
+vanished behind the church roof. One alone, a tall, thin, black-haired
+lad, remained silent, and while the others were begging Ulrich to throw
+again, searched for a stone, exerted all his power to equal the 11
+"greenhorn," and almost succeeded. Ulrich now sent a second stone
+after the first, and, again the cast was successful. Dark-browed Xaver
+instantly seized a new missile, and the contest that now followed so
+engrossed the attention of all, that they saw and heard nothing until a
+deep voice, in a firm, though not unkind tone, called: "Stop, boys! No
+games must be played with the church."
+
+At these words the younger boys hastily dropped the stones they had
+gathered, for the man who had shouted, was no less a personage than the
+Lord Abbot himself.
+
+Soon the lads approached to kiss the ecclesiastic's hand or sleeve, and
+the stately priest, who understood how to guide those subject to him
+by a glance of his dark eyes, graciously and kindly accepted the
+salutation.
+
+"Grave in office, and gay in sport" was his device. Count von
+Frohlinger, who had entered the garden with him, looked like one whose
+motto runs: "Never grave and always gay."
+
+The nobleman had not grown younger since Ulrich's mother fled into the
+world, but his eyes still sparkled joyously and the brick-red hue that
+tinged his handsome face between his thick white moustache and his eyes,
+announced that he was no less friendly to wine than to fair women. How
+well his satin clothes and velvet cloak became him, how beautifully
+the white puffs were relieved against the deep blue of his dress!
+How proudly the white and yellow plumes arched over his cap, and how
+delicate were the laces on his collar and cuffs! His son, the very image
+of the handsome father, stood beside him, and the count had laid his
+hand familiarly on his shoulder, as if he were not his child, but a
+friend and comrade.
+
+"A devil of a fellow!" whispered the count to the abbot. "Did you see
+the fair-haired lad's throw? From what house does the young noble come?"
+
+The prelate shrugged his shoulders, and answered smiling:
+
+"From the smithy at Richtberg."
+
+"Does he belong to Adam?" laughed the other. "Zounds! I had a bitter
+hour in the confessional on his mother's account. He has inherited the
+beautiful Florette's hair and eyes; otherwise he looks like his father.
+With your permission, my Lord Abbot, I'll call the boy."
+
+"Afterwards, afterwards," replied the superior of the monastery in a
+tone of friendly denial, which permitted no contradiction. "First tell
+the boys, what we have decided?"
+
+Count Frohlinger bowed respectfully, then drew his son closer to his
+side, and waited for the boys, to whom the abbot beckoned.
+
+As soon as they had gathered in a group before him, the nobleman
+exclaimed:
+
+"You have just bid this good-for-nothing farewell. What should you say,
+if I left him among you till Christmas? The Lord Abbot will keep him,
+and you, you...."
+
+But he had no time to finish the sentence. The pupils rushed upon him,
+shouting:
+
+"Stay here, Philipp! Count Lips must stay!"
+
+One little flaxen-headed fellow nestled closely to his regained
+protector, another kissed the count's hand, and two larger boys seized
+Philipp by the arm and tried to drag him away from his father, back into
+their circle.
+
+The abbot looked on at the tumult kindly, and bright tear-drops ran down
+into the old count's beard, for his heart was easily touched. When he
+recovered his composure, he exclaimed:
+
+"Lips shall stay, you rogues; he shall stay! And the Lord Abbot has
+given you permission, to come with me to-day to my hunting-box and light
+a St. John's fire. There shall be no lack of cakes and wine."
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the count!" shouted the pupils, and all
+who had caps tossed them into the air. Ulrich was carried away by the
+enthusiasm of the others; and all the evil words his father had so
+lavishly heaped on the handsome, merry gentleman--all Hangemarx's abuse
+of knights and nobles were forgotten.
+
+The abbot and his companion withdrew, but as soon as the boys knew that
+they were unobserved, Count Lips cried:
+
+"You fellow yonder, you greenhorn, threw the stone over the roof. I saw
+it. Come here. Over the roof? That should be my right. Whoever breaks
+the first window in the steeple, shall be victor."
+
+The smith's son felt embarrassed, for he shrank from the mischief and
+feared his father and the abbot. But when the young count held out his
+closed hands, saying: "If you choose the red stone, you shall throw
+first," he pointed to his companion's right hand, and, as it concealed
+the red pebble, began the contest. He threw the stone, and struck the
+window. Amid loud shouts of exultation from the boys, more than one
+round pane of glass, loosened from the leaden casing, rattled in broken
+fragments on the church roof, and from thence fell silently on the
+grass. Count Lips laughed aloud in his delight, and was preparing to
+follow Ulrich's example, but the wooden gate was pushed violently open,
+and Brother Hieronymus, the most severe of all the monks, appeared in
+the playground. The zealous priest's cheeks glowed with anger, terrible
+were the threats he uttered, and declaring that the festival of St.
+John should not be celebrated, unless the shameless wretch, who had
+blasphemously shattered the steeple window, confessed his fault, he
+scanned the pupils with rolling eyes.
+
+Young Count Lips stepped boldly forward, saying beseechingly:
+
+"I did it, Father--unintentionally! Forgive me!"
+
+"You?" asked the monk, his voice growing lower and more gentle, as
+he continued: "Folly and wantonness without end! When will you learn
+discretion, Count Philipp? But as you did it unintentionally, I will let
+it pass for to-day."
+
+With these words, the monk left the court-yard; and as soon as the gate
+had closed behind him, Ulrich approached his generous companion, and
+said in a tone that only he could hear, yet grateful to the inmost
+depths of his heart:
+
+"I will repay you some day."
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed the young count, throwing his arm over the shoulder
+of the artisan's son. "If the glass wouldn't rattle, I would throw now;
+but there's another day coming to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Autumn had come. The yellow leaves were fluttering about the school
+play-ground, the starlings were gathering in flocks on the church roof
+to take their departure, and Ulrich would fain have gone with them, no
+matter where. He could not feel at home in the monastery and among
+his companions. Always first in Richtberg, he was rarely so here, most
+seldom of all in school, for his father had forbidden the doctor to
+teach him Latin, so in that study he was last of all.
+
+Often, when every one was asleep, the poor lad sat studying by the
+ever-burning lamp in the lobby, but in vain. He could not come up with
+the others, and the unpleasant feeling of remaining behind, in spite of
+the most honest effort, spoiled his life and made him irritable.
+
+His comrades did not spare him, and when they called him "horse-boy,"
+because he was often obliged to help Pater Benedictus in bringing
+refractory horses to reason, he flew into a rage and used his superior
+strength.
+
+He stood on the worst terms of all with black-haired Xaver, to whom he
+owed the nickname.
+
+This boy's father was the chief magistrate of the little city, and was
+allowed to take his son home with him at Michaelmas.
+
+When the black-haired lad returned, he had many things to tell, gathered
+from half-understood rumor, about Ulrich's parents. Words were now
+uttered, that brought the blood to Ulrich's cheeks, yet he intentionally
+pretended not to hear them, because he dared not contradict tales that
+might be true. He well knew who had brought all these stories to the
+others, and answered Xaver's malicious spite with open enmity.
+
+Count Lips did not trouble himself about any of these things, but
+remained Ulrich's most intimate friend, and was fond of going with him
+to see the horses. His vivacious intellect joyously sympathized with the
+smith's son, when he told him about Ruth's imaginary visions, and often
+in the play-ground he went apart with Ulrich from their companions; but
+this very circumstance was a thing that many, who had formerly been
+on more intimate terms with the aristocratic boy, were not disposed to
+forgive the new-comer.
+
+Xaver had never been friendly to the count's son, and succeeded in
+irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied
+himself better than they, and still more against Ulrich, who was half a
+servant, yet presumed to play the master and offer them violence.
+
+The monks employed in the school soon noticed the ill terms, on which
+the new pupil stood with his companions, and did not lack reasons for
+shaking their heads over him.
+
+Benedictus had not been able to conceal, who had been Ulrich's teacher
+in Richtberg; and the seeds the Jew had planted in the boy, seemed to be
+bearing strange and vexatious fruit.
+
+Father Hieronymus, who instructed the pupils in religion, fairly
+raged, when he spoke of the destructive doctrines, that haunted the new
+scholar's head.
+
+When, soon after Ulrich's reception into the school, he had spoken of
+Christ's work of redemption, and asked the boy: "From what is the world
+to be delivered by the Saviour's suffering?" the answer was: "From the
+arrogance of the rich and great." Hieronymus had spoken of the holy
+sacraments, and put the question: "By what means can the Christian
+surely obtain mercy, unless he bolts the door against it--that is,
+commits a mortal sin?" and Ulrich's answer was: "By doing unto others,
+what you would have others do unto you."
+
+Such strange words might be heard by dozens from the boy's lips. Some
+were repeated from Hangemarx's sayings, others from the doctor's; and
+when asked where he obtained them, he quoted only the latter, for the
+monks were not to be allowed to know anything about his intercourse with
+the poacher.
+
+Sharp reproofs and severe penances were now bestowed, for many a word
+that he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the
+poor, tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.
+
+He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to
+have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear
+his grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for
+help.
+
+The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill
+words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys
+a right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure,
+holy Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.
+
+In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the
+abbot, the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy,
+an opinion strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose
+best pupil Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who
+had lured this nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and
+often urged the abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to
+an examination by torture.
+
+In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the
+heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian
+child.
+
+The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement,
+during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the
+magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the
+doctor. Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against
+the accused. Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he
+heard from the boy's lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the
+smith and his son would be examined.
+
+The abbot, who liked to linger over his books, was glad to know that
+the matter was in the hands of the civil authorities, and enjoined
+Hieronymus to pay strict attention.
+
+On the third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the
+monastery. His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the
+deep snow in the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went
+directly to the refectory and there asked for his son.
+
+The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when
+his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.
+
+It would not have needed Xaver's bitter complaints, to rouse his father
+to furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and
+he was by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been
+excluded for three weeks from the others' sports, and placed on a very
+frugal diet. He went furiously to the abbot.
+
+The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young
+count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered
+play-ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades,
+pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated. The conspirators had
+stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off
+his shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his
+back, pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and
+believed his last hour had come.
+
+Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing
+off and seizing his tormentor. While the others fled, he wreaked his
+rage on the magistrate's son to his heart's content, first with his
+fists, and then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him. Meantime,
+snowballs had rained upon his body and head from all directions,
+increasing his fury; and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started
+up, exclaiming with glowing cheeks and upraised fists:
+
+"Wait, wait, you wicked fellows! The doctor in Richtberg knows a word,
+by which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable
+rascals!"
+
+Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father,
+cleverly enlarged with many a false word. The abbot listened to the
+magistrate's complaint very quietly.
+
+The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter
+seemed important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the
+meal-time had already begun. The Jew had really spoken to his daughter
+about the magic word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his
+companions with it. So the investigation might begin.
+
+Ulrich was led back to the prison-chamber, where some thin soup and
+bread awaited him, but he touched neither. Food and drink disgusted him,
+and he could neither work nor sit still.
+
+The little bell, which, summoned all the occupants of the monastery, was
+heard at an unusual hour, and about vespers the sound of sleigh-bells
+attracted him to the window. The abbot and Father Hieronymus were
+talking in undertones to the magistrate, who was just preparing to enter
+his sleigh.
+
+They were speaking of him and the doctor, and the pupils had just been
+summoned to bear witness against him. No one had told him so, but he
+knew it, and was seized with such anxiety about the doctor, that drops
+of perspiration stood on his brow.
+
+He was clearly aware that he had mingled his teacher's words with the
+poacher's blasphemous sayings, and also that he had put the latter into
+the mouth of Ruth's father.
+
+He was a traitor, a liar, a miserable scoundrel!
+
+He wished to go to the abbot and confess all, yet dared not, and so the
+hours stole away until the time for the evening mass.
+
+While in church he strove to pray, not only for himself but for the
+doctor, but in vain, he could think of nothing but the trial, and while
+kneeling with his hands over his eyes, saw the Jew in fetters before
+him, and he himself at the trial in the town-hall.
+
+At last the mass ended.
+
+Ulrich rose. Just before him hung the large crucifix, and the Saviour on
+the cross, who with his head bowed on one side, usually gazed so gently
+and mournfully upon the ground, to-day seemed to look at him with
+mingled reproach and accusation.
+
+In the dormitory, his companions avoided him as if he had the plague,
+but he scarcely noticed it.
+
+The moonlight and the reflection from the snow shone brightly through
+the little window, but Ulrich longed for darkness, and buried his face
+in the pillows. The clock in the steeple struck ten.
+
+He raised himself and listened to the deep breathing of the sleepers on
+his right and left, and the gnawing of a mouse under the bed.
+
+His heart throbbed faster and more anxiously, but suddenly seemed to
+stand still, for a low voice had called his name.
+
+"Ulrich!" it whispered again, and the young count, who lay beside him,
+rose in bed and bent towards him. Ulrich had told him about the word,
+and often indulged in wishes with him, as he had formerly done with
+Ruth. Philipp now whispered:
+
+"They are going to attack the doctor. The abbot and magistrate
+questioned us, as if it were a matter of life and death. I kept what
+I know about the word to myself, for I'm sorry for the Jew, but Xaver,
+spiteful fellow, made it appear as if you really possessed the spell,
+and just now he came to me and said his father would seize the Jew early
+to-morrow morning, and then he would be tortured. Whether they will hang
+or burn him is the question. His life is forfeited, his father said--and
+the black-visaged rascal rejoiced over it."
+
+"Sileutium, turbatores!" cried the sleepy voice of the monk in charge,
+and the boys hastily drew back into the feathers and were silent.
+
+The young count soon fell asleep again, but Ulrich buried his head still
+deeper among the pillows; it seemed as if he saw the mild, thoughtful
+face of the man, from whom he had received so much affection, gazing
+reproachfully at him; then the dumb wife appeared before his mind, and
+he fancied her soft hand was lovingly stroking his cheeks as usual.
+Ruth also appeared, not in the yellow silk dress, but clad in rags of a
+beggar, and she wept, hiding her face in her mother's lap.
+
+He groaned aloud. The clock struck eleven. He rose and listened. Nothing
+stirred, and slipping on his clothes, he took his shoes in his hand
+and tried to open the window at the head of his bed. It had stood open
+during the day, but the frost fastened it firmly to the frame. Ulrich
+braced his foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength, but
+it resisted one jerk after another; at last it suddenly yielded and flew
+open, making a slight creaking and rattling, but the monk on guard did
+not wake, only murmured softly in his sleep.
+
+The boy stood motionless for a time, holding his breath, then swung
+himself upon the parapet and looked out. The dormitory was in the second
+story of the monastery, above the rampart, but a huge bank of snow rose
+beside the wall, and this strengthened his courage.
+
+With hurrying fingers he made the sign of the cross, a low: "Mary, pray
+for me," rose from his lips, then he shut his eyes and risked the leap.
+
+There was a buzzing, roaring sound in his ears, his mother's image
+blended in strange distortion with the Jew's, then an icy sea swallowed
+him, and it seemed as if body and soul were frozen. But this sensation
+overpowered him only a few minutes, then working his way out of the mass
+of snow, he drew on his shoes, and dashed as if pursued by a pack of
+wolves, down the mountain, through the ravine, across the heights, and
+finally along the river to the city and the Richtberg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The magistrate's horses did not reach the city gate, from the monastery,
+more quickly than Ulrich.
+
+As soon as the smith was roused from sleep by the boy's knock and
+recognized his voice, he knew what was coming, and silently listened to
+the lad's confessions, while he himself hurriedly yet carefully took out
+his hidden hoard, filled a bag with the most necessary articles, thrust
+his lightest hammer into his belt, and poured water on the glimmering
+coals. Then, locking the door, he sent Ulrich to Hangemarx, with whom
+he had already settled many things; for Caspar, the juggler, who learned
+more through his daughters than any other man, had come to him the day
+before, to tell him that something was being plotted against the Jew.
+
+Adam found the latter still awake and at work. He was prepared for the
+danger that threatened him, and ready to fly. No word of complaint, not
+even a hasty gesture betrayed the mental anguish of the persecuted man,
+and the smith's heart melted, as he heard the doctor rouse his wife and
+child from their sleep.
+
+The terrified moans of the startled wife, and Ruth's loud weeping and
+curious questions, were soon drowned by the lamentations of old
+Rahel, who wrapped in even more kerchiefs than usual, rushed into the
+sitting-room, and while lamenting and scolding in a foreign tongue,
+gathered together everything that lay at hand. She had dragged a large
+chest after her, and now threw in candlesticks, jugs, and even the
+chessmen and Ruth's old doll with a broken head.
+
+When the third hour after midnight came, the doctor was ready for
+departure.
+
+Marx's charcoal sledge, with its little horse, stopped before the door.
+
+This was a strange animal, no larger than a calf, as thin as a goat, and
+in some places woolly, in others as bare as a scraped poodle.
+
+The smith helped the dumb woman into the sleigh, the doctor put Ruth
+in her lap, Ulrich consoled the child, who asked him all sorts of
+questions, but the old woman would not part from the chest, and could
+scarcely be induced to enter the vehicle.
+
+"You know, across the mountains into the Rhine valley--no matter where,"
+Costa whispered to the poacher.
+
+Hangemarx urged on his little horse, and answered, not turning to the
+Israelite, who had addressed him, but to Adam, who he thought would
+understand him better than the bookworm: "It won't do to go up the
+ravine, without making any circuit. The count's hounds will track us, if
+they follow. We'll go first up the high road by the Lautenhof. To-morrow
+will be a fair-day. People will come early from the villages and tread
+down the snow, so the dogs will lose the scent. If it would only snow."
+
+Before the smithy, the doctor held out his hand to Adam, saying: "We
+part here, friend."
+
+"We'll go with you, if agreeable to you."
+
+"Consider," the other began warningly, but Adam interrupted him, saying:
+
+"I have considered everything; lost is lost. Ulrich, take the doctor's
+sack from his shoulder."
+
+For a long time nothing more was said.
+
+The night was clear and cold; the men's footsteps fell noiselessly on
+the soft snow, nothing was heard except the creaking of the sledge,
+and ever and anon Elizabeth's low moaning, or a louder word in the old
+woman's soliloquy. Ruth had fallen asleep on her mother's lap, and was
+breathing heavily.
+
+At Lautenhof a narrow path led through the mountains deep into the
+forest.
+
+As it grew steeper, the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the
+little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down,
+as if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very
+heavy fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal's
+neck, and whispered to the smith "Twenty years old, and has the glanders
+besides."
+
+The little beast nodded slowly and mournfully, as if to say: "Life is
+hard; this will probably be the last time I draw a sleigh."
+
+The broad, heavy-laden pine-boughs drooped wearily by the roadside, the
+gleaming surface of the snow stretched in a monotonous sheet of white
+between the trunks of the trees, the tops of the dark rocks beside the
+way bore smooth white caps of loose snow, the forest stream was frozen
+along the edges, only in the centre did the water trickle through
+snow-crystals and sharp icicles to the valley.
+
+So long as the moon shone, flickering rays danced and sparkled on the
+ice and snow, but afterwards only the tedious glimmer of the universal
+snow-pall lighted the traveller's way.
+
+"If it would only snow!" repeated the charcoal-burner.
+
+The higher they went, the deeper grew the snow, the more wearisome the
+wading and climbing.
+
+Often, on the doctor's account, the smith called in a low voice, "Halt!"
+and then Costa approached the sleigh and asked: "How do you feel?" or
+said: "We are getting on bravely."
+
+Rahel screamed whenever a fox barked in the distance, a wolf howled, or
+an owl flew through the treetops, brushing the snow from the branches
+with its wings; but the others also started. Marx alone walked quietly
+and undisturbed beside his little horse's thick head; he was familiar
+with all the voices of the forest.
+
+It grew colder towards morning. Ruth woke and cried, and her father,
+panting for breath, asked: "When shall we rest?"
+
+"Behind the height; ten arrow-shots farther," replied the
+charcoal-burner.
+
+"Courage," whispered the smith. "Get on the sledge, doctor; we'll push."
+
+But Costa shook his head, pointed to the panting horse, and dragged
+himself onward.
+
+The poacher must have sent his arrows in a strange curve, for one
+quarter of an hour after another slipped by, and the top was not yet
+gained. Meantime it grew lighter and lighter, and the charcoal-burner,
+with increasing anxiety, ever and anon raised his head, and glanced
+aside. The sky was covered with clouds-the light overhead grey, dim,
+and blended with mist. The snow was still dazzling, though it no longer
+sparkled and glittered, but covered every object with the dull whiteness
+of chalk.
+
+Ulrich kept beside the sledge to push it. When Ruth heard him groan,
+she stroked the hand that grasped the edges, this pleased him; and he
+smiled.
+
+When they again stopped, this time on the crest of the ridge, Ulrich
+noticed that the charcoal-burner was sniffing the air like a hound, and
+asked:
+
+"What is it, Marxle?"
+
+The poacher grinned, as he answered: "It's going to snow; I smell it."
+
+The road now led down towards the valley, and, after a short walk, the
+charcoal-burner said:
+
+"We shall find shelter below with Jorg, and a warm fire too, you poor
+women."
+
+These were cheering words, and came just at the right time, for large
+snow-flakes began to fill the air, and a light breeze drove them into
+the travellers' faces. "There!" cried Ulrich, pointing to the snow
+covered roof of a wooden hut, that stood close before them in a clearing
+on the edge of the forest.
+
+Every face brightened, but Marx shook his head doubtfully, muttering:
+
+"No smoke, no barking; the place is empty. Jorg has gone. At
+Whitsuntide--how many years ago is it?--the boys left to act as
+raftsmen, but then he stayed here."
+
+Reckoning time was not the charcoal-burner's strong point; and the empty
+hut, the dreary open window-casements in the mouldering wooden walls,
+the holes in the roof, through which a quantity of snow had drifted into
+the only room in the deserted house, indicated that no human being had
+sought shelter here for many a winter.
+
+Old Rahel uttered a fresh wail of grief, when she saw this shelter; but
+after the men had removed the snow as well as they could, and covered
+the holes in the roof with pine-branches; when Adam had lighted a fire,
+and the sacks and coverlets were brought in from the sledge, and laid on
+a dry spot to furnish seats for the women, fresh courage entered their
+hearts, and Rahel, unasked, dragged herself to the hearth, and set the
+snow-filled pot on the fire.
+
+"The nag must have two hours' rest," Marx said, "then they could push on
+and reach the miller in the ravine before night. There they would find
+kind friends, for Jacklein had been with him among the 'peasants.'"
+The snow-water boiled, the doctor and his wife rested, Ulrich and
+Ruth brought wood, which the smith had split, to the fire to dry, when
+suddenly a terrible cry of grief rang outside of the hut.
+
+Costa hastily rose, the children followed, and old Rahel, whimpering,
+drew the upper kerchief on her head over her face.
+
+The little horse, its tiny legs stretched far apart, was lying in the
+snow by the sledge. Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his
+knee, and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal's nostrils. The
+creature showed its yellow teeth, and put out its bluish tongue as if
+it wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal's eyes
+started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time
+the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust
+themselves into the air, like the gaping mouth of a deserted bird.
+
+No farther progress was possible. The women sat trembling in the hut,
+roasting before the fire, and shivering when a draught touched them....
+Ruth wept for the poor little horse, and Marx sat as if utterly crushed
+beside his old friend's stiffening body, heeding nothing, least of all
+the snow, which was making him whiter than the miller, with whom he had
+expected to rest that evening. The doctor gazed in mute despair at his
+dumb wife, who, with clasped hands, was praying fervently; the smith
+pressed his hand upon his brow, vainly pondering over what was to be
+done now, until his head ached; while, from the distance, echoed the
+howl of a hungry wolf, and a pair of ravens alighted on a white bough
+beside the little horse, gazing greedily at the corpse lying in the
+snow.
+
+Meantime, the abbot was sitting in his pleasantly-warmed study, which
+was pervaded by a faint, agreeable perfume, gazing now at the
+logs burning in the beautiful marble mantel-piece, and then at the
+magistrate, who had brought him strange tidings.
+
+The prelate's white woollen morning-robe clung closely around his
+stately figure. Beside him lay, side by side, for comparison, two
+manuscript copies of his favorite book, the idyls of Theocritus, which,
+for his amusement, and to excel the translation of Coban Hesse, he was
+turning into Latin verse, as the duties of his office gave him leisure.
+
+The magistrate was standing by the fire-side. He was a thick-set man
+of middle height, with a large head, and clever but coarse features, as
+rudely moulded as if they had been carved from wood. He was one of the
+best informed lawyers in the country, and his words flowed as smoothly
+and clearly from his strong lips, as if every thought in his keen brain
+was born fully matured and beautifully finished.
+
+In the farthest corner of the room, awaiting a sign from his master,
+stood the magistrate's clerk, a little man with a round head, and legs
+like the sickle of the waxing or waning moon. He carried under his short
+arms two portfolios, filled with important papers.
+
+"He comes from Portugal, and has lived under an assumed name?" So the
+abbot repeated, what he had just heard.
+
+"His name is Lopez, not Costa," replied the other; "these papers prove
+it. Give me the portfolio, man! The diploma is in the brown one."
+
+He handed a parchment to the prelate, who, after reading it, said
+firmly:
+
+"This Jew is a more important person than we supposed. They are not
+lavish with such praise in Coimbra. Are you taking good care of the
+doctor's books Herr Conrad? I will look at them to-morrow."
+
+"They are at your disposal. These papers...."
+
+"Leave them, leave them."
+
+"There will be more than enough for the complaint without them," said
+the magistrate. "Our town-clerk, who though no student is, as you
+know, a man of much experience, shares my opinion." Then he continued
+pathetically: "Only he who has cause to fear the law hides his name,
+only he, who feels guilty, flees the judge."
+
+A subtle smile, that was not wholly free from bitterness, hovered
+around the abbot's lips, for he thought of the painful trial and the
+torture-chamber in the town hall, and no longer saw in the doctor merely
+the Jew, but the humanist and companion in study.
+
+His glance again fell on the diploma, and while the other continued his
+representations, the prelate stretched himself more comfortably in his
+arm-chair and gazed thoughtfully at the ground. Then, as if an idea had
+suddenly occurred to him, he touched his high forehead with the tips of
+his fingers, and suddenly interrupting the eager speaker, said:
+
+"Father Anselm came to us from Porto five years ago, and when there knew
+every one who understood Greek. Go, Gutbub, and tell the librarian to
+come." The monk soon appeared.
+
+Tidings of Ulrich's disappearance and the Jew's flight had spread
+rapidly through the monastery; the news was discussed in the choir,
+the school, the stable and the kitchen; Father Anselm alone had heard
+nothing of the matter, though he had been busy in the library before
+daybreak, and the vexatious incident had been eagerly talked of there.
+
+It was evident, that the elderly man cared little for anything that
+happened in the world, outside of his manuscripts and printing. His
+long, narrow head rested on a thin neck, which did not stand erect, but
+grew out between the shoulders like a branch from the stem. His face was
+grey and lined with wrinkles, like pumice-stone, but large bright eyes
+lent meaning and attraction to the withered countenance.
+
+At first he listened indifferently to the abbot's story, but as soon as
+the Jew's name was mentioned, and he had read the diploma, as swiftly as
+if he possessed the gift of gathering the whole contents of ten lines at
+a single comprehensive glance, he said eagerly:
+
+"Lopez, Doctor Lopez was here! And we did not know it, and have not
+consulted with him! Where is he? What are people planning against him?"
+
+After he had learned that the Jew had fled, and the abbot requested
+him to tell all he knew about the doctor, he collected his thoughts and
+sorrowfully began:
+
+"To be sure, to be sure; the man committed a great offence. He is a
+great sinner in God's eyes. You know his guilt?"
+
+"We know everything," cried the magistrate, with a meaning glance at the
+prelate. Then, as if he sincerely pitied the criminal, he continued with
+well-feigned sympathy: "How did the learned man commit such a misdeed?"
+
+The abbot understood the stratagem, but Anselm's words could not be
+recalled, and as he himself desired to learn more of the doctor's
+history, he asked the monk to tell what he knew.
+
+The librarian, in his curt, dry manner, yet with a warmth unusual to
+him, described the doctor's great learning and brilliant intellect,
+saying that his father, though a Jew, had been in his way an
+aristocratic man, allied with many a noble family, for until the reign
+of King Emanuel, who persecuted the Hebrews, they had enjoyed great
+distinction in Portugal. In those days it had been hard to distinguish
+Jews from Christians. At the time of the expulsion a few favored
+Israelites had been allowed to stay, among them the worthy Rodrigo, the
+doctor's father, who had been the king's physician and was held in high
+esteem by the sovereign. Lopez obtained the highest honors at Coimbra,
+but instead of following medicine, like his father, devoted himself to
+the humanities.
+
+"There was no need to earn his living--to earn his living," continued
+the monk, speaking slowly and carefully, and repeating the conclusion
+of his sentence, as if he were in the act of collating two manuscripts,
+"for Rodrigo was one of the wealthiest men in Portugal. His son Lopez
+was rich, very rich in friends, and among them were numbered all to whom
+knowledge was dear. Even among the Christians he had many friends. Among
+us--I mean in our library--he also obtained great respect. I owe
+him many a hint, much aid; I mean in referring me to rare books, and
+explaining obscure passages. When he no longer visited us, I missed him
+sorely. I am not curious; or do you think I am? I am not curious, but
+I could not help inquiring about him, and then I heard very bad things.
+Women are to blame for everything; of course it was a woman again. A
+merchant from Flanders--a Christian--had settled in Porto. The doctor's
+father visited his house; but you probably know all this?"
+
+"Of course! of course!" cried the magistrate. "But go on with your
+story."
+
+"Old Doctor Rodrigo was the Netherlander's physician, and closed his
+eyes on the death-bed. An orphan was left, a girl, who had not a single
+relative in Porto. They said--I mean the young doctors and students who
+had seen her--that she was pleasing, very pleasing to the eye. But it
+was not on that account, but because she was orphaned and desolate, that
+the physician took the child--I mean the girl."
+
+"And reared her as a Jewess?" interrupted the magistrate, with a
+questioning glance.
+
+"As a Jewess?" replied the monk, excitedly. "Who says so? He did
+nothing of the sort. A Christian widow educated her in the physician's
+country-house, not in the city. When the young doctor returned from
+Coimbra, he saw her there more than once--more than once; certainly,
+more often than was good for him. The devil had a finger in the matter.
+I know, too, how they were married. Before one Jew and two Christian
+witnesses, they plighted their troth to each other, and exchanged
+rings--rings as if it were a Christian ceremony, though he remained a
+Jew and she a Christian. He intended to go to the Netherlands with
+her, but one of the witnesses betrayed them--denounced them to the Holy
+Inquisition. This soon interposed of course, for there it interferes
+with everything, and in this case it was necessary; nay more--a
+Christian duty. The young wife was seized in the street with her
+attendant and thrown into prison; on the rack she entirely lost the
+power of speech. The old physician and the doctor were warned in time,
+and kept closely concealed. Through Chamberlain de Sa, her uncle--or was
+it only her cousin?--through de Sa the wife regained her liberty, and
+then I believe all three fled to France--the father, son and wife. But
+no, they must have come here...."
+
+"There you have it!" cried the magistrate, interrupting the monk, and
+glancing triumphantly at the prelate. "An old practitioner scents crime,
+as a tree frog smells rain. Now, for the first time, I can say with
+certainty: We have him, and the worst punishment is too little for his
+deserts. There shall be an unparalleled execution, something wonderful,
+magnificent, grand! You have given me important information, and I thank
+you, Father."
+
+"Then you knew nothing?" faltered the librarian; and, raising his neck
+higher than usual, the vein in the centre of his forehead swelled with
+wrath.
+
+"No, Anselme!" said the abbot. "But it was your duty to speak, as,
+unfortunately, it was mine to listen. Come to me again, by and bye; I
+have something to say to you."
+
+The librarian bowed silently, coldly and proudly, and without
+vouchsafing the magistrate a single glance, went back, not to his books,
+but to his cell, where he paced up and down a long time, sorrowfully
+murmuring Lopez's name, striking himself on the mouth, pressing his
+clenched hand to his brow, and at last throwing himself on his knees to
+pray for the Jew, before the image of the crucified Redeemer.
+
+As soon as the monk had left the room, the magistrate exclaimed:
+
+"What unexpected aid! What series of sins lie before us! First the
+small ones. He had never worn the Jews' badge, and allowed himself to be
+served by Christians, for Caspar's daughters were often at the House
+to help in sewing. A sword was found in his dwelling, and the Jew, who
+carries weapons, renounces, since he uses self-protection, the aid of
+the authorities. Finally, we know that Lopez used an assumed name. Now
+we come to the great offences. They are divided into four parts. He has
+practised magic spells; he has sought to corrupt a Christian's son by
+heresies; he has led a Christian woman into a marriage; and he has--I
+close with the worst--he has reared the daughter of a Christian woman, I
+mean his wife, a Jewess!"
+
+"Reared his child a Jewess? Do you know that positively?" asked the
+abbot.
+
+"She bears the Jewish name of Ruth. What I have taken the liberty to
+make prominent are well chosen, clearly-proved crimes, worthy of death.
+Your learning is great, Reverend Abbot, but I know the old writers,
+too. The Emperor Constantius made marriages between Jews and Christians
+punishable with death. I can show you the passage."
+
+The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy
+and unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to
+see how the magistrate's zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy
+criminal. So he rose, saying with cold hauteur:
+
+"Then do your duty."
+
+"Rely upon it. We shall capture him and his family to-morrow. The
+town-clerk is full of zeal too. We shall not be able to harm the child,
+but it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education. It
+would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews. You
+know the Freiburg case. No less a personage than the great Ulrich
+Zasius has decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their
+father's knowledge. I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall on
+Saturday as a witness."
+
+"Very well," replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness,
+that it justly surprised the magistrate. "Well then, catch the Jew;
+but take him alive. And one thing more! I wish to see and speak to the
+doctor, before you torture him."
+
+"I will bring him to you day after to-morrow."
+
+"The Nurembergers! the Nurembergers!..." replied the abbot, shrugging
+his shoulders.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"They don't hang any one till they catch him." The magistrate regarded
+these words as a challenge to put forth every effort for the Jew's
+capture, so he answered eagerly: "We shall have him, Your Reverence, we
+shall surely have him. They are trapped in the snow. The sergeants are
+searching the roads; I shall summon your foresters and mine, and put
+them under Count Frohlinger's command. It is his duty to aid us. What
+they cannot find with their attendants, squires, beaters and hounds, is
+not hidden in the forest. Your blessing, Holy Father, there is no time
+to lose."
+
+The abbot was alone.
+
+He gazed thoughtfully at the coals in the fireplace, recalling
+everything he had just seen and heard, while his vivid power of
+imagination showed him the learned, unassuming man, who had spent long
+years in quiet seclusion, industriously devoting himself to the pursuit
+of knowledge. A slight feeling of envy stole into his heart; how
+rarely he himself was permitted to pursue undisturbed, and without
+interruption, the scientific subjects, in which alone he found pleasure.
+
+He was vexed with himself, that he could feel so little anger against a
+criminal, whose guilt was deserving of death, and reproached himself for
+lukewarmness. Then he remembered that the Jew had sinned for love, and
+that to him who has loved much, much should be forgiven. Finally,
+it seemed a great boon, that he was soon to be permitted to make the
+acquaintance of the worthy doctor from Coimbra. Never had the zealous
+magistrate appeared so repulsive as to-day, and when he remembered how
+the crafty man had outwitted poor Father Anselm in his presence, he felt
+as if he had himself committed an unworthy deed. And yet, yet--the Jew
+could not be saved, and had deserved what threatened him.
+
+A monk summoned him, but the abbot did not wish to be disturbed, and
+ordered that he should be left an hour alone.
+
+He now took in his hand a volume he called the mirror of his soul, and
+in which he noted many things "for the confession," that he desired to
+determine to his own satisfaction. To-day he wrote:
+
+"It would be a duty to hate a Jew and criminal, zealously to persecute
+what Holy Church has condemned. Yet I cannot do so. Who is the
+magistrate, and what are Father Anselm and this learned doctor! The one
+narrow-minded, only familiar with the little world he knows and in which
+he lives, the others divinely-gifted, full of knowledge, rulers in the
+wide domain of thought. And the former outwits the latter, who show
+themselves children in comparison with him. How Anselm stood before
+him! The deceived child was great, the clever man small. What men call
+cleverness is only small-minded persons' skill in life; simplicity is
+peculiar to the truly great man, because petty affairs are too small for
+him, and his eye does not count the grains of dust, but looks upward,
+and has a share in the infinitude stretching before us. Jesus Christ
+was gentle as a child and loved children, he was the Son of God, yet
+voluntarily yielded himself into the hands of men. The greatest of great
+men did not belong to the ranks of the clever. Blessed are the meek, He
+said. I understand those words. He is meek, whose soul is open, clear
+and pure as a mirror, and the greatest philosophers, the noblest minds I
+have met in life and history were also meek. The brute is clever; wisdom
+is the cleverness of the noble-minded. We must all follow the Saviour,
+and he among us, who unites wisdom to meekness, will come nearest to the
+Redeemer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor
+had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he
+returned at noon with good news.
+
+A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg,
+the charcoal-burner, lived.
+
+The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach
+nearer the Rhine valley. Everything was ready for departure, but old
+Rahel objected to travelling further. She was sitting on a stone before
+the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and
+it seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses. Gazing into vacancy
+with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould
+dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour. She
+neither heard the doctor's call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the
+former grasped her to compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek. At last
+the smith succeeded in persuading her to sit down on the sledge, and the
+party moved forward.
+
+Adam had harnessed himself to the front of the vehicle. Marx went to and
+fro, pushing when necessary. The dumb woman waded through the snow by
+her husband's side. "Poor wife!" he said once; but she pressed his arm
+closer, looking up into his eyes as if she wished to say: "Surely I
+shall lack nothing, if only you are spared to me!"
+
+She enjoyed his presence as if it were a favor granted by destiny, but
+only at chance moments, for she could not banish her fear for him, and
+of the pursuers--her dread of uncertainty and wandering.
+
+If snow rattled from a pine-tree, if she noticed Lopez turn his head, or
+if old Rahel uttered a moan, she shuddered; and this was not unperceived
+by her husband, who told himself that she had every reason to look
+forward to the next few hours with grave anxiety. Each moment might
+bring imprisonment to him and all, and if they discovered--if it were
+disclosed who he, who Elizabeth was....
+
+Ulrich and Ruth brought up the rear, saying little to each other.
+
+At first the path ascended again, then led down to the valley. It had
+stopped snowing long before, and the farther they went the lighter the
+drifts became.
+
+They had journeyed in this way for two hours, when Ruth's strength
+failed, and she stood still with tearful, imploring eyes. The
+charcoal-burner saw it, and growled:
+
+"Come here, little girl; I'll carry you to the sleigh."
+
+"No, let me," Ulrich eagerly interposed. And Ruth exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, you, you shall carry me."
+
+Marx grasped her around the waist, lifted her high into the air, and
+placed her in the boy's arms. She clasped her hands around his neck, and
+as he walked on pressed her fresh, cool cheek to his. It pleased him,
+and the thought entered his mind that he had been parted from her a long
+time, and it was delightful to have her again.
+
+His heart swelled more and more; he felt that he would rather have
+Ruth than everything else in the world, and he drew her towards him as
+closely as if an invisible hand were already out-stretched to take her
+from him.
+
+To-day her dear, delicate little face was not pale, but glowed crimson
+after the long walk through the frosty, winter air. She was glad to
+have Ulrich clasp her so firmly, so she pressed her cheek closer to his,
+loosened her fingers from his neck, caressingly stroked his face with
+her cold hand, and murmured:
+
+"You are kind, Ulrich, and I love you!"
+
+It sounded so tender and loving, that Ulrich's heart melted, for no one
+had spoken to him so since his mother went away.
+
+He felt strong and joyous, Ruth did not seem at all heavy, and when
+she again clasped her hands around his neck, he said: "I should like to
+carry you so always."
+
+Ruth only nodded, as if the wish pleased her, but he continued:
+
+"In the monastery I had no one, who was very kind to me, for even Lips,
+well, he was a count--everybody is kind to you. You don't know what it
+is, to be all alone, and have to struggle against every one. When I was
+in the monastery, I often wished that I was lying under the earth; now
+I don't want to die, and we will stay with you--father told me so--and
+everything will be just as it was, and I shall learn no more Latin,
+but become a painter, or smith-artificer, or anything else, for aught I
+care, if I'm only not obliged to leave you again."
+
+He felt Ruth raise her little head, and press her soft lips on his
+forehead just over his eyes; then he lowered the arms in which she
+rested, kissed her mouth, and said: "Now it seems as if I had my mother
+back again!"
+
+"Does it?" she asked, with sparkling eyes. "Now put me down. I am well
+again, and want to run."
+
+So saying, she slipped to the ground, and he did not detain her.
+
+Ruth now walked stoutly on beside the lad, and made him tell her about
+the bad boys in the monastery, Count Lips, the pictures, the monks, and
+his own flight, until, just as it grew dark, they reached the goal of
+their walk.
+
+Jorg, the charcoal-burner, received them, and opened his hut, but only
+to go away himself, for though willing to give the fugitives shelter
+and act against the authorities, he did not wish to be present, if the
+refugees should be caught. Caught with them, hung with them! He knew the
+proverb, and went down to the village, with the florins Adam gave him.
+
+There was a hearth for cooking in the hut, and two rooms, one large and
+one small, for in summer the charcoal-burners' wives and children live
+with them. The travellers needed rest and refreshment, and might have
+found both here, had not fear embittered the food and driven sleep from
+their weary eyes.
+
+Jorg was to return early the next morning with a team of horses. This
+was a great consolation. Old Rahel, too, had regained her self-control,
+and was sound asleep.
+
+The children followed her example, and at midnight Elizabeth slept too.
+
+Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange,
+snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from
+which the air is expiring.
+
+Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on
+a sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing
+with the words:
+
+"So you know who we are, and why we left our home. You are giving me
+your future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but
+first of all, it was due you that you should know my past."
+
+Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked: "You are a Christian;
+will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?"
+
+Adam silently pressed the Jew's right hand, and after remaining lost in
+thought for a time, said in a hollow tone:
+
+"If they catch you, and--Holy Virgin--if they discover... Ruth.... She
+is not really a Jew's child... have you reared her as a Jewess?"
+
+"No; only as a good human child."
+
+"Is she baptized?"
+
+Lopez answered this question also in the negative. The smith shook his
+head disapprovingly, but the doctor said: "She knows more about Jesus,
+than many a Christian child of her age. When she is grown up, she will
+be free to follow either her mother or her father."
+
+"Why have you not become a Christian yourself? Forgive the question.
+Surely you are one at heart."
+
+"That, that... you see, there are things.... Suppose that every male
+scion of your family, from generation to generation, for many hundred
+years, had been a smith, and now a boy should grow up, who said: I--I
+despise your trade?'"
+
+"If Ulrich should say: 'I-I wish to be an artist;' it would be agreeable
+to me."
+
+"Even if smiths were persecuted like us Jews, and he ran from your guild
+to another out of fear?"
+
+"No--that would be base, and can scarcely be compared with your case;
+for see--you are acquainted with everything, even what is called
+Christianity; nay, the Saviour is dear to you; you have already told me
+so. Well then! Suppose you were a foundling and were shown our faith and
+yours, and asked for which you would decide, which would you choose?"
+
+"We pray for life and peace, and where peace exists, love cannot be
+lacking, and yet! Perhaps I might decide for yours."
+
+"There you have it."
+
+"No, no! We have not done with this question so speedily. See, I do
+not grudge you your faith, nor do I wish to disturb it. The child must
+believe, that all its parents do and require of him is right, but the
+stranger sees with different, keener eyes, than the son and daughter.
+You occupy a filial relation towards your Church--I do not. I know the
+doctrine of Jesus Christ, and if I had lived in Palestine in his time,
+should have been one of the first to follow the Master, but since, from
+those days to the present, much human work has mingled with his
+sublime teachings. This too must be dear to you, for it belongs to your
+parents--but it repels me. I have lived, labored and watched all night
+for the truth, and were I now to come before the baptismal font and say
+'yes' to everything the priests ask, I should be a liar."
+
+"They have caused you bitter suffering; tortured your wife, driven you
+and your family from your home...."
+
+"I have borne all that patiently," cried the doctor, deeply moved. "But
+there are many other sins now committed against me and mine, for which
+there is no forgiveness. I know the great Pagans and their works. Their
+need of love extends only to the nation, to which they belong, not to
+humanity. Unselfish justice, is to them the last thing man owes his
+fellow-man. Christ extended love to all nations, His heart was large
+enough to love all mankind. Human love, the purest and fairest of
+virtues, is the sublime gift, the noble heritage, he left behind to his
+brothers in sorrow. My heart, the poor heart under this black doublet,
+this heart was created for human love, this soul thirsted, with all its
+powers, to help its neighbors and lighten their sorrows. To exercise
+human love is to be good, but they no longer know it, and what is worse,
+a thousand times worse, they constantly destroy in me and mine the
+desire to be good, good in the sense of their own Master. Worldly wealth
+is trash--to be rich the poorest happiness. Yet the Jew is not forbidden
+to strive for this, they take scarcely half his gains;--nor can
+they deny him the pursuit of the pleasures of the intellect--pure
+knowledge--for our minds are not feebler or more idle, and soar no less
+boldly than theirs. The prophets came from the East! But the happiness
+of the soul--the right to exercise charity is denied to us. It is a part
+of charity for each man to regard his neighbor as himself--to feel for
+him, as it were, with his own heart--to lighten his burdens, minister
+unto him in his sorrows, and to gladden his happiness. This the
+Christian denies the Jew. Your love ceases when you meet me and mine,
+and if I sought to put myself on an equality with the Christian, from
+the pure desire to satisfy his Master's most beautiful lesson, what
+would be my fate? The Jew is not permitted to be good. Not to be good!
+Whoever imposes that upon his brother, commits a sin for which I know no
+forgiveness. And if Jesus Christ should return to earth and see the pack
+that hunts us, surely He, who was human love incarnate, would open His
+arms wide, wide to us, and ask: 'Who are these apostles of hate? I know
+them not!'"
+
+The doctor paused, for the door had opened, and he rose with flushed
+face to look into the adjoining room; but the smith held him back,
+saying:
+
+"Stay, stay! Marx went out into the open air. Ah, Sir! no doubt your
+words are true, but were they Jews who crucified the Saviour?"
+
+"And this crime is daily avenged," replied Lopez. "How many wicked, how
+many low souls, who basely squander divine gifts to obtain worthless
+pelf, there are among my people! More than half of them are stripped of
+honor and dignity on your altar of vengeance, and thrust into the arms
+of repulsive avarice. And this, all this.... But enough of these things!
+They rouse my inmost soul to wrath, and I have other matters to discuss
+with you."
+
+The scholar now began to speak to the smith, like a dying man, about
+the future of his family, told him where he had concealed his small
+property, and did not hide the fact, that his marriage had not only
+drawn upon him the persecution of the Christians, but the curse of his
+co-religionists. He took it upon himself to provide for Ulrich, as if
+he were his own child, should any misfortune befall the smith; and Adam
+promised, if he remained alive and at liberty, to do the same for the
+doctor's wife and daughter.
+
+Meantime, a conversation of a very different nature was held before the
+hut.
+
+The poacher was sitting by the fire, when the door opened, and his name
+was called. He turned in alarm, but soon regained his composure, for it
+was Jorg who beckoned, and then drew him into the forest.
+
+Marx expected no good news, yet he started when his companion said:
+
+"I know now, who the man is you have brought. He's a Jew. Don't try to
+humbug me. The constable from the city has come to the village. The man,
+who captures the Israelite, will get fifteen florins. Fifteen florins,
+good money. The magistrate will count it, all on one board, and the
+vicar says...."
+
+"I don't care much for your priests," replied Marx. "I am from
+Weinsberg, and have found the Jew a worthy man. No one shall touch him."
+
+"A Jew, and a good man!" cried Jurg, laughing. "If you won't help, so
+much the worse for you. You'll risk your neck, and the fifteen florins.
+... Will you go shares? Yes or no?"
+
+"Heaven's thunder!" murmured the poacher, his crooked mouth watering.
+"How much is half of fifteen florins?"
+
+"About seven, I should say."
+
+"A calf and a pig."
+
+"A swine for the Jew, that will suit. You'll keep him here in the trap."
+
+"I can't, Jorg; by my soul, I can't! Let me alone!"
+
+"Very well, for aught I care; but the legal gentlemen. The gallows has
+waited for you long enough!"
+
+"I can't; I can't. I've been an honest man all my life, and the smith
+Adam and his dead father have shown me many a kindness."
+
+"Who means the smith any harm?"
+
+"The receiver is as bad as the thief. If they catch him...."
+
+"He'll be put in the stocks for a week. That's the worst that can befall
+him."
+
+"No, no. Let me alone,--or I'll tell Adam what you're plotting...."
+
+"Then I'll denounce you first, you gallows' fruit, you rogue, you
+poacher. They've suspected you a long time! Will you change your mind
+now, you blockhead?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my
+own child."
+
+"I'll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away
+with me. When it's all over, I'll let him go."
+
+"Then I'll keep him. He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown
+man. Oh, dear, dear! The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and
+the little girl, Ruth...."
+
+"Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more. You've told me yourself, how
+the Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father's day. So we'll go
+shares. There's a light in the room still. You'll detain them. Count
+Frohlinger has been at his hunting-box since last evening.... If they
+insist on moving forward, guide them to the village."
+
+"And I've been an honest man all my life," whined the poacher, and then
+continued, threateningly: "If you harm a hair on Ulrich's head...."
+
+"Fool that you are! I'll willingly leave the big feeder to you. Go in
+now, then I'll come and fetch the boy. There's money at stake--fifteen
+florins!" Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the hut.
+
+The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
+that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find
+one elsewhere. They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the
+farm-houses in another village. Somebody would doubtless be found to
+risk his horses. The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants
+would take earnest-money from him. If he, Jorg, should show them
+florins, it would get him into a fine scrape. The people knew he was as
+poor as a beggar.
+
+The smith asked the poacher's opinion, and the latter growled:
+
+"That will, doubtless, be a good plan."
+
+He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
+him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
+Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
+florins to the four winds, but it was too late.
+
+The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: "Take good care of
+the boy!" And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a
+faithful fellow, Marx!" he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
+all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
+kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
+nor Jorg had come. Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
+soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
+smith's anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
+Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched
+him--for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the
+silent man's gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with
+strange, questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste
+unusual to him.
+
+"Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?"
+
+"Often!" replied Ruth.
+
+"And do you love Him?"
+
+"Dearly. Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him."
+
+"Of course, of course!" replied the smith, blushing with shame for his
+own distrust.
+
+The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
+they were alone, she beckoned to him.
+
+Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand. The slender
+fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew
+her towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her
+eyes expressed bitter suffering and terrible dread.
+
+"Are you afraid?" he asked, tenderly.
+
+Elizabeth shuddered, threw her arms passionately around his neck, and
+nodded assent.
+
+"The wagon will convey us to the Rhine Valley, please God, this very
+day, and there we shall be safe," he continued, soothingly. But she
+shook her head, her features assuming an expression of indifference and
+contempt. Lopez understood how to read their meaning, and asked: "So it
+is not the bailiffs you fear; something else is troubling you?"
+
+She nodded again, this time still more eagerly, drew out the crucifix,
+which she had hitherto kept concealed under her coverlid, showed it to
+him, then pointed upward towards heaven, lastly to herself and him, and
+shrugged her shoulders with an air of deep, mournful renunciation.
+
+"You are thinking of the other world," said Lopez; then, fixing his eyes
+on the ground, he continued, in a lower tone: "I know you are tortured
+by the fear of not meeting me there."
+
+"Yes," she gasped, with a great effort, pressing her forehead against
+his shoulder.
+
+A hot tear fell on the doctor's hand, and he felt as if his own heart
+was weeping with his beloved, anxious wife.
+
+He knew that this thought had often poisoned her life and, full of
+tender sympathy, turned her beautiful face towards him and pressed a
+long kiss on her closed eyes, then said, tenderly:
+
+"You are mine, I am yours, and if there is a life beyond the grave,
+and an eternal justice, the dumb will speak as they desire, and sing
+wondrous songs with the angels; the sorrowful will again be happy there.
+We will hope, we will both hope! Do you remember how I read Dante aloud
+to you, and tried to explain his divine creation, as we sat on the bench
+by the fig-tree. The sea roared below us, and our hearts swelled higher
+than its storm-lashed waves. How soft was the air, how bright the
+sunshine! This earth seemed doubly beautiful to you and me as, led by
+the hand of the divine seer and singer, we descended shuddering to the
+nether world. There the good and noble men of ancient times walked in a
+flowery meadow, and among them the poet beheld in solitary grandeur--do
+you still remember how the passage runs? 'E solo in parte vidi 'l
+Saladino.' Among them he also saw the Moslem Saladin, the conqueror of
+the Christians. If any one possessed the key of the mysteries of the
+other world, Elizabeth, it was Dante. He assigned a lofty place to the
+pagan, who was a true man--a man with a pure mind, a zeal for goodness
+and right, and I think I shall have a place there too. Courage,
+Elizabeth, courage!"
+
+A beautiful smile had illumined the wife's features, while she was
+reminded of the happiest hours of her life, but when he paused, gazed
+into her eyes, and clasped her right hand in his, she was seized with
+an intense longing to pray once, only once, with him to the Saviour so,
+drawing her fingers from his, she pressed the image of the Crucified
+One to her breast with her left hand, pleading with mute motions of her
+lips, ineligible to him alone, and with ardent entreaty in her large,
+tearful eyes: "Pray, pray with me, pray to the saviour."
+
+Lopez was greatly agitated; his heart beat faster, and a strong impulse
+urged him to start up, cry "no," and not allow himself to be moved, by
+an affectionate meakness, into bowing his manly soul before one, who, to
+him, was no more than human.
+
+The noble figure of the crucified Saviour, carved by an artist's hand in
+ivory, hung from an ebony cross, and he thrust the image back, intending
+to turn proudly way, he gazed at the face and found there only pain,
+quiet endurance, and touching sorrow. Ah, his own heart had often bled,
+as the pure brow of this poor, persecuted, tortured saint bled beneath
+its crown of thorns. To defy this silent companion in suffering, was
+no manly deed--to pay homage, out of love, to Him, who had brought
+love into the world, seemed to possess a sweet, ensnaring charm--so he
+clasped his slender hands closely round his dumb wife's fingers, pressed
+his dark curls against Elizabeth's fair hair, and both, for the first
+and last time, repeated together a mute, fervent prayer.
+
+Before the hut, and surrounded by the forest, was a large clearing,
+where two roads crossed.
+
+Adam, Marx and Ruth had gazed first down one and then the other, to look
+for the wagon, but nothing was to be seen or heard. As, with increasing
+anxiety, they turned back to the first path, the poacher grew restless.
+His crooked mouth twisted to and fro in strange contortions, not a
+muscle of his coarse face was till, and this looked so odd and yet so
+horrible, that Ruth could not help laughing, and the smith asked what
+ailed him.
+
+Marx made no reply; his ear had caught the distant bay of a dog, and he
+knew what the sound meant. Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and
+the smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: "What ails
+you, man?"
+
+"I am freezing," replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous
+expression.
+
+Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her
+hand to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: "There's a dog barking,
+Meister Adam, I hear it."
+
+The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly:
+"Believe me; I hear it. Now it's barking again."
+
+Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest. With lightning speed
+he loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up
+the clearing with her.
+
+Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.
+
+Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned. In his impatience he had
+gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the
+child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had
+happened to Ulrich.
+
+"Back, back!" shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his,
+also motioned and shrieked "Back, back!"
+
+The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned,
+when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the
+party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on
+horseback, burst from the thicket.
+
+The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god
+Siegfried. His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam
+rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air
+like a light cloud. He had opened and raised his arms, and holding
+the reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right. On
+perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant "Hallo, Halali!" rang from
+his bearded lips.
+
+To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a
+Jew.
+
+The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how
+stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.
+
+This was a morning's work indeed!
+
+"Hallo, Halali!" he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had
+escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor's side, exclaiming:
+
+"Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!"
+
+The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.
+
+As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he
+turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.
+
+Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam's
+heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful
+arms around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him
+from his horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his
+belt, and with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the
+earth. Then he again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe.
+But Lopez would not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a
+tone of passionate entreaty:
+
+"Let him go, Adam, spare him."
+
+As he spoke, he clung to the smith's arm, and when the latter tried to
+release himself from his grasp, said earnestly:
+
+"We will not follow their example!"
+
+Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the
+smith's arm, this time exclaiming imperiously:
+
+"Spare him, if you are my friend!"
+
+What was his strength in comparison with Adam's? Yet as the hammer
+rose for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed,
+seizing the infuriated man's wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he
+fell on his knees beside the count: "Think of Ulrich! This man's son was
+the only one, the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich,
+your child--in the monastery--he was--his friend--among so many. Spare
+him--Ulrich! For Ulrich's sake, spare him!"
+
+During this struggle the smith had held the count down with his left
+hand, and defended himself against Lopez with the right.
+
+One jerk, and the hand upraised for murder was free again--but he did
+not use it. His friend's last words had paralyzed him.
+
+"Take it," he said in a hollow tone, giving the hammer to the doctor.
+
+The latter seized it, and rising joyously, laid his hand on the shoulder
+of the smith, who was still kneeling on the count's breast, and said
+beseechingly: "Let that suffice. The man is only...."
+
+He went no farther--a gurgling, piercing cry of pain escaped his lips,
+and pressing one hand to his breast, and the other to his brow, he sank
+on the snow beside the stump of a giant pine.
+
+A squire dashed from the forest--the archer, to whom this noble quarry
+had fallen a victim, appeared in the clearing, holding aloft the
+cross-bow from which he had sent the bolt. His arrow was fixed in the
+doctor's breast; alas, the man had only sent the shaft, to save his
+fallen master from the hammer in the Jew's hand.
+
+Count Frohlinger rose, struggling for breath; his hand sought his
+hunting-knife, but in the fall it had slipped from its sheath and was
+lying in the snow.
+
+Adam supported his dying friend in his arms, Ruth ran weeping to the
+hut, and before the nobleman had fully collected his thoughts, the
+squire reached his side, and young Count Lips, riding a swift bay-horse,
+dashed from the forest, closely followed by three mounted huntsmen.
+
+When the attendants saw their master on foot, they too sprang from their
+saddles, Lips did the same, and an eager interchange of question and
+answer began among them.
+
+The nobleman scarcely noticed his son, but greeted with angry words the
+man who had shot the Jew. Then, deeply excited, he hoarsely ordered his
+attendants to bind the smith, who made no resistance, but submitted to
+everything like a patient child.
+
+Lopez no longer needed his arms.
+
+The dumb wife sat on the stump, with her dying husband resting on her
+lap. She had thrown her arms around the bleeding form, and the feet hung
+limply down, touching the snow.
+
+Ruth, sobbing bitterly, crouched on the ground by her mother's side, and
+old Rahel, who had entirely regained her self-control, pressed a cloth,
+wet with wine, on his forehead.
+
+The young count approached the dying Jew. His father slowly followed,
+drew the boy to his side, and said in a low, sad tone:
+
+"I am sorry for the man; he saved my life."
+
+The wounded man opened his eyes, saw Count Frohlinger, his son and the
+fettered smith, felt his wife's tears on his brow, and heard Ruth's
+agonized weeping. A gentle smile hovered around his pale lips, and when
+he tried to raise his head Elizabeth helped him, pressing it gently to
+her breast.
+
+The feeble lips moved and Lopez raised his eyes to her face, as if
+to thank her, saying in a low voice: "The arrow--don't touch it....
+Elizabeth--Ruth, we have clung together faithfully, but now--I shall
+leave you alone, I must leave you." He paused, a shadow clouded his
+eyes, and the lids slowly fell. But he soon raised them again, and
+fixing his glance steadily on the count, said:
+
+"Hear me, my Lord; a dying man should be heard, even if he is a Jew.
+See! This is my wife, and this my child. They are Christians. They will
+soon be alone in the world, deserted, orphaned. The smith is their only
+friend. Set him free; they--they, they will need a protector. My wife
+is dumb, dumb... alone in the world. She can neither beseech nor demand.
+Set Adam free, for the sake of your Saviour, your son, free--yes, free.
+A wide, wide space must be between you; he must go away with them, far
+away. Set him free! I held his arm with the hammer.... You know--with
+the hammer. Set him free. My death--death atones for everything."
+
+Again his voice failed, and the count, deeply moved, looked irresolutely
+now at him, now at the smith. Lips's eyes filled with tears; and as
+he saw his father delay in fulfilling the dying man's last wish, and a
+glance from the dim eyes met his, he pressed closer to the noble, who
+stood struggling with many contending emotions, and whispered, weeping:
+
+"My Lord and Father, my Lord and Father, tomorrow will be Christmas.
+For Christ's sake, for love of me, grant his request: release Ulrich's
+father, set him free! Do so, my noble Father; I want no other Christmas
+gift."
+
+Count Frohlinger's heart also overflowed, and when, raising his
+tear-dimmed eyes, he saw Elizabeth's deep grief stamped on her gentle
+features, and beheld reclining on her breast, the mild, beautiful face
+of the dying man, it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother
+of God--and to-morrow would be Christmas. Wounded pride was silent, he
+forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if
+he wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death:
+
+"I thank you for your aid, man. Adam is free, and may go with your wife
+and child wherever he lists. My word upon it; you can close your eyes in
+peace!"
+
+Lopez smiled again, raised his hand as if in gratitude, then let it fall
+upon his child's head, gazed lovingly at Ruth for the last time, and
+murmured in a low tone "Lift my head a little higher, Elizabeth." When
+she had obeyed his wish, he gazed earnestly into her face, whispered
+softly: "A dreamless sleep--reanimated to new forms in the endless
+circle. No!--Do you see, do you hear.... Solo in parte'... with
+you... with you.... Oh, oh!--the arrow--draw the arrow from the wound.
+Elizabeth, Elizabeth--it aches. Well--well--how miserable we were, and
+yet, yet.... You--you--I--we--we know, what happiness is. You--I ...
+Forgive me! I forgive, forgive...."
+
+The dying man's hand fell from his child's head, his eyes closed, but
+the pleasant smile with which he had perished, hovered around his lips,
+even in death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Count Frohlinger added a low "amen" to the last words of the dying man,
+then approached the widow, and in the kindly, cordial manner natural to
+him, strove to comfort her.
+
+Finally he ordered his men, to loose the smith's bonds, and instantly
+guide him to the frontier with the woman and child. He also spoke to
+Adam, but said only a few words, not cheery ones as usual, but grave and
+harsh in purport.
+
+They were a command to leave the country without delay, and never return
+to his home again.
+
+The Jew's corpse was laid on a bier formed of pine, branches, and the
+bearers lifted it on their shoulders. Ruth clung closely to her mother,
+both trembling like leaves in the wind, while he who was dearest to them
+on earth was borne away, but only the child could weep.
+
+The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited
+patiently with the smith for his son's return until noon, then they
+urged departure, and the party moved forward.
+
+Not a word was spoken, till the travellers stopped before the
+charcoal-burner's house.
+
+Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and
+had gone back to the forest an hour before. The tavern could accommodate
+a great many people, she added, and they could wait for him there.
+
+The fugitives followed this advice, and after Adam had seen the women
+provided with shelter, he again sought the scene of the misfortune, and
+waited there for the boy until night.
+
+Beside the stump on which his friend had died, he prayed long and
+earnestly, vowing to his dead preserver to live henceforth solely for
+his family. Unbroken stillness surrounded him, it seemed as if he were
+in church, and every tree in the forest was a witness of the oath he
+swore.
+
+The next morning the smith again sought the charcoal-burner, and this
+time found him. Jorg laid the blame to Ulrich's impatience, but promised
+to go to Marx in search of him and bring him to the smith. The men
+composing the escort urged haste, so Adam went on without Ulrich towards
+the north-west, to the valley of the Rhine.
+
+The charcoal-burner had lost the reward offered the informer, and could
+not even earn the money due a messenger.
+
+He had lured Ulrich to the attic and locked him in there, but during his
+absence the boy escaped. He was a nimble fellow, for he had risked the
+leap from the window, and then swung himself over the fence into the
+road.
+
+Jorg's conjecture did not deceive him, for as soon as Ulrich perceived
+that he had been betrayed into a trap, he had leaped into the open air.
+
+He must warn his friends, and anxiety for them winged his feet.
+
+Once and again he lost his way, but at last found the right path, though
+he had wasted many hours, first in the village, then behind the locked
+door, and finally in searching for the right road.
+
+The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
+clearing.
+
+The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.
+
+Where had they gone?
+
+He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only
+too many. Here horses' hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed
+the snow, yonder hounds had run, and--Great Heaven!--here, by the
+tree-stump, red blood stained the glimmering white ground.
+
+His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.
+
+Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass
+and brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there--Holy
+Virgin! What was this!--there lay his father's hammer. He knew it only
+too well; it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two
+larger tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it a
+hundred times himself.
+
+His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
+and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
+himself: "The bier was made here," and his vivid imagination showed
+him his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral
+procession. Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a
+slender, black-robed body, his father and his teacher. Then came the
+quiet, beautiful wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel.
+He distinctly saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of
+the women, and wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating
+locks and ran to and fro. Suddenly he thought that the troopers would
+return to seize him also. Away, away! anywhere--away! a voice roared and
+buzzed in his ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always
+towards the south.
+
+The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained
+at the charcoal-burner's, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor
+thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.
+
+Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he
+still ran on--but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and
+shorter. The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet
+he still struggled forward.
+
+The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he
+followed southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed.
+His head and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold;
+but little snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight
+showed patches of bare, dark turf.
+
+Grief was forgotten. Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed
+the boy's mind. He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road
+and sleep, but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and
+dragged himself on to the nearest village. The lights had long been
+extinguished; as he approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the
+melancholy lowing of a cow echoed from many a stable. He was again among
+human beings; the thought exerted a soothing influence; he regained his
+self-control, and sought a shelter for the night.
+
+At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the
+moonlight an open hatchway in the wall. If he could climb up to it! The
+framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to
+try it.
+
+Several times, when Half-way up, he slipped to the ground, but at last
+reached the top, and found a bed in the soft hay under a sheltering
+roof. Surrounded by the fragrance of the dried grasses, he soon fell
+asleep, and in a dream saw amidst various confused and repulsive shapes,
+first his father with a bleeding wound in his broad chest, and then the
+doctor, dancing with old Rahel. Last of all Ruth appeared; she led him
+into the forest to a juniper-bush, and showed him a nest full of young
+birds. But the half-naked creatures vexed him, and he trampled them
+under foot, over which the little girl lamented so loudly and bitterly,
+that he awoke.
+
+Morning was already dawning, his head ached, and he was very cold and
+hungry, but he had no desire nor thought except to proceed; so he again
+went out into the open air, brushed off the hay that still clung to his
+hair and clothes, and walked on towards the south.
+
+It had grown warmer and was beginning to snow heavily.
+
+Walking became more and more difficult; his headache grew unendurable,
+yet his feet still moved, though it seemed as if he wore heavy leaden
+shoes.
+
+Several freight-wagons with armed escorts, and a few peasants, with
+rosaries in their hands, who were on their way to church, met the lad,
+but no one had overtaken him.
+
+On the hinge of noon he heard behind him the tramp of horses' hoofs and
+the rattle of wheels, approaching nearer and nearer with ominous haste.
+
+If it should be the troopers!
+
+Ulrich's heart stood still, and turning to look back, he saw several
+horsemen, who were trotting past a spur of the hill around which the
+road wound.
+
+Through the falling flakes the boy perceived glittering weapons, gay
+doublets and scarfs, and now--now--all hope was over, they wore Count
+Frohlinger's colors!
+
+Unless the earth should open before him, there was no escape. The road
+belonged to the horsemen; on the right lay a wide, snow-covered plain,
+on the left rose a cliff, kept from falling on the side towards the
+highway by a rude wall. It needed this support less on account of the
+road, than for the sake of a graveyard, for which the citizens of the
+neighboring borough used the gentle slope of the mountain.
+
+The graves, the bare elder-bushes and bushy cypresses in the cemetery
+were covered with snow, and the brighter the white covering that rested
+on every surrounding object, the stronger was the relief in which the
+black crosses stood forth against it.
+
+A small chapel in the rear of the graveyard caught Ulrich's eye. If it
+was possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it. The horsemen
+were already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining
+strength, rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to
+clamber up.
+
+The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the
+cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to
+slip on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered
+plants growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.
+
+The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed: "A
+runaway! See how the young vagabond acts. I'll seize him."
+
+He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded
+in reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
+gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper's hand and his comrades
+burst into a loud laugh. It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears
+of the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward. He
+leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone
+concealed by the snow.
+
+With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell
+once more, and now his will was paralyzed. In mortal terror he clung to
+a cross, and as his senses failed, thought of "the word." It seemed
+as if some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and
+fatigue, he could not remember it.
+
+The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his
+comrades, by letting the vagabond escape. With a curt: "Stop, you
+rascal," he threw the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the
+next man in the line; and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich's
+side. He shook and jerked him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called
+to the others that the boy was probably dead.
+
+"People never die so quickly!" cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
+"Give him a blow."
+
+The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad. He had looked into
+Ulrich's face, and found something there that touched his heart. "No,
+no," he shouted, "come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it's all over
+with him, I say."
+
+During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his
+old servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot. The former, a
+gentleman of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw
+with a single hasty glance the cause of the detention.
+
+Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
+the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.
+
+Ulrich's head now lay in the soldier's arms, and the traveller gazed
+at him with a look of deep sympathy. The steadfast glance of his bright
+eyes rested on the boy's features as if spellbound, then he raised his
+hand, beckoned to the elder soldier, and exclaimed: "Lift him; we'll
+take him with us; a corner can be found in the wagon."
+
+The vehicle, of which the traveller spoke, was slow in coming. It was a
+long four-wheeled equipage, over which, as a protection against wind and
+storm, arched a round, sail-cloth cover. The driver crouched among the
+straw in a basket behind the horses, like a brooding hen.
+
+Under the sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad
+gentleman, sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the
+vehicle had gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company.
+
+The two Dominican friars, Magisters Sutor and Stubenrauch, had entered
+at Cologne, for the wagon came straight from Holland, and belonged
+to the artist Antonio Moor of Utrecht, who was going to King Philip's
+court. The beautiful fur border on the black cap and velvet cloak showed
+that he had no occasion to practise economy; he preferred the back of a
+good horse to a seat in a jolting vehicle.
+
+The ecclesiastics had taken possession of the best places in the back
+of the wagon. They were inseparable brothers, and formed as it were one
+person, for they behaved like two bodies with one soul. In this
+double life, fat Magister Sutor represented the will, lean Stubenrauch
+reflection and execution. If the former proposed to be down or sit, eat
+or drink, sleep or talk, the latter instantly carried the suggestion
+into execution, rarely neglecting to establish, by wise words, for what
+reason the act in question should be performed precisely at that time.
+
+Farther towards the front, with his back resting against a chest, lay a
+fine-looking young Lansquenet. He was undoubtedly a gay, active fellow,
+but now sat mute and melancholy, supporting with his right hand his
+wounded left arm, as if it were some brittle vessel.
+
+Opposite to him rose a heap of loose straw, beneath which something
+stirred from time to time, and from which at short intervals a slight
+cough was heard.
+
+As soon as the door in the back of the vehicle opened, and the cold
+snowy air entered the dark, damp space under the tilt, Magister Sutor's
+lips parted in a long-drawn "Ugh!" to which his lean companion instantly
+added a torrent of reproachful words about the delay, the draught, the
+danger of taking cold.
+
+When the artist's head appeared in the opening, the priest paused, for
+Moor paid the travelling expenses; but when his companion Sutor drew
+his cloak around him with every token of discomfort and annoyance, he
+followed his example in a still more conspicuous way.
+
+The artist paid no heed to these gestures, but quietly requested his
+guests to make room for the boy.
+
+A muffled head was suddenly thrust out from under the straw, a voice
+cried: "A hospital on wheels!" then the head vanished again like that of
+a fish, which has risen to take a breath of air.
+
+"Very true," replied the artist. "You need not draw up your limbs so
+far, my worthy Lansquenet, but I must request these reverend gentlemen
+to move a little farther apart, or closer together, and make room for
+the sick lad on the leather sack."
+
+While these words were uttered, one of the escort laid the still
+senseless boy under the tilt.
+
+Magister Sutor noticed the snow that clung to Ulrich's hair and
+clothing, and while struggling to rise, uttered a repellent "no," while
+Stubenrauch hastily added reproachfully: "There will be a perfect pool
+here, when that melts; you gave us these places, Meister Moor, but we
+hardly expected to receive also dripping limbs and rheumatic pains...."
+
+Before he finished the sentence, the bandaged head again appeared from
+the straw, and the high, shrill voice of the man concealed under it,
+asked? "Was the blood of the wounded wayfarer, the good Samaritan picked
+up by the roadside, dry or wet?"
+
+An encouraging glance from Sutor requested Stubenrauch to make an
+appropriate answer, and the latter in an unctuous tone, hastily replied:
+"It was the Lord, who caused the Samaritan to find the wounded man by
+the roadside--this did not happen in our case, for the wet boy is forced
+upon us, and though we are Samaritans...."
+
+"You are not yet merciful," cried the voice from the straw.
+
+The artist laughed, but the soldier, slapping his thigh with his sound
+hand, cried:
+
+"In with the boy, you fellows outside; here, put him on my right--move
+farther apart, you gentlemen down below; the water will do us no harm,
+if you'll only give us some of the wine in your basket yonder."
+
+The priests, willy-nilly, now permitted Ulrich to be laid on the
+leathern sack between them, and while first Sutor, and then Stubenrauch,
+shrunk away to mutter prayers over a rosary for the senseless lad's
+restoration to consciousness, and to avoid coming in contact with
+his wet clothes, the artist entered the vehicle, and without asking
+permission, took the wine from the priests' basket. The soldier helped
+him, and soon their united exertions, with the fiery liquor, revived the
+fainting boy.
+
+Moor rode forward, and the wagon jolted on until the day's journey ended
+at Emmendingen. Count von Hochburg's retainers, who were to serve as
+escort from this point, would not ride on Christmas day. The artist made
+no objection, but when they also declared that no horse should leave
+the stable on the morrow, which was a second holiday, he shrugged
+his shoulders and answered, without any show of anger, but in a firm,
+haughty tone, that he should then probably be obliged--if necessary with
+their master's assistance,--to conduct them to Freiburg to-morrow.
+
+The inns at Emmendingen were among the largest and best in the
+neighborhood of Freiburg, and on account of the changes of escort,
+which frequently took place here, there was no lack of accommodation for
+numerous horses and guests.
+
+As soon as Ulrich was taken into the warm hostelry he fainted a second
+time, and the artist now cared for him as kindly as if he were the lad's
+own father.
+
+Magister Sutor ordered the roast meats, and his companion Stubenrauch
+all the other requisites for a substantial meal, in which they had made
+considerable progress, while the artist was still engaged in ministering
+to the sick lad, in which kindly office the little man, who had been
+hidden under the straw in the wagon, stoutly assisted.
+
+He had been a buffoon, and his dress still bore many tokens of his
+former profession. His big head swayed upon his thin neck; his droll,
+though emaciated features constantly changed their expression, and even
+when he was not coughing, his mouth was continually in motion.
+
+As soon as Ulrich breathed calmly and regularly, he searched his
+clothing to find some clue to his residence, but everything he
+discovered in the lad's pockets only led to more and more amusing and
+startling conjectures, for nothing can contain a greater variety of
+objects than a school-boy's pockets, if we except a school-girl's.
+
+There was a scrap of paper with a Latin exercise bristling with errors,
+a smooth stone, a shabby, notched knife, a bit of chalk for drawing, an
+iron arrow-head, a broken hobnail, and a falconer's glove, which Count
+Lips had given his comrade. The ring the doctor's wife had bestowed as a
+farewell token, was also discovered around his neck.
+
+All these things led Pellicanus--so the jester was named--to make many a
+conjecture, and he left none untried.
+
+As a mosaic picture is formed from stones, he by a hundred signs,
+conjured up a vision of the lad's character, home, and the school from
+which he had run away.
+
+He called him the son of a noble of moderate property. In this he was
+of course mistaken, but in other respects perceived, with wonderful
+acuteness, how Ulrich had hitherto been circumstanced, nay even declared
+that he was a motherless child, a fact proved by many things he lacked.
+The boy had been sent to school too late--Pellicanus was a good Latin
+scholar--and perhaps had been too early initiated into the mysteries of
+riding, hunting, and woodcraft.
+
+The artist, merely by the boy's appearance, gained a more accurate
+knowledge of his real nature, than the jester gathered from his
+investigations and inferences.
+
+Ulrich pleased him, and when he saw the pen-and-ink sketch on the
+back of the exercise, which Pellicanus showed him, he smiled and felt
+strengthened in the resolve to interest himself still more in the
+handsome boy, whom fate had thrown in his way. He now only needed to
+discover who the lad's parents were, and what had driven him from the
+school.
+
+The surgeon of the little town had bled Ulrich, and soon after he fell
+into a sound sleep, and breathed quietly. The artist and jester now
+dined together, for the monks had finished their meal long before, and
+were taking a noonday nap. Moor ordered roast meat and wine for the
+Lansquenet, who sat modestly in one corner of the large public room,
+gazing sadly at his wounded arm.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said the jester, pointing to the handsome young man. "We
+are brothers in calamity; one just like the other; a cart with a broken
+wheel."
+
+"His arm will soon heal," replied the artist, "but your tool"--here he
+pointed to his own lips--"is stirring briskly enough now. The monks and
+I have both made its acquaintance within the past few days."
+
+"Well, well," replied Pellicanus, smiling bitterly, "yet they toss me
+into the rubbish heap."
+
+"That would be...."
+
+"Ah, you think the wise would then be fools with the fools," interrupted
+Pellicanus. "Not at all. Do you know what our masters expect of us?"
+
+"You are to shorten the time for them with wit and jest."
+
+"But when must we be real fools, my Lord? Have you considered? Least
+of all in happy hours. Then we are expected to play the wise man, warn
+against excess, point out shadows. In sorrow, in times of trouble, then,
+fool, be a fool! The madder pranks you play, the better. Make every
+effort, and if you understand your trade well, and know your master,
+you must compel him to laugh till he cries, when he would fain wail for
+grief, like a little girl. You know princes too, sir, but I know them
+better. They are gods on earth, and won't submit to the universal lot of
+mortals, to endure pain and anguish. When people are ill, the physician
+is summoned, and in trouble we are at hand. Things are as we take
+them--the gravest face may have a wart, upon which a jest can be made.
+When you have once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point.
+We deaden it--we light up the darkness--even though it be with a will
+'o the wisp--and if we understand our business, manage to hack the lumpy
+dough of heavy sorrow into little pieces, which even a princely stomach
+can digest."
+
+"A coughing fool can do that too, so long as there is nothing wanting in
+his upper story."
+
+"You are mistaken, indeed you are. Great lords only wish to see the
+velvet side of life--of death's doings, nothing at all. A man like
+me--do you hear--a cougher, whose marrow is being consumed--incarnate
+misery on two tottering legs--a piteous figure, whom one can no more
+imagine outside the grave, than a sportsman without a terrier, or
+hound--such a person calls into the ears of the ostrich, that shuts its
+eyes: 'Death is pointing at you! Affliction is coming!' It is my duty
+to draw a curtain between my lord and sorrow; instead of that, my own
+person brings incarnate suffering before his eyes. The elector was as
+wise as if he were his own fool, when he turned me out of the house."
+
+"He graciously gave you leave of absence."
+
+"And Gugelkopf is already installed in the palace as my successor! My
+gracious master knows that he won't have to pay the pension long. He
+would willingly have supported me up yonder till I died; but my wish to
+go to Genoa suited him exactly. The more distance there is between his
+healthy highness and the miserable invalid, the better."
+
+"Why didn't you wait till spring, before taking your departure?"
+
+"Because Genoa is a hot-house, that the poor consumptive does not need
+in summer. It is pleasant to be there in winter. I learned that three
+years ago, when we visited the duke. Even in January the sun in Liguria
+warms your back, and makes it easier to breathe. I'm going by way of
+Marseilles. Will you give me the corner in your carriage as far as
+Avignon?"
+
+"With pleasure! Your health, Pellicanus! A good wish on Christmas day is
+apt to be fulfilled."
+
+The artist's deep voice sounded full and cordial, as he uttered the
+words. The young soldier heard them, and as Moor and the jester touched
+glasses, he raised his own goblet, drained it to the dregs, and asked
+modestly: "Will you listen to a few lines of mine, kind sir?"
+
+"Say them, say them!" cried the artist, filling his glass again, while
+the lansquenet, approaching the table, fixed his eyes steadily on the
+beaker, and in an embarrassed manner, repeated:
+
+       "On Christmas-day, when Jesus Christ,
+        To save us sinners came,
+        A poor, sore-wounded soldier dared
+        To call upon his name.
+        'Oh! hear,' he said, 'my earnest prayer,
+        For the kind, generous man,
+        Who gave the wounded soldier aid,
+        And bore him through the land.
+        So, in Thy shining chariot,
+        I pray, dear Jesus mine,
+        Thou'lt bear him through a happy life
+        To Paradise divine.'"
+
+"Capital, capital!" cried the artist, pledging the lansquenet and
+insisting that he should sit down between him and the jester.
+
+Pellicanus now gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, for what the wounded man
+could do, he too might surely accomplish. It was not only ambition, and
+the habit of answering every good saying he heard with a better one, but
+kindly feeling, that urged him to honor the generous benefactor with a
+speech.
+
+After a few minutes, which Moor spent in talking with the soldier,
+Pellicanus raised his glass, coughed again, and said, first calmly, then
+in an agitated voice, whose sharp tones grew more and more subdued:
+
+       "A rogue a fool must be, 't is true,
+        Rog'ry sans folly will not do;
+        Where folly joins with roguery,
+        There's little harm, it seems to me.
+        The pope, the king, the youthful squire,
+        Each one the fool's cap doth attire;
+        He who the bauble will not wear,
+        The worst of fools doth soon appear.
+        Thee may the motley still adorn,
+        When, an old man, the laurel crown
+        Thy head doth deck, while gifts less vain,
+        Thine age to bless will still remain.
+        When fair grandchildren thee delight,
+        Mayst then recall this Christmas night.
+        When added years bring whitening hair,
+        The draught of wisdom then wilt share,
+        But it will lack the flavor due,
+        Without a drop of folly too.
+        And if the drop is not at hand,
+        Remember poor old Pellican,
+        Who, half a rogue and half a fool,
+        Yet has a faithful heart and whole."
+
+"Thanks, thanks!" cried the artist, shaking the jester's hand. "Such
+a Christmas ought to be lauded! Wisdom, art, and courage at one table!
+Haven't I fared like the man, who picked up stones by the way side, and
+to-they were changed to pure gold in his knapsack."
+
+"The stone was crumbling," replied the jester; "but as for the gold, it
+will stand the test with me, if you seek it in the heart, and not in the
+pocket. Holy Blasius! Would that my grave might lack filling, as long as
+my little strong-box here; I'd willingly allow it."
+
+"And so would I!" laughed the soldier:
+
+"Then travelling will be easy for you," said the artist. "There was a
+time, when my pouch was no fuller than yours. I know by the experience
+of those days how a poor man feels, and never wish to forget it. I still
+owe you my after-dinner speech, but you must let me off, for I can't
+speak your language fluently. In brief, I wish you the recovery of
+your health, Pellican, and you a joyous life of happiness and honor, my
+worthy comrade. What is your name?"
+
+"Hans Eitelfritz von der Lucke, from Colln on the Spree," replied the
+soldier. "And, no offence, Herr Moor, God will care for the monks, but
+there were three poor invalid fellows in your cart. One goblet more to
+the pretty sick boy in there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+After dinner the artist went with his old servant, who had attended to
+the horses and then enjoyed a delicious Christmas roast, to Count von
+Hochburg, to obtain an escort for the next day.
+
+Pellicanus had undertaken to watch Ulrich, who was still sleeping
+quietly.
+
+The jester would gladly have gone to bed himself, for he felt cold and
+tired, but, though the room could not be heated, he remained faithfully
+at his post for hours. With benumbed hands and feet, he watched by the
+light of the night-lamp every breath the boy drew, often gazing at him
+as anxiously and sympathizingly, as if he were his own child.
+
+When Ulrich at last awoke, he timidly asked when he was, and when the
+jester had soothed him, begged for a bit of bread, he was so hungry.
+
+How famished he felt, the contents of the dish that were speedily placed
+before him, soon discovered Pellicanus wanted to feed him like a baby,
+but the boy took the spoon out of his hand, and the former smilingly
+watched the sturdy eater, without disturbing, him, until he was
+perfectly satisfied; then he began to perplex the lad with questions,
+that seemed to him neither very intelligible, nor calculated to inspire
+confidence.
+
+"Well, my little bird!" the jester began, joyously anticipating a
+confirmation of the clever inferences he had drawn, "I suppose it was
+a long flight to the churchyard, where we found you. On the grave is a
+better place than in it, and a bed at Emmendingen, with plenty of grits
+and veal, is preferable to being in the snow on the highway, with a
+grumbling stomach Speak freely, my lad! Where does your nest of robbers
+hang?"
+
+"Nest of robbers?" repeated Ulrich in amazement.
+
+"Well, castle or the like, for aught I care," continued Pellicanus
+inquiringly. "Everybody is at home somewhere, except Mr. Nobody; but as
+you are somebody, Nobody cannot possibly be your father. Tell me about
+the old fellow!"
+
+"My father is dead," replied the boy, and as the events of the preceding
+day rushed back upon his memory, he drew the coverlet over his face and
+wept.
+
+"Poor fellow!" murmured the jester, hastily drawing his sleeve across
+his eyes, and leaving the lad in peace, till he showed his face again.
+Then he continued: "But I suppose you have a mother at home?"
+
+Ulrich shook his head mournfully, and Pellicanus, to conceal his own
+emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very
+kindly, though not without a feeling of satisfaction at his own
+penetration:
+
+"So you are an orphan! Yes, yes! So long as the mother's wings cover it,
+the young bird doesn't fly so thoughtlessly out of the warm nest into
+the wide world. I suppose the Latin school grew too narrow for the young
+nobleman?"
+
+Ulrich raised himself, exclaiming in an eager, defiant tone:
+
+"I won't go back to the monastery; that I will not."
+
+"So that's the way the hare jumps!" cried the fool laughing. "You've
+been a bad Latin scholar, and the timber in the forest is dearer to you,
+than the wood in the school-room benches. To be sure, they send out no
+green shoots. Dear Lord, how his face is burning!" So saying, Pellicanus
+laid his hand on the boy's forehead and when he felt that it was hot,
+deemed it better to stop his examination for the day, and only asked his
+patient his name.
+
+"Ulrich," was the reply.
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"Let me alone!" pleaded the boy, drawing the coverlet over his head
+again.
+
+The jester obeyed his wish, and opened the door leading into the
+tap-room, for some one had knocked. The artist's servant entered, to
+fetch his master's portmanteau. Old Count von Hochburg had invited Moor
+to be his guest, and the painter intended to spend the night at the
+castle. Pellicanus was to take care of the boy, and if necessary send
+for the surgeon again. An hour after, the sick jester lay shivering in
+his bed, coughing before sleeping and between naps. Ulrich too could
+obtain no slumber.
+
+At first he wept softly, for he now clearly realized, for the first
+time, that he had lost his father and should never see Ruth, the doctor,
+nor the doctor's dumb wife Elizabeth again. Then he wondered how he had
+come to Einmendingen, what sort of a place it was, and who the queer
+little man could be, who had taken him for a young noble--the quaint
+little man with the cough, and a big head, whose eyes sparkled
+so through his tears. The jester's mistake made him laugh, and he
+remembered that Ruth had once advised him to command the "word," to
+transform him into a count.
+
+Suppose he should say to-morrow, that his father had been a knight?
+
+But the wicked thought only glided through his mind; even before he had
+reflected upon it, he felt ashamed of himself, for he was no liar.
+
+Deny his father! That was very wrong, and when he stretched himself
+out to sleep, the image of the valiant smith stood with tangible
+distinctness before his soul. Gravely and sternly he floated upon
+clouds, and looked exactly like the pictures Ulrich had seen of God the
+Father, only he wore the smith's cap on his grey hair. Even in Paradise,
+the glorified spirit had not relinquished it.
+
+Ulrich raised his hands as if praying, but hastily let them fall again,
+for there was a great stir outside of the inn. The tramp of steeds,
+the loud voices of men, the sound of drums and fifes were audible, then
+there was rattling, marching and shouting in the court-yard.
+
+"A room for the clerk of the muster-roll and paymaster!" cried a voice.
+
+"Gently, gently, children!" said the deep tones of the provost, who was
+the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets. "A devout servant
+must not bluster at the holy Christmas-tide; he's permitted to drink a
+glass, Heaven be praised. Your house is to be greatly honored, Landlord!
+The recruiting for our most gracious commander, Count von Oberstein,
+is--to be done here. Do you hear, man! Everything to be paid for in
+cash, and not a chicken will be lost; but the wine must be good! Do
+you understand? So this evening broach a cask of your best. Pardon me,
+children--the very best, I meant to say."
+
+Ulrich now heard the door of the tap-room open, and fancied he could
+see the Lansquenets in gay costumes, each one different from the other,
+crowd into the apartment.
+
+The jester coughed loudly, scolding and muttering to himself; but
+Ulrich listened with sparkling eyes to the sounds that came through the
+ill-fitting door, by which he could hear what was passing in the next
+room.
+
+With the clerk of the muster-rolls, the paymaster and provost had
+appeared the drummers and fifers, who the day after to-morrow were to
+sound the license for recruiting, and besides these, twelve Lansquenets,
+who were evidently no novices.
+
+Many an exclamation of surprise and pleasure was heard directly after
+their entrance into the tap-room, and amid the confusion of voices, the
+name of Hans Eitelfritz fell more than once upon Ulrich's ear.
+
+The provost's voice sounded unusually cordial, as he greeted the brave
+fellow with the wounded hand--an honor of great value to the latter, for
+he had served five years in the same company with the provost, "Father
+Kanold," who read the very depths of his soldiers' hearts, and knew them
+all as if they were his own sons.
+
+Ulrich could not understand much amid the medley of voices in the
+adjoining room, but when Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked
+to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the
+provost oppose the clerk's scruples, saying warmly "write, write; I'd
+rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two. He has
+fun and life in him. Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many
+a piece of armor."
+
+Meantime the wine-cask must have been opened, for the clink of glasses,
+and soon after loud singing was audible.
+
+Just as the second song began, the boy fell asleep, but woke again two
+hours after, roused by the stillness that had suddenly succeeded the
+uproar.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had declared himself ready to give a new song in his
+best vein, and the provost commanded silence.
+
+The singing now began; during its continuance Ulrich raised himself
+higher and higher in bed, not a word escaped him, either of the song
+itself, or the chorus, which was repeated by the whole party, with
+exuberant gayety, amid the loud clinking of goblets. Never before had
+the lad heard such bold, joyous voices; even at the second verse his
+heart bounded and it seemed as if he must join in the tune, which he had
+quickly caught. The song ran as follows:
+
+        Who, who will venture to hold me back?
+        Drums beat, fifes are playing a merry tune!
+        Down hammer, down pen, what more need I, alack
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        Oh father, mother, dear sister mine,
+        Blue-eyed maid at the bridge-house, my fair one.
+        Weep not, ye must not at parting repine,
+        I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The cannon roar loud, the sword flashes bright,
+        Who'll dare meet the stroke of my falchion?
+        Close-ranked, horse and foot in battle unite,
+        In war, war, dwells fortune, good fortune!
+
+        The city is taken, the booty mine;
+        With red gold, I'll deck--I know whom;
+        Pair maids' cheeks burn red, red too glows the wine,
+        Fortune, Paradise of good fortune!
+
+        Deep, scarlet wounds, brave breasts adorn,
+        Impoverished, crippled age I shun
+        A death of honor, 'mid glory won,
+        This too is good fortune, good fortune!
+
+        A soldier-lad composed this ditty
+        Hans Eitelfritz he, fair Colln's son,
+        His kindred dwell in the goodly city,
+        But he himself in fortune, good fortune!
+
+"He himself in fortune, good fortune," sang Ulrich also, and while, amid
+loud shouts of joy, the glasses again clinked against each other, he
+repeated the glad "fortune, good fortune." Suddenly, it flashed upon him
+like a revelation, "Fortune," that might be the word!
+
+Such exultant joy, such lark-like trilling, such inspiring promises
+of happiness had never echoed in any word, as they now did from the
+"fortune," the young lansquenet so gaily and exultantly uttered.
+
+"Fortune, Fortune!" he exclaimed aloud, and the jester, who was lying
+sleepless in his bed and could not help smiling at the lad's singing,
+raised himself, saying:
+
+"Do you like the word? Whoever understands how to seize it when it flits
+by, will always float on top of everything, like fat on the soup. Rods
+are cut from birches, willows, and knotted hazel-sticks-ho! ho! you know
+that, already;--but, for him who has good fortune, larded cakes, rolls
+and sausages grow. One bold turn of Fortune's wheel will bring him,
+who has stood at the bottom, up to the top with the speed of lightning.
+Brother Queer-fellow says: 'Up and down, like an avalanche.' But now
+turn over and go to sleep. To-morrow will also be a Christmas-day, which
+will perhaps bring you Fortune as a Christmas gift."
+
+It seemed as if Ulrich had not called upon Fortune in vain, for as soon
+as he closed his eyes, a pleasant dream bore him with gentle hands to
+the forge on the market-place, and his mother stood beside the lighted
+Christmas-tree, pointing to the new sky-blue suit she had made him, and
+the apples, nuts, hobby-horse, and jumping jack, with a head as round
+as a ball, huge ears, and tiny flat legs. He felt far too old for such
+childish toys, and yet took a certain pleasure in them. Then the vision
+changed, and he again saw his mother; but this time she was walking
+among the angels in Paradise. A royal crown adorned her golden hair, and
+she told him she was permitted to wear it there, because she had been so
+reviled, and endured so much disgrace on earth.
+
+When the artist returned from Count von Hochburg's the next morning,
+he was not a little surprised to see Ulrich standing before the
+recruiting-table bright and well.
+
+The lad's cheeks were glowing with shame and anger, for the clerk of the
+muster-rolls and paymaster had laughed in his face, when he expressed
+his desire to become a Lansquenet.
+
+The artist soon learned what was going on, and bade his protege
+accompany him out of doors. Kindly, and without either mockery or
+reproof, he represented to him that he was still far too young for
+military service, and after Ulrich had confirmed everything the
+painter had already heard from the jester, Moor asked who had given him
+instruction in drawing.
+
+"My father, and afterwards Father Lukas in the monastery," replied the
+boy. "But don't question me as the little man did last night."
+
+"No, no," said his protector. "But there are one or two more things I
+wish to know. Was your father an artist?"
+
+"No," murmured the lad, blushing and hesitating. But when he met the
+stranger's clear gaze, he quickly regained his composure, and said:
+
+"He only knew how to draw, because he understood how to forge beautiful,
+artistic things."
+
+"And in what city did you live?"
+
+"In no city. Outside in the woods."
+
+"Oho!" said the artist, smiling significantly, for he knew that many
+knights practised a trade. "Answer only two questions more; then you
+shall be left in peace until you voluntarily open your heart to me. What
+is your name?"
+
+"Ulrich."
+
+"I know that; but your father's?"
+
+"Adam."
+
+"And what else?"
+
+Ulrich gazed silently at the ground, for the smith had borne no other
+name.
+
+"Well then," said Moor, "we will call you Ulrich for the present; that
+will suffice. But have you no relatives? Is no one waiting for you at
+home?"
+
+"We have led such a solitary life--no one."
+
+Moor looked fixedly into the boy's face, then nodded, and with a
+well-satisfied expression, laid his hand on Ulrich's curls, and said:
+
+"Look at me. I am an artist, and if you have any love for my profession,
+I will teach you."
+
+"Oh!" cried the boy, clasping his hands in glad surprise.
+
+"Well then," Moor continued, "you can't learn much on the way, but we
+can work hard in Madrid. We are going now to King Philip of Spain."
+
+"Spain, Portugal!" murmured Ulrich with sparkling eyes; all he had heard
+in the doctor's house about these countries returned to his mind.
+
+"Fortune, good fortune!" cried an exultant voice in his heart. This was
+the "word," it must be, it was already exerting its spell, and the spell
+was to prove its inherent power in the near future.
+
+That very day the party were to go to Count von Rappoltstein in the
+village of Rappolts, and this time Ulrich was not to plod along on
+foot, or he in a close baggage-wagon; no, he was to be allowed to ride
+a spirited horse. The escort would not consist of hired servants, but of
+picked men, and the count was going to join the train in person at the
+hill crowned by the castle, for Moor had promised to paint a portrait of
+the nobleman's daughter, who had married Count von Rappoltstein. It was
+to be a costly Christmas gift, which the old gentleman intended to make
+himself and his faithful wife.
+
+The wagon was also made ready for the journey; but no one rode inside;
+the jester, closely muffled in wraps, had taken his seat beside the
+driver, and the monks were obliged to go on by way of Freiburg, and
+therefore could use the vehicle no longer.
+
+They scolded and complained about it, as if they had been greatly
+wronged, and when Sutor refused to shake hands with the artist,
+Stubenrauch angrily turned his back upon the kind-hearted man.
+
+The offended pair sullenly retired, but the Christmas sun shone none
+the less brightly from the clear sky, the party of travellers had a gay,
+spick and span, holiday aspect, and the world into which they now fared
+stoutly forth, was so wide and beautiful, that Ulrich forgot his grief,
+and joyously waved his new cap in answer to the Lansquenet's farewell
+gesture.
+
+It was a merry ride, for on the way they met numerous travellers, who
+were going through the hamlet of Rappolts to the "three castles on the
+mountain" and saluted the old nobleman with lively songs. The Counts von
+Rappoltstein were the "piper-kings," the patrons of the brotherhood of
+musicians and singers on the Upper Rhine. Usually these joyous birds met
+at the castle of their "king" on the 8th of September, to pay him their
+little tax and be generously entertained in return; but this year, on
+account of the plague in the autumn, the festival had been deferred
+until the third day after Christmas, but Ulrich believed 'Fortune' had
+arranged it so for him.
+
+There was plenty of singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and
+reed-pipes were never silent. One serenade followed another, and even at
+the table a new song rang out at each new course.
+
+The fiery wine, game and sweet cakes at the castle board undoubtedly
+pleased the palate of the artisan's son, but he enjoyed feasting his
+ears still more. He felt as if he were in Heaven, and thought less and
+less of the grief he had endured.
+
+Day by day Fortune shook her horn of plenty, and flung new gifts down
+upon him.
+
+He had told the stable-keepers of his power over refractory horses, and
+after proving what he could do, was permitted to tame wild stallions and
+ride them about the castle-yard, before the eyes of the old and young
+count and the beautiful young lady. This brought him praise and gifts
+of new clothes. Many a delicate hand stroked his curls, and it always
+seemed to him as if his mighty spell could bestow nothing better.
+
+One day Moor took him aside, and told him that he had commenced a
+portrait of young Count Rappolstein too. The lad was obliged to be
+still, having broken his foot in a fall from his horse, and as Ulrich
+was of the same size and age, the artist wished him to put on the young
+count's clothes and serve as a model.
+
+The smith's son now received the best clothes belonging to his
+aristocratic companion in age. The suit was entirely black, but each
+garment of a different material, the stockings silk, the breeches satin,
+the doublet soft Flanders velvet. Golden-yellow puffs and slashes stood
+forth in beautiful relief against the darker stuff. Even the knots of
+ribbon on the breeches and shoes were as yellow as a blackbird's beak.
+Delicate lace trimmed the neck and fell on the hands, and a clasp of
+real gems confined the black and yellow plumes in the velvet hat.
+
+All this finery was wonderfully becoming to the smith's son, and he must
+have been blind, if he had not noticed how old and young nudged each
+other at sight of him. The spirit of vanity in his soul laughed in
+delight, and the lad soon knew the way to the large Venetian mirror,
+which was carefully kept in the hall of state. This wonderful glass
+showed Ulrich for the first time his whole figure and the image which
+looked back at him from the crystal, flattered and pleased him.
+
+But, more than aught else, he enjoyed watching the artist's hand and eye
+during the sittings. Poor Father Lukas in the monastery must hide his
+head before this master. He seemed to actually grow while engaged in his
+work, his shoulders, which he usually liked to carry stooping forward,
+straightened, the broad, manly breast arched higher, and the kindly eyes
+grew stern, nay sometimes wore a terrible expression.
+
+Although little was said during the sittings, they were always too short
+for the boy. He did not stir, for it always seemed to him as if any
+movement would destroy the sacred act he witnessed, and when, in the
+pauses, he looked at the canvas and saw how swiftly and steadily the
+work progressed, he felt as if before his own eyes, he was being born
+again to a nobler existence. In the wassail-hall hung the portrait of
+a young Prince of Navarre, whose life had been saved in the chase by
+a Rappoltstein. Ulrich, attired in the count's clothes, looked exactly
+like him. The jester had been the first to perceive this strange
+circumstance. Every one, even Moor, agreed with him, and so it happened
+that Pellicanus henceforth called his young friend the Navarrete. The
+name pleased the boy. Everything here pleased him, and he was full of
+happiness; only often at night he could not help grieving because, while
+his father was dead, he enjoyed such an overflowing abundance of good
+things, and because he had lost his mother, Ruth, and all who had loved
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Ulrich was obliged to share the jester's sleeping-room, and as
+Pellicanus shrank from getting out of bed, while suffering from
+night-sweats, and often needed something, he roused Ulrich from his
+sleep, and the latter was always ready to assist him. This happened more
+frequently as they continued their journey, and the poor little man's
+illness increased.
+
+The count had furnished Ulrich with a spirited young horse, that
+shortened the road for him by its tricks and capers. But the jester, who
+became more and more attached to the boy, also did his utmost to keep
+the feeling of happiness alive in his heart. On warm days he nestled in
+the rack before the tilt with the driver, and when Ulrich rode beside
+him, opened his eyes to everything that passed before him.
+
+The jester had a great deal to tell about the country and people, and
+he embellished the smallest trifle with tales invented by himself, or
+devised by others.
+
+While passing a grove of birches, he asked the lad if he knew why the
+trunks of these trees were white, and then explained the cause, as
+follows:
+
+"When Orpheus played so exquisitely on his lute, all the trees rushed
+forward to dance. The birches wanted to come too, but being vain,
+stopped to put on white dresses, to outdo the others. When they finally
+appeared on the dancing-ground, the singer had already gone--and now,
+summer and winter, year in and year out, they keep their white dresses
+on, to be prepared, when Orpheus returns and the lute sounds again."
+
+A cross-bill was perched on a bough in a pine-wood, and the jester said
+that this bird was a very peculiar species. It had originally been grey,
+and its bill was as straight as a sparrow's, but when the Saviour hung
+upon the cross, it pitied him, and with its little bill strove to draw
+the nails from the wounded hands. In memory of this friendly act, the
+Lord had marked its beak with the cross, and painted a dark-red spot
+on its breast, where the bird hall been sprinkled with His Son's blood.
+Other rewards were bestowed upon it, for no other bird could hatch a
+brood of young ones in winter, and it also had the power of lessening
+the fever of those, who cherished it.
+
+A flock of wild geese flew over the road and the hills, and Pellicanus
+cried: "Look there! They always fly in two straight lines, and form a
+letter of the alphabet. This time it is an A. Can you see it? When the
+Lord was writing the laws on the tablets, a flock of wild geese flew
+across Mt. Sinai, and in doing so, one effaced a letter with its wing.
+Since that time, they always fly in the shape of a letter, and their
+whole race, that is, all geese, are compelled to let those people who
+wish to write, pluck the feathers from their wings."
+
+Pellicanus was fond of talking to the boy in their bedroom. He always
+called him Navarrete, and the artist, when in a cheerful mood, followed
+his example.
+
+Ulrich felt great reverence for Moor; the jester, on the contrary, was
+only a good comrade, in whom he speedily reposed entire confidence.
+
+Many an allusion and jesting word showed that Pellicanus still believed
+him to be the son of a knight, and this at last became unendurable to
+the lad.
+
+One evening, when they were both in bed, he summoned up his courage and
+told him everything he knew about his past life.
+
+The jester listened attentively, without interrupting him, until Ulrich
+finished his story with the words "And while I was gone, the bailiffs
+and dogs tracked them, but my father resisted, and they killed him and
+the doctor."
+
+"Yes, yes," murmured the jester. "It's a pity about Costa. Many a
+Christian might feel honored at resembling some Jews. It is only a
+misfortune to be born a Hebrew, and be deprived of eating ham. The Jews
+are compelled to wear an offensive badge, but many a Christian child is
+born with one. For instance, in Sparta they would have hurled me into
+the gulf, on account of my big head, and deformed shoulder. Nowadays,
+people are less merciful, and let men like us drag the cripple's mark
+through life. God sees the heart; but men cannot forget their ancestor,
+the clod of earth--the outside is always more to them than the inside.
+If my head had only been smaller, and some angel had smoothed my
+shoulder, I might perhaps now be a cardinal, wear purple, and instead of
+riding under a grey tilt, drive in a golden coach, with well-fed black
+steeds. Your body was measured with a straight yard stick, but there's
+trouble in other places. So your father's name was Adam, and he really
+bore no other?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"That's too little by half. From this day we'll call you in earnest
+Navarrete: Ulrich Navarrete. That will be something complete. The name
+is only a dress, but if half of it is taken from your body, you are left
+half-bare and exposed to mockery. The garment must be becoming too, so
+we adorn it as we choose. My father was called Kurschner, but at the
+Latin school Olearius and Faber and Luscinius sat beside me, so I
+raised myself to the rank of a Roman citizen, and turned Kurschner into
+Pellicanus...."
+
+The jester coughed violently, and continued One thing more. To expect
+gratitude is folly, nine times out of ten none is reaped, and he who is
+wise thinks only of himself, and usually omits to seek thanks; but every
+one ought to be grateful, for it is burdensome to have enemies, and
+there is no one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor we
+repay with ingratitude. You ought and must tell the artist your history,
+for he has deserved your confidence.
+
+The jester's worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always
+praised as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy,
+yet many of them were impressed on his young soul. He followed the sick
+man's advice the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it,
+for Moor treated him even more kindly than before.
+
+Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to
+Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the
+old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to
+bring him alive to the goal of his journey.
+
+The little man's body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head
+larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned
+the centre of each.
+
+He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.
+
+He had originally been destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but
+though he surpassed all the other pupils in the school, he was deprived
+of the hope of ever becoming a priest, for the Church wants no cripples.
+He was the child of poor people, and had been obliged to fight his way
+through his career as a student, with great difficulty.
+
+"How shabby the broad top of my cap often was!" he said. "I was so much
+ashamed of it. I am so small. Dear me, anybody could see my head, and
+could not help noticing all the worn places in the velvet, if he cast
+his eyes down. How often have I sat beside the kitchen of a cook-shop,
+and seasoned dry bread with the smell of roast meat. Often too my
+poodledog went out and stole a sausage for me from the butcher."
+
+At other times the little fellow had fared better; then, sitting in the
+taverns, he had given free-play to his wit, and imposed no constraint on
+his sharp tongue.
+
+Once he had been invited by a former boon-companion, to accompany him to
+his ancestral castle, to cheer his sick father; and so it happened
+that he became a buffoon, wandered from one great lord to another, and
+finally entered the elector's service.
+
+He liked to pretend that he despised the world and hated men, but this
+assertion could not be taken literally, and was to be regarded in a
+general, rather than a special sense, for every beautiful thing in the
+world kindled eager enthusiasm in his heart, and he remained kindly
+disposed towards individuals to the end.
+
+When Moor once charged him with this, he said, smiling:
+
+"What would you have? Whoever condemns, feels himself superior to the
+person upon whom he sits in judgment, and how many fools, like me, fancy
+themselves great, when they stand on tiptoe, and find fault even with
+the works of God! 'The world is evil,' says the philosopher, and whoever
+listens to him, probably thinks carelessly: 'Hear, hear! He would have
+made it better than our Father in heaven.' Let me have my pleasure. I'm
+only a little man, but I deal in great things. To criticise a single
+insignificant human creature, seems to me scarcely worth while, but when
+we pronounce judgment on all humanity and the boundless universe, we can
+open our mouths-wonderfully wide!"
+
+Once his heart had been filled with love for a beautiful girl, but
+she had scornfully rejected his suit and married another. When she was
+widowed, and he found her in dire poverty, he helped her with a large
+share of his savings, and performed this kind service again, when the
+second worthless fellow she married had squandered her last penny.
+
+His life was rich in similar incidents.
+
+In his actions, the queer little man obeyed the dictates of his heart;
+in his speech, his head ruled his tongue, and this seemed to him the
+only sensible course. To practise unselfish generosity he regarded as a
+subtle, exquisite pleasure, which he ventured to allow himself, because
+he desired nothing more; others, to whom he did not grudge a prosperous
+career, he must warn against such folly.
+
+There was a keen, bitter expression on his large, thin face, and whoever
+saw him for the first time might easily have supposed him to be a
+wicked, spiteful man. He knew this, and delighted in frightening the
+men and maid-servants at the taverns by hideous grimaces--he boasted of
+being able to make ninety-five different faces--until the artist's old
+valet at last dreaded him like the "Evil One."
+
+He was particularly gay in Avignon, for he felt better than he had done
+for a long time, and ordered a seat to be engaged for him in a vehicle
+going to Marseilles.
+
+The evening before their separation, he described with sparkling
+vivacity, the charms of the Ligurian coast, and spoke of the future as
+if he were sure of entire recovery and a long life.
+
+In the night Ulrich heard him groaning louder than usual, and starting
+up, raised him, as he was in the habit of doing when the poor little man
+was tortured by difficulty of breathing. But this time Pellicanus did
+not swear and scold, but remained perfectly still, and when his heavy
+head fell like a pumpkin on the boy's breast, he was greatly terrified
+and ran to call the artist.
+
+Moor was soon standing at the head of the sick-bed, holding a light, so
+that its rays could fall upon the face of the gasping man. The latter
+opened his eyes and made three grimaces in quick succession--very
+comical ones, yet tinged with sadness.
+
+Pellicanus probably noticed the artist's troubled glance, for he tried
+to nod to him, but his head was too heavy and his strength too slight,
+so he only succeeded in moving it first to the right and then to the
+left, but his eyes expressed everything he desired to say. In this way
+several minutes elapsed, then Pellicanus smiled, and with a sorrowful
+gaze, though a mischievous expression hovered around his mouth, scanned:
+
+"'Mox erit' quiet and mute, 'gui modo' jester 'erat'." Then he said as
+softly as if every tone came, not from his chest, but merely from his
+lips--
+
+"Is it agreed, Navarrete, Ulrich Navarrete? I've made the Latin easy
+for you, eh? Your hand, boy. Yours, too, dear, dear master... Moor,
+Ethiopian--Blackskin...."
+
+The words died away in a low, rattling sound, and the dying man's eyes
+became glazed, but it was several hours before he drew his last breath.
+
+A priest gave him Extreme Unction, but consciousness did not return.
+
+After the holy man had left him, his lips moved incessantly, but no one
+could understand what he said. Towards morning, the sun of Provence
+was shining warmly and brightly into the room and on his bed, when he
+suddenly threw his arm above his head, and half speaking, half singing
+to Hans Eitelfritz's melody, let fall from his lips the words: "In
+fortune, good fortune." A few minutes after he was dead.
+
+Moor closed his eyes. Ulrich knelt weeping beside the bed, and kissed
+his poor friend's cold hand.
+
+When he rose, the artist was gazing with silent reverence at the
+jester's features; Ulrich followed his eyes, and imagined he was
+standing in the presence of a miracle, for the harsh, bitter, troubled
+face had obtained a new expression, and was now the countenance of a
+peaceful, kindly man, who had fallen asleep with pleasant memories in
+his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+For the first time in his life Ulrich had witnessed the death of a human
+being.
+
+How often he had laughed at the fool, or thought his words absurd and
+wicked;--but the dead man inspired him with respect, and the thought of
+the old jester's corpse exerted a far deeper and more lasting influence
+upon him, than his father's supposed death. Hitherto he had only been
+able to imagine him as he had looked in life, but now the vision of him
+stretched at full length, stark and pale like the dead Pellicanus, often
+rose before his mind.
+
+The artist was a silent man, and understood how to think and speak in
+lines and colors, better than in words. He only became eloquent and
+animated, when the conversation turned upon subjects connected with his
+art.
+
+At Toulouse he purchased three new horses, and engaged the same number
+of French servants, then went to a jeweller and bought many articles. At
+the inn he put the chains and rings he had obtained, into pretty little
+boxes, and wrote on them in neat Gothic characters with special care:
+"Helena, Anna, Minerva, Europa and Lucia;" one name on each.
+
+Ulrich watched him and remarked that those were not his children's
+names.
+
+Moor looked up, and answered smiling: "These are only young artists,
+six sisters, each one of whom is as dear to me as if she were my own
+daughter. I hope we shall find them in Madrid, one of them, Sophonisba,
+at any rate."
+
+"But there are only five boxes," observed the boy, "and you haven't
+written Sophonisba on any of them."
+
+"She is to have something better," replied his patron smiling. "My
+portrait, which I began to paint yesterday, will be finished here. Hand
+me the mirror, the maul-stick, and the colors."
+
+The picture was a superb likeness, absolutely faultless. The pure brow
+curved in lofty arches at the temples, the small eyes looked as clear
+and bright as they did in the mirror, the firm mouth shaded by a thin
+moustache, seemed as if it were just parting to utter a friendly word.
+The close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin rested closely upon the
+white ruff, which seemed to have just come from under the laundresses'
+smoothing-iron.
+
+How rapidly and firmly the master guided his brush! And Sophonisba, whom
+Moor distinguished by such a gift, how was he to imagine her? The other
+five sisters too! For their sakes he first anticipated with pleasure the
+arrival at Madrid.
+
+In Bayonne the artist left the baggage-wagon behind. His luggage was
+put on mules, and when the party of travellers started, it formed an
+imposing caravan.
+
+Ulrich expressed his surprise at such expenditure, and Moor answered
+kindly: "Pellicanus says: 'Among fools one must be a fool.' We enter
+Spain as the king's guests, and courtiers have weak eyes, and only
+notice people who give themselves airs."
+
+At Fuenterrabia, the first Spanish city they reached, the artist
+received many honors, and a splendid troop of cavalry escorted him
+thence to Madrid.
+
+Moor came as a guest to King Philip's capital for the third time, and
+was received there with all the tokens of respect usually paid only to
+great noblemen.
+
+His old quarters in the treasury of the Alcazar, the palace of the kings
+of Castile, were again assigned to him. They consisted of a studio and
+suite of apartments, which by the monarch's special command, had been
+fitted up for him with royal magnificence.
+
+Ulrich could not control his amazement. How poor and petty everything
+that a short time before, at Castle Rappolstein, had awakened his wonder
+and admiration now appeared.
+
+During the first few days the artist's reception-room resembled a
+bee-hive; for aristocratic men and women, civil and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries passed in and out, pages and lackeys brought flowers,
+baskets of fruits, and other gifts. Every one attached to the court knew
+in what high favor the artist was held by His Majesty, and therefore
+hastened to win his good-will by attentions and presents. Every hour
+there was something new and astonishing to be seen, but the artist
+himself most awakened the boy's surprise.
+
+The unassuming man, who on the journey had associated as familiarly with
+the poor invalids he had picked up by the wayside, the tavern-keepers,
+and soldiers of his escort, as if he were one of themselves, now seemed
+a very different person. True, he still dressed in black, but instead
+of cloth and silk, he wore velvet and satin, while two gold chains
+glittered beneath his ruff. He treated the greatest nobles as if he were
+doing them a favor by receiving them, and he himself were a person of
+unapproachable rank.
+
+On the first day Philip and his queen Isabella of Valois, had sent for
+him and adorned him with a costly new chain.
+
+On this occasion Ulrich saw the king. Dressed as a page he followed
+Moor, carrying the picture the latter intended for a gift to his royal
+host.
+
+At the time of their entrance into the great reception-hall, the monarch
+was sitting motionless, gazing into vacancy, as if all the persons
+gathered around him had no existence for him. His head was thrown far
+back, pressing down the stiff ruff, on which it seemed to rest as if it
+were a platter. The fair-haired man's well-cut features wore the rigid,
+lifeless expression of a mask. The mouth and nostrils were slightly
+contracted, as if they shrank from breathing the same air with other
+human beings.
+
+The monarch's face remained unmoved, while receiving the Pope's legates
+and the ambassadors from the republic of Venice. When Moor was led
+before him, a faint smile was visible beneath the soft, drooping
+moustache and close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin; the prince's
+dull eyes also gained some little animation.
+
+The day after the reception a bell rang in the studio, which was cleared
+of all present as quickly as possible, for it announced the approach
+of the king, who appeared entirely alone and spent two whole hours with
+Moor.
+
+All these marks of distinction might have turned a weaker brain, but
+Moor received them calmly, and as soon as he was alone with Ulrich or
+Sophonisba, appeared no less unassuming and kindly, than at Emmendingen
+and on the journey through France.
+
+A week after taking possession of the apartments in the treasury, the
+servants received orders to refuse admittance to every one, without
+distinction of rank or person, informing them that the artist was
+engaged in working for His Majesty.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola was the only person whom Moor never refused to
+see. He had greeted the strange girl on his arrival, as a father meets
+his child.
+
+Ulrich had been present when the artist gave her his portrait, and saw
+her, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, cover her face with her hands
+and burst into loud sobs.
+
+During Moor's first visit to Madrid, the young girl had come from
+Cremona to the king's court with her father and five sisters, and since
+then the task of supporting all six had rested on her shoulders.
+
+Old Cavaliere Anguisciola was a nobleman of aristocratic family, who had
+squandered his large patrimony, and now, as he was fond of saying, lived
+day by day "by trusting God." A large portion of his oldest daughter's
+earnings he wasted at the gaming table with dissolute nobles, relying
+with happy confidence upon the talent displayed also by his younger
+children, and on what he called "trust in God." The gay, clever Italian
+was everywhere a welcome guest, and while Sophonisba toiled early and
+late, often without knowing how she was to obtain suitable food and
+clothing for her sisters and herself, his life was a series of banquets
+and festivals. Yet the noble girl retained the joyous courage inherited
+from her father, nay, more--even in necessity she did not cease to take
+a lofty view of art, and never permitted anything to leave her studio
+till she considered it finished.
+
+At first Moor watched her silently, then he invited her to work in his
+studio, and avail herself of his advice and assistance.
+
+So she had become his pupil, his friend.
+
+Soon the young girl had no secrets from him, and the glimpses of her
+domestic life thus afforded touched him and brought her nearer and
+nearer to his heart.
+
+The old Cavaliere praised the lucky accident, and was ready to show
+himself obliging, when Moor offered to let him and his daughters
+occupy a house he had purchased, that it might be kept in a habitable
+condition, and when the artist had induced the king to grant Sophonisba
+a larger annual salary, the father instantly bought a second horse.
+
+The young girl, in return for so many benefits, was gratefully devoted
+to the artist, but she would have loved him even without them. His
+society was her greatest pleasure. To be allowed to stay and paint with
+him, become absorbed in conversation about art, its problems, means and
+purposes, afforded her the highest, purest happiness.
+
+When she had discharged the duties imposed upon her by her attendance
+upon the queen, her heart drew her to the man she loved and honored.
+When she left him, it always seemed as if she had been in church, as if
+her soul had been steeped in purity and was effulgent. Moor had hoped
+to find her sisters with her in Madrid, but the old Cavaliere had taken
+them away with him to Italy. His "trust in God" was rewarded, for he
+had inherited a large fortune. What should he do longer in Madrid! To
+entertain the stiff, grave Spaniards and move them to laughter, was a
+far less pleasing occupation than to make merry with gay companions and
+be entertained himself at home.
+
+Sophonisba was provided for, and the beautiful, gay, famous maid of
+honor would have no lack of suitors. Against his daughter's wish, he
+had given to the richest and most aristocratic among them, the Sicilian
+baron Don Fabrizio di Moncada, the hope of gaining her hand. "Conquer
+the fortress! When it yields--you can hold it," were his last words; but
+the citadel remained impregnable, though the besieger could bring into
+the field as allies a knightly, aristocratic bearing, an unsullied
+character, a handsome, manly figure, winning manners, and great wealth.
+
+Ulrich felt a little disappointed not to find the five young girls, of
+whom he had dreamed, in Madrid; it would have been pleasant to have some
+pretty companions in the work now to begin.
+
+Adjoining the studio was a smaller apartment, separated from the former
+room by a corridor, that could be closed, and by a heavy curtain. Here a
+table, at which the five girls might easily have found room, was placed
+in a favorable light for Ulrich. He was to draw from plastic models,
+and there was no lack of these in the Alcazar, for here rose a high,
+three-story wing, to which when wearied by the intrigues of statecraft
+and the restraints of court etiquette, King Philip gladly retired,
+yielding himself to the only genial impulse of his gloomy soul, and
+enjoyed the noble forms of art.
+
+In the round hall on the lower floor countless plans, sketches, drawings
+and works of art were kept in walnut chests of excellent workmanship.
+Above this beautifully ornamented apartment--was the library, and in the
+third story the large hall containing the masterpieces of Titian.
+
+The restless statesman, Philip, was no less eager to collect and obtain
+new and beautiful works by the great Venetian, than to defend and
+increase his own power and that of the Church. But these treasures were
+kept jealously guarded, accessible to no human being except himself and
+his artists.
+
+Philip was all and all to himself; caring nothing for others, he did
+not deem it necessary, that they should share his pleasures. If anything
+outside the Church occupied a place in his regard, it was the artist,
+and therefore he did not grudge him what he denied to others.
+
+Not only in the upper story, but in the lower ones also antique and
+modern busts and statues were arranged in appropriate places, and Moor
+was at liberty to choose from among them, for the king permitted him to
+do what was granted to no one else.
+
+He often summoned him to the Titian Hall, and still more frequently
+rang the bell and entered the connecting corridor, accessible to himself
+alone, which led from the rooms devoted to art and science to the
+treasury and studio, where he spent hours with Moor. Ulrich eagerly
+devoted himself to the work, and his master watched his labor like an
+attentive, strict, and faithful teacher; meantime he carefully guarded
+against overtaxing the boy, allowed him to accompany him on many a ride,
+and advised him to look about the city. At first the lad liked to
+stroll through the streets and watch the long, brilliant processions,
+or timidly shrink back when closely-muffled men, their figures wholly
+invisible except the eyes and feet, bore a corpse along, or glided on
+mysterious missions through the streets. The bull-fights might have
+bewitched him, but he loved horses, and it grieved him to see the noble
+animal, wounded and killed.
+
+He soon wearied of the civil and religious ceremonies, that might be
+witnessed nearly every day, and which always exerted the same power of
+attraction to the inhabitants of Madrid. Priests swarmed in the Alcazar,
+and soldiers belonging to every branch of military service, daily
+guarded or marched by the palace.
+
+On the journey he had met plenty of mules with gay plumes and tassels,
+oddly-dressed peasants and citizens. Gentlemen in brilliant court
+uniforms, princes and princesses he saw daily in the court-yards, on the
+stairs, and in the park of the palace.
+
+At Toulouse and in other cities, through which he had passed, life
+had been far more busy, active, and gay than in quiet Madrid, where
+everything went on as if people were on their way to church, where a
+cheerful face was rarely seen, and men and women knew of no sight more
+beautiful and attractive, than seeing poor Jews and heretics burned.
+
+Ulrich did not need the city; the Alcazar was a world in itself, and
+offered him everything he desired.
+
+He liked to linger in the stables, for there he could distinguish
+himself; but it was also delightful to work, for Moor chose models and
+designs that pleased the lad, and Sophonisba Anguisciola, who often
+painted for hours in the studio by the master's side, came to Ulrich
+in the intervals, looked at what he had finished, helped, praised, or
+scolded him, and never left him without a jest on her lips.
+
+True, he was often left to himself; for the king sometimes summoned the
+artist and then quitted the palace with him for several days, to visit
+secluded country houses, and there--the old Hollander had told the
+lad--painted under Moor's instructions.
+
+On the whole, there were new, strange, and surprising things enough, to
+keep the sensation of "Fortune," alive in Ulrich's heart. Only it was
+vexatious that he found it so hard to make himself intelligible to
+people, but this too was soon to be remedied, for the pupil obtained two
+companions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Alonzo Sanchez Coello, a very distinguished Spanish artist, had his
+studio in the upper story of the treasury. The king was very friendly to
+him, and often took him also on his excursions. The gay, lively
+artist clung without envy, and with ardent reverence, to Moor,
+whose fellow-pupil he had been in Florence and Venice. During the
+Netherlander's first visit to Madrid, he had not disdained to seek
+counsel and instruction from his senior, and even now frequently visited
+his studio, bringing with him his children Sanchez and Isabella as
+pupils, and watched the Master closely while he painted.
+
+At first Ulrich was not specially pleased with his new companions, for
+in the strangely visionary life he led, he had depended solely upon
+himself and "Fortune," and the figures living in his imagination were
+the most enjoyable society to him.
+
+Formerly he had drawn eagerly in the morning, joyously anticipated
+Sophonisba's visit, and then gazed out over his paper and dreamed.
+How delightful it had been to let his thoughts wander to his heart's
+content. This could now be done no longer.
+
+So it happened, that at first he could feel no real confidence in
+Sanchez, who was three years his senior, for the latter's thin limbs
+and close-cut dark hair made him look exactly like dark-browed Xaver.
+Therefore his relations with Isabella were all the more friendly.
+
+She was scarcely fourteen, a dear little creature, with awkward limbs,
+and a face so wonderfully changeful in expression, that it could not
+fail to be by turns pretty and repellent. She always had beautiful eyes;
+all her other features were unformed, and might grow charming or
+exactly the reverse. When her work engrossed her attention, she bit her
+protruded tongue, and her raven-black hair, usually remarkably smooth,
+often became so oddly dishevelled, that she looked like a kobold; when,
+on the other hand, she talked pleasantly or jested, no one could help
+being pleased.
+
+The child was rarely gifted, and her method of working was an exact
+contrast to that of the German lad. She progressed slowly, but finally
+accomplished something admirable; what Ulrich impetuously began had a
+showy, promising aspect, but in the execution the great idea shrivelled,
+and the work diminished in merit instead of increasing.
+
+Sanchez Coello remained far behind the other two, but to make amends, he
+knew many things of which Ulrich's uncorrupted soul had no suspicion.
+
+Little Isabella had been given by her mother, for a duenna, a watchful,
+ill-tempered widow, Senora Catalina, who never left the girl while she
+remained with Moor's pupils.
+
+Receiving instruction with others urged Ulrich to rivalry, and also
+improved his knowledge of Spanish. But he soon became familiar with the
+language in another way, for one day, as he came out of the stables,
+a thin man in black, priestly robes, advanced towards him, looked
+searchingly into his face, then greeted him as a countryman, declaring
+that it made him happy to speak his dear native tongue again. Finally,
+he invited the "artist" to visit him. His name was Magister Kochel and
+he lodged with the king's almoner, for whom he was acting as clerk.
+
+The pallid man with the withered face, deep-set eyes and peculiar grin,
+which always showed the bluish-red gums above the teeth, did not please
+the boy, but the thought of being able to talk in his native language
+attracted him, and he went to the German's.
+
+He soon thought that by so doing he was accomplishing something good and
+useful, for the former offered to teach him to write and speak Spanish.
+Ulrich was glad to have escaped from school, and declined this proposal;
+but when the German suggested that he should content himself with
+speaking the language, assuring him that it could be accomplished
+without any difficulty, Ulrich consented and went daily at twilight to
+the Magister.
+
+Instruction began at once and was pleasant enough, for Kochel let him
+translate merry tales and love stories from French and Italian books,
+which he read aloud in German, never scolded him, and after the first
+half-hour always laid the volume aside to talk with him.
+
+Moor thought it commendable and right, for Ulrich to take upon himself
+the labor and constraint of studying a language, and promised, when the
+lessons were over, to give a fitting payment to the Magister, who seemed
+to have scanty means of livelihood.
+
+The master ought to have been well disposed towards worthy Kochel,
+for the latter was an enthusiastic admirer of his works. He ranked the
+Netherlander above Titian and the other great Italian artists, called
+him the worthy friend of gods and kings, and encouraged his pupil to
+imitate him.
+
+"Industry, industry!" cried the Magister. "Only by industry is the
+summit of wealth and fame gained. To be sure, such success demands
+sacrifices. How rarely is the good man permitted to enjoy the blessing
+of mass. When did he go to church last?"
+
+Ulrich answered these and similar questions frankly and truthfully,
+and when Kochel praised the friendship uniting the artist to the king,
+calling them Orestes and Pylades, Ulrich, proud of the honor shown his
+master, told him how often Philip secretly visited the latter.
+
+At every succeeding interview Kochel asked, as if by chance, in the
+midst of a conversation about other things: "Has the king honored you
+again?" or "You happy people, it is reported that the king has shown you
+his face again."
+
+This "you" flattered Ulrich, for it allowed a ray of the royal favor
+to fall upon him also, so he soon informed his countryman, unasked, of
+every one of the monarch's visits to the treasury.
+
+Weeks and months elapsed.
+
+Towards the close of his first year's residence in Madrid, Ulrich
+spoke Spanish with tolerable fluency, and could easily understand his
+fellow-pupils; nay, he had even begun to study Italian.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola still spent all her leisure hours in the studio,
+painting or conversing with Moor. Various dignitaries and grandees
+also went in and out of the studio, and among them frequently appeared,
+indeed usually when Sophonisba was present, her faithful admirer Don
+Fabrizio di Moncada.
+
+Once Ulrich, without listening, heard Moor through the open door of the
+school-room, represent to her, that it was unwise to reject a suitor
+like the baron; he was a noble, high-minded gentleman and his love
+beyond question.
+
+Her answer was long in coming; at last she rose, saying in an agitated
+voice: "We know each other, Master; I know your kind intentions. And
+yet, yet! Let me remain what I am, however insignificant that may be.
+I like the baron, but what better gifts can marriage bestow, than I
+already possess? My love belongs to Art, and you--you are my friend....
+My sisters are my children. Have I not gained the right to call them
+so? I shall have no lack of duties towards them, when my father has
+squandered his inheritance. My noble queen will provide for my future,
+and I am necessary to her. My heart is filled--filled to the brim; I do
+what I can, and is it not a beautiful thought, that I am permitted to
+be something to those I love? Let me remain your Sophonisba, and a free
+artist."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes! Remain what you are, girl!" Moor exclaimed, and then for
+a long time silence reigned in the studio.
+
+Even before they could understand each other's language, a friendly
+intercourse had existed between Isabella and her German fellow-pupil,
+for in leisure moments they had sketched each other more than once.
+
+These pictures caused much laughter and often occasional harmless
+scuffles between Ulrich and Sanchez, for the latter liked to lay hands
+on these portraits and turn them into hideous caricatures.
+
+Isabella often earned the artist's unqualified praise, Ulrich sometimes
+received encouraging, sometimes reproving, and sometimes even harsh
+words. The latter Moor always addressed to him in German, but they
+deeply wounded the lad, haunting him for days.
+
+The "word" still remained obedient to him. Only in matters relating to
+art, the power of "fortune" seemed to fail, and deny its service.
+
+When the painter set him difficult tasks, which he could not readily
+accomplish, he called upon the "word;" but the more warmly and fervently
+he did so, the more surely he receded instead of advancing. When, on the
+contrary, he became angered against "fortune," reproached, rejected it,
+and relied wholly on himself, he accomplished the hardest things and won
+Moor's praise.
+
+He often thought, that he would gladly resign his untroubled, luxurious
+life, and all the other gifts of Fortune, if he could only succeed in
+accomplishing what Moor desired him to attain in art. He knew and felt
+that this was the right goal; but one thing was certain, he could never
+attain it with pencil and charcoal. What his soul dreamed, what his
+mental vision beheld was colored. Drawing, perpetual drawing, became
+burdensome, repulsive, hateful; but with palette and brush in his hand
+he could not fail to become an artist, perhaps an artist like Titian.
+
+He already used colors in secret; Sanchez Coello had been the cause of
+his making the first trial.
+
+This precocious youth was suing for a fair girl's favor, and made Ulrich
+his confidant. One day, when Moor and Sanchez's father had gone with
+the king to Toledo, he took him to a balcony in the upper story of the
+treasury, directly opposite to the gate-keeper's lodgings, and only
+separated by a narrow court-yard from the window, where sat pretty
+Carmen, the porter's handsome daughter.
+
+The girl was always to be found here, for her father's room was very
+dark, and she was compelled to embroider priestly robes from morning
+till night. This pursuit brought in money, which was put to an excellent
+use by the old man, who offered sacrifices to his own comfort at the
+cook-shop, and enjoyed fish fried in oil with his Zamora wine. The
+better her father's appetite was, the more industriously the daughter
+was obliged to embroider. Only on great festivals, or when an
+'Auto-da-fe' was proclaimed, was Carmen permitted to leave the palace
+with her old aunt; yet she had already found suitors. Nineteen-year-old
+Sanchez did not indeed care for her hand, but merely for her love, and
+when it began to grow dusk, he stationed himself on the balcony which he
+had discovered, made signs to her, and flung flowers or bonbons on her
+table.
+
+"She is still coy," said the young Spaniard, telling Ulrich to wait at
+the narrow door, which opened upon the balcony. "There sits the angel!
+Just look! I gave her the pomegranate blossom in her magnificent
+hair--did you ever see more beautiful tresses? Take notice! She'll soon
+melt; I know women!"
+
+Directly after a bouquet of roses fell into the embroiderer's lap.
+Carmen uttered a low cry, and perceiving Sanchez, motioned him away with
+her head and hand, finally turning her back upon him.
+
+"She's in a bad humor to-day," said Sanchez; "but I beg you to notice
+that she'll keep my roses. She'll wear one to-morrow in her hair or on
+her bosom; what will you wager?"
+
+"That may be," answered Ulrich. "She probably has no money to buy any
+for herself."
+
+To be sure, the next day at twilight Carmen wore a rose in her hair.
+
+Sanchez exulted, and drew Ulrich out upon the balcony. The beauty
+glanced at him, blushed, and returned the fair-haired boy's salutation
+with a slight bend of the head.
+
+The gate-keeper's little daughter was a pretty child, and Ulrich had no
+fear of doing what Sanchez ventured.
+
+On the third day he again accompanied him to the balcony, and this time,
+after silently calling upon the "word," pressed his hand upon his heart,
+just as Carmen looked at him.
+
+The young girl blushed again, waved her fan, and then bent her little
+head so low, that it almost touched the embroidery.
+
+The next evening she secretly kissed her fingers to Ulrich.
+
+From this time the young lover preferred to seek the balcony without
+Sanchez. He would gladly have called a few tender words across, or sung
+to his lute, but that would not do, for people were constantly passing
+to and fro in the court-yard.
+
+Then the thought occurred to him, that he could speak to the fair one by
+means of a picture.
+
+A small panel was soon found, he had plenty of brushes and colors to
+choose from, and in a few minutes, a burning heart, transfixed by an
+arrow, was completed. But the thing looked horribly red and ugly, so
+he rejected it, and painted--imitating one of Titian's angels, which
+specially pleased him--a tiny Cupid, holding a heart in his hand.
+
+He had learned many things from the master, and as the little figure
+rounded into shape, it afforded him so much pleasure, that he could not
+leave it, and finished it the third day.
+
+It had not entered his mind to create a completed work of art, but the
+impetuosity of youth, revelling in good fortune, had guided his brush.
+The little Cupid bent joyously forward, drawing the right leg back,
+as if making a bow. Finally Ulrich draped about him a black and yellow
+scarf, such as he had often seen the young Austrian archduke wear, and
+besides the pierced heart, placed a rose in the tiny, ill-drawn hand.
+
+He could not help laughing at his "masterpiece" and hurried out on
+the balcony with the wet painting, to show it to Carmen. She laughed
+heartily too, answered his salutations with tender greetings, then
+laid aside her embroidery and went back into the room, but only to
+immediately reappear at the window again, holding up a prayer-book and
+extending towards him the eight fingers of her industrious little hands.
+
+He motioned that he understood her, and at eight o'clock the next
+morning was kneeling by her side at mass, where he took advantage of a
+favorable opportunity to whisper: "Beautiful Carmen!"
+
+The young girl blushed, but he vainly awaited an answer. Carmen now
+rose, and when Ulrich also stood up to permit her to pass, she dropped
+her prayer-book, as if by accident. He stooped with her to pick it up,
+and when their heads nearly touched, she whispered hurriedly: "Nine
+o'clock this evening in the shell grotto; the garden will be open."
+
+Carmen awaited him at the appointed place.
+
+At first Ulrich's heart throbbed so loudly and passionately, that he
+could find no words; but the young girl helped him, by telling him that
+he was a handsome fellow, whom it would be easy to love.
+
+Then he remembered the vows of tenderness he had translated at Kochel's,
+falteringly repeated them, and fell on one knee before her, like all the
+heroes in adventures and romances.
+
+And behold! Carmen did exactly the same as the young ladies whose
+acquaintance he had made at his teacher's, begged him to rise, and when
+he willingly obeyed the command--for he wore thin silk stockings and the
+grotto was paved with sharp stones--drew him to her heart, and tenderly
+stroked his hair back from his face with her dainty fingers, while he
+gladly permitted her to press her soft young lips to his.
+
+All this was delightful, and he had no occasion to speak at all; yet
+Ulrich felt timid and nervous. It seemed like a deliverance when the
+footsteps of the guard were heard, and Carmen drew him away through the
+gate with her into the court-yard.
+
+Before the little door leading into her father's room she again pressed
+his hand, and then vanished as swiftly as a shadow.
+
+Ulrich remained alone, pacing slowly up and down before the treasury,
+for he knew that he had done something very wrong, and did not venture
+to appear before the artist.
+
+When he entered the dark garden, he had again summoned "fortune" to
+his aid; but now it would have pleased him better, if it had been less
+willing to come to his assistance.
+
+Candles were burning in the studio, and Moor sat in his arm-chair,
+holding--Ulrich would fain have bidden himself in the earth--the boy's
+Cupid in his hands.
+
+The young culprit wanted to slip past his teacher with a low "good
+night," but the latter called him, and pointing to the picture,
+smilingly asked: "Did you paint this?"
+
+Ulrich nodded, blushing furiously.
+
+The artist eyed him from top to toe, saying: "Well, well, it is really
+very pretty. I suppose it is time now for us to begin to paint."
+
+The lad did not know what had happened, for a few weeks before Moor had
+harshly refused, when he asked the same thing now voluntarily offered.
+
+Scarcely able to control his surprise and joy, he bent over the artist's
+hand to kiss it, but the latter withdrew it, gazed steadily into his
+eyes with paternal affection, and said: "We will try, my boy, but we
+must not give up drawing, for that is the father of our art. Drawing
+keeps us within the bounds assigned to what is true and beautiful. The
+morning you must spend as before; after dinner you shall be rewarded by
+using colors." This plan was followed, and the pupil's first love affair
+bore still another fruit--it gave a different form to his relations
+with Sanchez. The feeling that he had stood in his way and abused his
+confidence sorely disturbed Ulrich, so he did everything in his power to
+please his companion.
+
+He did not see the fair Carmen again, and in a few weeks the appointment
+was forgotten, for painting under Moor's instruction absorbed him as
+nothing in his life had ever done before, and few things did after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Ulrich was now seventeen, and had been allowed to paint for four months.
+
+Sanchez Coello rarely appeared in the studio, for he had gone to study
+with the architect, Herrera; Isabella vied with Ulrich, but was speedily
+outstripped by the German.
+
+It seemed as if he had been born with the power to use the brush, and
+the young girl watched his progress with unfeigned pleasure. When Moor
+harshly condemned his drawing, her kind eyes grew dim with tears; if the
+master looked at his studies with an approving smile, and showed them
+to Sophonisba with words of praise, she was as glad as if they had been
+bestowed upon herself.
+
+The Italian came daily to the treasury as usual, to paint, talk or play
+chess with Moor; she rejoiced at Ulrich's progress, and gave him many a
+useful suggestion.
+
+When the young artist once complained that he had no good models, she
+gaily offered to sit to him. This was a new and unexpected piece of
+good fortune. Day and night he thought only of Sophonisba. The sittings
+began.
+
+The Italian wore a red dress, trimmed with gold embroidery, and a high
+white lace ruff, that almost touched her cheeks. Her wavy brown hair
+clung closely to the beautiful oval head, its heavy braids covering the
+back of the neck; tiny curls fluttered around her ears and harmonized
+admirably with the lovely, mischievous expression of the mouth, that won
+all hearts. To paint the intelligent brown eyes was no easy matter, and
+she requested Ulrich to be careful about her small, rather prominent
+chin, which was anything but beautiful, and not make her unusually high,
+broad forehead too conspicuous; she had only put on the pearl diadem to
+relieve it.
+
+The young artist set about this task with fiery impetuosity, and the
+first sketch surpassed all expectations.
+
+Don Fabrizio thought the picture "startlingly" like the original. Moor
+was not dissatisfied, but feared that in the execution his pupil's work
+would lose the bold freshness, which lent it a certain charm in his
+eyes, and was therefore glad when the bell rang, and soon after the king
+appeared, to whom he intended to show Ulrich's work.
+
+Philip had not been in the studio for a long time, but the artist had
+reason to expect him; for yesterday the monarch must have received his
+letter, requesting that he would graciously grant him permission to
+leave Madrid.
+
+Moor had remained in Spain long enough, and his wife and child were
+urging his return. Yet departure was hard for him on Sophonisba's
+account; but precisely because he felt that she was more to him than a
+beloved pupil and daughter, he had resolved to hasten his leave-taking.
+
+All present were quickly dismissed, the bolts were drawn and Philip
+appeared.
+
+He looked paler than usual, worn and weary.
+
+Moor greeted him respectfully, saying: "It is long since Your Majesty
+has visited the treasury."
+
+"Not 'Your Majesty;' to you I am Philip," replied the king. "And you
+wish to leave me, Antonio! Recall your letter! You must not go now."
+
+The sovereign, without waiting for a reply, now burst into complaints
+about the tiresome, oppressive duties of his office, the incapacity
+of the magistrates, the selfishness, malice and baseness of men. He
+lamented that Moor was a Netherlander, and not a Spaniard, called him
+the only friend he possessed among the rebellious crew in Holland and
+Flanders, and stopped him when he tried to intercede for his countrymen,
+though repeatedly assuring him that he found in his society his best
+pleasure, his only real recreation; Moor must stay, out of friendship,
+compassion for him, a slave in the royal purple.
+
+After the artist had promised not to speak of departure during the next
+few days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but
+at the end of half an hour he threw down his brush. He called himself
+negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of
+using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church. Duty
+was his tyrant, his oppressor. When the day-laborer threw his hoe over
+his shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they
+pursued him everywhere, night and day. His son was a monster, his
+subjects were rebels or cringing hounds. Bands of heretics, like moles
+or senseless brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the
+throne and safeguard of society: the Church. To crush and vanquish
+was his profession, hatred his reward on earth. Then, after a moment's
+silence, he pointed towards heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy: "There,
+there! with Him, with Her, with the Saints, for whom I fight!"
+
+The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood. He seemed to
+feel this too, and after recovering his self-control, said:
+
+"It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring
+to-day. Have you finished anything new?"
+
+Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after
+Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it
+with excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich's portrait of
+Sophonisba, and asked, not without anxiety: "What does Your Majesty say
+to this attempt?"
+
+"Hm!" observed the monarch. "A little of Moor, something borrowed from
+Titian, yet a great deal that is original. The bluish-grey leaden tone
+comes from your shop. The thing is a wretched likeness! Sophonisba
+resembles a gardener's boy. Who made it?"
+
+"My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete."
+
+"How long has he been painting?"
+
+"For several months, Sire."
+
+"And you think he will be an artist of note?"
+
+"Perhaps so. In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
+falls below them. He is a strange fellow."
+
+"He is ambitious, at any rate."
+
+"No small matter for the future artist. What he eagerly begins has a
+very grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution. His
+mind seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single
+hasty grasp...."
+
+"Rather too vehement, I should think."
+
+"No fault at his age. What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
+he lacks. I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him."
+
+"You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet
+meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place,
+in short your own art-spirit."
+
+"And yours also, Sire. If you had begun to paint early, you would have
+possessed what Ulrich lacks."
+
+"Perhaps so. Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with
+years. In your school, with zeal and industry...."
+
+"He will obtain, you think, what he lacks. I thought so too! But as I
+was saying: he is queerly constituted. What you have admitted to me more
+than once, the point we have started from in a hundred conversations--he
+cannot grasp: form is not the essence of art to him."
+
+The king shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his forehead; but Moor
+continued: "Everything he creates must reflect anew, what he experienced
+at the first sight of the subject. Often the first sketch succeeds, but
+if it fails, he seeks without regard to truth and accuracy, by means
+of trivial, strange expedients, to accomplish his purpose. Sentiment,
+always sentiment! Line and tone are everything; that is our motto.
+Whoever masters them, can express the grandest things."
+
+"Right, right! Keep him drawing constantly. Give him mouths, eyes, and
+hands to paint."
+
+"That must be done in Antwerp."
+
+"I'll hear nothing about Antwerp! You will stay, Antonio, you will stay.
+Your wife and child-all honor to them. I have seen your wife's portrait.
+Good, nourishing bread! Here you have ambrosia and manna. You know whom
+I mean; Sophonisba is attached to you; the queen says so."
+
+"And I gratefully feel it. It is hard to leave your gracious Majesty and
+Sophonisba; but bread, Sire, bread--is necessary to life. I shall leave
+friends here, dear friends--it will be difficult, very difficult, to
+find new ones at my age."
+
+"It is the same with me, and for that very reason you will stay, if you
+are my friend! No more! Farewell, Antonio, till we meet again, perhaps
+to-morrow, in spite of a chaos of business. Happy fellow that you are!
+In the twinkling of an eye you will be revelling in colors again, while
+the yoke, the iron yoke, weighs me down."
+
+Moor thought he should be able to work undisturbed after the king had
+left him, and left the door unbolted. He was standing before the easel
+after dinner, engaged in painting, when the door of the corridor leading
+to the treasury was suddenly flung open, without the usual warning, and
+Philip again entered the studio. This time his cheeks wore a less pallid
+hue than in the morning, and his gait showed no traces of the solemn
+gravity, which had become a second nature to him,--on the contrary he
+was gay and animated.
+
+But the expression did not suit him; it seemed as if he had donned a
+borrowed, foreign garb, in which he was ill at ease and could not move
+freely.
+
+Waving a letter in his right hand, he pointed to it with his left,
+exclaiming:
+
+"They are coming. This time two marvels at once. Our Saviour praying in
+the garden of Gethsemane, and Diana at the Bath. Look, look! Even this
+is a treasure. These lines are from Titian's own hand."
+
+"A peerless old man," Moor began; but Philip impetuously interrupted:
+"Old man, old man? A youth, a man, a vigorous man. How soon he will be
+ninety, and yet--yet; who will equal him?"
+
+As he uttered the last words, the monarch stopped before Sophonisba's
+portrait, and pointing to it with the scornful chuckle peculiar to him,
+continued gaily:
+
+"There the answer meets me directly. That red! The Venetian's laurels
+seem to have turned your high flown pupil's head. A hideous picture!"
+
+"It doesn't seem so bad to me," replied Moor. "There is even something
+about it I like."
+
+"You, you?" cried Philip. "Poor Sophonisba!"
+
+"Those carbuncle eyes! And a mouth, that looks as if she could eat
+nothing but sugar-plums. I don't know what tickles me to-day. Give me
+the palette. The outlines are tolerably good, the colors fairly shriek.
+But what boy can understand a woman, a woman like your friend! I'll
+paint over the monster, and if the picture isn't Sophonisba, it may
+serve for a naval battle."
+
+The king had snatched the palette from the artist's hand, clipped his
+brush in the paint, and smiling pleasantly, was about to set to work;
+but Moor placed himself between the sovereign and the canvas; exclaiming
+gaily: "Paint me, Philip; but spare the portrait."
+
+"No, no; it will do for the naval battle," chuckled the king, and while
+he pushed the artist back, the latter, carried away by the monarch's
+unusual freedom, struck him lightly on the shoulder with the maul-stick.
+
+The sovereign started, his lips grew white, he drew his small but
+stately figure to its full height. His unconstrained bearing was
+instantly transformed into one of unapproachable, icy dignity.
+
+Moor felt what was passing in the ruler's mind.
+
+A slight shiver ran through his frame, but his calmness remained
+unshaken, and before the insulted monarch found time to give vent to
+his indignation in words, he said quickly, as if the offence he had
+committed was not worth mentioning:
+
+"Queer things are done among comrades in art. The painter's war is
+over! Begin the naval battle, Sire, or still better, lend more charm and
+delicacy to the corners of the mouth. The pupil's worst failure is in
+the chin; more practised hands might be wrecked on that cliff. Those
+eyes! Perhaps they sparkled just in that way, but we are agreed in
+one thing: the portrait ought not to represent the original at a given
+moment, ruled by a certain feeling or engaged in a special act, but
+should express the sum of the spiritual, intellectual and
+personal attributes of the subject--his soul and person, mind and
+character-feelings and nature. King Philip, pondering over complicated
+political combinations, would be a fascinating historical painting, but
+no likeness...."
+
+"Certainly not," said the king in a low voice; "the portrait must reveal
+the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his
+artists. Take the palette, I beg. It is for you, the great Master,
+not for me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct the work of
+talented pupils."
+
+There was a hypocritical sweetness in the tone of these words which had
+not escaped the artist.
+
+Philip had long been a master in the school of dissimulation, but Moor
+knew him thoroughly, and understood the art of reading his heart.
+
+This mode of expression from the king alarmed him more than a passionate
+outburst of rage. He only spoke in this way when concealing what was
+seething within. Besides, there was another token. The Netherlander
+had intentionally commenced a conversation on art, and it was almost
+unprecedented to find Philip disinclined to enter into one. The blow had
+been scarcely perceptible, but Majesty will not endure a touch.
+
+Philip did not wish to quarrel with the artist now, but he would
+remember the incident, and woe betide him, if in some gloomy hour the
+sovereign should recall the insult offered him here. Even the lightest
+blow from the paw of this slinking tiger could inflict deep wounds--even
+death.
+
+These thoughts had darted with the speed of lightning through the
+artist's mind, and still lingered there as, respectfully declining to
+take the palette, he replied "I beseech you, Sire, keep the brush and
+colors, and correct what you dislike."
+
+"That would mean to repaint the whole picture, and my time is limited,"
+answered Philip. "You are responsible for your pupils' faults, as well
+as for your own offences. Every one is granted, allowed, offered, what
+is his due; is it not so, dear master? Another time, then, you shall
+hear from me!" In the doorway the monarch kissed his hand to the artist,
+then disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Moor remained alone in the studio. How could he have played such a
+boyish prank!
+
+He was gazing anxiously at the floor, for he had good reason to be
+troubled, though the reflection that he had been alone with the king,
+and the unprecedented act had occurred without witnesses, somewhat
+soothed him. He could not know that a third person, Ulrich, had beheld
+the reckless, fateful contest.
+
+The boy had been drawing in the adjoining room, when loud voices were
+heard in the studio. He cherished a boundless reverence, bordering upon
+idolatry, for his first model, the beautiful Sophonisba, and supposing
+that it was she, discussing works of art with Moor, as often happened,
+he opened the door, pushed back the curtain, and saw the artist tap the
+chuckling king on the arm.
+
+The scene was a merry one, yet a thrill of fear ran through his limbs,
+and he went back to his plaster model more rapidly than he had come.
+
+At nightfall Moor sought Sophonisba. He had been invited to a ball
+given by the queen, and knew that he should find the maid of honor among
+Isabella's attendants.
+
+The magnificent apartments were made as light as day by thousands of
+wax-candles in silver and bronze candelabra; costly Gobelin tapestry and
+purple Flanders hangings covered the walls, and the bright hues of
+the paintings were reflected from the polished floors, flooded with
+brilliant light.
+
+No dancing had ever been permitted at the court before Philip's marriage
+with the French princess, who had been accustomed to greater freedom of
+manners; now a ball was sometimes given in the Alcazar. The first person
+who had ventured to dance the gaillarde before the eyes of the monarch
+and his horrified courtiers, was Sophonisba--her partner was Duke
+Gonzaga. Strangely enough, the gayest lady at the court was the very
+person, who gave the gossips the least occasion for scandal.
+
+A gavotte was just over, as Moor entered the superb rooms. In the first
+rank of the brilliant circle of distinguished ecclesiastics, ambassadors
+and grandees, who surrounded the queen, stood the Austrian archdukes,
+and the handsome, youthful figures of Alexander of Parma and of Don
+Juan, the half-brother of King Philip.
+
+Don Carlos, the deformed heir to the throne, was annoying with his
+coarse jests some ladies of the court, who were holding their fans
+before their faces, yet did not venture to make the sovereign's son feel
+their displeasure.
+
+Velvet, silk and jewels glittered, delicate laces rose and drooped
+around the necks and hands of the ladies and gentlemen. Floating curls,
+sparkling eyes, noble and attractive features enslaved the eye, but the
+necks, throats and arms of the court dames were closely concealed under
+high ruffs and lace frills, stiff bodices and puffed sleeves.
+
+A subtile perfume filled the illuminated air of these festal halls;
+amidst the flirting of light fans, laughter, gay conversation, and
+slander reigned supreme. In an adjoining room golden zechins fell
+rattling and ringing on the gaming-table.
+
+The morose, bigoted court, hampered by rigid formality, had been invaded
+by worldly pleasure, which disported itself unabashed by the presence of
+the distinguished prelates in violet and scarlet robes, who paced with
+dignified bearing through the apartments, greeting the more prominent
+ladies and grandees.
+
+A flourish of trumpets was borne on the air, and Philip appeared. The
+cavaliers, bowing very low, suddenly stepped back from the fair dames,
+and the ladies curtsied to the floor. Perfect silence followed.
+
+It seemed as if an icy wind had passed over the flower-beds and bent all
+the blossoms at once.
+
+After a few minutes the gentlemen stood erect, and the ladies rose
+again, but even the oldest duchesses were not allowed the privilege of
+sitting in their sovereign's presence.
+
+Gayety was stifled, conversation was carried on in whispers.
+
+The young people vainly waited for the signal to dance.
+
+It was long since Philip had been so proudly contemptuous, so morose as
+he was to-night. Experienced courtiers noticed that His Majesty held his
+head higher than usual, and kept out of his way. He walked as if engaged
+in scrutinizing the frescos on the ceiling, but nothing that he wished
+to see escaped his notice, and when he perceived Moor, he nodded
+graciously and smiled pleasantly upon him for a moment, but did not, as
+usual, beckon him to approach.
+
+This did not escape the artist or Sophonisba, whom Moor had informed of
+what had occurred.
+
+He trusted her as he did himself, and she deserved his confidence.
+
+The clever Italian had shared his anxiety, and as soon as the king
+entered another apartment, she beckoned to Moor and held a long
+conversation with him in a window-recess. She advised him to keep
+everything in readiness for departure, and she undertook to watch and
+give him timely warning.
+
+It was long after midnight, when Moor returned to his rooms. He sent the
+sleepy servant to rest, and paced anxiously to and fro for a short time;
+then he pushed Ulrich's portrait of Sophonisba nearer the mantel-piece,
+where countless candles were burning in lofty sconces.
+
+This was his friend, and yet it was not. The thing lacking--yes, the
+king was right--was incomprehensible to a boy.
+
+We cannot represent, what we are unable to feel. Yet Philip's censure
+had been too severe. With a few strokes of the brush Moor expected to
+make this picture a soul mirror of the beloved girl, from whom it was
+hard, unspeakably hard for him to part.
+
+"More than fifty!" he thought, a melancholy smile hovering around his
+mouth.--"More than fifty, an old husband and father, and yet--yet--good
+nourishing bread at home--God bless it, Heaven preserve it! It only this
+girl were my daughter! How long the human heart retains its functional
+power! Perhaps love is the pith of life--when it dries, the tree withers
+too!"
+
+Still absorbed in thought, Moor had seized his palette, and at intervals
+added a few short, almost imperceptible strokes to the mouth, eyes, and
+delicate nostrils of the portrait, before which he sat--but these few
+strokes lent charm and intellectual expression to his pupil's work.
+
+When he at last rose and looked at what he had done, he could not help
+smiling, and asking himself how it was possible to imitate, with such
+trivial materials, the noblest possessions of man: mind and soul. Both
+now spoke to the spectator from these features. The right words were
+easy to the master, and with them he had given the clumsy sentence
+meaning and significance.
+
+The next morning Ulrich found Moor before Sophonisba's portrait. The
+pupil's sleep had been no less restless than the master's, for the
+former had done something which lay heavy on his heart.
+
+After being an involuntary witness of the scene in the studio the day
+before he had taken a ride with Sanchez and had afterwards gone to
+Kochel's to take a lesson. True, he now spoke Spanish with tolerable
+fluency and knew something of Italian, but Kochel entertained him so
+well, that he still visited him several times a week.
+
+On this occasion, there was no translating. The German first kindly
+upbraided him for his long absence, and then, after the conversation had
+turned upon his painting and Moor, sympathizingly asked what truth there
+was in the rumor, that the king had not visited the artist for a long
+time and had withdrawn his favor from him.
+
+"Withdrawn his favor!" Ulrich joyously exclaimed. "They are like
+two brothers! They wrestled together to-day, and the master, in all
+friendship, struck His Majesty a blow with the maul-stick.... But--for
+Heaven's sake!--you will swear--fool, that I am--you will swear not to
+speak of it!"
+
+"Of course I will!" Kochel exclaimed with a loud laugh. "My hand upon it
+Navarrete. I'll keep silence, but you! Don't gossip about that! Not on
+any account! The jesting blow might do the master harm. Excuse me for
+to-day; there is a great deal of writing to be done for the almoner."
+
+Ulrich went directly back to the studio. The conviction that he had
+committed a folly, nay, a crime, had taken possession of him directly
+after the last word escaped his lips, and now tortured him more and
+more. If Kochel, who was a very ordinary man, should not keep the
+secret, what might not Moor suffer from his treachery! The lad was
+usually no prattler, yet now, merely to boast of his master's familiar
+intercourse with the king, he had forgotten all caution.
+
+After a restless night, his first thought had been to look at his
+portrait of Sophonisba. The picture lured, bewitched, enthralled him
+with an irresistible spell.
+
+Was this really his work?
+
+He recognized every stroke of the brush. And yet! Those thoughtful
+eyes, the light on the lofty brow, the delicate lips, which seemed
+about parting to utter some wise or witty word--he had not painted them,
+never, never could he have accomplished such a masterpiece. He became
+very anxious. Had "Fortune," which usually left him in the lurch when
+creating, aided him on this occasion? Last evening, before he went
+to bed, the picture had been very different. Moor rarely painted by
+candlelight and he had heard him come home late, yet now--now....
+
+He was roused from these thoughts by the artist, who had been feasting
+his eyes a long time on the handsome lad, now rapidly developing into a
+youth, as he stood before the canvas as if spellbound. He felt what
+was passing in the awakening artist-soul, for a similar incident had
+happened to himself, when studying with his old master, Schorel.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Moor as quietly as usual, laying his hand
+upon the arm of his embarrassed pupil. "Your work seems to please you
+remarkably."
+
+"It is-I don't know"--stammered Ulrich. "It seems as if in the
+night...."
+
+"That often happens," interrupted the master. "If a man devotes
+himself earnestly to his profession, and says to himself: 'Art shall be
+everything to me, all else trivial interruptions,' invisible powers aid
+him, and when he sees in the morning what he has created the day before,
+he imagines a miracle has happened."
+
+At these words Ulrich grew red and pale by turns. At last, shaking
+his head, he murmured in an undertone: "Yes, but those shadows at
+the corners of the mouth--do you see?--that light on the brow, and
+there--just look at the nostrils--I certainly did not paint those."
+
+"I don't think them so much amiss," replied Moor. "Whatever friendly
+spirits now work for you at night, you must learn in Antwerp to paint in
+broad day at any hour."
+
+"In Antwerp?"
+
+"We shall prepare for departure this very day. It must be done with the
+utmost privacy. When Isabella has gone, pack your best clothes in the
+little knapsack. Perhaps we shall leave secretly; we have remained in
+Madrid long enough. Keep yourself always in readiness. No one, do you
+hear, no human being, not even the servants, must suspect what is going
+on. I know you; you are no babbler."
+
+The artist suddenly paused and turned pale, for men's loud, angry voices
+were heard outside the door of the studio.
+
+Ulrich too was startled.
+
+The master's intention of leaving Madrid had pleased him, for it would
+withdraw the former from the danger that might result from his own
+imprudence. But as the strife in the anteroom grew louder, he already
+saw the alguazils forcing their way into the studio.
+
+Moor went towards the door, but it was thrown wide open ere he reached
+it, and a bearded lansquenet crossed the threshold.
+
+Laughing scornfully, he shouted a few derisive words at the French
+servants who had tried to stop him, then turning to the artist, and
+throwing back his broad chest, he held out his arms towards Moor, with
+passionate ardor, exclaiming: "These French flunkies--the varlets, tried
+to keep me from waiting upon my benefactor, my friend, the great Moor,
+to show my reverence for him. How you stare at me, Master! Have you
+forgotten Christmas-day at Emmendingen, and Hans Eitelfritz from Colln
+on the Spree?"
+
+Every trace of anxiety instantly vanished from the face of the artist,
+who certainly had not recognized in this braggart the modest companion
+of those days.
+
+Eitelfritz was strangely attired, so gaily and oddly dressed, that he
+could not fail to be conspicuous even among his comrades. One leg of his
+breeches, striped with red and blue, reached far below his knee, while
+the other, striped with yellow and green, enclosed the upper part of the
+limb, like a full muff. Then how many puffs, slashes and ribbons adorned
+his doublet! What gay plumes decked the pointed edge of his cap.
+
+Moor gave the faithful fellow a friendly welcome, and expressed his
+pleasure at meeting him so handsomely equipped. He held his head higher
+now, than he used to do under the wagon-tilt and in quarters, and
+doubtless he had earned a right to do so.
+
+"The fact is," replied Hans Eitelfritz, "I've received double pay for
+the past nine months, and take a different view of life from that of a
+poor devil of a man-at-arms who goes fighting through the country. You
+know the ditty:
+
+       "'There is one misery on earth,
+        Well, well for him, who knows it not!
+        With beggar's staff to wander forth,
+        Imploring alms from spot to spot.'
+
+"And the last verse:
+
+       "'And shall we never receive our due?
+        Will our sore trials never end?
+        Leader to victory, be true,
+        Come quickly, death, beloved friend.'
+
+"I often sang it in those days; but now: What does the world cost? A
+thousand zechins is not too much for me to pay for it!"
+
+"Have you gained booty, Hans?"
+
+"Better must come; but I'm faring tolerably well. Nothing but feasting!
+Three of us came here from Venice through Lombardy, by ship from Genoa
+to Barcelona, and thence through this barren, stony country here to
+Madrid."
+
+"To take service?"
+
+"No, indeed. I'm satisfied with my company and regiment. We brought
+some pictures here, painted by the great master, Titian, whose fame must
+surely have reached you. See this little purse! hear its jingle--it's
+all gold! If any one calls King Philip a niggard again, I'll knock his
+teeth down his throat."
+
+"Good tidings, good reward!" laughed Moor. "Have you had board and
+lodging too?"
+
+"A bed fit for the Roman Emperor,--and as for the rest?--I told you,
+nothing but feasting. Unluckily, the fun will be all over to-night, but
+to go without paying my respects to you.... Zounds! is that the little
+fellow--the Hop-o'my-Thumb-who pressed forward to the muster-table at
+Emmendingen?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Zounds, he has grown. We'll gladly enlist you now, young sir. Can you
+remember me?"
+
+"Of course I do," replied Ulrich. "You sang the song about 'good
+fortune.'"
+
+"Have you recollected that?" asked the lansquenet. "Foolish stuff!
+Believe it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great
+sorrow and poverty, just to warm my heart. Now I'm prosperous, and can
+rarely succeed in writing a verse. Fires are not needed in summer."
+
+"Where have you been lodged?"
+
+"Here in the 'old cat.' That's a good name for this Goliath's palace."
+
+When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
+with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
+artist went to the city alone.
+
+At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio,
+and instantly noticed the change Sophonisba's portrait had undergone.
+
+Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.
+
+The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
+pausing in her scrutiny to ask: "And you, you painted this--without the
+master?"
+
+Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: "I suppose he thinks it
+is my own work; and yet--I can't understand it."
+
+"But I can," she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the
+portrait.
+
+At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at
+him with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost
+depths of Ulrich's heart were stirred: "How glad I am! I could
+never accomplish such a work. You will become a great artist, a
+very distinguished one, like Moor. Take notice, you surely will. How
+beautiful that is!--I can find no words to express my admiration."
+
+At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich's brain, and either the fiery
+wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl's prophetic words, or both,
+fairly intoxicated him. Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he
+seized Isabella's little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and
+enthusiastically exclaimed: "Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled,
+Belica; I will be an artist. Art, Art alone! The master said everything
+else is vain--trivial. Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is
+right."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Isabella; "you must become a great artist."
+
+"And if I don't succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this...."
+
+Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away,
+perhaps to-morrow, so he continued sadly, in a calmer tone: "Rely upon
+it; I will do what I can, and whatever happens, you will rejoice, will
+you not, if I succeed-and if it should be otherwise...."
+
+"No, no," she eagerly exclaimed. "You can accomplish everything, and
+I--I; you don't know how happy it makes me that you can do more than I!"
+
+Again he held out his hand, and as Isabella warmly clasped it, the
+watchful duenna's harsh voice cried:
+
+"What does this mean, Senorita? To work, I beg of you. Your father says
+time is precious."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Time is precious! Magister Kochel had also doubtless said this to
+himself, as soon as Ulrich left him the day before. He had been hired by
+a secret power, with which however he was well acquainted, to watch the
+Netherland artist and collect evidence for a charge--a gravamen--against
+him.
+
+The spying and informing, which he had zealously pursued for years in
+the service of the Holy Inquisition, he called "serving the Church," and
+hoped, sooner or later, to be rewarded with a benefice; but even if this
+escaped him, informing brought him as large an income as he required,
+and had become the greatest pleasure, indeed, a necessity of life to
+him.
+
+He had commenced his career in Cologne as a Dominican friar, and
+remained in communication with some of his old brethren of the Order.
+
+The monks, Sutor and Stubenrauch, whom Moor had hospitably received in
+his wagon at the last Advent season but one, sometimes answered Kochel's
+letters of enquiry.
+
+The latter had long known that the unusual favor the king showed
+the artist was an abomination, not only to the heads of the Holy
+Inquisition, but also to the ambassadors and court dignitaries, yet
+Moor's quiet, stainless life afforded no handle for attack. Soon,
+however, unexpected aid came to him from a distance.
+
+A letter arrived, dictated by Sutor, and written by Stubenrauch in the
+fluent bad Latin used by him and those of his ilk. Among other things
+it contained an account of a journey, in which much was said about Moor,
+whom the noble pair accused of having a heretical and evil mind. Instead
+of taking them to the goal of the journey, as he had promised, he
+had deserted them in a miserable tavern by the way-side, among rough,
+godless lansquenets, as the mother of Moses abandoned her babe. And such
+a man as this, they had heard with amazement at Cologne, was permitted
+to boast of the favor of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip. Kochel
+must take heed, that this leprous soul did not infect the whole flock,
+like a mangy sheep, or even turn the shepherd from the true pasture.
+
+This letter had induced Kochel to lure Ulrich into the snare. The
+monstrous thing learned from the lad that day, capped the climax of all
+he had heard, and might serve as a foundation for the charge, that
+the heretical Netherlander--and people were disposed to regard all
+Netherlanders as heretics--had deluded the king's mind with magic arts,
+enslaved his soul and bound him with fetters forged by the Prince of
+Evil.
+
+His pen was swift, and that very evening he went to the palace of the
+Inquisition, with the documents and indictment, but was detained there
+a long time the following day, to have his verbal deposition recorded.
+When he left the gloomy building, he was animated with the joyous
+conviction that he had not toiled in vain, and that the Netherlander was
+a lost man.
+
+Preparations for departure were secretly made in the painter's rooms in
+the Alcazar during the afternoon. Moor was full of anxiety, for one of
+the royal lackeys, who was greatly devoted to him, had told him that a
+disguised emissary of the Dominicans--he knew him well--had come to the
+door of the studio, and talked there with one of the French servants.
+This meant as imminent peril as fire under the roof, water rising in the
+hold of a ship, or the plague in the house.
+
+Sophonisba had told him that he would hear from her that day, but the
+sun was already low in the heavens, and neither she herself nor any
+message had arrived.
+
+He tried to paint, and finding the attempt useless, gazed into the
+garden and at the distant chain of the Guadarrama mountains; but to-day
+he remained unmoved by the delicate violet-blue mist that floated around
+the bare, naked peaks of the chain.
+
+It was wrath and impatience, mingled with bitter disappointment, that
+roused the tumult in his soul, not merely the dread of torture and
+death.
+
+There had been hours when his heart had throbbed with gratitude to
+Philip, and he had believed in his friendship. And now? The king cared
+for nothing about him, except his brush.
+
+He was still standing at the window, lost in gloomy thoughts, when
+Sophonisba was finally announced.
+
+She did not come alone, but leaning on the arm of Don Fabrizio di
+Moncada. During the last hours of the ball the night before she had
+voluntarily given the Sicilian her hand, and rewarded his faithful
+wooing by accepting his suit.
+
+Moor was rejoiced--yes, really glad at heart, and expressed his
+pleasure; nevertheless he felt a sharp pang, and when the baron, in his
+simple, aristocratic manner, thanked him for the faithful friendship
+he had always shown Sophonisba and her sisters, and then related how
+graciously the queen had joined their hands, he only listened with
+partial attention, for many doubts and suspicions beset him.
+
+Had Sophonisba's heart uttered the "yes," or had she made a heavy
+sacrifice for him and his safety? Perhaps she would find true happiness
+by the side of this worthy noble, but why had she given herself to
+him now, just now? Then the thought darted through his mind, that the
+widowed Marquesa Romero, the all-powerful friend of the Grand Inquisitor
+was Don Fabrizio's sister.
+
+Sophonisba had left the conversation to her betrothed husband; but when
+the doors of the brightly-lighted reception-room were opened, and the
+candles in the studio lighted, the girl could no longer endure
+the restraint she had hitherto imposed upon herself, and whispered
+hurriedly, in broken accents:
+
+"Dismiss the servants, lock the studio, and follow us."
+
+Moor did as he was requested, and, with the baron, obeyed her request
+to search the anterooms, to see that no unbidden visitor remained. She
+herself raised the curtains and looked up the chimney.
+
+Moor had rarely seen her so pale. Unable to control the muscles of
+her face, shoulders and hands, she went into the middle of the room,
+beckoned the men to come close to her, raised her fan to her face, and
+whispered:
+
+"Don Fabrizio and I are now one. God hears me! You, Master, are in great
+peril and surrounded by spies. Some one witnessed yesterday's incident,
+and it is now the talk of the town. Don Fabrizio has made inquiries.
+There is an accusation against you, and the Inquisition will act upon
+it. The informers call you a heretic, a sorcerer, who has bewitched the
+king. They will seize you to-morrow, or the day after. The king is in a
+terrible mood. The Nuncio openly asked him whether it was true, that
+he had been offered an atrocious insult in your studio. Is everything
+ready? Can you fly?"
+
+Moor bent his head in assent.
+
+"Well then," said the baron, interrupting Sophonisba; "I beg you to
+listen to me. I have obtained leave of absence, to go to Sicily to
+ask my father's blessing. It will be no easy matter for me to leave
+my happiness, at the moment my most ardent wish is fulfilled--but
+Sophonisba commands and I obey. I obey gladly too, for if I succeed
+in saving you, a new and beautiful star will adorn the heaven of my
+memory."
+
+"Quick, quick!" pleaded Sophonisba, clenching the back of a chair firmly
+with her hand. "You will yield, Master; I beseech you, I command you!"
+
+Moor bowed, and Don Fabrizio continued: "We will start at four o'clock
+in the morning. Instead of exchanging vows of love, we held a council
+of war. Everything is arranged. In an hour my servants will come and ask
+for the portrait of my betrothed bride; instead of the picture, you
+will put your baggage in the chest. Before midnight you will come to my
+apartments. I have passports for myself, six servants, the equerry, and
+a chaplain. Father Clement will remain safely concealed at my sister's,
+and you will accompany me in priestly costume. May we rely upon your
+consent?"
+
+"With all the gratitude of a thankful heart, but..."
+
+"But?"
+
+"There is my old servant--and my pupil Ulrich Navarrete."
+
+"The old man is taciturn, Don Fabrizio!" said Sophonisba. "If he is
+forbidden to speak at all.... He is necessary to the Master."
+
+"Then he can accompany you," said the baron. "As for your pupil, he must
+help us secure your flight, and lead the pursuers on a false trail. The
+king has honored you with a travelling-carriage.--At half-past eleven
+order horses to be put to it and leave the Alcazar. When you arrive
+before our palace, stop it, alight, and remain with me. Ulrich, whom
+everybody knows--who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in
+his gay clothes--will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the
+road towards Burgos, as far as it goes. A better decoy than he cannot be
+imagined, and besides he is nimble and an excellent horseman. Give
+him your own steed, the white Andalusian. If the blood-hounds should
+overtake him...."
+
+Here Moor interrupted the baron, saying gravely and firmly: "My grey
+head will be too dearly purchased at the cost of this young life. Change
+this part of your plan, I entreat you."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed the Sicilian. "We have few hours at our command,
+and if they don't follow him, they will pursue us, and you will be
+lost."
+
+"Yet..." Moor began; but Sophonisba, scarcely able to command her voice,
+interrupted: "He owes everything to--you. I know him. Where is he?"
+
+"Let us maintain our self-control!" cried the Netherlander. "I do not
+rely upon the king's mercy, but perhaps in the decisive hour, he will
+remember what we have been to each other; if Ulrich, on the contrary,
+robs the irritated lion of his prey and is seized...."
+
+"My sister shall watch over him," said the baron but Sophonisba tore
+open the door, rushed into the studio, and called as loudly as she
+could: "Ulrich, Ulrich! Ulrich!"
+
+The men followed her, but scarcely had they crossed the threshold, when
+they heard her rap violently at the door of the school-room, and Ulrich
+asking: "What is it?"
+
+"Open the door!"
+
+Soon after, with pallid face and throbbing heart, he was standing before
+the others, asking: "What am I to do?"
+
+"Save your master!" cried Sophonisba. "Are you a contemptible Wight, or
+does a true artist's heart beat in your breast? Would you fear to go,
+perhaps to your death, for this imperilled man?"
+
+"No, no!" cried the youth as joyously as if a hundred-pound weight had
+been lifted from his breast. "If it costs my life, so much the better!
+Here I am! Post me where you please, do with me as you will! He has
+given me everything, and I--I have betrayed him. I must confess, even
+if you kill me! I gossiped, babbled--like a fool, a child--about what
+I accidentally saw here yesterday. It is my fault, mine, if they pursue
+him. Forgive me, master, forgive me! Do with me what you will. Beat me,
+slay me, and I will bless you."
+
+As he uttered the last words, the young artist, raising his clasped
+hands imploringly, fell on his knees before his beloved teacher. Moor
+bent towards him, saying with grave kindness:
+
+"Rise, poor lad. I am not angry with you."
+
+When Ulrich again stood before him, he kissed his forehead and
+continued:
+
+"I have not been mistaken in you. Do you, Don Fabrizio, recommend
+Navarrete to the Marquesa's protection, and tell him what we desire.
+It would scarcely redound to his happiness, if the deed, for which my
+imprudence and his thoughtlessness are to blame, should be revenged on
+me. It comforts us to atone for a wrong. Whether you save me, Ulrich,
+or I perish--no matter; you are and always will be, my dear, faithful
+friend."
+
+Ulrich threw himself sobbing on the artist's breast, and when he learned
+what was required of him, fairly glowed with delight and eagerness for
+action; he thought no greater joy could befall him than to die for the
+Master.
+
+As the bell of the palace-chapel was ringing for evening service,
+Sophonisba was obliged to leave her friend; for it was her duty to
+attend the nocturnus with the queen.
+
+Don Fabrizio turned away, while she bade Moor farewell.
+
+"If you desire my happiness, make him happy," the artist whispered; but
+she could find no words to reply, and only nodded silently.
+
+He drew her gently towards him, kissed her brow, and said: "There is a
+hard and yet a consoling word Love is divine; but still more divine is
+sacrifice. To-day I am both your friend and father. Remember me to your
+sisters. God bless you, child!"
+
+"And you, you!" sobbed the girl.
+
+Never had any human being prayed so fervently for another's welfare in
+the magnificent chapel of the Alcazar, as did Sophonisba Anguisciola on
+this evening. Don Fabrizio's betrothed bride also pleaded for peace and
+calmness in her own heart, for power to forget and to do her duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Half an hour before midnight Moor entered the calash, and Ulrich
+Navarrete mounted the white Andalusian.
+
+The artist, deeply agitated, had already taken leave of his protege in
+the studio, had given him a purse of gold for his travelling-expenses
+and any other wants, and told him that he would always find with him in
+Flanders a home, a father, love, and instruction in his art.
+
+The painter alighted before Don Fabrizio's palace; a short time after
+Ulrich noisily drew the leather curtain before the partition of the
+calash, and then called to the coachman, who had often driven Moor when
+he was unexpectedly summoned to one of the king's pleasure-palaces at
+night: "Go ahead!"
+
+They were stopped at the gate, but the guards knew the favorite's calash
+and fair-haired pupil, and granted the latter the escort he asked for
+his master. So they went forward; at first rapidly, then at a pace
+easy for the horses. He told the coachman that Moor had alighted at
+the second station, and would ride with His Majesty to Avila, where he
+wished to find the carriage.
+
+During the whole way, Ulrich thought little of himself, and all the
+more of the master. If the pursuers had set out the morning after the
+departure, and followed him instead of Don Fabrizio's party, Moor might
+now be safe. He knew the names of the towns on the road to Valencia
+and thought: "Now he may be here, now he may be there, now he must be
+approaching Tarancon."
+
+In the evening the calash reached the famous stronghold of Avila where,
+according to the agreement, Ulrich was to leave the carriage and try to
+make his own escape. The road led through the town, which was surrounded
+by high walls and deep ditches. There was no possibility of going round
+it, yet the drawbridges were already raised and the gates locked, so he
+boldly called the warder and showed his passport.
+
+An officer asked to see the artist. Ulrich said that he would follow
+him; but the soldier was not satisfied, and ordered him to alight and
+accompany him to the commandant.
+
+Ulrich struck his spurs into the Andalusian's flanks and tried to go
+back over the road by which he had come; but the horse had scarcely
+begun to gallop, when a shot was fired, that stretched it on the ground.
+The rider was dragged into the guard-house as a prisoner, and subjected
+to a severe examination.
+
+He was suspected of having murdered Moor and of having stolen his money,
+for a purse filled with ducats was found on his person. While he was
+being fettered, the pursuers reached Avila.
+
+A new examination began, and now trial followed trial, torture, torture.
+
+Even at Avila a sack was thrown over his head, and only opened, when
+to keep him alive, he was fed with bread and water. Firmly bound in a
+two-wheeled cart, drawn by mules, he was dragged over stock and stones
+to Madrid.
+
+Often, in the darkness, oppressed for breath, jolted, bruised, unable to
+control his thoughts, or even his voice, he expected to perish; yet no
+fainting-fit, no moment of utter unconsciousness pityingly came to his
+relief, far less did any human heart have compassion on his suffering.
+
+At last, at last he was unbound, and led, still with his head covered,
+into a small, dark room.
+
+Here he was released from the sack, but again loaded with chains.
+
+When he was left alone and had regained the capacity to think, he felt
+convinced that he was in one of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Here
+were the damp walls, the wooden bench, the window in the ceiling, of
+which he had heard. He was soon to learn that he had judged correctly.
+
+His body was granted a week's rest, but during this horrible week he did
+not cease to upbraid himself as a traitor, and execrate the fate which
+had used him a second time to hurl a friend and benefactor into ruin. He
+cursed himself, and when he thought of the "word" "fortune, fortune!" he
+gnashed his teeth scornfully and clenched his fist.
+
+His young soul was darkened, embittered, thrown off its balance. He saw
+no deliverance, no hope, no consolation. He tried to pray, to God, to
+Jesus Christ, to the Virgin, to the Saints; but they all stood before
+him, in a vision, with lifeless features and paralyzed arms. For him,
+who had relied on "Fortune," and behaved like a fool, they felt no pity,
+no compassion, they would not lend their aid.
+
+But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his
+soul in prayer. He regained them during the torture, on the rack.
+
+Weeks, months elapsed. Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded
+with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking
+death in the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm
+determination to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with
+himself. On the rack he had regained the right to respect himself, and
+striven to win the master's praise, the approval of the living and his
+beloved dead.
+
+The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned.
+The physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in
+amazement.
+
+Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot,
+on nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the
+stifling helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through
+whom and whither the master had escaped.
+
+They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should
+surely learn nothing, nothing at all. He was scarcely aware that he had
+a right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.
+
+Now he could think of the past again. The Holy Virgin once more wore his
+lost mother's features; his father, Ruth, Pellicanus, Moor looked kindly
+at him. But the brightest light shone into his soul through the darkness
+of the dungeon, when he thought of art and his last work. It stood
+before him distinctly in brilliant hues, feature for feature, as on
+the canvas; he esteemed himself happy in having painted it, and would
+willingly have gone to the rack once, twice, thrice, if he could merely
+have obtained the certainty of creating other pictures like this, and
+perhaps still nobler, more beautiful ones.
+
+Art! Art! Perhaps this was the "word," and if not, it was the highest,
+most exquisite, most precious thing in life, beside which everything
+else seemed small, pitiful and insipid. With what other word could God
+have created the world, human beings, animals, and plants? The doctor
+had often called every flower, every beetle, a work of art, and Ulrich
+now understood his meaning, and could imagine how the Almighty, with the
+thirst for creation and plastic hand of the greatest of all artists
+had formed the gigantic bodies of the stars, had given the sky its
+glittering blue, had indented and rounded the mountains, had bestowed
+form and color on everything that runs, creeps, flies, buds and
+blossoms, and had fashioned man--created in His own image--in the most
+majestic form of all.
+
+How wonderful the works of God appeared to him in the solitude of the
+dark dungeon--and if the world was beautiful, was it not the work of His
+Divine Art!
+
+Heaven and earth knew no word greater, more powerful, more mighty in
+creating beauty than: Art. What, compared with its gifts, were the
+miserable, delusive ones of Fortune: gay clothes, spiced dishes,
+magnificent rooms, and friendly glances from beautiful eyes, that smile
+on every one who pleases them! He would blow them all into the air,
+for the assistance of Art in joyous creating. Rather, a thousand times
+rather, would he beg his bread, and attain great things in Art, than
+riot and revel in good-fortune.
+
+Colors, colors, canvas, a model like Sophonisba, and success in the
+realm of Art! It was for these things he longed, these things made him
+yearn with such passionate eagerness for deliverance, liberty.
+
+Months glided by, maturing Ulrich's mind as rapidly as if they had
+been years; but his inclination to retire within himself deepened into
+intense reserve.
+
+At last the day arrived on which, through the influence of the Marquesa
+Romero, the doors of his dungeon opened.
+
+It was soon after receiving a sharp warning to renounce his obstinacy at
+the next examination, that the youth was suddenly informed that he
+was free. The jailer took off his fetters, and helped him exchange his
+prison garb for the dress he had worn when captured; then disguised men
+threw a sack over his head and led him up and down stairs and across
+pavements, through dust and grass, into the little court-yard of a
+deserted house in the suburbs. There they left him, and he soon released
+his head from its covering.
+
+How delicious God's free air seemed, as his chest heaved with grateful
+joy! He threw out his arms like a bird stretching its wings to fly, then
+he clasped his hands over his brow, and at last, as if a second time
+pursued, rushed out of the court-yard into the street. The passers-by
+looked after him, shaking their heads, and he certainly presented a
+singular spectacle, for the dress in which he had fled many months
+before, had sustained severe injuries on the journey from Avila; his hat
+was lost on the way, and had not been replaced by a new one. The cuffs
+and collar, which belonged to his doublet, were missing, and his thick,
+fair hair hung in dishevelled locks over his neck and temples; his full,
+rosy cheeks had grown thin, his eyes seemed to have enlarged, and during
+his imprisonment a soft down had grown on his cheeks and chin.
+
+He was now eighteen, but looked older, and the grave expression on his
+brow and in his eyes, gave him the appearance of a man.
+
+He had rushed straight forward, without asking himself whither; now he
+reached a busy street and checked his career. Was he in Madrid? Yes, for
+there rose the blue peaks of the Guadarrama chain, which he knew well.
+There were the little trees at which the denizen of the Black Forest had
+often smiled, but which to-day looked large and stately. Now a toreador,
+whom he had seen more than once in the arena, strutted past. This
+was the gate, through which he had ridden out of the city beside the
+master's calash.
+
+He must go into the town, but what should he do there?
+
+Had they restored the master's gold with the clothes?
+
+He searched the pockets, but instead of the purse, found only a few
+large silver coins, which he knew he had not possessed at the time of
+his capture.
+
+In a cook-shop behind the gate he enjoyed some meat and wine after his
+long deprivation, and after reflecting upon his situation he decided to
+call on Don Fabrizio.
+
+The porter refused him admittance, but after he had mentioned his name,
+kindly invited him into the porch, and told him that the baron and his
+wife were in the country with the Marquesa Romero. They were expected
+back on Tuesday, and would doubtless receive him then, for they had
+already asked about him several times. The young gentleman probably came
+from some foreign country; it was the custom to wear hats in Madrid.
+
+Ulrich now noticed what he lacked, but before leaving, to supply the
+want, asked the porter, if he knew what had become of Master Moor.
+
+Safe! He was safe! Several weeks before Donna Sophonisba had received a
+letter sent from Flanders, and Ulrich's companion was well informed, for
+his wife served the baroness as 'doncella'.
+
+Joyously, almost beside himself with pure, heart-cheering delight,
+the released prisoner hurried away, bought himself a new cap, and then
+sought the Alcazar.
+
+Before the treasury, in the place of old Santo, Carmen's father, stood
+a tall, broad portero, still a young man, who rudely refused him
+admittance.
+
+"Master Moor has not been here for a long time," said the gate-keeper
+angrily: "Artists don't wear ragged clothes, and if you don't wish to
+see the inside of a guard-house--a place you are doubtless familiar
+with--you had better leave at once."
+
+Ulrich answered the gate-keeper's insulting taunts indignantly and
+proudly, for he was no longer the yielding boy of former days, and the
+quarrel soon became serious.
+
+Just then a dainty little woman, neatly dressed for the evening
+promenade, with the mantilla on her curls, a pomegranate blossom in her
+hair, and another on her bosom, came out of the Alcazar. Waving her
+fan, and tripping over the pavement like a wag-tail, she came directly
+towards the disputants.
+
+Ulrich recognized her instantly; it was Carmen, the pretty embroiderer
+of the shell-grotto in the park, now the wife of the new porter, who had
+obtained his dead predecessor's office, as well as his daughter.
+
+"Carmen!" exclaimed Ulrich, as soon as he saw the pretty little woman,
+then added confidently. "This young lady knows me."
+
+"I?" asked the young wife, turning up her pretty little nose, and
+looking at the tall youth's shabby costume. "Who are you?"
+
+"Master Moor's pupil, Ulrich Navarrete; don't you remember me?"
+
+"I? You must be mistaken!"
+
+With these words she shut her fan so abruptly, that it snapped loudly,
+and tripped on.
+
+Ulrich shrugged his shoulders, then turned to the porter more
+courteously, and this time succeeded in his purpose; for the artist
+Coello's body-servant came out of the treasury, and willingly announced
+him to his master, who now, as court-artist, occupied Moor's quarters.
+
+Ulrich followed the friendly Pablo into the palace, where every step he
+mounted reminded him of his old master and former days.
+
+When he at last stood in the anteroom, and the odor of the fresh
+oil-colors, which were being ground in an adjoining room, reached his
+nostrils, he inhaled it no less eagerly than, an hour before, he had
+breathed the fresh air, of which he had been so long deprived.
+
+What reception could he expect? The court-artist might easily shrink
+from coming in contact with the pupil of Moor, who had now lost the
+sovereign's favor. Coello was a very different man from the Master, a
+child of the moment, varying every day. Sometimes haughty and repellent,
+on other occasions a gay, merry companion, who had jested with his
+own children and Ulrich also, as if all were on the same footing. If
+today... but Ulrich did not have much time for such reflections; a few
+minutes after Pablo left, the door was torn open, and the whole Coello
+family rushed joyously to meet him; Isabella first. Sanchez followed
+close behind her, then came the artist, next his stout, clumsy wife,
+whom Ulrich had rarely seen, because she usually spent the whole day
+lying on a couch with her lap-dog. Last of all appeared the duenna
+Catalina, a would-be sweet smile hovering around her lips.
+
+The reception given him by the others was all the more joyous and
+cordial.
+
+Isabella laid her hands on his arm, as if she wanted to feel that it was
+really he; and yet, when she looked at him more closely, she shook
+her head as if there was something strange in his appearance. Sanchez
+embraced him, whirling him round and round, Coello shook hands,
+murmuring many kind words, and the mother turned to the duenna,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Holy Virgin! what has happened to the pretty boy? How famished he
+looks! Go to the kitchen instantly, Catalina, and tell Diego to bring
+him food--food and drink."
+
+At last they all pulled and pushed him into the sitting-room, where the
+mother immediately threw herself on the couch again; then the others
+questioned him, making him tell them how he had fared, whence he came,
+and many other particulars.
+
+He was no longer hungry, but Senora Petra insisted upon his seating
+himself near her couch and eating a capon, while he told his story.
+
+Every face expressed sympathy, approval, pity, and at last Coello said:
+
+"Remain here, Navarrete. The king longs for Moor, and you will be as
+safe with us, as if you were in Abraham's lap. We have plenty for you to
+do. You come to me as opportunely, as if you had dropped from the skies.
+I was just going to write to Venice for an assistant. Holy Jacob! You
+can't stay so, but thanks to the Madonna and Moor, you are not poor.
+We have ample means, my young sir. Donna Sophonisba gave me a hundred
+zechins for you; they are lying in yonder chest, and thank Heaven,
+haven't grown impatient by waiting. They are at your disposal. Your
+master, my master, the noble master of all portrait-painters, our
+beloved Moor arranged it. You won't go about the streets in this way any
+longer. Look, Isabella; this sleeve is hanging by two strings, and
+the elbow is peering out of the window. Such a dress is airy enough,
+certainly. Take him to the tailor's at once, Sanchez, Oliverio, or...
+but no, no; we'll all stay together to-day. Herrera is coming from the
+Escurial. You will endure the dress for the sake of the wearer, won't
+you, ladies? Besides, who is to choose the velvet and cut for this young
+dandy? He always wore something unusual. I can still see the master's
+smile, provoked by some of the lad's new contrivances in puffs and
+slashes. It is pleasant to have you here, my boy! I ought to slay a
+calf, as the father did for the prodigal son; but we live in miniature.
+Instead of neat-cattle, only a capon!..."
+
+"But you're not drinking, you're not drinking! Isabella, fill his glass.
+Look! only see these scars on his hands and neck. It will need a great
+deal of lace to conceal them. No, no, they are marks of honor, you must
+show them. Come here, I will kiss this great scar, on your neck, my
+brave, faithful fellow, and some day a fair one will follow my example.
+If Antonio were only here! There's a kiss for him, and another, there,
+there. Art bestows it, Art, for whom you have saved Moor!"
+
+A master's kiss in the name of Art! It was sweeter than the beautiful
+Carmen's lips!
+
+Coello was himself an artist, a great painter! Where could his peers
+be found--or those of Moor, and the architect Herrera, who entered
+soon after. Only those, who consecrated their lives to Art, the word of
+words, could be so noble, cheerful, kind.
+
+How happy he was when he went to bed! how gratefully he told his beloved
+dead, in spirit, what had fallen to his lot, and how joyously he could
+pray!
+
+The next morning he went with a full purse into the city, returning
+elegantly dressed, and with neatly-arranged locks. The peinador had
+given his budding moustache a bold twist upward.
+
+He still looked thin and somewhat awkward, but the tall youth promised
+to become a stately man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Towards noon Coello called Ulrich into Moor's former studio; the youth
+could not fail to observe its altered appearance.
+
+Long cartoons, containing sketches of figures, large paintings, just
+commenced or half-finished, leaned against the easels; mannikins,
+movable wooden horse's heads, and plaster-models stood on the floor, the
+tables, and in the windows. Stuffs, garments, tapestries, weapons
+hung over the backs of the chairs, or lay on chests, tables and the
+stone-floor. Withered laurel-wreaths, tied with long ribbons, fluttered
+over the mantel-piece; one had fallen, dropped over the bald head of
+Julius Caesar, and rested on the breast.
+
+The artist's six cats glided about among the easels, or stretched their
+limbs on costly velvet and Arabian carpets.
+
+In one corner stood a small bed with silk curtains--the nursery of the
+master's pets. A magnificent white cat was suckling her kittens in it.
+
+Two blue and yellow cockatoos and several parrots swung screaming in
+brass hoops before the open window, and Coello's coal-black negro crept
+about, cleaning the floor of the spacious apartment, though it was
+already noon. While engaged in this occupation, he constantly shook his
+woolly head, displaying his teeth, for his master was singing loudly at
+his work, and the gaily-clad African loved music.
+
+What a transformation bad taken place in the Netherlander's quiet,
+orderly, scrupulously neat studio! But, even amid this confusion,
+admirable works were created; nay, the Spaniard possessed a much more
+vivid imagination, and painted pictures, containing a larger number of
+figures and far more spirited than Moor's, though they certainly were
+not pervaded by the depth and earnestness, the marvellous fidelity to
+nature, that characterized those of Ulrich's beloved master.
+
+Coello called the youth to the easel, and pointing to the sketches in
+color, containing numerous figures, on which he was painting, said:
+
+"Look here, my son. This is to be a battle of the Centaurs, these are
+Parthian horsemen;--Saint George and the Dragon, and the Crusaders are
+not yet finished. The king wants the Apocalyptic riders too. Deuce
+take it! But it must be done. I shall commence them to-morrow. They are
+intended for the walls and ceiling of the new winter riding-school. One
+person gets along slowly with all this stuff, and I--I.... The orders
+oppress me. If a man could only double, quadruple himself! Diana of
+Ephesus had many breasts, and Cerberus three heads, but only two hands
+have grown on my wrists. I need help, and you are just the person to
+give it. You have had nothing to do with horses yet, Isabella tells me;
+but you are half a Centaur yourself. Set to work on the steeds now, and
+when you have progressed far enough, you shall transfer these sketches
+to the ceiling and walls of the riding-school. I will help you perfect
+the thing, and give it the finishing touch."
+
+This invitation aroused more perplexity than pleasure in Ulrich's
+mind, for it was not in accordance with Moor's opinions. Fear of his
+fellow-men no longer restrained him, so he frankly said that he would
+rather sketch industriously from nature, and perhaps would do well
+to seek Moor in Flanders. Besides, he was afraid that Coello greatly
+overrated his powers.
+
+But the Spaniard eagerly cut him short:
+
+"I have seen your portrait of Sophonisba. You are no longer a pupil,
+but a rising artist. Moor is a peerless portrait-painter, and you have
+profited greatly by his teaching. But Art has still higher aims. Every
+living thing belongs to her. The Venus, the horse... which of those two
+pictures won Apelles the greater fame? Not only copying, but creating
+original ideas, leads to the pinnacle of art. Moor praised your vivid
+imagination. We must use what we possess. Remember Buonarotti, Raphael!
+Their compositions and frescos, have raised their names above all
+others. Antonio has tormented you sufficiently with drawing lifeless
+things. When you transfer these sketches, many times enlarged, to
+a broad surface, you will learn more than in years of copying
+plaster-casts. A man must have talent, courage and industry; everything
+else comes of its own accord, and thank Heaven, you're a lucky fellow!
+Look at my horses--they are not so bad, yet I never sketched a
+living one in my life till I was commissioned to paint His Majesty on
+horseback. You shall have a better chance. Go to the stables and the old
+riding-school to-morrow. First try noble animals, then visit the market
+and shambles, and see how the knackers look. If you make good speed, you
+shall soon see the first ducats you yourself have earned." The golden
+reward possessed little temptation for Ulrich, but he allowed himself to
+be persuaded by his senior, and drew and painted horses and mares with
+pleasure and success, working with Isabella and Coello's pupil, Felice
+de Liano, when they sketched and painted from living models. When the
+scaffolding was erected in the winter riding-school, he went there under
+the court-artist's direction, to measure, arrange and finally transfer
+the painter's sketches to the wide surfaces.
+
+He did this with increasing satisfaction, for though Coello's sketches
+possessed a certain hardness, they were boldly devised and pleased him.
+
+The farther he progressed, the more passionately interested he became
+in his work. To create on a grand scale delighted him, and the fully
+occupied life, as well as the slight fatigue after his work was
+done, which was sweetened by the joy of labor accomplished, were all
+beautiful, enjoyable things; yet Ulrich felt that this was not exactly
+the right course, that a steeper, more toilsome path must lead to the
+height he desired to attain.
+
+He lacked the sharp spurring to do better and better, the censure of a
+master, who was greatly his superior. Praise for things, which did not
+satisfy himself, vexed him and roused his distrust.
+
+Isabella, and--after his return--Sophonisba, were his confidantes.
+
+The former had long felt what he now expressed. Her young heart clung to
+him, but she loved in him the future great artist as much as the man.
+It was certainly no light matter for her to be deprived of Ulrich's
+society, yet she unselfishly admitted that her father, in the vast
+works he had undertaken, could not be a teacher like Moor, and it would
+probably be best for him to seek his old master in Flanders, as soon as
+his task in the riding-school was completed.
+
+She said this, because she believed it to be her duty, though sadly and
+anxiously; but he joyously agreed with her, for Sophonisba had handed
+him a letter from the master, in which the latter cordially invited him
+to come to Antwerp.
+
+Don Fabrizio's wife summoned him to her palace, and Ulrich found her as
+kind and sympathizing as when she had been a girl, but her gay, playful
+manner had given place to a more quiet dignity.
+
+She wished to be told in detail all he had suffered for Moor, how he
+employed himself, what he intended to do in the future; and she even
+sought him more than once in the riding-school, watched him at his work,
+and examined his drawings and sketches.
+
+Once she induced him to tell her the story of his youth.
+
+This was a boon to Ulrich; for, although we keep our best treasures most
+closely concealed, yet our happiest hours are those in which, with the
+certainty of being understood, we are permitted to display them.
+
+The youth could show this noble woman, this favorite of the Master, this
+artist, what he would not have confided to any man, so he permuted her
+to behold his childhood, and gaze deep into his soul.
+
+He did not even hide what he knew about the "word"--that he believed he
+had found the right one in the dungeon, and that Art would remain his
+guiding star, as long as he lived.
+
+Sophonisba's cheeks flushed deeper and deeper, and never had he seen her
+so passionately excited, so earnest and enthusiastic, as now when she
+exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, Ulrich, yes! You have found the right word!
+
+"It is Art, and no other. Whoever knows it, whoever serves it, whoever
+impresses it deeply on his soul and only breathes and moves in it, no
+longer has any taint of baseness; he soars high above the earth, and
+knows nothing of misery and death. It is with Art the Divinity bridges
+space and descends to man, to draw him up ward to brighter worlds. This
+word transfigures everything, and brings fresh green shoots even from
+the dry wood of souls defrauded of love and hope. Life is a thorny
+rose-bush, and Art its flower. Here Mirth is melancholy--Joy is
+sorrowful and Liberty is dead. Here Art withers and--like an exotic--is
+prevented perishing outright only by artificial culture. But there is a
+land, I know it well, for it is my home--where Art buds and blossoms and
+throws its shade over all the highways. Favorite of Antonio, knight of
+the Word--you must go to Italy!"
+
+Sophonisba had spoken. He must go to Italy. The home of Titian! Raphael!
+Buonarotti! where also the Master went to school.
+
+"Oh, Word, Word!" he cried exultingly in his heart. "What other can
+disclose, even on earth, such a glimpse of the joys of Paradise."
+
+When he left Sophonisba, he felt as if he were intoxicated.
+
+What still detained him in Madrid?
+
+Moor's zechins were not yet exhausted, and he was sure of the assistance
+of the "word" upon the sacred soil of Italy.
+
+He unfolded his plan to Coello without delay, at first modestly, then
+firmly and defiantly. But the court-artist would not let him go. He
+knew how to maintain his composure, and even admitted that Ulrich must
+travel, but said it was still too soon. He must first finish the work
+he had undertaken in the riding-school, then he himself would smooth the
+way to Italy for him. To leave him, so heavily burdened, in the lurch
+now, would be treating him ungratefully and basely.
+
+Ulrich was forced to acknowledge this, and continued to paint on the
+scaffold, but his pleasure in creating was spoiled. He thought of
+nothing but Italy.
+
+Every hour in Madrid seemed lost. His lofty purposes were unsettled,
+and he began to seek diversion for his mind, especially at the
+fencing-school with Sanchez Coello.
+
+His eye was keen, his wrist pliant, and his arm was gaining more and
+more of his father's strength, so he soon performed extraordinary feats.
+
+His remarkable skill, his reserved nature, and the natural charm of his
+manner soon awakened esteem and regard among the young Spaniards, with
+whom he associated.
+
+He was invited to the banquets given by the wealthier ones, and to
+join the wild pranks, in which they sometimes indulged, but spite of
+persuasions and entreaties, always in vain.
+
+Ulrich needed no comrades, and his zechins were sacred to him; he was
+keeping them for Italy.
+
+The others soon thought him an odd, arrogant fellow, with whom no
+friendly ties could be formed, and left him to his own resources. He
+wandered about the streets at night alone, serenaded fair ladies,
+and compelled many gentlemen, who offended him, to meet him in single
+combat.
+
+No one, not even Sanchez Coello, was permitted to know of these
+nocturnal adventures; they were his chief pleasure, stirred his blood,
+and gave him the blissful consciousness of superior strength.
+
+This mode of life increased his self-confidence, and expressed itself in
+his bearing, which gained a touch of the Spanish air. He was now fully
+grown, and when he entered his twentieth year, was taller than most
+Castilians, and carried his head as high as a grandee.
+
+Yet he was dissatisfied with himself, for he made slow progress in his
+art, and cherished the firm conviction that there was nothing more for
+him to learn in Madrid; Coello's commissions were robbing him of the
+most precious time.
+
+The work in the riding-school was at last approaching completion. It had
+occupied far more than the year in which it was to have been finished,
+and His Majesty's impatience had become so great, that Coello was
+compelled to leave everything else, to paint only there, and put his
+improving touches to Ulrich's labor.
+
+The time for departure was drawing near. The hanging-scaffold, on which
+he had lain for months, working on the master's pictures, had been
+removed, but there was still something to be done to the walls.
+
+Suddenly the court-artist was ordered to suspend the work, and have
+the beams, ladders and boards, which narrowed the space in the
+picadero,--[Riding School]--removed.
+
+The large enclosure was wanted during the next few days for a special
+purpose, and there were new things for Coello to do.
+
+Don Juan of Austria, the king's chivalrous half-brother, had commenced
+his heroic career, and vanquished the rebellious Moors in Granada. A
+magnificent reception was to be prepared for the young conqueror,
+and Coello received the commission to adorn a triumphal arch with
+hastily-sketched, effective pictures.
+
+The designs were speedily completed, and the triumphal arch erected in
+a court-yard of the Alcazar, for here, within the narrow circle of the
+court, not publicly, before the whole population, had the suspicious
+monarch resolved to receive and honor the victor.
+
+Ulrich had again assisted Coello in the execution of his sketches.
+Everything was finished at the right time, and Don Juan's reception
+brilliantly carried out with great pomp and dignity, through the whole
+programme of a Te Deum and three services, processions, bull-fights, a
+grand 'Auto-da-fe', and a tournament.
+
+After this festival, the king again resigned the riding-school to the
+artists, who instantly set to work. Everything was finished except the
+small figures at the bottom of the larger pictures, and these could be
+executed without scaffolding.
+
+Ulrich was again standing on the ladder, for the first time after this
+interruption, and Coello had just followed him into the picadero, when a
+great bustle was heard outside.
+
+The broad doors flew open, and the manege was soon filled with knights
+and ladies on foot and horseback.
+
+The most brilliant figures in all the stately throng were Don Juan
+himself, and his youthful nephew, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma.
+
+Ulrich feasted his eyes on the splendid train, and the majestic,
+haughty, yet vivacious manner of the conqueror.
+
+Never in his life, he thought, had he seen a more superb youthful
+figure. Don Juan stopped directly opposite to him, and bared his head.
+The thick, fair hair brushed back behind his ears, hung in wonderfully
+soft, waving locks down to his neck, and his features blended feminine
+grace with manly vigor.
+
+As, hat in hand, he swung himself from the saddle, unassisted, to
+greet the fair duchess of Medina Celi, there was such a charm in his
+movements, that the young artist felt inclined to believe all the tales
+related of the successful love affairs of this favorite of fortune, who
+was the son of the Emperor Charles, by a German washerwoman.
+
+Don Juan graciously requested his companion to retire to the back of the
+manege, assisted the ladies from their saddles and, offering his hand to
+the duchess, led her to the dais, then returning to the ring, he issued
+some orders to the mounted officers in his train, and stood conversing
+with the ladies, Alexander Farnese, and the grandees near him.
+
+Loud shouts and the tramp of horses hoofs were now heard outside of the
+picadero, and directly after nine bare-backed horses were led into the
+ring, all selected animals of the best blood of the Andalusian breed,
+the pearls of all the horses Don Juan had captured.
+
+Exclamations and cries of delight echoed through the building, growing
+louder and warmer, when the tenth and last prize, a coal-black young
+stallion, dragged the sinewy Moors that led him, into the ring, and
+rearing lifted them into the air with him.
+
+The brown-skinned young fellows resisted bravely; but Don Juan turning
+to Alexander Farnese, said: "What a superb animal! but alas, alas, he
+has a devilish temper, so we have called him Satan. He will bear neither
+saddle nor rider. How dare I venture... there he rears again.... It is
+quite impossible to offer him to His Majesty. Just look at those eyes,
+those crimson nostrils. A perfect monster!"
+
+"But there cannot be a more beautiful creature!" cried the prince,
+warmly. "That shining black coat, the small head, the neck, the croup,
+the carriage of his tail, the fetlocks and hoofs. Oh, oh, that was
+serious!" The vicious stallion had reared for the third time, pawing
+wildly with his fore-legs, and in so doing struck one of the Moors.
+Shrieking and wailing, the latter fell on the ground, and directly after
+the animal released itself from the second groom, and now dashed freely,
+with mighty leaps, around the course, rushing hither and thither as if
+mad, kicking furiously, and hurling sand and dust into the faces of
+the ladies on the dais. The latter shrieked loudly, and their screams
+increased the animal's furious excitement. Several gentlemen drew back,
+and the master of the horse loudly ordered the other barebacked steeds
+to be led away.
+
+Don Juan and Alexander Farnese stood still; but the former drew his
+sword, exclaiming, vehemently:
+
+"Santiago! I'll kill the brute!"
+
+He was not satisfied with words, but instantly rushed upon the stallion;
+the latter avoiding him, bounded now backward, now sideways, at every
+fresh leap throwing sand upon the dais.
+
+Ulrich could remain on the ladder no longer.
+
+Fully aware of his power over refractory horses, he boldly entered the
+ring and walked quietly towards the snorting, foaming steed. Driving the
+animal back, and following him, he watched his opportunity, and as Satan
+turned, reached his side and boldly seized his nostrils firmly with his
+hand.
+
+Satan plunged more and more furiously, but the smith's son held him as
+firmly as if in a vise, breathed into his nostrils, and stroked his head
+and muzzle, whispering soothing words.
+
+The animal gradually became quieter, tried once more to release himself
+from his tamer's iron hand, and when he again failed, began to tremble
+and meekly stood still with his fore legs stretched far apart.
+
+"Bravo! Bravamente!" cried the duchess, and praise from such lips
+intoxicated Ulrich. The impulse to make a display, inherited from his
+mother, urged him to take still greater risks. Carefully winding his
+left hand in the stallion's mane, he released his nostrils and swung
+himself on his back. Taken by surprise Satan tried to rid himself of
+his burden, but the rider sat firm, leaned far over the steed's neck,
+stroked--his head again, pressed his flanks and, after the lapse of a
+few minutes, guided him merely by the pressure of his thighs first at
+a walk, then at a trot over the track. At last springing off, he patted
+Satan, who pranced peacefully beside him, and led him by the bridle to
+Don Juan.
+
+The latter measured the tall, brave fellow with a hasty glance, and
+turning, half to him, half to Alexander Farnese, said:
+
+"An enviable trick, and admirable performance, by my love!"
+
+Then he approached the stallion, stroked and patted his shining neck,
+and continued:
+
+"I thank you, young man. You have saved my best horse. But for you I
+should have stabbed him. You are an artist?"
+
+"At your service, Your Highness."
+
+"Your art is beautiful, and you alone know how it suits you. But much
+honor, perhaps also wealth and fame, can be gained among my troopers.
+Will you enlist?"
+
+"No, Your Highness," replied Ulrich, with a low bow. "If I were not
+an artist, I should like best to be a soldier; but I cannot give up my
+art."
+
+"Right, right! Yet... do you think your cure of Satan will be lasting;
+or will the dance begin again to-morrow?"
+
+"Perhaps so; but grant me a week, Your Highness, and the swarthy fellows
+can easily manage him. An hour's training like this every morning, and
+the work will be accomplished. Satan will scarcely be transformed into
+an angel, but probably will become a perfectly steady horse."
+
+"If you succeed," replied Don Juan, joyously, "you will greatly
+oblige me. Come to me next week. If you bring good tidings... consider
+meantime, how I can serve you."
+
+Ulrich did not need to consider long. A week would pass swiftly, and
+then--then the king's brother should send him to Italy. Even his enemies
+knew that he was liberal and magnanimous.
+
+The week passed away, the horse was tamed and bore the saddle quietly.
+Don Juan received Ulrich's petition kindly, and invited him to make
+the journey on the admiral's galley, with the king's ambassador and his
+secretary, de Soto.
+
+The very same day the happy artist obtained a bill of exchange on a
+house on the Rialto, and now it was settled, he was going to Italy.
+
+Coello was obliged to submit, and his kind heart again showed itself;
+for he wrote letters of introduction for Ulrich to his old artist
+friends in Venice, and induced the king to send the great Titian a
+present--which the ambassador was to deliver. The court-artist obtained
+from the latter a promise to present his pupil Navarrete to the
+grey-Haired prince of artists.
+
+Everything was now ready for departure; Ulrich again packed his
+belongings in the studio, but with very different feelings from the
+first time.
+
+He was a man, he now knew what the right "word" was, life lay open
+before him, and the paradise of Art was about to unclose its gates.
+
+The studies he had finished in Madrid aroused his compassion; in Italy
+he would first really begin to become an artist: there work must bring
+him what it had here denied: satisfaction, success! Gay as a boy, half
+frantic with joy, happiness and expectation, he crushed the sketches,
+which seemed to him too miserable, into the waste-paper basket with a
+maul-stick.
+
+During this work of destruction, Isabella entered the room.
+
+She was now sixteen. Her figure had developed early, but remained
+petite. Large, deep, earnest eyes looked forth from the little round
+face, and the fresh, tiny mouth could not help pleasing everyone. Her
+head now reached only to Ulrich's breast, and if he had always treated
+her like a dear, sensible, clever child, her small stature had certainly
+been somewhat to blame for it. To-day she was paler than usual and her
+features were so grave, that the young man asked her in surprise, yet
+full of sympathy:
+
+"What is the matter, little one? Are you not well?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she answered, quickly, "only I must talk with you once more
+alone."
+
+"Do you wish to hear my confession, Belita?"
+
+"Cease jesting now. I am no longer a child. My heart aches, and I must
+not conceal the cause."
+
+"Speak, speak! How you look! One might really be alarmed."
+
+"If I only can! No one here tells you the truth; but I--I love you; so I
+will do it, ere it is too late. Don't interrupt me now, or I shall lose
+courage, and I will, I must speak."
+
+"My studies lately have not pleased you; nor me either. Your father...."
+
+"He has led you in false paths, and now you are going to Italy, and when
+you see what the greatest artists have created, you will wish to imitate
+them immediately and forget Meister Moor's lessons. I know you, Ulrich,
+I know it! But I also know something else, and it must now be said
+frankly. If you allow yourself to be led on to paint pictures, if you do
+not submit to again become a modest pupil, and honestly torment
+yourself with studying, you will make no progress, you will never
+again accomplish a portrait like the one in the old days, like your
+Sophonisba. You will then be no great artist and you can, you must
+become one."
+
+"I will, Belita, I will!"
+
+"Well, well; but first be a pupil! If I were in your place, I would,
+for aught I care, go to Venice and look about me, but from there I would
+ride to Flanders, to Moor, to the master."
+
+"Give up Italy? Can you be in earnest? Your father, himself, told me,
+that I... well, yes... in portrait-painting, he too thinks I am no
+blunderer. Where do the Netherlanders go to learn anything new? To
+Italy, always to Italy! What do they create in Flanders? Portraits,
+portraits, nothing more. Moor is great, very great in this department,
+but I take a very different view of art; it has higher aims. My head is
+full of plans. Wait, only wait! In Italy I shall learn to fly, and when
+I have finished my Holy Family and my Temple of Art, with all the skill
+I intend to attain...."
+
+"Then, then, what will happen then?"
+
+"Then you will perhaps change your opinion and cease your tutoring,
+once for all. This fault-finding, this warning vexes me. It spoils
+my pleasure, it clouds my fancy. You are poisoning my happiness,
+you--you... the croaker's voice is disagreeable to me."
+
+Isabella sadly bent her head in silence. Ulrich approached her, saying:
+
+"I do not wish to wound you, Belita; indeed, I do not. You mean well,
+and you love me, a poor forsaken fellow; do you not, little girl?"
+
+"Yes, Ulrich, and that is just why I have told you what I think. You are
+rejoicing now in the thought of Italy...."
+
+"Very, very much, unspeakably! There, too, I will remember you, and
+what a dear, faithful, wise little creature you are. Let us part in
+friendship, Isabella. Come with me; that would be the best way!"
+
+The young girl flushed deeply, and made no answer except: "How gladly I
+would!"
+
+The words sounded so affectionate and came so tenderly from the inmost
+depths of the heart, that they entered his soul. And while she spoke,
+her eyes gazed so faithfully, lovingly, and yearningly into his, that he
+saw nothing else. He read in them love, true, self-sacrificing love; not
+like pretty Carmen's or that given by the ladies, who had thrown flowers
+to him from their balconies. His heart swelled, and when he saw how
+the flush on Isabella's dear face deepened under his answering glance,
+unspeakable gratitude and joy seized upon him, and he could not help
+clasping her in his arms and drawing her into his embrace.
+
+She permitted it, and when she looked up at him and her soft scarlet
+lips, from which gleamed two rows of dazzling white teeth, bloomed
+temptingly near him, he bent his, he knew not how, towards them. They
+kissed each other again and again, and Isabella flung her little hands
+around his neck, for she could not reach him with her arms, and said
+she had always loved him; he assured her in an agitated voice that he
+believed it, and that there was no better, sweeter, brighter creature
+on earth than she; only he forgot to say that he loved her. She gave, he
+received, and it seemed to him natural.
+
+She saw and felt nothing except him and her happiness; he was wholly
+absorbed by the bliss of being loved and the sweetness of her kiss; so
+neither noticed that Coello had opened the door and watched them for a
+minute, with mingled wrath and pleasure, irresolutely shaking his head.
+
+When the court-artist's deep voice exclaimed loudly:
+
+"Why, why, these are strange doings!" they hastily started back.
+
+Startled, sobered, confused, Ulrich sought for words, and at last
+stammered:
+
+"We have, we wanted... the farewell.... Coello found no time to
+interrupt him, for his daughter had thrown herself on his breast,
+exclaiming amid tears:
+
+"Forgive us, father-forgive us; he loves me, and I, I love him so
+dearly, and now that we belong to each other, I am no longer anxious
+about him, he will not rest, and when he returns...."
+
+"Enough, enough!" interrupted Coello, pressing his hand upon her mouth.
+"That is why a duenna is kept for the child; and this is my sensible
+Belita! It is of no importance, that yonder youth has nothing, I myself
+courted your mother with only three reales in my pocket, but he cannot
+yet do any really good work, and that alters the case. It is not my way
+to dun debtors, I have been in debt too often myself for that; but you,
+Navarrete, have received many favors from me, when you were badly off,
+and if you are not a scamp, leave the girl in peace and do not see her
+again before your departure. When you have studied in Italy and become
+a real artist, the rest will take care of itself. You are already a
+handsome, well-formed fellow, and my race will not degenerate in you.
+There are very different women in Italy, from this dear little creature
+here. Shut your eyes, and beware of breaking her heart. Your promise!
+Your hand upon it! In a year and a half from to-day come here again,
+show what you can do, and stand the test. If you have become what I
+hope, I'll give her to you; if not, you can quietly go your way. You
+will make no objection to this, you silly little, love-sick thing. Go to
+your room now, Belita, and you, Navarrete, come with me."
+
+Ulrich followed the artist to his chamber, where the latter opened a
+chest, in which lay the gold he had earned. He did not know himself, how
+much it was, for it was neither counted, nor entered in books. Grasping
+the ducats, he gave Ulrich two handfuls, exclaiming:
+
+"This one is for your work here, the other to relieve you from any care
+concerning means of living, while pursuing your studies in Venice and
+Florence. Don't make the child wretched, my lad; if you do, you will
+be a contemptible, dishonorable rascal, a scoundrel, a... but you don't
+look like a rogue!"
+
+There was a great deal of bustle in Coello's house that evening. The
+artist's indolent wife was unusually animated. She could not control her
+surprise and wrath. Isabella had been from childhood a great favorite
+of Herrera, the first architect in Spain, who had already expressed his
+love for the young girl, and now this vagabond pauper, this immature
+boy, had come to destroy the prosperity of her child's life.
+
+She upbraided Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and
+called him a thoughtless booby. Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal
+out of the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her
+poor, dazzled, innocent daughter's husband. During the ensuing weeks,
+Senora Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; but
+the painter persisted in his resolution to give Isabella to Ulrich, if
+in a year and a half he returned from Italy a skilful artist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The admiral's ship, which bore King Philip's ambassador to Venice,
+reached its destination safely, though it had encountered many severe
+storms on the voyage, during which Ulrich was the only passenger, who
+amid the rolling and pitching of the vessel, remained as well as an old
+sailor.
+
+But, on the other hand his peace of mind was greatly impaired, and any
+one who had watched him leaning over the ship's bulwark, gazing into the
+sea, or pacing up and down with restless bearing and gloomy eyes, would
+scarcely have suspected that this reserved, irritable youth, who was
+only too often under the dominion of melancholy moods, had won only
+a short time before a noble human heart, and was on the way to the
+realization of his boldest dreams, the fulfilment of his most ardent
+wishes.
+
+How differently he had hoped to enter "the Paradise of Art!"
+
+Never had he been so free, so vigorous, so rich, as in the dawn of the
+day, at whose close he was to unite Isabella's life with his own--and
+now--now!
+
+He had expected to wander through Italy from place to place as
+untrammelled, gay, and free as the birds in the air; he had desired
+to see, admire, en joy, and after becoming familiar with all the great
+artists, choose a new master among them. Sophonisba's home was to have
+become his, and it had never entered his mind to limit the period of his
+enjoyment and study on the sacred soil.
+
+How differently his life must now be ordered! Until he went on board of
+the ship in Valencia, the thought of calling a girl so good, sensible
+and loving as Isabella his own, rejoiced and inspired him, but
+during the solitary hours a sea-voyage so lavishly bestows, a strange
+transformation in his feelings occurred.
+
+The wider became the watery expanse between him and Spain, the farther
+receded Isabella's memory, the less alluring and delightful grew the
+thought of possessing her hand.
+
+He now told himself that, before the fatal hour, he had rejoiced at
+the anticipation of escaping her pedantic criticism, and when he looked
+forward to the future and saw himself, handsome Ulrich Navarrete, whose
+superior height filled the smaller Castilians with envy, walking through
+the streets with his tiny wife, and perceived the smiles of the people
+they met, he was seized with fierce indignation against himself and his
+hard fate.
+
+He felt fettered like the galley-slaves, whose chains rattled and
+clanked, as they pulled at the oars in the ship's waist. At other times
+he could not help recalling her large, beautiful, love-beaming eyes, her
+soft, red lips, and yearningly confess that it would have been sweet to
+hold her in his arms and kiss her, and, since he had forever lost his
+Ruth, he could find no more faithful, sensible, tender wife than she.
+
+But what should he, the student, the wandering disciple of Art, do with
+a bride, a wife? The best and fairest of her sex would now have seemed
+to him an impediment, a wearisome clog. The thought of being obliged to
+accomplish some fixed task within a certain time, and then be subjected
+to an examination, curbed his enjoyment, oppressed, angered him.
+
+Grey mists gathered more and more densely over the sunny land, for which
+he had longed with such passionate ardor, and it seemed as if in that
+luckless hour, he had been faithless to the "word,"--had deprived
+himself of its assistance forever.
+
+He often felt tempted to send Coello his ducats and tell him he had been
+hasty, and cherished no desire to wed his daughter; but perhaps that
+would break the heart of the poor, dear little thing, who loved him so
+tenderly! He would be no dishonorable ingrate, but bear the consequences
+of his own recklessness.
+
+Perhaps some miracle would happen in Italy, Art's own domain. Perhaps
+the sublime goddess would again take him to her heart, and exert on him
+also the power Sophonisba had so fervently praised.
+
+The ambassador and his secretary, de Soto, thought Ulrich an unsocial
+dreamer; but nevertheless, after they reached Venice, the latter invited
+him to share his lodgings, for Don Juan had requested him to interest
+himself in the young artist.
+
+What could be the matter with the handsome fellow? The secretary tried
+to question him, but Ulrich did not betray what troubled him, only
+alluding in general terms to a great anxiety that burdened his mind.
+
+"But the time is now coming when the poorest of the poor, the most
+miserable of all forsaken mortals, cast aside their griefs!" cried de
+Soto. "Day after to morrow the joyous Carnival season will begin! Hold
+up your head, young man! Cast your sorrows into the Grand Canal, and
+until Ash-Wednesday, imagine that heaven has fallen upon earth!"
+
+Oh! blue sea, that washes the lagunes, oh! mast-thronged Lido, oh!
+palace of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward
+gazing, mind, oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold
+and paintings, oh! ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble
+palaces, for which the still surface of the placid water serves as a
+mirror, thou square of St. Mark, where, clad in velvet, silk and gold,
+the richest and freest of all races display their magnificence, with
+just pride! Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet
+of stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another,
+inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures
+by peaceful voyages and with shining blades. Oh! thou Rialto, where gold
+is stored, as wheat and rye are elsewhere;--ye proud nobles, ye fair
+dames with luxuriant tresses, whose raven hue pleases ye not, and which
+ye dye as bright golden as the glittering zechins ye squander with such
+small, yet lavish hands! Oh! Venice, Queen of the sea, mother of riches,
+throne of power, hall of fame, temple of art, who could escape thy
+spell!
+
+What wanton Spring is to the earth, thy carnival season is to thee! It
+transforms the magnificence of color of the lagune-city into a dazzling
+radiance, the smiles to Olympic laughter, the love-whispers to exultant
+songs, the noisy, busy life of the mighty commercial city into a mad
+whirlpool, which draws everything into its circle, and releases nothing
+it has once seized.
+
+De Soto urged and pushed the youth, who had already lost his mental
+equipoise, into the midst of the gulf, ere he had found the right
+current.
+
+On the barges, amid the throngs in the streets, at banquets, in
+ball-rooms, at the gaming-table, everywhere, the young, golden-haired,
+superbly-dressed artist, who was on intimate terms with the Spanish
+king's ambassador, attracted the attention of men, and the eyes,
+curiosity and admiration of the women; though people as yet knew not
+whence he came.
+
+He chose the tallest and most stately of the slender dames of Venice
+to lead in the dance, or through the throng of masks and citizens
+intoxicated with the mirth of the carnival. Whithersoever he led the
+fairest followed.
+
+He wished to enjoy the respite before execution. To forget--to
+forget--to indemnify himself for future seasons of sacrifice, dulness,
+self-conquest, torment.
+
+Poor little Isabella! Your lover sought to enjoy the sensation of
+showing himself to the crowd with the stateliest woman in the company on
+his arm! And you, Ulrich, how did you feel when people exclaimed behind
+you: "A splendid pair! Look at that couple!"
+
+Amid this ecstasy, he needed no helping word, neither "fortune" nor
+"art;" without any magic spell he flew from pleasure to pleasure,
+through every changing scene, thinking only of the present and asking no
+questions about the future.
+
+Like one possessed he plunged into passion's wild whirl. From the
+embrace of beautiful arms he rushed to the gaming-table, where the
+ducats he flung down soon became a pile of gold; the zechins filled his
+purse to overflowing.
+
+The quickly-won treasure melted like snow in the sun, and returned again
+like stray doves to their open cote.
+
+The works of art were only enjoyed with drunken eyes--yet, once more the
+gracious word exerted its wondrous power on the misguided youth.
+
+On Shrove-Tuesday, the ambassador took Ulrich to the great Titian.
+
+He stood face to face with the mighty monarch of colors, listened to
+gracious words from his lips, and saw the nonogenarian, whose tall
+figure was scarcely bowed, receive the king's gifts.
+
+Never, never, to the close of his existence could he forget that face!
+
+The features were as delicately and as clearly outlined, as if cut with
+an engraver's chisel from hard metal; but pallid, bloodless, untinged
+by the faintest trace of color. The long, silver-white beard of the tall
+venerable painter flowed in thick waves over his breast, and the eyes,
+with which he scanned Ulrich, were those of a vigorous, keen-sighted
+man. His voice did not sound harsh, but sad and melancholy; deep sorrow
+shadowed his glance, and stamped itself upon the mouth of him, whose
+thin, aged hand still ensnared the senses easily and surely with gay
+symphonies of color!
+
+The youth answered the distinguished Master's questions with trembling
+lips, and when Titian invited him to share his meal, and Ulrich, seated
+at the lower end of the table in the brilliant banqueting-hall, was told
+by his neighbors with what great men he was permitted to eat, he felt so
+timid, small, and insignificant, that he scarcely ventured to touch the
+goblets and delicious viands the servants offered.
+
+He looked and listened; distinguishing his old master's name, and
+hearing him praised without stint as a portrait-painter. He was
+questioned about him, and gave confused answers.
+
+Then the guests rose.
+
+The February sun was shining into the lofty window, where Titian seated
+himself to talk more gaily than before with Paolo Cagliari, Veronese,
+and other great artists and nobles.
+
+Again Ulrich heard Moor mentioned. Then the old man, from whom the youth
+had not averted his eyes for an instant, beckoned, and Cagliari called
+him, saying that he, the gallant Antonio Moor's pupil, must now show
+what he could do; the Master, Titian, would give him a task.
+
+A shudder ran through his frame; cold drops of perspiration, extorted by
+fear, stood on his brow.
+
+The old man now invited him to accompany his nephew to the studio.
+Daylight would last an hour longer. He might paint a Jew; no usurer nor
+dealer in clothes, but one of the noble race of prophets, disciples,
+apostles.
+
+Ulrich stood before the easel.
+
+For the first time after a long period he again called upon the "word,"
+and did so fervently, with all his heart. His beloved dead, who in the
+tumult of carnival mirth had vanished from his memory, again rose before
+his mind, among them the doctor, who gazed rebukingly at him with his
+clear, thoughtful eyes.
+
+Like an inspiration a thought darted through the youth's brain. He could
+and would paint Costa, his friend and teacher, Ruth's father.
+
+The portrait he had drawn when a boy appeared before his memory, feature
+for feature. A red pencil lay close at hand.
+
+Sketching the outlines with a few hasty strokes, he seized the brush,
+and while hurriedly guiding it and mixing the colors, he saw in fancy
+Costa standing before him, asking him to paint his portrait.
+
+Ulrich had never forgotten the mild expression of the eyes, the smile
+hovering about the delicate lips, and now delineated them as well as
+he could. The moments slipped by, and the portrait gained roundness and
+life. The youth stepped back to see what it still needed, and once more
+called upon the "word" from the inmost depths of his heart; at the same
+instant the door opened, and leaning on a younger painter, Titian, with
+several other artists, entered the studio.
+
+He looked at the picture, then at Ulrich, and said with an approving
+smile: "See, see! Not too much of the Jew, and a perfect apostle!
+A Paul, or with longer hair and a little more youthful aspect, an
+admirable St. John. Well done, well done! my son!"
+
+Well done, well done! These words from Titian had ennobled his work;
+they echoed loudly in his soul, and the measure of his bliss threatened
+to overflow, when no less a personage than the famous Paolo Veronese,
+invited him to come to his studio as a pupil on Saturday.
+
+Enraptured, animated by fresh hope, he threw himself into his gondola.
+
+Everyone had left the palace, where he lodged with de Soto. Who would
+remain at home on the evening of Shrove-Tuesday?
+
+The lonely rooms grew too confined for him.
+
+Quiet days would begin early the next morning, and on Saturday a new,
+fruitful life in the service of the only true word, Art, divine
+Art, would commence for him. He would enjoy this one more evening of
+pleasure, this night of joy; drain it to the dregs. He fancied he had
+won a right that day to taste every bliss earth could give.
+
+Torches, pitch-pans and lamps made the square of St. Mark's as bright as
+day, and the maskers crowded upon its smooth pavement as if it were the
+floor of an immense ball-room.
+
+Intoxicating music, loud laughter, low, tender whispers, sweet odors
+from the floating tresses of fair women bewildered Ulrich's senses,
+already confused by success and joy. He boldly accosted every one,
+and if he suspected that a fair face was concealed under a mask, drew
+nearer, touched the strings of a lute, that hung by a purple ribbon
+round his neck, and in the notes of a tender song besought love.
+
+Many a wave of the fan rewarded, many an angry glance from men's dark
+eyes rebuked the bold wooer. A magnificent woman of queenly height now
+passed, leaning on the arm of a richly-dressed cavalier.
+
+Was not that the fair Claudia, who a short time before had lost enormous
+sums at the gaming-table in the name of the rich Grimani, and who had
+invited Ulrich to visit her later, during Lent?
+
+It was, he could not be mistaken, and now followed the pair like a
+shadow, growing bolder and bolder the more angrily the cavalier rebuffed
+him with wrathful glances and harsh words; for the lady did not cease
+to signify that she recognized him and enjoyed his playing. But the
+nobleman was not disposed to endure this offensive sport. Pausing in the
+middle of the square, he released his arm with a contemptuous gesture,
+saying: "The lute-player, or I, my fair one; you can decide----"
+
+The Venetian laughed loudly, laid her hand on Ulrich's arm and said:
+"The rest of the Shrove-Tuesday night shall be yours, my merry singer."
+
+Ulrich joined in her gayety, and taking the lute from his neck, offered
+it to the cavalier, with a defiant gesture, exclaiming:
+
+"It's at your disposal, Mask; we have changed parts. But please hold it
+firmer than you held your lady." High play went on in the gaming hall;
+Claudia was lucky with the artist's gold.
+
+At midnight the banker laid down the cards. It was Ash-Wednesday, the
+hall must be cleared; the quiet Lenten season had begun.
+
+The players withdrew into the adjoining rooms, among them the
+much-envied couple.
+
+Claudia threw herself upon a couch; Ulrich left her to procure a
+gondola.
+
+As soon as he was gone, she was surrounded by a motley throng of
+suitors.
+
+How the beautiful woman's dark eyes sparkled, how the gems on her
+full neck and dazzling arms glittered, how readily she uttered a witty
+repartee to each gay sally.
+
+"Claudia unaccompanied!" cried a young noble. "The strangest sight at
+this remarkable carnival!"
+
+"I am fasting," she answered gaily; "and now that I long for meagre
+food, you come! What a lucky chance!"
+
+"Heavy Grimani has also become a very light man, with your assistance."
+
+"That's why he flew away. Suppose you follow him?"
+
+"Gladly, gladly, if you will accompany me."
+
+"Excuse me to-day; there comes my knight."
+
+Ulrich had remained absent a long time, but Claudia had not noticed
+it. Now he bowed to the gentlemen, offered her his arm, and as they
+descended the staircase, whispered: "The mask who escorted you just now
+detained me;--and there... see, they are picking him up down there in
+the court-yard.--He attacked me...."
+
+"You have--you...."
+
+"'They came to his assistance immediately. He barred my way with his
+unsheathed blade."
+
+Claudia hastily drew her hand from the artist's arm, exclaiming in a
+low, anxious tone: "Go, go, unhappy man, whoever you may be! It was
+Luigi Grimani; it was a Grimani! You are lost, if they find you. Go, if
+you love your life, go at once!"
+
+So ended the Shrove-Tuesday, which had begun so gloriously for the young
+artist. Titian's "well done" no longer sounded cheerfully in his ears,
+the "go, go," of the venal woman echoed all the more loudly.
+
+De Soto was waiting for him, to repeat to him the high praise he had
+heard bestowed upon his art-test at Titian's; but Ulrich heard nothing,
+for he gave the secretary no time to speak, and the latter could only
+echo the beautiful Claudia's "go, go!" and then smooth the way for his
+flight.
+
+When the morning of Ash-Wednesday dawned cool and misty, Venice
+lay behind the young artist. Unpursued, but without finding rest or
+satisfaction, he went to Parma, Bologna, Pisa, Florence.
+
+Grimani's death burdened his conscience but lightly. Duelling was a
+battle in miniature, to kill one's foe no crime, but a victory. Far
+different anxieties tortured him.
+
+Venice, whither the "word" had led him, from which he had hoped and
+expected everything, was lost to him, and with it Titian's favor and
+Cagliari's instruction.
+
+He began to doubt himself, his future, the sublime word and its magic
+spell. The greater the works which the traveller's eyes beheld, the more
+insignificant he felt, the more pitiful his own powers, his own skill
+appeared.
+
+"Draw, draw!" advised every master to whom he applied, as soon as he
+had seen his work. The great men, to whom he offered himself as a pupil,
+required years of persevering study. But his time was limited, for the
+misguided youth's faithful German heart held firmly to one resolve; he
+must present himself to Coello at the end of the appointed time. The
+happiness of his life was forfeited, but no one should obtain the right
+to call him faithless to his word, or a scoundrel.
+
+In Florence he heard Sebastiano Filippi--who had been a pupil of Michael
+Angelo-praised as a good drawer; so he sought him in Ferrara and found
+him ready to teach him what he still lacked. But the works of the new
+master did not please him. The youth, accustomed to Moor's wonderful
+clearness, Titian's brilliant hues, found Filippi's pictures indistinct,
+as if veiled by grey mists. Yet he forced himself to remain with him for
+months, for he was really remarkably skilful in drawing, and his studio
+never lacked nude models; he needed them for the preliminary studies for
+his "Day of Judgment."
+
+Without satisfaction, without pleasure in the wearisome work, without
+love for the sickly master, who held aloof from any social intercourse
+with him when the hours of labor were over, he felt discontented, bored,
+disenchanted.
+
+In the evening he sought diversion at the gaming-table, and fortune
+favored him here as it had done in Venice. His purse overflowed with
+zechins; but with the red gold, Art withdrew from him her powerful ally,
+necessity, the pressing need of gaining a livelihood by the exertion of
+his own strength.
+
+He spent the hours appointed for study like a careless lover, and worked
+without inclination, without pleasure, without ardor, yet with visible
+increase of skill.
+
+In gambling he forgot what tortured him, it stirred his blood, dispelled
+weariness; the gold was nothing to him.
+
+The lion's share of his gains he loaned to broken gamblers, without
+expectation of return, gave to starving artists, or flung with lavish
+hand to beggars.
+
+So the months in Ferrara glided by, and when the allotted time was over,
+he took leave of Sebastiano Filippi without regret. He returned by sea
+to Spain, and arrived in Madrid richer than he had gone away, but with
+impoverished confidence in his own powers, and doubting the omnipotence
+of Art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Ulrich again stood before the Alcazar, and recalled the hour when, a
+poor lad, just escaped from prison, he had been harshly rebuffed by
+the same porter, who now humbly saluted the young gentleman attired in
+costly velvet.
+
+And yet how gladly he would have crossed this threshold poor as in those
+days, but free and with a soul full of enthusiasm and hope; how joyfully
+he would have effaced from his life the years that lay between that time
+and the present.
+
+He dreaded meeting the Coellos; nothing but honor urged him to present
+himself to them.
+
+Yes--and if the old man rejected him?--so much the better!
+
+The old cheerful confusion reigned in the studio. He had a long time to
+wait there, and then heard through several doors Senora Petra's scolding
+voice and her husband's angry replies.
+
+At last Coello came to him and after greeting him, first formally, then
+cordially, and enquiring about his health and experiences, he shrugged
+his shoulders, saying:
+
+"My wife does not wish you to see Isabella again before the trial.
+You must show what you can do, of course; but I.... you look well and
+apparently have collected reales. Or is it true," and he moved his hand
+as if shaking a dice-box. "He who wins is a good fellow, but we want no
+more to do with such people here! You find me the same as of old, and
+you have returned at the right time, that is something. De Soto has told
+me about your quarrel in Venice. The great masters were pleased with
+you and this, you Hotspur, you forfeited! Ferrara for Venice! A poor
+exchange. Filippi--understands drawing; but otherwise.... Michael
+Angelo's pupil! Does he still write on his back? Every monk is God's
+servant, but in how few does the Lord dwell! What have you drawn with
+Sebastiano?"
+
+Ulrich answered these questions in a subdued tone; and Coello listened
+with only partial attention, for he heard his wife telling the duenna
+Catalina in an adjoining room what she thought of her husband's conduct.
+She did so very loudly, for she wished to be overheard by him and
+Ulrich. But she was not to obtain her purpose, for Coello suddenly
+interrupted the returned travellers story, saying:
+
+"This is getting beyond endurance. If she does her utmost, you shall
+see Isabella. A welcome, a grasp of the hand, nothing more. Poor young
+lovers! If only it did not require such a confounded number of things to
+live.... Well, we will see!"
+
+As soon as the artist had entered the adjoining room, a new and more
+violent quarrel arose there, but, though Senora Petra finally called a
+fainting-fit to her aid, her husband remained firm, and at last returned
+to the studio with Isabella.
+
+Ulrich had awaited her, as a criminal expects his sentence. Now she
+stood before him led by her father's hand-and he, he struck his forehead
+with his fist, closed his eyes and opened them again to look at her--to
+gaze as if he beheld a wondrous apparition. Then feeling as if he should
+die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew
+not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save
+"I... I--I," then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a madman:
+
+"You don't know! I am not.... Give me time, master. Here, here, girl,
+you must, you shall, all must not be over!"
+
+He had opened his arms wide, and now hastily approached her with the
+eager look of the gambler, who has staked his last penny on a card.
+
+Coello's daughter did not obey.
+
+She was no longer little, unassuming Belita; here stood no child, but
+a beautiful, blooming maiden. In eighteen months her figure had gained
+height; anxious yearning and constant contention with her mother had
+wasted her superabundance of flesh; her face had become oval, her
+bearing self-possessed. Her large, clear eyes now showed their full
+beauty, her half-developed features had acquired exquisite symmetry, and
+her raven-black hair floated, like a shining ornament, around her pale,
+charming face.
+
+"Happy will be the man, who is permitted to call this woman his own!"
+cried a voice in the youth's breast, but another voice whispered "Lost,
+lost, forfeited, trifled away!"
+
+Why did she not obey his call? Why did she not rush into his open arms?
+Why, why?
+
+He clenched his fists, bit his lips, for she did not stir, except to
+press closely to her father's side.
+
+This handsome, splendidly-dressed gentleman, with the pointed beard,
+deep-set eyes, and stern, gloomy gaze, was an entirely different person
+from the gay enthusiastic follower of art, for whom her awakening heart
+had first throbbed more quickly; this was not the future master, who
+stood before her mind as a glorious favorite of fortune and the muse,
+transfigured by joyous creation and lofty success--this defiant giant
+did not look like an artist. No, no; yonder man no longer resembled the
+Ulrich, to whom, in the happiest hour of her life, she had so willingly,
+almost too willingly, offered her pure lips.
+
+Isabella's young heart contracted with a chill, yet she saw that he
+longed for her; she knew, could not deny, that she had bound herself to
+him body and soul, and yet--yet, she would so gladly have loved him.
+
+She strove to speak, but could find no words, save "Ulrich, Ulrich," and
+these did not sound gay and joyous, but confused and questioning.
+
+Coello felt her fingers press his shoulder closer and closer. She was
+surely seeking protection and aid from him, to keep her promise and
+resist her lover's passionate appeal.
+
+Now his darling's eyes filled with tears, and he felt the tremor of her
+limbs.
+
+Softened by affectionate weakness and no longer able to resist the
+impulse to see his little Belita happy, he whispered:
+
+"Poor thing, poor young lovers! Do as you choose, I won't look."
+
+But Isabella did not leave him; she only drew herself up higher,
+summoned all her courage and looking the returned traveller more
+steadily in the face, said:
+
+"You are so changed, so entirely changed, Ulrich I cannot tell what has
+come over me. I have anticipated this hour day and night, and now it is
+here;--what is this? What has placed itself between us?"
+
+"What, indeed!" he indignantly exclaimed, advancing towards her with a
+threatening air. "What? Surely you must know! Your mother has destroyed
+your regard for the poor bungler. Here I stand! Have I kept my promise,
+yes or no? Have I become a monster, a venomous serpent? Do not look at
+me so again, do not! It will do no good; to you or me. I will not allow
+myself to be trifled with!"
+
+Ulrich had shouted these words, as if some great injustice had been done
+him, and he believed himself in the right.
+
+Coello tried to release himself from his daughter, to confront the
+passionately excited man, but she held him back, and with a pale face
+and trembling voice, but proud and resolute manner, answered:
+
+"No one has trifled with you, I least of all; my love has been earnest,
+sacred earnest."
+
+"Earnest!" interrupted Ulrich, with cutting irony.
+
+"Yes, yes, sacred earnest;--and when my mother told me you had killed a
+man and left Venice for a worthless woman's sake, when it was rumored,
+that in Ferrara you had become a gambler, I thought: 'I know him better,
+they are slandering him to destroy the love you bear in your heart.' I
+did not believe it; but now I do. I believe it, and shall do so, till
+you have withstood your trial. For the gambler I am too good, to the
+artist Navarrete I will joyfully keep my promise. Not a word, I will
+hear no more. Come, father! If he loves me, he will understand how to
+win me. I am afraid of this man."
+
+Ulrich now knew who was in fault, and who in the right. Strong impulse
+urged him away from the studio, away from Art and his betrothed bride;
+for he had forfeited all the best things in life.
+
+But Coello barred his way. He was not the man, for the sake of a brawl
+and luck at play, to break friendship with the faithful companion, who
+had shown distinctly enough how fondly he loved his darling. He had
+hidden behind these bushes himself in his youth, and yet become a
+skilful artist and good husband.
+
+He willingly yielded to his wife in small matters, in important ones
+he meant to remain master of the house. Herrera was a great scholar and
+artist, but an insignificant man; and he allowed himself to be paid
+like a bungler. Ulrich's manly beauty had pleased him, and under his,
+Coello's teaching, he would make his mark. He, the father knew better
+what suited Isabella than she herself. Girls do not sob so bitterly
+as she had done, as soon as the door of the studio closed behind her,
+unless they are in love.
+
+Whence did she obtain this cool judgment? Certainly not from him, far
+less from her mother.
+
+Perhaps she only wished to arouse Navarrete to do his best at the trial.
+Coello smiled; it was in his power to judge mildly.
+
+So he detained Ulrich with cheering words, and gave him a task in which
+he could probably succeed. He was to paint a Madonna and Child, and two
+months were allowed him for the work. There was a studio in the Casa
+del Campo, he could paint there and need only promise never to visit the
+Alcazar before the completion of the work.
+
+Ulrich consented. Isabella must be his. Scorn for scorn!
+
+She should learn which was the stronger.
+
+He knew not whether he loved or hated her, but her resistance had
+passionately inflamed his longing to call her his. He was determined,
+by summoning all his powers, to create a masterpiece. What Titian had
+approved must satisfy a Coello! so he began the task.
+
+A strong impulse urged him to sketch boldly and without long
+consideration, the picture of the Madonna, as it had once lived in his
+soul, but he restrained himself, repeating the warning words which had
+so often been dinned into his ears: Draw, draw!
+
+A female model was soon found; but instead of trusting his eyes and
+boldly reproducing what he beheld, he measured again and again, and
+effaced what the red pencil had finished. While painting his courage
+rose, for the hair, flesh, and dress seemed to him to become true to
+nature and effective. But he, who in better times had bound himself
+heart and soul to Art and served her with his whole soul, in this
+picture forced himself to a method of work, against which his inmost
+heart rebelled. His model was beautiful, but he could read nothing
+in the regular features, except that they were fair, and the lifeless
+countenance became distasteful to him. The boy too caused him great
+trouble, for he lacked appreciation of the charm of childish innocence,
+the spell of childish character.
+
+Meantime he felt great secret anxiety. The impulse that moved his brush
+was no longer the divine pleasure in creation of former days, but dread
+of failure, and ardent, daily increasing love for Isabella.
+
+Weeks elapsed.
+
+Ulrich lived in the lonely little palace to which he had retired,
+avoiding all society, toiling early and late with restless, joyless
+industry, at a work which pleased him less with every new day.
+
+Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park. Once the Emperor's
+son called to him:
+
+"Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?"
+
+But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its
+omnipotence. The nearer the second month approached its close, the more
+frequently, the more fervently he called upon the "word," but it did not
+hear.
+
+When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek
+brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield,
+and to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole
+hours, till the sacristan put out the lights.
+
+He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
+humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
+him.
+
+Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
+fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they
+were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the
+gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.
+
+One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted
+time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted
+into his brain like a revelation.
+
+A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.
+
+What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.
+
+Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been
+fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?
+
+He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
+remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette's joyous expression,
+while the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth
+of the musician's daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin's lips.
+
+Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
+resembled his own!
+
+The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
+bright the painting seemed. He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
+transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
+Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams
+behind the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the
+Handsome nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother's lap to set
+him on their shoulders.
+
+Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the "joyous art," in whose
+honor Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian's banquets, started up,
+drained a glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window
+into the canal.
+
+He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
+against Isabella. She had led him back into the right path, and it would
+be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
+gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.
+
+One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
+Madonna was completed.
+
+The Spanish artist appeared at noon, but did not come alone, and the
+man, who preceded him, was no less important a personage than the king
+himself.
+
+With throbbing heart, unable to utter a single word, Ulrich opened
+the door of the studio, bowing low before the monarch, who without
+vouchsafing him a single glance, walked solemnly to the painting.
+
+Coello drew aside the cloth that covered it, and the sarcastic chuckle
+Ulrich had so often heard instantly echoed from the king's lips; then
+turning to Coello he angrily exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the
+young artist:
+
+"Scandalous! Insulting, offensive botchwork! A Bacchante in the garb of
+a Madonna! And the child! Look at those legs! When he grows up, he may
+become a dancing-master. He who paints such Madonnas should drop his
+colors! His place is the stable--among refractory horses."
+
+Coello could make no reply, but the king, glancing at the picture again,
+cried wrathfully:
+
+"A Christian's work, a Christian's! What does the reptile who painted
+this know of the mother, the Virgin, the stainless lily, the thornless
+rose, the path by which God came to men, the mother of sorrow, who
+bought the world with her tears, as Christ did with His sacred blood. I
+have seen enough, more than enough! Escovedo is waiting for me outside!
+We will discuss the triumphal arch to-morrow!"
+
+Philip left the studio, the court-artist accompanying him to the door.
+
+When he returned, the unhappy youth was still standing in the same
+place, gazing, panting for breath, at his condemned work.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Coello, compassionately, approaching him; but Ulrich
+interrupted, gasping in broken accents:
+
+"And you, you? Your verdict!"
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders and answered with sincere pity:
+
+"His Majesty is not indulgent; but come here and look yourself. I will
+not speak of the child, though it.... In God's name, let us leave it as
+it is. The picture impresses me as it did the king, and the Madonna--I
+grieve to say it, she belongs anywhere rather than in Heaven. How
+often this subject is painted! If Meister Antonio, if Moor should see
+this...."
+
+"Then, then?" asked Ulrich, his eyes glowing with a gloomy fire.
+
+"He would compel you to begin at the beginning once more. I am sincerely
+sorry for you, and not less so for poor Belita. My wife will triumph!
+You know I have always upheld your cause; but this luckless work...."
+
+"Enough!" interrupted the youth. Rushing to the picture, he thrust his
+maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.
+
+Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with
+kindly words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:
+
+"It is all over with art, all over. A Dios, Master! Your daughter does
+not care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do
+with each other."
+
+At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last
+held out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.
+
+The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured
+in an agitated, trembling voice:
+
+"Forgive this raving.... It is only.. I only feel, as if I was bearing
+all that had been dear to me to the grave. Thanks, Master, thanks
+for many kindnesses. I am, I have--my heart--my brain, everything is
+confused. I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me and
+I, I have--it will kill me yet! Good fortune gone! Art gone! A Dios,
+treacherous world! A Dios, divine art!"
+
+As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist's
+grasp, rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his
+lips to the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture;
+then he dashed past Coello into the street.
+
+The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
+park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.
+
+Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
+She had stood there a long, long time.
+
+"Father!" she called.
+
+Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
+compassionately waving his hand.
+
+The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when
+the artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark
+eyes, which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and
+said in a low, firm tone:
+
+"I want to speak to him. You will take me to the picture. I must see
+it."
+
+"He has thrust his maul-stick through it. Believe me, child, you would
+have condemned it yourself."
+
+"And yet, yet! I must see it," she answered earnestly, "see it
+with these eyes. I feel, I know--he is an artist. Wait, I'll get my
+mantilla."
+
+Isabella hurried back with flying feet, and when a short time after,
+wearing the black lace kerchief on her head, she descended the staircase
+by her father's side, the private secretary de Soto came towards them,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Do you want to hear the latest news, Coello? Your pupil Navarrete has
+become faithless to you and the noble art of painting. Don Juan gave him
+the enlistment money fifteen minutes ago. Better be a good trooper, than
+a mediocre artist! What is the matter, Senorita?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," Isabella murmured gently, and fell fainting on her
+father's breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Two years had passed. A beautiful October day was dawning; no cloud
+dimmed the azure sky, and the sun's disk rose, glowing crimson, behind
+the narrow strait, that afforded ingress to the Gulf of Corinth.
+
+The rippling waves of the placid sea, which here washed the sunny shores
+of Hellas, yonder the shady coasts of the Peloponnesus, glittered like
+fresh blooming blue-bottles.
+
+Bare, parched rocks rise in naked beauty at the north of the bay, and
+the rays of the young day-star shot golden threads through the light
+white mists, that floated around them.
+
+The coast of Morea faces the north; so dense shadows still rested on the
+stony olive-groves and the dark foliage of the pink laurel and oleander
+bushes, whose dense clumps followed the course of the stream and filled
+the ravines.
+
+How still, how pleasant it usually was here in the early morning!
+
+White sea-gulls hovered peacefully over the waves, a fishing-boat or
+galley glided gently along, making shining furrows in the blue mirror
+of the water; but today the waves curled under the burden of countless
+ships, to-day thousands of long oars lashed the sea, till the surges
+splashed high in the air with a wailing, clashing sound. To-day there
+was a loud clanking, rattling, roaring on both sides of the water-gate,
+which afforded admittance to the Bay of Lepanto.
+
+The roaring and shouting reverberated in mighty echoes from the bare
+northern cliffs, but were subdued by the densely wooded southern shore.
+
+Two vast bodies of furious foes confronted each other like wrestlers,
+who stretch their sinewy arms to grasp and hurl their opponents to the
+ground.
+
+Pope Pius the Fifth had summoned Christianity to resist the
+land-devouring power of the Ottomans. Cyprus, Christian Cyprus, the last
+province Venice possessed in the Levant, had fallen into the hands
+of the Moslems. Spain and Venice had formed an alliance with Christ's
+vicegerent; Genoese, other Italians, and the Knights of St. John were
+assembling in Messina to aid the league.
+
+The finest and largest Christian armada, which had left a Christian
+port for a long time, put forth to sea from this harbor. In spite of
+all intrigues, King Philip had entrusted the chief command to his young
+half-brother, Don Juan of Austria.
+
+The Ottomans too had not been idle, and with twelve myriads of soldiers
+on three hundred ships, awaited the foe in the Gulf of Lepanto.
+
+Don Juan made no delay. The Moslems had recently murdered thousands of
+Christians at Cyprus, an outrage the fiery hero could not endure, so he
+cast to the winds the warnings and letters of counsel from Madrid,
+which sought to curb his impetuous energy, his troops, especially the
+Venetians, were longing for vengeance.
+
+But the Moslems were no less eager for the fray, and at the close of his
+council-of-war, and contrary to its decision, Kapudan Pacha sailed to
+meet the enemy.
+
+On the morning of October 7th every ship, every man was ready for
+battle.
+
+The sun appeared, and from the Spanish ships musical bell-notes rose
+towards heaven, blending with the echoing chant: "Allahu akbar, allahu
+akbar, allahu akbar," and the devout words: "There is no God save Allah,
+and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah; to prayer!"
+
+"To prayer!" The iron tongue of the bell uttered the summons, as well
+as the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the
+worshippers to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead
+of a ship. On both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and
+Christians thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One heard
+them.
+
+The bells and chanting died away, and a swift galley with Don Juan on
+board, moved from ship to ship. The young hero, holding a crucifix in
+his hand, shouted encouraging words to the Christian soldiers.
+
+The blare of trumpets, roll of drums, and shouts of command echoed from
+the rocky shores.
+
+The armada moved forward, the admiral's galley, with Don Juan, at its
+head.
+
+The Turkish fleet advanced to meet it.
+
+The young lion no longer asked the wise counsel of the experienced
+admiral. He desired nothing, thought of nothing, issued no orders,
+except "forward," "attack," "board," "kill," "sink," "destroy!"
+
+The hostile fleets clashed into the fight as bulls, bellowing sullenly,
+rush upon each other with lowered heads and bloodshot eyes.
+
+Who, on this day of vengeance, thought of Marco Antonio Colonna's plan
+of battle, or the wise counsels of Doria, Venieri, Giustiniani?
+
+Not the clear brain and keen eye--but manly courage and strength would
+turn the scale to-day. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, had joined
+his young uncle a short time before, and now commanded a squadron of
+Genoese ships in the front. He was to keep back till Doria ordered
+him to enter the battle. But Don Juan had already boarded the vessel
+commanded by the Turkish admiral, scaled the deck, and with a heavy
+sword-stroke felled Kapudan Pacha. Alexander witnessed the scene, his
+impetuous, heroic courage bore him on, and he too ordered: "Forward!"
+
+What was the huge ship he was approaching? The silver crescent decked
+its scarlet pennon, rows of cannon poured destruction from its sides,
+and its lofty deck was doubly defended by bearded wearers of the turban.
+
+It was the treasure-galley of the Ottoman fleet. It would be a gallant
+achievement could the prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of
+the foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of
+its crew, than Farnese's vessel. What did he care, what recked he of the
+shower of bullets and tar-hoops that awaited him?
+
+Up and at them.
+
+Doria made warning signals, but the prince paid no heed, he would
+neither see nor hear them.
+
+Brave soldiers fell bleeding and gasping on the deck beside him, his
+mast was split and came crashing down. "Who'll follow me?" he shouted,
+resting his hand on the bulwark.
+
+The tried Spanish warriors, with whom Don Juan had manned his vessel,
+hesitated. Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging
+over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the
+tall youth's eyes.
+
+Every one on board knew the fair-haired giant. It was the favorite of
+the commander in chief--it was Navarrete, who in the war against the
+Moors of Cadiz and Baza had performed many an envied deed of valor. His
+arm seemed made of steel; he valued his life no more than one of the
+plumes in his helmet, and risked it in battle as recklessly as he did
+his zechins at the gaming-table.
+
+Here, as well as there, he remained the winner.
+
+No one knew exactly whence he came as he never mentioned his family,
+for he was a reserved, unsocial man; but on the voyage to Lepanto he
+had formed a friendship with a sick soldier, Don Miguel Cervantes. The
+latter could tell marvellous tales, and had his own peculiar opinions
+about everything between heaven and earth.
+
+Navarrete, who carried his head as high as the proudest grandee, devoted
+every leisure hour to his suffering comrade, uniting the affection of a
+brother, with the duties of a servant.
+
+It was known that Navarrete had once been an artist, and he seemed
+one of the most fervent of the devout Castilians, for he entered every
+church and chapel the army passed, and remained standing a long, long
+time before many a Madonna and altar-painting as if spellbound.
+
+Even the boldest dared not attack him, for death hovered over his sword,
+yet his heart had not hardened. He gave winnings and booty with lavish
+hand, and every beggar was sure of assistance.
+
+He avoided women, but sought the society of the sick and wounded, often
+watching all night beside the couch of some sorely-injured comrade, and
+this led to the rumor that he liked to witness death.
+
+Ah, no! The heart of the proud, lonely man only sought a place where it
+might be permitted to soften; the soldier, bereft of love, needed some
+nook where he could exercise on others what was denied to himself:
+"devoted affection."
+
+Alexander Farnese recognized in Navarrete the horse-tamer of the
+picadero in Madrid; he nodded approvingly to him, and mounted the
+bulwark. But the other did not follow instantly, for his friend Don
+Miguel had joined him, and asked to share the adventure. Navarrete and
+the captain strove to dissuade the sick man, but the latter suddenly
+felt cured of his fever, and with flashing eyes insisted on having his
+own way.
+
+Ulrich did not wait for the end of the dispute, for Farnese was now
+springing into the hostile ship, and the former, with a bold leap,
+followed.
+
+Alexander, like himself, carried a two-Banded sword, and both swung
+them as mowers do their scythes. They attacked, struck, felled, and
+the foremost foes shrank from the grim destroyers. Mustapha Pacha, the
+treasurer and captain of the galley, advanced in person to confront the
+terrible Christians, and a sword-stroke from Alexander shattered the
+hand that held the curved sabre, a second stretched the Moslem on the
+deck.
+
+But the Turks' numbers were greatly superior and threatened to crush the
+heroes, when Don Miguel Cervantes, Ulrich's friend, appeared with
+twelve fresh soldiers on the scene of battle, and cut their way to the
+hard-pressed champions. Other Spanish and Genoese warriors followed and
+the fray became still more furious.
+
+Ulrich had been forced far away from his royal companion-in-arms, and
+was now swinging his blade beside his invalid friend. Don Miguel's
+breast was already bleeding from two wounds, and he now fell by Ulrich's
+side; a bullet had broken his left arm.
+
+Ulrich stooped and raised him; his men surrounded him, and the Turks
+were scattered, as the tempest sweeps clouds from the mountain.
+
+Don Miguel tried to lift the sword, which had dropped from his grasp,
+but he only clutched the empty air, and raising his large eyes as if
+in ecstasy, pressed his hand upon his bleeding breast, exclaiming
+enthusiastically: "Wounds are stars; they point the way to the heaven of
+fame-of-fame...."
+
+His senses failed, and Ulrich bore him in his strong aims to a part of
+the treasure-ship, which was held by Genoese soldiers. Then he rushed
+into the fight again, while in his ears still rang his friend's fervid
+words:
+
+"The heaven of fame!"
+
+That was the last, the highest aim of man! Fame, yes surely fame was the
+"word"; it should henceforth be his word!
+
+It seemed as if a gloomy multitude of heavy thunderclouds had gathered
+over the still, blue arm of the sea. The stifling smoke of powder
+darkened the clear sky like black vapors, while flashes of lightning and
+peals of thunder constantly illumined and shook the dusky atmosphere.
+
+Here a magazine flew through the air, there one ascended with a fierce
+crash towards the sky. Wails of pain and shouts of victory, the blare
+of trumpets, the crash of shattered ships and falling masts blended in
+hellish uproar.
+
+The sun's light was obscured, but the gigantic frames of huge burning
+galleys served for torches to light the combatants.
+
+When twilight closed in, the Christians had gained a decisive victory.
+Don Juan had killed the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman force, Ali
+Pacha, as Farnese hewed down the treasurer. Uncle and nephew emerged
+from the battle as heroes worthy of renown, but the glory of this
+victory clung to Don Juan's name.
+
+Farnese's bold assault was kindly rebuked by the commander-in-chief,
+and when the former praised Navarrete's heroic aid before Don Juan,
+the general gave the bold warrior and gallant trooper, the honorable
+commission of bearing tidings of the victory to the king. Two galleys
+stood out to sea in a westerly direction at the same time: a Spanish
+one, bearing Don Juan's messenger, and a Venetian ship, conveying the
+courier of the Republic.
+
+The rowers of both vessels had much difficulty in forcing a way through
+the wreckage, broken masts and planks, the multitude of dead bodies and
+net work of cordage, which covered the surface of the water; but even
+amid these obstacles the race began.
+
+The wind and sea were equally favorable to both galleys; but the
+Venetians outstripped the Spaniards and dropped anchor at Alicante
+twenty-four hours before the latter.
+
+It was the rider's task, to make up for the time lost by the sailors.
+The messenger of the Republic was far in advance of the general's.
+Everywhere that Ulrich changed horses, displaying at short intervals
+the prophet's banner, which he was to deliver to the king as the fairest
+trophy of victory--it was inscribed with Allah's name twenty-eight
+thousand nine hundred times--he met rejoicing throngs, processions, and
+festal decorations.
+
+Don Juan's name echoed from the lips of men and women, girls and
+children. This was fame, this was the omnipresence of a god; there could
+be no higher aspiration for him, who had obtained such honor.
+
+Fame, fame! again echoed in Ulrich's soul; if there is a word, which
+raises a man above himself and implants his own being in that of
+millions of fellow-creatures, it is this.
+
+And now he urged one steed after another until it broke down, giving
+himself no rest even at night; half an hour's ride outside of Madrid he
+overtook the Venetian, and passed by him with a courteous greeting.
+
+The king was not in the capital, and he went on without delay to the
+Escurial.
+
+Covered with dust, splashed from head to foot with mud, bruised,
+tortured as if on the rack, he clung to the saddle, yet never ceased to
+use whip and spur, and would trust his message to no other horseman.
+
+Now the barren peaks of the Guadarrama mountains lay close before him,
+now he reached the first workshops, where iron was being forged for the
+gigantic palace in process of building. How many chimneys smoked, how
+many hands were toiling for this edifice, which was to comprise a royal
+residence, a temple, a peerless library, a museum and a tomb.
+
+Numerous carts and sledges, on which blocks of light grey granite had
+been drawn hither, barred his way. He rode around them at the peril of
+falling with his horse over a precipice, and now found himself before
+a labyrinth of scaffolds and free-stone, in the midst of a wild, grey,
+treeless mountain valley. What kind of a man was this, who had chosen
+this desert for his home, in life as well as in death! The Escurial
+suited King Philip, as King Philip suited the Escurial. Here he felt
+most at ease, from here the royal spider ceaselessly entangled the world
+in his skilful nets.
+
+His majesty was attending vespers in the scarcely completed chapel. The
+chief officer of the palace, Fray Antonio de Villacastin, seeing
+Ulrich slip from his horse, hastened to receive the tottering soldier's
+tidings, and led him to the church.
+
+The 'confiteor' had just commenced, but Fray Antonio motioned to the
+priests, who interrupted the Mass, and Ulrich, holding the prophet's
+standard high aloft, exclaimed: "An unparalleled victory!--Don Juan ...
+October 7th...! at Lepanto--the Ottoman navy totally destroyed...!"
+
+Philip heard this great news and saw the standard, but seemed to have
+neither eyes nor ears; not a muscle in his face stirred, no movement
+betrayed that anything was passing in his mind. Murmuring in a
+sarcastic, rather than a joyous tone: "Don Juan has dared much," he gave
+a sign, without opening the letter, to continue the Mass, remaining on
+his knees as if nothing had disturbed the sacred rite.
+
+The exhausted messenger sank into a pew and did not wake from his
+stupor, until the communion was over and the king had ordered a Te Deum
+for the victory of Lepanto.
+
+Then he rose, and as he came out of the pew a newly-married couple
+passed him, the architect, Herrera, and Isabella Coello, radiant in
+beauty.
+
+Ulrich clenched his fist, and the thought passed through his mind,
+that he would cast away good-fortune, art and fame as carelessly as
+soap-bubbles, if he could be in Herrera's place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+What fame is--Ulrich was to learn!
+
+He saw in Messina the hero of Lepanto revered as a god. Wherever the
+victor appeared, fair hands strewed flowers in his path, balconies and
+windows were decked with hangings, and exulting women and girls, joyous
+children and grave men enthusiastically shouted his name and flung
+laurel-wreaths and branches to him. Messages, congratulations and gifts
+arrived from all the monarchs and great men of the world.
+
+When he saw the wonderful youth dash by, Ulrich marvelled that his steed
+did not put forth wings and soar away with him into the clouds. But he
+too, Navarrete, had done his duty, and was to enjoy the sweetness of
+renown. When he appeared on Don Juan's most refractory steed, among
+the last of the victor's train, he felt that he was not overlooked, and
+often heard people tell each other of his deeds.
+
+This made him raise his head, swelled his heart, urged him into new
+paths of fame.
+
+The commander-in-chief also longed to press forward, but found himself
+condemned to inactivity, while he saw the league dissolve, and the fruit
+of his victory wither. King Philip's petty jealousy opposed his wishes,
+poisoned his hopes, and barred the realization of his dreams.
+
+Don Juan was satiated with fame. "Power" was the food for which he
+longed. The busy spider in the Escurial could not deprive him of the
+laurel, but his own "word," his highest ambition in life, his power, he
+would consent to share with no mortal man, not even his brother.
+
+"Laurels are withering leaves, power is arable land," said Don Juan to
+Escovedo.
+
+It befits an emperor's son, thought Ulrich, to cherish such lofty
+wishes; to men of lower rank fame can remain the guiding star on life's
+pathway.
+
+The elite of the army was in the Netherlands; there he could find what
+he desired.
+
+Don Juan let him go, and when fame was the word, Ulrich had no cause to
+complain of its ill-will.
+
+He bore the standard of the proud "Castilian" regiment, and when strange
+troops met him as he entered a city, one man whispered to another: "That
+is Navarrete, who was in the van at every assault on Haarlem, who, when
+all fell back before Alkmaar, assailed the walls again, it was not his
+fault that they were forced to retreat... he turned the scale with his
+men on Mook-Heath... have you heard the story? How, when struck by two
+bullets, he wrapped the banner around him, and fell with, and on it,
+upon the grass."
+
+And now, when with the rebellious army he had left the island of
+Schouwen behind him and was marching through Brabant, it was said:
+
+"Navarrete! It was he, who led the way for the Spaniards with the
+standard on his head, when they waded through the sea that stormy night,
+to surprise Zierikzee."
+
+Whoever bore arms in the Netherlands knew his name; but the citizens
+also knew who he was, and clenched their fists when they spoke of him.
+
+On the battle-field, in the water, on the ice, in the breaches of
+their firm walls, in burning cities, in streets and alleys, in
+council-chambers and plundered homes, he had confronted them as
+a murderer and destroyer. Yet, though the word fame had long been
+embittered to him, the inhumanity which clung to his deeds had the least
+share in it.
+
+He was the servant of his monarch, nothing more. All who bore the name
+of Netherlander were to him rebels and heretics, condemned by God,
+sentenced by his king; not worthy peasants, skilful, industrious
+citizens, noble men, who were risking property and life for religion and
+liberty.
+
+This impish crew disdained to pray to the merciful mother of God and the
+saints, these temple violators had robbed the churches of their statues,
+driven the pious monks and nuns from their cloisters! They called the
+Pope the Anti-Christ, and in every conquered city he found satirical
+songs and jeering verses about his lord, the king, his generals and all
+Spaniards.
+
+He had kept the faith of his childhood, which was shared by every
+one who bore arms with him, and had easily obtained absolution, nay,
+encouragement and praise, for the most terrible deeds of blood.
+
+In battle, in slaughter, when his wounds burned, in plundering, at the
+gaming-table, everywhere he called upon the Holy Virgin, and also, but
+very rarely, on the "word," fame.
+
+He no longer believed in it, for it did not realize what he had
+anticipated. The laurel now rustled on his curls like withered leaves.
+Fame would not fill the void in his heart, failed to satisfy his
+discontented mind; power offered the lonely man no companionship of
+the soul, it could not even silence the voice which upbraided
+him--the unapproachable champion, him at whom no mortal dared to look
+askance--with being a miserable fool, defrauded of true happiness and
+the right ambition.
+
+This voice tortured him on the soft down beds in the town, on the straw
+in the camp, over his wine and on the march.
+
+Yet how many envied him. Ay! when he bore the standard at the head of
+the regiment he marched like a victorious demi-god! No one else could
+support so well as he the heavy pole, plated with gold, and the large
+embroidered silken banner, which might have served as a sail for a
+stately ship; but he held the staff with his right hand, as if the
+burden intrusted to him was an easily-managed toy. Meantime, with
+inimitable solemnity, he threw back the upper portion of the body and
+his curly head, placing his left hand on his hip. The arch of the broad
+chest stood forth in fine relief, and with it the breast-plate and
+points of his armor. He seemed like a proud ship under swelling sails,
+and even in hostile cities, read admiration in the glances of the gaping
+crowd. Yet he was a miserable, discontented man, and could not help
+thinking more and more frequently of Don Juan's "word."
+
+He no longer trusted to the magic power of a word, as in former times.
+Still, he told himself that the "arable field" of the emperor's son,
+"power," was some thing lofty and great-ay, the loftiest aim a man could
+hope to attain.
+
+Is not omnipotence God's first attribute? And now, on the march from
+Schouwen through Brabant, power beckoned to him. He had already tasted
+it, when the mutinous army to which he belonged attempted to pillage a
+smithy. He had stepped before the spoilers and saved the artisan's life
+and property. Whoever swung the hammer before the bellows was sacred to
+him; he had formerly shared gains and booty with many a plundered member
+of his father's craft.
+
+He now carried a captain's staff, but this was mere mummery, child's
+play, nothing more. A merry soldier's-cook wore a captain's plume on the
+side of his tall hat. The field-officer, most of the captains and
+the lieutenants, had retired after the great mutiny on the island
+of Schouwen was accomplished, and their places were now occupied by
+ensigns, sergeants and quartermasters. The higher officers had gone
+to Brussels, and the mutinous army marched without any chief through
+Brabant.
+
+They had not received their well-earned pay for twenty-two months, and
+the starving regiments now sought means of support wherever they could
+find them.
+
+Two years since, after the battle of Mook-Heath, the army had helped
+itself, and at that time, as often happened on similar occasions,
+an Eletto--[The chosen one. The Italian form is used, instead of the
+Spanish 'electo'.]--had been chosen from among the rebellious subaltern
+officers. Ulrich had then been lying seriously wounded, but after the
+end of the mutiny was told by many, that no other would have been made
+Eletto had he only been well and present. Now an Eletto was again to
+be chosen, and whoever was elected would have command of at least three
+thousand men, and possibly more, as it was expected that other regiments
+would join the insurrection. To command an army! This was power, this
+was the highest attainment; it was worth risking life to obtain it.
+
+The regiments pitched their camp at Herenthals, and here the election
+was to be held.
+
+In the arrangement of the tents, the distribution of the wagons which
+surrounded the camp like a wall, the stationing of field-pieces at
+the least protected places, Ulrich had the most authority, and while
+exercising it forced himself, for the first time in his life, to appear
+gentle and yielding, when he would far rather have uttered words of
+command. He lived in a state of feverish excitement; sleep deserted his
+couch, he imagined that every word he heard referred to himself and his
+election.
+
+During these days he learned to smile when he was angry, to speak
+pleasantly while curses were burning on his lips. He was careful not to
+betray by look, word, or deed what was passing in his mind, as he feared
+the ridicule that would ensue should he fail to achieve his purpose.
+
+One more day, one more night, and perhaps he would be
+commander-in-chief, able to conquer a kingdom and keep the world in
+terror. Perhaps, only perhaps; for another was seeking with dangerous
+means to obtain control of the army.
+
+This was Sergeant-Major and Quartermaster Zorrillo, an excellent
+and popular soldier, who had been chosen Eletto after the battle of
+Mook-Heath, but voluntarily resigned his office at the first serious
+opposition he encountered.
+
+It was said that he had done this by his wife's counsel, and this woman
+was Ulrich's most dangerous foe.
+
+Zorrillo belonged to another regiment, but Ulrich had long known him and
+his companion, the "campsibyl."
+
+Wine was sold in the quartermaster's tent, which, before the outbreak of
+the mutiny, had been the rendezvous of the officers and chaplains.
+
+The sibyl entertained the officers with her gay conversation, while they
+drank or sat at the gaining-table; she probably owed her name to the
+skill she displayed in telling fortunes by cards. The common soldiers
+liked her too, because she took care of their sick wives and children.
+
+Navarrete preferred to spend his time in his own regiment, so he did not
+meet the Zorrillos often until the mutiny at Schouwen and on the march
+through Brabant. He had never sought, and now avoided them; for he knew
+the sibyl was leaving no means untried to secure her partner's election.
+Therefore he disliked them; yet he could not help occasionally entering
+their tent, for the leaders of the mutiny held their counsels there.
+Zorrillo always received him courteously; but his companion gazed at him
+so intently and searchingly, that an anxious feeling, very unusual to
+the bold fellow, stole over him.
+
+He could not help asking himself whether he had seen her before, and
+when the thought that she perhaps resembled his mother, once entered his
+mind, he angrily rejected it.
+
+The day before she had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused
+point-blank, for surely no good tidings could come to him from those
+lips.
+
+To-day she had asked what his Christian name was, and for the first
+time in years he remembered that he was also called "Ulrich." Now he
+was nothing but "Navarrete," to himself and others. He lived solely for
+himself, and the more reserved a man is, the more easily his Christian
+name is lost to him.
+
+As, years before, he had told the master that he was called nothing but
+Ulrich, he now gave the harsh answer: "I am Navarrete, that's enough!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Towards evening, the members of the mutiny met at the Zorrillos to hold
+a council.
+
+The weather outside was hot and sultry, and the more people assembled,
+the heavier and more oppressive became the air within the spacious
+tent, the interior of which looked plain enough, for its whole furniture
+consisted of some small roughly-made tables, some benches and chairs,
+and one large table, and a superb ebony chest with ivory ornaments,
+evidently stolen property. On this work of art lay the pillows used
+at night, booty obtained at Haarlem; they were covered with bright but
+worn-out silk, which had long shown the need of the thrifty touch of
+a woman's hand. Pictures of the saints were pasted on the walls, and a
+crucifix hung over the door.
+
+Behind the great table, between a basket and the wine cask, from which
+the sibyl replenished the mugs, stood a high-backed chair. A coarse
+barmaid, who had grown up in the camp, served the assembled men, but she
+had no occasion to hurry, for the Spaniards were slow drinkers.
+
+The guests sat, closely crowded together, in a circle, and seemed grave
+and taciturn; but their words sounded passionate, imperious, defiant,
+and the speakers often struck their coats of mail with their clenched
+fists, or pounded on the floor with their swords.
+
+If there was any difference of opinion, the disputants flew into a
+furious rage, and then a chorus of fierce, blustering voices rose like
+a tenfold echo. It often seemed as if the next instant swords must fly
+from their sheaths and a bloody brawl begin; but Zorrillo, who had been
+chosen to preside over the meeting, only needed to raise his baton
+and command order, to transform the roar into a low muttering; the
+weather-beaten, scarred, pitiless soldiers, even when mutineers, yielded
+willing obedience to the word of command and the iron constraint of
+discipline.
+
+On the sea and at Schouwen their splendid costumes had obtained a
+beggarly appearance. The velvet and brocade extorted from the rich
+citizens of Antwerp, now hung tattered and faded around their sinewy
+limbs. They looked like foot-pads, vagabonds, pirates, yet sat, as
+military custom required, exactly in the order of their rank; on the
+march and in the camp, every insurgent willingly obeyed the orders of
+the new leader, who by the fortune of war had thrown pairs-royal on the
+drumhead.
+
+One thing was certain: some decisive action must be taken. Every one
+needed doublets and shoes, money and good lodgings. But in what way
+could these be most easily procured? By parleying and submitting on
+acceptable conditions, said some; by remaining free and capturing a
+city, roared others; first wealthy Mechlin, which could be speedily
+reached. There they could get what they wanted without money. Zorrillo
+counselled prudent conduct; Navarrete impetuously advised bold action.
+They, the insurgents, he cried, were stronger than any other military
+force in the Netherlands, and need fear no one. If they begged and
+entreated they would be dismissed with copper coins; but if they
+enforced their demands they would become rich and prosperous.
+
+With flashing eyes he extolled what the troops, and he himself had done;
+he enlarged upon the hardships they had borne, the victories won for the
+king. He asked nothing but good pay for blood and toil, good pay, not
+coppers and worthless promises.
+
+Loud shouts of approval followed his speech, and a gunner, who now held
+the rank of captain, exclaimed enthusiastically:
+
+"Navarrete, the hero of Lepanto and Haarlem, is right! I know whom I
+will choose."
+
+"Victor, victor Navarrete!" echoed from many a bearded lilt.
+
+But Zorrillo interrupted these declarations, exclaiming, not without
+dignity, while raising his baton still higher. "The election will take
+place to-morrow, gentlemen; we are holding a council to-day. It is
+very warm in here; I feel it as much as you do. But before we separate,
+listen a few minutes to a man, who means well." Zorrillo now explained
+all the reasons, which induced him to counsel negotiations and a
+friendly agreement with the commander-in-chief. There was sound,
+statesmanlike logic in his words, yet his language did not lack warmth
+and charm. The men perceived that he was in earnest, and while he spoke
+the sibyl went behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and wiped the
+perspiration from his brow with her handkerchief. Zorrillo permitted
+it, and without interrupting himself, gave her a grateful, affectionate
+glance.
+
+The bronzed warriors liked to look at her, and even permitted her to
+utter a word of advice or warning during their discussions, for she was
+a wise woman, not one of the ordinary stamp. Her blue eyes sparkled
+with intelligence and mirth, her full lips seemed formed for quick, gay
+repartee, she was always kind and cheer ful in her manner even to the
+most insignificant. But whence came the deep lines about her red mouth
+and the outer corners of her eyes? She covered them with rouge every
+day, to conceal the evidence of the sorrowful hours she spent when
+alone? The lines were well disguised, yet they increased, and year by
+year grew deeper.
+
+No wrinkle had yet dared to appear on the narrow forehead; and the
+delicate features, dazzlingly-white teeth, girlish figure, and winning
+smile lent this woman a youthful aspect. She might be thirty, or perhaps
+even past forty.
+
+A pleasure made her younger by ten summers, a vexation transformed her
+into a matron. The snow white hair, carefully arranged on her forehead,
+seemed to indicate somewhat advanced age; but it was known that it
+had turned grey in a few days and nights, eight years before, when a
+discontented blackguard stabbed the quartermaster, and he lay for weeks
+at the point of death.
+
+This white hair harmonized admirably with the red cheeks of the
+camp-sibyl, who appreciating the fact, did not dye it.
+
+During Zorrillo's speech her eyes more than once rested on Ulrich with a
+strangely intense expression. As soon as he paused, she went back again
+behind the table to the crying child, to cradle it in her arms.
+
+Zorrillo--perceiving that a new and violent argument was about to break
+forth among the men--closed the meeting. Before adjourning, however, it
+was unanimously decided that the election should be held on the morrow.
+
+While the soldiers noisily rose, some shaking hands with Zorrillo, some
+with Navarrete, the stately sergeant-major of a German lansquenet troop,
+which was stationed in Antwerp, and did not belong to the insurgents,
+entered the wide open door of the tent. His dress was gay and in good
+order; a fine Dalmatian dog followed him.
+
+A thunder-storm had begun, and it was raining violently. Some of the
+Spaniards were twisting their rosaries, and repeating prayers, but
+neither thunder, lightning, nor water seemed to have destroyed the
+German's good temper, for he shook the drops from his plumed hat with a
+merry "phew," gaily introducing himself to his comrades as an envoy from
+the Pollviller regiment.
+
+His companions, he said, were not disinclined to join the "free
+army"--he had come to ask how the masters of Schouwen fared.
+
+Zorrillo offered the sergeant-major a chair, and after the latter had
+raised and emptied two beakers from the barmaid's pewter waiter in quick
+succession, he glanced around the circle of his rebel comrades. Some he
+had met before in various countries, and shook hands with them. Then he
+fixed his eyes on Ulrich, pondering where and under what standard he had
+seen this magnificent, fair-haired warrior.
+
+Navarrete recognizing the merry lansquenet, Hans Eitelfritz of Colln on
+the Spree, held out his hand, and cried in the Spanish language, which
+the lansquenet had also used:
+
+"You are Hans Eitelfritz! Do you remember Christmas in the Black Forest,
+Master Moor, and the Alcazar in Madrid?"
+
+"Ulrich, young Master Ulrich! Heavens and earth!" cried Eitelfritz;--but
+suddenly interrupted himself; for the sibyl, who had risen from the
+table to bring the envoy, with her own hands, a larger goblet of wine,
+dropped the beaker close beside him.
+
+Zorrillo and he hastily sprung to support the tottering woman, who was
+almost fainting. But she recovered herself, waving them back with a mute
+gesture.
+
+All eyes were fixed upon her, and every one was startled; for she stood
+as if benumbed, her bright, youthful face had suddenly become aged and
+haggard. "What is the matter?" asked Zorrillo anxiously. Recovering her
+self-control, she answered hastily "The thunder, the storm...."
+
+Then, with short, light steps, she went back to the table, and as she
+resumed her seat the bell for evening prayers was heard outside.
+
+Most of the company rose to obey the summons.
+
+"Good-bye till to-morrow morning, Sergeant! The election will take place
+early to-morrow."
+
+"A Dios, a Dios, hasta mas ver, Sibila, a Dios!" was loudly shouted, and
+soon most of the guests had left the tent.
+
+Those who remained behind were scattered among the different tables.
+Ulrich sat at one alone with Hans Eitelfritz.
+
+The lansquenet had declined Zorrillo's invitation to join him; an old
+friend from Madrid was present, with whom he wished to talk over happier
+days. The other willingly assented; for what he had intended to say
+to his companions was against Ulrich and his views. The longer the
+sergeant-major detained him the better. Everything that recalled
+Master Moor was dear to Ulrich, and as soon as he was alone with Hans
+Eitelfritz, he again greeted him in a strange mixture of Spanish
+and German. He had forgotten his home, but still retained a partial
+recollection of his native language. Every one supposed him to be a
+Spaniard, and he himself felt as if he were one.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had much to tell Ulrich; he had often met Moor in
+Antwerp, and been kindly received in his studio.
+
+What pleasure it afforded Navarrete to hear from the noble artist,
+how he enjoyed being able to speak German again after so many years,
+difficult as it was. It seemed as if a crust melted away from his heart,
+and none of those present had ever seen him so gay, so full of youthful
+vivacity. Only one person knew that he could laugh and play noisily, and
+this one was the beautiful woman at the long table, who knew not whether
+she should die of joy, or sink into the earth with shame.
+
+She had taken the year old infant from the basket. It was a pale, puny
+little creature, whose father had fallen in battle, and whose mother had
+deserted it.
+
+The handsome standard-bearer yonder was called Ulrich! He must be her
+son! Alas, and she could only cast stolen glances at him, listen by
+stealth to the German words that fell from the beloved lips. Nothing
+escaped her notice, yet while looking and listening, her thoughts
+wandered to a far distant country, long vanished days; beside the
+bearded giant she saw a beautiful, curly-haired child; besides the
+man's deep voice she heard clear, sweet childish tones, that called her
+"mother" and rang out in joyous, silvery laughter.
+
+The pale child in her arms often raised its little hand to its cheek,
+which was wet with the tears of the woman; who tended it. How hard, how
+unspeakably, terribly hard it was for this woman, with the youthful face
+and white locks, to remain quiet! How she longed to start up and call
+joyously to the child, the man, her lover's enemy, but her own, own
+Ulrich:
+
+"Look at me, look at me! I am your mother. You are mine! Come, come to
+my heart! I will never leave you more!"
+
+Ulrich now laughed heartily again, not suspecting what was passing in
+a mother's heart, close beside him; he had no eyes for her, and only
+listened to the jests of the German lansquenet, with whom he drained
+beaker after beaker.
+
+The strange child served as a shield to protect the camp-sibyl from
+her son's eyes, and also to conceal from him that she was watching,
+listening, weeping. Eitelfritz talked most and made one joke after
+another; but she did not laugh, and only wished he would stop and let
+Ulrich speak, that she might be permitted to hear his voice again.
+
+"Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle," cried Hans
+Eitelfritz. "He'll get his feet wet on the damp floor--for the rain
+is trickling in--and take cold. This choice fellow isn't like ordinary
+dogs."
+
+"Do you call the tiger Lelaps?" asked Ulrich. "An odd name."
+
+"I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg,
+in exchange for an elephant's tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes
+his name to the merry rogue. I tell you, he's wiser than many learned
+men; he ought to be called Doctor Lelaps."
+
+"He's a pretty creature."
+
+"Pretty! More, far more! For instance, at Naples we had the famous
+Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager
+conversation, I forgot him. What did my Lelaps do? He slipped quietly
+into the garden, returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth,
+and offered it to me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one.
+That meant: dogs liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him.
+What do you say to that show of sense?"
+
+"I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog's sagacity."
+
+"You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this
+true story?"
+
+"To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and
+faithfully trusts good-fortune--your good fortune--is ill-advised. Have
+you composed any new songs?"
+
+"'That is all over now!" sighed the trooper. "See this scar! Since an
+infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses;
+yet it hasn't grown quiet in my upper story on that account. I lie now,
+instead of composing. My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash,
+when I pour it forth at the tavern."
+
+"And the broken skull: is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it...."
+
+"Look here! It's the actual truth. It was a bad blow, but there's a
+grain of good in everything evil. For instance, we were in the African
+desert just dying of thirst, for that belongs to the desert as much as
+the dot does to the letter i. Lelaps yonder was with me, and scented
+a spring. Then it was necessary to dig, but I had neither spade nor
+hatchet, so I took out the loose part of the skull, it was a hard piece
+of bone, and dug with it till the water gushed out of the sand, then I
+drank out of my brain-pan as if it were a goblet."
+
+"Man, man!" exclaimed Ulrich, striking his clenched fist on the table.
+
+"Do you suppose a dog can't scent a spring?" asked Eitelfritz, with
+comical wrath. "Lelaps here was born in Africa, the native land of
+tigers, and his mother...."
+
+"I thought you got him in Tubingen?"
+
+"I said just now that I tell lies. I imposed upon you, when I made you
+think Lelaps came from Swabia; he was really born in the desert, where
+the tigers live.
+
+"No offence, Herr Ulrich! We'll keep our jests for another evening. As
+soon as I'm knocked down, I stop my nonsense. Now tell me, where shall
+I find Navarrete, the standard-bearer, the hero of Lepanto and Schouwen?
+He must be a bold fellow; they say Zorrillo and he...."
+
+The lansquenet had spoken loudly; the quartermaster, who caught the name
+Navarrete, turned, and his eyes met Ulrich's.
+
+He must be on his guard against this man.
+
+The instant Zorrillo recognized him as a German, he would hold a
+powerful weapon. The Spaniards would give the command only to a
+Spaniard.
+
+This thought now occurred to him for the first time. It had needed
+the meeting with Hans Eitelfritz, to remind him that he belonged to a
+different nation from his comrades. Here was a danger to be encountered,
+so with the rapid decision, acquired in the school of war, he laid his
+hand heavily on his countryman's, saying in a low, impressive tone: "You
+are my friend, Hans Eitelfritz, and have no wish to injure me."
+
+"Zounds, no! What's up?"
+
+"Well then, keep to yourself where and how we first met each other.
+Don't interrupt me. I'll tell you later in my tent, where you must take
+up your quarters, how I gained my name, and what I have experienced in
+life. Don't show your surprise, and keep calm. I, Ulrich, the boy from
+the Black Forest, am the man you seek, I am Navarrete."
+
+"You?" asked the lansquenet, opening his eyes in amazement. "Nonsense!
+You're paying me off for the yarns I told you just now."
+
+No, Hans Eitelfritz, no! I am not jesting, I mean it. I am Navarrete!
+Nay more! If you keep your mouth shut, and the devil doesn't put his
+finger into the pie, I think, spite of all the Zorrillos, I shall be
+Eletto to-morrow.
+
+"You know the Spanish temper! The German Ulrich will be a very different
+person to them from the Castilian Navarrete. It is in your power to
+spoil my chance."
+
+The other interrupted him by a peal of loud, joyous laughter, then
+shouted to the dog: "Up, Lelaps! My respects to Caballero Navarrete."
+
+The Spaniards frowned, for they thought the German was drunk, but Hans
+Eitelfritz needed more liquor than that to upset his sobriety.
+
+Flashing a mischievous glance at Ulrich from his bright eyes, he
+whispered: "If necessary, I too can be silent. You man without a
+country! You soldier of fortune! A Swabian the commander of these
+stiffnecked braggarts. Now see how I'll help you."
+
+"What do you mean to do?" asked Ulrich; but Hans Eitelfritz had already
+raised the huge goblet, banging it down again so violently that the
+table shook. Then he struck the top with his clenched fist, and when
+the Spaniards fixed their eyes on him, shouted in their language: "Yes,
+indeed, it was delightful in those days, Caballero Navarrete. Your
+uncle, the noble Conde in what's its name, that place in Castile, you
+know, and the Condesa and Condesilla. Splendid people! Do you remember
+the coal-black horses with snow-white tails in your father's stable,
+and the old servant Enrique. There wasn't a longer nose than his in
+all Castile! Once, when I was in Burgos, I saw a queer, longish shadow
+coming round a street corner, and two minutes after, first a nose and
+then old Enrique appeared."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Ulrich, guessing the lansquenet's purpose. "But it
+has grown late while we've been gossiping; let us go!"
+
+The woman at the table had not heard the whispers exchanged between the
+two men; but she guessed the object of the lansquenet's loud words. As
+the latter slowly rose, she laid the child in the basket, drew a long
+breath, pressed her fingers tightly upon her eyes for a short time, and
+then went directly up to her son.
+
+Florette did not know herself, whether she owed the name of sibyl to her
+skill in telling fortunes by cards, or to her wise counsel. Twelve
+years before, while still sharing the tent of the Walloon captain
+Grandgagnage, it had been given her, she could not say how or by whom.
+The fortune-telling she had learned from a sea-captain's widow, with
+whom she had lodged a long time.
+
+When her voice grew sharp and weaker, in order to retain consideration
+and make herself important, she devoted herself to predicting the
+future; her versatile mind, her ambition, and the knowledge of
+human-nature gained in the camp and during her wanderings from land to
+land, aided her to acquire remarkable skill in this strange pursuit.
+
+Officers of the highest rank had sat opposite to her cards, listening to
+her oracular sayings, and Zorrillo, the man who had now been her lover
+for ten years, owed it to her influence, that he did not lose his
+position as quartermaster after the last mutiny.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had heard of her skill and when, as he was leaving, she
+approached and offered to question the cards for him, he would not allow
+Ulrich to prevent him from casting a glance into the future.
+
+On the whole, what was predicted to him sounded favorable, but the
+prophetess did not keep entirely to the point, for in turning the cards
+she found much to say to Ulrich, and once, pointing to the red and green
+knaves, remarked thoughtfully: "That is you, Navarrete; that is this
+gentleman. You must have met each other on some Christmas day, and not
+here, but in Germany; if I see rightly, in Swabia."
+
+She had just overheard all this.
+
+But a shudder ran through Ulrich's frame when he heard it, and this
+woman, whose questioning glance had always disturbed him, now inspired
+him with a mysterious dread, which he could not control. He rose to
+withdraw; but she detained him, saying: "Now it is your turn, Captain."
+
+"Some other time," replied Ulrich, repellently. "Good fortune always
+comes in good time, and to know ill-luck in advance, is a misfortune I
+should think."
+
+"I can read the past, too."
+
+Ulrich started. He must learn what his rival's companion knew of his
+former life, so he answered quickly, "Well, for aught I care, begin."
+
+"Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the
+questioner. Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of
+an hour, Sergeant."
+
+"Don't believe everything she tells you, and don't look too deep into
+her eyes. Come, Lelaps, my son!" cried the lansquenet, and did as he was
+requested.
+
+The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich
+thought: "Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do
+everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto's baton.
+That's the way blockheads are caught. We will keep to the past."
+
+His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the
+last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying
+to meet his glance, asked:
+
+"How shall we begin? Do you still remember your childhood?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Your father?"
+
+"I have not seen him for a long time. Don't the cards tell you, that he
+is dead?"
+
+"Dead, dead:--of course he's dead. You had a mother too?"
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with
+this woman about his mother.
+
+She shrank back a little, and said sadly: "That sounds very harsh. Do
+you no longer like to think of your mother?"
+
+"What is that to you?"
+
+"I must know."
+
+"No, what concerns my mother is... I will--is too good for juggling."
+
+"Oh," she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank. Then
+she silently laid down the last cards, and asked: "Do you want to hear
+anything about a sweetheart?"
+
+"I have none. But how you look at me! Have you grown tired of Zorrillo?
+I am ill-suited for a gallant."
+
+She shuddered slightly. Her bright face had again grown old, so old
+and weary that he pitied her. But she soon regained her composure, and
+continued:
+
+"What are you saying? Ask the questions yourself now, if you please."
+
+"Where is my native place?"
+
+"A wooded, mountainous region in Germany."
+
+"Ah, ha! and what do you know of my father?"
+
+"You look like him, there is an astonishing resemblance in the forehead
+and eyes; his voice, too, was exactly like yours."
+
+"A chip of the old block."
+
+"Well, well. I see Adam before me...."
+
+"Adam?" asked Ulrich, and the blood left his cheeks.
+
+"Yes, his name was Adam," she continued more boldly, with increasing
+vivacity: "there he stands. He wears a smith's apron, a small leather
+cap rests on his fair hair. Auriculas and balsams stand in the
+bow-window. A roan horse is being shod in the market-place below."
+
+The soldier's head swam, the happiest period of his childhood, which he
+had not recalled for a long time, again rose before his memory; he saw
+his father stand before him, and the woman, the sibyl yonder, had the
+eyes and mouth, not of his mother, but of the Madonna he had destroyed
+with his maul-stick. Scarcely able to control himself, he grasped her
+hand, pressing it violently, and asked in German:
+
+"What is my name? And what did my mother call me?"
+
+She lowered her eyes as if in shame, and whispered softly in German:
+"Ulrich, Ulrich, my darling, my little boy, my lamb, Ulrich--my child!
+Condemn me, desert me, curse me, but call me once more 'my mother.'"
+
+"My mother," he said gently, covering his face with his hands--but she
+started up, hurried back to the pale baby in the cradle, and pressing
+her face upon the little one's breast, moaned and wept bitterly.
+
+Meantime, Zorrillo had not averted his eyes from Navarrete and his
+companion. What could have passed between the two, what ailed the man?
+
+Rising slowly, he approached the basket before which the sibyl was
+kneeling, and asked anxiously: "What was it, Flora?"
+
+She pressed her face closer to the weeping child, that he might not see
+her tears, and answered quickly "I predicted things, things... go, I
+will tell you about it later."
+
+He was satisfied with this answer, but she was now obliged to join the
+Spaniards, and Ulrich took leave of her with a silent salutation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The Spanish nature is contagious, thought Hans Eitelfritz, tossing on
+his couch in Ulrich's tent. What a queer fellow the gay young lad has
+become! Sighs are cheap with him, and every word costs a ducat. He is
+worthy all honor as a soldier. If they make him Eletto, it will be worth
+while to join the free army.
+
+Ulrich had briefly told the lansquenet, how he had obtained the name
+of Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the
+Netherlands. Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.
+
+He had found his mother again. He now possessed the best gift Ruth
+had asked him to beseech of the "word." The soldier's sweetheart, the
+faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
+avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
+him birth. He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
+hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child
+of one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her
+finger. All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely
+enough, they melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the
+feeling of joy that he had his mother again.
+
+Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo's tent, but framed
+by balsams and wall-flowers. His vivid imagination made her twenty years
+younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
+and smile. Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl's
+beauty, good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came
+back freshly to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw
+himself on her bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the
+sweet, pet names, which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel
+the caress of her soft hands. How rich the solitary man felt, how
+surpassingly rich! He had been entirely alone, deserted even by his
+mother! Now he was so no longer, and pleasant dreams blended with his
+ambitious plans, like golden threads in dark cloth.
+
+When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
+his share of the booty. She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow.
+The little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and
+when his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there
+with her, recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care
+for her, make her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the
+full the happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother's heart
+his own.
+
+At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer. Suddenly there was a
+rustling at the tent-door. He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
+raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: "Ulrich,
+Ulrich, it is I!"
+
+He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
+her in his arms, and let her stroke his curls, kiss his cheeks and eyes,
+as in the old happy days. Then he drew her into the tent, whispering
+"Softly, softly, the snorer yonder is the German."
+
+She followed him, leaned against him, and raised his hand to her lips;
+he felt them grow wet with tears. They had not yet said anything to each
+other, except how happy, how glad, how thankful they were to have each
+other again; then a sentinel passed, and she started up, exclaiming
+anxiously: "So late, so late; Zorrillo will be waiting!"
+
+"Zorrillo!" cried Ulrich scornfully, "you have been a long time with
+him. If they give me the power...."
+
+"They will choose you, child, they shall choose you," she hastily
+interrupted. "Oh, God! oh, God! perhaps this will bring you misfortune
+instead of blessing; but you desire it! Count Mannsfeld is coming
+tomorrow; Zorrillo knows it. He will bring a pardon for all; promotions
+too, but no money yet."
+
+"Oh, ho!" cried Ulrich, "that may decide the matter."
+
+"Perhaps so, you deserve to command them. You were born for some special
+purpose, and your card always turns up so strangely. Eletto! It sounds
+proud and grand, but many have been ruined by it...."
+
+"Because power was too hard for them."
+
+"It must serve you. You are strong. A child of good fortune. Folly! I
+will not fear. You have probably fared well in life. Ah, my lamb, I have
+done little for you, but one thing I did unceasingly: I prayed for you,
+poor boy, morning and night; have you noticed, have you felt it?"
+
+He drew her to his heart again, but she released herself from his
+embrace, saying: "To-morrow, Ulrich; Zorrillo...."
+
+"Zorrillo, always Zorrillo," he repeated, his blood boiling angrily.
+"You are mine and, if you love me, you will leave him."
+
+"I cannot, Ulrich, it will not do. He is kind, you will yet be friends."
+
+"We, we? On the day of judgment, nay, not even then! Are you more firmly
+bound to yon smooth fellow, than to my honest father? There stands
+something in the darkness, it is good steel, and if needful will cut the
+tie asunder."
+
+"Ulrich, Ulrich!" wailed Flora, raising her hands beseechingly. "Not
+that, not that; it must not be. He is kind and sensible, and loves me
+fondly. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Ulrich! The mother has glided to her son at
+night, as if she were following forbidden paths. Oh, this is indeed a
+punishment. I know how heavily I have sinned, I deserve whatever may
+befall me; but you, you must not make me more wretched, than I already
+am. Your father, he... if he were still alive, for your sake I would
+crawl to him on my knees, and say: 'Here I am, forgive me'--but he is
+dead. Pasquale, Zorrillo lives; do not think me a vain, deluded woman;
+Zorrillo cannot bear to have me leave him...."
+
+"And my father? He bore it. But do you know how? Shall I describe his
+life to you?"
+
+"No, no! Oh, child, how you torture me! I know how I sinned against your
+father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved me,
+and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly. But I cannot keep quiet a
+long time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in
+my blood; and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see
+nothing except himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the
+forest. One day a fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going
+forth--forth into the wide world, no matter with whom or whither. The
+soldier only needed to hint and I fell.--I did not stay with him long,
+he was a windy braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and
+accompanied the wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until
+he was shot. Then ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend,
+he shares my feelings, I am necessary to his existence. Do not laugh,
+Ulrich; I well know that youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet
+Pasquale loves me; since I have had him, I have been more content and,
+Holy Virgin! now--I love him in return. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven! Why is
+it so? This heart, this miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it did
+twenty years ago."
+
+"You will not leave him?"
+
+"No, no, I love him, and I know why. Every one calls him a brave man,
+yet they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do. No one
+else is so good, so generous. You must let me speak! Do you suppose I
+ever forgot you? Never, never! But you have always been to me the dear
+little boy; I never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have
+you and longed so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to
+the soldiers' orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of
+these poor things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same
+time. It would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo
+rejoices in my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon
+bequeathed me and his own booty to the soldiers' widows and the little
+naked babies in the camp. He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases
+him. I will not, cannot leave him!"
+
+She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro,
+violently agitated. At last he said firmly: "Yet you must part from him.
+He or I! I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father's wife.
+I am Adam's son, and will be constant to him. Ah, mother, I have been
+deprived of you so long. You can tend strangers' orphaned children, yet
+you make your own son an orphan. Will you do this? No, a thousand times,
+no, you cannot! Do not weep so, you must not weep! Hear me, hear me! For
+my sake, leave this Spaniard! You will not repent it. I have just been
+dreaming of the nest I will build for you. There I will cherish and care
+for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as you choose.
+Leave him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your child, your
+Ulrich!"
+
+"Oh, God! oh, God!" she sobbed. "I will try, yes, I will try.... My
+child, my dear child!"
+
+Ulrich clasped her closely in his arms, kissed her hair, and said,
+softly: "I know, I know, you need love, and you shall find it with me."
+
+"With you!" she repeated, sobbing. Then releasing herself from his
+embrace she hurried to the feverish woman, at whose summons she had left
+her tent.
+
+As morning dawned, she returned home and found Zorrillo still awake.
+He enquired about her patient, and told her he had given the child
+something to drink while she was away.
+
+Flora could not help weeping bitterly again, and Zorrillo, noticing it,
+exclaimed chidingly: "Each has his own griefs to bear, it is not wise to
+take strangers' troubles so deeply to heart."
+
+"Strangers' troubles," she repeated, mournfully, and went to rest.
+
+White-haired woman, why have you remained so young? All the cares and
+sorrows of youth and age are torturing you at the same time! One love
+is fighting a mortal battle with another in your breast. Which will
+conquer?
+
+She knows, she knew it ere she entered the tent. The mother fled from
+the child, but she cannot abandon her new-found son. Oh, maternal love,
+thou dost hover in radiant bliss far above the clouds, and amid choirs
+of angels! Oh, maternal heart, thou dost bleed pierced with swords, more
+full of sorrows than any other!
+
+Poor, poor Florette! On this July morning she was enduring superhuman
+tortures, all the sins she had committed arrayed themselves against her,
+shrieking into her ear that she was a lost woman, and there could be no
+pardon for her either in this world or the next. Yet!--the clouds drift
+by, birds of passage migrate, the musician wanders singing from land
+to land, finds love, and remorselessly strips off light fetters to seek
+others. His child imitates the father, who had followed the example
+of his, the same thing occurring back to their remotest ancestors!
+But eternal justice? Will it measure the fluttering leaf by the same
+standard as the firmly-rooted plant?
+
+When Zorrillo saw Flora by the daylight, he said, kindly: "You have been
+weeping?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, fixing her eyes on the ground. He thought she was
+anxious, as on a former occasion, lest his election to the office of
+Eletto might prove his ruin, so he drew her towards him, exclaiming
+"Have no fear, Bonita. If they choose me, and Mannsfeld comes, as he
+promised, the play will end this very day. I hope, even at the twelfth
+hour, they will listen to reason, and allow themselves to be guided into
+the right course. If they make the young madcap Eletto--his head will be
+at stake, not mine. Are you ill? How you look, child! Surely, surely you
+must be suffering; you shall not go out at night to nurse sick people
+again!"
+
+The words came from an anxious heart, and sounded warm and gentle.
+They penetrated Florette's inmost soul, and overwhelmed with passionate
+emotion she clasped his hands, kissed them, and exclaimed, softly
+"Thanks, thanks, Pasquale, for your love, for all. I will never, never
+forget it, whatever happens! Go, go; the drum is beating again."
+
+Zorrillo fancied she was uttering mere feverish ravings, and begged her
+to calm herself; then he left the tent, and went to the place where the
+election was to be held.
+
+As soon as Flora was alone, she threw herself on her knees before the
+Madonna's picture, but knew not whether it would be right to pray that
+her son might obtain an office, which had proved the ruin of so many;
+and when she besought the Virgin to give her strength to leave her
+lover, it seemed to her like treason to Pasquale.
+
+Her thoughts grew confused, and she could not pray. Her mobile mind
+wandered swiftly from lofty to petty things; she seized the cards to see
+whether fate would unite her to Zorrillo or to Ulrich, and the red ten,
+which represented herself, lay close beside the green knave, Pasquale.
+She angrily threw them down, determined, in spite of the oracle, to
+follow her son.
+
+Meantime in the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets
+blared, and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like
+the distant roar of the surf.
+
+A fresh burst of military music rang out, and now Florette started to
+her feet and listened. It seemed as if she heard Ulrich's voice, and the
+rapid throbbing of her heart almost stopped her breath. She must go out,
+she must see and hear what was passing. Hastily pushing the white hair
+back from her brow, she threw a veil over it, and hurried through the
+camp to the spot where the election was taking place.
+
+The soldiers all knew her and made way for her. The leaders of the
+mutineers were standing on the wall of earth between the field-pieces,
+and amid the foremost rank, nay, in front of them all, her son was
+addressing the crowd.
+
+The choice wavered between him and Zorrillo. Ulrich had already been
+speaking a long time. His cheeks were glowing and he looked so handsome,
+so noble, in his golden helmet, from beneath which floated his thick,
+fair locks, that her heart swelled with joy, and as the night
+grows brighter when the black clouds are torn asunder and the moon
+victoriously appears, grief and pain were suddenly irradiated by
+maternal love and pride.
+
+Now he drew his tall figure up still higher, exclaiming: "Others are
+readier and bolder with the tongue than I, but I can speak with the
+sword as well as any one."
+
+Then raising the heavy two-handed sword, which others laboriously
+managed with both hands, he swung it around his head, using only his
+right hand, in swift circles, until it fairly whistled through the air.
+
+The soldiers shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had
+lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly,
+while his breath came quick and short: "And where do the talkers, the
+parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters'
+feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I
+know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except
+what is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require
+for our bare feet, our ragged bodies; money, money he has not to offer!
+This is so, I swear it; if not, stand forth, you parleyers, and give
+me the lie! Have you inclination or courage to give the lie to
+Navarrete?--You are silent!--But we will speak! We will not suffer
+ourselves to be mocked and put off! What we demand is fair pay for good
+work. Whoever has patience, can wait. Mine is exhausted.
+
+"We are His Majesty's obedient servants and wish to remain so. As soon
+as he keeps his bargain, he can rely upon us; but when he breaks it, we
+are bound to no one but ourselves, and Santiago! we are not the weaker
+party. We need money, and if His Majesty lacks ducats, a city where we
+can find what we want. Money or a city, a city or money! The demand
+is just, and if you elect me, I will stand by it, and not shrink if
+it rouses murmuring behind me or against me. Whoever has a brave heart
+under his armor, let him follow me; whoever wishes to creep after
+Zorrillo, can do so. Elect me, friends, and I will get you more than we
+need, with honor and fame to boot. Saint Jacob and the Madonna will aid
+us. Long live the king!"
+
+"Long live the king! Long live Navarrete! Navarrete! Hurrah for
+Navarrete!" echoed loudly, impetuously from a thousand bearded lips.
+
+Zorrillo had no opportunity to speak again. The election was made.
+
+Ulrich was chosen Eletto.
+
+As if on wings, he went from man to man, shaking hands with his
+comrades. Power, power, the highest prize on earth, was attained, was
+his! The whole throng, soldiers, tyros, women, girls and children,
+crowded around him, shouting his name; whoever wore a hat or cap, tossed
+it in the air, whoever had a kerchief, waved it. Drums beat, trumpets
+sounded, and the gunner ordered all the field-pieces to be discharged,
+for the choice pleased him.
+
+Ulrich stood, as if intoxicated, amid the shouts, shrieks of joy,
+military music, and thunder of the cannon. He raised his helmet, waved
+salutations to the crowd, and strove to speak, but the uproar drowned
+his words.
+
+After the election Florette slipped quietly away; first to the empty
+tent then to the sick woman who needed her care.
+
+The Eletto had no time to think of his mother; for scarcely had he given
+a solemn oath of loyalty to his comrades and received theirs, when Count
+Mannsfeld appeared.
+
+The general was received with every honor. He knew Navarrete, and the
+latter entered into negotiations with the manly dignity natural to
+him; but the count really had nothing but promises to offer, and the
+insurgents would not give up their demand: "Money or a city!"
+
+The nobleman reminded them of their oath of allegiance, made lavish
+use of kind words, threats and warnings, but the Eletto remained firm.
+Mannsfeld perceived that he had come in vain; the only concession he
+could obtain from Navarrete was, that some prudent man among the leaders
+should accompany him to Brussels, to explain the condition of the
+regiments to the council of state there, and receive fresh proposals.
+Then the count suggested that Zorrillo should be entrusted with the
+mission, and the Eletto ordered the quartermaster to prepare for
+departure at once. An hour after the general left the camp with Flora's
+lover in his train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The fifth night after the Eletto's election was closing in, a light
+rain was falling, and no sound was heard in the deserted streets of the
+encampment except now and then the footsteps of a sentinel, or the cries
+of a child. In Zorrillo's tent, which was usually brightly lighted until
+a late hour of the night, only one miserable brand was burning, beside
+which sat the sleepy bar-maid, darning a hole in her frieze-jacket. The
+girl did not expect any one, and started when the door of the tent was
+violently torn open, and her master, followed by two newly-appointed
+captains, came straight up to her.
+
+Zorrillo held his hat in his hand, his hair, slightly tinged with grey,
+hung in a tangled mass over his forehead, but he carried himself as
+erect as ever. His body did not move, but his eyes wandered from one
+corner of the tent to another, and the girl crossed herself and held
+up two fingers towards him, for his dark glance fell upon her, as he at
+last exclaimed, in a hollow tone:
+
+"Where is the mistress?"
+
+"Gone, I could not help it" replied the girl.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Eletto, to Navarrete."
+
+"When?"
+
+"He came and took her and the child, directly after you had left the
+camp."
+
+"And she has not returned?"
+
+"She has just sent a roast chicken, which I was to keep for you when
+you came home. There it is." Zorrillo laughed. Then he turned to his
+companions, saying:
+
+"I thank you. You have now.... Is she still with the Eletto?"
+
+"Why, of course."
+
+"And who--who saw her the night before the election--let me sit
+down--who saw her with him then?"
+
+"My brother," replied one of the captains. "She was just coming out of
+the tent, as he passed with the guard."
+
+"Don't take the matter to heart," said the other. "There are plenty of
+women! We are growing old, and can no longer cope with a handsome fellow
+like Navarrete."
+
+"I thought the sibyl was more sensible," added the younger captain. "I
+saw her in Naples sixteen years ago. Zounds, she was a beautiful woman
+then! A pretty creature even now; but Navarrete might almost be her
+son. And you always treated her kindly, Pasquale. Well, whoever expects
+gratitude from women...."
+
+Suddenly the quartermaster remembered the hour just before the election,
+when Florette had thrown herself upon his breast, and thanked him for
+his kindness; clenching his teeth, he groaned aloud.
+
+The others were about to leave him, but he regained his self-control,
+and said:
+
+"Take him the count's letter, Renato. What I have to say to him, I will
+determine later."
+
+Zorrillo was a long time unlacing his jerkin and taking out the paper.
+Both of his companions noticed how his fingers trembled, and looked at
+each other compassionately; but the older one said, as he received the
+letter:
+
+"Man, man, this will do no good. Women are like good fortune."
+
+"Take the thing as a thousand others have taken it, and don't come to
+blows. You wield a good blade, but to attack Navarrete is suicide. I'll
+take him the letter. Be wise, Zorrillo, and look for another love at
+once."
+
+"Directly, directly, of course," replied the quartermaster; but as soon
+as he had sent the maid-servant away, and was entirely alone, he bowed
+his forehead upon the table and his shoulders heaved convulsively. He
+remained in this attitude a long time, then paced to and fro with forced
+calmness. Morning dawned long ere he sought his couch.
+
+Early the next day he made his report to the Eletto before the assembled
+council of war, and when it broke up, approached Navarrete, saying, in
+so loud a tone that no one could fail to hear:
+
+"I congratulate you on your new sweetheart."
+
+"With good reason," replied the Eletto. "Wait a little while, and I'll
+wager that you'll congratulate me more sincerely than you do to-day."
+
+The offers from Brussels had again proved unacceptable. It was necessary
+now to act, and the insurgent commander profited by the time at his
+disposal. It seemed as if "power" doubled his elasticity and energy. It
+was so delightful, after the march, the council of war, and the day's
+work were over, to rest with his mother, listen to her, and open his own
+heart. How had she preserved--yes, he might call it so--her aristocratic
+bearing, amid the turmoil, perils, and mire of camp-life, in spite of
+all, all! How cleverly and entertainingly she could talk about men and
+things, how comical the ideas, with which she understood how to spice
+the conversation, and how well versed he found her in everything that
+related to the situation of the regiments and his own position. She had
+not been the confidante of army leaders in vain.
+
+By her advice he relinquished his plan of capturing Mechlin, after
+learning from spies that it was prepared and expecting the attack of the
+insurgents.
+
+He could not enter upon a long siege with the means at his command;
+his first blow must not miss the mark. So he only showed himself near
+Brussels, sent Captain Montesdocca, who tried to parley again, back with
+his mission unaccomplished, marched in a new direction to mislead his
+foes, and then unexpectedly assailed wealthy Aalst in Flanders.
+
+The surprised inhabitants tried to defend their well-fortified city, but
+the citizens' strength could not withstand the furious assault of the
+well-drilled, booty-seeking army.
+
+The conquered city belonged to the king. It was the pledge of what the
+rebels required, and they indemnified themselves in it for the pay that
+had been with held. All who attempted to offer resistance fell by the
+sword, all the citizens' possessions were seized by the soldiers, as the
+wages that belonged to them.
+
+In the shops under the Belfry, the great tower from whence the bell
+summoned the inhabitants when danger threatened, lay plenty of cloth for
+new doublets. Nor was there any lack of gold or silver in the treasury
+of the guild-hall, the strong boxes of the merchants, the chests of the
+citizens. The silver table-utensils, the gold ornaments of the women,
+the children's gifts from godparents fell into the hands of the
+conquerors, while a hundred and seventy rich villages near Aalst were
+compelled to furnish food for the mutineers.
+
+Navarrete did not forbid the plundering. According to his opinion, what
+soldiers took by assault was well-earned booty. To him the occupation of
+Aalst was an act of righteous self-defence, and the regiments shared his
+belief, and were pleased with their Eletto.
+
+The rebels sought and found quarters in the citizens' houses, slept in
+their beds, eat from their dishes, and drank their wine-cellars empty.
+Pillage was permitted for three days. On the fifth discipline was
+restored, the quartermaster's department organized, and the citizens
+were permitted to assemble at the guild-hall, pursue their trades and
+business, follow the pursuits to which they had been accustomed. The
+property they had saved was declared unassailable; besides, robbery had
+ceased to be very remunerative.
+
+The Eletto was at liberty to choose his own quarters, and there was no
+lack of stately dwellings in Aalst. Ulrich might have been tempted to
+occupy the palace of Baron de Hierges, but passed it by, selecting as
+a home for his mother and himself a pretty little house on the
+market-place, which reminded him of his father's smithy. The
+bow-windowed room, with the view of the belfry and the stately
+guildhall, was pleasantly fitted up for his mother, and the city
+gardeners received orders to send the finest house-plants to his
+residence. Soon the sitting-room, adorned with flowers and enlivened by
+singing-birds, looked far handsomer and more cosy than the nest of which
+he had dreamed. A little white dog, exactly like the one Florette had
+possessed in the smithy, was also procured, and when in the evening the
+warm summer air floated into the open windows, and Ulrich sat alone
+with Florette, recalling memories of the past, or making plans for the
+future, it seemed as if a new spring had come to his soul. The citizens'
+distress did not trouble him. They were the losing party in the grim
+game of war, enemies--rebels. Among his own men he saw nothing but
+joyous faces; he exercised the power--they obeyed.
+
+Zorrillo bore him ill-will, Ulrich read it in his eyes; but he made him
+a captain, and the man performed his duty as quartermaster in the most
+exemplary manner. Florette wished to tell him that the Eletto was her
+son, but the latter begged her to wait till his power was more firmly
+established, and how could she refuse her darling anything? She had
+grieved deeply, very deeply, but this mood soon passed away, and now she
+could be happy in Ulrich's society, and forget sorrow and heartache.
+
+What joy it was to have him back, to be loved by him! Where was there
+a more affectionate son, a pleasanter home than hers? The velvet and
+brocade dresses belonging to the Baroness de Hierges had fallen to the
+Eletto. How young Florette looked in them! When she glanced into the
+mirror, she was astonished at herself.
+
+Two beautiful riding-horses for ladies' use and elegant trappings had
+been found in the baron's stable. Ulrich had told her of it, and the
+desire to ride with him instantly arose in her mind. She had always
+accompanied Grandgagnage, and when she now went out, attired in a long
+velvet riding-habit, with floating plumes in her dainty little hat,
+beside her son, she soon noticed how admiringly even the hostile
+citizens and their wives looked after them. It was a pretty sight to
+behold the handsome soldier, full of pride and power, galloping on the
+most spirited stallion, beside the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose
+eyes sparkled with vivacious light.
+
+Zorrillo often met them, when they passed the guildhall, and Florette
+always gave him a friendly greeting with her whip, but he intentionally
+averted his eyes or if he could not avoid it, coldly returned her
+recognition.
+
+This wounded her deeply, and when alone, it often happened that she sunk
+into gloomy reverie and, with an aged, weary face, gazed fixedly at the
+floor. But Ulrich's approach quickly cheered and rejuvenated her.
+
+Florette now knew what her son had experienced in life, what had moved
+his heart, his soul, and could not contradict him, when he told her that
+power was the highest prize of existence.
+
+The Eletto's ambitious mind could not be satisfied with little Aalst.
+The mutineers had been outlawed by an edict from Brussels, but the king
+had nothing to do with this measure; the shameful proclamation was only
+intended to stop the wailing of the Netherlanders. They would have to
+pay dearly for it! There was a great scheme in view.
+
+The Antwerp of those days was called "as rich as the Indies;" the
+project under consideration was the possibility of manoeuvring this
+abode of wealth into the hands of the mutineers; the whole Spanish army
+in the Netherlands being about to follow the example of the regiments in
+Aalst.
+
+The mother was the friend and counsellor of the son. At every step he
+took he heard her opinion, and often yielded his own in its favor. This
+interest in the direction of great events occupied the sibyl's versatile
+mind. When, on many occasions, pros and tons were equal in weight, she
+brought out the cards, and this oracle generally turned the scale.
+
+No high aim, no desire to accomplish good and great things in wider
+spheres, influenced the thoughts and actions of this couple.
+
+What cared they, that the weal and woe of thousands depended on their
+decision? The deadly weapon in their bands was to them only a valuable
+utensil in which they delighted, and with which fruits were plucked from
+the trees.
+
+Ulrich now saw the fulfilment of Don Juan's words, that power was an
+arable field; for there were many full ears in Aalst for them both to
+harvest.
+
+Florette still nursed, with maternal care, the soldier's orphan which
+she had taken to her son's house; the child, born on a bed of straw--was
+now clothed in dainty linen, laces and other beautiful finery. It was
+necessary to her, for she occupied herself with the helpless little
+creature when, during the long morning hours of Ulrich's absence,
+sorrowful thought troubled her too deeply.
+
+Ulrich often remained absent a long time, far longer than the service
+required. What was he doing? Visiting a sweetheart? Why not? She only
+marvelled that the fair women did not come from far and near to see the
+handsome man.
+
+Yes, the Eletto had found an old love. Art, which he had sullenly
+forsaken. News had reached his ears, that an artist had fallen in the
+defence of the city. He went to the dead man's house to see his works,
+and how did he find the painter's dwelling! Windows, furniture were
+shattered, the broken doors of the cupboards hung into the rooms on
+their bent hinges. The widow and her children were lying in the studio
+on a heap of straw. This touched his heart, and he gave alms with an
+open hand to the sorrowing woman. A few pictures of the saints, which
+the Spaniards had spared, hung on the walls; the easel, paints and
+brushes had been left untouched.
+
+A thought, which he instantly carried into execution, entered his mind.
+He would paint a new standard! How his heart beat, when he again stood
+before the easel!
+
+He regarded the heretics as heathens. The Spaniards were shortly going
+to fight against them and for the faith. So he painted the Saviour on
+one side of the standard, the Virgin on the other. The artist's widow
+sat to him for the Madonna, a young soldier for the Christ.
+
+No scruples, no consideration for the criticisms of teachers now checked
+his creating hand; the power was his, and whatever he did must be right.
+
+He placed upon the Saviour's bowed figure, Costa's head, as he had
+painted it in Titian's studio, and the Madonna, in defiance of the stern
+judges in Madrid, received the sibyl's face, to please himself and do
+honor to his mother. He made her younger, transformed her white hair to
+gleaming golden tresses. One day he asked Flora to sit still and think
+of something very serious; he wanted to sketch her.
+
+She gaily placed herself in position, saying:
+
+"Be quick, for serious thoughts don't last long with me."
+
+A few days later both pictures were finished, and possessed no mean
+degree of merit; he rejoiced that after the long interval he could
+still accomplish something. His mother was delighted with her son's
+masterpieces, especially the Madonna, for she instantly recognized
+herself, and was touched by this proof of his faithful remembrance. She
+had looked exactly like it when a young girl, she said; it was strange
+how precisely he had hit the color of her hair; but she was afraid it
+was blaspheming to paint a Madonna with her face; she was a poor sinner,
+nothing more.
+
+Florette was glad that the work was finished, for restlessness again
+began to torture her, and the mornings had been so lonely. Zorrillo--it
+caused her bitter pain--had not cast even a single glance at her, and
+she began to miss the society of men, to which she had been accustomed.
+But she never complained, and always showed Ulrich the same cheerful
+face, until the latter told her one day that he must leave her for some
+time.
+
+He had already defeated in little skirmishes small bodies of peasants
+and citizens, who had taken the field against the mutineers; now Colonel
+Romero called upon him to help oppose a large army of patriots, who had
+assembled between Lowen and Tirlemont, under the command of the noble
+Sieur de Floyon. It was said to consist Of students and other rebellious
+brawlers, and so it proved; but the "rebels" were the flower of the
+youth of the shamefully-oppressed nation, noble souls, who found it
+unbearable to see their native land enslaved by mutinous hordes.
+
+Ulrich's parting with his mother was not a hard one. He felt sure of
+victory and of returning home, but the excitable woman burst into tears
+as she bade him farewell.
+
+The Eletto took the field with a large body of troops; the majority of
+the mutineers, with them. Captain and Quartermaster Zorrillo, remained
+behind to hold the citizens in check.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+A considerable, but hastily-collected army of patriots had been utterly
+routed at Tisnacq by a small force of disciplined Spaniards.
+
+Ulrich had assisted his countrymen to gain the speedy victory, and
+had been greeted by his old colonel, the brave Romero, the bold
+cavalry-commander, Mendoza, and other distinguished officers as one of
+themselves. Since these aristocrats had become mutineers, the Eletto
+was a brother, and they did not disdain to secure his cooperation in the
+attack they were planning upon Antwerp.
+
+He had shown great courage under fire, and wherever he appeared, his
+countrymen held out their hands to him, vowing obedience and loyalty
+unto death.
+
+Ulrich felt as if he were walking on air, mere existence was a joy to
+him. No prince could revel in the blissful consciousness of increasing
+power, more fully than he. The evening after the decision he had
+attended a splendid banquet with Romero, Vargas, Mendoza, Tassis, and
+the next morning the prisoners, who had fallen into the hands of his
+men, were brought before him.
+
+He had left the examination of the students, citizens' sons, and
+peasants to his lieutenant; but there were also three noblemen, from
+whom large ransoms could be obtained. The two older ones had granted
+what he asked and been led away; the third, a tall man in knightly
+armor, was left last.
+
+Ulrich had personally encountered the latter. The prisoner, mounted upon
+a tall steed, had pressed him very closely; nay, the Eletto's victory
+was not decided, until a musket-shot had stretched the other's horse on
+the ground.
+
+The knight now carried his arm in a sling. In the centre of his coat of
+mail and on the shoulder-pieces of his armor, the ensigns armorial of a
+noble family were embossed.
+
+"You were dragged out from under your horse," said the Eletto to the
+knight. "You wield an excellent blade."
+
+He had spoken in Spanish, but the other shrugged his shoulders, and
+answered in the German language "I don't understand Spanish."
+
+"Are you a German?" Ulrich now asked in his native tongue. "How do you
+happen to be among the Netherland rebels?"
+
+The nobleman looked at the Eletto in surprise. But the latter, giving
+him no time for reflection, continued "I understand German; your
+answer?"
+
+"I had business in Antwerp?"
+
+"What business?"
+
+"That is my affair."
+
+"Very well. Then we will drop courtesy and adopt a different tone."
+
+"Nay, I am the vanquished party, and will answer you."
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I had stuffs to buy."
+
+"Are you a merchant?"
+
+The knight shook his head and answered, smiling: "We have rebuilt our
+castle since the fire."
+
+"And now you need hangings and artistic stuff. Did you expect to capture
+them from us?"
+
+"Scarcely, sir."
+
+"Then what brought you among our enemies?"
+
+"Baron Floyon belongs to my mother's family. He marched against you, and
+as I approved his cause...."
+
+"And pillage pleases you, you felt disposed to break a lance."
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"And you have done your cause no harm. Where do you live?"
+
+"Surely you know: in Germany."
+
+"Germany is a very large country."
+
+"In the Black Forest in Swabia."
+
+"And your name?"
+
+The prisoner made no reply; but Ulrich fixed his eyes upon the coat of
+arms on the knight's armor, looked at him more steadily, and a strange
+smile hovered around his lips as he approached him, saying in an altered
+tone: "You think the Navarrete will demand from Count von Frohlinger a
+ransom as large as his fields and forests?"
+
+"You know me?"
+
+"Perhaps so, Count Lips."
+
+"By Heavens!"
+
+"Ah, ha, you went from the monastery to the field."
+
+"From the monastery? How do you know that, sir?"
+
+"We are old acquaintances, Count Lips. Look me in the eyes."
+
+The other gazed keenly at the Eletto, shook his head, and said: "You
+have not seemed a total stranger to me from the first; but I never was
+in Spain."
+
+"But I have been in Swabia, and at that time you did me a kindness.
+Would your ransom be large enough to cover the cost of a broken church
+window?"
+
+The count opened his eyes in amazement and a bright smile flashed over
+his face as, clapping his hands, he exclaimed with sincere delight:
+
+"You, you--you are Ulrich! I'll be damned, if I'm mistaken! But who the
+devil would discover a child of the Black Forest in the Spanish Eletto?"
+
+"That I am one, must remain a secret between us for the present,"
+exclaimed Ulrich, extending his hand to the count. "Keep silence, and
+you will be free--the window will cover the ransom!"
+
+"Holy Virgin! If all the windows in the monastery were as dear, the
+monks might grow fat!" cried the count. "A Swabian heart remains half
+Swabian, even when it beats under a Spanish doublet. Its luck, Turk's
+luck, that I followed Floyon;--and your old father, Adam? And Ruth--what
+a pleasure!"
+
+"You ought to know... my father is dead, died long, long ago!" said
+Ulrich, lowering his eyes.
+
+"Dead!" exclaimed the other. "And long ago? I saw him at the anvil three
+weeks since."
+
+"My father? At the anvil? And Ruth?..." stammered Ulrich, gazing at the
+other with a pallid, questioning face.
+
+"They are alive, certainly they are alive! I met him again in Antwerp.
+No one else can make you such armor. The devil is in it, if you hav'nt
+heard of the Swabian armorer."
+
+"The Swabian--the Swabian--is he my father?"
+
+"Your own father. How long ago is it? Thirteen years, for I was then
+sixteen. That was the last time I saw him, and yet I recognized him at
+the first glance. True, I shall never forget the hour, when the dumb
+woman drew the arrow from the Jew's breast. The scene I witnessed that
+day in the forest still rises before my eyes, as if it were happening
+now."
+
+"He lives, they did not kill him!" exclaimed the Eletto, now first
+beginning to rejoice over the surprising news. "Lips, man--Philipp!
+I have found my mother again, and now my father too. Wait, wait! I'll
+speak to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride
+to Lier; there you will tell me the whole story. Holy Virgin! thanks, a
+thousand thanks! I shall see my father again, my father!"
+
+It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their
+wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier. The Eletto had not grown
+weary of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.
+
+Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had
+gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years. The
+Jew's dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living
+with the old man and kept house for him. Navarrete had often heard the
+Swabian and his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.
+
+The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth. He acknowledged that
+he had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his
+beautiful daughter. The girl was slender as a fir-tree! And her face!
+once seen could never be forgotten. So might have looked the beautiful
+Judith, who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of
+Rome! She was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold
+as glass; and though she liked him on account of his old friendship for
+Ulrich and the affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at,
+not touch her. She would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still
+alive, and what he had become. And the smith, the smith! Nay, he would
+not go home now, but back to Antwerp to be Ulrich's messenger! But now
+he too would like to relate his own experiences.
+
+He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly
+reverted to old days and his father. Every person whom they had both
+known was enquired for.
+
+Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from
+gout and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age.
+Hangemarx had grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by
+the rope, though by his own hand. Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the
+priesthood and was living in Rome in high esteem, as a member of a
+Spanish order. The abbot still presided over the monastery and had a
+great deal of time for his studies; for the school had been broken up
+and, as part of the property of the monastery had been confiscated, the
+number of monks had diminished. The magistrate had been falsely accused
+of embezzling minors' money, remained in prison for a year and, after
+his liberation, died of a liver complaint.
+
+Morning was dawning when the friends separated. Count Philipp undertook
+to tell Ruth that Ulrich had found his mother again. She was to persuade
+the smith to forgive his wife, with whose praises her son's lips were
+overflowing.
+
+At his departure Philipp tried to induce the Eletto to change his course
+betimes, for he was following a dangerous path; but Ulrich laughed in
+his face, exclaiming: "You know I have found the right word, and shall
+use it to the end. You were born to power in a small way; I have won
+mine myself, and shall not rest until I am permitted to exercise it on
+a great scale, nay, the grandest. If aught on earth affords a taste of
+heavenly joy, it is power!"
+
+In the camp the Eletto found the troops from Aalst prepared for
+departure, and as he rode along the road saw in imagination, sometimes
+his parents, his parents in a new and happy union, sometimes Ruth in the
+full splendor of her majestic beauty. He remembered how proudly he had
+watched his father and mother, when they went to church together on
+Sunday, how he had carried Ruth in his arms on their flight; and now he
+was to see and experience all this again.
+
+He gave his men only a short rest, for he longed to reach his mother.
+It was a glorious return home, to bring such tidings! How beautiful and
+charming he found life; how greatly he praised his destiny!
+
+The sun was setting behind pleasant Aalst as he approached, and the sky
+looked as if it was strewn with roses.
+
+"Beautiful, beautiful!" he murmured, pointing out to his lieutenant the
+brilliant hues in the western horizon.
+
+A messenger hastened on in advance, the thunder of artillery and fanfare
+of music greeted the victors, as they marched through the gate. Ulrich
+sprang from his horse in front of the guildhall and was received by the
+captain, who had commanded during his absence.
+
+The Eletto hastily described the course of the brilliant, victorious
+march, and then asked what had happened.
+
+The captain lowered his eyes in embarrassment, saying, in a low tone:
+"Nothing of great importance; but day before yesterday a wicked deed was
+committed, which will vex you. The woman you love, the camp sibyl...."
+
+"Who? What? What do you mean?"
+
+"She went to Zorrillo, and he--you must not be startled--he stabbed
+her."
+
+Ulrich staggered back, repeating, in a hollow tone "Stabbed!" Then
+seizing the other by the shoulder, he shrieked: "Stabbed! That means
+murdered-killed!"
+
+"He thrust his dagger into her heart, she must have died as quickly as
+if struck by lightning. Then Zorrillo went away, God knows where. Who
+could suspect, that the quiet man...."
+
+"You let him escape, helped the murderer get off, you dogs!" raved the
+wretched man. "We will speak of this again. Where is she, where is her
+body?"
+
+The captain shrugged his shoulders, saying, in a soothing tone: "Calm
+yourself, Navarrete! We too grieve for the sibyl; many in the camp will
+miss her. As for Zorrillo, he had the password, and could go through the
+gate at any hour. The body is still lying in his quarters."
+
+"Indeed!" faltered the Eletto. Then calming himself, he said,
+mournfully: "I wish to see her."
+
+The captain walked silently by his side and opened the murderer's
+dwelling.
+
+There, on a bed of pine-shavings, in a rude coffin made of rough planks,
+lay the woman who had given him birth, deserted him, and yet who so
+tenderly loved him. A poor soldier's wife, to whom she had been kind,
+was watching beside the corpse, at whose head a singly brand burned with
+a smoky, yellow light. The little white dog had found its way to her,
+and was snuffing the floor, still red with its mistress's blood.
+
+Ulrich snatched the brand from the bracket, and threw the light on the
+dead woman's face. His tear-dimmed eyes sought his mother's features,
+but only rested on them a moment--then he shuddered, turned away, and
+giving the torch to his companion, said, softly: "Cover her head."
+
+The soldier's wife spread her coarse apron over the face, which-had
+smiled so sweetly: but Ulrich threw himself on his knees beside the
+coffin, buried his face, and remained in this attitude for many minutes.
+
+At last he slowly rose, rubbed his eyes as if waking from some confused
+dream, drew himself up proudly, and scanned the place with searching
+eyes.
+
+He was the Eletto, and thus men honored the woman who was dear to him!
+
+His mother lay in a wretched pauper's coffin, a ragged camp-follower
+watched beside her--no candles burned at her head, no priest prayed for
+the salvation of her soul!
+
+Grief was raging madly in his breast, now indignation joined this gloomy
+guest; giving vent to his passionate emotion, Ulrich wildly exclaimed:
+
+"Look here, captain! This corpse, this woman--proclaim it to every
+one--the sibyl was my mother yes, yes, my own mother! I demand respect
+for her, the same respect that is shown myself! Must I compel men to
+render her fitting honor? Here, bring torches. Prepare the catafalque in
+St. Martin's church, and place it before the altar! Put candles around
+it, as many as can be found! It is still early! Lieutenant! I am glad
+you are there! Rouse the cathedral priests and go to the bishop. I
+command a solemn requiem for my mother! Everything is to be arranged
+precisely as it was at the funeral of the Duchess of Aerschot! Let
+trumpets give the signal for assembling. Order the bells to be rung! In
+an hour all must be ready at St. Martin's cathedral! Bring torches here,
+I say! Have I the right to command--yes or no? A large oak coffin was
+standing at the joiner's close by. Bring it here, here; I need a better
+death-couch for my mother. You poor, dear woman, how you loved flowers,
+and no one has brought you even one! Captain Ortis, I have issued my
+commands! Everything must be done, when I return;--Lieutenant, you have
+your orders!"
+
+He rushed from the death-chamber to the sitting-room in his own house,
+and hastily tore stalks and blossoms from the plants. The maid-servants
+watched him timidly, and he harshly ordered them to collect what he had
+gathered and take them to the house of death.
+
+His orders were obeyed, and when he next appeared at Zorrillo's
+quarters, the soldiers, who had assembled there in throngs, parted to
+make way for him.
+
+He beckoned to them, and while he went from one to another, saying: "The
+sibyl was my mother--Zorrillo has murdered my mother," the coffin was
+borne into the house.
+
+In the vestibule, he leaned his head against the wall, moaning and
+sighing, until Florette was laid in her last bed, and a soldier put his
+hand on his shoulder. Then Ulrich strewed flowers over the corpse, and
+the joiner came to nail up the coffin. The blows of the hammer actually
+hurt him, it seemed as if each one fell upon his own heart.
+
+The funeral procession passed through the ranks of soldiers, who
+filled the street. Several officers came to meet it, and Captain
+Ortis, approaching close to the Eletto, said: "The bishop refuses the
+catafalque and the solemn requiem you requested. Your mother died in
+sin, without the sacrament. He will grant as many masses for the repose
+of her soul as you desire, but such high honors...."
+
+"He refuses them to us?"
+
+"Not to us, to the sibyl."
+
+"She was my mother, your Eletto's mother. To the cathedral, forward!"
+
+"It is closed, and will remain so to-day, for the bishop...."
+
+"Then burst the doors! We'll show them who has the power here."
+
+"Are you out of your senses? The Holy Church!"
+
+"Forward, I say! Let him who is no cowardly wight, follow me!"
+
+Ulrich drew the commander's baton from his belt and rushed forward, as
+if he were leading a storming-party; but Ortis cried: "We will not fight
+against St. Martin!" and a murmur of applause greeted him.
+
+Ulrich checked his pace, and gnashing his teeth, exclaimed: "Will not?
+Will not?" Then gazing around the circle of comrades, who surrounded
+him on all sides, he asked: "Has no one courage to help me to my rights?
+Ortis, de Vego, Diego, will you follow me, yes or no?"
+
+"No, not against the Church!"
+
+"Then I command you," shouted the Eletto, furiously. "Obey, Lieutenant
+de Vega, forward with your company, and burst the cathedral doors."
+
+But no one obeyed, and Ortis ordered: "Back, every man of you! Saint
+Martin is my patron saint; let all who value their souls refuse to
+attack the church and defend it with me."
+
+The blood rushed to Ulrich's brain, and incapable of longer
+self-control, he threw his baton into the ranks of the mutineers,
+shrieking: "I hurl it at your feet; whoever picks it up can keep it!"
+
+The soldiers hesitated; but Ortis repeated his "Back!" Other officers
+gave the same order, and their men obeyed. The street grew empty, and
+the Eletto's mother was only followed by a few of her son's friends; no
+priest led the procession. In the cemetery Ulrich threw three handfuls
+of earth into the open grave, then with drooping head returned home.
+
+How dreary, how desolate the bright, flower-decked room seemed now, for
+the first time the Eletto felt really deserted. No tears came to relieve
+his grief, for the insult offered him that day aroused his wrath, and he
+cherished it as if it were a consolation.
+
+He had thrown power aside with the staff of command. Power! It too was
+potter's trash, which a stone might shatter, a flower in full bloom,
+whose leaves drop apart if touched by the finger! It was no noble metal,
+only yellow mica!
+
+The knocker on the door never stopped rapping. One officer after another
+came to soothe him, but he would not even admit his lieutenant.
+
+He rejoiced over his hasty deed. Fortune, he thought, cannot be escaped,
+art cannot be thrown aside; fame may be trampled under foot, yet still
+pursue us.
+
+Power has this advantage over all three, it can be flung off like a
+worn-out doublet. Let it fly! Had he owed it the happiness of the last
+few weeks? No, no! He would have been happy with his mother in a poor,
+plain house, without the office of Eletto, without flowers, horses or
+servants. It was to her, not to power, that he was indebted for every
+blissful hour, and now that she had gone, how desolate was the void in
+his heart!
+
+Suddenly the recollection of his father and Ruth illumined his misery
+like a sunbeam. The game of Eletto was now over, he would go to Antwerp
+the next day.
+
+Why had fate snatched his mother from him just now, why did it deny him
+the happiness of seeing his parents united? His father--she had sorely
+wronged him, but for what will not death atone? He must take him some
+remembrance of her, and went to her room to look through her chest.
+But it no longer stood in the old place--the owner of the house, a rich
+matron, who had been compelled to occupy an attic-room, while strangers
+were quartered in her residence, had taken charge of the pale orphan and
+the boxes after Florette's death.
+
+The good Netherland dame provided for the adopted child and the property
+of her enemy, the man whose soldiers had pillaged her brothers and
+cousins. The death of the woman below had moved her deeply, for the
+wonderful charm of Florette's manner had won her also.
+
+Towards midnight Ulrich took the lamp and went upstairs. He had long
+since forgotten to spare others, by denying himself a wish.
+
+The knocking at the door and the passing to and fro in the entry had
+kept Frau Geel awake. When she heard the Eletto's heavy step, she sprang
+up from her spinning-wheel in alarm, and the maid-servant, half roused
+from sleep, threw herself on her knees.
+
+"Frau Geel!" called a voice outside.
+
+She recognized Navarrete's tones, opened the door, and asked what he
+desired.
+
+"It was his mother," thought the old lady as he threw clothes, linen
+and many a trifle on the floor. "It was his mother. Perhaps he wants her
+rosary or prayer book. He is her son! They looked like a happy couple
+when they were together. A wild soldier, but he isn't a wicked man yet."
+
+While he searched she held the light for him, shaking her head over the
+disorder among the articles where he rummaged.
+
+Ulrich had now reached the bottom of the chest. Here he found a valuable
+necklace, booty which Zorrillo had given his companion for use in case
+of need. This should be Ruth's. Close beside it lay a small package,
+tied with rose-pink ribbon, containing a tiny infant's shirt, a gay
+doll, and a slender gold circlet; her wedding-ring! The date showed
+that it had been given to her by his father, and the shirt and doll were
+mementos of him, her darling--of himself.
+
+He gazed at them, changing them from one hand to the other, till
+suddenly his heart overflowed, and without heeding Frau Geel, who was
+watching him, he wept softly, exclaiming: "Mother, dear mother!"
+
+A light hand touched his shoulder, and a woman's kind voice said: "Poor
+fellow, poor fellow! Yes, she was a dear little thing, and a mother, a
+mother--that is enough!"
+
+The Eletto nodded assent with tearful eyes, and when she again gently
+repeated in a tone of sincere sympathy, her "poor fellow!" it sounded
+sweeter, than the loudest homage that had ever been offered to his fame
+and power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+The next morning while Ulrich was packing his luggage, assisted by his
+servant, the sound of drums and fifes, bursts of military music and loud
+cheers were heard in the street, and going to the window, he saw the
+whole body of mutineers drawn up in the best order.
+
+The companies stood in close ranks before his house, impetuous shouts
+and bursts of music made the windows rattle, and now the officers
+pressed into his room, holding out their swords, vowing fealty unto
+death, and entreating him to remain their commander.
+
+He now perceived, that power cannot be thrown aside like a worthless
+thing. His tortured heart was stirred with deep emotion, and the
+drooping wings of ambition unfolded with fresh energy. He reproached,
+raged, but yielded; and when Ortis on his knees, offered him the
+commander's baton, he accepted it.
+
+Ulrich was again Eletto, but this need not prevent his seeing his father
+and Ruth once more, so he declared that he would retain his office,
+but should be obliged to ride to Antwerp that day, secretly inform
+the officers of the conspiracy against the city, and the necessity of
+negotiating with the commandant, that their share of the rich prize
+might not be lost.
+
+What many had suspected and hoped was now to become reality. Their
+Eletto was no idle man! When Navarrete appeared at noon in front of the
+troops with his own work, the standard, in his hand, he was received
+with shouts of joy, and no one murmured, though many recognized in the
+Madonna's countenance the features of the murdered sibyl.
+
+Two days later Ulrich, full of eager expectation, rode into Antwerp,
+carrying in his portmanteau the mementos he had taken from his mother's
+chest, while in imagination he beheld his father's face, the smithy
+at Richtberg, the green forest, the mountains of his home, the Costas'
+house, and his little playfellow. Would he really be permitted to lean
+on his father's broad breast once more?
+
+And Ruth, Ruth! Did she still care for him, had Philipp described her
+correctly?
+
+He went to the count without delay, and found him at home. Philipp
+received him cordially, yet with evident timidity and embarrassment.
+Ulrich too was grave, for he had to inform his companion of his mother's
+death.
+
+"So that is settled," said the count. "Your father is a gnarled old
+tree, a real obstinate Swabian. It's not his way to forgive and forget."
+
+"And did he know that my mother was so near to him, that she was in
+Aalst."
+
+"All, all!"
+
+"He will forgive the dead. Surely, surely he will, if I beseech him,
+when we are united, if I tell him...."
+
+"Poor fellow! You think all this is so easy.--It is long since I have
+had so hard a task, yet I must speak plainly. He will have nothing to do
+with you, either."
+
+"Nothing to do with me?" cried Ulrich.
+
+"Is he out of his senses? What sin have I committed, what does he...."
+
+"He knows that you are Navarrete, the Eletto of Herenthals, the
+conqueror of Aalst, and therefore...."
+
+"Therefore?"
+
+"Why of course. You see, Ulrich, when a man becomes famous like you, he
+is known for a long distance, everything he does makes a great hue and
+cry, and echo repeats it in every alley."
+
+"To my honor before God and man."
+
+"Before God? Perhaps so; certainly before the Spaniards. As for me--I
+was with the squadron myself, I call you a brave soldier; but--no
+offence--you have behaved ill in this country. The Netherlanders are
+human beings too."
+
+"They are rebels, recreant heretics."
+
+"Take care, or you will revile your own father. His faith has been
+shaken. A preacher, whom he met on his flight here, in some tavern, led
+him astray by inducing him to read the bible. Many things the Church
+condemns are sacred to him. He thinks the Netherlanders a free, noble
+nation. Your King Philip he considers a tyrant, oppressor, and ruthless
+destroyer. You who have served him and Alba--are in his eyes; but I will
+not wound you...."
+
+"What are we, I will hear."
+
+"No, no, it would do no good. In short, to Adam the Spanish army is a
+bloody pest, nothing more."
+
+"There never were braver soldiers."
+
+"Very true; but every defeat, all the blood you have shed, has angered
+him and this nation, and wrath, which daily receives fresh food and to
+which men become accustomed, at last turns to hate. All great crimes
+committed in this war are associated with Alba's name, many smaller ones
+with yours, and so your father...."
+
+"Then we will teach him a better opinion! I return to him an honest
+soldier, the commander of thousands of men! To see him once more, only
+to see him! A son remains a son! I learned that from my mother. We were
+rivals and enemies, when I met her! And then, then--alas, that is all
+over! Now I wish to find in my father what I have lost; will you go to
+the smithy with me?"
+
+"No, Ulrich, no. I have said everything to your father that can be urged
+in your defence, but he is so devoured with rage...."
+
+"Santiago!" exclaimed the Eletto, bursting into sudden fury, "I need no
+advocate! If the old man knows what share I have taken in this war, so
+much the better. I'll fill up the gaps myself. I have been wherever the
+fight raged hottest! 'Sdeath! that is my pride! I am no longer a boy and
+have fought my way through life without father or mother. What I am,
+I have made myself, and can defend with honor, even to the old man.
+He carries heavy guns, I know; but I am not accustomed to shoot with
+feather balls!"
+
+"Ulrich, Ulrich! He is an old man, and your father!"
+
+"I will remember that, as soon as he calls me his son."
+
+One of the count's servants showed Ulrich the way to the smith's house.
+
+Adam had entirely given up the business of horseshoeing, for nothing
+was to be seen in the ground floor of the high, narrow house, except
+the large door, and a window on each side. Behind the closed one at
+the right were several pieces of armor, beautifully embossed, and some
+artistically-wrought iron articles. The left-hand one was partly open,
+granting entrance to the autumn sunshine. Ulrich dismissed the servant,
+took the mementos of his mother in his hand, and listened to the
+hammer-strokes, that echoed from within.
+
+The familiar sound recalled pleasant memories of his childhood and
+cooled his hot blood. Count Philipp was right. His father was an old
+man, and entitled to demand respect from his son. He must endure from
+him what he would tolerate from no one else. Nay, he again felt that it
+was a great happiness to be near the beloved one, from whom he had
+so long been parted; whatever separated him from his old father, must
+surely vanish into nothing, as soon as they looked into each other's
+eyes.
+
+What a master in his trade, his father still was! No one else would have
+found it so easy to forge the steel coat of mail with the Medusa head
+in the centre. He was not working alone here as he did at Richtberg; for
+Ulrich heard more than one hammer striking iron in the workshop.
+
+Before touching the knocker, he looked into the open window.
+
+A woman's tall figure was standing at the desk. Her back was turned, and
+he saw only the round outline of the head, the long black braids, the
+plain dress, bordered with velvet, and the lace in the neck. An elderly
+man in the costume of a merchant was just holding out his hand in
+farewell, and he heard him say: "You've bought too cheap again, far too
+cheap, Jungfer Ruth."
+
+"Just a fair price," she answered quietly. "You will have a good
+profit, and we can afford to pay it. I shall expect the iron day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"It will be delivered before noon. Master Adam has a treasure in you,
+dear Jungfer. If my son were alive, I know where he would seek a wife.
+Wilhelm Ykens has told me of his troubles; he is a skilful goldsmith.
+Why do you give the poor fellow no hope? Consider! You are past twenty,
+and every year it grows harder to say yes to a lover."
+
+"Nothing suits me better, than to stay with father," she answered gaily.
+"He can't do without me, you know, nor I without him. I have no dislike
+to Wilhelm, but it seems very easy to live without him. Farewell, Father
+Keulitz."
+
+Ulrich withdrew from the window, until the merchant had vanished down
+a side street; then he again glanced into the narrow room. Ruth was now
+seated at the desk, but instead of looking over the open account book,
+her eyes were gazing dreamily into vacancy, and the Eletto now saw her
+beautiful, calm, noble face. He did not disturb her, for it seemed as if
+he could never weary of comparing her features with the fadeless image
+his memory had treasured during all the vicissitudes of life.
+
+Never, not even in Italy, had he beheld a nobler countenance. Philipp
+was right. There was something royal in her bearing. This was the wife
+of his dreams, the proud woman, with whom the Eletto desired to share
+power and grandeur. And he had already held her once in his arms! It
+seemed as if it were only yesterday. His heart throbbed higher and
+higher. As she now rose and thoughtfully approached the window, he could
+no longer contain himself, and exclaimed in a low tone: "Ruth, Ruth! Do
+you know me, girl? It is I--Ulrich!"
+
+She shrank back, putting out her hands with a repellent gesture; but
+only for a moment. Then, struggling to maintain her composure, she
+joyously uttered his name, and as he rushed into the room, cried
+"Ulrich!" "Ulrich!" and no longer able to control her feelings, suffered
+him to clasp her to his heart.
+
+She had daily expected him with ardent longing, yet secret dread: for he
+was the fierce Eletto, the commander of the insurgents, the bloody foe
+of the brave nation she loved. But at sight of his face all, all was
+forgotten, and she felt nothing but the bliss of being reunited to him
+whom she had never, never forgotten, the joy of seeing, feeling that he
+loved her.
+
+His heart too was overflowing with passionate delight. Faltering tender
+words, he drew her head to his breast, then raised it to press his mouth
+to her pure lips. But her intoxication of joy passed away--and before
+he could prevent it, she had escaped from his arms, saying sternly: "Not
+that, not that.... Many a crime lies between us and you."
+
+"No, no!" he eagerly exclaimed. "Are you not near me? Your heart and
+mine have belonged to each other since that day in the snow. If my
+father is angry because I serve other masters than his, you, yes you,
+must reconcile us again. I could stay in Aalst no longer."
+
+"With the mutineers?" she asked sadly. "Ulrich, Ulrich, that you should
+return to us thus!"
+
+He again seized her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it, only
+smiled, saying with the confidence of a man, who is sure of his cause:
+
+"Cast aside this foolish reserve. To-morrow you will freely give me, not
+only one hand, but both. I am not so bad as you think. The fortune of
+war flung me under the Spanish flag, and 'whose bread I eat, his song I
+sing,' says the soldier. What would you have? I served with honor, and
+have done some doughty deeds; let that content you."
+
+This angered Ruth, who resolutely exclaimed:
+
+"No, a thousand times no! You are the Eletto of Aalst, the pillager of
+cities, and this cannot be swept aside as easily as the dust from the
+floor. I... I am only a feeble girl;--but father, he will never give his
+hand to the blood-stained man in Spanish garb! I know him, I know it."
+
+Ulrich's breath came quicker; but he repressed the angry emotion and
+replied, first reproachfully, then beseechingly:
+
+"You are the old man's echo. What does he know of military honor and
+warlike fame; but you, Ruth, must understand me. Do you still remember
+our sport with the 'word,' the great word that accomplished everything?
+I have found it; and you shall enjoy with me what it procures. First
+help me appease my father; I shall succeed, if you aid me. It will
+doubtless be a hard task. He could not bring himself to forgive his poor
+wife--Count Philipp says so;--but now! You see, Ruth, my mother died
+a few days ago; she was a dear, loving woman and might have deserved a
+better fate.
+
+"I am alone again now, and long for love--so ardently, so sincerely,
+more than I can tell you. Where shall I find it, if not with you and my
+own father? You have always cared for me; you betray it, and after all
+you know I am not a bad man, do you not? Be content with my love and
+take me to my father, yourself. Help me persuade him to listen to me. I
+have something here which you can give him from me; you will see that it
+will soften his heart!"
+
+"Then give it to me," replied Ruth, "but whatever it may be--believe
+me, Ulrich, so long as you command the Spanish mutineers, he will remain
+hard, hard as his own iron!"
+
+"Spaniards! Mutineers! Nonsense! Whoever wishes to love, can love; the
+rest may be settled afterwards. You don't know how high my heart throbs,
+now that I am near you, now that I see and hear you. You are my good
+angel and must remain so, now look here. This is my mother's legacy.
+This little shirt I once wore, when I was a tiny thing, the gay doll was
+my plaything, and this gold hoop is the wedding-ring my father gave his
+bride at the altar--she kept all these things to the last, and carried
+them like holy relics from land to land, from camp to camp. Will you
+take these mementos to him?"
+
+She nodded silently.
+
+"Now comes the best thing. Have you ever seen more beautiful
+workmanship? You must wear this necklace, Ruth, as my first gift."
+
+He held up the costly ornament, but she shrank back, asking bitterly
+
+"Captured booty?"
+
+"In honorable war," he answered, proudly, approaching to fasten the
+jewels round her neck with his own hands; but she pushed him back,
+snatched the ornament, and hurled it on the floor, exclaiming angrily:
+
+"I loathe the stolen thing. Pick it up. It may suit the camp-followers."
+
+This destroyed his self-control, and seizing both her arms in an iron
+grasp, he muttered through his clenched teeth:
+
+"That is an insult to my mother; take it back." But Ruth heard and saw
+nothing; full of indignation she only felt that violence was being done
+her, and vainly struggled against the irresistible strength, which held
+her fast.
+
+Meantime the door had opened wide, but neither noticed it until a man's
+deep voice loudly and wrathfully exclaimed:
+
+"Back, you scoundrel! Come here, Ruth. This is the way the assassin
+greets his family; begone, begone! you disgrace of my house!"
+
+Adam had uttered the words, and now drew the hammer from the belt of his
+leather apron.
+
+Ulrich gazed mutely into his face. There stood his father, strong,
+gigantic, as he had looked thirteen years before. His head was a little
+bowed, his beard longer and whiter, his eyebrows were more bushy and his
+expression had grown more gloomy; otherwise he was wholly unchanged in
+every feature.
+
+The son's eyes rested on the smith as if spellbound. It seemed as if
+some malicious fate had drawn him into a snare.
+
+He could say nothing except, "father, father," and the smith found no
+other answer than the harsh "begone!"
+
+Ruth approached the armorer, clung to his side, and pleaded:
+
+"Hear him, don't send him away so; he is your child, and if anger just
+now overpowered him...."
+
+"Spanish custom--to abuse women!" cried Adam. "I have no son Navarrete,
+or whatever the murderous monster calls himself. I am a burgher, and
+have no son, who struts about in the stolen clothes of noblemen; as
+to this man and his assassins, I hate them, hate them all. Your foot
+defiles my house. Out with you, knave, or I will use my hammer."
+
+Ulrich again exclaimed, "father, father!" Then, regaining his
+self-control by a violent effort, he gasped:
+
+"Father, I came to you in good will, in love. I am an honest soldier
+and if any one but you--'Sdeath--if any other had dared to offer me
+this...."
+
+"Murder the dog, you would have said," interrupted the smith. "We know
+the Spanish blessing: a sandre, a carne!--[Blood, murder.]--Thanks for
+your forbearance. There is the door. Another word, and I can restrain
+myself no longer."
+
+Ruth had clung firmly to the smith, and motioned Ulrich to go. The
+Eletto groaned aloud, struck his forehead with his clenched fist, and
+rushed into the open air.
+
+As soon as Adam was alone with Ruth she caught his hand, exclaiming
+beseechingly:
+
+"Father, father, he is your own son! Love your enemies, the Saviour
+commanded; and you...."
+
+"And I hate him," said the smith, curtly and resolutely. "Did he hurt
+you?"
+
+"Your hate hurts me ten times as much! You judge without examining; yes,
+father, you do! When he assaulted me, he was in the right. He thought I
+had insulted his mother."
+
+Adam shrugged his shoulders, and she continued "The poor woman is dead.
+Ulrich brought you yonder ring; she never parted with it."
+
+The armorer started, seized the golden hoop, looked for the date inside,
+and when he had found it, clasped the ring in his hands and pressed them
+silently to his temples. He stood in this attitude a short time, then
+let his arms fall, and said softly:
+
+"The dead must be forgiven...."
+
+"And the living, father? You have punished him terribly, and he is not a
+wicked man, no, indeed he is not! If he comes back again, father?"
+
+"My apprentices shall show the Spanish mutineer the door," cried the
+old man in a harsh, stern tone; "to the burgher's repentant son my house
+will be always open."
+
+Meantime the Eletto wandered from one street to another. He felt
+bewildered, disgraced.
+
+It was not grief--no quiet heartache that disturbed--but a confused
+blending of wrath and sorrow. He did not wish to appear before the
+friend of his youth, and even avoided Hans Eitelfritz, who came towards
+him. He was blind to the gay, joyous bustle of the capital; life seemed
+grey and hollow. His intention of communicating with the commandant
+of the citadel remained unexecuted; for he thought of nothing but his
+father's anger, of Ruth, his own shame and misery.
+
+He could not leave so.
+
+His father must, yes, he must hear him, and when it grew dusk, he again
+sought the house to which he belonged, and from which he had been so
+cruelly expelled.
+
+The door was locked. In reply to his knock, a man's unfamiliar voice
+asked who he was, and what he wanted.
+
+He asked to speak with Adam, and called himself Ulrich.
+
+After waiting a long time he heard a door torn open, and the smith
+angrily exclaim:
+
+"To your spinning-wheel! Whoever clings to him so long as he wears the
+Spanish dress, means evil to him as well as to me."
+
+"But hear him! You must hear him, father!" cried Ruth.
+
+The door closed, heavy steps approached the door of the house; it
+opened, and again Adam confronted his son.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked harshly.
+
+"To speak to you, to tell you that you did wrong to insult me unheard."
+
+"Are you still the Eletto? Answer!"
+
+"I am!"
+
+"And intend to remain so?"
+
+"Que como--puede ser--" faltered Ulrich, who confused by the question,
+had strayed into the language in which he had been long accustomed to
+think. But scarcely had the smith distinguished the foreign words, when
+fresh anger seized him.
+
+"Then go to perdition with your Spaniards!" was the furious answer.
+
+The door slammed so that the house shook, and by degrees the smith's
+heavy tread died away in the vestibule.
+
+"All over, all over!" murmured the rejected son. Then calming himself,
+he clenched his fist and muttered through his set teeth: "There shall be
+no lack of ruin; whoever it befalls, can bear it."
+
+While walking through the streets and across the squares, he devised
+plan after plan, imagining what must come. Sword in hand he would burst
+the old man's door, and the only booty he asked for himself should be
+Ruth, for whom he longed, who in spite of everything loved him, who had
+belonged to him from her childhood.
+
+The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant
+of the Spanish forces in the citadel. The fate of the city was sealed!
+and when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with
+its proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower
+floor crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted:
+
+"A pretty little house, three stories high. And how the broad windows,
+between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!"
+
+Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts
+and horses, and continued:
+
+"Look closer and choose your quarters. Come with me! I'll show you where
+the best things we need can be found. Haven't we bled often enough for
+the pepper-sacks? Now it will be our turn to fleece them. The castles
+here, with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the guildhalls. There
+is gold enough in each one, to make the company rich. Now this way!
+Directly behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal. There live
+stiff-necked people, who dine off of silver every day. Notice the
+street!"
+
+Then he led him back to the square, and continued "The streets here all
+lead to the quay. Do you know it? Have you seen the warehouses? Filled
+to the very roof! The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might
+transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras."
+
+Ulrich followed his guide from street to street. Wherever he looked, he
+saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz stopped before a jeweller's shop, saying:
+
+"Look here! I particularly admire these things, these toys: the little
+dog, the sled, the lady with the hoopskirt, all these things are pure
+silver. When the pillage begins, I shall grasp these and take them to
+my sister's little children in Colln; they will be delighted, and if it
+should ever be necessary, their mother can sell them."
+
+What a throng crowded the most aristocratic streets! English, Spanish,
+Italian and Hanseatic merchants tried to outdo the Netherland traders in
+magnificent clothes and golden ornaments. Ulrich saw them all assembled
+in the Gothic exchange on the Mere, the handsomest square in the city.
+There they stood in the vast open hall, on the checkered marble floor,
+not by hundreds, but by thousands, dealing in goods which came from all
+quarters of the globe--from the most distant lands. Their offers and
+bids mingled in a noise audible at a long distance, which was borne
+across the square like the echo of ocean surges.
+
+Sums were discussed, which even the winged imagination of the
+lansquenet could scarcely grasp. This city was a remarkable treasure,
+a thousand-fold richer booty than had been garnered from the Ottoman
+treasure-ship on the sea at Lepanto.
+
+Here was the fortune the Eletto needed, to build the palace in which he
+intended to place Ruth. To whom else would fall the lion's share of the
+enormous prize!
+
+His future happiness was to arise from the destruction of this proud
+city, stifling in its gold.
+
+These were ambitious brilliant plans, but he devised them with gloomy
+eyes, in a darkened mind. He intended to win by force what was denied
+him, so long as the power belonged to him.
+
+There could be no lack of flames and carnage; but that was part of his
+trade, as shavings belong to flames, hammer-strokes to smiths.
+
+Count Philipp had no suspicion of the assault, was not permitted
+to suspect anything. He attributed Ulrich's agitated manner to the
+rejection he had encountered in his father's house, and when he took
+leave of him on his departure to Swabia, talked kindly with his former
+schoolmate and advised him to leave the Spanish flag and try once more
+to be reconciled to the old man.
+
+Before the Eletto quitted the city, he gave Hans Eitelfritz, whose
+regiment had secretly joined the mutiny, letters of safeguard for his
+family and the artist, Moor.
+
+He had not forgotten the latter, but well-founded timidity withheld
+him from appearing before the honored man, while cherishing the gloomy
+thoughts that now filled his soul.
+
+In Aalst the mutineers received him with eager joy, harsh and repellent
+as he appeared, they cheerfully obeyed him; for he could hold out to
+them a prospect, which lured a bright smile to the bearded lips of the
+grimmest warrior.
+
+If power was the word, he scarcely understood how to use it aright,
+for wholly absorbed in himself, he led a joyless life of dissatisfied
+longing and gloomy reverie.
+
+It seemed to him as if he had lost one half of himself, and needed Ruth
+to become the whole man. Hours grew to days, days to weeks, and not
+until Roda's messenger appeared from the citadel in Antwerp to summon
+him to action, did he revive and regain his old vivacity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards' hands,
+and was cruelly pillaged. The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to make
+common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.
+
+Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city. Governor Champagny
+saw his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the
+despots in the fortress, which dominated the town. A Netherland army,
+composed principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable
+Marquis Havre, the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the
+capital, to prevent the worst.
+
+Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent
+treason, if he admitted the government troops--but the majority of
+the lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger
+hourly increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently
+pressed the matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.
+
+Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while
+intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers
+in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end.
+The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of
+lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal
+for revolt. The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and
+firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and
+murderers in his own escort.
+
+Champagny called upon the citizens to help themselves, and used their
+labor in throwing up a wall of defence in the open part of the city,
+which was most dangerously threatened by the citadel. Among the men and
+women who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam,
+the smith, his apprentices, and Ruth. The former, with his journeymen,
+wielded the spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl,
+with other women, braided gabions from willow-rods.
+
+She had lived through sorrowful days. Self-reproach, for having by her
+hasty fit of temper caused the father's outburst of anger to his son,
+constantly tortured her.
+
+She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that
+Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his
+image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in
+the most sacred depths of her heart. He was all in all to her, the one
+person destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to
+the face, the heart to the breast.
+
+She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him,
+it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.
+
+A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did
+in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect.
+She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become
+his, expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after
+winter. Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief
+of her loving soul. Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be
+one in their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close
+his heart against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.
+
+The child's vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden. Every
+leisure hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had
+talked to his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him
+return as a famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid
+ship.
+
+Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared. Now she
+found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here
+he was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he
+certainly was not base and mean.
+
+As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince,
+but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in
+plain burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside
+him at the forge. She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her
+stood the table she covered with food for him, and the water she gave
+him after his work. She heard the house shake under the mighty blows of
+his hammer, and in imagination beheld him lay his curly head in her lap,
+and say he had found love and peace with her.
+
+The cannonade from the citadel stopped the citizens' work. Open
+hostilities had begun.
+
+On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the
+treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered
+the fortress. The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage
+and terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
+
+"He is keeping them back," Ruth had said the day before. "Antwerp, our
+home, is sacred to him!"
+
+The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled;
+the boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers
+and citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of
+the artillery.
+
+Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still
+with fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion. Ruth remained calm.
+She detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words: "The
+men from Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back." Just at that
+moment the young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed
+with dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping:
+
+"The men from Aalst are here. They crossed in peatboats and a galley.
+They wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in
+the van, bearing the standard. I saw them; terrible--horrible--sheathed
+in iron from top to toe."
+
+He said no more, for Adam, with a savage imprecation, interrupted him,
+seized his huge hammer, and rushed out of the house.
+
+Ruth staggered back into the workshop.
+
+Adam hurried straight to the rampart. Here stood six thousand Walloons,
+to defend the half-finished wall, and behind them large bodies of armed
+citizens.
+
+"The men from Aalst have come!" echoed from lip to lip.
+
+Curses, wails of grief, yells of savage fury, blended with the thunder
+of the artillery and the ringing of the alarm bells.
+
+A fugitive now dashed from the counterscarp towards the Walloons,
+shouting:
+
+"They are here, they are here! The blood-hound, Navarrete, is leading
+them. They will neither eat nor drink, they say, till they dine in
+Paradise or Antwerp. Hark, hark! there they are!"
+
+And they were there, coming nearer and nearer; foremost of all marched
+the Eletto, holding the standard in his upraised hand.
+
+Behind him, from a thousand bearded lips, echoed furious, greedy,
+terrible cries; "Santiago, Espana, a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a
+saco!"--[St. Jago; Spain, blood, murder, fire, pillage]--but Navarrete
+was silent, striding onward, erect and haughty, as if he were
+proof against the bullets, that whistled around him on all sides.
+Consciousness of power and the fierce joy of battle sparkled in his
+eyes. Woe betide him, who received a blow from the two-handed sword the
+Eletto still held over his shoulder, now with his left hand.
+
+Adam stood with upraised hammer beside the front ranks of the Walloons!
+his eyes rested as if spellbound on his approaching son and the standard
+in his hand. The face of the guilty woman, who had defrauded him of the
+happiness of his life, gazed at him from the banner. He knew not whether
+he was awake, or the sport of some bewildering dream.
+
+Now, now his glance met the Eletto's, and unable to restrain himself
+longer, he raised his hammer and tried to rush forward, but the Walloons
+forced him back.
+
+Yes, yes, he hated his own child, and trembling with rage, burning to
+rush upon him, he saw the Eletto spring on the lowest projection of the
+wall, to climb up. For a short time he was concealed from his eyes, then
+he saw the top of the standard, then the banner itself, and now his son
+stood on the highest part of the rampart, shouting: "Espana, Espana!"
+
+At this moment, with a deafening din, a hundred arquebuses were
+discharged close beside the smith, a dense cloud of smoke darkened the
+air, and when the wind dispersed it, Adam no longer beheld the standard.
+It lay on the ground; beside it the Eletto, with his face turned upward,
+mute and motionless.
+
+The father groaned aloud and closed his eyes; when he opened them,
+hundreds of iron-mailed mutineers had scaled the rampart. Beneath their
+feet lay his bleeding child.
+
+Corpse after corpse sank on the stone wall beside the fallen man, but
+the iron wedge of the Spaniards pressed farther and farther forward.
+
+"Espana, a sangre, a carne!"
+
+Now they had reached the Walloons, steel clashed against steel, but only
+for a moment, then the defenders of the city wavered, the furious wedge
+entered their ranks, they parted, yielded, and with loud shrieks took
+to flight. The Spanish swords raged among them, and overpowered by the
+general terror, the officers followed the example of the soldiers, the
+flying army, like a resistless torrent, carrying everything with it,
+even the smith.
+
+An unparalleled massacre began. Adam seeing a frantic horde rush into
+the houses, remembered Ruth, and half mad with terror hastened back to
+the smithy, where he told those left behind what he had witnessed. Then,
+arming himself and his journeymen with weapons forged by his own hand,
+he hurried out with them to renew the fight.
+
+Hours elapsed; the noise, the firing, the ringing of the alarm bells
+still continued; smoke and the smell of fire penetrated through the
+doors and windows.
+
+Evening came, and the richest, most flourishing commercial capital in
+the world was here a heap of ashes, there a ruin, everywhere a plundered
+treasury.
+
+Once the occupants of the smith's shop heard a band of murderers raging
+and shouting outside of the smithy; but they passed by, and all day long
+no others entered the quiet street, which was inhabited only by workers
+in metal.
+
+Ruth and old Rahel had remained behind, under the protection of the
+brave foreman. Adam had told them to fly to the cellar, if any uproar
+arose outside the door. Ruth wore a dagger, determined in the worst
+extremity to turn it against her own breast. What did she care for life,
+since Ulrich had perished!
+
+Old Rahel, an aged dame of eighty, paced restlessly, with bowed figure,
+through the large room, saying compassionately, whenever her eyes
+met the girl's: "Ulrich, our Ulrich!" then, straightening herself and
+looking upward. She no longer knew what had happened a few hours before,
+yet her memory faithfully retained the incidents that occurred many
+years previous. The maidservant, a native of Antwerp, had rushed home to
+her parents when the tumult began.
+
+As the day drew towards a close, the panes were less frequently shaken
+by the thunder of the artillery, the noise in the streets diminished,
+but the house became more and more filled with suffocating smoke.
+
+Night came, the lamp was lighted, the women started at every new sound,
+but anxiety for Adam now overpowered every other feeling in Ruth's mind.
+Just then the door opened, and the smith's deep voice called in the
+vestibule: "It is I! Don't be frightened, it is I!"
+
+He had gone out with five journeymen: he returned with two. The others
+lay slain in the streets, and with them Count Oberstein's soldiers,
+the only ones who had stoutly resisted the Spanish mutineers and their
+allies to the last man.
+
+Adam had swung his hammer on the Mere and by the Zucker Canal among the
+citizens, who fought desperately for the property and lives of their
+families;--but all was vain. Vargas's troopers had stifled even the last
+breath of resistance.
+
+The streets ran blood, corpses lay in heaps before the doors and on the
+pavement--among them the bodies of the Margrave of Antwerp, Verreyck,
+Burgomaster van der Mere, and many senators and nobles. Conflagration
+after conflagration crimsoned the heavens, the superb city-hall was
+blazing, and from a thousand windows echoed the screams of the assailed,
+plundered, bleeding citizens, women and children.
+
+The smith hastily ate a few mouthfuls to restore his strength, then
+raised his head, saying: "No one has touched our house. The door and
+shutters of neighbor Ykens' are shattered."
+
+"A miracle!" cried old Rahel, raising her staff. "The generation of
+vipers scent richer booty than iron at the silversmith's."
+
+Just at that moment the knocker sounded. Adam started up, put on his
+coat of mail again, motioned to his journeymen and went to the door.
+
+Rahel shrieked loudly: "To the cellar, Ruth. Oh, God, oh, God, have
+mercy upon us! Quick--where's my shawl?--They are attacking us!--Come,
+come! Oh, I am caught, I can go no farther!"
+
+Mortal terror had seized the old woman; she did not want to die. To the
+girl death was welcome, and she did not stir.
+
+Voices were now audible in the vestibule, but they sounded neither noisy
+nor threatening; yet Rahel shrieked in despair as a lansquenet, fully
+armed, entered the workshop with the armorer.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had come to look for Ulrich's father. In his arms lay
+the dog Lelaps, which, bleeding from the wound made by a bullet, that
+grazed its neck, nestled trembling against its master.
+
+Bowing courteously to Ruth, the soldier said:
+
+"Take pity on this poor creature, fair maiden, and wash its wound with
+a little wine. It deserves it. I could tell you such tales of its
+cleverness! It came from distant India, where a pirate.... But you shall
+hear the story some other time. Thanks, thanks! As to your son, Meister,
+it's a thousand pities about him. He was a splendid fellow, and we were
+like two brothers. He himself gave me the safeguard for you and the
+artist, Moor. I fastened them on the doors with my own hands, as soon
+as the fray began. My swordbearer got the paste, and now may the writing
+stick there as an honorable memento till the end of the world. Navarrete
+was a faithful fellow, who never forgot his friends! How much good that
+does Lelaps! See, see! He is licking your hands, that means, 'I thank
+you.'"
+
+While Ruth had been washing the dog's wound, and the lansquenet talked
+of Ulrich, her tearful eyes met the father's.
+
+"They say he cut down twenty-one Walloons before he fell," continued
+Hans.
+
+"No, sir," interrupted Adam. "I saw him. He was shot before he raised
+his guilty sword."
+
+"Ah, ah!--but it happened on the rampart."
+
+"They rushed over him to the assault."
+
+"And there he still lies; not a soul has cared for the dead and
+wounded."
+
+The girl started, and laid the dog in the old man's lap, exclaiming:
+"Suppose Ulrich should be alive! Perhaps he was not mortally wounded,
+perhaps...."
+
+"Yes, everything is possible," interrupted the lansquenet. "I could tell
+you things... for instance, there was a countryman of mine whom, when
+we were in Africa, a Moorish Pacha struck... no lies now... perhaps! In
+earnest; it might happen that Ulrich... wait... at midnight I shall keep
+guard on the rampart with my company, then I'll look...."
+
+"We, we will seek him!" cried Ruth, seizing the smith's arm.
+
+"I will," replied the smith; "you must stay here."
+
+"No, father, I will go with you."
+
+The lansquenet also shook his head, saying "Jungfer, Jungfer, you
+don't know what a day this is. Thank Our Heavenly Father that you have
+hitherto escaped so well. The fierce lion has tasted blood. You are a
+pretty child, and if they should see you to-day...."
+
+"No matter," interrupted the girl. "I know what I am asking. You will
+take me with you, father! Do so, if you love me! I will find him, if any
+one can!
+
+"Oh, sir, sir, you look kind and friendly! You have the guard. Escort
+us; let me seek Ulrich. I shall find him, I know; I must seek him--I
+must."
+
+The girl's cheeks were glowing; for before her she saw her playfellow,
+her lover, gasping for breath, with staring eyes, her name upon his
+dying lips.
+
+Adam sadly shook his head, but Hans Eitelfritz was touched by the girl's
+eager longing to help the man who was dear to him, so he hastily taxed
+his inventive brain, saying:
+
+"Perhaps it might be risked... listen to me, Meister! You won't be
+particularly safe in the streets, yourself, and could hardly reach the
+rampart without me. I shall lose precious time; but you are his father,
+and this girl--is she his sister?--No?--So much the better for him, if
+he lives! It isn't an easy matter, but it can be done. Yonder good dame
+will take care of Lelaps for me. Poor dog! That feels good, doesn't it?
+Well then... I can be here again at midnight. Have you a handcart in the
+house?"
+
+"For coal and iron."
+
+"That will answer. Let the woman make a kettle of soup, and if you have
+a few hams...."
+
+"There are four in the store-room," cried Ruth.
+
+"Take some bread, a few jugs of wine, and a keg of beer, too, and then
+follow me quietly. I have the password, my servant will accompany me,
+and I'll make the Spaniards believe you belong to us, and are bringing
+my men their supper. Blacken your pretty face a little, my dear girl,
+wrap yourself up well, and if we find Ulrich we will put him in the
+empty cart, and I will accompany you home again. Take yonder spicesack,
+and if we find the poor fellow, dead or alive, hide him with it. The
+sack was intended for other things, but I shall be well content with
+this booty. Take care of these silver toys. What pretty things they are!
+How the little horse rears, and see the bird in the cage! Don't look so
+fierce, Meister! In catching fish we must be content even with smelts;
+if I hadn't taken these, others would have done so; they are for
+my sister's children, and there is something else hidden here in my
+doublet; it shall help me to pass my leisure hours. One man's meat is
+another man's poison."
+
+When Hans Eitelfritz returned at midnight, the cart with the food and
+liquor was ready. Adam's warnings were unavailing. Ruth resolutely
+insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk
+safety and life as freely as he did himself.
+
+Old Rahel had done her best to conceal Ruth's beauty.
+
+The dangerous nocturnal pilgrimage began.
+
+The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his
+sword-bearer, walking by her side. From time to time Spanish soldiers
+met and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and
+dispelled their suspicions.
+
+Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and
+mistrusted scenes of horror, that congealed her blood. But she bore up
+until they reached the rampart.
+
+Here Eitelfritz was among his own men.
+
+He delivered the meat and drink to them, told them to take it out of the
+cart, and invited them to fall to boldly. Then, seizing a lantern, he
+guided Ruth and the smith, who drew the light cart after them, through
+the intense darkness of the November night to the rampart.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz lighted the way, and all three searched. Corpse lay
+beside corpse. Wherever Ruth set her foot, it touched some fallen
+soldier. Dread, horror and loathing threatened to deprive her of
+consciousness; but the ardent longing, the one last hope of her soul
+sustained her, steeled her energy, sharpened her sight.
+
+They had reached the centre of the rampart, when she saw in the distance
+a tall figure stretched at full length.
+
+That, yes, that was he!
+
+Snatching the lantern from the lansquenet's hand, she rushed to the
+prostrate form, threw herself on her knees beside it, and cast the light
+upon the face.
+
+What had she seen?
+
+Why did the shriek she uttered sound so agonized? The men were
+approaching, but Ruth knew that there was something else to be done,
+besides weeping and wailing.
+
+She pressed her ear close to the mailed breast to listen, and when
+she heard no breath, hurriedly unfastened the clasps and buckles that
+confined the armor.
+
+The cuirass fell rattling on the ground, and now--no, there was no
+deception, the wounded man's chest rose under her ear, she heard the
+faint throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a gasping breach.
+
+Bursting into loud, convulsive weeping, she raised his head and pressed
+it to her bosom.
+
+"He is dead; I thought so!" said the lansquenet, and Adam sank on
+his knees before his wounded son. But Ruth's sobs now changed to low,
+joyous, musical laughter, which echoed in her voice as she exclaimed:
+"Ulrich breathes, he lives! Oh, God! oh, God! how we thank Thee!"
+
+Then--was she deceived, could it be? She heard the inflexible man beside
+her sob, saw him bend over Ulrich, listen to the beating of his heart,
+and press his bearded lips first to his temples, then on the hand he had
+so harshly rejected.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz warned them to hasten, carried the senseless man, with
+Adam's assistance, to the cart, and half an hour later the dangerously
+wounded, outcast son was lying in the most comfortable bed in the best
+room in his father's house. His couch was in the upper story; down in
+the kitchen old Rahel was moving about the hearth, preparing her "good
+salve" herself. While thus engaged she often chuckled aloud, murmuring
+"Ulrich," and while mixing and stirring the mixture could not keep her
+old feet still; it almost seemed as if she wanted to dance.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz promised Adam to tell no one what had become of his son,
+and then returned to his men. The next morning the mutineers from Aalst
+sought their fallen leader; but he had disappeared, and the legend
+now became wide-spread among them, that the Prince of Evil had carried
+Navarrete to his own abode. The dog Lelaps died of his wound, and
+scarcely a week after the pillage of flourishing Antwerp by the "Spanish
+Furies," Hans Eitelfritz's regiment was ordered to Ghent. He came with
+drooping head to the smithy, to take his leave. He had sold his costly
+booty, and, like so many other pillagers, gambled away the stolen
+property at the exchange. Nothing was left him of the great day in
+Antwerp, except the silver toys for his sister's children in Colln on
+the Spree.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+The fire in the smithy was extinguished, no hammer fell on the anvil;
+for the wounded man lay in a burning fever; every loud noise disturbed
+him. Adam had noticed this himself, and gave no time to his work, for
+he had to assist in nursing his son, when it was necessary to raise his
+heavy body, and to relieve Ruth, when, after long night-watches, her
+vigorous strength was exhausted.
+
+The old man saw that the girl's bands were more deft than his own
+toil-hardened ones, and let her take the principal charge-but the hours
+when she was resting in her room were the dearest to him, for then
+he was alone with Ulrich, could read his countenance undisturbed and
+rejoice in gazing at every feature, which reminded him of his child's
+boyhood and of Flora.
+
+He often pressed his bearded lips to the invalid's burning forehead
+or limp hand, and when the physician with an anxious face had left the
+house, he knelt beside Ulrich's couch, buried his forehead among the
+pillows, and fervently prayed the Heavenly Father, to spare his child
+and take in exchange his own life and all that he possessed.
+
+He often thought the end had come, and gave himself up without
+resistance to his grief; Ruth, on the contrary, never lost hope, not
+even in the darkest hours. God had not let her find Ulrich, merely to
+take him from her again. The end of danger was to her the beginning of
+deliverance. When he recognized her the first time, she already saw
+him, leaning on her shoulder, walk through the room; when he could raise
+himself, she thought him cured.
+
+Her heart was overflowing with joy, yet her mind remained watchful and
+thoughtful during the long, toilsome nursing. She did not forget the
+smallest trifle, for before she undertook anything she saw in her mind
+every detail involved, as if it were already completed. Ulrich took no
+food which she had not prepared with her own hand, no drink which she
+had not herself brought from the cellar or the well. She perceived in
+advance what disturbed him, what pleased him, what he needed. If she
+opened or closed the curtain, she gave or withheld no more light than
+was agreeable to him; if she arranged the pillows behind him, she placed
+them neither too high nor too low, and bound up his wounds with a gentle
+yet firm hand, like an experienced physician. Whatever he felt--pain or
+comfort--she experienced with him.
+
+By degrees the fever vanished; consciousness returned, his pain
+lessened, he could move himself again, and began to feel stronger. At
+first he did not know where he was; then he recognized Ruth, and then
+his father.
+
+How still, how dusky, how clean everything that surrounded him was!
+Delightful repose stole over him, pleasant weariness soothed every
+stormy emotion of his heart. Whenever he opened his eyes, tender,
+anxious glances met him. Even when the pain returned he enjoyed
+peaceful, consoling mental happiness. Ruth felt this also, and regarded
+it as a peerless reward.
+
+When she entered the sick-room with fresh linen, and the odor of
+lavender her dead mother had liked floated softly to him from the clean
+sheets, he thought his boyhood had returned, and with it the wise,
+friendly doctor's house. Elizabeth, the shady pine-woods of his home,
+its murmuring brooks and luxuriant meadows, again rose before his
+mind; he saw Ruth and himself listening to the birds, picking berries,
+gathering flowers, and beseeching beautiful gifts from the "word." His
+father appeared even more kind, affectionate, and careful than in those
+days. The man became the boy again, and all his former good traits of
+character now sprang up freshly under the bright light and vivifying dew
+of love.
+
+He received Ruth's unwearied attentions with ardent gratitude, and when
+he gazed into her faithful eyes, when her hand touched him, her soft,
+deep voice penetrated the depths of his soul, an unexampled sense of
+happiness filled his breast.
+
+Everything, from the least to the greatest, embraced his soul with the
+arms of love. It seemed as if the ardent yearning of his heart extended
+far beyond the earth, and rose to God, who fills the universe with
+His infinite paternal love. His every breath, Ulrich thought, must
+henceforth be a prayer, a prayer of gratitude to Him, who is love
+itself, the Love, through and in which he lived.
+
+He had sought love, to enjoy its gifts; now he was glad to make
+sacrifices for its sake. He saw how Ruth's beautiful face saddened
+when he was suffering, and with manly strength of will concealed
+inexpressible agony under a grateful smile. He feigned sleep, to permit
+her and his father to rest, and when tortured by feverish restlessness,
+lay still to give his beloved nurses pleasure and repay their
+solicitude. Love urged him to goodness, gave him strength for all that
+is good. His convalescence advanced and, when he was permitted to leave
+his bed, his father was the first one to support him through the room
+and down the steps into the court-yard. He often felt with quiet emotion
+the old man stroke the hand that rested on his arm, and when, exhausted,
+he returned to the sick-room, he sank with a grateful heart into his
+comfortable seat, casting a look of pleasure at the flowers, which Ruth
+had taken from her chamber window and placed on the table beside him.
+
+His family now knew what he had endured and experienced, and the smith
+found a kind, soothing word for all that, a few months before, he had
+considered criminal and unpardonable.
+
+During such a conversation, Ulrich once exclaimed "War! You know not how
+it bears one along with it; it is a game whose stake is life. That of
+others is of as little value as your own; to do your worst to every one,
+is the watchword; but now--every thing has grown so calm in my soul,
+and I have a horror of the turmoil in the field. I was talking with Ruth
+yesterday about her father, and she reminded me of his favorite saying,
+which I had forgotten long ago. Do you know what it is? 'Do unto others,
+as ye would that others should do unto you.' I have not been cruel, and
+never drew the sword out of pleasure in slaying; but now I grieve for
+having brought woe to so many!
+
+"What things were done in Haarlem! If you had moved there instead of to
+Antwerp, and you and Ruth... I dare not think of it! Memories of those
+days torture me in many a sleepless hour, and there is much that fills
+me with bitter remorse. But I am permitted to live, and it seems as if
+I were new-born, and henceforth existence and doing good must be
+synonymous to me. You were right to be angry...."
+
+"That is all forgiven and forgotten," interrupted the smith in a
+resonant voice, pressing his son's fingers with his hard right hand.
+
+These words affected the convalescent like a strengthening potion,
+and when the hammers again moved in the smithy, Ulrich was no longer
+satisfied with his idle life, and began with Ruth to look forward to and
+discuss the future.
+
+"The words: 'fortune,' 'fame,' 'power,'" he said once, "have deceived
+me; but art! You don't know, Ruth, what art is! It does not bestow
+everything, but a great deal, a great deal. Meister Moor was indeed a
+teacher! I am too old to begin at the beginning once more. If it were
+not for that...."
+
+"Well, Ulrich?"
+
+"I should like to try painting again."
+
+The girl exhorted him to take courage, and told his father of their
+conversation. The smith put on his Sunday clothes and went to the
+artist's house. The latter was in Brussels, but was expected home soon.
+
+From this time, every third day, Adam donned his best clothes, which he
+disliked to wear, and went to the artist's; but always in vain.
+
+In the month of February the invalid was playing chess with Ruth,--she
+had learned the game from the smith and Ulrich from her,--when Adam
+entered the room, saying: "when the game is over, I wish to speak to
+you, my son."
+
+The young girl had the advantage, but instantly pushed the pieces
+together and left the two alone.
+
+She well knew what was passing in the father's mind, for the day before
+he had brought all sorts of artist's materials, and told her to arrange
+the little gable-room, with the large window facing towards the north,
+and put the easel and colors there. They had only smiled at each other,
+but they had long since learned to understand each other, even without
+words.
+
+"What is it?" asked Ulrich in surprise.
+
+The smith then told him what he had provided and arranged, adding: "the
+picture on the standard--you say you painted it yourself."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"It was your mother, exactly as she looked when... She did not treat
+either of us rightly--but she!--the Christian must forgive;--and as she
+was your mother--why--I should like... perhaps it is not possible; but
+if you could paint her picture, not as a Madonna, only as she looked
+when a young wife...."
+
+"I can, I will!" cried Ulrich, in joyous excitement. "Take me upstairs,
+is the canvas ready?"
+
+"In the frame, firmly in the frame! I am an old man, and you see,
+child, I remember how wonderfully sweet your mother was; but I can
+never succeed in recalling just how she looked then. I have tried, tried
+thousands and thousands of times; at--Richtberg, here, everywhere--deep
+as was my wrath!"
+
+"You shall see her again surely--surely!" interrupted Ulrich. "I see her
+before me, and what I see in my mind, I can paint!"
+
+The work was commenced the very same day. Ulrich now succeeded
+wonderfully, and lavished on the portrait all the wealth of love, with
+which his heart was filled.
+
+Never had he guided the brush so joyously; in painting this picture he
+only wished to give, to give--give his beloved father the best he could
+accomplish, so he succeeded.
+
+The young wife, attired in a burgher dress, stood with her bewitching
+eyes and a melancholy, half-tender, half-mournful smile on her lips.
+
+Adam was not permitted to enter the studio again until the portrait was
+completed. When Ulrich at last unveiled the picture, the old man--unable
+longer to control himself--burst into loud sobs and fell upon his
+son's breast. It seemed to Adam that the pretty creature in the golden
+frame--far from needing his forgiveness--was entitled to his gratitude
+for many blissful hours.
+
+Soon after, Adam found Moor at home, and a few hours later took Ulrich
+to him. It was a happy and a quiet meeting, which was soon followed by a
+second interview in the smith's house.
+
+Moor gazed long and searchingly at Ulrich's work. When he had examined
+it sufficiently, he held out his hand to his pupil, saying warmly:
+
+"I always said so; you are an artist! From to-morrow we will work
+together again, daily, and you will win more glorious victories with the
+brush than with the sword."
+
+Ulrich's cheeks glowed with happiness and pride.
+
+Ruth had never before seen him look so, and as she gazed joyfully into
+his eyes, he held out his hands to her, exclaiming: "An artist, an
+artist again! Oh, would that I had always remained one! Now I lack only
+one thing more--yourself!"
+
+She rushed to his embrace, exclaiming joyously "Yours, yours! I have
+always been so, and always shall be, to-day, to-morrow, unto death,
+forever and ever!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered gravely. "Our hearts are one and ever will be,
+nothing can separate them; but your fate shall not be linked to mine
+till, Moor himself calls me a master. Love imposes no condition--I am
+yours and you are mine--but I impose the trial on myself, and this time
+I know it will be passed."
+
+A new spirit animated the pupil. He rushed to his work with tireless
+energy, and even the hardest task became easy, when he thought of the
+prize he sought. At the end of a year, Moor ceased to instruct him, and
+Ruth became the wife of Meister Ulrich Schwab.
+
+The famous artist-guild of Antwerp soon proudly numbered him among
+them, and even at the present day his pictures are highly esteemed by
+connoisseurs, though they are attributed to other painters, for he never
+signed his name to his works.
+
+Of the four words, which illumined his life-path as guiding-stars, he
+had learned to value fame and power least; fortune and art remained
+faithful to him, but as the earth does not shine by its own might, but
+receives its light from the sun, so they obtained brilliancy, charm and
+endearing power through love.
+
+The fierce Eletto, whose sword raged in war, following the teachings of
+his noble Master, became a truly Christian philanthropist.
+
+Many have gazed with quiet delight at the magnificent picture, which
+represents a beautiful mother, with a bright, intelligent face, leading
+her three blooming children towards a pleasant old man, who holds out
+his arms to them. The old man is Adam, the mother Ruth, the children are
+the armorer's grandchildren; Ulrich Schwab was the artist.
+
+Meister Moor died soon after Ulrich's marriage, and a few years after,
+Sophonisba di Moncada came to Antwerp to seek the grave of him she had
+loved. She knew from the dead man that he had met his dear Madrid pupil,
+and her first visit was to the latter.
+
+After looking at his works, she exclaimed:
+
+"The word! Do you remember, Meister? I told you then, that you had found
+the right one. You are greatly altered, and it is a pity that you have
+lost your flowing locks; but you look like a happy man, and to what do
+you owe it? To the word, the only right word: 'Art!'"
+
+He let her finish the sentence, then answered gravely "There is still
+a loftier word, noble lady! Whoever owns it--is rich indeed. He will no
+longer wander--seek in doubt.
+
+"And this is?" she asked incredulously, with a smile of superior
+knowledge.
+
+"I have found it," he answered firmly. "It is 'Love.'"
+
+Sophonisba bent her head, saying softly and sadly: "yes, yes--love."
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Among fools one must be a fool
+     He was steadfast in everything, even anger
+     No one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor
+     Once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point
+     To expect gratitude is folly
+     Whoever condemns, feels himself superior
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Word Only A Word, Complete, by Georg Ebers
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook A Word Only A Word, by G. Ebers, Complete
+#138 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
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+Title: A Word Only A Word, Complete
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5577]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 12, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, BY EBERS, ALL ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD, Complete
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
+
+
+
+Volume 1.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"A word, only a word!"  cried a fresh, boyish voice, then two hands were
+loudly clapped and a gay laugh echoed through the forest.  Hitherto
+silence had reigned under the boughs of the pines and tops of the
+beeches, but now a wood-pigeon joined in the lad's laugh, and a jay,
+startled by the clapping of hands, spread its brown wings, delicately
+flecked with blue, and soared from one pine to another.
+
+Spring had entered the Black Forest a few weeks before.  May was just
+over, yet the weather was as sultry as in midsummer and clouds were
+gathering in denser and denser masses.  The sun was still some distance
+above the horizon, but the valley was so narrow that the day star had
+disappeared, before making its majestic entry into the portals of night.
+
+When it set in a clear sky, it only gilded the border of pine trees on
+the crest of the lofty western heights; to-day it was invisible, and the
+occasional, quickly interrupted twittering of the birds seemed more in
+harmony with the threatening clouds and sultry atmosphere than the lad's
+gay laughter.
+
+Every living creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious
+suspense, but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare
+knee against a bundle of faggots, cried:
+
+"Give me that stick, Ruth, that I may tie it up.  How dry the stuff is,
+and how it snaps!  A word!  To sit over books all day long for one stupid
+word--that's just nonsense!"
+
+"But all words are not alike," replied the girl.
+
+"Piff is paff, and paff is puff!"  laughed Ulrich.  "When I snap the
+twigs, you always hear them say 'knack, knack,' and 'knack' is a word
+too.  The juggler Caspar's magpie, can say twenty."
+
+"But father said so," replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks.  "He toils
+hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words.  You are always
+wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up
+courage to ask him, and now I know.  I suppose he saw I was astonished,
+for he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question
+at lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not be
+despised, for God had made the world out of one single word."
+
+Ulrich shook his head, and after pondering a few minutes, replied.
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"Father said so," was the little girl's only answer.  Her words expressed
+the firm, immovable security of childish confidence, and the same feeling
+sparkled in her eyes.  She was probably about nine years old, and in
+every respect a perfect contrast to her companion, her senior by several
+summers, for the latter was strongly built, and from beneath his
+beautiful fair locks a pair of big blue eyes flashed defiance at the
+world, while Ruth was a delicate little creature, with slender limbs,
+pale cheeks, and coal-black hair.
+
+The little girl wore a fashionably-made, though shabby dress, shoes and
+stockings--the boy was barefoot, and his grey doublet looked scarcely
+less worn than the short leather breeches, which hardly reached his
+knees; yet he must have had some regard for his outer man, for a red knot
+of real silk was fastened on his shoulder.  He could scarcely be the
+child of a peasant or woodland laborer--the brow was too high, the nose
+and red lips were too delicately moulded, the bearing was too proud and
+free.
+
+Ruth's last words had given him food for thought, but he left them
+unanswered until the last bundle of sticks was tied up.  Then he said
+hesitatingly:
+
+"My mother--you know....  I dare not speak of her before father, he goes
+into such a rage; my mother is said to be very wicked--but she never was
+so to me, and I long for her day after day, very, very much, as I long
+for nothing else.  When I was so high, my mother told me a great many
+things, such queer things!  About a man, who wanted treasures, and before
+whom mountains opened at a word he knew.  Of course it's for such a word
+your father is seeking."
+
+"I don't know," replied the little girl.  "But the word out of which God
+made the whole earth and sky and all the stars must have been a very
+great one."
+
+Ulrich nodded, then raising his eyes boldly, exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, if he should find it, and would not keep it to himself, but let you
+tell me!  I should know what I wanted."
+
+Ruth looked at him enquiringly, but he cried laughingly: "I shan't tell.
+But what would you ask?"
+
+"I?  I should ask to have my mother able to speak again like other
+people.  But you would wish...."
+
+"You can't know what I would wish."
+
+"Yes, yes.  You would bring your mother back home again."
+
+"No, I wasn't thinking of that," replied Ulrich, flushing scarlet and
+fixing his eyes on the ground.
+
+"What, then?  Tell me; I won't repeat it."
+
+"I should like to be one of the count's squires, and always ride with him
+when he goes hunting."
+
+"Oh!"  cried Ruth.  "That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like
+you.  A squire!  But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord
+of the castle and a powerful count.  You can have real velvet clothes,
+with gay slashes, and a silk bed."
+
+"And I'll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags
+and deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I'll
+show them!"
+
+Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the words,
+he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a thunder-shower
+was rising.
+
+Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots, he
+laid some on the little girl's shoulders, and went down with her towards
+the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or lightning; but
+Ruth trembled in every limb.
+
+At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still.  The
+moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a
+reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.
+
+"Come!"  cried Ulrich,  stepping on to the  edge of the ravine, where
+stones and sand, loosened by the wet, were now rattling down.
+
+"I'm afraid," answered the little girl trembling.  "There's another flash
+of lightning!  Oh! dear, oh, dear!  how it blazes!--oh! oh! that clap of
+thunder!"
+
+She stooped as if the lightning had struck her, covered her face with her
+little hands, and fell on her knees, the bundle of faggots slipping to
+the ground.  Filled with terror, she murmured as if she could command the
+mighty word: "Oh, Word, Word, get me home!"
+
+Ulrich stamped impatiently, glanced at her with mingled anger and
+contempt, and muttering reproaches, threw her bundle and his own into the
+ravine, then roughly seized her hand and dragged her to the edge of the
+cliff.
+
+Half-walking, half-slipping, with many an unkind word, though he was
+always careful to support her, the boy scrambled down the steep slope
+with his companion, and when they were at last standing in the water at
+the bottom of the gully, picked up the dripping fagots and walked
+silently on, carrying her burden as well as his own.
+
+After a short walk through the running water and mass of earth and
+stones, slowly sliding towards the valley, several shingled roofs
+appeared, and the little girl uttered a sigh of relief; for in the row of
+shabby houses, each standing by itself, that extended from the forest to
+the level end of the ravine, was her own home and the forge belonging to
+her companion's father.
+
+It was still raining, but the thunder-storm had passed as quickly as it
+rose, and twilight was already gathering over the mist-veiled houses and
+spires of the little city, from which the street ran to the ravine.  The
+stillness of the evening was only interrupted by a few scattered notes of
+bells, the finale of the mighty peal by which the warder had just been
+trying to disperse the storm.
+
+The safety of the town in the narrow forest-valley was well secured, a
+wall and ditch enclosed it; only the houses on the edge of the ravine
+were unprotected.  True, the mouth of the pass was covered by the field
+pieces on the city wall, and the strong tower beside the gate, but it was
+not incumbent on the citizens to provide for the safety of the row of
+houses up there.  It was called the Richtberg and nobody lived there
+except the rabble, executioners, and poor folk who were not granted the
+rights of citizenship.  Adam, the smith, had forfeited his, and Ruth's
+father, Doctor Costa, was a Jew, who ought to be thankful that he was
+tolerated in the old forester's house.
+
+The street was perfectly still.  A few children were jumping over the
+mud-puddles, and an old washerwoman was putting a wooden vessel under the
+gutter, to collect the rain-water.
+
+Ruth breathed more freely when once again in the street and among human
+beings, and soon, clinging to the hand of her father, who had come to
+meet her, she entered the house with him and Ulrich.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+While the boy flung the damp bundles of brushwood on the floor beside the
+hearth in the doctor's kitchen, a servant from the monastery was leading
+three horses under the rude shed in front of the smith Adam's work-shop
+The stately grey-haired monk, who had ridden the strong cream-colored
+steed, was already standing beside the embers of the fire, pressing his
+hands upon the warm chimney.
+
+The forge stood open, but spite of knocking and shouting, neither the
+master of the place, nor any other living soul appeared.  Adam had gone
+out, but could not be far away, for the door leading from the shop into
+the sitting-room, was also unlocked.
+
+The time was growing long to Father Benedict, so for occupation he tried
+to lift the heavy hammer.  It was a difficult task, though he was no
+weakling, yet it was not hard for Adam's arm to swing and guide the
+burden.  If only the man had understood how to govern his life as well as
+he managed his ponderous tool!
+
+He did not belong to Richtberg.  What would his father have said, had he
+lived to see his son dwell here?
+
+The monk had known the old smith well, and he also knew many things about
+the son and his destiny, yet no more than rumor entrusts to one person
+concerning another's life.  Even this was enough to explain why Adam had
+become so reserved, misanthropic and silent a man, though even in his
+youth lie certainly had not been what is termed a gay fellow.
+
+The forge where he grew up, was still standing in the market-place
+of the little city below; it had belonged to his grandfather and great-
+grandfather.  There had never been any lack of custom, to the annoyance
+of the wise magistrates, whose discussions were disturbed by the
+hammering that rang across the ill-paved square to the windows of the
+council-chamber; but, on the other hand, the idle hours of the watchmen
+under the arches of the ground-floor of the town-hall were sweetened by
+the bustle before the smithy.
+
+How Adam had come from the market-place to the Richtberg, is a story
+speedily told.
+
+He was the only child of his dead parents, and early learned his father's
+trade.  When his mother died, the old man gave his son and partner his
+blessing, and some florins to pay his expenses, and sent him away.  He
+went directly to Nuremberg, which the old man praised as the high-school
+of the smith's art, and there remained twelve years.  When, at the end
+of that time, news came to Adam that his father was dead, and he had
+inherited the forge on the market-place, he wondered to find that he was
+thirty years old, and had gone no farther than Nuremberg.  True,
+everything that the rest of the world could do in the art of forging
+might be learned there.
+
+He was a large, heavy man, and from childhood had moved slowly and
+reluctantly from the place where he chanced to be.
+
+If work was pressing, he could not be induced to leave the anvil, even
+when evening had closed in; if it was pleasant to sit over the beer, he
+remained till after the last man had gone.  While working, he was as
+mute as the dead to everything that was passing around him; in the tavern
+he rarely spoke, and then said only a few words, yet the young artists,
+sculptors, workers in gold and students liked to see the stout drinker
+and good listener at the table, and the members of his guild only
+marvelled how the sensible fellow, who joined in no foolish pranks, and
+worked in such good earnest, held aloof from them to keep company with
+these hairbrained folk, and remained a Papist.
+
+He might have taken possession of the shop on the market-place directly
+after his father's death, but could not arrange his departure so quickly,
+and it was fully eight months before he left Nuremberg.
+
+On the high-road before Schwabach a wagon, occupied by some strolling
+performers, overtook the traveller.  They belonged to the better class,
+for they appeared before counts and princes, and were seven in number.
+The father and four sons played the violin, viola and reboc, and the two
+daughters sang to the lute and harp.  The old man invited Adam to take
+the eighth place in the vehicle, so he counted his pennies, and room was
+made for him opposite Flora, called by her family Florette.  The
+musicians were going to the fair at Nordlingen, and the smith enjoyed
+himself so well with them, that he remained several days after reaching
+the goal of the journey.  When he at last went away Florette wept, but he
+walked straight on until noon, without looking back.  Then he lay down
+under a blossoming apple-tree, to rest and eat some lunch, but the lunch
+did not taste well; and when he shut his eyes he could not sleep, for he
+thought constantly of Florette.  Of course!  He had parted from her far
+too soon, and an eager longing seized upon him for the young girl, with
+her red lips and luxuriant hair.  This hair was a perfect golden-yellow;
+he knew it well, for she had often combed and braided it in the tavern-
+room beside the straw where they all slept.
+
+He yearned to hear her laugh too, and would have liked to see her weep
+again.
+
+Then he remembered the desolate smithy in the narrow market-place and the
+dreary home, recollected that he was thirty years old, and still had no
+wife.
+
+A little wife of his own!  A wife like  Florette!  Seventeen years old,
+a complexion like milk and blood, a creature full of gayety and joyous
+life!  True, he was no light-hearted lad, but, lying under the apple-tree
+in the month of May, he saw himself in imagination living happily and
+merrily in the smithy by the market-place, with the fair-haired girl who
+had already shed tears for him.  At last he started up, and because he
+had determined to go still farther on this day, did so, though for no
+other reason than to carry out the plan formed the day before.  The next
+morning, before sunrise, he was again marching along the highway, this
+time not forward towards the Black Forest, but back to Nordlingen.
+
+That very evening Florette became his betrothed bride, and the following
+Tuesday his wife.
+
+The wedding was celebrated in the midst of the turmoil of the fair.
+Strolling players, jugglers and buffoons were the witnesses, and there
+was no lack of music and tinsel.
+
+A quieter ceremony would have been more agreeable to the plain citizen
+and sensible blacksmith, but this purgatory had to be passed to reach
+Paradise.
+
+On Wednesday he went off in a fair wagon with his young wife, and in
+Stuttgart bought with a portion of his savings many articles of household
+furniture, less to stop the gossips' tongues, of which he took no heed,
+than to do her honor in his own eyes.  These things, piled high in a
+wagon of his own, he had sent into his native town as Florette's dowry,
+for her whole outfit consisted of one pink and one grass-green gown, a
+lute and a little white dog.
+
+A delightful life now began in the smithy for Adam.  The gossips avoided
+his wife, but they stared at her in church, and among them she seemed to
+him, not unjustly, like a rose amid vegetables.  The marriage he had made
+was an abomination to respectable citizens, but Adam did not heed them,
+and Flora appeared to feel equally happy with him.  When, before the
+close of the first twelvemonth after their wedding, Ulrich was born, the
+smith reached the summit of happiness and remained there for a whole
+year.
+
+When, during that time, he stood in the bow-window amid the fresh balsam,
+auricular and yellow wallflowers holding his boy on his shoulder, while
+his wife leaned on his arm, and the pungent odor of scorched hoofs
+reached his nostrils, and he saw his journeyman and apprentice shoeing a
+horse below, he often thought how pleasant it had been pursuing the finer
+branches of his craft in Nuremberg, and that he should like to forge a
+flower again; but the blacksmith's trade was not to be despised either,
+and surely life with one's wife and child was best.
+
+In the evening he drank his beer at the Lamb, and once, when the surgeon
+Siedler called life a miserable vale of tears, he laughed in his face and
+answered: "To him who knows how to take it right, it is a delightful
+garden."
+
+Florette was kind to her husband, and devoted herself to her child, so
+long as he was an infant, with the most self-sacrificing love.  Adam
+often spoke of a little daughter, who must look exactly like its mother;
+but it did not come.
+
+When little Ulrich at last began to run about in the street,
+the mother's nomadic blood stirred, and she was constantly dinning it
+into her husband's ears that he ought to leave this miserable place and
+go to Augsburg or Cologne, where it would be pleasant; but he remained
+firm, and though her power over him was great, she could not move his
+resolute will.
+
+Often she would not cease her entreaties and representations, and when
+she even complained that she was dying of solitude and weariness, his
+veins swelled with wrath, and then she was frightened, fled to her room
+and wept.  If she happened to have a bold day, she threatened to go away
+and seek her own relatives.  This displeased him, and he made her feel it
+bitterly, for he was steadfast in everything, even anger, and when he
+bore ill-will it was not for hours, but months, nor at such times could
+he be conciliated by coaxing or tears.
+
+By degrees Florette learned to meet his discontent with a shrug of her
+shoulders, and to arrange her life in her own way.  Ulrich was her
+comfort, pride and plaything, but sporting with him did not satisfy her.
+
+While Adam was standing behind the anvil, she sat among the flowers in
+the bow-window, and the watchmen now looked higher up than the forge,
+the worthy magistrates no longer cast unfriendly glances at the smith's
+house, for Florette grew more and more beautiful in the quiet life she
+now enjoyed, and many a neighboring noble brought his horse to Adam to be
+shod, merely to look into the eyes of the artisan's beautiful wife.
+
+Count von Frohlingen came most frequently of all, and Florette soon
+learned to distinguish the hoof-beats of his horse from those of the
+other steeds, and when he entered the shop, willingly found some pretext
+for going there too.  In the afternoons she often went with her child
+outside the gate, and then always chose the road leading to the count's
+castle.  There was no lack of careful friends, who warned Adam, but he
+answered them angrily, so they learned to be silent.
+
+Florette had now grown gay again, and sometimes sang like a joyous bird.
+
+Seven years elapsed, and during the summer of the eighth a scattered
+troop of soldiers came to the city and obtained admission.  They were
+quartered under the arches of the town-hall, but many also lay in the
+smithy, for their helmets, breast-plates and other pieces of armor
+required plenty of mending.  The ensign, a handsome, proud young fellow,
+with a dainty moustache, was Adam's most constant customer, and played
+very kindly with Ulrich, when Florette appeared with him.  At last the
+young soldier departed, and the very same day Adam was summoned to the
+monastery, to mend something in the grating before the treasury.
+
+When he returned, Florette had vanished; "run after the ensign," people
+said, and they were right.  Adam did not attempt to wrest her from the
+seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff that
+is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand fibres, and
+to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it has taken root,
+and with it life itself.  When he secretly cursed her and called her a
+viper, he doubtless remembered how innocent, dear and joyous she had
+been, and then the roots of the destroyed affection put forth new shoots,
+and he saw before his mental vision ensnaring images, of which he felt
+ashamed as soon as they had vanished.
+
+Lightning and hail had entered the "delightful garden" of Adam's life
+also, and he had been thrust forth from the little circle of the happy
+into the great army of the wretched.
+
+Purifying powers dwell in undeserved suffering, but no one is made better
+by unmerited disgrace, least of all a man like Adam.  He had done what
+seemed to him his duty, without looking to the right or the left, but now
+the stainless man felt himself dishonored, and with morbid sensitiveness
+referred everything he saw and heard to his own disgrace, while the
+inhabitants of the little town made him feel that he had been ill-
+advised, when he ventured to make a fiddler's daughter a citizen.
+
+When he went out, it seemed to him--and usually unjustly--as if people
+were nudging each other; hands, pointing out-stretched fingers at him,
+appeared to grow from every eye.  At home he found nothing but
+desolation, vacuity, sorrow, and a child, who constantly tore open the
+burning, gnawing wounds in his heart.  Ulrich must forget "the viper,"
+and he sternly forbade him to speak of his mother; but not a day passed
+on which he would not fain have done so himself.
+
+The smith did not stay long in the house on the market-place.  He wished
+to go to Freiburg or Ulm, any place where he had not been with her.  A
+purchaser for the dwelling, with its lucrative business, was speedily
+found, the furniture was packed, and the new owner was to move in on
+Wednesday, when on Monday Bolz, the jockey, came to Adam's workshop from
+Richtberg.  The man had been a good customer for years, and bought
+hundreds of shoes, which he put on the horses at his own forge, for he
+knew something about the trade.  He came to say farewell; he had his own
+nest to feather, and could do a more profitable business in the lowlands
+than up here in the forest.  Finally he offered Adam his property at a
+very low price.
+
+The smith had smiled at the jockey's proposal, still he went to the
+Richtberg the very next day to see the place.  There stood the
+executioner's house, from which the whole street was probably named.
+One wretched hovel succeeded another.  Yonder before a door, Wilhelm the
+idiot, on whom the city boys played their pranks, smiled into vacancy
+just as foolishly as he had done twenty years ago, here lodged Kathrin,
+with the big goitre, who swept the gutters; in the three grey huts, from
+which hung numerous articles of ragged clothing, lived two families of
+charcoal-burners, and Caspar, the juggler, a strange man, whom as a boy
+he had seen in the pillory, with his deformed daughters, who in winter
+washed laces and in summer went with him to the fairs.
+
+In the hovels, before which numerous children were playing, lived honest,
+but poor foresters.  It was the home of want and misery.  Only the
+jockey's house and one other would have been allowed to exist in the
+city.  The latter was occupied by the Jew, Costa, who ten years before
+had come from a distant country to the city with his aged father and a
+dumb wife, and remained there, for a little daughter was born and the old
+man was afterwards seized with a fatal illness.  But the inhabitants
+would tolerate no Jews among them, so the stranger moved into the
+forester's house on the Richtberg which had stood empty because a better
+one had been built deeper in the woods.  The city treasury could use the
+rent and tax exacted from Jews and demanded of the stranger.  The Jew
+consented to the magistrate's requirement, but as it soon became known
+that he pored over huge volumes all day long and pursued no business, yet
+paid for everything in good money, he was believed to be an alchemist and
+sorcerer.
+
+All who lived here were miserable or despised, and when Adam had left the
+Richtberg he told himself that he no longer belonged among the proud and
+unblemished and since he felt dishonored and took disgrace in the same
+dogged earnest, that he did everything else, he believed the people in
+the Richtberg were just the right neighbors for him.  All knew what it is
+to be wretched, and many had still heavier disgrace to bear.  And then!
+If want drove his miserable wife back to him, this was the right place
+for her and those of her stamp.
+
+So he bought the jockey's house and well-supplied forge.  There would be
+customers enough for all he could do there in obscurity.
+
+He had no cause to repent his bargain.
+
+The old nurse remained with him and took care of Ulrich, who throve
+admirably.  His own heart too grew lighter while engaged in designing or
+executing many an artistic piece of work.  He sometimes went to the city
+to buy iron or coals, but usually avoided any intercourse with the
+citizens, who shrugged their shoulders or pointed to their foreheads,
+when they spoke of him.
+
+About a year after his removal he had occasion to speak to the file-
+cutter, and sought him at the Lamb, where a number of Count Frolinger's
+retainers were sitting.  Adam took no notice of them, but they began to
+jeer and mock at him.  For a time he succeeded in controlling himself,
+but when red-haired Valentine went too far, a sudden fit of rage
+overpowered him and he felled him to the floor.  The others now attacked
+him and dragged him to their master's castle, where he lay imprisoned for
+six months.  At last he was brought before the count, who restored him to
+liberty "for the sake of Florette's beautiful eyes."
+
+Years had passed since then, during which Adam had lived a quiet,
+industrious life in the Richtberg with his son.  He associated with no
+one, except Doctor Costa, in whom he found the first and only real friend
+fate had ever bestowed upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Benedict had last seen the smith soon after his return from
+imprisonment, in the confessional of the monastery.  As the monk in his
+youth had served in a troop of the imperial cavalry, he now, spite of his
+ecclesiastical dignity, managed the stables of the wealthy monastery, and
+had formerly come to the smithy in the market-place with many a horse,
+but since the monks had become involved in a quarrel with the city,
+Benedict ordered the animals to be shod elsewhere.
+
+A difficult case reminded him of the skilful, half-forgotten artisan;
+and when the latter came out of the shed with a sack of coal, Benedict
+greeted him with sincere warmth.  Adam, too, showed that he was glad to
+see the unexpected visitor, and placed his skill at the disposal of the
+monastery.
+
+"It has grown late, Adam," said the monk, loosening the belt he was
+accustomed to wear when riding, which had become damp.  "The storm
+overtook us on the way.  The rolling and flashing overhead made the
+sorrel horse almost tear Gotz's hands off the wrists.  Three steps
+sideways and one forward--so it has grown late, and you can't shoe the
+rascal in the dark."
+
+"Do you mean the sorrel horse?"  asked Adam, in a deep, musical voice,
+thrusting a blazing pine torch into the iron ring on the forge.
+
+"Yes, Master Adam.  He won't bear shoeing, yet he's very valuable.  We
+have nothing to equal him.  None of us can control him, but you formerly
+zounds!....you haven't grown younger in the last few years either, Adam!
+Put on your cap; you've lost your hair.  Your forehead reaches down to
+your neck, but your vigor has remained.  Do you remember how you cleft
+the anvil at Rodebach?"
+
+"Let that pass," replied Adam--not angrily, but firmly.  "I'll shoe the
+horse early to-morrow; it's too late to-day."
+
+"I thought so!" cried the other, clasping his hands excitedly.  "You know
+how we stand towards the citizens on account of the tolls on the bridges.
+I'd rather lie on thorns than enter the miserable hole.  The stable down
+below is large enough!  Haven't you a heap of straw for a poor brother in
+Christ?  I need nothing more; I've brought food with me."
+
+The smith lowered his eyes in embarrassment.  He was not hospitable.
+No stranger had rested under his roof, and everything that disturbed his
+seclusion was repugnant to him.  Yet he could not refuse; so he answered
+coldly: "I live alone here with my boy, but if you wish, room can be
+made."
+
+The monk accepted as eagerly, as if he had been cordially invited; and
+after the horses and groom were supplied with shelter, followed his host
+into the sitting-room next the shop, and placed his saddle-bags on the
+table.
+
+"This is all right," he said, laughing, as he produced a roast fowl and
+some white bread.  "But how about the wine?  I need something warm inside
+after my wet ride.  Haven't you a drop in the cellar?"
+
+"No, Father!"  replied the smith.  But directly after a second thought
+occurred to him, and he added: "Yes, I can serve you."
+
+So saying, he opened the cupboard, and when, a short time after, the monk
+emptied the first goblet, he uttered a long drawn "Ah!" following the
+course of the fiery potion with his hand, till it rested content near his
+stomach.  His lips quivered a little in the enjoyment of the flavor; then
+he looked benignantly with his unusually round eyes at Adam, saying
+cunningly:
+
+"If such grapes grow on your pine-trees, I wish the good Lord had given
+Father Noah a pine-tree instead of a vine.  By the saints!  The
+archbishop has no better wine in his cellar!  Give me one little sip
+more, and tell me from whom you received the noble gift?"
+
+"Costa gave me the wine."
+
+"The sorcerer---the Jew?" asked the monk, pushing the goblet away.  "But,
+of course," he continued, in a half-earnest, half-jesting tone, "when one
+considers--the wine at the first holy communion, and at the marriage of
+Cana, and the juice of the grapes King David enjoyed, once lay in Jewish
+cellars!"
+
+Benedict had doubtless expected a smile or approving word from his host,
+but the smith's bearded face remained motionless, as if he were dead.
+
+The monk looked less cheerful, as he began again "You ought not to grudge
+yourself a goblet either.  Wine moderately enjoyed makes the heart glad;
+and you don't look like a contented man.  Everything in life has not gone
+according to your wishes, but each has his own cross to bear; and as for
+you, your name is Adam, and your trials also come from Eve!"
+
+At these words the smith moved his hand from his beard, and began to push
+the round leather cap to and fro on his bald head.  A harsh answer was
+already on his lips, when he saw Ulrich, who had paused on the threshold
+in bewilderment.  The boy had never beheld any guest at his father's
+table except the doctor, but hastily collecting his thoughts he kissed
+the monk's hand.  The priest took the handsome lad by the chin, bent his
+head back, looked Adam also in the face, and exclaimed:
+
+"His mouth, nose and eyes he has inherited from your wife, but the shape
+of the brow and head is exactly like yours."
+
+A faint flush suffused Adam's cheeks, and turning quickly to the boy as
+if he had heard enough, he cried:
+
+"You are late.  Where have you been so long?"
+
+"In the forest with Ruth.  We were gathering faggots for Dr. Costa."
+
+"Until now?"
+
+"Rahel had baked some dumplings, so the doctor told me to stay."
+
+"Then go to bed now.  But first take some food to the groom in the
+stable, and put fresh linen on my bed.  Be in the workshop early
+to-morrow morning, there is a horse to be shod."
+
+The boy looked up thoughtfully and replied: "Yes, but the doctor has
+changed the hours; to-morrow the lesson will begin just after sunrise,
+father."
+
+"Very well, we'll do without you.  Good-night then."
+
+The monk followed this conversation with interest and increasing
+disapproval, his face assuming a totally different expression, for the
+muscles between his nose and mouth drew farther back, forming with the
+underlip an angle turning inward.  Thus he gazed with mute reproach at
+the smith for some time, then pushed the goblet far away, exclaiming with
+sincere indignation:
+
+"What doings are these, friend Adam?  I'll let the Jew's wine pass, and
+the dumplings too for aught I care, though it doesn't make a Christian
+child more pleasing in the sight of God, to eat from the same dish with
+those on whom the Saviour's innocent blood rests.  But that you,
+a believing Christian, should permit an accursed Jew to lead a
+foolish lad.  .  .  ."
+
+"Let that pass," said the smith, interrupting the excited monk; but the
+latter would not be restrained, and only continued still more loudly and
+firmly: "I won't be stopped.  Was such a thing ever heard of?  A baptized
+Christian, who sends his own son to be taught by the infidel soul-
+destroyer!"
+
+"Hear me, Father!"
+
+"No indeed.  It's for you to hear--you!  What was I saying?  For you,
+you who seek for your poor child a soul-destroying infidel as teacher.
+Do you know what that is?  A sin against the Holy Ghost--the worst of all
+crimes.  Such an abomination!  You will have a heavy penance imposed upon
+you in the confessional."
+
+"It's no sin--no abomination!"  replied the smith defiantly.
+
+The angry blood mounted into the monk's cheeks, and he cried:
+threateningly: "Oho!  The chapter will teach you better to your sorrow.
+Keep the boy away from the Jew, or ......"
+
+"Or?"  repeated the smith, looking Father Benedict steadily in the face.
+
+The latter's lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied:
+"Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the
+vagabond doctor.  Tit for tat.  We have grown tender-hearted, and it is
+long since a Jew has been burned for an example to many."
+
+These words did not fail to produce an effect, for though Adam was a
+brave man, the monk threatened him with things, against which he felt
+as powerless as when confronted with the might of the tempest and the
+lightning flashing from the clouds.  His features now expressed deep
+mental anguish, and stretching out his hands repellently towards his
+guest, he cried anxiously "No, no!  Nothing more can happen to me.  No
+excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to
+bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you
+to cross my threshold."
+
+The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle
+tone: "You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you
+going now?  Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you
+look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you?  No one shall
+have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest.  See
+your way clearly once more, and when you have come to your senses--why,
+we monks have two eyes, that we may be able to close one when occasion
+requires.  Have you any special cause for gratitude to Costa?"
+
+"Many, Father, many !"  cried the smith, his voice still trembling with
+only too well founded anxiety for his friend.  "Listen, and when you know
+what he has done for me, and are disposed to judge leniently, do not
+carry what reaches your ears here before the chapter no, Father--
+I beseech you--do not.  For if it should be I, by whom the doctor came
+to ruin, I--I...."  The man's voice failed, and his chest heaved so
+violently with his gasping breath, that his stout leathern apron rose
+and fell.
+
+"Be calm, Adam, be calm," said the monk, soothingly answering his
+companion's broken words.  "All shall be well, all shall be well.  Sit
+down, man, and trust me.  What is the terrible debt of gratitude you owe
+the doctor?"
+
+Spite of the other's invitation, the smith remained standing and with
+downcast eyes, began:
+
+"I am not good at talking.  You know how I was thrown into a dungeon on
+Valentine's account, but no one can understand my feelings during that
+time.  Ulrich was left alone here among this miserable rabble with nobody
+to care for him, for our old maid-servant was seventy.  I had buried my
+money in a safe place and there was nothing in the house except a loaf of
+bread and a few small coins, barely enough to last three days.  The child
+was always before my eyes; I saw him ragged, begging, starving.  But my
+anxiety tortured me most, after they had released me and I was going back
+to my house from the castle.  It was a walk of two hours, but each one
+seemed as long as St. John's day.  Should I find Ulrich or not?  What had
+become of him?  It was already dark, when I at last stood before the
+house.  Everything was as silent as the grave, and the door was locked.
+Yet I must get in, so I rapped with my fingers, and then pounded with my
+fist on the door and shutters, but all in vain.  Finally Spittellorle--
+[A nickname; literally: "Hospital Loura."]--came out of the red house
+next mine, and I heard all.  The old woman had become idiotic, and was in
+the stocks.  Ulrich was at the point of death, and Doctor Costa had taken
+him home.  When I heard this, I felt the same as you did just now; anger
+seized upon me, and I was as much ashamed as if I were standing in the
+pillory.  My child with the Jew!  There was not much time for reflection,
+and I set off at full speed for the doctor's house.  A light was shining
+through the window.  It was high above the street, but as it stood open
+and I am tall, I could look in and see over the whole room.  At the right
+side, next the wall, was a bed, where amid the white pillows lay my boy.
+The doctor sat by his side, holding the child's hand in his.  Little
+Ruth nestled to him, asking:  'Well, father?'  The man  smiled.  Do you
+know  him,  Pater?  He is about thirty years old, and has a pale, calm
+face.  He smiled and said so gratefully, so-so joyously, as if Ulrich
+were his own son: 'Thank God, he will be spared to us!'  The little girl
+ran to her dumb mother, who was sitting by the stove, winding yarn,
+exclaiming:
+
+'Mother, he'll get well again.  I have prayed for him every day.'  The
+Jew bent over my child and pressed his lips upon the boy's brow--and I,
+I--I no longer clenched my fist, and was so overwhelmed with emotion,
+that I could not help weeping, as if I were still a child myself, and
+since then, Pater Benedictus, since...."  He paused; the monk rose, laid
+his hand on the smith's shoulder, and said:
+
+"It has grown late, Adam.  Show me to my couch.  Another day will come
+early to-morrow morning, and we should sleep over important matters.  But
+one thing is settled, and must remain so-under all circumstances: the boy
+is no longer to be taught by the Jew.  He must help you shoe the horses
+to-morrow.  You will be reasonable!"
+
+The smith made no reply, but lighted the monk to the room where he and
+his son usually slept.  His own couch was covered with fresh linen for
+the guest--Ulrich already lay in his bed, apparently asleep.
+
+"We have no other room to give you," said Adam, pointing to the boy; but
+the monk was content with his sleeping companions, and after his host had
+left him, gazed earnestly at Ulrich's fresh, handsome face.
+
+The smith's story had moved him, and he did not go to rest at once, but
+paced thoughtfully up and down the room, stepping lightly, that he might
+not disturb the child's slumber.
+
+Adam had reason to be grateful to the man, and why should there not be
+good Jews?
+
+He thought of the patriarchs, Moses, Solomon, and the prophets, and had
+not the Saviour himself, and John and Paul, whom he loved above all the
+apostles, been the children of Jewish mothers, and grown up among Jews?
+And Adam!  the poor fellow had had more than his share of trouble, and he
+who believes himself deserted by God, easily turns to the devil.  He was
+warned now, and the mischief to his son must be stopped once for all.
+What might not the child hear from the Jew, in these times, when heresy
+wandered about like a roaring lion, and sat by all the roads like a
+siren.  Only by a miracle had this secluded valley been spared the evil
+teachings, but the peasants had already shown that they grudged the
+nobles the power, the cities the rich gains, and the priesthood the
+authority and earthly possessions, bestowed on them by God.  He was
+disposed to let mildness rule, and spare the Jew this time--but only on
+one condition.
+
+When he took off his cowl, he looked for a hook on which to hang it, and
+while so doing, perceived on the shelf a row of boards.  Taking one down,
+he found a sketch of an artistic design for the enclosure of a fountain,
+done by the smith's hand, and directly opposite his bed a linden-wood
+panel, on which a portrait was drawn with charcoal.  This roused his
+curiosity, and, throwing the light of the torch upon it, he started back,
+for it was a rudely executed, but wonderfully life-like head of Costa,
+the Jew.  He remembered him perfectly, for he had met him more than once.
+
+The monk shook his head angrily, but lifted the picture from the shelf
+and examined more closely the doctor's delicately-cut nose, and the noble
+arch of the brow.  While so doing, he muttered unintelligible words, and
+when at last, with little show of care, he restored the modest work of
+art to its old place, Ulrich awoke, and, with a touch of pride,
+exclaimed:
+
+"I drew that myself, Father!"
+
+"Indeed!" replied the monk.  "I know of better models for a pious lad.
+You must go to sleep now, and to-morrow get up early and help your
+father.  Do you understand?"
+
+So saying, with no gentle hand he turned the boy's head towards the wall.
+The mildness awakened by Adam's story had all vanished to the winds.
+
+Adam allowed his son to practise idolatry with the Jew, and make pictures
+of him.  This was too much.  He threw himself angrily on his couch, and
+began to consider what was to be done in this difficult matter, but sleep
+soon brought his reflections to an end.
+
+Ulrich rose very early, and when Benedict saw him again in the light of
+the young day, and once more looked at the Jew's portrait, drawn by the
+handsome boy, a thought came to him as if inspired by the saints
+themselves--the thought of persuading the smith to give his son to the
+monastery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+This morning Pater Benedictus was a totally different person from the
+man, who had sat over the wine the night before.  Coldly and formally he
+evaded the smith's questions, until the latter had sent his son away.
+
+Ulrich, without making any objection, had helped his father shoe the
+sorrel horse, and in a few minutes, by means of a little stroking over
+the eyes and nose, slight caresses, and soothing words, rendered the
+refractory stallion as docile as a lamb.  No horse had ever resisted
+the lad, from the time he was a little child, the smith said, though
+for what reason he did not know.  These words pleased the monk, for he
+was only too familiar with two fillies, that were perfect fiends for
+refractoriness, and the fair-haired boy could show his gratitude for
+the schooling he received, by making himself useful in the stable.
+
+Ulrich must go to the monastery, so Benedictus curtly declared with the
+utmost positiveness, after the smith had finished his work.  At midsummer
+a place would be vacant in the school, and this should be reserved for
+the boy.  A great favor!  What a prospect--to be reared there with
+aristocratic companions, and instructed in the art of painting.  Whether
+he should become a priest, or follow some worldly pursuit, could be
+determined later.  In a few years the boy could choose without restraint.
+
+This plan would settle everything in the best possible way.  The Jew need
+not be injured, and the smith's imperiled son would be saved.  The monk
+would hear no objections.  Either the accusation against the doctor
+should be laid before the chapter, or Ulrich must go to the school.
+
+In four weeks, on St. John's Day, so Benedictus declared, the smith and
+his son might announce their names to the porter.  Adam must have saved
+many florins, and there would be time enough to get the lad shoes and
+clothes, that he might hold his own in dress with the other scholars.
+
+During this whole transaction the smith felt like a wild animal in the
+hunter's toils, and could say neither "yes" nor "no."  The monk did not
+insist upon a promise, but, as he rode away, flattered himself that he
+had snatched a soul from the claws of Satan, and gained a prize for the
+monastery-school and his stable--a reflection that made him very
+cheerful.
+
+Adam retrained alone beside the fire.  Often, when his heart was heavy,
+he had seized his huge hammer and deadened his sorrow by hard work; but
+to-day he let the tool lie, for the consciousness of weakness and lack
+of will paralyzed his lusty vigor, and he stood with drooping head, as
+if utterly crushed.  The thoughts that moved him could not be exactly
+expressed in words, but doubtless a vision of the desolate forge, where
+he would stand alone by the fire without Ulrich, rose before his mind.
+Once the idea of closing his house, taking the boy by the hand, and
+wandering out into the world with him, flitted through his brain.  But
+then, what would become of the Jew, and how could he leave this place?
+Where would his miserable wife, the accursed, lovely sinner, find him,
+when she sought him again?  Ulrich had run out of doors long ago.  Had
+he gone to study his lessons with the Jew?  He started in terror at the
+thought.  Passing his hands over his eyes, like a dreamer roused from
+sleep, he went into his chamber, threw off his apron, cleansed his face
+and hands from the soot of the forge, put on his burgher dress, which he
+only wore when he went to church or visited the doctor, and entered the
+street.
+
+The thunder-storm had cleared the air, and the sun shone pleasantly on
+the shingled roofs of the miserable houses of the Richtberg.  Its rays
+were reflected from the little round window-panes, and flickered over the
+tree-tops on the edge of the ravine.
+
+The light-green hue of the fresh young foliage on the beeches glittered
+as brightly against the dark pines, as if Spring had made them a token of
+her mastery over the grave companions of Winter; yet even the pines were
+not passed by, and where her finger had touched the tips of the branches
+in benediction, appeared tender young shoots, fresh as the grass by the
+brook, and green as chrysophase and emerald.
+
+The stillness of morning reigned within the forest, yet it was full of
+life, rich in singing, chirping and twittering.  Light streamed from the
+blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered and
+danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been prisoned
+in the woods and could never find their way out.  The shadows of the tall
+trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant moss, and
+ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds and grass.
+
+Nature had celebrated her festival of resurrection at Easter, and the day
+after the morrow joyous Whitsuntide would begin.  Fresh green life was
+springing from the stump of every dead tree; even the rocks afforded
+sustenance to a hundred roots, a mossy covering and network of thorny
+tendrils clung closely to them.  The wild vine twined boldly up many a
+trunk, fruit was already forming on the bilberry bushes, though it still
+glimmered with a faint pink hue amid the green of May.  A thousand
+blossoms, white, red, blue and yellow, swayed on their slender stalks,
+opened their calixes to the bees, unfolded their stars to deck the
+woodland carpet, or proudly stretched themselves up as straight as
+candles.  Grey fungi had shot up after the refreshing rain, and gathered
+round the red-capped giants among the mushrooms.  Under, over and around
+all this luxuriant vegetation hopped, crawled, flew, fluttered, buzzed
+and chirped millions of tiny, short-lived creatures.  But who heeds them
+on a sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
+twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously?  Murmuring
+and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
+amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley.  The hurrying
+water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew along
+the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third species
+of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and spun
+delicate silk threads.
+
+In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
+charcoal kiln.  It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
+below.  Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
+purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
+sullied.
+
+It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
+smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky.  Little
+clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles of
+wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln.  A moss-grown but stood
+at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with the
+coal-burner.  People called this man "Hangemarx,"  and in truth he
+looked in his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that
+Nature should deck herself in her Spring garb.  He had a broad, peasant
+face, his mouth was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in many
+places looked washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow forehead,
+that it wholly concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white brows.
+The eyes under them needed to be taken on trust, they were so well
+concealed, but when they peered through the narrow chink between the rows
+of lashes, not even a mote escaped them.  Ulrich was shaping an arrow,
+and meantime asking the coal-burner numerous questions, and when the
+latter prepared to answer, the boy laughed heartily, for before Hangemarx
+could speak, he was obliged to straighten his crooked mouth by three
+jerking motions, in which his nose and cheeks shared.
+
+An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
+dissimilar companions.
+
+After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again.
+Marx knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the boy,
+that he might shoot it.  The host of the Lamb down in the town needed
+game, for his Gretel was to be married on Tuesday.  True, Marx could kill
+the animal himself, but Ulrich had learned to shoot too, and if the place
+whence the game came should be noised abroad, the charcoal-burner,
+without any scruples of conscience, could swear that he did not shoot
+the buck, but found it with the arrow in its heart.
+
+People called the charcoal-burner a poacher, and he owed his ill-name of
+"Hangemarx" to the circumstance that once, though long ago, he had
+adorned a gallows.  Yet he was not a dishonest man, only he remembered
+too faithfully the bold motto, which, when a boy, one peasant wood-cutter
+or charcoal-burner whispered to another:
+
+"Forest, stream and meadow are free."
+
+His dead father had joined the Bundschuh,--[A peasants' league which
+derived its name from the shoe, of peculiar shape, worn by its members.]
+--adopted this motto, and clung fast to it and with it, to the belief
+that every living thing in the forest belonged to him, as much as to the
+city, the nobles, or the monastery.  For this faith he had undergone much
+suffering, and owed to it his crooked mouth and ill name, for just as his
+beard was beginning to grow, the father of the reigning count came upon
+him, just after he had killed a fawn in the "free" forest.  The legs of
+the heavy animal were tied together with ropes, and Marx was obliged to
+take the ends of the knot between his teeth like a bridle, and drag the
+carcass to the castle.  While so doing his cheeks were torn open, and the
+evil deed neither pleased him nor specially strengthened his love for the
+count.  When, a short time after, the rebellion broke out in Stuhlingen,
+and he heard that everywhere the peasants were rising against the monks
+and nobles, he, too, followed the black, red and yellow banner, first
+serving with Hans Muller of Bulgenbach, then with Jacklein Rohrbach of
+Bockingen, and participating with the multitude in the overthrow of the
+city and castle of Neuenstein.  At Weinsberg he saw Count Helfenstein
+rush upon the spears, and when the noble countess was driven past him to
+Heilbronn in the dung-cart, he tossed his cap in the air with the rest.
+
+The peasant was to be lord now; the yoke of centuries was to be broken;
+unjust imposts, taxes, tithes and villenage would be forever abolished,
+while the fourth of the twelve articles he had heard read aloud more than
+once, remained firmly fixed in his memory "Game, birds and fish every one
+is free to catch."  Moreover, many a verse from the Gospel, unfavorable
+to the rich, but promising the kingdom of heaven to the poor, and that
+the last shall be first, had reached his ears.  Doubtless many of the
+leaders glowed with lofty enthusiasm for the liberation of the poor
+people from unendurable serfdom and oppression; but when Marx, and men
+like him, left wife and children and risked their lives, they remembered
+only the past, and the injustice they had suffered, and were full of a
+fierce yearning to trample the dainty, torturing demons under their
+heavy peasant feet.
+
+The charcoal-burner had never lighted such bright fires, never tasted
+such delicious meat and spicy wine, as during that period of his life,
+while vengeance had a still sweeter savor than all the rest.  When the
+castle fell, and its noble mistress begged for mercy, he enjoyed a
+foretaste of the promised paradise.  Satan has also his Eden of fiery
+roses, but they do not last long, and when they wither, put forth sharp
+thorns.  The peasants felt them soon enough, for at Sindelfingen they
+found their master in Captain Georg Truchsess of Waldberg.
+
+Marx fell into his troopers' hands and was hung on the gallows, but only
+in mockery and as a warning to others; for before he and his companions
+perished, the men took them down, cut their oath-fingers from their
+hands, and drove them back into their old servitude.  When he at last
+returned home, his house had been taken from his family, whom he found in
+extreme poverty.  The father of Adam, the smith, to whom he had formerly
+sold charcoal, redeemed the house, gave him work, and once, when a band
+of horsemen came to the city searching for rebellious peasants, the old
+man did not forbid him to hide three whole days in his barn.
+
+Since that time everything had been quiet in Swabia, and neither in
+forest, stream nor meadow had any freedom existed.
+
+Marx had only himself to provide for; his wife was dead, and his sons
+were raftsmen, who took pine logs to Mayence and Cologne, sometimes even
+as far as Holland.  He owed gratitude to no one but Adam, and showed in
+his way that he was conscious of it, for he taught Ulrich all sorts of
+things which were of no advantage to a boy, except to give him pleasure,
+though even in so doing he did not forget his own profit.  Ulrich was now
+fifteen, and could manage a cross-bow and hit the mark like a skilful
+hunter, and as the lad did not lack a love for the chase, Marx afforded
+him the pleasure.  All he had heard about the equal rights of men he
+engrafted into the boy's soul, and when to-day, for the hundredth time,
+Ulrich expressed a doubt whether it was not stealing to kill game that
+belonged to the count, the charcoal-burner straightened his mouth, and
+said:
+
+"Forest, stream and meadow are free.  Surely you know that."
+
+The boy gazed thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then asked:
+
+"The fields too?"
+
+"The fields?" repeated Marx, in surprise.  "The fields?  The fields are a
+different matter."  He glanced as he spoke, at the field of oats he had
+sown in the autumn, and which now bore blades a finger long.  "The fields
+are man's work and belong to him who tills them, but the forest, stream
+and meadow were made by God.  Do you understand?  What God created for
+Adam and Eve is everybody's property."
+
+As the sun rose higher, and the cuckoo began to raise its voice, Ulrich's
+name was shouted loudly several times in rapid succession through the
+forest.  The arrow he had been shaping flew into a corner, and with a
+hasty "When it grows dusk, Marxle!"  Ulrich dashed into the woods, and
+soon joined his playmate Ruth.
+
+The pair strolled slowly through the forest by the side of the stream,
+enjoying the glorious morning, and gathering flowers to carry a bouquet
+to the little girl's mother.  Ruth culled the blossoms daintily with the
+tips of her fingers; Ulrich wanted to help, and tore the slender stalks
+in tufts from the roots by the handful.  Meantime their tongues were not
+idle.  Ulrich boastfully told her that Pater Benedictus had seen his
+picture of her father, recognized it instantly, and muttered something
+over it.  His mother's blood was strong in him; his imaginary world was a
+very different one from that of the narrow-minded boys of the Richtberg.
+
+His father had told him much, and the doctor still more, about the wide,
+wide world-kings, artists and great heroes.  From Hangemarx he learned,
+that he possessed the same rights and dignity as all other men, and
+Ruth's wonderful power of imagination peopled his fancy with the
+strangest shapes and figures.  She made royal crowns of wreaths,
+transformed the little hut, the lad had built of boughs, behind the
+doctor's house, into a glittering imperial palace, converted round
+pebbles into ducats and golden zechins--bread and apples into princely
+banquets; and when she had placed two stools before the wooden bench on
+which she sat with Ulrich her fancy instantly transformed them into a
+silver coronation coach with milk-white steeds.  When she was a fairy,
+Ulrich was obliged to be a magician; if she was the queen, he was king.
+
+When, to give vent to his animal spirits, Ulrich played with the
+Richtberg boys, he always led them, but allowed himself to be guided
+by little Ruth.  He knew that the doctor was a despised Jew, that she
+was a Jewish child; but his father honored the Hebrew, and the foreign
+atmosphere, the aristocratic, secluded repose that pervaded the solitary
+scholar's house, exerted a strange influence over him.
+
+When he entered it, a thrill ran through his frame; it seemed as if he
+were penetrating into some forbidden sanctuary.  He was the only one of
+all his playfellows, who was permitted to cross this threshold, and he
+felt it as a distinction, for, in spite of his youth, he realized that
+the quiet doctor, who knew everything that existed in heaven and on
+earth, and yet was as mild and gentle as a child, stood far, far above
+the miserable drudges, who struggled with sinewy hands for mere existence
+on the Richtberg.  He expected everything from him, and Ruth also seemed
+a very unusual creature, a delicate work of art, with whom he, and he
+only, was allowed to play.
+
+It might have happened, that when irritated he would upbraid her with
+being a wretched Jewess, but it would scarcely have surprised him,
+if she had suddenly stood before his eyes as a princess or a phoenix.
+
+When the Richtberg lay close beneath them, Ruth sat down on a stone,
+placing her flowers in her lap.  Ulrich threw his in too, and, as the
+bouquet grew, she held it towards him, and he thought it very pretty;
+but she said, sighing:
+
+"I wish roses grew in the forest; not common hedgeroses, but like those
+in Portugal--full, red, and with the real perfume.  There is nothing that
+smells sweeter."
+
+So it always was with the pair.  Ruth far outstripped Ulrich in her
+desires and wants, thus luring him to follow her.
+
+"A rose!" repeated Ulrich.  "How astonished you look!"
+
+Her wish reminded him of the magic word she had mentioned the day before,
+and they talked about it all the way home, Ulrich saying that he had
+waked three times in the night on account of it.  Ruth eagerly
+interrupted him, exclaiming:
+
+"I thought of it again too, and if any one would tell the what it was,
+I should know what to wish now.  I would not have a single human being
+in the world except you and me, and my father and mother."
+
+"And my little mother!" added Ulrich, earnestly.
+
+"And your father, too!"
+
+"Why, of course, he, too!" said the boy, as if to make hasty atonement
+for his neglect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The sun was shining brightly on the little windows of the Israelite's
+sitting-room, which were half open to admit the Spring air, though
+lightly shaded with green curtains, for Costa liked a subdued light, and
+was always careful to protect his apartment from the eyes of passers-by.
+
+There was nothing remarkable to be seen, for the walls were whitewashed,
+and their only ornament was a garland of lavender leaves, whose perfume
+Ruth's mother liked to inhale.  The whole furniture consisted of a chest,
+several stools, a bench covered with cushions, a table, and two plain
+wooden arm-chairs.
+
+One of the latter had long been the scene of Adam's happiest hours, for
+he used to sit in it when he played chess with Costa.
+
+He had sometimes looked on at the noble game while in Nuremberg; but the
+doctor understood it thoroughly, and had initiated him into all its
+rules.
+
+For the first two years Costa had remained far in advance of his pupil,
+then he was compelled to defend himself in good earnest, and now it not
+unfrequently happened that the smith vanquished the scholar.  True, the
+latter was much quicker than the former, who if the situation became
+critical, pondered over it an unconscionably long time.
+
+Two hands more unlike had rarely met over a chess-board; one suggested a
+strong, dark ploug-ox, the other a light, slender-limbed palfrey.  The
+Israelite's figure looked small in contrast with the smith's gigantic
+frame.  How coarse-grained, how heavy with thought the German's big, fair
+head appeared, how delicately moulded and intellectual the Portuguese
+Jew's.
+
+To-day the two men had again sat down to the game, but instead of
+playing, had been talking very, very earnestly.  In the course of the
+conversation the doctor had left his place and was pacing restlessly to
+and fro.  Adam retained his seat.
+
+His friend's arguments had convinced him.  Ulrich was to be sent to
+the monastery-school.  Costa had also been informed of the danger that
+threatened his own person, and was deeply agitated.  The peril was great,
+very great, yet it was hard, cruelly hard, to quit this peaceful nook.
+The smith understood what was passing in his mind, and said:
+
+"It is hard for you to go.  What binds you here to the Richtberg?"
+
+"Peace, peace!" cried the other.  "And then," he added more calmly,
+"I have gained land here."
+
+"You?"
+
+"The large and small graves behind the executioner's house, they are my
+estates."
+
+"It is hard, hard to leave them," said the smith, with drooping head.
+"All this comes upon you on account of the kindness you have shown my
+boy; you have had a poor reward from us."
+
+"Reward?" asked the other, a subtle smile hovering around his lips.
+"I expect none, neither from you nor fate.  I belong to a poor sect,
+that does not consider whether its deeds will be repaid or not.  We love
+goodness, set a high value on it, and practise it, so far as our power
+extends, because it is so beautiful.  What have men called good?  Only
+that which keeps the soul calm.  And what is evil?  That which fills it
+with disquiet.  I tell you, that the hearts of those who pursue virtue,
+though they are driven from their homes, hunted and tortured like noxious
+beasts, are more tranquil than those of their powerful persecutors, who
+practise evil.  He who seeks any other reward for virtue, than virtue
+itself, will not lack disappointment.  It is neither you nor Ulrich, who
+drives me hence, but the mysterious ancient curse, that pursues my people
+when they seek to rest; it is, it is....  Another time, to-morrow.  This
+is enough for to-day."
+
+When the doctor was alone, he pressed his hand to his brow and groaned
+aloud.  His whole life passed before his mind, and he found in it,
+besides terrible suffering, great and noble joys, and not an hour in
+which his desire for virtue was weakened.  He had spent happy years here
+in the peace of his simple home, and now must again set forth and wander
+on and on, with nothing before his eyes save an uncertain goal, at the
+end of a long, toilsome road.  What had hitherto been his happiness,
+increased his misery in this hour.  It was hard, unspeakably hard, to
+drag his wife and child through want and sorrow, and could Elizabeth,
+his wife, bear it again?
+
+He found her in the tiny garden behind the horse, kneeling before a
+flower-bed to weed it.  As he greeted her pleasantly, she rose and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Let us sit down," he said, leading her to the bench before the hedge,
+that separated the garden from the forest.  There he meant to tell her,
+that they must again shake the dust from their feet.
+
+She had lost the power of speech on the rack in Portugal, and could only
+falter a few unintelligible words, when greatly excited, but her hearing
+had remained, and her husband understood how to read the expression of
+her eyes.  A great sorrow had drawn a deep line in the high, pure brow,
+and this also was eloquent; for when she felt happy and at peace it was
+scarcely perceptible, but if an anxious or sorrowful mood existed, the
+furrow contracted and deepened.  To-day it seemed to have entirely
+disappeared.  Her fair hair was drawn plainly and smoothly, over her
+temples, and the slender, slightly stooping figure, resembled a young
+tree, which the storm has bowed and deprived of strength and will to
+raise itself.
+
+"Beautiful!" she exclaimed in a smothered tone, with much effort, but
+her bright glance clearly expressed the joy that filled her soul, as she
+pointed to the green foliage around her and the blue sky over their
+heads.
+
+"Delicious-delicious!"  he answered, cordially.  "The June day is
+reflected in your dear face.  You have learned to be contented here?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded eagerly, pressing both hands upon her heart, while her
+eloquent glance told him how well, how grateful and happy, she felt here;
+and when in reply to his timid question, whether it would be hard for her
+to leave this place and seek another, a safer home, she gazed at first in
+surprise, then anxiously into his face, and then, with an eager gesture
+of refusal, gasped "Not go--not go!"  He answered, soothingly:
+
+"No, no; we are still safe here to-day!"
+
+Elizabeth knew her husband, and had keen eyes; a presentiment of
+approaching danger seized upon her.  Her features assumed an expression
+of terrified expectation and deep grief.  The furrow in her brow
+deepened, and questioning glances and gestures united with the
+"What?--what?" trembling on her lips.
+
+"Do not fear!" he replied, tenderly."  We must not spoil the present,
+because the future might bring something that is not agreeable to us."
+
+As he uttered the words, she pressed closely to him, clutching his arm
+with both hands, but he felt the rapid throbbing of her heart, and
+perceived by the violent agitation expressed in every feature, what deep,
+unconquerable horror was inspired by the thought of being compelled to go
+out into the world again, hunted from country to country, from town to
+town.  All that she had suffered for his sake, came back to his memory,
+and he clasped her trembling hands in his with passionate fervor.  It
+seemed as if it would be very, very easy, to die with her, but wholly
+impossible to thrust her forth again into a foreign land and to an
+uncertain fate; so, kissing her on her eyes, which were dilated with
+horrible fear, he exclaimed, as if no peril, but merely a foolish wish
+had suggested the desire to roam:
+
+"Yes, child, it is best here.  Let us be content with what we have.  We
+will stay!--yes, we will stay!"  Elizabeth drew a long breath, as if
+relieved from an incubus, her brow became smooth, and it seemed as if the
+dumb mouth joined the large upraised eyes in uttering an "Amen," that
+came from the inmost depths of the heart.
+
+Costa's soul was saddened and sorely troubled, when he returned to the
+house and his writing-table.  The old maid-servant, who had accompanied
+him from Portugal, entered at the same time, and watched his
+preparations, shaking her head.  She was a small, crippled Jewess, a
+grey-haired woman, with youthful, bright, dark eyes, and restless hands,
+that fluttered about her face with rapid, convulsive gestures, while she
+talked.
+
+She had grown old in Portugal, and contracted rheumatism in the unusual
+cold of the North, so even in Spring she wrapped her head in all the gay
+kerchiefs she owned.  She kept the house scrupulously neat, understood
+how to prepare tempting dishes from very simple materials, and bought
+everything she needed for the kitchen.  This was no trifling matter for
+her, since, though she had lived more than nine years in the black
+Forest, she had learned few German words.  Even these the neighbors
+mistook for Portuguese, though they thought the language bore some
+distant resemblance to German.  Her gestures they understood perfectly.
+
+She had voluntarily followed the doctor's father, yet she could not
+forgive the dead man, for having brought her out of the warm South into
+this horrible country.  Having been her present master's nurse, she took
+many liberties with him, insisting upon knowing everything that went on
+in the household, of which she felt herself the oldest, and therefore the
+most distinguished member; and it was strange how quickly she could hear
+when she chose, spite of her muffled ears!
+
+To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing to
+take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced
+around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in
+Portuguese:
+
+"Don't begin that, Lopez.  You must listen to me first."
+
+"Must I?" he asked, kindly.
+
+"If you don't choose to do it, I can go!"  she answered, angrily.  "To be
+sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion?  Do you feel inclined
+to make the monks' acquaintance once more?"
+
+"Fie, fie,  Rahel, listening again?  Go  into  the kitchen!"
+
+"Directly!  Directly!  But I will speak first.  You pretend, that you are
+only staying here to please your wife, but it's no such thing.  It's
+yonder writing that keeps you.  I know life, but you and your wife are
+just like two children.  Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye,
+and blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna.
+What sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with the
+doctor's hat from Coimbra?  Then everybody said: 'Lopez, Senor Lopez.
+Heavenly Father, what a shining light he'll be!'  And now!  The Lord have
+mercy on us!  You work, work, and what does it bring you?  Not an egg;
+not a rush!  Go to your uncle in the Netherlands.  He'll forget the
+curse, if you submit!  How many of the zechins, your father saved, are
+still left?"
+
+Here the doctor interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with a
+stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and
+continued with increasing volubility.
+
+"Enough, you say?  I fret over perversity enough in silence.  May my
+tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day.  Good God!  child, are you out
+of your senses?  Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but
+to be sure it isn't written in the books, that when people find out what
+happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile,
+a Christian girl......"
+
+At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant's shoulder,
+and said with grave, quiet earnestness.
+
+"Whoever speaks of that, may betray it;  may betray it.  Do you
+understand me, Rahel?  I know your good intentions, and therefore tell
+you: my wife is content here, and danger is still far away.  We shall
+stay.  And besides: since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an
+accursed, the Christians as a condemned man.  The former close the doors,
+the latter would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean.  No
+Portuguese will come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one
+monk and one Jew from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find
+Elizabeth with me, it will involve no less trifle than her life and mine.
+I shall stay here; you now know why, and can go to your kitchen."
+
+Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
+the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
+more rapidly than usual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+St. John's day was close at hand.  Ulrich was to go to the monastery the
+following morning.  Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no
+one molested the doctor.  Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted so
+beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he now
+felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into
+connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.
+
+The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this
+purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native
+place, but to the nearest large city.
+
+There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper's windows,
+and the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before
+this splendid show.  As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected
+the clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head to
+foot, were blue on one side and yellow on the other.  But Adam pushed
+them angrily aside.  Ulrich's pleasure in the gay stuff reminded him of
+his wife's outfit, the pink and green gowns.
+
+So he bought two dark suits, which fitted the lad's erect figure as if
+moulded upon him, and when the latter stood before him in the inn, neatly
+dressed, with shoes on his feet, and a student's cap on his head, Adam
+could not help gazing at him almost idolatrously.
+
+The tavern-keeper whispered to the smith, that it was long since he had
+seen so handsome a young fellow, and the hostess, after bringing the
+beer, stroked the boy's curls with her wet hand.
+
+On reaching home, Adam permitted his son to go to the doctor's in his new
+clothes; Ruth screamed with joy when she saw him, walked round and round
+him, and curiously felt the woollen stuff of the doublet and its blue
+slashes, ever and anon clapping her hands in delight.
+
+Her parents had expected that the parting would excite her most
+painfully, but she smiled joyously into her playmate's face, when he bade
+her farewell, for she took the matter in her usual way, not as it really
+was, but as she imagined it to be.  Instead of the awkward Ulrich of the
+present, the fairy-prince he was now to become stood before her; he was
+to return without fail at Christmas, and then how delightful it would be
+to play with him again.  Of late they had been together even more than
+usual, continually seeking for the word, and planning a thousand
+delightful things he was to conjure up for her, and she for him and
+others.
+
+It was the Sabbath, and on this day old Rahel always dressed the child in
+a little yellow silk frock, while on Sunday her mother did the same.  The
+gown particularly pleased Ulrich's eye, and when she wore it, he always
+became more yielding and obeyed her every wish.  So Ruth rejoiced that it
+chanced to be the Sabbath, and while she passed her hand over his
+doublet, he stroked her silk dress.
+
+They had not much to say to each other, for their tongues always faltered
+in the presence of others.  The doctor gave Ulrich many an admonitory
+word, his wife kissed him, and as a parting remembrance hung a small gold
+ring, with a glittering stone, about his neck, and old Rahel gave him a
+kerchief full of freshly-baked cakes to eat on his way.
+
+At noon on St. John's day, Ulrich and his father stood before the gate of
+the monastery.  Servants and mettled steeds were waiting there, and the
+porter, pointing to them, said: "Count Frohlinger is within."
+
+Adam turned pale, pressed his son so convulsively to his breast that he
+groaned with pain, sent a laybrother to call Father Benedict, confided
+his child to him, and walked towards home with drooping head.
+
+Hitherto Ulrich had not known whether to enjoy or dread the thought of
+going to the monastery-school.  The preparations had been pleasant
+enough, and the prospect of sharing the same bench with the sons of
+noblemen and aristocratic citizens, flattered his unity; but when he saw
+his father depart, his heart melted and his eyes grew wet.  The monk;
+noticing this, drew him towards him, patted his shoulder, and said: "Keep
+up your courage!  You will see that it is far pleasanter with us, than
+down in the Richtberg."
+
+This gave Ulrich food for thought, and he did not glance around as the
+Father led him up the steep stairs to the landing-place, and past the
+refectory into the court-yard.
+
+Monks were pacing silently up and down the corridors that surrounded it,
+and one after another raised his shaven head higher over his white cowl,
+to cast a look at the new pupil.
+
+Behind the court-yard stood the stately, gable-roofed building containing
+the guest-rooms, and between it and the church lay the school-garden,
+a meadow planted with fruit trees, separated from the highway by a wall.
+
+Benedictus opened the wooden gate, and pushed Ulrich into the playground.
+
+The noise there had been loud enough, but at his entrance the game
+stopped, and his future companions nudged each other, scanning him with
+scrutinizing glances.
+
+The monk beckoned to several of the pupils, and made them acquainted with
+the smith's son, then stroking Ulrich's curls again, left him alone with
+the others.
+
+On St. John's day the boys were given their liberty and allowed to play
+to their hearts' content.
+
+They took no special notice of Ulrich, and after having stared
+sufficiently and exchanged a few words with him, continued their
+interrupted game of trying to throw stones over the church roof.
+
+Meantime Ulrich looked at his comrades.
+
+There were large and small, fair and dark lads among them, but not one
+with whom he could not have coped.  To this point his scrutiny was first
+directed.
+
+At last he turned his attention to the game.  Many of the stones, that
+had been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over
+the church.  The longer the unsuccessful efforts lasted, the more evident
+became the superior smile on Ulrich's lips, the faster his heart
+throbbed.  His eyes searched the grass, and when he had discovered a
+flat, sharp-edged stone, he hurriedly stooped, pressed silently into the
+ranks of the players, and bending the upper part of his body far back,
+summoned all his strength, and hurled the stone in a beautiful curve high
+into the air.
+
+Forty sparkling eyes followed it, and a loud shout of joy rang out as it
+vanished behind the church roof.  One alone, a tall, thin, black-haired
+lad, remained silent, and while the others were begging Ulrich to throw
+again, searched for a stone, exerted all his power to equal the 11
+"greenhorn," and almost succeeded.  Ulrich now sent a second stone after
+the first, and, again the cast was successful.  Dark-browed Xaver
+instantly seized a new missile, and the contest that now followed so
+engrossed the attention of all, that they saw and heard nothing until a
+deep voice, in a firm, though not unkind tone, called: "Stop, boys!
+No games must be played with the church."
+
+At these words the younger boys hastily dropped the stones they had
+gathered, for the man who had shouted, was no less a personage than the
+Lord Abbot himself.
+
+Soon the lads approached to kiss the ecclesiastic's hand or sleeve, and
+the stately priest, who understood how to guide those subject to him by a
+glance of his dark eyes, graciously and kindly accepted the salutation.
+
+"Grave in office, and gay in sport" was his device.  Count von
+Frohlinger, who had entered the garden with him, looked like one whose
+motto runs: "Never grave and always gay."
+
+The nobleman had not grown younger since Ulrich's mother fled into the
+world, but his eyes still sparkled joyously and the brick-red hue that
+tinged his handsome face between his thick white moustache and his eyes,
+announced that he was no less friendly to wine than to fair women.  How
+well his satin clothes and velvet cloak became him, how beautifully the
+white puffs were relieved against the deep blue of his dress!  How
+proudly the white and yellow plumes arched over his cap, and how delicate
+were the laces on his collar and cuffs!  His son, the very image of the
+handsome father, stood beside him, and the count had laid his hand
+familiarly on his shoulder, as if he were not his child, but a friend
+and comrade.
+
+"A devil of a fellow!"  whispered the count to the abbot.  "Did you see
+the fair-haired lad's throw?  From what house does the young noble come?"
+
+The prelate shrugged his shoulders, and answered smiling:
+
+"From the smithy at Richtberg."
+
+"Does he belong to Adam?" laughed the other.  "Zounds!  I had a bitter
+hour in the confessional on his mother's account.  He has inherited the
+beautiful Florette's hair and eyes; otherwise he looks like his father.
+With your permission, my Lord Abbot, I'll call the boy."
+
+"Afterwards, afterwards," replied the superior of the monastery in a tone
+of friendly denial, which permitted no contradiction.  "First tell the
+boys, what we have decided?"
+
+Count Frohlinger bowed respectfully, then drew his son closer to his
+side, and waited for the boys, to whom the abbot beckoned.
+
+As soon as they had gathered in a group before him, the nobleman
+exclaimed:
+
+"You have just bid this good-for-nothing farewell.  What should you say,
+if I left him among you till Christmas?  The Lord Abbot will keep him,
+and you, you...."
+
+But he had no time to finish the sentence.  The pupils rushed upon him,
+shouting:
+
+"Stay here, Philipp!  Count Lips must stay!"
+
+One little flaxen-headed fellow nestled closely to his regained
+protector, another kissed the count's hand, and two larger boys seized
+Philipp by the arm and tried to drag him away from his father, back into
+their circle.
+
+The abbot looked on at the tumult kindly, and bright tear-drops ran down
+into the old count's beard, for his heart was easily touched.  When he
+recovered his composure, he exclaimed:
+
+"Lips shall stay, you rogues; he shall stay!  And the Lord Abbot has
+given you permission, to come with me to-day to my hunting-box and light
+a St. John's fire.  There shall be no lack of cakes and wine."
+
+"Hurrah!  hurrah!  Long live the count!"  shouted the pupils, and all
+who had caps tossed them into the air.  Ulrich was carried away by the
+enthusiasm of the others; and all the evil words his father had so
+lavishly heaped on the handsome, merry gentleman--all Hangemarx's abuse
+of knights and nobles were forgotten.
+
+The abbot and his companion withdrew, but as soon as the boys knew that
+they were unobserved, Count Lips cried:
+
+"You fellow yonder, you greenhorn, threw the stone over the roof.  I saw
+it.  Come here.  Over the roof?  That should be my right.  Whoever breaks
+the first window in the steeple, shall be victor."
+
+The smith's son felt embarrassed, for he shrank from the mischief and
+feared his father and the abbot.  But when the young count held out his
+closed hands, saying: "If you choose the red stone, you shall throw
+first," he pointed to his companion's right hand, and, as it concealed
+the red pebble, began the contest.  He threw the stone, and struck the
+window.  Amid loud shouts of exultation from the boys, more than one
+round pane of glass, loosened from the leaden casing, rattled in broken
+fragments on the church roof, and from thence fell silently on the grass.
+Count Lips laughed aloud in his delight, and was preparing to follow
+Ulrich's example, but the wooden gate was pushed violently open, and
+Brother Hieronymus, the most severe of all the monks, appeared in the
+playground.  The zealous priest's cheeks glowed with anger, terrible were
+the threats he uttered, and declaring that the festival of St. John
+should not be celebrated, unless the shameless wretch, who had
+blasphemously shattered the steeple window, confessed his fault,
+he scanned the pupils with rolling eyes.
+
+Young Count Lips stepped boldly forward, saying beseechingly:
+
+"I did it, Father--unintentionally!  Forgive me!"
+
+"You?" asked the monk, his voice growing lower and more gentle, as he
+continued: "Folly and wantonness without end!  When will you learn
+discretion, Count Philipp?  But as you did it unintentionally, I will
+let it pass for to-day."
+
+With these words, the monk left the court-yard; and as soon as the gate
+had closed behind him, Ulrich approached his generous companion, and said
+in a tone that only he could hear, yet grateful to the inmost depths of
+his heart:
+
+"I will repay you some day."
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed the young count, throwing his arm over the shoulder
+of the artisan's son.  "If the glass wouldn't rattle, I would throw now;
+but there's another day coming to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Autumn had come.  The yellow leaves were fluttering about the school
+play-ground, the starlings were gathering in flocks on the church roof
+to take their departure, and Ulrich would fain have gone with them, no
+matter where.  He could not feel at home in the monastery and among his
+companions.  Always first in Richtberg, he was rarely so here, most
+seldom of all in school, for his father had forbidden the doctor to
+teach him Latin, so in that study he was last of all.
+
+Often, when every one was asleep, the poor lad sat studying by the ever-
+burning lamp in the lobby, but in vain.  He could not come up with the
+others, and the unpleasant feeling of remaining behind, in spite of the
+most honest effort, spoiled his life and made him irritable.
+
+His comrades did not spare him, and when they called him "horse-boy,"
+because he was often obliged to help Pater Benedictus in bringing
+refractory horses to reason, he flew into a rage and used his superior
+strength.
+
+He stood on the worst terms of all with black-haired Xaver, to whom he
+owed the nickname.
+
+This boy's father was the chief magistrate of the little city, and was
+allowed to take his son home with him at Michaelmas.
+
+When the black-haired lad returned, he had many things to tell, gathered
+from half-understood rumor, about Ulrich's parents.  Words were now
+uttered, that brought the blood to Ulrich's cheeks, yet he intentionally
+pretended not to hear them, because he dared not contradict tales that
+might be true.  He well knew who had brought all these stories to the
+others, and answered Xaver's malicious spite with open enmity.
+
+Count Lips did not trouble himself about any of these things, but
+remained Ulrich's most intimate friend, and was fond of going with him
+to see the horses.  His vivacious intellect joyously sympathized with the
+smith's son, when he told him about Ruth's imaginary visions, and often
+in the play-ground he went apart with Ulrich from their companions; but
+this very circumstance was a thing that many, who had formerly been on
+more intimate terms with the aristocratic boy, were not disposed to
+forgive the new-comer.
+
+Xaver had never been friendly to the count's son, and succeeded in
+irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied himself
+better than they, and still more against Ulrich, who was half a servant,
+yet presumed to play the master and offer them violence.
+
+The monks employed in the school soon noticed the ill terms, on which the
+new pupil stood with his companions, and did not lack reasons for shaking
+their heads over him.
+
+Benedictus had not been able to conceal, who had been Ulrich's teacher
+in Richtberg; and the seeds the Jew had planted in the boy, seemed to be
+bearing strange and vexatious fruit.
+
+Father Hieronymus, who instructed the pupils in religion, fairly raged,
+when he spoke of the destructive doctrines, that haunted the new
+scholar's head.
+
+When, soon after Ulrich's reception into the school, he had spoken of
+Christ's work of redemption, and asked the boy: "From what is the world
+to be delivered by the Saviour's suffering?" the answer was: "From the
+arrogance of the rich and great."  Hieronymus had spoken of the holy
+sacraments, and put the question: "By what means can the Christian surely
+obtain mercy, unless he bolts the door against it--that is, commits a
+mortal sin?" and Ulrich's answer was: "By doing unto others, what you
+would have others do unto you."
+
+Such strange words might be heard by dozens from the boy's lips.  Some
+were repeated from Hangemarx's sayings, others from the doctor's; and
+when asked where he obtained them, he quoted only the latter, for the
+monks were not to be allowed to know anything about his intercourse with
+the poacher.
+
+Sharp reproofs and severe penances were now bestowed, for many a word
+that he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the
+poor, tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.
+
+He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to
+have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear his
+grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for help.
+
+The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill
+words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys
+a right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure,
+holy Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.
+
+In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the
+abbot, the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy,
+an opinion strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose
+best pupil Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who
+had lured this nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and
+often urged the abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to
+an examination by torture.
+
+In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the
+heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian
+child.
+
+The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement,
+during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the
+magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the doctor.
+Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against the accused.
+Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he heard from
+the boy's lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the smith and
+his son would be examined.
+
+The abbot, who liked to linger over his books, was glad to know that the
+matter was in the hands of the civil authorities, and enjoined Hieronymus
+to pay strict attention.
+
+On the third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the
+monastery.  His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the
+deep snow in the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went
+directly to the refectory and there asked for his son.
+
+The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when
+his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.
+
+It would not have needed Xaver's bitter complaints, to rouse his father
+to furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and he
+was by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been
+excluded for three weeks from the others' sports, and placed on a very
+frugal diet.  He went furiously to the abbot.
+
+The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young
+count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered play-
+ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades,
+pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated.  The conspirators had
+stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off his
+shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his back,
+pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and believed
+his last hour had come.
+
+Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing
+off and seizing his tormentor.  While the others fled, he wreaked his
+rage on the magistrate's son to his heart's content, first with his
+fists, and then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him.  Meantime,
+snowballs had rained upon his body and head from all directions,
+increasing his fury; and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started
+up, exclaiming with glowing cheeks and upraised fists:
+
+"Wait, wait, you wicked fellows!  The doctor in Richtberg knows a word,
+by which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable
+rascals!"
+
+Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father,
+cleverly enlarged with many a false word.  The abbot listened to the
+magistrate's complaint very quietly.
+
+The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter seemed
+important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the meal-time
+had already begun.  The Jew had really spoken to his daughter about the
+magic word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his companions
+with it.  So the investigation might begin.
+
+Ulrich was led back to the prison-chamber, where some thin soup and bread
+awaited him, but he touched neither.  Food and drink disgusted him, and
+he could neither work nor sit still.
+
+The little bell, which, summoned all the occupants of the monastery, was
+heard at an unusual hour, and about vespers the sound of sleigh-bells
+attracted him to the window.  The abbot and Father Hieronymus were
+talking in undertones to the magistrate, who was just preparing to enter
+his sleigh.
+
+They were speaking of him and the doctor, and the pupils had just been
+summoned to bear witness against him.  No one had told him so, but he
+knew it, and was seized with such anxiety about the doctor, that drops
+of perspiration stood on his brow.
+
+He was clearly aware that he had mingled his teacher's words with the
+poacher's blasphemous sayings, and also that he had put the latter into
+the mouth of Ruth's father.
+
+He was a traitor, a liar, a miserable scoundrel!
+
+He wished to go to the abbot and confess all, yet dared not, and so the
+hours stole away until the time for the evening mass.
+
+While in church he strove to pray, not only for himself but for the
+doctor, but in vain, he could think of nothing but the trial, and while
+kneeling with his hands over his eyes, saw the Jew in fetters before him,
+and he himself at the trial in the town-hall.
+
+At last the mass ended.
+
+Ulrich rose.  Just before him hung the large crucifix, and the Saviour on
+the cross, who with his head bowed on one side, usually gazed so gently
+and mournfully upon the ground, to-day seemed to look at him with mingled
+reproach and accusation.
+
+In the dormitory, his companions avoided him as if he had the plague, but
+he scarcely noticed it.
+
+The moonlight and the reflection from the snow shone brightly through the
+little window, but Ulrich longed for darkness, and buried his face in the
+pillows.  The clock in the steeple struck ten.
+
+He raised himself and listened to the deep breathing of the sleepers on
+his right and left, and the gnawing of a mouse under the bed.
+
+His heart throbbed faster and more anxiously, but suddenly seemed to
+stand still, for a low voice had called his name.
+
+"Ulrich!" it whispered again, and the young count, who lay beside him,
+rose in bed and bent towards him.  Ulrich had told him about the word,
+and often indulged in wishes with him, as he had formerly done with Ruth.
+Philipp now whispered:
+
+"They are going to attack the doctor.  The abbot and magistrate
+questioned us, as if it were a matter of life and death.  I kept what
+I know about the word to myself, for I'm sorry for the Jew, but Xaver,
+spiteful fellow, made it appear as if you really possessed the spell,
+and just now he came to me and said his father would seize the Jew early
+to-morrow morning, and then he would be tortured.  Whether they will hang
+or burn him is the question.  His life is forfeited, his father said--and
+the black-visaged rascal rejoiced over it."
+
+"Sileutium, turbatores!"  cried the sleepy voice of the monk in charge,
+and the boys hastily drew back into the feathers and were silent.
+
+The young count soon fell asleep again, but Ulrich buried his head still
+deeper among the pillows; it seemed as if he saw the mild, thoughtful
+face of the man, from whom he had received so much affection, gazing
+reproachfully at him; then the dumb wife appeared before his mind,
+and he fancied her soft hand was lovingly stroking his cheeks as usual.
+Ruth also appeared, not in the yellow silk dress, but clad in rags of a
+beggar, and she wept, hiding her face in her mother's lap.
+
+He groaned aloud.  The clock struck eleven.  He rose and listened.
+Nothing stirred, and slipping on his clothes, he took his shoes in his
+hand and tried to open the window at the head of his bed.  It had stood
+open during the day, but the frost fastened it firmly to the frame.
+Ulrich braced his foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength,
+but it resisted one jerk after another; at last it suddenly yielded and
+flew open, making a slight creaking and rattling, but the monk on guard
+did not wake, only murmured softly in his sleep.
+
+The boy stood motionless for a time, holding his breath, then swung
+himself upon the parapet and looked out.  The dormitory was in the second
+story of the monastery, above the rampart, but a huge bank of snow rose
+beside the wall, and this strengthened his courage.
+
+With hurrying fingers he made the sign of the cross, a low: "Mary, pray
+for me," rose from his lips, then he shut his eyes and risked the leap.
+
+There was a buzzing, roaring sound in his ears, his mother's image
+blended in strange distortion with the Jew's, then an icy sea swallowed
+him, and it seemed as if body and soul were frozen.  But this sensation
+overpowered him only a few minutes, then working his way out of the mass
+of snow, he drew on his shoes, and dashed as if pursued by a pack of
+wolves, down the mountain, through the ravine, across the heights, and
+finally along the river to the city and the Richtberg.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+He was steadfast in everything, even anger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The magistrate's horses did not reach the city gate, from the monastery,
+more quickly than Ulrich.
+
+As soon as the smith was roused from sleep by the boy's knock and
+recognized his voice, he knew what was coming, and silently listened to
+the lad's confessions, while he himself hurriedly yet carefully took out
+his hidden hoard, filled a bag with the most necessary articles, thrust
+his lightest hammer into his belt, and poured water on the glimmering
+coals.  Then, locking the door, he sent Ulrich to Hangemarx, with whom he
+had already settled many things; for Caspar, the juggler, who learned
+more through his daughters than any other man, had come to him the day
+before, to tell him that something was being plotted against the Jew.
+
+Adam found the latter still awake and at work.  He was prepared for the
+danger that threatened him, and ready to fly.  No word of complaint, not
+even a hasty gesture betrayed the mental anguish of the persecuted man,
+and the smith's heart melted, as he heard the doctor rouse his wife and
+child from their sleep.
+
+The terrified moans of the startled wife, and Ruth's loud weeping and
+curious questions, were soon drowned by the lamentations of old Rahel,
+who wrapped in even more kerchiefs than usual, rushed into the sitting-
+room, and while lamenting and scolding in a foreign tongue, gathered
+together everything that lay at hand.  She had dragged a large chest
+after her, and now threw in candlesticks, jugs, and even the chessmen and
+Ruth's old doll with a broken head.
+
+When the third hour after midnight came, the doctor was ready for
+departure.
+
+Marx's charcoal sledge, with its little horse, stopped before the door.
+
+This was a strange animal, no larger than a calf, as thin as a goat, and
+in some places woolly, in others as bare as a scraped poodle.
+
+The smith helped the dumb woman into the sleigh, the doctor put Ruth in
+her lap, Ulrich consoled the child, who asked him all sorts of questions,
+but the old woman would not part from the chest, and could scarcely be
+induced to enter the vehicle.
+
+"You know, across the mountains into the Rhine valley--no matter where,"
+Costa whispered to the poacher.
+
+Hangemarx urged on his little horse, and answered, not turning to the
+Israelite, who had addressed him, but to Adam, who he thought would
+understand him better than the bookworm: "It won't do to go up the
+ravine, without making any circuit.  The count's hounds will track us,
+if they follow.  We'll go first up the high road by the Lautenhof.
+To-morrow will be a fair-day.  People will come early from the villages
+and tread down the snow, so the dogs will lose the scent.  If it would
+only snow."
+
+Before the smithy, the doctor held out his hand to Adam, saying: "We part
+here, friend."
+
+"We'll go with you, if agreeable to you."
+
+"Consider," the other began warningly, but Adam interrupted him, saying:
+
+"I have considered everything; lost is lost.  Ulrich, take the doctor's
+sack from his shoulder."
+
+For a long time nothing more was said.
+
+The night was clear and cold; the men's footsteps fell noiselessly on the
+soft snow, nothing was heard except the creaking of the sledge, and ever
+and anon Elizabeth's low moaning, or a louder word in the old woman's
+soliloquy.  Ruth had fallen asleep on her mother's lap, and was breathing
+heavily.
+
+At Lautenhof a narrow path led through the mountains deep into the
+forest.
+
+As it grew steeper, the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the
+little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down, as
+if working a churn.  Once, when the poor creature met with a very heavy
+fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal's neck, and
+whispered to the smith "Twenty years old, and has the glanders besides."
+
+The little beast nodded slowly and mournfully, as if to say: "Life is
+hard; this will probably be the last time I draw a sleigh."
+
+The broad, heavy-laden pine-boughs drooped wearily by the roadside, the
+gleaming surface of the snow stretched in a monotonous sheet of white
+between the trunks of the trees, the tops of the dark rocks beside the
+way bore smooth white caps of loose snow, the forest stream was frozen
+along the edges, only in the centre did the water trickle through snow-
+crystals and sharp icicles to the valley.
+
+So long as the moon shone, flickering rays danced and sparkled on the ice
+and snow, but afterwards only the tedious glimmer of the universal snow-
+pall lighted the traveller's way.
+
+"If it would only snow!"  repeated the charcoal-burner.
+
+The higher they went, the deeper grew the snow, the more wearisome the
+wading and climbing.
+
+Often, on the doctor's account, the smith called in a low voice, "Halt!"
+and then Costa approached the sleigh and asked: "How do you feel?"  or
+said: "We are getting on bravely."
+
+Rahel screamed whenever a fox barked in the distance, a wolf howled, or
+an owl flew through the treetops, brushing the snow from the branches
+with its wings; but the others also started.  Marx alone walked quietly
+and undisturbed beside his little horse's thick head; he was familiar
+with all the voices of the forest.
+
+It grew colder towards morning.  Ruth woke and cried, and her father,
+panting for breath, asked: "When shall we rest?"
+
+"Behind  the  height;  ten arrow-shots farther," replied the charcoal-
+burner.
+
+"Courage," whispered the smith.  "Get on the sledge, doctor; we'll push."
+
+But Costa shook his head, pointed to the panting horse, and dragged
+himself onward.
+
+The poacher must have sent his arrows in a strange curve, for one quarter
+of an hour after another slipped by, and the top was not yet gained.
+Meantime it grew lighter and lighter, and the charcoal-burner, with
+increasing anxiety, ever and anon raised his head, and glanced aside.
+The sky was covered with clouds-the light overhead grey, dim, and blended
+with mist.  The snow was still dazzling, though it no longer sparkled and
+glittered, but covered every object with the dull whiteness of chalk.
+
+Ulrich kept beside the sledge to push it.  When Ruth heard him groan, she
+stroked the hand that grasped the edges, this pleased him; and he smiled.
+
+When they again stopped, this time on the crest of the ridge, Ulrich
+noticed that the charcoal-burner was sniffing the air like a hound, and
+asked:
+
+"What is it, Marxle?"
+
+The poacher grinned, as he answered: "It's going to snow; I smell it."
+
+The road now led down towards the valley, and, after a short walk, the
+charcoal-burner said:
+
+"We shall find shelter below with Jorg, and a warm fire too, you poor
+women."
+
+These were cheering words, and came just at the right time, for large
+snow-flakes began to fill the air, and a light breeze drove them into
+the travellers' faces.  "There!"  cried Ulrich, pointing to the snow
+covered roof of a wooden hut, that stood close before them in a clearing
+on the edge of the forest.
+
+Every face brightened, but Marx shook his head doubtfully, muttering:
+
+"No smoke, no barking; the place is empty.  Jorg has gone.  At
+Whitsuntide--how many years ago is it?--the boys left  to act as
+raftsmen, but then he stayed here."
+
+Reckoning time was not the charcoal-burner's strong point; and the empty
+hut, the dreary open window-casements in the mouldering wooden walls, the
+holes in the roof, through which a quantity of snow had drifted into the
+only room in the deserted house, indicated that no human being had sought
+shelter here for many a winter.
+
+Old Rahel uttered a fresh wail of grief, when she saw this shelter; but
+after the men had removed the snow as well as they could, and covered the
+holes in the roof with pine-branches; when Adam had lighted a fire, and
+the sacks and coverlets were brought in from the sledge, and laid on a
+dry spot to furnish seats for the women, fresh courage entered their
+hearts, and Rahel, unasked, dragged herself to the hearth, and set the
+snow-filled pot on the fire.
+
+"The nag must have two hours' rest," Marx said, "then they could push on
+and reach the miller in the ravine before night.  There they would find
+kind friends, for Jacklein had been with him among the 'peasants.'"
+The snow-water boiled, the doctor and his wife rested, Ulrich and Ruth
+brought wood, which the smith had split, to the fire to dry, when
+suddenly a terrible cry of grief rang outside of the hut.
+
+Costa hastily rose, the children followed, and old Rahel, whimpering,
+drew the upper kerchief on her head over her face.
+
+The little horse, its tiny legs stretched far apart, was lying in the
+snow by the sledge.  Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his
+knee, and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal's nostrils.  The
+creature showed its yellow teeth, and put out its bluish tongue as if it
+wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal's eyes
+started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time
+the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust
+themselves into the air, like the gaping mouth of a deserted bird.
+
+No farther progress was possible.  The women sat trembling in the hut,
+roasting before the fire, and shivering when a draught touched them....
+Ruth wept for the poor little horse, and Marx sat as if utterly crushed
+beside his old friend's stiffening body, heeding nothing, least of all
+the snow, which was making him whiter than the miller, with whom he had
+expected to rest that evening.  The doctor gazed in mute despair at his
+dumb wife, who, with clasped hands, was praying fervently; the smith
+pressed his hand upon his brow, vainly pondering over what was to be done
+now, until his head ached; while, from the distance, echoed the howl of a
+hungry wolf, and a pair of ravens alighted on a white bough beside the
+little horse, gazing greedily at the corpse lying in the snow.
+
+Meantime, the abbot was sitting in his pleasantly-warmed study, which was
+pervaded by a faint, agreeable perfume, gazing now at the logs burning in
+the beautiful marble mantel-piece, and then at the magistrate, who had
+brought him strange tidings.
+
+The prelate's white woollen morning-robe clung closely around his stately
+figure.  Beside him lay, side by side, for comparison, two manuscript
+copies of his favorite book, the idyls of Theocritus, which, for his
+amusement, and to excel the translation of Coban Hesse, he was turning
+into Latin verse, as the duties of his office gave him leisure.
+
+The magistrate was standing by the fire-side.  He was a thick-set man of
+middle height, with a large head, and clever but coarse features, as
+rudely moulded as if they had been carved from wood.  He was one of the
+best informed lawyers in the country, and his words flowed as smoothly
+and clearly from his strong lips, as if every thought in his keen brain
+was born fully matured and beautifully finished.
+
+In the farthest corner of the room, awaiting a sign from his master,
+stood the magistrate's clerk, a little man with a round head, and legs
+like the sickle of the waxing or waning moon.  He carried under his short
+arms two portfolios, filled with important papers.
+
+"He comes from Portugal, and has lived under an assumed name?"  So the
+abbot repeated, what he had just heard.
+
+"His name is Lopez, not Costa," replied the other; "these papers prove
+it.  Give me the portfolio, man!  The diploma is in the brown one."
+
+He handed a parchment to the prelate, who, after reading it, said firmly:
+
+"This Jew is a more important person than we supposed.  They are not
+lavish with such praise in Coimbra.  Are you taking good care of the
+doctor's books Herr Conrad?  I will look at them to-morrow."
+
+"They are at your disposal.  These papers.  .  .  ."
+
+"Leave them, leave them."
+
+"There will be more than enough for the complaint without them," said
+the magistrate.  "Our town-clerk, who though no student is, as you know,
+a man of much experience, shares my opinion."  Then he continued
+pathetically: "Only he who has cause to fear the law hides his name,
+only he, who feels guilty, flees the judge."
+
+A subtle smile, that was not wholly free from bitterness, hovered around
+the abbot's lips, for he thought of the painful trial and the torture-
+chamber in the town hall, and no longer saw in the doctor merely the Jew,
+but the humanist and companion in study.
+
+His glance again fell on the diploma, and while the other continued his
+representations, the prelate stretched himself more comfortably in his
+arm-chair and gazed thoughtfully at the ground.  Then, as if an idea had
+suddenly occurred to him, he touched his high forehead with the tips of
+his fingers, and suddenly interrupting the eager speaker, said:
+
+"Father Anselm came to us from Porto five years ago, and when there knew
+every one who understood Greek.  Go, Gutbub, and tell the librarian to
+come."  The monk soon appeared.
+
+Tidings of Ulrich's disappearance and the Jew's flight had spread rapidly
+through the monastery; the news was discussed in the choir, the school,
+the stable and the kitchen; Father Anselm alone had heard nothing of the
+matter, though he had been busy in the library before daybreak, and the
+vexatious incident had been eagerly talked of there.
+
+It was evident, that the elderly man cared little for anything that
+happened in the world, outside of his manuscripts and printing.  His
+long, narrow head rested on a thin neck, which did not stand erect, but
+grew out between the shoulders like a branch from the stem.  His face was
+grey and lined with wrinkles, like pumice-stone, but large bright eyes
+lent meaning and attraction to the withered countenance.
+
+At first he listened indifferently to the abbot's story, but as soon as
+the Jew's name was mentioned, and he had read the diploma, as swiftly as
+if he possessed the gift of gathering the whole contents of ten lines at
+a single comprehensive glance, he said eagerly:
+
+"Lopez, Doctor Lopez was here!  And we did not know it, and have not
+consulted with him!  Where is he?  What are people planning against him?"
+
+After he had learned that the Jew had fled, and the abbot requested him
+to tell all he knew about the doctor, he collected his thoughts and
+sorrowfully began:
+
+"To be sure, to be sure; the man committed a great offence.  He is a
+great sinner in God's eyes.  You know his guilt?"
+
+"We know everything," cried the magistrate, with a meaning glance at the
+prelate.  Then, as if he sincerely pitied the criminal, he continued with
+well-feigned sympathy: "How did the learned man commit such a misdeed?"
+
+The abbot understood the stratagem, but Anselm's words could not be
+recalled, and as he himself desired to learn more of the doctor's
+history, he asked the monk to tell what he knew.
+
+The librarian, in his curt, dry manner, yet with a warmth unusual to him,
+described the doctor's great learning and brilliant intellect, saying
+that his father, though a Jew, had been in his way an aristocratic man,
+allied with many a noble family, for until the reign of King Emanuel, who
+persecuted the Hebrews, they had enjoyed great distinction in Portugal.
+In those days it had been hard to distinguish Jews from Christians.  At
+the time of the expulsion a few favored Israelites had been allowed to
+stay, among them the worthy Rodrigo, the doctor's father, who had been
+the king's physician and was held in high esteem by the sovereign.
+Lopez obtained the highest honors at Coimbra, but instead of following
+medicine, like his father, devoted himself to the humanities.
+
+"There was no need to earn his living--to earn his living," continued the
+monk, speaking slowly and carefully, and repeating the conclusion of his
+sentence, as if he were in the act of collating two manuscripts, "for
+Rodrigo was one of the wealthiest men in Portugal.  His son Lopez was
+rich, very rich in friends, and among them were numbered all to whom
+knowledge was dear.  Even among the Christians he had many friends.
+Among us--I mean in our library--he also obtained great respect.  I owe
+him many a hint, much aid; I mean in referring me to rare books, and
+explaining obscure passages.  When he no longer visited us, I missed him
+sorely.  I am not curious; or do you think I am?  I am not curious, but
+I could not help inquiring about him, and then I heard very bad things.
+Women are to blame for everything; of course it was a woman again.  A
+merchant from Flanders--a Christian--had settled in Porto.  The doctor's
+father visited his house; but you probably know all this?"
+
+"Of  course! of course!"  cried the magistrate.  "But go on with your
+story."
+
+"Old Doctor Rodrigo was the Netherlander's physician, and closed his
+eyes on the death-bed.  An orphan was left, a girl, who had not a single
+relative in Porto.  They said--I mean the young doctors and students who
+had seen her--that she was pleasing, very pleasing to the eye.  But it
+was not on that account, but because she was orphaned and desolate, that
+the physician took the child--I mean the girl."
+
+"And reared her as a Jewess?" interrupted the magistrate, with a
+questioning glance.
+
+"As a Jewess?" replied the monk, excitedly.  "Who says so?  He did
+nothing of the sort.  A Christian widow educated her in the physician's
+country-house, not in the city.  When the young doctor returned from
+Coimbra, he saw her there more than once--more than once; certainly,
+more often than was good for him.  The devil had a finger in the matter.
+I know, too, how they were married.  Before one Jew and two Christian
+witnesses, they plighted their troth to each other, and exchanged rings--
+rings as if it were a Christian ceremony, though he remained a Jew and
+she a Christian.  He intended to go to the Netherlands with her, but one
+of the witnesses betrayed them--denounced them to the Holy Inquisition.
+This soon interposed of course, for there it interferes with everything,
+and in this case it was necessary; nay more--a Christian duty.  The young
+wife was seized in the street with her attendant and thrown into prison;
+on the rack she entirely lost the power of speech.  The old physician and
+the doctor were warned in time, and kept closely concealed.  Through
+Chamberlain de Sa, her uncle--or was it only her cousin?--through de Sa
+the wife regained her liberty, and then I believe all three fled to
+France--the father, son and wife.  But no, they must have come here...."
+
+"There you have it!"  cried the magistrate, interrupting the monk, and
+glancing triumphantly at the prelate.  "An old practitioner scents crime,
+as a tree frog smells rain.  Now, for the first time, I can say with
+certainty: We have him, and the worst punishment is too little for his
+deserts.  There shall be an unparalleled execution, something wonderful,
+magnificent, grand!  You have given me important information, and I thank
+you, Father."
+
+"Then you knew nothing?"  faltered the librarian; and, raising his neck
+higher than usual, the vein in the centre of his forehead swelled with
+wrath.
+
+"No, Anselme!" said the abbot.  "But it was your duty to speak, as,
+unfortunately, it was mine to listen.  Come to me again, by and bye; I
+have something to say to you."
+
+The librarian bowed silently, coldly and proudly, and without vouchsafing
+the magistrate a single glance, went back, not to his books, but to his
+cell, where he paced up and down a long time, sorrowfully murmuring
+Lopez's name, striking himself on the mouth, pressing his clenched hand
+to his brow, and at last throwing himself on his knees to pray for the
+Jew, before the image of the crucified Redeemer.
+
+As soon as the monk had left the room, the magistrate exclaimed:
+
+"What unexpected aid!  What series of sins lie before us!  First the
+small ones.  He had never worn the Jews' badge, and allowed himself to
+be served by Christians, for Caspar's daughters were often at the
+House to help in sewing.  A sword was found in his dwelling, and the Jew,
+who carries weapons, renounces, since he uses self-protection, the aid of
+the authorities.  Finally, we know that Lopez used an assumed name.  Now
+we come to the great offences.  They are divided into four parts.  He has
+practised magic spells; he has sought to corrupt a Christian's son by
+heresies; he has led a Christian woman into a marriage; and he has--
+I close with the worst--he has reared the daughter of a Christian woman,
+I mean his wife, a Jewess!"
+
+"Reared his child a Jewess?  Do you know that positively?"  asked the
+abbot.
+
+"She bears the Jewish name of Ruth.  What I have taken the liberty to
+make prominent are well chosen, clearly-proved crimes, worthy of death.
+Your learning is great, Reverend Abbot, but I know the old writers, too.
+The Emperor Constantius made marriages between Jews and Christians
+punishable with death.  I can show you the passage."
+
+The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy
+and unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to
+see how the magistrate's zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy
+criminal.  So he rose, saying with cold hauteur:
+
+"Then do your duty."
+
+"Rely upon it.  We shall capture him and his family to-morrow.  The town-
+clerk is full of zeal too.  We shall not be able to harm the child, but
+it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education.  It
+would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews.  You
+know the Freiburg case.  No less a personage than the great Ulrich Zasius
+has decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their
+father's knowledge.  I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall
+on Saturday as a witness."
+
+"Very well," replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness,
+that it justly surprised the magistrate.  "Well then, catch the Jew; but
+take him alive.  And one thing more!  I wish to see and speak to the
+doctor, before you torture him."
+
+"I will bring him to you day after to-morrow."  The Nurembergers! the
+Nurembergers!...."  replied the abbot, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"They don't hang any one till they catch him."  The magistrate regarded
+these words as a challenge to put forth every effort for the Jew's
+capture, so he answered eagerly: "We shall have him, Your Reverence, we
+shall surely have him.  They are trapped in the snow.  The sergeants are
+searching the roads; I shall summon your foresters and mine, and put them
+under Count Frohlinger's command.  It is his duty to aid us.  What they
+cannot find with their attendants, squires, beaters and hounds, is not
+hidden in the forest.  Your blessing, Holy Father, there is no time to
+lose."
+
+The abbot was alone.
+
+He gazed thoughtfully at the coals in the fireplace, recalling everything
+he had just seen and heard, while his vivid power of imagination showed
+him the learned, unassuming man, who had spent long years in quiet
+seclusion, industriously devoting himself to the pursuit of knowledge.
+A slight feeling of envy stole into his heart; how rarely he himself was
+permitted to pursue undisturbed, and without interruption, the scientific
+subjects, in which alone he found pleasure.
+
+He was vexed with himself, that he could feel so little anger against a
+criminal, whose guilt was deserving of death, and reproached himself for
+lukewarmness.  Then he remembered that the Jew had sinned for love, and
+that to him who has loved much, much should be forgiven.  Finally, it
+seemed a great boon, that he was soon to be permitted to make the
+acquaintance of the worthy doctor from Coimbra.  Never had the zealous
+magistrate appeared so repulsive as to-day, and when he remembered how
+the crafty man had outwitted poor Father Anselm in his presence, he felt
+as if he had himself committed an unworthy deed.  And yet, yet--the Jew
+could not be saved, and had deserved what threatened him.
+
+A monk summoned him, but the abbot did not wish to be disturbed, and
+ordered that he should be left an hour alone.
+
+He now took in his hand a volume he called the mirror of his soul, and in
+which he noted many things "for the confession," that he desired to
+determine to his own satisfaction.  To-day he wrote:
+
+"It would be a duty to hate a Jew and criminal, zealously to persecute
+what Holy Church has condemned.  Yet I cannot do so.  Who is the
+magistrate, and what are Father Anselm and this learned doctor!  The one
+narrow-minded, only familiar with the little world he knows and in which
+he lives, the others divinely-gifted, full of knowledge, rulers in the
+wide domain of thought.  And the former outwits the latter, who show
+themselves children in comparison with him.  How Anselm stood before him!
+The deceived child was great, the clever man small.  What men call
+cleverness is only small-minded persons' skill in life; simplicity is
+peculiar to the truly great man, because petty affairs are too small for
+him, and his eye does not count the grains of dust, but looks upward, and
+has a share in the infinitude stretching before us.  Jesus Christ was
+gentle as a child and loved children, he was the Son of God, yet
+voluntarily yielded himself into the hands of men.  The greatest of great
+men did not belong to the ranks of the clever.  Blessed are the meek, He
+said.  I understand those words.  He is meek, whose soul is open, clear
+and pure as a mirror, and the greatest philosophers, the noblest minds I
+have met in life and history were also meek.  The brute is clever; wisdom
+is the cleverness of the noble-minded.  We must all follow the Saviour,
+and he among us, who unites wisdom to meekness, will come nearest to the
+Redeemer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor
+had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he
+returned at noon with good news.
+
+A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg,
+the charcoal-burner, lived.
+
+The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach
+nearer the Rhine valley.  Everything was ready for departure, but old
+Rahel objected to travelling further.  She was sitting on a stone before
+the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and it
+seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses.  Gazing into vacancy
+with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould
+dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour.  She
+neither heard the doctor's call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the
+former grasped her to compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek.  At last
+the smith succeeded in persuading her to sit down on the sledge, and the
+party moved forward.
+
+Adam had harnessed himself to the front of the vehicle.  Marx went to and
+fro, pushing when necessary.  The dumb woman waded through the snow by
+her husband's side.  "Poor wife!"  he said once; but she pressed his arm
+closer, looking up into his eyes as if she wished to say: "Surely I shall
+lack nothing, if only you are spared to me!"
+
+She enjoyed his presence as if it were a favor granted by destiny, but
+only at chance moments, for she could not banish her fear for him, and
+of the pursuers--her dread of uncertainty and wandering.
+
+If snow rattled from a pine-tree, if she noticed Lopez turn his head, or
+if old Rahel uttered a moan, she shuddered; and this was not unperceived
+by her husband, who told himself that she had every reason to look
+forward to the next few hours with grave anxiety.  Each moment might
+bring imprisonment to him and all, and if they discovered--if it were
+disclosed who he, who Elizabeth was.  .  .  .
+
+Ulrich and Ruth brought up the rear, saying little to each other.
+
+At first the path ascended again, then led down to the valley.  It had
+stopped snowing long before, and the farther they went the lighter the
+drifts became.
+
+They had journeyed in this way for two hours, when Ruth's strength
+failed, and she stood still with tearful, imploring eyes.  The charcoal-
+burner saw it, and growled:
+
+"Come  here, little  girl;  I'll carry you to the sleigh."
+
+"No, let me," Ulrich eagerly interposed.  And Ruth exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, you, you shall carry me."
+
+Marx grasped her around the waist, lifted her high into the air, and
+placed her in the boy's arms.  She clasped her hands around his neck, and
+as he walked on pressed her fresh, cool cheek to his.  It pleased him,
+and the thought entered his mind that he had been parted from her a long
+time, and it was delightful to have her again.
+
+His heart swelled more and more; he felt that he would rather have Ruth
+than everything else in the world, and he drew her towards him as closely
+as if an invisible hand were already out-stretched to take her from him.
+
+To-day her dear, delicate little face was not pale, but glowed crimson
+after the long walk through the frosty, winter air.  She was glad to have
+Ulrich clasp her so firmly, so she pressed her cheek closer to his,
+loosened her fingers from his neck, caressingly stroked his face with her
+cold hand, and murmured:
+
+"You are kind, Ulrich, and I love you!"
+
+It sounded so tender and loving, that Ulrich's heart melted, for no one
+had spoken to him so since his mother went away.
+
+He felt strong and joyous, Ruth did not seem at all heavy, and when she
+again clasped her hands around his neck, he said: "I should like to carry
+you so always."
+
+Ruth only nodded, as if the wish pleased her, but he continued:
+
+"In the monastery I had no one, who was very kind to me, for even Lips,
+well, he was a count--everybody is kind to you.  You don't know what it
+is, to be all alone, and have to struggle against every one.  When I was
+in the monastery, I often wished that I was lying under the earth; now I
+don't want to die, and we will stay with you--father told me so--and
+everything will be just as it was, and I shall learn no more Latin, but
+become a painter, or smith-artificer, or anything else, for aught I care,
+if I'm only not obliged to leave you again."
+
+He felt Ruth raise her little head, and press her soft lips on his
+forehead just over his eyes; then he lowered the arms in which she
+rested, kissed her mouth, and said: "Now it seems as if I had my mother
+back again!"
+
+"Does it?"  she asked, with sparkling eyes.  "Now put me down.  I am well
+again, and want to run."
+
+So saying, she slipped to the ground, and he did not detain her.
+
+Ruth now walked stoutly on beside the lad, and made him tell her about
+the bad boys in the monastery, Count Lips, the pictures, the monks, and
+his own flight, until, just as it grew dark, they reached the goal of
+their walk.
+
+Jorg, the charcoal-burner, received them, and opened his hut, but only to
+go away himself, for though willing to give the fugitives shelter and act
+against the authorities, he did not wish to be present, if the refugees
+should be caught.  Caught with them, hung with them!  He knew the
+proverb, and went down to the village, with the florins Adam gave him.
+
+There was a hearth for cooking in the hut, and two rooms, one large and
+one small, for in summer the charcoal-burners' wives and children live
+with them.  The travellers needed rest and refreshment, and might have
+found both here, had not fear embittered the food and driven sleep from
+their weary eyes.
+
+Jorg was to return early the next morning with a team of horses.  This
+was a great consolation.  Old Rahel, too, had regained her self-control,
+and was sound asleep.
+
+The children followed her example, and at midnight Elizabeth slept too.
+
+Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange,
+snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from
+which the air is expiring.
+
+Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on
+a sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing
+with the words:
+
+"So you know who we are, and why we left our home.  You are giving me
+your future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but
+first of all, it was due you that you should know my past."
+
+Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked: "You are a Christian;
+will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?"
+
+Adam silently pressed the Jew's right hand, and after remaining lost in
+thought for a time, said in a hollow tone:
+
+"If they catch you, and--Holy Virgin--if they discover.....Ruth....She
+is not really a Jew's child.....have you reared her as a Jewess?"
+
+"No; only as a good human child."
+
+"Is she baptized?"
+
+Lopez answered this question also in the negative.  The smith shook his
+head disapprovingly, but the doctor said: "She knows more about Jesus,
+than many a Christian child of her age.  When she is grown up, she will
+be free to follow either her mother or her father."
+
+"Why have you not become a Christian yourself?  Forgive the question.
+Surely you are one at heart."
+
+"That, that....you see, there are things....Suppose that every male scion
+of your family, from generation to generation, for many hundred years,
+had been a smith, and now a boy should grow up, who said: I--I despise
+your trade?'"
+
+"If Ulrich should say: 'I-I wish to be an artist;' it would be agreeable
+to me."
+
+"Even if smiths were persecuted like us Jews, and he ran from your guild
+to another out of fear?"
+
+"No--that would be base, and can scarcely be compared with your case;
+for see--you are acquainted with everything, even what is called
+Christianity; nay, the Saviour is dear to you; you have already told me
+so.  Well then!  Suppose you were a foundling and were shown our faith
+and yours, and asked for which you would decide, which would you choose?"
+
+"We pray for life and peace, and where peace exists, love cannot be
+lacking, and yet!  Perhaps I might decide for yours."
+
+"There you have it."
+
+"No, no!  We have not done with this question so speedily.  See, I do not
+grudge you your faith, nor do I wish to disturb it.  The child must
+believe, that all its parents do and require of him is right, but the
+stranger sees with different, keener eyes, than the son and daughter.
+You occupy a filial relation towards your Church--I do not.  I know the
+doctrine of Jesus Christ, and if I had lived in Palestine in his time,
+should have been one of the first to follow the Master, but since, from
+those days to the present, much human work has mingled with his sublime
+teachings.  This too must be dear to you, for it belongs to your parents-
+-but it repels me.  I have lived, labored and watched all night for the
+truth, and were I now to come before the baptismal font and say 'yes' to
+everything the priests ask, I should be a liar."
+
+"They have caused you bitter suffering; tortured your wife, driven you
+and your family from your home....."
+
+"I have borne all that patiently," cried the doctor, deeply moved.
+"But there are many other sins now committed against me and mine, for
+which there is no forgiveness.  I know the great Pagans and their works.
+Their need of love extends only to the nation, to which they belong, not
+to humanity.  Unselfish justice, is to them the last thing man owes his
+fellow-man.  Christ extended love to all nations, His heart was large
+enough to love all mankind.  Human love, the purest and fairest of
+virtues, is the sublime gift, the noble heritage, he left behind to his
+brothers in sorrow.  My heart, the poor heart under this black doublet,
+this heart was created for human love, this soul thirsted, with all its
+powers, to help its neighbors and lighten their sorrows.  To exercise
+human love is to be good, but they no longer know it, and what is worse,
+a thousand times worse, they constantly destroy in me and mine the desire
+to be good, good in the sense of their own Master.  Wordly wealth is
+trash--to be rich the poorest happiness.  Yet the Jew is not forbidden to
+strive for this, they take scarcely half his gains;--nor can they deny
+him the pursuit of the pleasures of the intellect--pure knowledge--for
+our minds are not feebler or more idle, and soar no less boldly than
+theirs.  The prophets came from the East!  But the happiness of the soul
+--the right to exercise charity is denied to us.  It is a part of charity
+for each man to regard his neighbor as himself--to feel for him, as it
+were, with his own heart--to lighten his burdens, minister unto him in
+his sorrows, and to gladden his happiness.  This the Christian denies the
+Jew.  Your love ceases when you meet me and mine, and if I sought to put
+myself on an equality with the Christian, from the pure desire to satisfy
+his Master's most beautiful lesson, what would be my fate?  The Jew is
+not permitted to be good.  Not to be good!  Whoever imposes that upon his
+brother, commits a sin for which I know no forgiveness.  And if Jesus
+Christ should return to earth and see the pack that hunts us, surely He,
+who was human love incarnate, would open His arms wide, wide to us, and
+ask: 'Who are these apostles of hate?  I know them not!'"
+
+The doctor paused, for the door had opened, and he rose with flushed face
+to look into the adjoining room; but the smith held him back, saying:
+
+"Stay, stay!  Marx went out into the open air.  Ah, Sir!  no doubt your
+words are true, but were they Jews who crucified the Saviour?"
+
+"And this crime is daily avenged," replied Lopez.  "How many wicked, how
+many low souls, who basely squander divine gifts to obtain worthless
+pelf, there are among my people!  More than half of them are stripped of
+honor and dignity on your altar of vengeance, and thrust into the arms of
+repulsive avarice.  And this, all this....But enough of these things!
+They rouse my inmost soul to wrath, and I have other matters to discuss
+with you."
+
+The scholar now began to speak to the smith, like a dying man, about the
+future of his family, told him where he had concealed his small property,
+and did not hide the fact, that his marriage had not only drawn upon him
+the persecution of the Christians, but the curse of his co-religionists.
+He took it upon himself to provide for Ulrich, as if he were his own
+child, should any misfortune befall the smith; and Adam promised, if he
+remained alive and at liberty, to do the same for the doctor's wife and
+daughter.
+
+Meantime, a conversation of a very different nature was held before the
+hut.
+
+The poacher was sitting by the fire, when the door opened, and his name
+was called.  He turned in alarm, but soon regained his composure, for it
+was Jorg who beckoned, and then drew him into the forest.
+
+Marx expected no good news, yet he started when his companion said:
+
+"I know now, who the man is you have brought.  He's a Jew.  Don't try to
+humbug me.  The constable from the city has come to the village.  The
+man, who captures the Israelite, will get fifteen florins.  Fifteen
+florins, good money.  The magistrate will count it, all on one board, and
+the vicar says...."
+
+"I don't care much for your priests," replied Marx.  "I am from
+Weinsberg, and have found the Jew a worthy man.  No one shall touch him."
+
+"A Jew, and a good man!"  cried Jurg, laughing.  "If you won't help, so
+much the worse for you.  You'll risk your neck, and the fifteen florins.
+....Will you go shares?  Yes or no?"
+
+"Heaven's thunder!"  murmured the poacher, his crooked mouth watering."
+How much is half of fifteen florins?"
+
+"About seven, I should say."
+
+"A calf and a pig."
+
+"A swine for the Jew, that will suit.  You'll keep him here in the trap."
+
+"I can't, Jorg; by my soul, I can't!  Let me alone!"
+
+"Very well, for aught I care; but the legal gentlemen.  The gallows has
+waited for you long enough!"
+
+"I can't; I can't.  I've been an honest man all my life, and the smith
+Adam and his dead father have shown me many a kindness."
+
+"Who means the smith any harm?"
+
+"The receiver is as bad as the thief.  If they catch him...."
+
+"He'll be put in the stocks for a week.  That's the worst that can befall
+him."
+
+"No, no.  Let me alone,--or I'll tell Adam what you're plotting...."
+
+"Then I'll denounce you first, you gallows' fruit, you rogue, you
+poacher.  They've suspected you a long time!  Will you change your mind
+now, you blockhead?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my own
+child."
+
+"I'll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away
+with me.  When it's all over, I'll let him go."
+
+"Then  I'll keep him.  He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown
+man.  Oh, dear, dear!  The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and
+the little girl, Ruth...."
+
+"Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more.  You've told me yourself, how
+the Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father's day.  So we'll go
+shares.  There's a light in the room still.  You'll detain them.  Count
+Frohlinger has been at his hunting-box since last evening....If they
+insist on moving forward, guide them to the village."
+
+"And I've been an honest man all my life," whined the poacher, and then
+continued, threateningly: "If you harm a hair on Ulrich's head...."
+
+"Fool that you are!  I'll willingly leave the big feeder to you.  Go in
+now, then I'll come and fetch the boy.  There's money at stake--fifteen
+florins!"  Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the but.
+
+The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
+that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find one
+elsewhere.  They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the farm-
+houses in another village.  Somebody would doubtless be found to risk his
+horses.  The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants would
+take earnest-money from him.  If he, Jorg, should show them florins, it
+would get him into a fine scrape.  The people knew he was as poor as a
+beggar.
+
+The smith asked the poacher's opinion, and the latter growled:
+
+"That will, doubtless, be a good plan."
+
+He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
+him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
+Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
+florins to the four winds, but it was too late.
+
+The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: "Take good care of
+the boy!"  And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a
+faithful fellow, Marx!"  he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
+all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
+kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
+nor Jorg had come.  Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
+soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
+smith's anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
+Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched him--
+for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the silent
+man's gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with strange,
+questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste unusual to
+him.
+
+"Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?"
+
+"Often!"  replied Ruth.
+
+"And do you love Him?"
+
+"Dearly.  Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him."
+
+"Of course, of course!"  replied the smith, blushing with shame for his
+own distrust.
+
+The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
+they were alone, she beckoned to him.
+
+Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand.  The slender
+fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew her
+towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her eyes
+expressed bitter suffering and terrible dread.
+
+"Are you afraid?"  he asked, tenderly.
+
+Elizabeth shuddered, threw her arms passionately around his neck, and
+nodded assent.
+
+"The wagon will convey us to the Rhine Valley, please God, this very day,
+and there we shall be safe," he continued, soothingly.  But she shook her
+head, her features assuming an expression of indifference and contempt.
+Lopez understood how to read their meaning, and asked: "So it is not the
+bailiffs you fear; something else is troubling you?"
+
+She nodded again, this time still more eagerly, drew out the crucifix,
+which she had hitherto kept concealed under her coverlid, showed it to
+him, then pointed upward towards heaven, lastly to herself and him, and
+shrugged her shoulders with an air of deep, mournful renunciation.
+
+"You are thinking of the other world," said Lopez; then, fixing his eyes
+on the ground, he continued, in a lower tone: "I know you are tortured by
+the fear of not meeting me there."
+
+"Yes," she gasped, with a great effort, pressing her forehead against his
+shoulder.
+
+A hot tear fell on the doctor's hand, and he felt as if his own heart was
+weeping with his beloved, anxious wife.
+
+He knew that this thought had often poisoned her life and, full of tender
+sympathy, turned her beautiful face towards him and pressed a long kiss
+on her closed eyes, then said, tenderly:
+
+"You are mine, I am yours, and if there is a life beyond the grave, and
+an eternal justice, the dumb will speak as they desire, and sing wondrous
+songs with the angels; the sorrowful will again be happy there.  We will
+hope, we will both hope!  Do you remember how I read Dante aloud to you,
+and tried to explain his divine creation, as we sat on the bench by the
+fig-tree.  The sea roared below us, and our hearts swelled higher than
+its storm-lashed waves.  How soft was the air, how bright the sunshine!
+This earth seemed doubly beautiful to you and me as, led by the hand of
+the divine seer and singer, we descended shuddering to the nether world.
+There the good and noble men of ancient times walked in a flowery meadow,
+and among them the poet beheld in solitary grandeur--do you still
+remember how the passage runs?  'E solo in parte vidi 'l Saladino.'
+Among them he also saw the Moslem Saladin, the conqueror of the
+Christians.  If any one possessed the key of the mysteries of the other
+world, Elizabeth, it was Dante.  He assigned a lofty place to the pagan,
+who was a true man--a man with a pure mind, a zeal for goodness and
+right, and I think I shall have a place there too.  Courage, Elizabeth,
+courage!"
+
+A beautiful smile had illumined the wife's features, while she was
+reminded of the happiest hours of her life, but when he paused, gazed
+into her eyes, and clasped her right hand in his, she was seized with an
+intense longing to pray once, only once, with him to the Saviour so,
+drawing her fingers from his, she pressed the image of the Crucified One
+to her breast with her left hand, pleading with mute motions of her lips,
+inteligible to him alone, and with ardent entreaty in her large, tearful
+eyes: "Pray, pray with me, pray to the saviour."
+
+Lopez was greatly agitated; his heart beat faster, and a strong impulse
+urged him to start up, cry "no," and not allow himself to be moved, by an
+affectionate meakness, into bowing his manly soul before one, who, to
+him, was no more than human.
+
+The noble figure of the crucified Saviour, carved by an artist's hand in
+ivory, hung from an ebony cross, and he thrust the image back, intending
+to turn proudly way, he gazed at the face and found there only pain,
+quiet endurance, and touching sorrow.  Ah, his own heart had often bled,
+as the pure brow of this poor, persecuted, tortured saint bled beneath
+its crown of thorns.  To defy this silent companion in suffering, was no
+manly deed--to pay homage, out of love, to Him, who had brought love into
+the world, seemed to possess a sweet, ensnaring charm--so he clasped his
+slender hands closely round his dumb wife's fingers, pressed his dark
+curls gainst Elizabeth's fair hair, and both, for the first and last
+time, repeated together a mute, fervent prayer.
+
+Before the hut, and surrounded by the forest, was a large clearing, where
+two roads crossed.
+
+Adam, Marx and Ruth had gazed first down one and then the other, to look
+for the wagon, but nothing was to be seen or heard.  As, with increasing
+anxiety, they turned back to the first path, the poacher grew restless.
+His crooked mouth twisted to and fro in strange contortions, not a muscle
+of his coarse face was till, and this looked so odd and yet so horrible,
+that Ruth could not help laughing, and the smith asked what ailed him.
+
+Marx made no reply; his ear had caught the distant bay of a dog, and he
+knew what the sound meant.  Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and
+the smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: "What ails
+you, man?"
+
+"I am freezing," replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous
+expression.
+
+Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her hand
+to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: "There's a dog barking,
+Meister Adam, I hear it."
+
+The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly:
+"Believe me; I hear it.  Now it's barking again."
+
+Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest.  With lightning speed
+he loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up the
+clearing with her.
+
+Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.
+
+Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned.  In his impatience he had
+gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the
+child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had
+happened to Ulrich.
+
+"Back, back!" shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his,
+also motioned and shrieked "Back, back!"
+
+The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned,
+when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the
+party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on
+horseback, burst from the thicket.
+
+The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god
+Siegfried.  His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam
+rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air
+like a light cloud.  He had opened and raised his arms, and holding the
+reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right.  On
+perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant "Hallo, Halali!"  rang from
+his bearded lips.
+
+To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a
+Jew.
+
+The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how
+stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.
+
+This was a morning's work indeed!
+
+"Hallo, Halali!" he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had
+escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor's side, exclaiming:
+
+"Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!"
+
+The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.
+
+As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he
+turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.
+
+Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam's
+heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful
+arms around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him
+from his horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his
+belt, and with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the
+earth.  Then he again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe.
+But Lopez would not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a
+tone of passionate entreaty:
+
+"Let him go, Adam, spare him."
+
+As he spoke, he clung to the smith's arm, and when the latter tried to
+release himself from his grasp, said earnestly:
+
+"We will not follow their example!"
+
+Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the
+smith's arm, this time exclaiming imperiously:
+
+"Spare him, if you are my friend!"
+
+What was his strength in comparison with Adam's?  Yet as the hammer rose
+for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed, seizing
+the infuriated man's wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he fell on
+his knees beside the count: "Think of Ulrich!  This man's son was the
+only one, the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich, your
+child--in the monastery--he was--his friend--among so many.  Spare him--
+Ulrich!  For Ulrich's sake, spare him!"
+
+During this struggle the smith had held the count down with his left
+hand, and defended himself against Lopez with the right.
+
+One jerk, and the hand upraised for murder was free again--but he did not
+use it.  His friend's last words had paralyzed him.
+
+"Take it," he said in a hollow tone, giving the hammer to the doctor.
+
+The latter seized it, and rising joyously, laid his hand on the shoulder
+of the smith, who was still kneeling on the count's breast, and said
+beseechingly: "Let that suffice.  The man is only...."
+
+He went no farther--a gurgling, piercing cry of pain escaped his lips,
+and pressing one hand to his breast, and the other to his brow, he sank
+on the snow beside the stump of a giant pine.
+
+A squire dashed from the forest--the archer, to whom this noble quarry
+had fallen a victim, appeared in the clearing, holding aloft the cross-
+bow from which he had sent the bolt.  His arrow was fixed in the doctor's
+breast; alas, the man had only sent the shaft, to save his fallen master
+from the hammer in the Jew's hand.
+
+Count Frohlinger rose, struggling for breath; his hand sought his
+hunting-knife, but in the fall it had slipped from its sheath and was
+lying in the snow.
+
+Adam supported his dying friend in his arms, Ruth ran weeping to the hut,
+and before the nobleman had fully collected his thoughts, the squire
+reached his side, and young Count Lips, riding a swift bay-horse, dashed
+from the forest, closely followed by three mounted huntsmen.
+
+When the attendants saw their master on foot, they too sprang from their
+saddles, Lips did the same, and an eager interchange of question and
+answer began among them.
+
+The nobleman scarcely noticed his son, but greeted with angry words the
+man who had shot the Jew.  Then, deeply excited, he hoarsely ordered his
+attendants to bind the smith, who made no resistance, but submitted to
+everything like a patient child.
+
+Lopez no longer needed his arms.
+
+The dumb wife sat on the stump, with her dying husband resting on her
+lap.  She had thrown her arms around the bleeding form, and the feet hung
+limply down, touching the snow.
+
+Ruth, sobbing bitterly, crouched on the ground by her mother's side, and
+old Rahel, who had entirely regained her self-control, pressed a cloth,
+wet with wine, on his forehead.
+
+The young count approached the dying Jew.  His father slowly followed,
+drew the boy to his side, and said in a low, sad tone:
+
+"I am sorry for the man; he saved my life."
+
+The wounded man opened his eyes, saw Count Frohlinger, his son and the
+fettered smith, felt his wife's tears on his brow, and heard Ruth's
+agonized weeping.  A gentle smile hovered around his pale lips, and when
+he tried to raise his head Elizabeth helped him, pressing it gently to
+her breast.
+
+The feeble lips moved and Lopez raised his eyes to her face, as if to
+thank her, saying in a low voice: "The arrow--don't touch it....
+Elizabeth--Ruth, we have clung together faithfully, but now--I shall
+leave you alone, I must leave you."  He paused, a shadow clouded his
+eyes, and the lids slowly fell.  But he soon raised them again, and
+fixing his glance steadily on the count, said:
+
+"Hear me, my Lord; a dying man should be heard, even if he is a Jew.  See!
+This is my wife, and this my child.  They are Christians.  They will soon
+be alone in the world, deserted, orphaned.  The smith is their only
+friend.  Set him free; they--they, they will need a protector.  My wife
+is dumb, dumb....alone in the world.  She can neither beseech nor demand.
+Set Adam free, for the sake of your Saviour, your son, free--yes, free.
+A wide, wide space must be between you; he must go away with them, far
+away.  Set him free!  I held his arm with the hammer....  You know--with
+the hammer.  Set him free.  My death--death atones for everything."
+
+Again his voice failed, and the count, deeply moved, looked irresolutely
+now at him, now at the smith.  Lips's eyes filled with tears; and as he
+saw his father delay in fulfilling the dying man's last wish, and a
+glance from the dim eyes met his, he pressed closer to the noble, who
+stood struggling with many contending emotions, and whispered, weeping:
+
+"My Lord and Father, my Lord and Father, tomorrow will be Christmas.
+For Christ's sake, for love of me, grant his request: release Ulrich's
+father, set him free!  Do so, my noble Father; I want no other Christmas
+gift."
+
+Count Frohlinger's heart also overflowed, and when, raising his tear-
+dimmed eyes, he saw Elizabeth's deep grief stamped on her gentle
+features, and beheld reclining on her breast, the mild, beautiful face of
+the dying man, it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother of
+God--and to-morrow would be Christmas.  Wounded pride was silent, he
+forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if
+he wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death:
+
+"I thank you for your aid, man.  Adam is free, and may go with your wife
+and child wherever he lists.  My word upon it; you can close your eyes in
+peace!"
+
+Lopez smiled again, raised his hand as if in gratitude, then let it fall
+upon his child's head, gazed lovingly at Ruth for the last time, and
+murmured in a low tone "Lift my head a little higher, Elizabeth."  When
+she had obeyed his wish, he gazed earnestly into her face, whispered
+softly: "A dreamless sleep--reanimated to new forms in the endless
+circle.  No!--Do you see, do you hear....Solo in parte'....with you
+....with you....Oh, oh!--the arrow--draw the arrow from the wound.
+Elizabeth, Elizabeth--it aches.  Well--well--how miserable we were, and
+yet, yet....You--you--I--we--we know, what happiness is.  You--I....
+Forgive me!  I forgive, forgive...."
+
+The dying man's hand fell from his child's head, his eyes closed, but the
+pleasant smile with which he had perished, hovered around his lips, even
+in death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Count Frohlinger added a low "amen" to the last words of the dying man,
+then approached the widow, and in the kindly, cordial manner natural to
+him, strove to comfort her.
+
+Finally he ordered his men, to loose the smith's bonds, and instantly
+guide him to the frontier with the woman and child.  He also spoke to
+Adam, but said only a few words, not cheery ones as usual, but grave and
+harsh in purport.
+
+They were a command to leave the country without delay, and never return
+to his home again.
+
+The Jew's corpse was laid on a bier formed of pine, branches, and the
+bearers lifted it on their shoulders.  Ruth clung closely to her mother,
+both trembling like leaves in the wind, while he who was dearest to
+them on earth was borne away, but only the child could weep.
+
+The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited
+patiently with the smith for his son's return until noon, then they urged
+departure, and the party moved forward.
+
+Not a word was spoken, till the, travellers stopped before the charcoal-
+burner's house.
+
+Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and
+had gone back to the forest an hour before.  The tavern could accommodate
+a great many people, she added, and they could wait for him there.
+
+The fugitives followed this advice, and after Adam had seen the women
+provided with shelter, he again sought the scene of the misfortune, and
+waited there for the boy until night.
+
+Beside the stump on which his friend had died, he prayed long and
+earnestly, vowing to his dead preserver to live henceforth solely for his
+family.  Unbroken stillness surrounded him, it seemed as if he were in
+church, and every tree in the forest was a witness of the oath he swore.
+
+The next morning the smith again sought the charcoal-burner, and this
+time found him.  Jorg laid the blame to Ulrich's impatience, but promised
+to go to Marx in search of him and bring him to the smith.  The men
+composing the escort urged haste, so Adam went on without Ulrich towards
+the north-west, to the valley of the Rhine.
+
+The charcoal-burner had lost the reward offered the informer, and could
+not even earn the money due a messenger.
+
+He had lured Ulrich to the attic and locked him in there, but during his
+absence the boy escaped.  He was a nimble fellow, for he had risked the
+leap from the window, and then swung himself over the fence into the
+road.
+
+Jorg's conjecture did not deceive him, for as soon as Ulrich perceived
+that he had been betrayed into a trap, he had leaped into the open air.
+
+He must warn his friends, and anxiety for them winged his feet.
+
+Once and again he lost his way, but at last found the right path, though
+he had wasted many hours, first in the village, then behind the locked
+door, and finally in searching for the right road.
+
+The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
+clearing.
+
+The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.
+
+Where had they gone?
+
+He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only too
+many.  Here horses' hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed the
+snow, yonder hounds had run, and--Great Heaven!--here, by the tree-stump,
+red blood stained the glimmering white ground.
+
+His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.
+
+Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass and
+brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there--Holy Virgin!
+What was this!--there lay his father's hammer.  He knew it only too well;
+it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two larger
+tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it
+a hundred times himself.
+
+His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
+and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
+himself: "The bier was made here," and his vivid imagination showed him
+his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral procession.
+Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a slender, black-
+robed body, his father and his teacher.  Then came the quiet, beautiful
+wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel.  He distinctly
+saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of the women, and
+wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating locks and ran to
+and fro.  Suddenly he thought that the troopers would return to seize him
+also.  Away, away! anywhere--away!  a voice roared and buzzed in his
+ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always towards the
+south.
+
+The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained at
+the charcoal-burner's, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor
+thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.
+
+Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he still
+ran on--but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and shorter.
+The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet he still
+struggled forward.
+
+The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he followed
+southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed.  His head
+and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold; but little
+snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight showed
+patches of bare, dark turf.
+
+Grief was forgotten.  Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed
+the boy's mind.  He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road and
+sleep, but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and dragged
+himself on to the nearest village.  The lights had long been
+extinguished; as he approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the
+melancholy lowing of a cow echoed from many a stable.  He was again among
+human beings; the thought exerted a soothing influence; he regained his
+self-control, and sought a shelter for the night.
+
+At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the
+moonlight an open hatchway in the wall.  If he could climb up to it!  The
+framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to
+try it.
+
+Several times, when Half-way up, he slipped to the ground, but at last
+reached the top, and found a bed in the soft hay under a sheltering roof.
+Surrounded by the fragrance of the dried grasses, he soon fell asleep,
+and in a dream saw amidst various confused and repulsive shapes, first
+his father with a bleeding wound in his broad chest, and then the doctor,
+dancing with old Rahel.  Last of all Ruth appeared; she led him into the
+forest to a juniper-bush, and showed him a nest full of young birds.  But
+the half-naked creatures vexed him, and he trampled them under foot, over
+which the little girl lamented so loudly and bitterly, that he awoke.
+
+Morning was already dawning, his head ached, and he was very cold and
+hungry, but he had no desire nor thought except to proceed; so he again
+went out into the open air, brushed off the hay that still clung to his
+hair and clothes, and walked on towards the south.
+
+It had grown warmer and was beginning to snow heavily.
+
+Walking became more and more difficult; his headache grew unendurable,
+yet his feet still moved, though it seemed as if he wore heavy leaden
+shoes.
+
+Several freight-wagons with armed escorts, and a few peasants, with
+rosaries in their hands, who were on their way to church, met the lad,
+but no one had overtaken him.
+
+On the hinge of noon he heard behind him the tramp of horses' hoofs and
+the rattle of wheels, approaching nearer and nearer with ominous haste.
+
+If it should be the troopers!
+
+Ulrich's heart stood still, and turning to look back, he saw several
+horsemen, who were trotting past a spur of the hill around which the road
+wound.
+
+Through the falling flakes the boy perceived glittering weapons, gay
+doublets and scarfs, and now--now--all hope was over, they wore Count
+Frohlinger's colors!
+
+Unless the earth should open before him, there was no escape.  The road
+belonged to the horsemen; on the right lay a wide, snow-covered plain, on
+the left rose a cliff, kept from falling on the side towards the highway
+by a rude wall.  It needed this support less on account of the road, than
+for the sake of a graveyard, for which the citizens of the neighboring
+borough used the gentle slope of the mountain.
+
+The graves, the bare elder-bushes and bushy cypresses in the cemetery
+were covered with snow, and the brighter the white covering that rested
+on every surrounding object, the stronger was the relief in which the
+black crosses stood forth against it.
+
+A small chapel in the rear of the graveyard caught Ulrich's eye.  If it
+was possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it.  The horsemen
+were already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining
+strength, rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to
+clamber up.
+
+The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the
+cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to slip
+on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered plants
+growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.
+
+The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed:
+"A runaway!  See how the young vagabond acts.  I'll seize him."
+
+He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded in
+reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
+gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper's hand and his comrades
+burst into a loud laugh.  It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears of
+the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward.  He
+leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone
+concealed by the snow.
+
+With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell
+once more, and now his will was paralyzed.  In mortal terror he clung to
+a cross, and as his senses failed, thought of "the word."  It seemed as
+if some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and fatigue,
+he could not remember it.
+
+The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his comrades,
+by letting the vagabond escape.  With a curt: "Stop, you rascal," he
+threw the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the next man in the
+line; and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich's side.  He shook
+and jerked him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called to the others
+that the boy was probably dead.
+
+"People never die so quickly!"  cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
+"Give him a blow."
+
+The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad.  He had looked into
+Ulrich's face, and found something there that touched his heart.  "No,
+no," he shouted, "come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it's all over
+with him, I say."
+
+During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his
+old servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot.  The former, a
+gentleman of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw with
+a single hasty glance the cause of the detention.
+
+Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
+the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.
+
+Ulrich's head now lay in the soldier's arms, and the traveller gazed at
+him with a look of deep sympathy.  The steadfast glance of his bright
+eyes rested on the boy's features as if spellbound, then he raised his
+hand, beckoned to the elder soldier, and exclaimed: "Lift him; we'll take
+him with us; a corner can be found in the wagon."
+
+The vehicle, of which the traveller spoke, was slow in coming.  It was a
+long four-wheeled equipage, over which, as a protection against wind and
+storm, arched a round, sail-cloth cover.  The driver crouched among the
+straw in a basket behind the horses, like a brooding hen.
+
+Under the sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad gentleman,
+sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the vehicle had
+gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company.
+
+The two Dominican friars, Magisters Sutor and Stubenrauch, had entered
+at Cologne, for the wagon came straight from Holland, and belonged to the
+artist Antonio Moor of Utrecht, who was going to King Philip's court.
+The beautiful fur border on the black cap and velvet cloak showed that
+he had no occasion to practise economy; he preferred the back of a good
+horse to a seat in a jolting vehicle.
+
+The ecclesiastics had taken possession of the best places in the back of
+the wagon.  They were inseparable brothers, and formed as it were one
+person, for they behaved like two bodies with one soul.  In this double
+life, fat Magister Sutor represented the will, lean Stubenrauch
+reflection and execution.  If the former proposed to be down or sit, eat
+or drink, sleep or talk, the latter instantly carried the suggestion into
+execution, rarely neglecting to establish, by wise words, for what reason
+the act in question should be performed precisely at that time.
+
+Farther towards the front, with his back resting against a chest, lay a
+fine-looking young Lansquenet.  He was undoubtedly a gay, active fellow,
+but now sat mute and melancholy, supporting with his right hand his
+wounded left arm, as if it were some brittle vessel.
+
+Opposite to him rose a heap of loose straw, beneath which something
+stirred from time to time, and from which at short intervals a slight
+cough was heard.
+
+As soon as the door in the back of the vehicle opened, and the cold snowy
+air entered the dark, damp space under the tilt, Magister Sutor's lips
+parted in a long-drawn "Ugh!" to which his lean companion instantly added
+a torrent of reproachful words about the delay, the draught, the danger
+of taking cold.
+
+When the artist's head appeared in the opening, the priest paused, for
+Moor paid the travelling expenses; but when his companion Sutor drew his
+cloak around him with every token of discomfort and annoyance, he
+followed his example in a still more conspicuous way.
+
+The artist paid no heed to these gestures, but quietly requested his
+guests to make room for the boy.
+
+A muffled head was suddenly thrust out from under the straw, a voice
+cried: "A hospital on wheels!"  then the head vanished again like that of
+a fish, which has risen to take a breath of air.
+
+"Very true," replied the artist.  "You need not draw up your limbs so
+far, my worthy Lansquenet, but I must request these reverend gentlemen to
+move a little farther apart, or closer together, and make room for the
+sick lad on the leather sack."
+
+While these words were uttered, one of the escort laid the still
+senseless boy under the tilt.
+
+Magister Sutor noticed the snow that clung to Ulrich's hair and clothing,
+and while struggling to rise, uttered a repellent "no," while Stubenrauch
+hastily added reproachfully: "There will be a perfect pool here, when
+that melts; you gave us these places, Meister Moor, but we hardly
+expected to receive also dripping limbs and rheumatic pains...."
+
+Before he finished the sentence, the bandaged head again appeared from
+the straw, and the high, shrill voice of the man concealed under it,
+asked?  "Was the blood of the wounded wayfarer, the good Samaritan picked
+up by the roadside, dry or wet?"
+
+An encouraging glance from Sutor requested Stubenrauch to make an
+appropriate answer, and the latter in an unctuous tone, hastily replied:
+"It was the Lord, who caused the Samaritan to find the wounded man by the
+roadside--this did not happen in our case, for the wet boy is forced upon
+us, and though we are Samaritans....."
+
+"You are not yet merciful," cried the voice from the straw.
+
+The artist laughed, but the soldier, slapping his thigh with his sound
+hand, cried:
+
+"In with the boy, you fellows outside; here, put him on my right--move
+farther apart, you gentlemen down below; the water will do us no harm,
+if you'll only give us some of the wine in your basket yonder."
+
+The priests, willy-nilly, now permitted Ulrich to be laid on the leathern
+sack between them, and while first Sutor, and then Stubenrauch, shrunk
+away to mutter prayers over a rosary for the senseless lad's restoration
+to consciousness, and to avoid coming in contact with his wet clothes,
+the artist entered the vehicle, and without asking permission, took the
+wine from the priests' basket.  The soldier helped him, and soon their
+united exertions, with the fiery liquor, revived the fainting boy.
+
+Moor rode forward, and the wagon jolted on until the day's journey ended
+at Emmendingen.  Count von Hochburg's retainers, who were to serve as
+escort from this point, would not ride on Christmas day.  The artist made
+no objection, but when they also declared that no horse should leave the
+stable on the morrow, which was a second holiday, he shrugged his
+shoulders and answered, without any show of anger, but in a firm, haughty
+tone, that he should then probably be obliged--if necessary with their
+master's assistance,--to conduct them to Freiburg to-morrow.
+
+The inns at Emmendingen were among the largest and best in the
+neighborhood of Freiburg, and on account of the changes of escort, which
+frequently took place here, there was no lack of accommodation for
+numerous horses and guests.
+
+As soon as Ulrich was taken into the warm hostelry he fainted a second
+time, and the artist now cared for him as kindly as if he were the lad's
+own father.
+
+Magister Sutor ordered the roast meats, and his companion Stubenrauch
+all the other requisites for a substantial meal, in which they had made
+considerable progress, while the artist was still engaged in ministering
+to the sick lad, in which kindly office the little man, who had been
+hidden under the straw in the wagon, stoutly assisted.
+
+He had been a buffoon, and his dress still bore many tokens of his former
+profession.  His big head swayed upon his thin neck; his droll, though
+emaciated features constantly changed their expression, and even when he
+was not coughing, his mouth was continually in motion.
+
+As soon as Ulrich breathed calmly and regularly, he searched his
+clothing to find some clue to his residence, but everything he discovered
+in the lad's pockets only led to more and more amusing and startling
+conjectures, for nothing can contain a greater variety of objects than
+a school-boy's pockets, if we except a school-girl's.
+
+There was a scrap of paper with a Latin exercise bristling with errors,
+a smooth stone, a shabby, notched knife, a bit of chalk for drawing, an
+iron arrow-head, a broken hobnail, and a falconer's glove, which Count
+Lips had given his comrade.  The ring the doctor's wife had bestowed as
+a farewell token, was also discovered around his neck.
+
+All these things led Pellicanus--so the jester was named--to make many a
+conjecture, and he left none untried.
+
+As a mosaic picture is formed from stones, he by a hundred signs,
+conjured up a vision of the lad's character, home, and the school from
+which he had run away.
+
+He called him the son of a noble of moderate property.  In this he was
+of course mistaken, but in other respects perceived, with wonderful
+acuteness, how Ulrich had hitherto been circumstanced, nay even declared
+that he was a motherless child, a fact proved by many things he lacked.
+The boy had been sent to school too late--Pellicanus was a good Latin
+scholar--and perhaps had been too early initiated into the mysteries of
+riding, hunting, and woodcraft.
+
+The artist, merely by the boy's appearance, gained a more accurate
+knowledge of his real nature, than the jester gathered from his
+investigations and inferences.
+
+Ulrich pleased him, and when he saw the pen-and-ink sketch on the back of
+the exercise, which Pellicanus showed him, he smiled and felt
+strengthened in the resolve to interest himself still more in the
+handsome boy, whom fate had thrown in his way.  He now only needed to
+discover who the lad's parents were, and what had driven him from the
+school.
+
+The surgeon of the little town had bled Ulrich, and soon after he fell
+into a sound sleep, and breathed quietly.  The artist and jester now
+dined together, for the monks had finished their meal long before, and
+were taking a noonday nap.  Moor ordered roast meat and wine for the
+Lansquenet, who sat modestly in one corner of the large public room,
+gazing sadly at his wounded arm.
+
+"Poor fellow!"  said the jester, pointing to the handsome young man.
+"We are brothers in calamity; one just like the other; a cart with a
+broken wheel."
+
+"His arm will soon heal," replied the artist, "but your tool"--here he
+pointed to his own lips--"is stirring briskly enough now.  The monks and
+I have both made its acquaintance within the past few days."
+
+"Well, well,"  replied  Pellicanus, smiling bitterly, "yet they toss me
+into the rubbish heap."
+
+"That would be .  .  .  .  ."
+
+"Ah, you think the wise would then be fools with the fools," interrupted
+Pellicanus.  "Not at all.  Do you know what our masters expect of us?"
+
+"You are to shorten the time for them with wit and jest."
+
+"But when must we be real fools, my Lord?  Have you considered?  Least
+of all in happy hours.  Then we are expected to play the wise man, warn
+against excess, point out shadows.  In sorrow, in times of trouble, then,
+fool, be a fool!  The madder pranks you play, the better.  Make every
+effort, and if you understand your trade well, and know your master, you
+must compel him to laugh till he cries, when he would fain wail for
+grief, like a little girl.  You know princes too, sir, but I know them
+better.  They are gods on earth, and won't submit to the universal lot of
+mortals, to endure pain and anguish.  When people are ill, the physician
+is summoned, and in trouble we are at hand.  Things are as we take them--
+the gravest face may have a wart, upon which a jest can be made.  When
+you have once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point.  We
+deaden it--we light up the darkness--even though it be with a will 'o the
+wisp--and if we understand our business, manage to hack the lumpy dough
+of heavy sorrow into little pieces, which even a princely stomach can
+digest."
+
+"A coughing fool can do that too, so long as there is nothing wanting in
+his upper story."
+
+"You are mistaken, indeed you are.  Great lords only wish to see the
+velvet side of life--of death's doings, nothing at all.  A man like me--
+do you hear--a cougher, whose marrow is being consumed--incarnate misery
+on two tottering legs--a piteous figure, whom one can no more imagine
+outside the grave, than a sportsman without a terrier, or hound--such a
+person calls into the ears of the ostrich, that shuts its eyes: 'Death
+is pointing at you!  Affliction is coming!'  It is my duty to draw a
+curtain between my lord and sorrow; instead of that, my own person brings
+incarnate suffering before his eyes.  The elector was as wise as if he
+were his own fool, when he turned me out of the house."
+
+"He graciously gave you leave of absence."
+
+"And Gugelkopf is already installed in the palace as my successor!  My
+gracious master knows that he won't have to pay the pension long.  He
+would willingly have supported me up yonder till I died; but my wish to
+go to Genoa suited him exactly.  The more distance there is between his
+healthy highness and the miserable invalid, the better."
+
+"Why didn't you wait till spring, before taking your departure?"
+
+"Because Genoa is a hot-house, that the poor consumptive does not need
+in summer.  It is pleasant to be there in winter.  I learned that three
+years ago, when we visited the duke.  Even in January the sun in Liguria
+warms your back, and makes it easier to breathe.  I'm going by way of
+Marseilles.  Will you give me the corner in your carriage as far as
+Avignon?"
+
+"With pleasure!  Your health, Pellicanus!  A good wish on Christmas day is
+apt to be fulfilled."
+
+The artist's deep voice sounded full and cordial, as he uttered the
+words.  The young soldier heard them, and as Moor and the jester touched
+glasses, he raised his own goblet, drained it to the dregs, and asked
+modestly: "Will you listen to a few lines of mine, kind sir?"
+
+"Say them, say them!" cried the artist, filling his glass again, while
+the lansquenet, approaching the table, fixed his eyes steadily on the
+beaker, and in an embarrassed manner, repeated:
+
+              "On Christmas-day, when Jesus Christ,
+               To save us sinners came,
+               A poor, sore-wounded soldier dared
+               To call upon his name.
+               'Oh! hear,' he said, 'my earnest prayer,
+               For the kind, generous man,
+               Who gave the wounded soldier aid,
+               And bore him through the land.
+               So, in Thy shining chariot,
+               I pray, dear Jesus mine,
+               Thou'lt bear him through a happy life
+               To Paradise divine.'"
+
+"Capital, capital!"  cried the artist, pledging the lansquenet and
+insisting that he should sit down between him and the jester.
+
+Pellicanus now gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, for what the wounded man
+could do, he too might surely accomplish.  It was not only ambition, and
+the habit of answering every good saying he heard with a better one, but
+kindly feeling, that urged him to honor the generous benefactor with a
+speech.
+
+After a few minutes, which Moor spent in talking with the soldier,
+Pellicanus raised his glass, coughed again, and said, first calmly,
+then in an agitated voice, whose sharp tones grew more and more subdued:
+
+              "A rogue a fool must be, 't is true,
+               Rog'ry sans folly will not do;
+               Where folly joins with roguery,
+               There's little harm, it seems to me.
+               The pope, the king, the youthful squire,
+               Each one the fool's cap doth attire;
+               He who the bauble will not wear,
+               The worst of fools doth soon appear.
+               Thee may the motley still adorn,
+               When, an old man, the laurel crown
+               Thy head doth deck, while gifts less vain,
+               Thine age to bless will still remain.
+               When fair grandchildren thee delight,
+               Mayst then recall this Christmas night.
+               When added years bring whitening hair,
+               The draught of wisdom then wilt share,
+               But it will lack the flavor due,
+               Without a drop of folly too.
+               And if the drop is not at hand,
+               Remember poor old Pellican,
+               Who, half a rogue and half a fool,
+               Yet has a faithful heart and whole."
+
+"Thanks, thanks!" cried the artist, shaking the jester's hand.  "Such a
+Christmas ought to be lauded!  Wisdom, art, and courage at one table!
+Haven't I fared like the man, who picked up stones by the way side, and
+to-they were changed to pure gold in his knapsack."
+
+"The stone was crumbling," replied the jester; "but as for the gold, it
+will stand the test with me, if you seek it in the heart, and not in the
+pocket.  Holy Blasius!  Would that my grave might lack filling, as long
+as my little strong-box here; I'd willingly allow it."
+
+"And so would I!"  laughed the soldier:
+
+"Then travelling will be easy for you," said the artist.  "There was a
+time, when my pouch was no fuller than yours.  I know by the experience
+of those days how a poor man feels, and never wish to forget it.  I still
+owe you my after-dinner speech, but you must let me off, for I can't
+speak your language fluently.  In brief, I wish you the recovery of your
+health, Pellican, and you a joyous life of happiness and honor, my worthy
+comrade.  What is your name?"
+
+"Hans Eitelfritz von der Lucke, from Colln on the Spree," replied the
+soldier.  "And, no offence, Herr Moor, God will care for the monks, but
+there were three poor invalid fellows in your cart.  One goblet more to
+the pretty sick boy in there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+After dinner the artist went with his old servant, who had attended to
+the horses and then enjoyed a delicious Christmas roast, to Count von
+Hochburg, to obtain an escort for the next day.
+
+Pellicanus had undertaken to watch Ulrich, who was still sleeping
+quietly.
+
+The jester would gladly have gone to bed himself, for he felt cold and
+tired, but, though the room could not be heated, he remained faithfully
+at his post for hours.  With benumbed hands and feet, he watched by the
+light of the night-lamp every breath the boy drew, often gazing at him
+as anxiously and sympathizingly, as if he were his own child.
+
+When Ulrich at last awoke, he timidly asked when he was, and when the
+jester had soothed him, begged for a bit of bread, he was so hungry.
+
+How famished he felt, the contents of the dish that were speedily placed
+before him, soon discovered Pellicanus wanted to feed him like a baby,
+but the boy took the spoon out of his hand, and the former smilingly
+watched the sturdy eater, without disturbing, him, until he was perfectly
+satisfied; then he began to perplex the lad with questions, that seemed
+to him neither very intelligible, nor calculated to inspire confidence.
+
+"Well, my little bird!"  the jester began, joyously anticipating a
+confirmation of the clever inferences he had drawn, "I suppose it was a
+long flight to the churchyard, where we found you.  On the grave is a
+better place than in it, and a bed at Emmendingen, with plenty of grits
+and veal, is preferable to being in the snow on the highway, with a
+grumbling stomach Speak freely, my lad!  Where does your nest of robbers
+hang?"
+
+"Nest of robbers?"  repeated  Ulrich in amazement.
+
+"Well, castle or the like, for aught I care," continued Pellicanus
+inquiringly.  "Everybody is at home somewhere, except Mr. Nobody; but as
+you are somebody, Nobody cannot possibly be your father.  Tell me about
+the old fellow!"
+
+"My father is dead," replied the boy, and as the events of the preceding
+day rushed back upon his memory, he drew the coverlet over his face and
+wept.
+
+"Poor fellow!"  murmured the jester, hastily drawing his sleeve across
+his eyes, and leaving the lad in peace, till he showed his face again.
+Then he continued: "But I suppose you have a mother at home?"
+
+Ulrich shook his head mournfully, and Pellicanus, to conceal his own
+emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very kindly,
+though not without a feeling of satisfaction at his own penetration:
+
+"So you are an orphan!  Yes, yes!  So long as the mother's wings cover
+it, the young bird doesn't fly so thoughtlessly out of the warm nest into
+the wide world.  I suppose the Latin school grew too narrow for the young
+nobleman?"
+
+Ulrich raised himself, exclaiming in an eager, defiant tone:
+
+"I won't go back to the monastery; that I will not."
+
+"So that's the way the hare jumps!"  cried the fool laughing.  "You've
+been a bad Latin scholar, and the timber in the forest is dearer to you,
+than the wood in the school-room benches.  To be sure, they send out no
+green shoots.  Dear Lord, how his face is burning!"  So saying,
+Pellicanus laid his hand on the boy's forehead and when he felt that it
+was hot, deemed it better to stop his examination for the day, and only
+asked his patient his name.
+
+"Ulrich," was the reply.
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"Let me alone!"  pleaded the boy, drawing the coverlet over his head
+again.
+
+The jester obeyed his wish, and opened the door leading into the tap-
+room, for some one had knocked.  The artist's servant entered, to fetch
+his master's portmanteau.  Old Count von Hochburg had invited Moor to be
+his guest, and the painter intended to spend the night at the castle.
+Pellicanus was to take care of the boy, and if necessary send for the
+surgeon again.  An hour after, the sick jester lay shivering in his bed,
+coughing before sleeping and between naps.  Ulrich too could obtain no
+slumber.
+
+At first he wept softly, for he now clearly realized, for the first time,
+that he had lost his father and should never see Ruth, the doctor, nor
+the doctor's dumb wife Elizabeth again.  Then he wondered how he had come
+to Einmendingen, what sort of a place it was, and who the queer little
+man could be, who had taken him for a young noble--the quaint little man
+with the cough, and a big head, whose eyes sparkled so through his tears.
+The jester's mistake made him laugh, and he remembered that Ruth had once
+advised him to command the "word," to transform him into a count.
+
+Suppose he should say to-morrow, that his father had been a knight?
+
+But the wicked thought only glided through his mind; even before he had
+reflected upon it, he felt ashamed of himself, for he was no liar.
+
+Deny his father!  That was very wrong, and when he stretched himself out
+to sleep, the image of the valiant smith stood with tangible distinctness
+before his soul.  Gravely and sternly he floated upon clouds, and looked
+exactly like the pictures Ulrich had seen of God the Father, only he wore
+the smith's cap on his grey hair.  Even in Paradise, the glorified spirit
+had not relinquished it.
+
+Ulrich raised his hands as if praying, but hastily let them fall again,
+for there was a great stir outside of the inn.  The tramp of steeds, the
+loud voices of men, the sound of drums and fifes were audible, then there
+was rattling, marching and shouting in the court-yard.
+
+"A room for the  clerk of the  muster-roll and paymaster!"  cried a
+voice.
+
+"Gently, gently, children!"  said the deep tones of the provost, who was
+the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets.  "A devout servant
+must not bluster at the holy Christmas-tide; he's permitted to drink a
+glass, Heaven be praised.  Your house is to be greatly honored, Landlord!
+The recruiting for our most gracious  commander,  Count von Oberstein,
+is--to be done here.  Do you hear, man!  Everything to be paid for in
+cash, and not a chicken will be lost; but the wine must be good!  Do you
+understand?  So this evening broach a cask of your best.  Pardon me,
+children--the very best, I meant to say."
+
+Ulrich now heard the door of the tap-room open, and fancied he could see
+the Lansquenets in gay costumes, each one different from the other, crowd
+into the apartment.
+
+The jester coughed loudly, scolding and muttering to himself; but Ulrich
+listened with sparkling eyes to the sounds that came through the ill-
+fitting door, by which he could hear what was passing in the next room.
+
+With the clerk of the muster-rolls, the paymaster and provost had
+appeared the drummers and fifers, who the day after to-morrow were to
+sound the license for recruiting, and besides these, twelve Lansquenets,
+who were evidently no novices.
+
+Many an exclamation of surprise and pleasure was heard directly after
+their entrance into the tap-room, and amid the confusion of voices, the
+name of Hans Eitelfritz fell more than once upon Ulrich's ear.
+
+The provost's voice sounded unusually cordial, as he greeted the brave
+fellow with the wounded hand--an honor of great value to the latter, for
+he had served five years in the same company with the provost, "Father
+Kanold," who read the very depths of his soldiers' hearts, and knew them
+all as if they were his own sons.
+
+Ulrich could not understand much amid the medley of voices in the
+adjoining room, but when Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked
+to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the
+provost oppose the clerk's scruples, saying warmly "write, write; I'd
+rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two.  He has
+fun and life in him.  Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many
+a piece of armor."
+
+Meantime the wine-cask must have been opened, for the clink of glasses,
+and soon after loud singing was audible.
+
+Just as the second song began, the boy fell asleep, but woke again two
+hours after, roused by the stillness that had suddenly succeeded the
+uproar.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had declared himself ready to give a new song in his best
+vein, and the provost commanded silence.
+
+The singing now began; during its continuance Ulrich raised himself
+higher and higher in bed, not a word escaped him, either of the song
+itself, or the chorus, which was repeated by the whole party, with
+exuberant gayety, amid the loud clinking of goblets.  Never before had
+the lad heard such bold, joyous voices; even at the second verse his
+heart bounded and it seemed as if he must join in the tune, which he had
+quickly caught.  The song ran as follows:
+
+               Who, who will venture to hold me back?
+               Drums beat, fifes are playing a merry tune!
+               Down hammer, down pen, what more need I, alack
+               I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+               Oh father, mother, dear sister mine,
+               Blue-eyed maid at the bridge-house, my fair one.
+               Weep not, ye must not at parting repine,
+               I go to seek fortune, good fortune!
+
+               The cannon roar loud, the sword flashes bright,
+               Who'll dare meet the stroke of my falchion?
+               Close-ranked, horse and foot in battle unite,
+               In war, war, dwells fortune, good fortune!
+
+               The city is taken, the booty mine;
+               With red gold, I'll deck--I know whom;
+               Pair maids' cheeks burn red, red too glows the wine,
+               Fortune, Paradise of good fortune!
+
+               Deep, scarlet wounds, brave breasts adorn,
+               Impoverished, crippled age I shun
+               A death of honor, 'mid glory won,
+               This too is good fortune, good fortune!
+
+               A soldier-lad composed this ditty
+               Hans Eitelfritz he, fair Colln's son,
+               His kindred dwell in the goodly city,
+               But he himself in fortune, good fortune!
+
+"He himself in fortune, good fortune," sang Ulrich also, and while, amid
+loud shouts of joy, the glasses again clinked against each other, he
+repeated the glad "fortune, good fortune."  Suddenly, it flashed upon
+him like a revelation, "Fortune," that might be the word!
+
+Such exultant joy, such lark-like trilling, such inspiring promises of
+happiness had never echoed in any word, as they now did from the
+"fortune," the young lansquenet so gaily and exultantly uttered.
+
+"Fortune, Fortune!"  he exclaimed aloud, and the jester, who was lying
+sleepless in his bed and could not help smiling at the lad's singing,
+raised himself, saying:
+
+"Do you like the word?  Whoever understands how to seize it when it flits
+by, will always float on top of everything, like fat on the soup.  Rods
+are cut from birches, willows, and knotted hazel-sticks-ho!  ho! you know
+that, already;--but, for him who has good fortune, larded cakes, rolls
+and sausages grow.  One bold turn of Fortune's wheel will bring him, who
+has stood at the bottom, up to the top with the speed of lightning.
+Brother Queer-fellow says: 'Up and down, like an avalanche.'  But now
+turn over and go to sleep.  To-morrow will also be a Christmas-day, which
+will perhaps bring you Fortune as a Christmas gift."
+
+It seemed as if Ulrich had not called upon Fortune in vain, for as soon
+as he closed his eyes, a pleasant dream bore him with gentle hands to the
+forge on the market-place, and his mother stood beside the lighted
+Christmas-tree, pointing to the new sky-blue suit she had made him, and
+the apples, nuts, hobby-horse, and jumping jack, with a head as round as
+a ball, huge ears, and tiny flat legs.  He felt far too old for such
+childish toys, and yet took a certain pleasure in them.  Then the vision
+changed, and he again saw his mother; but this time she was walking among
+the angels in Paradise.  A royal crown adorned her golden hair, and she
+told him she was permitted to wear it there, because she had been so
+reviled, and endured so much disgrace on earth.
+
+When the artist returned from Count von Hochburg's the next morning, he
+was not a little surprised to see Ulrich standing before the recruiting-
+table bright and well.
+
+The lad's cheeks were glowing with shame and anger, for the clerk of the
+muster-rolls and paymaster had laughed in his face, when he expressed his
+desire to become a Lansquenet.
+
+The artist soon learned what was going on, and bade his protege accompany
+him out of doors.  Kindly, and without either mockery or reproof, he
+represented to him that he was still far too young for military service,
+and after Ulrich had confirmed everything the painter had already heard
+from the jester, Moor asked who had given him instruction in drawing.
+
+"My father, and afterwards Father Lukas in the monastery," replied the
+boy.  "But don't question me as the little man did last night."
+
+"No, no," said his protector.  "But there are one or two more things I
+wish to know.  Was your father an artist?"
+
+"No," murmured the lad, blushing and hesitating.  But when he met the
+stranger's clear gaze, he quickly regained his composure, and said:
+
+"He only knew how to draw, because he understood how to forge beautiful,
+artistic things."
+
+"And in what city did you live?"
+
+"In no city.  Outside in the woods."
+
+"Oho!" said the artist, smiling significantly, for he knew that many
+knights practised a trade.  "Answer only two questions more; then you
+shall be left in peace until you voluntarily open your heart to me.  What
+is your name?"
+
+"Ulrich."
+
+"I know that; but your father's?"
+
+"Adam."
+
+"And what else?"
+
+Ulrich gazed silently at the ground, for the smith had borne no other
+name.
+
+"Well then," said Moor, "we will call you Ulrich for the present; that
+will suffice.  But have you no relatives?  Is no one waiting for you at
+home?"
+
+"We have led such a solitary life--no one."
+
+Moor looked fixedly into the boy's face, then nodded, and with a well-
+satisfied expression, laid his hand on Ulrich's curls, and said:
+
+"Look at me.  I am an artist, and if you have any love for my profession,
+I will teach you."
+
+"Oh!" cried the boy, clasping his hands in glad surprise.
+
+"Well then," Moor continued, "you can't learn much on the way, but we can
+work hard in Madrid.  We are going now to King Philip of Spain."
+
+"Spain, Portugal!" murmured Ulrich with sparkling eyes; all he had heard
+in the doctor's house about these countries returned to his mind.
+
+"Fortune, good fortune!"  cried an exultant voice in his heart.  This was
+the "word," it must be, it was already exerting its spell, and the spell
+was to prove its inherent power in the near future.
+
+That very day the party were to go to Count von Rappoltstein in the
+village of Rappolts, and this time Ulrich was not to plod along on foot,
+or he in a close baggage-wagon; no, he was to be allowed to ride a
+spirited horse.  The escort would not consist of hired servants, but of
+picked men, and the count was going to join the train in person at the
+hill crowned by the castle, for Moor had promised to paint a portrait of
+the nobleman's daughter, who had married Count von Rappoltstein.  It was
+to be a costly Christmas gift, which the old gentleman intended to make
+himself and his faithful wife.
+
+The wagon was also made ready for the journey; but no one rode inside;
+the jester, closely muffled in wraps, had taken his seat beside the
+driver, and the monks were obliged to go on by way of Freiburg, and
+therefore could use the vehicle no longer.
+
+They scolded and complained about it, as if they had been greatly
+wronged, and when Sutor refused to shake hands with the artist,
+Stubenrauch angrily turned his back upon the kind-hearted man.
+
+The offended pair sullenly retired, but the Christmas sun shone none
+the less brightly from the clear sky, the party of travellers had a gay,
+spick and span, holiday aspect, and the world into which they now fared
+stoutly forth, was so wide and beautiful, that Ulrich forgot his grief,
+and joyously waved his new cap in answer to the Lansquenet's farewell
+gesture.
+
+It was a merry ride, for on the way they met numerous travellers, who
+were going through the hamlet of Rappolts to the "three castles on the
+mountain" and saluted the old nobleman with lively songs.  The Counts von
+Rappoltstein were the "piper-kings," the patrons of the brotherhood of
+musicians and singers on the Upper Rhine.  Usually these joyous birds met
+at the castle of their "king" on the 8th of September, to pay him their
+little tax and be generously entertained in return; but this year, on
+account of the plague in the autumn, the festival had been deferred until
+the third day after Christmas, but Ulrich believed 'Fortune' had arranged
+it so for him.
+
+There was plenty of singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and
+reed-pipes were never silent.  One serenade followed another, and even at
+the table a new song rang out at each new course.
+
+The fiery wine, game and sweet cakes at the castle board undoubtedly
+pleased the palate of the artisan's son, but he enjoyed feasting his ears
+still more.  He felt as if he were in Heaven, and thought less and less
+of the grief he had endured.
+
+Day by day Fortune shook her horn of plenty, and flung new gifts down
+upon him.
+
+He had told the stable-keepers of his power over refractory horses, and
+after proving what he could do, was permitted to tame wild stallions and
+ride them about the castle-yard, before the eyes of the old and young
+count and the beautiful young lady.  This brought him praise and gifts
+of new clothes.  Many a delicate hand stroked his curls, and it always
+seemed to him as if his mighty spell could bestow nothing better.
+
+One day Moor took him aside, and told him that he had commenced a
+portrait of young Count Rappolstein too.  The lad was obliged to be
+still, having broken his foot in a fall from his horse, and as Ulrich was
+of the same size and age, the artist wished him to put on the young
+count's clothes and serve as a model.
+
+The smith's son now received the best clothes belonging to his
+aristocratic companion in age.  The suit was entirely black, but each
+garment of a different material, the stockings silk, the breeches satin,
+the doublet soft Flanders velvet.  Golden-yellow puffs and slashes stood
+forth in beautiful relief against the darker stuff.  Even the knots of
+ribbon on the breeches and shoes were as yellow as a blackbird's beak.
+Delicate lace trimmed the neck and fell on the hands, and a clasp of real
+gems confined the black and yellow plumes in the velvet hat.
+
+All this finery was wonderfully becoming to the smith's son, and he must
+have been blind, if he had not noticed how old and young nudged each
+other at sight of him.  The spirit of vanity in his soul laughed in
+delight, and the lad soon knew the way to the large Venetian mirror,
+which was carefully kept in the hall of state.  This wonderful glass
+showed Ulrich for the first time his whole figure and the image which
+looked back at him from the crystal, flattered and pleased him.
+
+But, more than aught else, he enjoyed watching the artist's hand and eye
+during the sittings.  Poor Father Lukas in the monastery must hide his
+head before this master.  He seemed to actually grow while engaged in his
+work, his shoulders, which he usually liked to carry stooping forward,
+straightened, the broad, manly breast arched higher, and the kindly eyes
+grew stern, nay sometimes wore a terrible expression.
+
+Although little was said during the sittings, they were always too short
+for the boy.  He did not stir, for it always seemed to him as if any
+movement would destroy the sacred act he witnessed, and when, in the
+pauses, he looked at the canvas and saw how swiftly and steadily the work
+progressed, he felt as if before his own eyes, he was being born again to
+a nobler existence.  In the wassail-hall hung the portrait of a young
+Prince of Navarre, whose life had been saved in the chase by a
+Rappoltstein.  Ulrich, attired in the count's clothes, looked exactly
+like him.  The jester had been the first to perceive this strange
+circumstance.  Every one, even Moor, agreed with him, and so it happened
+that Pellicanus henceforth called his young friend the Navarrete.  The
+name pleased the boy.  Everything here pleased him, and he was full of
+happiness; only often at night he could not help grieving because, while
+his father was dead, he enjoyed such an overflowing abundance of good
+things, and because he had lost his mother, Ruth, and all who had loved
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Ulrich was obliged to share the jester's sleeping-room, and as Pellicanus
+shrank from getting out of bed, while suffering from night-sweats, and
+often needed something, he roused Ulrich from his sleep, and the latter
+was always ready to assist him.  This happened more frequently as they
+continued their journey, and the poor little man's illness increased.
+
+The count had furnished Ulrich with a spirited young horse, that
+shortened the road for him by its tricks and capers.  But the jester, who
+became more and more attached to the boy, also did his utmost to keep the
+feeling of happiness alive in his heart.  On warm days he nestled in the
+rack before the tilt with the driver, and when Ulrich rode beside him,
+opened his eyes to everything that passed before him.
+
+The jester had a great deal to tell about the country and people, and he
+embellished the smallest trifle with tales invented by himself, or
+devised by others.
+
+While passing a grove of birches, he asked the lad if he knew why the
+trunks of these trees were white, and then explained the cause, as
+follows:
+
+"When Orpheus played so exquisitely on his lute, all the trees rushed
+forward to dance.  The birches wanted to come too, but being vain,
+stopped to put on white dresses, to outdo the others.  When they finally
+appeared on the dancing-ground, the singer had already gone--and now,
+summer and winter, year in and year out, they keep their white dresses
+on, to be prepared, when Orpheus returns and the lute sounds again."
+
+A cross-bill was perched on a bough in a pine-wood, and the jester said
+that this bird was a very peculiar species.  It had originally been grey,
+and its bill was as straight as a sparrow's, but when the Saviour hung
+upon the cross, it pitied him, and with its little bill strove to draw
+the nails from the wounded hands.  In memory of this friendly act, the
+Lord had marked its beak with the cross, and painted a dark-red spot on
+its breast, where the bird hall been sprinkled with His Son's blood.
+Other rewards were bestowed upon it, for no other bird could hatch a
+brood of young ones in winter, and it also had the power of lessening the
+fever of those, who cherished it.
+
+A flock of wild geese flew over the road and the hills, and Pellicanus
+cried: "Look there!  They always fly in two straight lines, and form a
+letter of the alphabet.  This time it is an A.  Can you see it?  When the
+Lord was writing the laws on the tablets, a flock of wild geese flew
+across Mt. Sinai, and in doing so, one effaced a letter with its wing.
+Since that time, they always fly in the shape of a letter, and their
+whole race, that is, all geese, are compelled to let those people who
+wish to write, pluck the feathers from their wings."
+
+Pellicanus was fond of talking to the boy in their bedroom.  He always
+called him Navarrete, and the artist, when in a cheerful mood, followed
+his example.
+
+Ulrich felt great reverence for Moor; the jester, on the contrary, was
+only a good comrade, in whom he speedily reposed entire confidence.
+
+Many an allusion and jesting word showed that Pellicanus still believed
+him to be the son of a knight, and this at last became unendurable to the
+lad.
+
+One evening, when they were both in bed, he summoned up his courage and
+told him everything he knew about his past life.
+
+The jester listened attentively, without interrupting him, until Ulrich
+finished his story with the words "And while I was gone, the bailiffs and
+dogs tracked them, but my father resisted, and they killed him and the
+doctor."
+
+"Yes,  yes,"  murmured  the jester.  "It's  a  pity about Costa.  Many a
+Christian might feel honored at resembling some Jews.  It is only a
+misfortune to be born a Hebrew, and be deprived of eating ham.  The Jews
+are compelled to wear an offensive badge, but many a Christian child is
+born with one.  For instance, in Sparta they would have hurled me into
+the gulf, on account of my big head, and deformed shoulder.  Nowadays,
+people are less merciful, and let men like us drag the cripple's mark
+through life.  God sees the heart; but men cannot forget their ancestor,
+the clod of earth--the outside is always more to them than the inside.
+If my head had only been smaller, and some angel had smoothed my
+shoulder, I might perhaps now be a cardinal, wear purple, and instead of
+riding under a grey tilt, drive in a golden coach, with well-fed black
+steeds.  Your body was measured with a straight yard stick, but there's
+trouble in other places.  So your father's name was Adam, and he really
+bore no other?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"That's too little by half.  From this day we'll call you in earnest
+Navarrete: Ulrich Navarrete.  That will be something complete.  The name
+is only a dress, but if half of it is taken from your body, you are left
+half-bare and exposed to mockery.  The garment must be becoming too, so
+we adorn it as we choose.  My father was called Kurschner, but at the
+Latin school Olearius and Faber and Luscinius sat beside me, so I raised
+myself to the rank of a Roman citizen, and turned Kurschner into
+Pellicanus.  .  .  ."
+
+The jester coughed violently, and continued  One thing more.  To expect
+gratitude is folly, nine times out of ten none is reaped, and he who is
+wise thinks only of himself, and usually omits to seek thanks; but every
+one ought to be grateful, for it is burdensome to have enemies, and there
+is no one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor we repay with
+ingratitude.  You ought and must tell the artist your history, for he has
+deserved your confidence.
+
+The jester's worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always
+praised as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy,
+yet many of them were impressed on his young soul.  He followed the sick
+man's advice the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it, for
+Moor treated him even more kindly than before.
+
+Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to
+Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the
+old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to
+bring him alive to the goal of his journey.
+
+The little man's body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head
+larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned
+the centre of each.
+
+He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.
+
+He had originally been destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but
+though he surpassed all the other pupils in the school, he was deprived
+of the hope of ever becoming a priest, for the Church wants no cripples.
+He was the child of poor people, and had been obliged to fight his way
+through his career as a student, with great difficulty.
+
+"How shabby the broad top of my cap often was!" he said.  "I was so much
+ashamed of it.  I am so small.  Dear me, anybody could see my head, and
+could not help noticing all the worn places in the velvet, if he cast his
+eyes down.  How often have I sat beside the kitchen of a cook-shop, and
+seasoned dry bread with the smell of roast meat.  Often too my poodledog
+went out and stole a sausage for me from the butcher."
+
+At other times the little fellow had fared better; then, sitting in the
+taverns, he had given free-play to his wit, and imposed no constraint on
+his sharp tongue.
+
+Once he had been invited by a former boon-companion, to accompany him to
+his ancestral castle, to cheer his sick father; and so it happened that
+he became a buffoon, wandered from one great lord to another, and finally
+entered the elector's service.
+
+He liked to pretend that he despised the world and hated men, but this
+assertion could not be taken literally, and was to be regarded in a
+general, rather than a special sense, for every beautiful thing in the
+world kindled eager enthusiasm in his heart, and he remained kindly
+disposed towards individuals to the end.
+
+When Moor once charged him with this, he said, smiling:
+
+"What would you have?  Whoever condemns, feels himself superior to the
+person upon whom he sits in judgment, and how many fools, like me, fancy
+themselves great, when they stand on tiptoe, and find fault even with the
+works of God!  'The world is evil,' says the philosopher, and whoever
+listens to him, probably thinks carelessly: 'Hear, hear!  He would have
+made it better than our Father in heaven.'  Let me have my pleasure.
+I'm only a little man, but I deal in great things.  To criticise a single
+insignificant human creature, seems to me scarcely worth while, but when
+we pronounce judgment on all humanity and the boundless universe, we can
+open our mouths-wonderfully wide!"
+
+Once his heart had been filled with love for a beautiful girl, but she
+had scornfully rejected his suit and married another.  When she was
+widowed, and he found her in dire poverty, he helped her with a large
+share of his savings, and performed this kind service again, when the
+second worthless fellow she married had squandered her last penny.
+
+His life was rich in similar incidents.
+
+In his actions, the queer little man obeyed the dictates of his heart;
+in his speech, his head ruled his tongue, and this seemed to him the only
+sensible course.  To practise unselfish generosity he regarded as a
+subtle, exquisite pleasure, which he ventured to allow himself, because
+he desired nothing more; others, to whom he did not grudge a prosperous
+career, he must warn against such folly.
+
+There was a keen, bitter expression on his large, thin face, and whoever
+saw him for the first time might easily have supposed him to be a wicked,
+spiteful man.  He knew this, and delighted in frightening the men and
+maid-servants at the taverns by hideous grimaces--he boasted of being
+able to make ninety-five different faces--until the artist's old valet
+at last dreaded him like the "Evil One."
+
+He was particularly gay in Avignon, for he felt better than he had done
+for a long time, and ordered a seat to be engaged for him in a vehicle
+going to Marseilles.
+
+The evening before their separation, he described with sparkling
+vivacity, the charms of the Ligurian coast, and spoke of the future
+as if he were sure of entire recovery and a long life.
+
+In the night Ulrich heard him groaning louder than usual, and starting
+up, raised him, as he was in the habit of doing when the poor little man
+was tortured by difficulty of breathing.  But this time Pellicanus did
+not swear and scold, but remained perfectly still, and when his heavy
+head fell like a pumpkin on the boy's breast, he was greatly terrified
+and ran to call the artist.
+
+Moor was soon standing at the head of the sick-bed, holding a light, so
+that its rays could fall upon the face of the gasping man.  The latter
+opened his eyes and made three grimaces in quick succession--very comical
+ones, yet tinged with sadness.
+
+Pellicanus probably noticed the artist's troubled glance, for he tried to
+nod to him, but his head was too heavy and his strength too slight, so he
+only succeeded in moving it first to the right and then to the left, but
+his eyes expressed everything he desired to say.  In this way several
+minutes elapsed, then Pellicanus smiled, and with a sorrowful gaze,
+though a mischievous expression hovered around his mouth, scanned:
+
+"'Mox erit' quiet and mute, 'gui modo' jester 'erat'."  Then he said as
+softly as if every tone came, not from his chest, but merely from his
+lips
+
+"Is it agreed, Navarrete, Ulrich Navarrete?  I've made the Latin easy for
+you, eh?  Your hand, boy.  Yours, too, dear, dear master.....Moor,
+Ethiopian--Blackskin...."
+
+The words died away in a low, rattling sound, and the dying man's eyes
+became glazed, but it was several hours before he drew his last breath.
+
+A priest gave him Extreme Unction, but consciousness did not return.
+
+After the holy man had left him, his lips moved incessantly, but no one
+could understand what he said.  Towards morning, the sun of Provence was
+shining warmly and brightly into the room and on his bed, when he
+suddenly threw his arm above his head, and half speaking, half singing to
+Hans Eitelfritz's melody, let fall from his lips the words: "In fortune,
+good fortune."  A few minutes after he was dead.
+
+Moor closed his eyes.  Ulrich knelt weeping beside the bed, and kissed
+his poor friend's cold hand.
+
+When he rose, the artist was gazing with silent reverence at the jester's
+features; Ulrich followed his eyes, and imagined he was standing in the
+presence of a miracle, for the harsh, bitter, troubled face had obtained
+a new expression, and was now the countenance of a peaceful, kindly man,
+who had fallen asleep with pleasant memories in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+No one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor
+Once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point
+To expect gratitude is folly
+Whoever condemns, feels himself superior
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 3.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+For the first time in his life Ulrich had witnessed the death of a human
+being.
+
+How often he had laughed at the fool, or thought his words absurd and
+wicked;--but the dead man inspired him with respect, and the thought of
+the old jester's corpse exerted a far deeper and more lasting influence
+upon him, than his father's supposed death.  Hitherto he had only been
+able to imagine him as he had looked in life, but now the vision of him
+stretched at full length, stark and pale like the dead Pellicanus, often
+rose before his mind.
+
+The artist was a silent man, and understood how to think and speak in
+lines and colors, better than in words.  He only became eloquent and
+animated, when the conversation turned upon subjects connected with his
+art.
+
+At Toulouse he purchased three new horses, and engaged the same number of
+French servants, then went to a jeweller and bought many articles.  At
+the inn he put the chains and rings he had obtained, into pretty little
+boxes, and wrote on them in neat Gothic characters with special care:
+"Helena, Anna, Minerva, Europa and Lucia;" one name on each.
+
+Ulrich watched him and remarked that those were not his children's names.
+
+Moor looked up, and answered smiling:  "These are only young artists, six
+sisters, each one of whom is as dear to me as if she were my own
+daughter.  I hope we shall find them in Madrid, one of them, Sophonisba,
+at any rate."
+
+"But there are only five boxes," observed the boy, "and you haven't
+written Sophonisba on any of them."
+
+"She is to have something  better," replied  his patron smiling.  "My
+portrait, which I began to paint yesterday, will be finished here.  Hand
+me the mirror, the maul-stick, and the colors."
+
+The picture was a superb likeness, absolutely faultless.  The pure brow
+curved in lofty arches at the temples, the small eyes looked as clear and
+bright as they did in the mirror, the firm mouth shaded by a thin
+moustache, seemed as if it were just parting to utter a friendly word.
+The close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin rested closely upon the
+white ruff, which seemed to have just come from under the laundresses'
+smoothing-iron.
+
+How rapidly and firmly the master guided his brush!  And Sophonisba, whom
+Moor distinguished by such a gift, how was he to imagine her?  The other
+five sisters too!  For their sakes he first anticipated with pleasure the
+arrival at Madrid.
+
+In Bayonne the artist left the baggage-wagon behind.  His luggage was put
+on mules, and when the party of travellers started, it formed an imposing
+caravan.
+
+Ulrich expressed his surprise at such expenditure, and Moor answered
+kindly: "Pellicanus says: 'Among fools one must be a fool.'  We enter
+Spain as the king's guests, and courtiers have weak eyes, and only notice
+people who give themselves airs."
+
+At Fuenterrabia, the first Spanish city they reached, the artist received
+many honors, and a splendid troop of cavalry escorted him thence to
+Madrid.
+
+Moor came as a guest to King Philip's capital for the third time, and was
+received there with all the tokens of respect usually paid only to great
+noblemen.
+
+His old quarters in the treasury of the Alcazar, the palace of the kings
+of Castile, were again assigned to him.  They consisted of a studio and
+suite of apartments, which by the monarch's special command, had been
+fitted up for him with royal magnificence.
+
+Ulrich could not control his amazement.  How poor and petty everything
+that a short time before, at Castle Rappolstein, had awakened his wonder
+and admiration now appeared.
+
+During the first few days the artist's reception-room resembled a bee-
+hive; for aristocratic men and women, civil and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries passed in and out, pages and lackeys brought flowers, baskets
+of fruits, and other gifts.  Every one attached to the court knew in what
+high favor the artist was held by His Majesty, and therefore hastened to
+win his good-will by attentions and presents.  Every hour there was
+something new and astonishing to be seen, but the artist himself most
+awakened the boy's surprise.
+
+The unassuming man, who on the journey had associated as familiarly with
+the poor invalids he had picked up by the wayside, the tavern-keepers,
+and soldiers of his escort, as if he were one of themselves, now seemed a
+very different person.  True, he still dressed in black, but instead of
+cloth and silk, he wore velvet and satin, while two gold chains glittered
+beneath his ruff.  He treated the greatest nobles as if he were doing
+them a favor by receiving them, and he himself were a person of
+unapproachable rank.
+
+On the first day Philip and his queen Isabella of Valois, had sent for
+him and adorned him with a costly new chain.
+
+On this occasion Ulrich saw the king.  Dressed as a page he followed
+Moor, carrying the picture the latter intended for a gift to his royal
+host.
+
+At the time of their entrance into the great reception-hall, the monarch
+was sitting motionless, gazing into vacancy, as if all the persons
+gathered around him had no existence for him.  His head was thrown far
+back, pressing down the stiff ruff, on which it seemed to rest as if it
+were a platter.  The fair-haired man's well-cut features wore the rigid,
+lifeless expression of a mask.  The mouth and nostrils were slightly
+contracted, as if they shrank from breathing the same air with other
+human beings.
+
+The monarch's face remained unmoved, while receiving the Pope's legates
+and the ambassadors from the republic of Venice.  When Moor was led
+before him, a faint smile was visible beneath the soft, drooping
+moustache and close-shaven beard on the cheeks and chin; the prince's
+dull eyes also gained some little animation.
+
+The day after the reception a bell rang in the studio, which was cleared
+of all present as quickly as possible, for it announced the approach of
+the king, who appeared entirely alone and spent two whole hours with
+Moor.
+
+All these marks of distinction might have turned a weaker brain, but
+Moor received them calmly, and as soon as he was alone with Ulrich or
+Sophonisba, appeared no less unassuming and kindly, than at Emmendingen
+and on the journey through France.
+
+A week after taking possession of the apartments in the treasury, the
+servants received orders to refuse admittance to every one, without
+distinction of rank or person, informing them that the artist was engaged
+in working for His Majesty.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola was the only person whom Moor never refused to
+see.  He had greeted the strange girl on his arrival, as a father meets
+his child.
+
+Ulrich had been present when the artist gave her his portrait, and saw
+her, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, cover her face with her hands
+and burst into loud sobs.
+
+During Moor's first visit to Madrid, the young girl had come from Cremona
+to the king's court with her father and five sisters, and since then the
+task of supporting all six had rested on her shoulders.
+
+Old Cavaliere Anguisciola was a nobleman of aristocratic family, who had
+squandered his large patrimony, and now, as he was fond of saying, lived
+day by day "by trusting God."  A large portion of his oldest daughter's
+earnings he wasted at the gaming table with dissolute nobles, relying
+with happy confidence upon the talent displayed also by his younger
+children, and on what he called "trust in God."  The gay, clever Italian
+was everywhere a welcome guest, and while Sophonisba toiled early and
+late, often without knowing how she was to obtain suitable food and
+clothing for her sisters and herself, his life was a series of banquets
+and festivals.  Yet the noble girl retained the joyous courage inherited
+from her father, nay, more--even in necessity she did not cease to take a
+lofty view of art, and never permitted anything to leave her studio till
+she considered it finished.
+
+At first Moor watched her silently, then he invited her to work in his
+studio, and avail herself of his advice and assistance.
+
+So she had become his pupil, his friend.
+
+Soon the young girl had no secrets from him, and the glimpses of her
+domestic life thus afforded touched him and brought her nearer and nearer
+to his heart.
+
+The old Cavaliere praised the lucky accident, and was ready to show
+himself obliging, when Moor offered to let him and his daughters occupy
+a house he had purchased, that it might be kept in a habitable condition,
+and when the artist had induced the king to grant Sophonisba a larger
+annual salary, the father instantly bought a second horse.
+
+The young girl, in return for so many benefits, was gratefully devoted to
+the artist, but she would have loved him even without them.  His society
+was her greatest pleasure.  To be allowed to stay and paint with him,
+become absorbed in conversation about art, its problems, means and
+purposes, afforded her the highest, purest happiness.
+
+When she had discharged the duties imposed upon her by her attendance
+upon the queen, her heart drew her to the man she loved and honored.
+When she left him, it always seemed as if she had been in church, as if
+her soul had been steeped in purity and was effulgent.  Moor had hoped to
+find her sisters with her in Madrid, but the old Cavaliere had taken them
+away with him to Italy.  His "trust in God" was rewarded, for he had
+inherited a large fortune.  What should he do longer in Madrid!  To
+entertain the stiff, grave Spaniards and move them to laughter, was a far
+less pleasing occupation than to make merry with gay companions and be
+entertained himself at home.
+
+Sophonisba was provided for, and the beautiful, gay, famous maid of honor
+would have no lack of suitors.  Against his daughter's wish, he had given
+to the richest and most aristocratic among them, the Sicilian baron
+Don Fabrizio di Moncada, the hope of gaining her hand.  "Conquer the
+fortress!  When it yields--you can hold it," were his last words; but
+the citadel remained impregnable, though the besieger could bring into
+the field as allies a knightly, aristocratic bearing, an unsullied
+character, a handsome, manly figure, winning manners, and great wealth.
+
+Ulrich felt a little disappointed not to find the five young girls, of
+whom he had dreamed, in Madrid; it would have been pleasant to have some
+pretty companions in the work now to begin.
+
+Adjoining the studio was a smaller apartment, separated from the former
+room by a corridor, that could be closed, and by a heavy curtain.  Here a
+table, at which the five girls might easily have found room, was placed
+in a favorable light for Ulrich.  He was to draw from plastic models, and
+there was no lack of these in the Alcazar, for here rose a high, three-
+story wing, to which when wearied by the intrigues of statecraft and the
+restraints of court etiquette, King Philip gladly retired, yielding
+himself to the only genial impulse of his gloomy soul, and enjoyed the
+noble forms of art.
+
+In the round hall on the lower floor countless plans, sketches, drawings
+and works of art were kept in walnut chests of excellent workmanship.
+Above this beautifully ornamented apartment--was the library, and in the
+third story the large hall containing the masterpieces of Titian.
+
+The restless statesman, Philip, was no less eager to collect and obtain
+new and beautiful works by the great Venetian, than to defend and
+increase his own power and that of the Church.  But these treasures were
+kept jealously guarded, accessible to no human being except himself and
+his artists.
+
+Philip was all and all to himself; caring nothing for others, he did not
+deem it necessary, that they should share his pleasures.  If anything
+outside the Church occupied a place in his regard, it was the artist,
+and therefore he did not grudge him what he denied to others.
+
+Not only in the upper story, but in the lower ones also antique and
+modern busts and statues were arranged in appropriate places, and Moor
+was at liberty to choose from among them, for the king permitted him to
+do what was granted to no one else.
+
+He often summoned him to the Titian Hall, and still more frequently rang
+the bell and entered the connecting corridor, accessible to himself
+alone, which led from the rooms devoted to art and science to the
+treasury and studio, where he spent hours with Moor.  Ulrich eagerly
+devoted himself to the work, and his master watched his labor like an
+attentive, strict, and faithful teacher; meantime he carefully guarded
+against overtaxing the boy, allowed him to accompany him on many a ride,
+and advised him to look about the city.  At first the lad liked to stroll
+through the streets and watch the long, brilliant processions, or timidly
+shrink back when closely-muffled men, their figures wholly invisible
+except the eyes and feet, bore a corpse along, or glided on mysterious
+missions through the streets.  The bull-fights might have bewitched him,
+but be loved horses, and it grieved him to see the noble animal, wounded
+and killed.
+
+He soon wearied of the civil and religious ceremonies, that might be
+witnessed nearly every day, and which always exerted the same power of
+attraction to the inhabitants of Madrid.  Priests swarmed in the Alcazar,
+and soldiers belonging to every branch of military service, daily guarded
+or marched by the palace.
+
+On the journey he had met plenty of mules with gay plumes and tassels,
+oddly-dressed peasants and citizens.  Gentlemen in brilliant court
+uniforms, princes and princesses he saw daily in the court-yards, on the
+stairs, and in the park of the palace.
+
+At Toulouse and in other cities, through which he had passed, life
+had been far more busy, active, and gay than in quiet Madrid, where
+everything went on as if people were on their way to church, where a
+cheerful face was rarely seen, and men and women knew of no sight more
+beautiful and attractive, than seeing poor Jews and heretics burned.
+
+Ulrich did not need the city; the Alcazar was a world in itself, and
+offered him everything he desired.
+
+He liked to linger in the stables, for there he could distinguish
+himself; but it was also delightful to work, for Moor chose models and
+designs that pleased the lad, and Sophonisba Anguisciola, who often
+painted for hours in the studio by the master's side, came to Ulrich in
+the intervals, looked at what he had finished, helped, praised, or
+scolded him, and never left him without a jest on her lips.
+
+True, he was often left to himself; for the king sometimes summoned the
+artist and then quitted the palace with him for several days, to visit
+secluded country houses, and there--the old Hollander had told the lad--
+painted under Moor's instructions.
+
+On the whole, there were new, strange, and surprising things enough, to
+keep the sensation of "Fortune," alive in Ulrich's heart.  Only it was
+vexatious that he found it so hard to make himself intelligible to
+people, but this too was soon to be remedied, for the pupil obtained two
+companions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Alonzo Sanchez Coello, a very distinguished Spanish artist, had his
+studio in the upper story of the treasury.  The king was very friendly to
+him, and often took him also on his excursions.  The gay, lively artist
+clung without envy, and with ardent reverence, to Moor, whose fellow-
+pupil he had been in Florence and Venice.  During the Netherlander's
+first visit to Madrid, he had not disdained to seek counsel and
+instruction from his senior, and even now frequently visited his studio,
+bringing with him his children Sanchez and Isabella as pupils, and
+watched the Master closely while he painted.
+
+At first Ulrich was not specially pleased with his new companions, for in
+the strangely visionary life he led, he had depended solely upon himself
+and "Fortune," and the figures living in his imagination were the most
+enjoyable society to him.
+
+Formerly he had drawn eagerly in the morning, joyously anticipated
+Sophonisba's visit, and then gazed out over his paper and dreamed.
+How delightful it had been to let his thoughts wander to his heart's
+content.  This could now be done no longer.
+
+So it happened, that at first he could feel no real confidence in
+Sanchez, who was three years his senior, for the latter's thin limbs
+and close-cut dark hair made him look exactly like dark-browed Xaver.
+Therefore his relations with Isabella were all the more friendly.
+
+She was scarcely fourteen, a dear little creature, with awkward limbs,
+and a face so wonderfully changeful in expression, that it could not fail
+to be by turns pretty and repellent.  She always had beautiful eyes; all
+her other features were unformed, and might grow charming or exactly the
+reverse.  When her work engrossed her attention, she bit her protruded
+tongue, and her raven-black hair, usually remarkably smooth, often became
+so oddly dishevelled, that she looked like a kobold; when, on the other
+hand, she talked pleasantly or jested, no one could help being pleased.
+
+The child was rarely gifted, and her method of working was an exact
+contrast to that of the German lad.  She progressed slowly, but finally
+accomplished something admirable; what Ulrich impetuously began had a
+showy, promising aspect, but in the execution the great idea shrivelled,
+and the work diminished in merit instead of increasing.
+
+Sanchez Coello remained far behind the other two, but to make amends,
+he knew many things of which Ulrich's uncorrupted soul had no suspicion.
+
+Little Isabella had been given by her mother, for a duenna, a watchful,
+ill-tempered widow, Senora Catalina, who never left the girl while she
+remained with Moor's pupils.
+
+Receiving instruction with others urged Ulrich to rivalry, and also
+improved his knowledge of Spanish.  But he soon became familiar with the
+language in another way, for one day, as he came out of the stables,
+a thin man in black, priestly robes, advanced towards him, looked
+searchingly into his face, then greeted him as a countryman, declaring
+that it made him happy to speak his dear native tongue again.  Finally,
+he invited the "artist" to visit him.  His name was Magister Kochel and
+he lodged with the king's almoner, for whom he was acting as clerk.
+
+The pallid man with the withered face, deep-set eyes and peculiar grin,
+which always showed the bluish-red gums above the teeth, did not please
+the boy, but the thought of being able to talk in his native language
+attracted him, and he went to the German's.
+
+He soon thought that by so doing he was accomplishing something good and
+useful, for the former offered to teach him to write and speak Spanish.
+Ulrich was glad to have escaped from school, and declined this proposal;
+but when the German suggested that he should content himself with
+speaking the language, assuring him that it could be accomplished without
+any difficulty, Ulrich consented and went daily at twilight to the
+Magister.
+
+Instruction began at once and was pleasant enough, for Kochel let him
+translate merry tales and love stories from French and Italian books,
+which he read aloud in German, never scolded him, and after the first
+half-hour always laid the volume aside to talk with him.
+
+Moor thought it commendable and right, for Ulrich to take upon himself
+the labor and constraint of studying a language, and promised, when the
+lessons were over, to give a fitting payment to the Magister, who seemed
+to have scanty means of livelihood.
+
+The master ought to have been well disposed towards worthy Kochel, for
+the latter was an enthusiastic admirer of his works.  He ranked the
+Netherlander above Titian and the other great Italian artists, called him
+the worthy friend of gods and kings, and encouraged his pupil to imitate
+him.
+
+"Industry, industry!" cried the Magister.  "Only by industry is the
+summit of wealth and fame gained.  To be sure, such success demands
+sacrifices.  How rarely is the good man permitted to enjoy the blessing
+of mass.  When did he go to church last?"
+
+Ulrich answered these and similar questions frankly and truthfully,
+and when Kochel praised the friendship uniting the artist to the king,
+calling them Orestes and Pylades, Ulrich, proud of the honor shown his
+master, told him how often Philip secretly visited the latter.
+
+At every succeeding interview Kochel asked, as if by chance, in the midst
+of a conversation about other things: "Has the king honored you again?"
+or "You happy people, it is reported that the king has shown you his face
+again."
+
+This "you" flattered Ulrich, for it allowed a ray of the royal favor to
+fall upon him also, so he soon informed his countryman, unasked, of every
+one of the monarch's visits to the treasury.
+
+Weeks and months elapsed.
+
+Towards the close of his first year's residence in Madrid, Ulrich spoke
+Spanish with tolerable fluency, and could easily understand his fellow-
+pupils; nay, be had even begun to study Italian.
+
+Sophonisba Anguisciola still spent all her leisure hours in the studio,
+painting or conversing with Moor.  Various dignitaries and grandees also
+went in and out of the studio, and among them frequently appeared, indeed
+usually when Sophonisba was present, her faithful admirer Don Fabrizio di
+Moncada.
+
+Once Ulrich, without listening, heard Moor through the open door of the
+school-room, represent to her, that it was unwise to reject a suitor like
+the baron; he was a noble, high-minded gentleman and his love beyond
+question.
+
+Her answer was long in coming; at last she rose, saying in an agitated
+voice: "We know each other, Master; I know your kind intentions.  And
+yet, yet!  Let me remain what I am, however insignificant that may be.
+I like the baron, but what better gifts can marriage bestow, than I
+already possess?  My love belongs to Art, and you--you are my friend....
+My sisters are my children.  Have I not gained the right to call them so?
+I shall have no lack of duties towards them, when my father has
+squandered his inheritance.  My noble queen will provide for my future,
+and I am necessary to her.  My heart is filled--filled to the brim; I do
+what I can, and is it not a beautiful thought, that I am permitted to be
+something to those I love?  Let me remain your Sophonisba, and a free
+artist."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!  Remain what you are, girl!" Moor exclaimed, and then for
+a long time silence reigned in the studio.
+
+Even before they could understand each other's language, a friendly
+intercourse had existed between Isabella and her German fellow-pupil,
+for in leisure moments they had sketched each other more than once.
+
+These pictures caused much laughter and often occasional harmless
+scuffles between Ulrich and Sanchez, for the latter liked to lay hands
+on these portraits and turn them into hideous caricatures.
+
+Isabella often earned the artist's unqualified praise, Ulrich sometimes
+received encouraging, sometimes reproving, and sometimes even harsh
+words.  The latter Moor always addressed to him in German, but they
+deeply wounded the lad, haunting him for days.
+
+The "word" still remained obedient to him.  Only in matters relating to
+art, the power of "fortune" seemed to fail, and deny its service.
+
+When the painter set him difficult tasks, which he could not readily
+accomplish, he called upon the "word;" but the more warmly and fervently
+he did so, the more surely he receded instead of advancing.  When, on the
+contrary, he became angered against "fortune," reproached, rejected it,
+and relied wholly on himself, he accomplished the hardest things and won
+Moor's praise.
+
+He often thought, that he would gladly resign his untroubled, luxurious
+life, and all the other gifts of Fortune, if he could only succeed in
+accomplishing what Moor desired him to attain in art.  He knew and felt
+that this was the right goal; but one thing was certain, he could never
+attain it with pencil and charcoal.  What his soul dreamed, what his
+mental vision beheld was colored.  Drawing, perpetual drawing, became
+burdensome, repulsive, hateful; but with palette and brush in his hand he
+could not fail to become an artist, perhaps an artist like Titian.
+
+He already used colors in secret; Sanchez Coello had been the cause of
+his making the first trial.
+
+This precocious youth was suing for a fair girl's favor, and made Ulrich
+his confidant.  One day, when Moor and Sanchez's father had gone with the
+king to Toledo, he took him to a balcony in the upper story of the
+treasury, directly opposite to the gate-keeper's lodgings, and only
+separated by a narrow court-yard from the window, where sat pretty
+Carmen, the porter's handsome daughter.
+
+The girl was always to be found here, for her father's room was very
+dark, and she was compelled to embroider priestly robes from morning till
+night.  This pursuit brought in money, which was put to an excellent use
+by the old man, who offered sacrifices to his own comfort at the cook-
+shop, and enjoyed fish fried in oil with his Zamora wine.  The better her
+father's appetite was, the more industriously the daughter was obliged
+to embroider.  Only on great festivals, or when an 'Auto-da-fe' was
+proclaimed, was Carmen permitted to leave the palace with her old aunt;
+yet she had already found suitors.  Nineteen-year-old Sanchez did not
+indeed care for her hand, but merely for her love, and when it began to
+grow dusk, he stationed himself on the balcony which he had discovered,
+made signs to her, and flung flowers or bonbons on her table.
+
+"She is still coy," said the young Spaniard, telling Ulrich to wait at
+the narrow door, which opened upon the balcony.  "There sits the angel!
+Just look!  I gave her the pomegranate blossom in her magnificent hair--
+did you ever see more beautiful tresses?  Take notice!  She'll soon melt;
+I know women!"
+
+Directly after a bouquet of roses fell into the embroiderer's lap.
+Carmen uttered a low cry, and perceiving Sanchez, motioned him away with
+her head and hand, finally turning her back upon him.
+
+"She's in a bad humor to-day," said Sanchez; "but I beg you to notice
+that she'll keep my roses.  She'll wear one to-morrow in her hair or on
+her bosom; what will you wager?"
+
+"That may be," answered Ulrich.  "She probably has no money to buy any
+for herself."
+
+To be sure, the next day at twilight Carmen wore a rose in her hair.
+
+Sanchez exulted, and drew Ulrich out upon the balcony.  The beauty
+glanced at him, blushed, and returned the fair-haired boy's salutation
+with a slight bend of the head.
+
+The gate-keeper's little daughter was a pretty child, and Ulrich had no
+fear of doing what Sanchez ventured.
+
+On the third day he again accompanied him to the balcony, and this time,
+after silently calling upon the "word," pressed his hand upon his heart,
+just as Carmen looked at him.
+
+The young girl blushed again, waved her fan, and then bent her little
+head so low, that it almost touched the embroidery.
+
+The next evening she secretly kissed her fingers to Ulrich.
+
+From this time the young lover preferred to seek the balcony without
+Sanchez.  He would gladly have called a few tender words across, or sung
+to his lute, but that would not do, for people were constantly passing
+to and fro in the court-yard.
+
+Then the thought occurred to him, that he could speak to the fair one by
+means of a picture.
+
+A small panel was soon found, he had plenty of brushes and colors to
+choose from, and in a few minutes, a burning heart, transfixed by an
+arrow, was completed.  But the thing looked horribly red and ugly, so he
+rejected it, and painted--imitating one of Titian's angels, which
+specially pleased him--a tiny Cupid, holding a heart in his hand.
+
+He had learned many things from the master, and as the little figure
+rounded into shape, it afforded him so much pleasure, that he could not
+leave it, and finished it the third day.
+
+It had not entered his mind to create a completed work of art, but the
+impetuosity of youth, revelling in good fortune, had guided his brush.
+The little Cupid bent joyously forward, drawing the right leg back, as if
+making a bow.  Finally Ulrich draped about him a black and yellow scarf,
+such as he had often seen the young Austrian archduke wear, and besides
+the pierced heart, placed a rose in the tiny, ill-drawn hand.
+
+He could not help laughing at his "masterpiece" and hurried out on the
+balcony with the wet painting, to show it to Carmen.  She laughed
+heartily too, answered his salutations with tender greetings, then laid
+aside her embroidery and went back into the room, but only to immediately
+reappear at the window again, holding up a prayer-book and extending
+towards him the eight fingers of her industrious little hands.
+
+He motioned that he understood her, and at eight o'clock the next morning
+was kneeling by her side at mass, where he took advantage of a favorable
+opportunity to whisper: "Beautiful Carmen!"
+
+The young girl blushed, but he vainly awaited an answer.  Carmen now
+rose, and when Ulrich also stood up to permit her to pass, she dropped
+her prayer-book, as if by accident.  He stooped with her to pick it up,
+and when their heads nearly touched, she whispered hurriedly: "Nine
+o'clock this evening in the shell grotto; the garden will be open."
+
+Carmen awaited him at the appointed place.
+
+At first Ulrich's heart throbbed so loudly and passionately, that he
+could find no words; but the young girl helped him, by telling him that
+he was a handsome fellow, whom it would be easy to love.
+
+Then he remembered the vows of tenderness he had translated at Kochel's,
+falteringly repeated them, and fell on one knee before her, like all the
+heroes in adventures and romances.
+
+And behold!  Carmen did exactly the same as the young ladies whose
+acquaintance he had made at his teacher's, begged him to rise, and when
+he willingly obeyed the command--for he wore thin silk stockings and the
+grotto was paved with sharp stones--drew him to her heart, and tenderly
+stroked his hair back from his face with her dainty fingers, while he
+gladly permitted her to press her soft young lips to his.
+
+All this was delightful, and he had no occasion to speak at all; yet
+Ulrich felt timid and nervous.  It seemed like a deliverance when the
+footsteps of the guard were heard, and Carmen drew him away through the
+gate with her into the court-yard.
+
+Before the little door leading into her father's room she again pressed
+his hand, and then vanished as swiftly as a shadow.
+
+Ulrich remained alone, pacing slowly up and down before the treasury,
+for he knew that he had done something very wrong, and did not venture
+to appear before the artist.
+
+When he entered the dark garden, he had again summoned "fortune" to his
+aid; but now it would have pleased him better, if it had been less
+willing to come to his assistance.
+
+Candles were burning in the studio, and Moor sat in his arm-chair,
+holding--Ulrich would fain have bidden himself in the earth--the boy's
+Cupid in his hands.
+
+The young culprit wanted to slip past his teacher with a low "good
+night," but the latter called him, and pointing to the picture, smilingly
+asked: "Did you paint this?"
+
+Ulrich nodded, blushing furiously.
+
+The artist eyed him from top to toe, saying: "Well, well, it is really
+very pretty.  I suppose it is time now for us to begin to paint."
+
+The lad did not know what had happened, for a few weeks before Moor had
+harshly refused, when he asked the same thing now voluntarily offered.
+
+Scarcely able to control his surprise and joy, be bent over the artist's
+hand to kiss it, but the latter withdrew it, gazed steadily into his eyes
+with paternal affection, and said: "We will try, my boy, but we must not
+give up drawing, for that is the father of our art.  Drawing keeps us
+within the bounds assigned to what is true and beautiful.  The morning
+you must spend as before; after dinner you shall be rewarded by using
+colors."  This plan was followed, and the pupil's first love affair bore
+still another fruit--it gave a different form to his relations with
+Sanchez.  The feeling that he had stood in his way and abused his
+confidence sorely disturbed Ulrich, so he did everything in his power
+to please his companion.
+
+He did not see the fair Carmen again, and in a few weeks the appointment
+was forgotten, for painting under Moor's instruction absorbed him as
+nothing in his life had ever done before, and few things did after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Ulrich was now seventeen, and had been allowed to paint for four months.
+
+Sanchez Coello rarely appeared in the studio, for he had gone to study
+with the architect, Herrera; Isabella vied with Ulrich, but was speedily
+outstripped by the German.
+
+It seemed as if he had been born with the power to use the brush, and
+the young girl watched his progress with unfeigned pleasure.  When Moor
+harshly condemned his drawing, her kind eyes grew dim with tears; if the
+master looked at his studies with an approving smile, and showed them to
+Sophonisba with words of praise, she was as glad as if they had been
+bestowed upon herself.
+
+The Italian came daily to the treasury as usual, to paint, talk or play
+chess with Moor; she rejoiced at Ulrich's progress, and gave him many a
+useful suggestion.
+
+When the young artist once complained that he had no good models, she
+gaily offered to sit to him.  This was a new and unexpected piece of good
+fortune.  Day and night he thought only of Sophonisba.  The sittings
+began.
+
+The Italian wore a red dress, trimmed with gold embroidery, and a high
+white lace ruff, that almost touched her cheeks.  Her wavy brown hair
+clung closely to the beautiful oval head, its heavy braids covering the
+back of the neck; tiny curls fluttered around her ears and harmonized
+admirably with the lovely, mischievous expression of the mouth, that won
+all hearts.  To paint the intelligent brown eyes was no easy matter, and
+she requested Ulrich to be careful about her small, rather prominent
+chin, which was anything but beautiful, and not make her unusually high,
+broad forehead too conspicuous; she had only put on the pearl diadem to
+relieve it.
+
+The young artist set about this task with fiery impetuosity, and the
+first sketch surpassed all expectations.
+
+Don Fabrizio thought the picture "startlingly" like the original.  Moor
+was not dissatisfied, but feared that in the execution his pupil's work
+would lose the bold freshness, which lent it a certain charm in his eyes,
+and was therefore glad when the bell rang, and soon after the king
+appeared, to whom he intended to show Ulrich's work.
+
+Philip had not been in the studio for a long time, but the artist had
+reason to expect him; for yesterday the monarch must have received his
+letter, requesting that he would graciously grant him permission to leave
+Madrid.
+
+Moor had remained in Spain long enough, and his wife and child were
+urging his return.  Yet departure was hard for him on Sophonisba's
+account; but precisely because he felt that she was more to him than a
+beloved pupil and daughter, he had resolved to hasten his leave-taking.
+
+All present were quickly dismissed, the bolts were drawn and Philip
+appeared.
+
+He looked paler than usual, worn and weary.
+
+Moor greeted him respectfully, saying: "It is long since Your Majesty has
+visited the treasury."
+
+"Not 'Your Majesty;' to you I am Philip," replied the king.  "And you
+wish to leave me, Antonio!  Recall your letter!  You must not go now."
+
+The sovereign, without waiting for a reply, now burst into complaints
+about the tiresome, oppressive duties of his office, the incapacity of
+the magistrates, the selfishness, malice and baseness of men.  He
+lamented that Moor was a Netherlander, and not a Spaniard, called him
+the only friend he possessed among the rebellious crew in Holland and
+Flanders, and stopped him when he tried to intercede for his countrymen,
+though repeatedly assuring him that he found in his society his best
+pleasure, his only real recreation; Moor must stay, out of friendship,
+compassion for him, a slave in the royal purple.
+
+After the artist had promised not to speak of departure during the next
+few days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but at
+the end of half an hour he threw down his brush.  He called himself
+negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of
+using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church.  Duty
+was his tyrant, his oppressor.  When the day-laborer threw his hoe over
+his shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they
+pursued him everywhere, night and day.  His son was a monster, his
+subjects were rebels or cringing hounds.  Bands of heretics, like moles
+or senseless brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the throne
+and safeguard of society: the Church.  To crush and vanquish was his
+profession, hatred his reward on earth.  Then, after a moment's silence,
+he pointed towards heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy: "There, there!
+with Him, with Her, with the Saints, for whom I fight!"
+
+The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood.  He seemed to
+feel this too, and after recovering his self-control, said:
+
+"It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring
+to-day.  Have you finished anything new?"
+
+Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after
+Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it with
+excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich's portrait of
+Sophonisba, and asked, not without anxiety: "What does Your Majesty say
+to this attempt?"
+
+"Hm!" observed the monarch.  "A little of Moor, something borrowed from
+Titian, yet a great deal that is original.  The bluish-grey leaden tone
+comes from your shop.  The thing is a wretched likeness!  Sophonisba
+resembles a gardener's boy.  Who made it?"
+
+"My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete."
+
+"How long has he been painting?"
+
+"For several months, Sire."
+
+"And you think he will be an artist of note?"
+
+"Perhaps so.  In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
+falls below them.  He is a strange fellow."
+
+"He is ambitious, at any rate."
+
+"No small matter for the future artist.  What he eagerly begins has a
+very grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution.  His
+mind seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single
+hasty grasp...."
+
+"Rather too vehement, I should think."
+
+"No fault at his age.  What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
+he lacks.  I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him."
+
+"You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet
+meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place, in
+short your own art-spirit."
+
+"And yours also, Sire.  If you had begun to paint early, you would have
+possessed what Ulrich lacks."
+
+"Perhaps so.  Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with
+years.  In your school, with zeal and industry...."
+
+"He will obtain, you think, what he lacks.  I thought so too!  But as I
+was saying: he is queerly constituted.  What you have admitted to me more
+than once, the point we have started from in a hundred conversations--he
+cannot grasp: form is not the essence of art to him."
+
+The king shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his forehead; but Moor
+continued: "Everything he creates must reflect anew, what he experienced
+at the first sight of the subject.  Often the first sketch succeeds, but
+if it fails, he seeks without regard to truth and accuracy, by means of
+trivial, strange expedients, to accomplish his purpose.  Sentiment,
+always sentiment!  Line and tone are everything; that is our motto.
+Whoever masters them, can express the grandest things."
+
+"Right, right!  Keep  him  drawing  constantly.  Give him mouths, eyes,
+and hands to paint."
+
+"That must be done in Antwerp."
+
+"I'll hear nothing about Antwerp!  You will stay, Antonio, you will stay.
+Your wife and child-all honor to them.  I have seen your wife's portrait.
+Good, nourishing bread!  Here you have ambrosia and manna.  You know whom
+I mean; Sophonisba is attached to you; the queen says so."
+
+"And I gratefully feel it.  It is hard to leave your gracious Majesty and
+Sophonisba; but bread, Sire, bread--is necessary to life.  I shall leave
+friends here, dear friends--it will be difficult, very difficult, to find
+new ones at my age."
+
+"It is the same with me, and for that very reason you will stay, if you
+are my friend!  No more!  Farewell, Antonio, till we meet again, perhaps
+to-morrow, in spite of a chaos of business.  Happy fellow that you are!
+In the twinkling of an eye you will be revelling in colors again, while
+the yoke, the iron yoke, weighs me down."
+
+Moor thought he should be able to work undisturbed after the king had
+left him, and left the door unbolted.  He was standing before the easel
+after dinner, engaged in painting, when the door of the corridor leading
+to the treasury was suddenly flung open, without the usual warning, and
+Philip again entered the studio.  This time his cheeks wore a less pallid
+hue than in the morning, and his gait showed no traces of the solemn
+gravity, which had become a second nature to him,--on the contrary he was
+gay and animated.
+
+But the expression did not suit him; it seemed as if he had donned a
+borrowed, foreign garb, in which he was ill at ease and could not move
+freely.
+
+Waving a letter in his right hand, he pointed to it with his left,
+exclaiming:
+
+"They are coming.  This time two marvels at once.  Our Saviour praying in
+the garden of Gethsemane, and Diana at the Bath.  Look, look!  Even this
+is a treasure.  These lines are from Titian's own hand."
+
+"A peerless old man," Moor began; but Philip impetuously interrupted:
+"Old man, old man?  A youth, a man, a vigorous man.  How soon he will be
+ninety, and yet--yet; who will equal him?"
+
+As he uttered the last words, the monarch stopped before Sophonisba's
+portrait, and pointing to it with the scornful chuckle peculiar to him,
+continued gaily:
+
+"There the answer meets me directly.  That red!  The Venetian's laurels
+seem to have turned your high flown pupil's head.  A hideous picture!"
+
+"It doesn't seem so bad to me," replied Moor.  "There is even something
+about it I like."
+
+"You, you?"  cried Philip.  "Poor Sophonisba!"
+
+"Those carbuncle eyes!  And a mouth, that looks as if she could eat
+nothing but sugar-plums.  I don't know what tickles me to-day.  Give me
+the palette.  The outlines are tolerably good, the colors fairly shriek.
+But what boy can understand a woman, a woman like your friend!  I'll
+paint over the monster, and if the picture isn't Sophonisba, it may serve
+for a naval battle."
+
+The king had snatched the palette from the artist's hand, clipped his
+brush in the paint, and smiling pleasantly, was about to set to work; but
+Moor placed himself between the sovereign and the canvas; exclaiming
+gaily: "Paint me, Philip; but spare the portrait."
+
+"No, no; it will do for the naval battle," chuckled the king, and while
+he pushed the artist back, the latter, carried away by the monarch's
+unusual freedom, struck him lightly on the shoulder with the maul-stick.
+
+The sovereign started, his lips grew white, he drew his small but stately
+figure to its full height.  His unconstrained bearing was instantly
+transformed into one of unapproachable, icy dignity.
+
+Moor felt what was passing in the ruler's mind.
+
+A slight shiver ran through his frame, but his calmness remained
+unshaken, and before the insulted monarch found time to give vent to his
+indignation in words, he said quickly, as if the offence he had committed
+was not worth mentioning:
+
+"Queer things are done among comrades in art.  The painter's war is over!
+Begin the naval battle, Sire, or still better, lend more charm and
+delicacy to the corners of the mouth.  The pupil's worst failure is in
+the chin; more practised hands might be wrecked on that cliff.  Those
+eyes!  Perhaps they sparkled just in that way, but we are agreed in one
+thing: the portrait ought not to represent the original at a given
+moment, ruled by a certain feeling or engaged in a special act, but
+should express the sum of the spiritual, intellectual and personal
+attributes of the subject--his soul and person, mind and character-
+feelings and nature.  King Philip, pondering over complicated political
+combinations, would be a fascinating historical painting, but no
+likeness...."
+
+"Certainly not," said the king in a low voice; "the portrait must reveal
+the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his
+artists.  Take the palette, I beg.  It is for you, the great Master, not
+for me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct the work of talented
+pupils."
+
+There was a hypocritical sweetness in the tone of these words which had
+not escaped the artist.
+
+Philip had long been a master in the school of dissimulation, but Moor
+knew him thoroughly, and understood the art of reading his heart.
+
+This mode of expression from the king alarmed him more than a passionate
+outburst of rage.  He only spoke in this way when concealing what was
+seething within.  Besides, there was another token.  The Netherlander
+had intentionally commenced a conversation on art, and it was almost
+unprecedented to find Philip disinclined to enter into one.  The blow
+had been scarcely perceptible, but Majesty will not endure a touch.
+
+Philip did not wish to quarrel with the artist now, but he would remember
+the incident, and woe betide him, if in some gloomy hour the sovereign
+should recall the insult offered him here.  Even the lightest blow from
+the paw of this slinking tiger could inflict deep wounds--even death.
+
+These thoughts had darted with the speed of lightning through the
+artist's mind, and still lingered there as, respectfully declining to
+take the palette, he replied "I beseech you, Sire, keep the brush and
+colors, and correct what you dislike."
+
+"That would mean to repaint the whole picture, and my time is limited,"
+answered Philip.  "You are responsible for your pupils' faults, as well
+as for your own offences.  Every one is granted, allowed, offered, what
+is his due; is it not so, dear master?  Another time, then, you shall
+hear from me!"  In the doorway the monarch kissed his hand to the artist,
+then disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Moor remained alone in the studio.  How could he have played such a
+boyish prank!
+
+He was gazing anxiously at the floor, for he had good reason to be
+troubled, though the reflection that he had been alone with the king, and
+the unprecedented act had occurred without witnesses, somewhat soothed
+him.  He could not know that a third person, Ulrich, had beheld the
+reckless, fateful contest.
+
+The boy had been drawing in the adjoining room, when loud voices were
+heard in the studio.  He cherished a boundless reverence, bordering upon
+idolatry, for his first model, the beautiful Sophonisba, and supposing
+that it was she, discussing works of art with Moor, as often happened,
+he opened the door, pushed back the curtain, and saw the artist tap the
+chuckling king on the arm.
+
+The scene was a merry one, yet a thrill of fear ran through his limbs,
+and he went back to his plaster model more rapidly than he had come.
+
+At nightfall Moor sought Sophonisba.  He had been invited to a ball given
+by the queen, and knew that he should find the maid of honor among
+Isabella's attendants.
+
+The magnificent apartments were made as light as day by thousands of wax-
+candles in silver and bronze candelabra; costly Gobelin tapestry and
+purple Flanders hangings covered the walls, and the bright hues of the
+paintings were reflected from the polished floors, flooded with brilliant
+light.
+
+No dancing had ever been permitted at the court before Philip's marriage
+with the French princess, who had been accustomed to greater freedom of
+manners; now a ball was sometimes given in the Alcazar.  The first person
+who had ventured to dance the gaillarde before the eyes of the monarch
+and his horrified courtiers, was Sophonisba--her partner was Duke
+Gonzaga.  Strangely enough, the gayest lady at the court was the very
+person, who gave the gossips the least occasion for scandal.
+
+A gavotte was just over, as Moor entered the superb rooms.  In the first
+rank of the brilliant circle of distinguished ecclesiastics, ambassadors
+and grandees, who surrounded the queen, stood the Austrian archdukes, and
+the handsome, youthful figures of Alexander of Parma and of Don Juan, the
+half-brother of King Philip.
+
+Don Carlos, the deformed heir to the throne, was annoying with his coarse
+jests some ladies of the court, who were holding their fans before their
+faces, yet did not venture to make the sovereign's son feel their
+displeasure.
+
+Velvet, silk and jewels glittered, delicate laces rose and drooped
+around the necks and hands of the ladies and gentlemen.  Floating curls,
+sparkling eyes, noble and attractive features enslaved the eye, but the
+necks, throats and arms of the court dames were closely concealed under
+high ruffs and lace frills, stiff bodices and puffed sleeves.
+
+A subtile perfume filled the illuminated air of these festal halls;
+amidst the flirting of light fans, laughter, gay conversation, and
+slander reigned supreme.  In an adjoining room golden zechins fell
+rattling and ringing on the gaming-table.
+
+The morose, bigoted court, hampered by rigid formality, had been invaded
+by worldly pleasure, which disported itself unabashed by the presence of
+the distinguished prelates in violet and scarlet robes, who paced with
+dignified bearing through the apartments, greeting the more prominent
+ladies and grandees.
+
+A flourish of trumpets was borne on the air, and Philip appeared.  The
+cavaliers, bowing very low, suddenly stepped back from the fair dames,
+and the ladies curtsied to the floor.  Perfect silence followed.
+
+It seemed as if an icy wind had passed over the flower-beds and bent all
+the blossoms at once.
+
+After a few minutes the gentlemen stood erect, and the ladies rose again,
+but even the oldest duchesses were not allowed the privilege of sitting
+in their sovereign's presence.
+
+Gayety was stifled, conversation was carried on in whispers.
+
+The young people vainly waited for the signal to dance.
+
+It was long since Philip had been so proudly contemptuous, so morose as
+he was to-night.  Experienced courtiers noticed that His Majesty held his
+head higher than usual, and kept out of his way.  He walked as if engaged
+in scrutinizing the frescos on the ceiling, but nothing that he wished to
+see escaped his notice, and when he perceived Moor, he nodded graciously
+and smiled pleasantly upon him for a moment, but did not, as usual,
+beckon him to approach.
+
+This did not escape the artist or Sophonisba, whom Moor had informed of
+what had occurred.
+
+He trusted her as he did himself, and she deserved his confidence.
+
+The clever Italian had shared his anxiety, and as soon as the king
+entered another apartment, she beckoned to Moor and held a long
+conversation with him in a window-recess.  She advised him to keep
+everything in readiness for departure, and she undertook to watch and
+give him timely warning.
+
+It was long after midnight, when Moor returned to his rooms.  He sent the
+sleepy servant to rest, and paced anxiously to and fro for a short time;
+then he pushed Ulrich's portrait of Sophonisba nearer the mantel-piece,
+where countless candles were burning in lofty sconces.
+
+This was his friend, and yet it was not.  The thing lacking--yes, the
+king was right--was incomprehensible to a boy.
+
+We cannot represent, what we are unable to feel.  Yet Philip's censure
+had been too severe.  With a few strokes of the brush Moor expected to
+make this picture a soul mirror of the beloved girl, from whom it was
+hard, unspeakably hard for him to part.
+
+"More than fifty!"  he thought, a melancholy smile hovering around his
+mouth.--"More than fifty, an old husband and father, and yet--yet--good
+nourishing bread at home--God bless it, Heaven preserve it!  It only this
+girl were my daughter!  How long the human heart retains its functional
+power!  Perhaps love is the pith of life--when it dries, the tree withers
+too!"
+
+Still absorbed in thought, Moor had seized his palette, and at intervals
+added a few short, almost imperceptible strokes to the mouth, eyes, and
+delicate nostrils of the portrait, before which he sat--but these few
+strokes lent charm and intellectual expression to his pupil's work.
+
+When he at last rose and looked at what he had done, he could not help
+smiling, and asking himself how it was possible to imitate, with such
+trivial materials, the noblest possessions of man: mind and soul.  Both
+now spoke to the spectator from these features.  The right words were
+easy to the master, and with them he had given the clumsy sentence
+meaning and significance.
+
+The next morning Ulrich found Moor before Sophonisba's portrait.  The
+pupil's sleep had been no less restless than the master's, for the former
+had done something which lay heavy on his heart.
+
+After being an involuntary witness of the scene in the studio the day
+before he had taken a ride with Sanchez and had afterwards gone to
+Kochel's to take a lesson.  True, he now spoke Spanish with tolerable
+fluency and knew something of Italian, but Kochel entertained him so
+well, that he still visited him several times a week.
+
+On this occasion, there was no translating.  The German first kindly
+upbraided him for his long absence, and then, after the conversation had
+turned upon his painting and Moor, sympathizingly asked what truth there
+was in the rumor, that the king had not visited the artist for a long
+time and had withdrawn his favor from him.
+
+"Withdrawn his favor!"  Ulrich joyously exclaimed.  "They are like two
+brothers!  They wrestled together to-day, and the master, in all
+friendship, struck His Majesty a blow with the maul-stick....But--for
+Heaven's sake!--you will swear--fool, that I am--you  will swear not to
+speak of it!"
+
+"Of course I will!"  Kochel exclaimed with a loud laugh.  "My hand upon
+it Navarrete.  I'll keep silence, but you!  Don't gossip about that!  Not
+on any account!  The jesting blow might do the master harm.  Excuse me
+for to-day; there is a great deal of writing to be done for the almoner."
+
+Ulrich went directly back to the studio.  The conviction that he had
+committed a folly, nay, a crime, had taken possession of him directly
+after the last word escaped his lips, and now tortured him more and
+more.  If Kochel, who was a very ordinary man, should not keep the
+secret, what might not Moor suffer from his treachery!  The lad was
+usually no prattler, yet now, merely to boast of his master's familiar
+intercourse with the king, he had forgotten all caution.
+
+After a restless night, his first thought had been to look at his
+portrait of Sophonisba.  The picture lured, bewitched, enthralled him
+with an irresistible spell.
+
+Was this really his work?
+
+He recognized every stroke of the brush.  And yet!  Those thoughtful
+eyes, the light on the lofty brow, the delicate lips, which seemed about
+parting to utter some wise or witty word--he had not painted them, never,
+never could he have accomplished such a masterpiece.  He became very
+anxious.  Had "Fortune," which usually left him in the lurch when
+creating, aided him on this occasion?  Last evening, before he went to
+bed, the picture had been very different.  Moor rarely painted by
+candlelight and he had heard him come home late, yet now--now.....
+
+He was roused from these thoughts by the artist, who had been feasting
+his eyes a long time on the handsome lad, now rapidly developing into a
+youth, as he stood before the canvas as if spellbound.  He felt what was
+passing in the awakening artist-soul, for a similar incident had happened
+to himself, when studying with his old master, Schorel.
+
+"What is the matter?"  asked Moor as quietly as usual, laying his hand
+upon the arm of his embarrassed pupil.  "Your work seems to please you
+remarkably."
+
+"It is-I don't know"--stammered Ulrich.  "It seems as if in the night..."
+
+"That often happens," interrupted the master.  "If a man devotes himself
+earnestly to his profession, and says to himself: 'Art shall be
+everything to me, all else trivial interruptions,' invisible powers aid
+him, and when he sees in the morning what he has created the day before,
+he imagines a miracle has happened."
+
+At these words Ulrich grew red and pale by turns.  At last, shaking his
+head, he murmured in an undertone: "Yes, but those shadows at the corners
+of the mouth--do you see?--that light on the brow, and there--just look
+at the nostrils--I certainly did not paint those."
+
+"I don't think them so much amiss," replied Moor.  "Whatever friendly
+spirits now work for you at night, you must learn in Antwerp to paint in
+broad day at any hour."
+
+"In Antwerp?"
+
+"We shall prepare for departure this very day.  It must be done with the
+utmost privacy.  When Isabella has gone, pack your best clothes in the
+little knapsack.  Perhaps we shall leave secretly; we have remained in
+Madrid long enough.  Keep yourself always in readiness.  No one, do you
+hear, no human being, not even the servants, must suspect what is going
+on.  I know you; you are no babbler."
+
+The artist suddenly paused and turned pale, for men's loud, angry voices
+were heard outside the door of the studio.
+
+Ulrich too was startled.
+
+The master's intention of leaving Madrid had pleased him, for it would
+withdraw the former from the danger that might result from his own
+imprudence.  But as the strife in the anteroom grew louder, he already
+saw the alguazils forcing their way into the studio.
+
+Moor went towards the door, but it was thrown wide open ere he reached
+it, and a bearded lansquenet crossed the threshold.
+
+Laughing scornfully, he shouted a few derisive words at the French
+servants who had tried to stop him, then turning to the artist, and
+throwing back his broad chest, he held out his arms towards Moor, with
+passionate ardor, exclaiming: "These French flunkies--the varlets, tried
+to keep me from waiting upon my benefactor, my friend, the great Moor,
+to show my reverence for him.  How you stare at me, Master!  Have you
+forgotten Christmas-day at Emmendingen, and Hans Eitelfritz from Colln on
+the Spree?"
+
+Every trace of anxiety instantly vanished from the face of the artist,
+who certainly had not recognized in this braggart the modest companion of
+those days.
+
+Eitelfritz was strangely attired, so gaily and oddly dressed, that he
+could not fail to be conspicuous even among his comrades.  One leg of his
+breeches, striped with red and blue, reached far below his knee, while
+the other, striped with yellow and green, enclosed the upper part of the
+limb, like a full muff.  Then how many puffs, slashes and ribbons adorned
+his doublet!  What gay plumes decked the pointed edge of his cap.
+
+Moor gave the faithful fellow a friendly welcome, and expressed his
+pleasure at meeting him so handsomely equipped.  He held his head higher
+now, than he used to do under the wagon-tilt and in quarters, and
+doubtless he had earned a right to do so.
+
+"The fact is," replied Hans Eitelfritz, "I've received double pay for the
+past nine months, and take a different view of life from that of a poor
+devil of a man-at-arms who goes fighting through the country.  You know
+the ditty:
+
+             "'There is one misery on earth,
+               Well, well for him, who knows it not!
+               With beggar's staff to wander forth,
+               Imploring alms from spot to spot.'
+
+"And the last verse:
+
+             "'And shall we never receive our due?
+               Will our sore trials never end?
+               Leader to victory, be true,
+               Come quickly, death, beloved friend.'
+
+"I often sang it in those days; but now:  What does the world cost?  A
+thousand zechins is not too much for me to pay for it!"
+
+"Have you gained booty, Hans?"
+
+"Better must come; but I'm faring tolerably well.  Nothing but feasting!
+Three of us came here from Venice through Lombardy, by ship from Genoa to
+Barcelona, and thence through this barren, stony country here to Madrid."
+
+"To take service?"
+
+"No, indeed.  I'm satisfied with my company and regiment.  We brought
+some pictures here, painted by the great master, Titian, whose fame must
+surely have reached you.  See this little purse! hear its jingle--it's
+all gold!  If any one calls King Philip a niggard again, I'll knock his
+teeth down his throat."
+
+"Good  tidings, good  reward!" laughed  Moor.  "Have you had board and
+lodging too?"
+
+"A bed fit for the Roman Emperor,--and as for the rest?--I told you,
+nothing but feasting.  Unluckily, the fun will be all over to-night, but
+to go without paying my respects to you.....Zounds! is that the little
+fellow--the Hop-o'my-Thumb-who pressed forward to the muster-table at
+Emmendingen?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Zounds, he has grown.  We'll gladly enlist you now, young sir.
+Can you remember me?"
+
+"Of course I do," replied Ulrich.  "You sang the song about
+'good fortune'"
+
+"Have you recollected that?"  asked the lansquenet.  "Foolish stuff!
+Believe it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great sorrow
+and poverty, just to warm my heart.  Now I'm prosperous, and can rarely
+succeed in writing a verse.  Fires are not needed in summer."
+
+"Where have you been lodged?"
+
+"Here in the 'old cat.'  That's a good name for this Goliath's palace."
+
+When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
+with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
+artist went to the city alone.
+
+At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio,
+and instantly noticed the change Sophonisba's portrait had undergone.
+
+Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.
+
+The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
+pausing in her scrutiny to ask: "And you, you painted this--without the
+master?"
+
+Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: "I suppose he thinks it
+is my own work; and yet--I can't understand it."
+
+"But I can," she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the
+portrait.
+
+At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at him
+with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost
+depths of Ulrich's heart were stirred: "How glad I am!  I could never
+accomplish such a work.  You will become a great artist, a very
+distinguished one, like Moor.  Take notice, you surely will.  How
+beautiful that is!--I can find no words to express my admiration."
+
+At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich's brain, and either the fiery
+wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl's prophetic words, or both,
+fairly intoxicated him.  Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he seized
+Isabella's little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and
+enthusiastically exclaimed: "Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled,
+Belica; I will be an artist.  Art, Art alone!  The master said everything
+else is vain--trivial.  Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is
+right."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Isabella; "you must become a great artist."
+
+"And if I don't succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this...."
+
+Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away,
+perhaps to-morrow, so he continued sadly, in a calmer tone: "Rely upon
+it; I will do what I can, and whatever happens, you will rejoice, will
+you not, if I succeed-and if it should be otherwise...."
+
+"No, no," she eagerly exclaimed.  "You can accomplish everything, and
+I--I; you don't know how happy it makes me that you can do more than I!"
+
+Again he held out his hand, and as Isabella warmly clasped it, the
+watchful duenna's harsh voice cried:
+
+"What does this mean, Senorita?  To work, I beg of you.  Your father says
+time is precious."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Time is precious!  Magister Kochel had also doubtless said this to
+himself, as soon as Ulrich left him the day before.  He had been hired by
+a secret power, with which however he was well acquainted, to watch the
+Netherland artist and collect evidence for a charge--a gravamen--against
+him.
+
+The spying and informing, which he had zealously pursued for years in the
+service of the Holy Inquisition, he called "serving the Church," and
+hoped, sooner or later, to be rewarded with a benefice; but even if this
+escaped him, informing brought him as large an income as he required, and
+had become the greatest pleasure, indeed, a necessity of life to him.
+
+He had commenced his career in Cologne as a Dominican friar, and remained
+in communication with some of his old brethren of the Order.
+
+The monks, Sutor and Stubenrauch, whom Moor had hospitably received in
+his wagon at the last Advent season but one, sometimes answered Kochel's
+letters of enquiry.
+
+The latter had long known that the unusual favor the king showed the
+artist was an abomination, not only to the heads of the Holy Inquisition,
+but also to the ambassadors and court dignitaries, yet Moor's quiet,
+stainless life afforded no handle for attack.  Soon, however, unexpected
+aid came to him from a distance.
+
+A letter arrived, dictated by Sutor, and written by Stubenrauch in the
+fluent bad Latin used by him and those of his ilk.  Among other things it
+contained an account of a journey, in which much was said about Moor,
+whom the noble pair accused of having a heretical and evil mind.  Instead
+of taking them to the goal of the journey, as he had promised, he had
+deserted them in a miserable tavern by the way-side, among rough, godless
+lansquenets, as the mother of Moses abandoned her babe.  And such a man
+as this, they had heard with amazement at Cologne, was permitted to boast
+of the favor of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip.  Kochel must take
+heed, that this leprous soul did not infect the whole flock, like a mangy
+sheep, or even turn the shepherd from the true pasture.
+
+This letter had induced Kochel to lure Ulrich into the snare.  The
+monstrous thing learned from the lad that day, capped the climax of all
+he had heard, and might serve as a foundation for the charge, that the
+heretical Netherlander--and people were disposed to regard all
+Netherlanders as heretics--had deluded the king's mind with magic arts,
+enslaved his soul and bound him with fetters forged by the Prince of
+Evil.
+
+His pen was swift, and that very evening he went to the palace of the
+Inquisition, with the documents and indictment, but was detained there
+a long time the following day, to have his verbal deposition recorded.
+When he left the gloomy building, he was animated with the joyous
+conviction that he had not toiled in vain, and that the Netherlander
+was a lost man.
+
+Preparations for departure were secretly made in the painter's rooms in
+the Alcazar during the afternoon.  Moor was full of anxiety, for one of
+the royal lackeys, who was greatly devoted to him, had told him that a
+disguised emissary of the Dominicans--he knew him well--had come to the
+door of the studio, and talked there with one of the French servants.
+This meant as imminent peril as fire under the roof, water rising in the
+hold of a ship, or the plague in the house.
+
+Sophonisba had told him that he would hear from her that day, but the sun
+was already low in the heavens, and neither she herself nor any message
+had arrived.
+
+He tried to paint, and finding the attempt useless, gazed into the garden
+and at the distant chain of the Guadarrama mountains; but to-day he
+remained unmoved by the delicate violet-blue mist that floated around the
+bare, naked peaks of the chain.
+
+It was wrath and impatience, mingled with bitter disappointment, that
+roused the tumult in his soul, not merely the dread of torture and death.
+
+There had been hours when his heart had throbbed with gratitude to
+Philip, and he had believed in his friendship.  And now?  The king cared
+for nothing about him, except his brush.
+
+He was still standing at the window, lost in gloomy thoughts, when
+Sophonisba was finally announced.
+
+She did not come alone, but leaning on the arm of Don Fabrizio di
+Moncada.  During the last hours of the ball the night before she had
+voluntarily given the Sicilian her hand, and rewarded his faithful wooing
+by accepting his suit.
+
+Moor was rejoiced--yes, really glad at heart, and expressed his pleasure;
+nevertheless he felt a sharp pang, and when the baron, in his simple,
+aristocratic manner, thanked him for the faithful friendship he had
+always shown Sophonisba and her sisters, and then related how graciously
+the queen had joined their hands, he only listened with partial
+attention, for many doubts and suspicions beset him.
+
+Had Sophonisba's heart uttered the "yes," or had she made a heavy
+sacrifice for him and his safety?  Perhaps she would find true happiness
+by the side of this worthy noble, but why had she given herself to him
+now, just now?  Then the thought darted through his mind, that the
+widowed Marquesa Romero, the all-powerful friend of the Grand Inquisitor
+was Don Fabrizio's sister.
+
+Sophonisba had left the conversation to her betrothed husband; but when
+the doors of the brightly-lighted reception-room were opened, and the
+candles in the studio lighted, the girl could no longer endure the
+restraint she had hitherto imposed upon herself, and whispered hurriedly,
+in broken accents:
+
+"Dismiss the servants, lock the studio, and follow us."
+
+Moor did as he was requested, and, with the baron, obeyed her request to
+search the anterooms, to see that no unbidden visitor remained.  She
+herself raised the curtains and looked up the chimney.
+
+Moor had rarely seen her so pale.  Unable to control the muscles of her
+face, shoulders and hands, she went into the middle of the room, beckoned
+the men to come close to her, raised her fan to her face, and whispered:
+
+"Don Fabrizio and I are now one.  God hears me!  You, Master, are in
+great peril and surrounded by spies.  Some one witnessed yesterday's
+incident, and it is now the talk of the town.  Don Fabrizio has made
+inquiries.  There is an accusation against you, and the Inquisition will
+act upon it.  The informers call you a heretic, a sorcerer, who has
+bewitched the king.  They will seize you to-morrow, or the day after.
+The king is in a terrible mood.  The Nuncio openly asked him whether it
+was true, that he had been offered an atrocious insult in your studio.
+Is everything  ready?  Can you fly?"
+
+Moor bent his head in assent.
+
+"Well then," said the baron, interrupting Sophonisba; "I beg you to
+listen to me.  I have obtained leave of absence, to go to Sicily to
+ask my father's blessing.  It will be no easy matter for me to leave
+my happiness, at the moment my most ardent wish is fulfilled--but
+Sophonisba commands and I obey.  I obey gladly too, for if I succeed in
+saving you, a new and beautiful star will adorn the heaven of my memory."
+
+"Quick, quick!" pleaded Sophonisba, clenching the back of a chair firmly
+with her hand.  "You will yield, Master; I beseech you, I command you!"
+
+Moor bowed, and Don Fabrizio continued:  "We will start at four o'clock
+in the morning.  Instead of exchanging vows of love, we held a council of
+war.  Everything is arranged.  In an hour my servants will come and ask
+for the portrait of my betrothed bride; instead of the picture, you will
+put your baggage in the chest.  Before midnight you will come to my
+apartments.  I have passports for myself, six servants, the equerry, and
+a chaplain.  Father Clement will remain safely concealed at my sister's,
+and you will accompany me in priestly costume.  May we rely upon your
+consent?"
+
+"With all the gratitude of a thankful heart, but...."
+
+"But?"
+
+"There is my old servant--and my pupil Ulrich Navarrete."
+
+"The old man is taciturn, Don Fabrizio!" said Sophonisba.  "If he is
+forbidden to speak at all....  He is necessary to the Master."
+
+"Then he can accompany you," said the baron.  "As for your pupil, he must
+help us secure your flight, and lead the pursuers on a false trail.  The
+king has honored you with a travelling-carriage.--At half-past eleven
+order horses to be put to it and leave the Alcazar.  When you arrive
+before our palace, stop it, alight, and remain with me.  Ulrich, whom
+everybody knows--who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in his
+gay clothes--will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the road
+towards Burgos, as far as it goes.  A better decoy than he cannot be
+imagined, and besides he is nimble and an excellent horseman.  Give him
+your own steed, the white Andalusian.  If the blood-hounds should
+overtake him...."
+
+Here Moor interrupted the baron, saying gravely and firmly: "My grey head
+will be too dearly purchased at the cost of this young life.  Change this
+part of your plan, I entreat you."
+
+"Impossible!"  exclaimed the Sicilian.  "We have few hours at our
+command, and if they don't follow him, they will pursue us, and you will
+be lost."
+
+"Yet...."  Moor began; but Sophonisba, scarcely able to command her
+voice, interrupted: "He owes everything to--you.  I know him.  Where is
+he?"
+
+"Let us maintain our self-control!"  cried the Netherlander.  "I do not
+rely upon the king's mercy, but perhaps in the decisive hour, he will
+remember what we have been to each other; if Ulrich, on the contrary,
+robs the irritated lion of his prey and is seized...."
+
+"My sister shall watch over him," said the baron but Sophonisba tore open
+the door, rushed into the studio, and called as loudly as she could:
+"Ulrich, Ulrich!  Ulrich!"
+
+The men followed her, but scarcely had they crossed the threshold, when
+they heard her rap violently at the door of the school-room, and Ulrich
+asking: "What is it?"
+
+"Open the door!"
+
+Soon after, with pallid face and throbbing heart, he was standing before
+the others, asking: "What am I to do?"
+
+"Save your master!"  cried Sophonisba.  "Are you a contemptible Wight,
+or does a true artist's heart beat in your breast?  Would you fear to go,
+perhaps to your death, for this imperilled man?"
+
+"No, no!"  cried the youth as joyously as if a hundred-pound weight had
+been lifted from his breast.  "If it costs my life, so much the better!
+Here I am!  Post me where you please, do with me as you will!  He has
+given me everything, and I--I have betrayed him.  I must confess, even
+if you kill me!  I gossiped, babbled--like a fool, a child--about what
+I accidentally saw here yesterday.  It is my fault, mine, if they pursue
+him.  Forgive me, master, forgive me!  Do with me what you will.  Beat
+me, slay me, and I will bless you."
+
+As he uttered the last words, the young artist, raising his clasped hands
+imploringly, fell on his knees before his beloved teacher.  Moor bent
+towards him, saying with grave kindness:
+
+"Rise, poor lad.  I am not angry with you."
+
+When Ulrich again stood before him, he kissed his forehead and continued:
+
+"I have not been mistaken in you.  Do you, Don Fabrizio, recommend
+Navarrete to the Marquesa's protection, and tell him what we desire.
+It would scarcely redound to his happiness, if the deed, for which my
+imprudence and his thoughtlessness are to blame, should be revenged on
+me.  It comforts us to atone for a wrong.  Whether you save me, Ulrich,
+or I perish--no matter; you are and always will be, my dear, faithful
+friend."
+
+Ulrich threw himself sobbing on the artist's breast, and when he learned
+what was required of him, fairly glowed with delight and eagerness for
+action; he thought no greater joy could befall him than to die for the
+Master.
+
+As the bell of the palace-chapel was ringing for evening service,
+Sophonisba was obliged to leave her friend; for it was her duty to attend
+the nocturnus with the queen.
+
+Don Fabrizio turned away, while she bade Moor farewell.
+
+"If you desire my happiness, make him happy," the artist whispered; but
+she could find no words to reply, and only nodded silently.
+
+He drew her gently towards him, kissed her brow, and said: "There is a
+hard and yet a consoling word Love is divine; but still more divine is
+sacrifice.  To-day I am both your friend and father.  Remember me to your
+sisters.  God bless you, child!"
+
+"And you, you!"  sobbed the girl.
+
+Never had any human being prayed so fervently for another's welfare in
+the magnificent chapel of the Alcazar, as did Sophonisba Anguisciola on
+this evening.  Don Fabrizio's betrothed bride also pleaded for peace and
+calmness in her own heart, for power to forget and to do her duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Half an hour before midnight Moor entered the calash, and Ulrich
+Navarrete mounted the white Andalusian.
+
+The artist, deeply agitated, had already taken leave of his protege in
+the studio, had given him a purse of gold for his travelling-expenses and
+any other wants, and told him that he would always find with him in
+Flanders a home, a father, love, and instruction in his art.
+
+The painter alighted before Don Fabrizio's palace; a short time after
+Ulrich noisily drew the leather curtain before the partition of the
+calash, and then called to the coachman, who had often driven Moor when
+he was unexpectedly summoned to one of the king's pleasure-palaces at
+night: "Go ahead!"
+
+They were stopped at the gate, but the guards knew the favorite's calash
+and fair-haired pupil, and granted the latter the escort he asked for his
+master.  So they went forward; at first rapidly, then at a pace easy for
+the horses.  He told the coachman that Moor had alighted at the second
+station, and would ride with His Majesty to Avila, where he wished to
+find the carriage.
+
+During the whole way, Ulrich thought little of himself, and all the more
+of the master.  If the pursuers had set out the morning after the
+departure, and followed him instead of Don Fabrizio's party, Moor might
+now be safe.  He knew the names of the towns on the road to Valencia and
+thought: "Now he may be here, now he may be there, now he must be
+approaching Tarancon."
+
+In the evening the calash reached the famous stronghold of Avila where,
+according to the agreement, Ulrich was to leave the carriage and try to
+make his own escape.  The road led through the town, which was surrounded
+by high walls and deep ditches.  There was no possibility of going round
+it, yet the drawbridges were already raised and the gates locked, so he
+boldly called the warder and showed his passport.
+
+An officer asked to see the artist.  Ulrich said that he would follow
+him; but the soldier was not satisfied, and ordered him to alight and
+accompany him to the commandant.
+
+Ulrich struck his spurs into the Andalusian's flanks and tried to go back
+over the road by which he had come; but the horse had scarcely begun to
+gallop, when a shot was fired, that stretched it on the ground.  The
+rider was dragged into the guard-house as a prisoner, and subjected to a
+severe examination.
+
+He was suspected of having murdered Moor and of having stolen his money,
+for a purse filled with ducats was found on his person.  While he was
+being fettered, the pursuers reached Avila.
+
+A new examination began, and now trial followed trial, torture, torture.
+
+Even at Avila a sack was thrown over his head, and only opened, when to
+keep him alive, he was fed with bread and water.  Firmly bound in a two-
+wheeled cart, drawn by mules, he was dragged over stock and stones to
+Madrid.
+
+Often, in the darkness, oppressed for breath, jolted, bruised, unable to
+control his thoughts, or even his voice, he expected to perish; yet no
+fainting-fit, no moment of utter unconsciousness pityingly came to his
+relief, far less did any human heart have compassion on his suffering.
+
+At last, at last he was unbound, and led, still with his head covered,
+into a small, dark room.
+
+Here he was released from the sack, but again loaded with chains.
+
+When he was left alone and had regained the capacity to think, he felt
+convinced that he was in one of the dungeons of the Inquisition.  Here
+were the damp walls, the wooden bench, the window in the ceiling, of
+which he had heard.  He was soon to learn that he had judged correctly.
+
+His body was granted a week's rest, but during this horrible week he did
+not cease to upbraid himself as a traitor, and execrate the fate which
+had used him a second time to hurl a friend and benefactor into ruin.
+He cursed himself, and when he thought of the "word" "fortune, fortune!"
+he gnashed his teeth scornfully and clenched his fist.
+
+His young soul was darkened, embittered, thrown off its balance.  He saw
+no deliverance, no hope, no consolation.  He tried to pray, to God, to
+Jesus Christ, to the Virgin, to the Saints; but they all stood before
+him, in a vision, with lifeless features and paralyzed arms.  For him,
+who had relied on "Fortune," and behaved like a fool, they felt no pity,
+no compassion, they would not lend their aid.
+
+But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his
+soul in prayer.  He regained them during the torture, on the rack.
+
+Weeks, months elapsed.  Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded
+with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking death
+in the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm
+determination to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with
+himself.  On the rack he had regained the right to respect himself,
+and striven to win the master's praise, the approval of the living
+and his beloved dead.
+
+The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned.
+The physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in
+amazement.
+
+Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot,
+on nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the
+stifling helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through
+whom and whither the master had escaped.
+
+They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should
+surely learn nothing, nothing at all.  He was scarcely aware that he had
+a right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.
+
+Now he could think of the past again.  The Holy Virgin once more wore his
+lost mother's features; his father, Ruth, Pellicanus, Moor looked kindly
+at him.  But the brightest light shone into his soul through the darkness
+of the dungeon, when he thought of art and his last work.  It stood
+before him distinctly in brilliant hues, feature for feature, as on the
+canvas; he esteemed himself happy in having painted it, and would
+willingly have gone to the rack once, twice, thrice, if he could merely
+have obtained the certainty of creating other pictures like this, and
+perhaps still nobler, more beautiful ones.
+
+Art!  Art!  Perhaps this was the "word," and if not, it was the highest,
+most exquisite, most precious thing in life, beside which everything else
+seemed small, pitiful and insipid.  With what other word could God have
+created the world, human beings, animals, and plants?  The doctor had
+often called every flower, every beetle, a work of art, and Ulrich now
+understood his meaning, and could imagine how the Almighty, with the
+thirst for creation and plastic hand of the greatest of all artists had
+formed the gigantic bodies of the stars, had given the sky its glittering
+blue, had indented and rounded the mountains, had bestowed form and color
+on everything that runs, creeps, flies, buds and blossoms, and had
+fashioned man--created in His own image--in the most majestic form of
+all.
+
+How wonderful the works of God appeared to him in the solitude of the
+dark dungeon--and if the world was beautiful, was it not the work of His
+Divine Art!
+
+Heaven and earth knew no word greater, more powerful, more mighty in
+creating beauty than: Art.  What, compared with its gifts, were the
+miserable, delusive ones of Fortune: gay clothes, spiced dishes,
+magnificent rooms, and friendly glances from beautiful eyes, that smile
+on every one who pleases them!  He would blow them all into the air, for
+the assistance of Art in joyous creating.  Rather, a thousand times
+rather, would he beg his bread, and attain great things in Art, than riot
+and revel in good-fortune.
+
+Colors, colors, canvas, a model like Sophonisba, and success in the realm
+of Art!  It was for these things he longed, these things made him yearn
+with such passionate eagerness for deliverance, liberty.
+
+Months glided by, maturing Ulrich's mind as rapidly as if they had been
+years; but his inclination to retire within himself deepened into intense
+reserve.
+
+At last the day arrived on which, through the influence of the Marquesa
+Romero, the doors of his dungeon opened.
+
+It was soon after receiving a sharp warning to renounce his obstinacy at
+the next examination, that the youth was suddenly informed that he was
+free.  The jailer took off his fetters, and helped him exchange his
+prison garb for the dress he had worn when captured; then disguised men
+threw a sack over his head and led him up and down stairs and across
+pavements, through dust and grass, into the little court-yard of a
+deserted house in the suburbs.  There they left him, and he soon released
+his head from its covering.
+
+How delicious God's free air seemed, as his chest heaved with grateful
+joy!  He threw out his arms like a bird stretching its wings to fly, then
+he clasped his hands over his brow, and at last, as if a second time
+pursued, rushed out of the court-yard into the street.  The passers-by
+looked after him, shaking their heads, and he certainly presented a
+singular spectacle, for the dress in which he had fled many months
+before, had sustained severe injuries on the journey from Avila; his hat
+was lost on the way, and had not been replaced by a new one.  The cuffs
+and collar, which belonged to his doublet, were missing, and his thick,
+fair hair hung in dishevelled locks over his neck and temples; his full,
+rosy cheeks had grown thin, his eyes seemed to have enlarged, and during
+his imprisonment a soft down had grown on his cheeks and chin.
+
+He was now eighteen, but looked older, and the grave expression on his
+brow and in his eyes, gave him the appearance of a man.
+
+He had rushed straight forward, without asking himself whither; now he
+reached a busy street and checked his career.  Was he in Madrid?  Yes,
+for there rose the blue peaks of the Guadarrama chain, which he knew
+well.  There were the little trees at which the denizen of the Black
+Forest had often smiled, but which to-day looked large and stately.  Now
+a toreador, whom he had seen more than once in the arena, strutted past.
+This was the gate, through which he had ridden out of the city beside the
+master's calash.
+
+He must go into the town, but what should he do there?
+
+Had they restored the master's gold with the clothes?
+
+He searched the pockets, but instead of the purse, found only a few large
+silver coins, which he knew he had not possessed at the time of his
+capture.
+
+In a cook-shop behind the gate he enjoyed some meat and wine after his
+long deprivation, and after reflecting upon his situation he decided to
+call on Don Fabrizio.
+
+The porter refused him admittance, but after he had mentioned his name,
+kindly invited him into the porch, and told him that the baron and his
+wife were in the country with the Marquesa Romero.  They were expected
+back on Tuesday, and would doubtless receive him then, for they had
+already asked about him several times.  The young gentleman probably came
+from some foreign country; it was the custom to wear hats in Madrid.
+
+Ulrich now noticed what he lacked, but before leaving, to supply the
+want, asked the porter, if he knew what had become of Master Moor.
+
+Safe!  He was safe!  Several weeks before Donna Sophonisba had received a
+letter sent from Flanders, and Ulrich's companion was well informed, for
+his wife served the baroness as 'doncella'.
+
+Joyously, almost beside himself with pure, heart-cheering delight, the
+released prisoner hurried away, bought himself a new cap, and then sought
+the Alcazar.
+
+Before the treasury, in the place of old Santo, Carmen's father, stood a
+tall, broad portero, still a young man, who rudely refused him
+admittance.
+
+"Master Moor has not been here for a long time," said the gate-keeper
+angrily: "Artists don't wear ragged clothes, and if you don't wish to see
+the inside of a guard-house--a place you are doubtless familiar with--you
+had better leave at once."
+
+Ulrich answered the gate-keeper's insulting taunts indignantly and
+proudly, for he was no longer the yielding boy of former days, and the
+quarrel soon became serious.
+
+Just then a dainty little woman, neatly dressed for the evening
+promenade, with the mantilla on her curls, a pomegranate blossom in her
+hair, and another on her bosom, came out of the Alcazar.  Waving her fan,
+and tripping over the pavement like a wag-tail, she came directly towards
+the disputants.
+
+Ulrich recognized her instantly; it was Carmen, the pretty embroiderer of
+the shell-grotto in the park, now the wife of the new porter, who had
+obtained his dead predecessor's office, as well as his daughter.
+
+"Carmen!" exclaimed Ulrich, as soon as he saw the pretty little woman,
+then added confidently.  "This young lady knows me."
+
+"I?" asked the young wife, turning up her pretty little nose, and looking
+at the tall youth's shabby costume.  "Who are you?"
+
+"Master Moor's pupil, Ulrich Navarrete; don't you remember me?"
+
+"I?  You must be mistaken!"
+
+With these words she shut her fan so abruptly, that it snapped loudly,
+and tripped on.
+
+Ulrich shrugged his shoulders, then turned to the porter more
+courteously, and this time succeeded in his purpose; for the artist
+Coello's body-servant came out of the treasury, and willingly announced
+him to his master, who now, as court-artist, occupied Moor's quarters.
+
+Ulrich followed the friendly Pablo into the palace, where every step he
+mounted reminded him of his old master and former days.
+
+When he at last stood in the anteroom, and the odor of the fresh oil-
+colors, which were being ground in an adjoining room, reached his
+nostrils, he inhaled it no less eagerly than, an hour before, he had
+breathed the fresh air, of which he had been so long deprived.
+
+What reception could he expect?  The court-artist might easily shrink
+from coming in contact with the pupil of Moor, who had now lost the
+sovereign's favor.  Coello was a very different man from the Master, a
+child of the moment, varying every day.  Sometimes haughty and repellent,
+on other occasions a gay, merry companion, who had jested with his own
+children and Ulrich also, as if all were on the same footing.  If today
+....But Ulrich did not have much time for such reflections; a few minutes
+after Pablo left, the door was torn open, and the whole Coello family
+rushed joyously to meet him; Isabella first.  Sanchez followed close
+behind her, then came the artist, next his stout, clumsy wife, whom
+Ulrich had rarely seen, because she usually spent the whole day lying
+on a couch with her lap-dog.  Last of all appeared the duenna Catalina,
+a would-be sweet smile hovering around her lips.
+
+The reception given him by the others was all the more joyous and
+cordial.
+
+Isabella laid her hands on his arm, as if she wanted to feel that it was
+really he; and yet, when she looked at him more closely, she shook her
+head as if there was something strange in his appearance.  Sanchez
+embraced him, whirling him round and round, Coello shook hands, murmuring
+many kind words, and the mother turned to the duenna, exclaiming:
+
+"Holy Virgin!  what has happened to the pretty boy?  How famished he
+looks!  Go to the kitchen instantly, Catalina, and tell Diego to bring
+him food--food and drink."
+
+At last they all pulled and pushed him into the sitting-room, where the
+mother immediately threw herself on the couch again; then the others
+questioned him, making him tell them how he had fared, whence he came,
+and many other particulars.
+
+He was no longer hungry, but Senora Petra insisted upon his seating
+himself near her couch and eating a capon, while he told his story.
+
+Every face expressed sympathy, approval, pity, and at last Coello said:
+
+"Remain here, Navarrete.  The king longs for Moor, and you will be as
+safe with us, as if you were in Abraham's lap.  We have plenty for you to
+do.  You come to me as opportunely, as if you had dropped from the skies.
+I was just going to write to Venice for an assistant.  Holy Jacob!
+You can't stay so, but thanks to the Madonna and Moor, you are not poor.
+We have ample means, my young sir.  Donna Sophonisba gave me a hundred
+zechins for you; they are lying in yonder chest, and thank Heaven,
+haven't grown impatient by waiting.  They are at your disposal.  Your
+master, my master, the noble master of all portrait-painters, our beloved
+Moor arranged it.  You won't go about the streets in this way any longer.
+Look, Isabella; this sleeve is hanging by two strings, and the elbow is
+peering out of the window.  Such a dress is airy enough, certainly.  Take
+him to the tailor's at once, Sanchez, Oliverio, or.....  but no, no;
+we'll all stay together to-day.  Herrera is coming from the Escurial.
+You will endure the dress for the sake of the wearer, won't you, ladies?
+Besides, who is to choose the velvet and cut for this young dandy?
+He always wore something unusual.  I can still see the master's smile,
+provoked by some of the lad's new contrivances in puffs and slashes.  It
+is pleasant to have you here, my boy!  I ought to slay a calf, as the
+father did for the prodigal son; but we live in miniature.  Instead of
+neat-cattle, only a capon!...."
+
+"But you're not drinking, you're not drinking!  Isabella, fill his glass.
+Look! only see these scars on his hands and neck.  It will need a great
+deal of lace to conceal them.  No, no, they are marks of honor, you must
+show them.  Come here, I will kiss this great scar, on your neck, my
+brave, faithful fellow, and some day a fair one will follow my example.
+If Antonio were only here!  There's a kiss for him, and another, there,
+there.  Art bestows it, Art, for whom you have saved Moor!"
+
+A master's kiss in the name of Art!  It was sweeter than the beautiful
+Carmen's lips!
+
+Coello was himself an artist, a great painter!  Where could his peers be
+found--or those of Moor, and the architect Herrera, who entered soon
+after.  Only those, who consecrated their lives to Art, the word of
+words, could be so noble, cheerful, kind.
+
+How happy he was when he went to bed!  how gratefully he told his beloved
+dead, in spirit, what had fallen to his lot, and how joyously he could
+pray!
+
+The next morning he went with a full purse into the city, returning
+elegantly dressed, and with neatly-arranged locks.  The peinador had
+given his budding moustache a bold twist upward.
+
+He still looked thin and somewhat awkward, but the tall youth promised to
+become a stately man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Towards noon Coello called Ulrich into Moor's former studio; the youth
+could not fail to observe its altered appearance.
+
+Long cartoons, containing sketches of figures, large paintings, just
+commenced or half-finished, leaned against the easels; mannikins, movable
+wooden horse's heads, and plaster-models stood on the floor, the tables,
+and in the windows.  Stuffs, garments, tapestries, weapons hung over the
+backs of the chairs, or lay on chests, tables and the stone-floor.
+Withered laurel-wreaths, tied with long ribbons, fluttered over the
+mantel-piece; one had fallen, dropped over the bald head of Julius
+Caesar, and rested on the breast.
+
+The artist's six cats glided about among the easels, or stretched their
+limbs on costly velvet and Arabian carpets.
+
+In one corner stood a small bed with silk curtains--the nursery of the
+master's pets.  A magnificent white cat was suckling her kittens in it.
+
+Two blue and yellow cockatoos and several parrots swung screaming in
+brass hoops before the open window, and Coello's coal-black negro crept
+about, cleaning the floor of the spacious apartment, though it was
+already noon.  While engaged in this occupation, he constantly shook his
+woolly head, displaying his teeth, for his master was singing loudly at
+his work, and the gaily-clad African loved music.
+
+What a transformation bad taken place in the Netherlander's quiet,
+orderly, scrupulously neat studio!  But, even amid this confusion,
+admirable works were created; nay, the Spaniard possessed a much more
+vivid imagination, and painted pictures, containing a larger number of
+figures and far more spirited than Moor's, though they certainly were not
+pervaded by the depth and earnestness, the marvellous fidelity to nature,
+that characterized those of Ulrich's beloved master.
+
+Coello called the youth to the easel, and pointing to the sketches in
+color, containing numerous figures, on which he was painting, said:
+
+"Look here, my son.  This is to be a battle of the Centaurs, these are
+Parthian horsemen;--Saint George and the Dragon, and the Crusaders are
+not yet finished.  The king wants the Apocalyptic riders too.  Deuce take
+it!  But it must be done.  I shall commence them to-morrow.  They are
+intended for the walls and ceiling of the new winter riding-school.  One
+person gets along slowly with all this stuff, and I--I.....The orders
+oppress me.  If a man could only double, quadruple himself!  Diana of
+Ephesus had many breasts, and Cerberus three heads, but only two hands
+have grown on my wrists.  I need help, and you are just the person to
+give it.  You have had nothing to do with horses yet, Isabella tells me;
+but you are half a Centaur yourself.  Set to work on the steeds now, and
+when you have progressed far enough, you shall transfer these sketches to
+the ceiling and walls of the riding-school.  I will help you perfect the
+thing, and give it the finishing touch."
+
+This invitation aroused more perplexity than pleasure in Ulrich's mind,
+for it was not in accordance with Moor's opinions.  Fear of his fellow-
+men no longer restrained him, so he frankly said that he would rather
+sketch industriously from nature, and perhaps would do well to seek Moor
+in Flanders.  Besides, he was afraid that Coello greatly overrated his
+powers.
+
+But the Spaniard eagerly cut him short:
+
+"I have seen your portrait of Sophonisba.  You are no longer a pupil,
+but a rising artist.  Moor is a peerless portrait-painter, and you have
+profited greatly by his teaching.  But Art has still higher aims.  Every
+living thing belongs to her.  The Venus, the horse....which of those two
+pictures won Apelles the greater fame?  Not only copying, but creating
+original ideas, leads to the pinnacle of art.  Moor praised your vivid
+imagination.  We must use what we possess.  Remember Buonarotti, Raphael!
+Their compositions and frescos, have raised their names above all others.
+Antonio has tormented you sufficiently with drawing lifeless things.
+When you transfer these sketches, many times enlarged, to a broad
+surface, you will learn more than in years of copying plaster-casts.  A
+man must have talent, courage and industry; everything else comes of its
+own accord, and thank Heaven, you're a lucky fellow!  Look at my horses--
+they are not so bad, yet I never sketched a living one in my life till I
+was commissioned to paint His Majesty on horseback.  You shall have a
+better chance.  Go to the stables and the old riding-school to-morrow.
+First try noble animals, then visit the market and shambles, and see how
+the knackers look.  If you make good speed, you shall soon see the first
+ducats you yourself have earned."  The golden reward possessed little
+temptation for Ulrich, but he allowed himself to be persuaded by his
+senior, and drew and painted horses and mares with pleasure and success,
+working with Isabella and Coello's pupil, Felice de Liano, when they
+sketched and painted from living models.  When the scaffolding was
+erected in the winter riding-school, he went there under the court-
+artist's direction, to measure, arrange and finally transfer the
+painter's sketches to the wide surfaces.
+
+He did this with increasing satisfaction, for though Coello's sketches
+possessed a certain hardness, they were boldly devised and pleased him.
+
+The farther he progressed, the more passionately interested he became in
+his work.  To create on a grand scale delighted him, and the fully
+occupied life, as well as the slight fatigue after his work was done,
+which was sweetened by the joy of labor accomplished, were all beautiful,
+enjoyable things; yet Ulrich felt that this was not exactly the right
+course, that a steeper, more toilsome path must lead to the height he
+desired to attain.
+
+He lacked the sharp spurring to do better and better, the censure of a
+master, who was greatly his superior.  Praise for things, which did not
+satisfy himself, vexed him and roused his distrust.
+
+Isabella, and--after his return--Sophonisba, were his confidantes.
+
+The former had long felt what he now expressed.  Her young heart clung to
+him, but she loved in him the future great artist as much as the man.  It
+was certainly no light matter for her to be deprived of Ulrich's society,
+yet she unselfishly admitted that her father, in the vast works he had
+undertaken, could not be a teacher like Moor, and it would probably be
+best for him to seek his old master in Flanders, as soon as his task in
+the riding-school was completed.
+
+She said this, because she believed it to be her duty, though sadly and
+anxiously; but he joyously agreed with her, for Sophonisba had handed him
+a letter from the master, in which the latter cordially invited him to
+come to Antwerp.
+
+Don Fabrizio's wife summoned him to her palace, and Ulrich found her as
+kind and sympathizing as when she had been a girl, but her gay, playful
+manner had given place to a more quiet dignity.
+
+She wished to be told in detail all he had suffered for Moor, how he
+employed himself, what he intended to do in the future; and she even
+sought him more than once in the riding-school, watched him at his work,
+and examined his drawings and sketches.
+
+Once she induced him to tell her the story of his youth.
+
+This was a boon to Ulrich; for, although we keep our best treasures most
+closely concealed, yet our happiest hours are those in which, with the
+certainty of being understood, we are permitted to display them.
+
+The youth could show this noble woman, this favorite of the Master, this
+artist, what he would not have confided to any man, so he permuted her to
+behold his childhood, and gaze deep into his soul.
+
+He did not even hide what he knew about the "word"--that he believed he
+had found the right one in the dungeon, and that Art would remain his
+guiding star, as long as he lived.
+
+Sophonisba's cheeks flushed deeper and deeper, and never had he seen her
+so passionately excited, so earnest and enthusiastic, as now when she
+exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, Ulrich, yes!  You have found the right word!
+
+"It is Art, and no other.  Whoever knows it, whoever serves it, whoever
+impresses it deeply on his soul and only breathes and moves in it, no
+longer has any taint of baseness; he soars high above the earth, and
+knows nothing of misery and death.  It is with Art the Divinity bridges
+space and descends to man, to draw him up ward to brighter worlds.  This
+word transfigures everything, and brings fresh green shoots even from the
+dry wood of souls defrauded of love and hope.  Life is a thorny rose-
+bush, and Art its flower.  Here Mirth is melancholy--Joy is sorrowful
+and Liberty is dead.  Here Art withers and--like an exotic--is prevented
+perishing outright only by artificial culture.  But there is a land, I
+know it well, for it is my home--where Art buds and blossoms and throws
+its shade over all the highways.  Favorite of Antonio, knight of the
+Word--you must go to Italy!"
+
+Sophonisba had spoken.  He must go to Italy.  The home of Titian!
+Raphael!  Buonarotti!  where also the Master went to school.
+
+"Oh, Word, Word!"  he cried exultingly in his heart.  "What other can
+disclose, even on earth, such a glimpse of the joys of Paradise."
+
+When he left Sophonisba, he felt as if he were intoxicated.
+
+What still detained him in Madrid?
+
+Moor's zechins were not yet exhausted, and he was sure of the assistance
+of the "word" upon the sacred soil of Italy.
+
+He unfolded his plan to Coello without delay, at first modestly, then
+firmly and defiantly.  But the court-artist would not let him go.  He
+knew how to maintain his composure, and even admitted that Ulrich must
+travel, but said it was still too soon.  He must first finish the work he
+had undertaken in the riding-school, then he himself would smooth the way
+to Italy for him.  To leave him, so heavily burdened, in the lurch now,
+would be treating him ungratefully and basely.
+
+Ulrich was forced to acknowledge this, and continued to paint on the
+scaffold, but his pleasure in creating was spoiled.  He thought of
+nothing but Italy.
+
+Every hour in Madrid seemed lost.  His lofty purposes were unsettled, and
+he began to seek diversion for his mind, especially at the fencing-school
+with Sanchez Coello.
+
+His eye was keen, his wrist pliant, and his arm was gaining more and more
+of his father's strength, so he soon performed extraordinary feats.
+
+His remarkable skill, his reserved nature, and the natural charm of his
+manner soon awakened esteem and regard among the young Spaniards, with
+whom he associated.
+
+He was invited to the banquets given by the wealthier ones, and to join
+the wild pranks, in which they sometimes indulged, but spite of
+persuasions and entreaties, always in vain.
+
+Ulrich needed no comrades, and his zechins were sacred to him; he was
+keeping them for Italy.
+
+The others soon thought him an odd, arrogant fellow, with whom no
+friendly ties could be formed, and left him to his own resources.  He
+wandered about the streets at night alone, serenaded fair ladies, and
+compelled many gentlemen, who offended him, to meet him in single combat.
+
+No one, not even Sanchez Coello, was permitted to know of these nocturnal
+adventures; they were his chief pleasure, stirred his blood, and gave him
+the blissful consciousness of superior strength.
+
+This mode of life increased his self-confidence, and expressed itself in
+his bearing, which gained a touch of the Spanish air.  He was now fully
+grown, and when he entered his twentieth year, was taller than most
+Castilians, and carried his head as high as a grandee.
+
+Yet he was dissatisfied with himself, for he made slow progress in his
+art, and cherished the firm conviction that there was nothing more for
+him to learn in Madrid; Coello's commissions were robbing him of the most
+precious time.
+
+The work in the riding-school was at last approaching completion.  It had
+occupied far more than the year in which it was to have been finished,
+and His Majesty's impatience had become so great, that Coello was
+compelled to leave everything else, to paint only there, and put his
+improving touches to Ulrich's labor.
+
+The time for departure was drawing near.  The hanging-scaffold, on which
+he had lain for months, working on the master's pictures, had been
+removed, but there was still something to be done to the walls.
+
+Suddenly the court-artist was ordered to suspend the work, and have the
+beams, ladders and boards, which narrowed the space in the picadero,--
+[Riding School]--removed.
+
+The large enclosure was wanted during the next few days for a special
+purpose, and there were new things for Coello to do.
+
+Don Juan of Austria, the king's chivalrous half-brother, had commenced
+his heroic career, and vanquished the rebellious Moors in Granada.  A
+magnificent reception was to be prepared for the young conqueror, and
+Coello received the commission to adorn a triumphal arch with hastily-
+sketched, effective pictures.
+
+The designs were speedily completed, and the triumphal arch erected in
+a court-yard of the Alcazar, for here, within the narrow circle of the
+court, not publicly, before the whole population, had the suspicious
+monarch resolved to receive and honor the victor.
+
+Ulrich had again assisted Coello in the execution of his sketches.
+Everything was finished at the right time, and Don Juan's reception
+brilliantly carried out with great pomp and dignity, through the whole
+programme of a Te Deum and three services, processions, bull-fights, a
+grand 'Auto-da-fe', and a tournament.
+
+After this festival, the king again resigned the riding-school to the
+artists, who instantly set to work.  Everything was finished except the
+small figures at the bottom of the larger pictures, and these could be
+executed without scaffolding.
+
+Ulrich was again standing on the ladder, for the first time after this
+interruption, and Coello had just followed him into the picadero, when a
+great bustle was heard outside.
+
+The broad doors flew open, and the manege was soon filled with knights
+and ladies on foot and horseback.
+
+The most brilliant figures in all the stately throng were Don Juan
+himself, and his youthful nephew, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma.
+
+Ulrich feasted his eyes on the splendid train, and the majestic, haughty,
+yet vivacious manner of the conqueror.
+
+Never in his life, he thought, had he seen a more superb youthful figure.
+Don Juan stopped directly opposite to him, and bared his head.  The
+thick, fair hair brushed back behind his ears, hung in wonderfully soft,
+waving locks down to his neck, and his features blended feminine grace
+with manly vigor.
+
+As, hat in hand, he swung himself from the saddle, unassisted, to greet
+the fair duchess of Medina Celi, there was such a charm in his movements,
+that the young artist felt inclined to believe all the tales related of
+the successful love affairs of this favorite of fortune, who was the son
+of the Emperor Charles, by a German washerwoman.
+
+Don Juan graciously requested his companion to retire to the back of the
+manege, assisted the ladies from their saddles and, offering his hand to
+the duchess, led her to the dais, then returning to the ring, he issued
+some orders to the mounted officers in his train, and stood conversing
+with the ladies, Alexander Farnese, and the grandees near him.
+
+Loud shouts and the tramp of horses hoofs were now heard outside of the
+picadero, and directly after nine bare-backed horses were led into the
+ring, all selected animals of the best blood of the Andalusian breed,
+the pearls of all the horses Don Juan had captured.
+
+Exclamations and cries of delight echoed through the building, growing
+louder and warmer, when the tenth and last prize, a coal-black young
+stallion, dragged the sinewy Moors that led him, into the ring, and
+rearing lifted them into the air with him.
+
+The brown-skinned young fellows resisted bravely; but Don Juan turning to
+Alexander Farnese, said: "What a superb animal!  but alas, alas, he has a
+devilish temper, so we have called him Satan.  He will bear neither
+saddle nor rider.  How dare I venture....there he rears again....It is
+quite impossible to offer him to His Majesty.  Just look at those eyes,
+those crimson nostrils.  A perfect monster!"
+
+"But there cannot be a more beautiful creature! "cried the prince,
+warmly.  "That shining black coat, the small head, the neck, the croup,
+the carriage of his tail, the fetlocks and hoofs.  Oh, oh, that was
+serious!"  The vicious stallion had reared for the third time, pawing
+wildly with his fore-legs, and in so doing struck one of the Moors.
+Shrieking and wailing, the latter fell on the ground, and directly after
+the animal released itself from the second groom, and now dashed freely,
+with mighty leaps, around the course, rushing hither and thither as if
+mad, kicking furiously, and hurling sand and dust into the faces of the
+ladies on the dais.  The latter shrieked loudly, and their screams
+increased the animal's furious excitement.  Several gentlemen drew back,
+and the master of the horse loudly ordered the other barebacked steeds to
+be led away.
+
+Don Juan and Alexander Farnese stood still; but the former drew his
+sword, exclaiming, vehemently:
+
+"Santiago!  I'll kill the brute!"
+
+He was not satisfied with words, but instantly rushed upon the stallion;
+the latter avoiding him, bounded now backward, now sideways, at every
+fresh leap throwing sand upon the dais.
+
+Ulrich could remain on the ladder no longer.
+
+Fully aware of his power over refractory horses, he boldly entered the
+ring and walked quietly towards the snorting, foaming steed.  Driving the
+animal back, and following him, he watched his opportunity, and as Satan
+turned, reached his side and boldly seized his nostrils firmly with his
+hand.
+
+Satan plunged more and more furiously, but the smith's son held him as
+firmly as if in a vise, breathed into his nostrils, and stroked his head
+and muzzle, whispering soothing words.
+
+The animal gradually became quieter, tried once more to release himself
+from his tamer's iron hand, and when he again failed, began to tremble
+and meekly stood still with his fore legs stretched far apart.
+
+"Bravo!  Bravamente!"  cried the duchess, and praise from such lips
+intoxicated Ulrich.  The impulse to make a display, inherited from his
+mother, urged him to take still greater risks.  Carefully winding his
+left hand in the stallion's mane, he released his nostrils and swung
+himself on his back.  Taken by surprise Satan tried to rid himself of his
+burden, but the rider sat firm, leaned far over the steed's neck,
+stroked--his head again, pressed his flanks and, after the lapse of a few
+minutes, guided him merely by the pressure of his thighs first at a walk,
+then at a trot over the track.  At last springing off, he patted Satan,
+who pranced peacefully beside him, and led him by the bridle to Don Juan.
+
+The latter measured the tall, brave fellow with a hasty glance, and
+turning, half to him, half to Alexander Farnese, said:
+
+"An enviable trick, and admirable performance, by my love!"
+
+Then he approached the stallion, stroked and patted his shining neck, and
+continued:
+
+"I thank you, young man.  You have saved my best horse.  But for you I
+should have stabbed him.  You are an artist?"
+
+"At your service, Your Highness."
+
+"Your art is beautiful, and you alone know how it suits you.  But much
+honor, perhaps also wealth and fame, can be gained among my troopers.
+Will you enlist?"
+
+"No, Your Highness," replied Ulrich, with a low bow.  "If I were not an
+artist, I should like best to be a soldier; but I cannot give up my art."
+
+"Right, right!  Yet....do you think your cure of Satan will be lasting;
+or will the dance begin again to-morrow?"
+
+"Perhaps so; but grant me a week, Your Highness, and the swarthy fellows
+can easily manage him.  An hour's training like this every morning, and
+the work will be accomplished.  Satan will scarcely be transformed into
+an angel, but probably will become a perfectly steady horse."
+
+"If you succeed," replied Don Juan, joyously, "you will greatly oblige
+me.  Come to me next week.  If you bring good tidings....  consider
+meantime, how I can serve you."
+
+Ulrich did not need to consider long.  A week would pass swiftly, and
+then--then the king's brother should send him to Italy.  Even his enemies
+knew that he was liberal and magnanimous.
+
+The week passed away, the horse was tamed and bore the saddle quietly.
+Don Juan received Ulrich's petition kindly, and invited him to make the
+journey on the admiral's galley, with the king's ambassador and his
+secretary, de Soto.
+
+The very same day the happy artist obtained a bill of exchange on a house
+on the Rialto, and now it was settled, he was going to Italy.
+
+Coello was obliged to submit, and his kind heart again showed itself; for
+he wrote letters of introduction for Ulrich to his old artist friends in
+Venice, and induced the king to send the great Titian a present--which
+the ambassador was to deliver.  The court-artist obtained from the latter
+a promise to present his pupil Navarrete to the grey-Haired prince of
+artists.
+
+Everything was now ready for departure; Ulrich again packed his
+belongings in the studio, but with very different feelings from the first
+time.
+
+He was a man, he now knew what the right "word" was, life lay open before
+him, and the paradise of Art was about to unclose its gates.
+
+The studies he had finished in Madrid aroused his compassion; in Italy he
+would first really begin to become an artist: there work must bring him
+what it had here denied: satisfaction, success!  Gay as a boy, half
+frantic with joy, happiness and expectation, he crushed the sketches,
+which seemed to him too miserable, into the waste-paper basket with a
+maul-stick.
+
+During this work of destruction, Isabella entered the room.
+
+She was now sixteen.  Her figure had developed early, but remained
+petite.  Large, deep, earnest eyes looked forth from the little round
+face, and the fresh, tiny mouth could not help pleasing everyone.  Her
+head now reached only to Ulrich's breast, and if he had always treated
+her like a dear, sensible, clever child, her small stature had certainly
+been somewhat to blame for it.  To-day she was paler than usual and her
+features were so grave, that the young man asked her in surprise, yet
+full of sympathy:
+
+"What is  the matter, little  one?  Are you not well?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she answered, quickly, "only I must talk with you once more
+alone."
+
+"Do you wish to hear my confession, Belita?"
+
+"Cease jesting now.  I am no longer a child.  My heart aches, and I must
+not conceal the cause."
+
+"Speak, speak!  How you look!  One might really be alarmed."
+
+"If I only can!  No one here tells you the truth; but I--I love you;
+so  I will do it, ere it is too late.  Don't interrupt me now, or I shall
+lose courage, and I will, I must speak."
+
+"My studies lately have not pleased you; nor me either.  Your father...."
+
+"He has led you in false paths, and now you are going to Italy, and when
+you see what the greatest artists have created, you will wish to imitate
+them immediately and forget Meister Moor's lessons.  I know you, Ulrich,
+I know it!  But I also know something else, and it must now be said
+frankly.  If you allow yourself to be led on to paint pictures, if you do
+not submit to again become a modest pupil, and honestly torment yourself
+with studying, you will make no progress, you will never again accomplish
+a portrait like the one in the old days, like your Sophonisba.  You will
+then be no great artist and you can, you must become one."
+
+"I will, Belita, I will!"
+
+"Well, well; but first be a pupil!  If I were in your place, I would, for
+aught I care, go to Venice and look about me, but from there I would ride
+to Flanders, to Moor, to the master."
+
+"Give up Italy?  Can you be in earnest?  Your father, himself, told me,
+that I.....well, yes....in portrait-painting, he too thinks I am no
+blunderer.  Where do the Netherlanders go to learn anything new?  To
+Italy, always to Italy!  What do they create in Flanders?  Portraits,
+portraits, nothing more.  Moor is great, very great in this department,
+but I take a very different view of art; it has higher aims.  My head is
+full of plans.  Wait, only wait!  In Italy I shall learn to fly, and when
+I have finished my Holy Family and my Temple of Art, with all the skill
+I intend to attain...."
+
+"Then, then, what will happen then?"
+
+"Then you will perhaps change your opinion and cease your tutoring, once
+for all.  This fault-finding, this warning vexes me.  It spoils my
+pleasure, it clouds my fancy.  You are poisoning my happiness, you--
+you....the croaker's voice is disagreeable to me."
+
+Isabella sadly bent her head in silence.  Ulrich approached her, saying:
+
+"I do not wish to wound you, Belita; indeed, I do not.  You mean well,
+and you love me, a poor forsaken fellow; do you not, little girl?"
+
+"Yes, Ulrich, and that is just why I have told you what I think.  You are
+rejoicing now in the thought of Italy...."
+
+"Very, very much, unspeakably!  There, too, I will remember you, and what
+a dear, faithful, wise little creature you are.  Let us part in
+friendship, Isabella.  Come with me; that would be the best way!"
+
+The young girl flushed deeply, and made no answer except: "How gladly I
+would!"
+
+The words sounded so affectionate and came so tenderly from the inmost
+depths of the heart, that they entered his soul.  And while she spoke,
+her eyes gazed so faithfully, lovingly, and yearningly into his, that he
+saw nothing else.  He read in them love, true, self-sacrificing love; not
+like pretty Carmen's or that given by the ladies, who had thrown flowers
+to him from their balconies.  His heart swelled, and when he saw how the
+flush on Isabella's dear face deepened under his answering glance,
+unspeakable gratitude and joy seized upon him, and he could not help
+clasping her in his arms and drawing her into his embrace.
+
+She permitted it, and when she looked up at him and her soft scarlet
+lips, from which gleamed two rows of dazzling white teeth, bloomed
+temptingly near him, he bent his, he knew not how, towards them.  They
+kissed each other again and again, and Isabella flung her little hands
+around his neck, for she could not reach him with her arms, and said she
+had always loved him; he assured her in an agitated voice that he
+believed it, and that there was no better, sweeter, brighter creature on
+earth than she; only he forgot to say that he loved her.  She gave, he
+received, and it seemed to him natural.
+
+She saw and felt nothing except him and her happiness; he was wholly
+absorbed by the bliss of being loved and the sweetness of her kiss; so
+neither noticed that Coello had opened the door and watched them for a
+minute, with mingled wrath and pleasure, irresolutely shaking his head.
+
+When the court-artist's deep voice exclaimed loudly:
+
+"Why, why, these are strange doings!"  they hastily started back.
+
+Startled, sobered, confused, Ulrich sought for words, and at last
+stammered:
+
+"We have, we wanted....the farewell....  Coello found no time to
+interrupt him, for his daughter had thrown herself on his breast,
+exclaiming amid tears:
+
+"Forgive us, father-forgive us; he loves me, and I, I love him so dearly,
+and now that we belong to each other, I am no longer anxious about him,
+he will not rest, and when he returns...."
+
+"Enough, enough!"  interrupted Coello, pressing his hand upon her mouth.
+"That is why a duenna is kept for the child; and this is my sensible
+Belita!  It is of no importance, that yonder youth has nothing, I myself
+courted your mother with only three reales in my pocket, but he cannot
+yet do any really good work, and that alters the case.  It is not my way
+to dun debtors, I have been in debt too often myself for that; but you,
+Navarrete, have received many favors from me, when you were badly off,
+and if you are not a scamp, leave the girl in peace and do not see her
+again before your departure.  When you have studied in Italy and become a
+real artist, the rest will take care of itself.  You are already a
+handsome, well-formed fellow, and my race will not degenerate in you.
+There are very different women in Italy, from this dear little creature
+here.  Shut your eyes, and beware of breaking her heart.  Your promise!
+Your hand upon it!  In a year and a half from to-day come here again,
+show what you can do, and stand the test.  If you have become what I
+hope, I'll give her to you; if not, you can quietly go your way.  You
+will make no objection to this, you silly little, love-sick thing.
+Go to your room now, Belita, and you, Navarrete, come with me."
+
+Ulrich followed the artist to his chamber, where the latter opened a
+chest, in which lay the gold he had earned.  He did not know himself,
+how much it was, for it was neither counted, nor entered in books.
+Grasping the ducats, he gave Ulrich two handfuls, exclaiming:
+
+"This one is for your work here, the other to relieve you from any care
+concerning means of living, while pursuing your studies in Venice and
+Florence.  Don't make the child wretched, my lad; if you do, you will be
+a contemptible, dishonorable rascal, a scoundrel, a....  but you don't
+look like a rogue!"
+
+There was a great deal of bustle in Coello's house that evening.  The
+artist's indolent wife was unusually animated.  She could not control her
+surprise and wrath.  Isabella had been from childhood a great favorite of
+Herrera, the first architect in Spain, who had already expressed his love
+for the young girl, and now this vagabond pauper, this immature boy, had
+come to destroy the prosperity of her child's life.
+
+She upbraided Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and
+called him a thoughtless booby.  Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal
+out of the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her
+poor, dazzled, innocent daughter's husband.  During the ensuing weeks,
+Senora Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; but
+the painter persisted in his resolution to give Isabella to Ulrich, if in
+a year and a half he returned from Italy a skilful artist.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Among fools one must be a fool
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 4.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The admiral's ship, which bore King Philip's ambassador to Venice,
+reached its destination safely, though it had encountered many severe
+storms on the voyage, during which Ulrich was the only passenger, who
+amid the rolling and pitching of the vessel, remained as well as an old
+sailor.
+
+But, on the other hand his peace of mind was greatly impaired, and any
+one who had watched him leaning over the ship's bulwark, gazing into the
+sea, or pacing up and down with restless bearing and gloomy eyes, would
+scarcely have suspected that this reserved, irritable youth, who was only
+too often under the dominion of melancholy moods, had won only a short
+time before a noble human heart, and was on the way to the realization of
+his boldest dreams, the fulfilment of his most ardent wishes.
+
+How differently he had hoped to enter "the Paradise of Art!"
+
+Never had he been so free, so vigorous, so rich, as in the dawn of the
+day, at whose close he was to unite Isabella's life with his own--and
+now--now!
+
+He had expected to wander through Italy from place to place as
+untrammelled, gay, and free as the birds in the air; he had desired to
+see, admire, en joy, and after becoming familiar with all the great
+artists, choose a new master among them.  Sophonisba's home was to have
+become his, and it had never entered his mind to limit the period of his
+enjoyment and study on the sacred soil.
+
+How differently his life must now be ordered!  Until he went on board of
+the ship in Valencia, the thought of calling a girl so good, sensible and
+loving as Isabella his own, rejoiced and inspired him, but during the
+solitary hours a sea-voyage so lavishly bestows, a strange transformation
+in his feelings occurred.
+
+The wider became the watery expanse between him and Spain, the farther
+receded Isabella's memory, the less alluring and delightful grew the
+thought of possessing her hand.
+
+He now told himself that, before the fatal hour, he had rejoiced at the
+anticipation of escaping her pedantic criticism, and when he looked
+forward to the future and saw himself, handsome Ulrich Navarrete, whose
+superior height filled the smaller Castilians with envy, walking through
+the streets with his tiny wife, and perceived the smiles of the people
+they met, he was seized with fierce indignation against himself and his
+hard fate.
+
+He felt fettered like the galley-slaves, whose chains rattled and
+clanked, as they pulled at the oars in the ship's waist.  At other times
+he could not help recalling her large, beautiful, love-beaming eyes, her
+soft, red lips, and yearningly confess that it would have been sweet to
+hold her in his arms and kiss her, and, since he had forever lost his
+Ruth, he could find no more faithful, sensible, tender wife than she.
+
+But what should he, the student, the wandering disciple of Art, do with a
+bride, a wife?  The best and fairest of her sex would now have seemed to
+him an impediment, a wearisome clog.  The thought of being obliged to
+accomplish some fixed task within a certain time, and then be subjected
+to an examination, curbed his enjoyment, oppressed, angered him.
+
+Grey mists gathered more and more densely over the sunny land, for which
+he had longed with such passionate ardor, and it seemed as if in that
+luckless hour, he had been faithless to the "word,"--had deprived himself
+of its assistance forever.
+
+He often felt tempted to send Coello his ducats and tell him he had been
+hasty, and cherished no desire to wed his daughter; but perhaps that
+would break the heart of the poor, dear little thing, who loved him so
+tenderly!  He would be no dishonorable ingrate, but bear the consequences
+of his own recklessness.
+
+Perhaps some miracle would happen in Italy, Art's own domain.  Perhaps
+the sublime goddess would again take him to her heart, and exert on him
+also the power Sophonisba had so fervently praised.
+
+The ambassador and his secretary, de Soto, thought Ulrich an unsocial
+dreamer; but nevertheless, after they reached Venice, the latter invited
+him to share his lodgings, for Don Juan had requested him to interest
+himself in the young artist.
+
+What could be the matter with the handsome fellow?  The secretary tried
+to question him, but Ulrich did not betray what troubled him, only
+alluding in general terms to a great anxiety that burdened his mind.
+
+"But the time is now coming when the poorest of the poor, the most
+miserable of all forsaken mortals, cast aside their griefs!" cried de
+Soto.  "Day after to morrow the joyous Carnival season will begin!  Hold
+up your head, young man!  Cast your sorrows into the Grand Canal, and
+until Ash-Wednesday, imagine that heaven has fallen upon earth!"
+
+Oh! blue sea, that washes the lagunes, oh!  mast-thronged Lido, oh!
+palace of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward gazing,
+mind, oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold and
+paintings, oh!  ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble
+palaces, for which the still surface of the placid water serves as a
+mirror, thou square of St. Mark, where, clad in velvet, silk and gold,
+the richest and freest of all races display their magnificence, with just
+pride!  Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet of
+stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another,
+inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures
+by peaceful voyages and with shining blades.  Oh! thou Rialto, where gold
+is stored, as wheat and rye are elsewhere;--ye proud nobles, ye fair
+dames with luxuriant tresses, whose raven hue pleases ye not, and which
+ye dye as bright golden as the glittering zechins ye squander with such
+small, yet lavish hands!  Oh!  Venice, Queen of the sea, mother of
+riches, throne of power, hall of fame, temple of art, who could escape
+thy spell!
+
+What wanton Spring is to the earth, thy carnival season is to thee!  It
+transforms the magnificence of color of the lagune-city into a dazzling
+radiance, the smiles to Olympic laughter, the love-whispers to exultant
+songs, the noisy, busy life of the mighty commercial city into a mad
+whirlpool, which draws everything into its circle, and releases nothing
+it has once seized.
+
+De Soto urged and pushed the youth, who had already lost his mental
+equipoise, into the midst of the gulf, ere he had found the right
+current.
+
+On the barges, amid the throngs in the streets, at banquets, in ball-
+rooms, at the gaming-table, everywhere, the young, golden-haired,
+superbly-dressed artist, who was on intimate terms with the Spanish
+king's ambassador, attracted the attention of men, and the eyes,
+curiosity and admiration of the women; though people as yet knew not
+whence he came.
+
+He chose the tallest and most stately of the slender dames of Venice
+to lead in the dance, or through the throng of masks and citizens
+intoxicated with the mirth of the carnival.  Whithersoever he led the
+fairest followed.
+
+He wished to enjoy the respite before execution.  To forget--to forget--
+to indemnify himself for future seasons of sacrifice, dulness, self-
+conquest, torment.
+
+Poor little Isabella!  Your lover sought to enjoy the sensation of
+showing himself to the crowd with the stateliest woman in the company on
+his arm!  And you, Ulrich, how did you feel when people exclaimed behind
+you: "A splendid pair!  Look at that couple!"
+
+Amid this ecstasy, he needed no helping word, neither "fortune" nor "art;
+"without any magic spell he flew from pleasure to pleasure, through every
+changing scene, thinking only of the present and asking no questions
+about the future.
+
+Like one possessed he plunged into passion's wild whirl.  From the
+embrace of beautiful arms he rushed to the gaming-table, where the ducats
+he flung down soon became a pile of gold; the zechins filled his purse to
+overflowing.
+
+The quickly-won treasure melted like snow in the sun, and returned again
+like stray doves to their open cote.
+
+The works of art were only enjoyed with drunken eyes--yet, once more the
+gracious word exerted its wondrous power on the misguided youth.
+
+On Shrove-Tuesday, the ambassador took Ulrich to the great Titian.
+
+He stood face to face with the mighty monarch of colors, listened to
+gracious words from his lips, and saw the nonogenarian, whose tall figure
+was scarcely bowed, receive the king's gifts.
+
+Never, never, to the close of his existence could he forget that face!
+
+The features were as delicately and as clearly outlined, as if cut with
+an engraver's chisel from hard metal; but pallid, bloodless, untinged by
+the faintest trace of color.  The long, silver-white beard of the tall
+venerable painter flowed in thick waves over his breast, and the eyes,
+with which he scanned Ulrich, were those of a vigorous, keen-sighted man.
+His voice did not sound harsh, but sad and melancholy; deep sorrow
+shadowed his glance, and stamped itself upon the mouth of him, whose
+thin, aged hand still ensnared the senses easily and surely with gay
+symphonies of color!
+
+The youth answered the distinguished Master's questions with trembling
+lips, and when Titian invited him to share his meal, and Ulrich, seated
+at the lower end of the table in the brilliant banqueting-hall, was told
+by his neighbors with what great men he was permitted to eat, he felt so
+timid, small, and insignificant, that he scarcely ventured to touch the
+goblets and delicious viands the servants offered.
+
+He looked and listened; distinguishing his old master's name, and hearing
+him praised without stint as a portrait-painter.  He was questioned about
+him, and gave confused answers.
+
+Then the guests rose.
+
+The February sun was shining into the lofty window, where Titian seated
+himself to talk more gaily than before with Paolo Cagliari, Veronese, and
+other great artists and nobles.
+
+Again Ulrich heard Moor mentioned.  Then the old man, from whom the youth
+had not averted his eyes for an instant, beckoned, and Cagliari called
+him, saying that he, the gallant Antonio Moor's pupil, must now show what
+he could do; the Master, Titian, would give him a task.
+
+A shudder ran through his frame; cold drops of perspiration, extorted by
+fear, stood on his brow.
+
+The old man now invited him to accompany his nephew to the studio.
+Daylight would last an hour longer.  He might paint a Jew; no usurer nor
+dealer in clothes, but one of the noble race of prophets, disciples,
+apostles.
+
+Ulrich stood before the easel.
+
+For the first time after a long period he again called upon the "word,"
+and did so fervently, with all his heart.  His beloved dead, who in the
+tumult of carnival mirth had vanished from his memory, again rose before
+his mind, among them the doctor, who gazed rebukingly at him with his
+clear, thoughtful eyes.
+
+Like an inspiration a thought darted through the youth's brain.  He could
+and would paint Costa, his friend and teacher, Ruth's father.
+
+The portrait he had drawn when a boy appeared before his memory, feature
+for feature.  A red pencil lay close at hand.
+
+Sketching the outlines with a few hasty strokes, he seized the brush, and
+while hurriedly guiding it and mixing the colors, he saw in fancy Costa
+standing before him, asking him to paint his portrait.
+
+Ulrich had never forgotten the mild expression of the eyes, the smile
+hovering about the delicate lips, and now delineated them as well as he
+could.  The moments slipped by, and the portrait gained roundness and
+life.  The youth stepped back to see what it still needed, and once more
+called upon the "word" from the inmost depths of his heart; at the same
+instant the door opened, and leaning on a younger painter, Titian, with
+several other artists, entered the studio.
+
+He looked at the picture, then at Ulrich, and said with an approving
+smile: "See, see!  Not too much of the Jew, and a perfect apostle!  A
+Paul, or with longer hair and a little more youthful aspect, an admirable
+St. John.  Well done, well done! my son!"
+
+Well done, well done!  These words from Titian had ennobled his work;
+they echoed loudly in his soul, and the measure of his bliss threatened
+to overflow, when no less a personage than the famous Paolo Veronese,
+invited him to come to his studio as a pupil on Saturday.
+
+Enraptured, animated by fresh hope, he threw himself into his gondola.
+
+Everyone had left the palace, where he lodged with de Soto.  Who would
+remain at home on the evening of Shrove-Tuesday?
+
+The lonely rooms grew too confined for him.
+
+Quiet days would begin early the next morning, and on Saturday a new,
+fruitful life in the service of the only true word, Art, divine Art,
+would commence for him.  He would enjoy this one more evening of pleasure,
+this night of joy; drain it to the dregs.  He fancied he had won a
+right that day to taste every bliss earth could give.
+
+Torches, pitch-pans and lamps made the square of St. Mark's as bright as
+day, and the maskers crowded upon its smooth pavement as if it were the
+floor of an immense ball-room.
+
+Intoxicating music, loud laughter, low, tender whispers, sweet odors from
+the floating tresses of fair women bewildered Ulrich's senses, already
+confused by success and joy.  He boldly accosted every one, and if he
+suspected that a fair face was concealed under a mask, drew nearer,
+touched the strings of a lute, that hung by a purple ribbon round his
+neck, and in the notes of a tender song besought love.
+
+Many a wave of the fan rewarded, many an angry glance from men's dark
+eyes rebuked the bold wooer.  A magnificent woman of queenly height now
+passed, leaning on the arm of a richly-dressed cavalier.
+
+Was not that the fair Claudia, who a short time before had lost enormous
+sums at the gaming-table in the name of the rich Grimani, and who had
+invited Ulrich to visit her later, during Lent?
+
+It was, he could not be mistaken, and now followed the pair like a
+shadow, growing bolder and bolder the more angrily the cavalier rebuffed
+him with wrathful glances and harsh words; for the lady did not cease to
+signify that she recognized him and enjoyed his playing.  But the
+nobleman was not disposed to endure this offensive sport.  Pausing in the
+middle of the square, he released his arm with a contemptuous gesture,
+saying: "The lute-player, or I, my fair one; you can decide----"
+
+The Venetian laughed loudly, laid her hand on Ulrich's arm and said: "The
+rest of the Shrove-Tuesday night shall be yours, my merry singer."
+
+Ulrich joined in her gayety, and taking the lute from his neck, offered
+it to the cavalier, with a defiant gesture, exclaiming:
+
+"It's at your disposal, Mask; we have changed parts.  But please hold it
+firmer than you held your lady."  High play went on in the gaming hall;
+Claudia was lucky with the artist's gold.
+
+At midnight the banker laid down the cards.  It was Ash-Wednesday, the
+hall must be cleared; the quiet Lenten season had begun.
+
+The players withdrew into the adjoining rooms, among them the much-envied
+couple.
+
+Claudia threw herself upon a couch; Ulrich left her to procure a gondola.
+
+As soon as he was gone, she was surrounded by a motley throng of suitors.
+
+How the beautiful woman's dark eyes sparkled, how the gems on her full
+neck and dazzling arms glittered, how readily she uttered a witty
+repartee to each gay sally.
+
+"Claudia unaccompanied!" cried a young noble.  "The strangest sight at
+this remarkable carnival!"
+
+"I am fasting," she answered gaily; "and now that I long for meagre food,
+you come!  What a lucky chance!"
+
+"Heavy Grimani has also become a very light man, with your assistance."
+
+"That's why he flew away.  Suppose you follow him?"
+
+"Gladly, gladly, if you will accompany me."
+
+"Excuse me to-day; there comes my knight."
+
+Ulrich had remained absent a long time, but Claudia had not noticed it.
+Now he bowed to the gentlemen, offered her his arm, and as they descended
+the staircase, whispered: "The mask who escorted you just now detained
+me;--and there....see, they are picking him up down there in the court-
+yard.--He attacked me...."
+
+"You have--you...."
+
+"'They came to his assistance immediately.  He barred my way with his
+unsheathed blade."
+
+Claudia hastily drew her hand from the artist's arm, exclaiming in a low,
+anxious tone: "Go, go, unhappy man, whoever you may be!  It was Luigi
+Grimani; it was a Grimani!  You are lost, if they find you.  Go, if you
+love your life, go at once!"
+
+So ended the Shrove-Tuesday, which had begun so gloriously for the young
+artist.  Titian's "well done" no longer sounded cheerfully in his ears,
+the "go, go," of the venal woman echoed all the more loudly.
+
+De Soto was waiting for him, to repeat to him the high praise he had
+heard bestowed upon his art-test at Titian's; but Ulrich heard nothing,
+for he gave the secretary no time to speak, and the latter could only
+echo the beautiful Claudia's "go, go!"  and then smooth the way for his
+flight.
+
+When the morning of Ash-Wednesday dawned cool and misty, Venice lay
+behind the young artist.  Unpursued, but without finding rest or
+satisfaction, he went to Parma, Bologna, Pisa, Florence.
+
+Grimani's death burdened his conscience but lightly.  Duelling was a
+battle in miniature, to kill one's foe no crime, but a victory.  Far
+different anxieties tortured him.
+
+Venice, whither the "word" had led him, from which he had hoped and
+expected everything, was lost to him, and with it Titian's favor and
+Cagliari's instruction.
+
+He began to doubt himself, his future, the sublime word and its magic
+spell.  The greater the works which the traveller's eyes beheld, the more
+insignificant he felt, the more pitiful his own powers, his own skill
+appeared.
+
+"Draw, draw!"  advised every master to whom he applied, as soon as he had
+seen his work.  The great men, to whom he offered himself as a pupil,
+required years of persevering study.  But his time was limited, for the
+misguided youth's faithful German heart held firmly to one resolve; he
+must present himself to Coello at the end of the appointed time.  The
+happiness of his life was forfeited, but no one should obtain the right
+to call him faithless to his word, or a scoundrel.
+
+In Florence he heard Sebastiano Filippi--who had been a pupil of Michael
+Angelo-praised as a good drawer; so he sought him in Ferrara and found
+him ready to teach him what he still lacked.  But the works of the new
+master did not please him.  The youth, accustomed to Moor's wonderful
+clearness, Titian's brilliant hues, found Filippi's pictures indistinct,
+as if veiled by grey mists.  Yet he forced himself to remain with him for
+months, for he was really remarkably skilful in drawing, and his studio
+never lacked nude models; he needed them for the preliminary studies for
+his "Day of Judgment."
+
+Without satisfaction, without pleasure in the wearisome work, without
+love for the sickly master, who held aloof from any social intercourse
+with him when the hours of labor were over, he felt discontented, bored,
+disenchanted.
+
+In the evening he sought diversion at the gaming-table, and fortune
+favored him here as it had done in Venice.  His purse overflowed with
+zechins; but with the red gold, Art withdrew from him her powerful ally,
+necessity, the pressing need of gaining a livelihood by the exertion of
+his own strength.
+
+He spent the hours appointed for study like a careless lover, and worked
+without inclination, without pleasure, without ardor, yet with visible
+increase of skill.
+
+In gambling he forgot what tortured him, it stirred his blood, dispelled
+weariness; the gold was nothing to him.
+
+The lion's share of his gains he loaned to broken gamblers, without
+expectation of return, gave to starving artists, or flung with lavish
+hand to beggars.
+
+So the months in Ferrara glided by, and when the allotted time was over,
+he took leave of Sebastiano Filippi without regret.  He returned by sea
+to Spain, and arrived in Madrid richer than he had gone away, but with
+impoverished confidence in his own powers, and doubting the omnipotence
+of Art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Ulrich again stood before the Alcazar, and recalled the hour when, a poor
+lad, just escaped from prison, he had been harshly rebuffed by the same
+porter, who now humbly saluted the young gentleman attired in costly
+velvet.
+
+And yet how gladly he would have crossed this threshold poor as in those
+days, but free and with a soul full of enthusiasm and hope; how joyfully
+he would have effaced from his life the years that lay between that time
+and the present.
+
+He dreaded meeting the Coellos; nothing but honor urged him to present
+himself to them.
+
+Yes--and if the old man rejected him?--so much the better!
+
+The old cheerful confusion reigned in the studio.  He had a long time to
+wait there, and then heard through several doors Senora Petra's scolding
+voice and her husband's angry replies.
+
+At last Coello came to him and after greeting him, first formally, then
+cordially, and enquiring about his health and experiences, he shrugged
+his shoulders, saying:
+
+"My wife does not wish you to see Isabella again before the trial.  You
+must show what you can do, of course; but I.....  you look well and
+apparently have collected reales.  Or is it true," and he moved his hand
+as if shaking a dice-box.  "He who wins is a good fellow, but we want no
+more to do with such people here!  You find me the same as of old, and
+you have returned at the right time, that is something.  De Soto has told
+me about your quarrel in Venice.  The great masters were pleased with you
+and this, you Hotspur, you forfeited!  Ferrara for Venice!  A poor
+exchange.  Filippi--understands drawing; but otherwise....  Michael
+Angelo's pupil!  Does he still write on his back?  Every monk is God's
+servant, but in how few does the Lord dwell!  What have you drawn with
+Sebastiano?"
+
+Ulrich answered these questions in a subdued tone; and Coello listened
+with only partial attention, for he heard his wife telling the duenna
+Catalina in an adjoining room what she thought of her husband's conduct.
+She did so very loudly, for she wished to be overheard by him and Ulrich.
+But she was not to obtain her purpose, for Coello suddenly interrupted
+the returned travellers story, saying:
+
+"This is getting beyond endurance.  If she does her utmost, you shall see
+Isabella.  A welcome, a grasp of the hand, nothing more.  Poor young
+lovers!  If only it did not require such a confounded number of things to
+live....Well, we will see!"
+
+As soon as the artist had entered the adjoining room, a new and more
+violent quarrel arose there, but, though Senora Petra finally called a
+fainting-fit to her aid, her husband remained firm, and at last returned
+to the studio with Isabella.
+
+Ulrich had awaited her, as a criminal expects his sentence.  Now she
+stood before him led by her father's hand-and he, he struck his forehead
+with his fist, closed his eyes and opened them again to look at her--to
+gaze as if he beheld a wondrous apparition.  Then feeling as if he should
+die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew
+not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save
+I....I--I," then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a madman:
+
+"You don't know!  I am not....  Give me time, master.  Here, here, girl,
+you must, you shall, all must not be over!"
+
+He had opened his arms wide, and now hastily approached her with the
+eager look of the gambler, who has staked his last penny on a card.
+
+Coello's daughter did not obey.
+
+She was no longer little, unassuming Belita; here stood no child, but a
+beautiful, blooming maiden.  In eighteen months her figure had gained
+height; anxious yearning and constant contention with her mother had
+wasted her superabundance of flesh; her face had become oval, her bearing
+self-possessed.  Her large, clear eyes now showed their full beauty, her
+half-developed features had acquired exquisite symmetry, and her raven-
+black hair floated, like a shining ornament, around her pale, charming
+face.
+
+"Happy will be the man, who is permitted to call this woman his own!"
+cried a voice in the youth's breast, but another voice whispered "Lost,
+lost, forfeited, trifled away!"
+
+Why did she not obey his call?  Why did she not rush into his open arms?
+Why, why?
+
+He clenched his fists, bit his lips, for she did not stir, except to
+press closely to her father's side.
+
+This handsome, splendidly-dressed gentleman, with the pointed beard,
+deep-set eyes, and stern, gloomy gaze, was an entirely different person
+from the gay enthusiastic follower of art, for whom her awakening heart
+had first throbbed more quickly; this was not the future master, who
+stood before her mind as a glorious favorite of fortune and the muse,
+transfigured by joyous creation and lofty success--this defiant giant
+did not look like an artist.  No, no; yonder man no longer resembled the
+Ulrich, to whom, in the happiest hour of her life, she had so willingly,
+almost too willingly, offered her pure lips.
+
+Isabella's young heart contracted with a chill, yet she saw that he
+longed for her; she knew, could not deny, that she had bound herself to
+him body and soul, and yet--yet, she would so gladly have loved him.
+
+She strove to speak, but could find no words, save "Ulrich, Ulrich," and
+these did not sound gay and joyous, but confused and questioning.
+
+Coello felt her fingers press his shoulder closer and closer.  She was
+surely seeking protection and aid from him, to keep her promise and
+resist her lover's passionate appeal.
+
+Now his darling's eyes filled with tears, and he felt the tremor of her
+limbs.
+
+Softened by affectionate weakness and no longer able to resist the
+impulse to see his little Belita happy, he whispered:
+
+"Poor thing, poor young lovers!  Do as you choose, I won't look."
+
+But Isabella did not leave him; she only drew herself up higher, summoned
+all her courage and looking the returned traveller more steadily in the
+face, said:
+
+"You are so changed, so entirely changed, Ulrich I cannot tell what has
+come over me.  I have anticipated this hour day and night, and now it is
+here;--what is this?  What has placed itself between us?"
+
+"What, indeed!"  he indignantly exclaimed, advancing towards her with a
+threatening air.  "What?  Surely you must know!  Your mother has destroyed
+your regard for the poor bungler.  Here I stand!  Have I kept my promise,
+yes or no?  Have I become a monster, a venomous serpent?  Do not look at
+me so again, do not!  It will do no good; to you or me.  I will not allow
+myself to be trifled with!"
+
+Ulrich had shouted these words, as if some great injustice had been done
+him, and he believed himself in the right.
+
+Coello tried to release himself from his daughter, to confront the
+passionately excited man, but she held him back, and with a pale face and
+trembling voice, but proud and resolute manner, answered:
+
+"No one has trifled with you, I least of all; my love has been earnest,
+sacred earnest."
+
+"Earnest!" interrupted Ulrich, with cutting irony.
+
+"Yes, yes, sacred earnest;--and when my mother told me you had killed a
+man and left Venice for a worthless woman's sake, when it was rumored,
+that in Ferrara you had become a gambler, I thought: 'I know him better,
+they are slandering him to destroy the love you bear in your heart.'
+I did not believe it; but now I do.  I believe it, and shall do so, till
+you have withstood your trial.  For the gambler I am too good, to the
+artist Navarrete I will joyfully keep my promise.  Not a word, I will
+hear no more.  Come, father!  If he loves me, he will understand how to
+win me.  I am afraid of this man."
+
+Ulrich now knew who was in fault, and who in the right.  Strong impulse
+urged him away from the studio, away from Art and his betrothed bride;
+for he had forfeited all the best things in life.
+
+But Coello barred his way.  He was not the man, for the sake of a brawl
+and luck at play, to break friendship with the faithful companion, who
+had shown distinctly enough how fondly he loved his darling.  He had
+hidden behind these bushes himself in his youth, and yet become a skilful
+artist and good husband.
+
+He willingly yielded to his wife in small matters, in important ones he
+meant to remain master of the house.  Herrera was a great scholar and
+artist, but an insignificant man; and he allowed himself to be paid
+like a bungler.  Ulrich's manly beauty had pleased him, and under his,
+Coello's teaching, he would make his mark.  He, the father knew better
+what suited Isabella than she herself.  Girls do not sob so bitterly as
+she had done, as soon as the door of the studio closed behind her, unless
+they are in love.
+
+Whence did she obtain this cool judgment?  Certainly not from him, far
+less from her mother.
+
+Perhaps she only wished to arouse Navarrete to do his best at the trial.
+Coello smiled; it was in his power to judge mildly.
+
+So he detained Ulrich with cheering words, and gave him a task in which
+he could probably succeed.  He was to paint a Madonna and Child, and two
+months were allowed him for the work.  There was a studio in the Casa del
+Campo, he could paint there and need only promise never to visit the
+Alcazar before the completion of the work.
+
+Ulrich consented.  Isabella must be his.  Scorn for scorn!
+
+She should learn which was the stronger.
+
+He knew not whether he loved or hated her, but her resistance had
+passionately inflamed his longing to call her his.  He was determined,
+by summoning all his powers, to create a masterpiece.  What Titian had
+approved must satisfy a Coello! so he began the task.
+
+A strong impulse urged him to sketch boldly and without long
+consideration, the picture of the Madonna, as it had once lived in his
+soul, but he restrained himself, repeating the warning words which had so
+often been dinned into his ears: Draw, draw!
+
+A female model was soon found; but instead of trusting his eyes and
+boldly reproducing what he beheld, he measured again and again, and
+effaced what the red pencil had finished.  While painting his courage
+rose, for the hair, flesh, and dress seemed to him to become true to
+nature and effective.  But he, who in better times had bound himself
+heart and soul to Art and served her with his whole soul, in this picture
+forced himself to a method of work, against which his inmost heart
+rebelled.  His model was beautiful, but he could read nothing in the
+regular features, except that they were fair, and the lifeless
+countenance became distasteful to him.  The boy too caused him great
+trouble, for he lacked appreciation of the charm of childish innocence,
+the spell of childish character.
+
+Meantime he felt great secret anxiety.  The impulse that moved his brush
+was no longer the divine pleasure in creation of former days, but dread
+of failure, and ardent, daily increasing love for Isabella.
+
+Weeks elapsed.
+
+Ulrich lived in the lonely little palace to which he had retired,
+avoiding all society, toiling early and late with restless, joyless
+industry, at a work which pleased him less with every new day.
+
+Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park.  Once the Emperor's
+son called to him:
+
+"Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?"
+
+But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its
+omnipotence.  The nearer the second month approached its close, the more
+frequently, the more fervently he called upon the "word," but it did not
+hear.
+
+When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek
+brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield, and
+to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole hours,
+till the sacristan put out the lights.
+
+He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
+humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
+him.
+
+Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
+fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they
+were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the
+gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.
+
+One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted
+time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted into
+his brain like a revelation.
+
+A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.
+
+What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.
+
+Memory should aid him to gain his purpose.  What woman had ever been
+fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?
+
+He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
+remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette's joyous expression,
+while the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth of
+the musician's daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin's lips.
+
+Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
+resembled his own!
+
+The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
+bright the painting seemed.  He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
+transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
+Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams
+behind the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the
+Handsome nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother's lap to set him
+on their shoulders.
+
+Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the "joyous art," in whose
+honor Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian's banquets, started up,
+drained a glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window
+into the canal.
+
+He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
+against Isabella.  She had led him back into the right path, and it would
+be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
+gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.
+
+One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
+Madonna was completed.
+
+The Spanish artist appeared at noon, but did not come alone, and the man,
+who preceded him, was no less important a personage than the king
+himself.
+
+With throbbing heart, unable to utter a single word, Ulrich opened the
+door of the studio, bowing low before the monarch, who without
+vouchsafing him a single glance, walked solemnly to the painting.
+
+Coello drew aside the cloth that covered it, and the sarcastic chuckle
+Ulrich had so often heard instantly echoed from the king's lips; then
+turning to Coello he angrily exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the
+young artist:
+
+"Scandalous!  Insulting, offensive botchwork!  A Bacchante in the garb
+of a Madonna!  And the child! Look at those legs!  When he grows up, he
+may become a dancing-master.  He who paints such Madonnas should drop his
+colors!  His place is the stable--among refractory horses."
+
+Coello could make no reply, but the king, glancing at the picture again,
+cried wrathfully:
+
+"A Christian's work, a Christian's!  What does the reptile who painted
+this know of the mother, the Virgin, the stainless lily, the thornless
+rose, the path by which God came to men, the mother of sorrow, who bought
+the world with her tears, as Christ did with His sacred blood.  I have
+seen enough, more than enough!  Escovedo is waiting for me outside!  We
+will discuss the triumphal arch to-morrow!"
+
+Philip left the studio, the court-artist accompanying him to the door.
+
+When he returned, the unhappy youth was still standing in the same place,
+gazing, panting for breath, at his condemned work.
+
+"Poor fellow!"  said Coello, compassionately, approaching him; but Ulrich
+interrupted, gasping in broken accents:
+
+"And you, you?  Your verdict!"
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders and answered with sincere pity:
+
+"His Majesty is not indulgent; but come here and look yourself.  I will
+not speak of the child, though it....  In God's name, let us leave it as
+it is.  The picture impresses me as it did the king, and the Madonna--
+I grieve to say it, she belongs anywhere rather than in Heaven.  How
+often this subject is painted!  If Meister Antonio, if Moor should see
+this...."
+
+"Then, then?" asked Ulrich, his eyes glowing with a gloomy fire.
+
+"He would compel you to begin at the beginning once more.  I am sincerely
+sorry for you, and not less so for poor Belita.  My wife will triumph!
+You know I have always upheld your cause; but this luckless work..."
+
+"Enough!" interrupted the youth.  Rushing to the picture, he thrust his
+maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.
+
+Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with
+kindly words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:
+
+"It is all over with art, all over.  A Dios, Master!  Your daughter does
+not care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do with
+each other."
+
+At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last
+held out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.
+
+The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured
+in an agitated, trembling voice:
+
+"Forgive this raving....It is only....I only feel, as if I was bearing
+all that had been dear to me to the grave.  Thanks, Master, thanks for
+many kindnesses.  I am, I have--my heart--my brain, everything is
+confused.  I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me.
+and I, I have--it will kill me yet!  Good fortune gone!  Art gone!  A
+Dios, treacherous world!  A Dios, divine art!"
+
+As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist's grasp,
+rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his lips to
+the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture; then he
+dashed past Coello into the street.
+
+The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
+park.  At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.
+
+Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
+She had stood there a long, long time.
+
+"Father!" she called.
+
+Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
+compassionately waving his hand.
+
+The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when
+the artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark
+eyes, which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and
+said in a low, firm tone:
+
+"I want to speak to him.  You will take me to the picture.  I must see
+it."
+
+"He has thrust his maul-stick through it.  Believe me, child, you would
+have condemned it yourself."
+
+"And yet, yet!  I must see it," she answered earnestly, "see it with
+these eyes.  I feel, I know--he is an artist.  Wait, I'll get my
+mantilla."
+
+Isabella hurried back with flying feet, and when a short time after,
+wearing the black lace kerchief on her head, she descended the staircase
+by her father's side, the private secretary de Soto came towards them,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Do you want to hear the latest news,  Coello?  Your pupil Navarrete has
+become faithless to you and the noble art of painting.  Don Juan gave him
+the enlistment money fifteen minutes ago.  Better be a good trooper, than
+a mediocre artist!  What is the matter, Senorita?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing,"  Isabella murmured gently, and fell fainting on her
+father's breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Two years had passed.  A beautiful October day was dawning; no cloud
+dimmed the azure sky, and the sun's disk rose, glowing crimson, behind
+the narrow strait, that afforded ingress to the Gulf of Corinth.
+
+The rippling waves of the placid sea, which here washed the sunny shores
+of Hellas, yonder the shady coasts of the Peloponnesus, glittered like
+fresh blooming blue-bottles.
+
+Bare, parched rocks rise in naked beauty at the north of the bay, and the
+rays of the young day-star shot golden threads through the light white
+mists, that floated around them.
+
+The coast of Morea faces the north; so dense shadows still rested on the
+stony olive-groves and the dark foliage of the pink laurel and oleander
+bushes, whose dense clumps followed the course of the stream and filled
+the ravines.
+
+How still, how pleasant it usually was here in the early morning!
+
+White sea-gulls hovered peacefully over the waves, a fishing-boat or
+galley glided gently along, making shining furrows in the blue mirror of
+the water; but today the waves curled under the burden of countless
+ships, to-day thousands of long oars lashed the sea, till the surges
+splashed high in the air with a wailing, clashing sound.  To-day there
+was a loud clanking, rattling, roaring on both sides of the water-gate,
+which afforded admittance to the Bay of Lepanto.
+
+The roaring and shouting reverberated in mighty echoes from the bare
+northern cliffs, but were subdued by the densely wooded southern shore.
+
+Two vast bodies of furious foes confronted each other like wrestlers, who
+stretch their sinewy arms to grasp and hurl their opponents to the
+ground.
+
+Pope Pius the Fifth had summoned Christianity to resist the land-
+devouring power of the Ottomans.  Cyprus, Christian Cyprus, the last
+province Venice possessed in the Levant, had fallen into the hands of the
+Moslems.  Spain and Venice had formed an alliance with Christ's
+vicegerent; Genoese, other Italians, and the Knights of St. John were
+assembling in Messina to aid the league.
+
+The finest and largest Christian armada, which had left a Christian port
+for a long time, put forth to sea from this harbor.  In spite of all
+intrigues, King Philip had entrusted the chief command to his young half-
+brother, Don Juan of Austria.
+
+The Ottomans too had not been idle, and with twelve myriads of soldiers
+on three hundred ships, awaited the foe in the Gulf of Lepanto.
+
+Don Juan made no delay.  The Moslems had recently murdered thousands of
+Christians at Cyprus, an outrage the fiery hero could not endure, so he
+cast to the winds the warnings and letters of counsel from Madrid, which
+sought to curb his impetuous energy, his troops, especially the
+Venetians, were longing for vengeance.
+
+But the Moslems were no less eager for the fray, and at the close of his
+council-of-war, and contrary to its decision, Kapudan Pacha sailed to
+meet the enemy.
+
+On the morning of October 7th every ship, every man was ready for battle.
+
+The sun appeared, and from the Spanish ships musical bell-notes rose
+towards heaven, blending with the echoing chant: "Allahu akbar, allahu
+akbar, allahu akbar," and the devout words: "There is no God save Allah,
+and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah; to prayer!"
+
+"To prayer!"  The iron tongue of the bell uttered the summons, as well
+as the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the
+worshippers to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead
+of a ship.  On both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and
+Christians thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One heard
+them.
+
+The bells and chanting died away, and a swift galley with Don Juan on
+board, moved from ship to ship.  The young hero, holding a crucifix in
+his hand, shouted encouraging words to the Christian soldiers.
+
+The blare of trumpets, roll of drums, and shouts of command echoed from
+the rocky shores.
+
+The armada moved forward, the admiral's galley, with Don Juan, at its
+head.
+
+The Turkish fleet advanced to meet it.
+
+The young lion no longer asked the wise counsel of the experienced
+admiral.  He desired nothing, thought of nothing, issued no orders,
+except "forward," "attack," "board," "kill," "sink," "destroy!"
+
+The hostile fleets clashed into the fight as bulls, bellowing sullenly,
+rush upon each other with lowered heads and bloodshot eyes.
+
+Who, on this day of vengeance, thought of Marco Antonio Colonna's plan of
+battle, or the wise counsels of Doria, Venieri, Giustiniani?
+
+Not the clear brain and keen eye--but manly courage and strength would
+turn the scale to-day.  Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, had joined
+his young uncle a short time before, and now commanded a squadron of
+Genoese ships in the front.  He was to keep back till Doria ordered him
+to enter the battle.  But Don Juan had already boarded the vessel
+commanded by the Turkish admiral, scaled the deck, and with a heavy
+sword-stroke felled Kapudan Pacha.  Alexander witnessed the scene, his
+impetuous, heroic courage bore him on, and he too ordered: "Forward!"
+
+What was the huge ship he was approaching?  The silver crescent decked
+its scarlet pennon, rows of cannon poured destruction from its sides, and
+its lofty deck was doubly defended by bearded wearers of the turban.
+
+It was the treasure-galley of the Ottoman fleet.  It would be a gallant
+achievement could the prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of
+the foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of
+its crew, than Farnese's vessel.  What did he care, what recked he of the
+shower of bullets and tar-hoops that awaited him?
+
+Up and at them.
+
+Doria made warning signals, but the prince paid no heed, he would neither
+see nor hear them.
+
+Brave soldiers fell bleeding and gasping on the deck beside him, his mast
+was split and came crashing down.  "Who'll follow me?"  he shouted,
+resting his hand on the bulwark.
+
+The tried Spanish warriors, with whom Don Juan had manned his vessel,
+hesitated.  Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging
+over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the
+tall youth's eyes.
+
+Every one on board knew the fair-haired giant.  It was the favorite of
+the commander in chief--it was Navarrete, who in the war against the
+Moors of Cadiz and Baza had performed many an envied deed of valor.
+His arm seemed made of steel; he valued his life no more than one of the
+plumes in his helmet, and risked it in battle as recklessly as he did his
+zechins at the gaming-table.
+
+Here, as well as there, he remained the winner.
+
+No one knew exactly whence he came as he never mentioned his family,
+for he was a reserved, unsocial man; but on the voyage to Lepanto he had
+formed a friendship with a sick soldier, Don Miguel Cervantes.  The
+latter could tell marvellous tales, and had his own peculiar opinions
+about everything between heaven and earth.
+
+Navarrete, who carried his head as high as the proudest grandee, devoted
+every leisure hour to his suffering comrade, uniting the affection of a
+brother, with the duties of a servant.
+
+It was known that Navarrete had once been an artist, and he seemed one
+of the most fervent of the devout Castilians, for he entered every church
+and chapel the army passed, and remained standing a long, long time
+before many a Madonna and altar-painting as if spellbound.
+
+Even the boldest dared not attack him, for death hovered over his sword,
+yet his heart had not hardened.  He gave winnings and booty with lavish
+hand, and every beggar was sure of assistance.
+
+He avoided women, but sought the society of the sick and wounded, often
+watching all night beside the couch of some sorely-injured comrade, and
+this led to the rumor that he liked to witness death.
+
+Ah, no!  The heart of the proud, lonely man only sought a place where it
+might be permitted to soften; the soldier, bereft of love, needed some
+nook where he could exercise on others what was denied to himself:
+"devoted affection."
+
+Alexander Farnese recognized in Navarrete the horse-tamer of the picadero
+in Madrid; he nodded approvingly to him, and mounted the bulwark.  But
+the other did not follow instantly, for his friend Don Miguel had joined
+him, and asked to share the adventure.  Navarrete and the captain strove
+to dissuade the sick man, but the latter suddenly felt cured of his
+fever, and with flashing eyes insisted on having his own way.
+
+Ulrich did not wait for the end of the dispute, for Farnese was now
+springing into the hostile ship, and the former, with a bold leap,
+followed.
+
+Alexander, like himself, carried a two-Banded sword, and both swung them
+as mowers do their scythes.  They attacked, struck, felled, and the
+foremost foes shrank from the grim destroyers.  Mustapha Pacha, the
+treasurer and captain of the galley, advanced in person to confront the
+terrible Christians, and a sword-stroke from Alexander shattered the hand
+that held the curved sabre, a second stretched the Moslem on the deck.
+
+But the Turks' numbers were greatly superior and threatened to crush the
+heroes, when Don Miguel Cervantes, Ulrich's friend, appeared with twelve
+fresh soldiers on the scene of battle, and cut their way to the hard-
+pressed champions.  Other Spanish and Genoese warriors followed and the
+fray became still more furious.
+
+Ulrich had been forced far away from his royal companion-in-arms, and was
+now swinging his blade beside his invalid friend.  Don Miguel's breast
+was already bleeding from two wounds, and he now fell by Ulrich's side; a
+bullet had broken his left arm.
+
+Ulrich stooped and raised him; his men surrounded him, and the Turks were
+scattered, as the tempest sweeps clouds from the mountain.
+
+Don Miguel tried to lift the sword, which had dropped from his grasp, but
+he only clutched the empty air, and raising his large eyes as if in
+ecstasy, pressed his hand upon his bleeding breast, exclaiming
+enthusiastically: "Wounds are stars; they point the way to the heaven of
+fame-of-fame...."
+
+His senses failed, and Ulrich bore him in his strong aims to a part of
+the treasure-ship, which was held by Genoese soldiers.  Then he rushed
+into the fight again, while in his ears still rang his friend's fervid
+words:
+
+"The heaven of fame!"
+
+That was the last, the highest aim of man!  Fame, yes surely fame was the
+"word"; it should henceforth be his word!
+
+It seemed as if a gloomy multitude of heavy thunderclouds had gathered
+over the still, blue arm of the sea.  The stifling smoke of powder
+darkened the clear sky like black vapors, while flashes of lightning and
+peals of thunder constantly illumined and shook the dusky atmosphere.
+
+Here a magazine flew through the air, there one ascended with a fierce
+crash towards the sky.  Wails of pain and shouts of victory, the blare of
+trumpets, the crash of shattered ships and falling masts blended in
+hellish uproar.
+
+The sun's light was obscured, but the gigantic frames of huge burning
+galleys served for torches to light the combatants.
+
+When twilight closed in, the Christians had gained a decisive victory.
+Don Juan had killed the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman force, Ali
+Pacha, as Farnese hewed down the treasurer.  Uncle and nephew emerged
+from the battle as heroes worthy of renown, but the glory of this victory
+clung to Don Juan's name.
+
+Farnese's bold assault was kindly rebuked by the commander-in-chief,
+and when the former praised Navarrete's heroic aid before Don Juan, the
+general gave the bold warrior and gallant trooper, the honorable
+commission of bearing tidings of the victory to tile king.  Two galleys
+stood out to sea in a westerly direction at the same time: a Spanish one,
+bearing Don Juan's messenger, and a Venetian ship, conveying the courier
+of the Republic.
+
+The rowers of both vessels had much difficulty in forcing a way through
+the wreckage, broken masts and planks, the multitude of dead bodies and
+net work of cordage, which covered the surface of the water; but even
+amid these obstacles the race began.
+
+The wind and sea were equally favorable to both galleys; but the
+Venetians outstripped the Spaniards and dropped anchor at Alicante
+twenty-four hours before the latter.
+
+It was the rider's task, to make up for the time lost by the sailors.
+The messenger of the Republic was far in advance of the general's.
+Everywhere that Ulrich changed horses, displaying at short intervals the
+prophet's banner, which he was to deliver to the king as the fairest
+trophy of victory--it was inscribed with Allah's name twenty-eight
+thousand nine hundred times--he met rejoicing throngs, processions, and
+festal decorations.
+
+Don Juan's name echoed from the lips of men and women, girls and
+children.  This was fame, this was the omnipresence of a god; there could
+be no higher aspiration for him, who had obtained such honor.
+
+Fame, fame!  again echoed in Ulrich's soul; if there is a word, which
+raises a man above himself and implants his own being in that of millions
+of fellow-creatures, it is this.
+
+And now he urged one steed after another until it broke down, giving
+himself no rest even at night; half an hour's ride outside of Madrid he
+overtook the Venetian, and passed by him with a courteous greeting.
+
+The king was not in the capital, and he went on without delay to the
+Escurial.
+
+Covered with dust, splashed from head to foot with mud, bruised, tortured
+as if on the rack, he clung to the saddle, yet never ceased to use whip
+and spur, and would trust his message to no other horseman.
+
+Now the barren peaks of the Guadarrama mountains lay close before him,
+now he reached the first workshops, where iron was being forged for the
+gigantic palace in process of building.  How many chimneys smoked, how
+many hands were toiling for this edifice, which was to comprise a royal
+residence, a temple, a peerless library, a museum and a tomb.
+
+Numerous carts and sledges, on which blocks of light grey granite had
+been drawn hither, barred his way.  He rode around them at the peril of
+falling with his horse over a precipice, and now found himself before a
+labyrinth of scaffolds and free-stone, in the midst of a wild, grey,
+treeless mountain valley.  What kind of a man was this, who had chosen
+this desert for his home, in life as well as in death!  The Escurial
+suited King Philip, as King Philip suited the Escurial.  Here he felt
+most at ease, from here the royal spider ceaselessly entangled the world
+in his skilful nets.
+
+His majesty was attending vespers in the scarcely completed chapel.  The
+chief officer of the palace, Fray Antonio de Villacastin, seeing Ulrich
+slip from his horse, hastened to receive the tottering soldier's tidings,
+and led him to the church.
+
+The 'confiteor' had just commenced, but Fray Antonio motioned to the
+priests, who interrupted the Mass, and Ulrich, holding the prophet's
+standard high aloft, exclaimed: "An unparalleled victory!--Don Juan....
+October 7th....! at Lepanto--the Ottoman navy totally destroyed....!"
+
+Philip heard this great news and saw the standard, but seemed to have
+neither eyes nor ears; not a muscle in his face stirred, no movement
+betrayed that anything was passing in his mind.  Murmuring in a
+sarcastic, rather than a joyous tone: "Don Juan has dared much," he gave
+a sign, without opening the letter, to continue the Mass, remaining on
+his knees as if nothing had disturbed the sacred rite.
+
+The exhausted messenger sank into a pew and did not wake from his stupor,
+until the communion was over and the king had ordered a Te Deum for the
+victory of Lepanto.
+
+Then he rose, and as he came out of the pew a newly-married couple passed
+him, the architect, Herrera, and Isabella Coello, radiant in beauty.
+
+Ulrich clenched his fist, and the thought passed through his mind, that
+he would cast away good-fortune, art and fame as carelessly as soap-
+bubbles, if he could be in Herrera's place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+What fame is--Ulrich was to learn!
+
+He saw in Messina the hero of Lepanto revered as a god.  Wherever the
+victor appeared, fair hands strewed flowers in his path, balconies and
+windows were decked with hangings, and exulting women and girls, joyous
+children and grave men enthusiastically shouted his name and flung
+laurel-wreaths and branches to him.  Messages, congratulations and gifts
+arrived from all the monarchs and great men of the world.
+
+When he saw the wonderful youth dash by, Ulrich marvelled that his steed
+did not put forth wings and soar away with him into the clouds.  But he
+too, Navarrete, had done his duty, and was to enjoy the sweetness of
+renown.  When he appeared on Don Juan's most refractory steed, among the
+last of the victor's train, he felt that he was not overlooked, and often
+heard people tell each other of his deeds.
+
+This made him raise his head, swelled his heart, urged him into new paths
+of fame.
+
+The commander-in-chief also longed to press forward, but found himself
+condemned to inactivity, while he saw the league dissolve, and the fruit
+of his victory wither.  King Philip's petty jealousy opposed his wishes,
+poisoned his hopes, and barred the realization of his dreams.
+
+Don Juan was satiated with fame.  "Power" was the food for which he
+longed.  The busy spider in the Escurial could not deprive him of the
+laurel, but his own "word," his highest ambition in life, his power, he
+would consent to share with no mortal man, not even his brother.
+
+"Laurels  are  withering leaves,  power is arable land," said Don Juan to
+Escovedo.
+
+It befits an emperor's son, thought Ulrich, to cherish such lofty wishes;
+to men of lower rank fame can remain the guiding star on life's pathway.
+
+The elite of the army was in the Netherlands; there he could find what he
+desired.
+
+Don Juan let him go, and when fame was the word, Ulrich had no cause to
+complain of its ill-will.
+
+He bore the standard of the proud "Castilian" regiment, and when strange
+troops met him as he entered a city, one man whispered to another: "That
+is Navarrete, who was in the van at every assault on Haarlem, who, when
+all fell back before Alkmaar, assailed the walls again, it was not his
+fault that they were forced to retreat....he turned the scale with his
+men on Mook-Heath....have you heard the story?  How, when struck by two
+bullets, he wrapped the banner around him, and fell with, and on it, upon
+the grass."
+
+And now, when with the rebellious army he had left the island of Schouwen
+behind him and was marching through Brabant, it was said:
+
+"Navarrete!  It was he, who led the way for the Spaniards with the
+standard on his head, when they waded through the sea that stormy night,
+to surprise Zierikzee."
+
+Whoever bore arms in the Netherlands knew his name; but the citizens also
+knew who he was, and clenched their fists when they spoke of him.
+
+On the battle-field, in the water, on the ice, in the breaches of their
+firm walls, in burning cities, in streets and alleys, in council-chambers
+and plundered homes, he had confronted them as a murderer and destroyer.
+Yet, though the word fame had long been embittered to him, the inhumanity
+which clung to his deeds had the least share in it.
+
+He was the servant of his monarch, nothing more.  All who bore the name
+of Netherlander were to him rebels and heretics, condemned by God,
+sentenced by his king; not worthy peasants, skilful, industrious
+citizens, noble men, who were risking property and life for religion and
+liberty.
+
+This impish crew disdained to pray to the merciful mother of God and the
+saints, these temple violaters had robbed the churches of their statues,
+driven the pious monks and nuns from their cloisters!  They called the
+Pope the Anti-Christ, and in every conquered city he found satirical
+songs and jeering verses about his lord, the king, his generals and all
+Spaniards.
+
+He had kept the faith of his childhood, which was shared by every
+one who bore arms with him, and had easily obtained absolution, nay,
+encouragement and praise, for the most terrible deeds of blood.
+
+In battle, in slaughter, when his wounds burned, in plundering, at the
+gaming-table, everywhere he called upon the Holy Virgin, and also, but
+very rarely, on the "word," fame.
+
+He no longer believed in it, for it did not realize what he had
+anticipated.  The laurel now rustled on his curls like withered
+leaves.  Fame would not fill the void in his heart, failed to satisfy
+his discontented mind; power offered the lonely man no companionship of
+the soul, it could not even silence the voice which upbraided him--the
+unapproachable champion, him at whom no mortal dared to look askance--
+with being a miserable fool, defrauded of true happiness and the right
+ambition.
+
+This voice tortured him on the soft down beds in the town, on the straw
+in the camp, over his wine and on the march.
+
+Yet how many envied him.  Ay! when he bore the standard at the head of
+the regiment he marched like a victorious demi-god!  No one else could
+support so well as he the heavy pole, plated with gold, and the large
+embroidered silken banner, which might have served as a sail for a
+stately ship; but he held the staff with his right hand, as if the burden
+intrusted to him was an easily-managed toy.  Meantime, with inimitable
+solemnity, he threw back the upper portion of the body and his curly
+head, placing his left hand on his hip.  The arch of the broad chest
+stood forth in fine relief, and with it the breast-plate and points of
+his armor.  He seemed like a proud ship under swelling sails, and even in
+hostile cities, read admiration in the glances of the gaping crowd.  Yet
+he was a miserable, discontented man, and could not help thinking more
+and more frequently of Don Juan's "word."
+
+He no longer trusted to the magic power of a word, as in former times.
+Still, he told himself that the "arable field" of the emperor's son,
+"power," was some thing lofty and great-ay, the loftiest aim a man could
+hope to attain.
+
+Is not omnipotence God's first attribute?  And now, on the march from
+Schouwen through Brabant, power beckoned to him.  He had already tasted
+it, when the mutinous army to which he belonged attempted to pillage a
+smithy.  He had stepped before the spoilers and saved the artisan's life
+and property.  Whoever swung the hammer before the bellows was sacred to
+him; he had formerly shared gains and booty with many a plundered member
+of his father's craft.
+
+He now carried a captain's staff, but this was mere mummery, child's
+play, nothing more.  A merry soldier's-cook wore a captain's plume on the
+side of his tall hat.  The field-officer, most of the captains and the
+lieutenants, had retired after the great mutiny on the island of Schouwen
+was accomplished, and their places were now occupied by ensigns,
+sergeants and quartermasters.  The higher officers had gone to Brussels,
+and the mutinous army marched without any chief through Brabant.
+
+They had not received their well-earned pay for twenty-two months, and
+the starving regiments now sought means of support wherever they could
+find them.
+
+Two years since, after the battle of Mook-Heath, the army had helped
+itself, and at that time, as often happened on similar occasions, an
+Eletto--[The chosen one.  The Italian form is used, instead of the
+Spanish 'electo'.]--had been chosen from among the rebellious subaltern
+officers.  Ulrich had then been lying seriously wounded, but after the
+end of the mutiny was told by many, that no other would have been made
+Eletto had he only been well and present.  Now an Eletto was again to be
+chosen, and whoever was elected would have command of at least three
+thousand men, and possibly more, as it was expected that other regiments
+would join the insurrection.  To command an army!  This was power, this
+was the highest attainment; it was worth risking life to obtain it.
+
+The regiments pitched their camp at Herenthals, and here the election was
+to be held.
+
+In the arrangement of the tents, the distribution of the wagons which
+surrounded the camp like a wall, the stationing of field-pieces at the
+least protected places, Ulrich had the most authority, and while
+exercising it forced himself, for the first time in his life, to appear
+gentle and yielding, when he would far rather have uttered words of
+command.  He lived in a state of feverish excitement; sleep deserted his
+couch, he imagined that every word he heard referred to himself and his
+election.
+
+During these days he learned to smile when he was angry, to speak
+pleasantly while curses were burning on his lips.  He was careful not to
+betray by look, word, or deed what was passing in his mind, as he feared
+the ridicule that would ensue should he fail to achieve his purpose.
+
+One more day, one more night, and perhaps he would be commander-in-chief,
+able to conquer a kingdom and keep the world in terror.  Perhaps, only
+perhaps; for another was seeking with dangerous means to obtain control
+of the army.
+
+This was Sergeant-Major and Quartermaster Zorrillo, an excellent and
+popular soldier, who had been chosen Eletto after the battle of Mook-
+Heath, but voluntarily resigned his office at the first serious
+opposition he encountered.
+
+It was said that he had done this by his wife's counsel, and this woman
+was Ulrich's most dangerous foe.
+
+Zorrillo belonged to another regiment, but Ulrich had long known him and
+his companion, the "campsibyl."
+
+Wine was sold in the quartermaster's tent, which, before the outbreak of
+the mutiny, had been the rendezvous of the officers and chaplains.
+
+The sibyl entertained the officers with her gay conversation, while they
+drank or sat at the gaining-table; she probably owed her name to the
+skill she displayed in telling fortunes by cards.  The common soldiers
+liked her too, because she took care of their sick wives and children.
+
+Navarrete preferred to spend his time in his own regiment, so he did not
+meet the Zorrillos often until the mutiny at Schouwen and on the march
+through Brabant.  He had never sought, and now avoided them; for he knew
+the sibyl was leaving no means untried to secure her partner's election.
+Therefore he disliked them; yet he could not help occasionally entering
+their tent, for the leaders of the mutiny held their counsels there.
+Zorrillo always received him courteously; but his companion gazed at him
+so intently and searchingly, that an anxious feeling, very unusual to the
+bold fellow, stole over him.
+
+He could not help asking himself whether he had seen her before, and when
+the thought that she perhaps resembled his mother, once entered his mind,
+he angrily rejected it.
+
+The day before she had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused point-
+blank, for surely no good tidings could come to him from those lips.
+
+To-day she had asked what his Christian name was, and for the first time
+in years he remembered that he was also called "Ulrich."  Now he was
+nothing but "Navarrete," to himself and others.  He lived solely for
+himself, and the more reserved a man is, the more easily his Christian
+name is lost to him.
+
+As, years before, he had told the master that he was called nothing but
+Ulrich, he now gave the harsh answer: "I am Navarrete, that's enough!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Towards evening, the members of the mutiny met at the Zorrillos to hold a
+council.
+
+The weather outside was hot and sultry, and the more people assembled,
+the heavier and more oppressive became the air within the spacious tent,
+the interior of which looked plain enough, for its whole furniture
+consisted of some small roughly-made tables, some benches and chairs, and
+one large table, and a superb ebony chest with ivory ornaments, evidently
+stolen property.  On this work of art lay the pillows used at night,
+booty obtained at Haarlem; they were covered with bright but worn-out
+silk, which had long shown the need of the thrifty touch of a woman's
+hand.  Pictures of the saints were pasted on the walls, and a crucifix
+hung over the door.
+
+Behind the great table, between a basket and the wine cask, from which
+the sibyl replenished the mugs, stood a high-backed chair.  A coarse
+barmaid, who had grown up in the camp, served the assembled men, but she
+had no occasion to hurry, for the Spaniards were slow drinkers.
+
+The guests sat, closely crowded together, in a circle, and seemed grave
+and taciturn; but their words sounded passionate, imperious, defiant, and
+the speakers often struck their coats of mail with their clenched fists,
+or pounded on the floor with their swords.
+
+If there was any difference of opinion, the disputants flew into a
+furious rage, and then a chorus of fierce, blustering voices rose like a
+tenfold echo.  It often seemed as if the next instant swords must fly
+from their sheaths and a bloody brawl begin; but Zorrillo, who had been
+chosen to preside over the meeting, only needed to raise his baton and
+command order, to transform the roar into a low muttering; the weather-
+beaten, scarred, pitiless soldiers, even when mutineers, yielded willing
+obedience to the word of command and the iron constraint of discipline.
+
+On the sea and at Schouwen their splendid costumes had obtained a
+beggarly appearance.  The velvet and brocade extorted from the rich
+citizens of Antwerp, now hung tattered and faded around their sinewy
+limbs.  They looked like foot-pads, vagabonds, pirates, yet sat, as
+military custom required, exactly in the order of their rank; on the
+march and in the camp, every insurgent willingly obeyed the orders of
+the new leader, who by the fortune of war had thrown pairs-royal on the
+drumhead.
+
+One thing was certain: some decisive action must be taken.  Every one
+needed doublets and shoes, money and good lodgings.  But in what way
+could these be most easily procured?  By parleying and submitting on
+acceptable conditions, said some; by remaining free and capturing a city,
+roared others; first wealthy Mechlin, which could be speedily reached.
+There they could get what they wanted without money.  Zorrillo
+counselled  prudent  conduct;  Navarrete impetuously advised bold action.
+They, the insurgents, he cried, were stronger than any other military
+force in the Netherlands, and need fear no one.  If they begged and
+entreated they would be dismissed with copper coins; but if they enforced
+their demands they would become rich and prosperous.
+
+With flashing eyes he extolled what the troops, and he himself had done;
+he enlarged upon the hardships they had borne, the victories won for the
+king.  He asked nothing but good pay for blood and toil, good pay, not
+coppers and worthless promises.
+
+Loud shouts of approval followed his speech, and a gunner, who now held
+the rank of captain, exclaimed enthusiastically:
+
+"Navarrete, the hero of Lepanto and Haarlem, is right!  I know whom I
+will choose."
+
+"Victor, victor Navarrete!"  echoed from many a bearded lilt.
+
+But Zorrillo interrupted these declarations, exclaiming, not without
+dignity, while raising his baton still higher.  "The election will take
+place to-morrow, gentlemen; we are holding a council to-day.  It is very
+warm in here; I feel it as much as you do.  But before we separate,
+listen a few minutes to a man, who means well."  Zorrillo now explained
+all the reasons, which induced him to counsel negotiations and a friendly
+agreement with the commander-in-chief.  There was sound, statesmanlike
+logic in his words, yet his language did not lack warmth and charm.  The
+men perceived that he was in earnest, and while he spoke the sibyl went
+behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and wiped the perspiration
+from his brow with her handkerchief.  Zorrillo permitted it, and without
+interrupting himself, gave her a grateful, affectionate glance.
+
+The bronzed warriors liked to look at her, and even permitted her to
+utter a word of advice or warning during their discussions, for she was a
+wise woman, not one of the ordinary stamp.  Her blue eyes sparkled with
+intelligence and mirth, her full lips seemed formed for quick, gay
+repartee, she was always kind and cheer ful in her manner even to the
+most insignificant.  But whence came the deep lines about her red mouth
+and the outer corners of her eyes?  She covered them with rouge every
+day, to conceal the evidence of the sorrowful hours she spent when alone?
+The lines were well disguised, yet they increased, and year by year grew
+deeper.
+
+No wrinkle had yet dared to appear on the narrow forehead; and the
+delicate features, dazzlingly-white teeth, girlish figure, and winning
+smile lent this woman a youthful aspect.  She might be thirty, or perhaps
+even past forty.
+
+A pleasure made her younger by ten summers, a vexation transformed her
+into a matron.  The snow white hair, carefully arranged on her forehead,
+seemed to indicate somewhat advanced age; but it was known that it had
+turned grey in a few days and nights, eight years before, when a
+discontented blackguard stabbed the quartermaster, and he lay for weeks
+at the point of death.
+
+This white hair harmonized admirably with the red cheeks of the camp-
+sibyl, who appreciating the fact, did not dye it.
+
+During Zorrillo's speech her eyes more than once rested on Ulrich with a
+strangely intense expression.  As soon as he paused, she went back again
+behind the table to the crying child, to cradle it in her arms.
+
+Zorrillo--perceiving that a new and violent argument was about to break
+forth among the men--closed the meeting.  Before adjourning, however, it
+was unanimously decided that the election should be held on the morrow.
+
+While the soldiers noisily rose, some shaking hands with Zorrillo, some
+with Navarrete, the stately sergeant-major of a German lansquenet troop,
+which was stationed in Antwerp, and did not belong to the insurgents,
+entered the wide open door of the tent.  His dress was gay and in good
+order; a fine Dalmatian dog followed him.
+
+A thunder-storm had begun, and it was raining violently.  Some of the
+Spaniards were twisting their rosaries, and repeating prayers, but
+neither thunder, lightning, nor water seemed to have destroyed the
+German's good temper, for he shook the drops from his plumed hat with a
+merry "phew," gaily introducing himself to his comrades as an envoy from
+the Pollviller regiment.
+
+His companions, he said, were not disinclined to join the "free army"--
+he had come to ask how the masters of Schouwen fared.
+
+Zorrillo offered the sergeant-major a chair, and after the latter had
+raised and emptied two beakers from the barmaid's pewter waiter in quick
+succession, he glanced around the circle of his rebel comrades.  Some he
+had met before in various countries, and shook hands with them.  Then he
+fixed his eyes on Ulrich, pondering where and under what standard he had
+seen this magnificent, fair-haired warrior.
+
+Navarrete recognizing the merry lansquenet, Hans Eitelfritz of Colln on
+the Spree, held out his hand, and cried in the Spanish language, which
+the lansquenet had also used:
+
+"You are Hans Eitelfritz!  Do you remember Christmas in the Black Forest,
+Master Moor, and the Alcazar in Madrid?"
+
+"Ulrich, young  Master Ulrich!  Heavens and earth!"  cried Eitelfritz;--
+but suddenly interrupted himself; for the sibyl, who had risen from the
+table to bring the envoy, with her own hands, a larger goblet of wine,
+dropped the beaker close beside him.
+
+Zorrillo and he hastily sprung to support the tottering woman, who was
+almost fainting.  But she recovered herself, waving them back with a mute
+gesture.
+
+All eyes were fixed upon her, and every one was startled; for she stood
+as if benumbed, her bright, youthful face had suddenly become aged and
+haggard.  "What is the matter?"  asked Zorrillo anxiously.  Recovering
+her self-control, she answered hastily "The thunder, the storm...."
+
+Then, with short, light steps, she went back to the table, and as she
+resumed her seat the bell for evening prayers was heard outside.
+
+Most of the company rose to obey the summons.
+
+"Good-bye till to-morrow morning, Sergeant!  The election will take place
+early to-morrow."
+
+"A Dios, a Dios, hasta mas ver, Sibila, a Dios!"  was loudly shouted, and
+soon most of the guests had left the tent.
+
+Those who remained behind were scattered among the different tables.
+Ulrich sat at one alone with Hans Eitelfritz.
+
+The lansquenet had declined Zorrillo's invitation to join him; an old
+friend from Madrid was present, with whom he wished to talk over happier
+days.  The other willingly assented; for what he had intended to say to
+his companions was against Ulrich and his views.  The longer the
+sergeant-major detained him the better.  Everything that recalled Master
+Moor was dear to Ulrich, and as soon as he was alone with Hans
+Eitelfritz, he again greeted him in a strange mixture of Spanish and
+German.  He had forgotten his home, but still retained a partial
+recollection of his native language.  Every one supposed him to be a
+Spaniard, and he himself felt as if he were one.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had much to tell Ulrich; he had often met Moor in
+Antwerp, and been kindly received in his studio.
+
+What pleasure it afforded Navarrete to hear from the noble artist, how he
+enjoyed being able to speak German again after so many years, difficult
+as it was.  It seemed as if a crust melted away from his heart, and none
+of those present had ever seen him so gay, so full of youthful vivacity.
+Only one person knew that he could laugh and play noisily, and this one
+was the beautiful woman at the long table, who knew not whether she
+should die of joy, or sink into the earth with shame.
+
+She had taken the year old infant from the basket.  It was a pale, puny
+little creature, whose father had fallen in battle, and whose mother had
+deserted it.
+
+The handsome standard-bearer yonder was called Ulrich!  He must be her
+son!  Alas, and she could only cast stolen glances at him, listen by
+stealth to the German words that fell from the beloved lips.  Nothing
+escaped her notice, yet while looking and listening, her thoughts
+wandered to a far distant country, long vanished days; beside the bearded
+giant she saw a beautiful, curly-haired child; besides the man's deep
+voice she heard clear, sweet childish tones, that called her "mother" and
+rang out in joyous, silvery laughter.
+
+The pale child in her arms often raised its little hand to its cheek,
+which was wet with the tears of the woman; who tended it.  How hard, how
+unspeakably, terribly hard it was for this woman, with the youthful face
+and white locks, to remain quiet!  How she longed to start up and call
+joyously to the child, the man, her lover's enemy, but her own, own
+Ulrich:
+
+"Look at me, look at me!  I am your mother.  You are mine!  Come, come to
+my heart!  I will never leave you more!"
+
+Ulrich now laughed heartily again, not suspecting what was passing in a
+mother's heart, close beside him; he had no eyes for her, and only
+listened to the jests of the German lansquenet, with whom he drained
+beaker after beaker.
+
+The strange child served as a shield to protect the camp-sibyl from her
+son's eyes, and also to conceal from him that she was watching,
+listening, weeping.  Eitelfritz talked most and made one joke after
+another; but she did not laugh, and only wished he would stop and let
+Ulrich speak, that she might be permitted to hear his voice again.
+
+"Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle," cried Hans
+Eitelfritz.  "He'll get his feet wet on the damp floor--for the rain is
+trickling in--and take cold.  This choice fellow isn't like ordinary
+dogs."
+
+"Do you call the tiger Lelaps?"  asked Ulrich.  "An odd name."
+
+"I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg,
+in exchange for an elephant's tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes
+his name to the merry rogue.  I tell you, he's wiser than many learned
+men; he ought to be called Doctor Lelaps."
+
+"He's a pretty creature."
+
+"Pretty!  More, far more!  For instance, at Naples we had the famous
+Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager
+conversation, I forgot him.  What did my Lelaps do?  He slipped quietly
+into the garden, returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth,
+and offered it to me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one.
+That meant: dogs liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him.
+What do you say to that show of sense?"
+
+"I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog's sagacity."
+
+"You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this
+true story?"
+
+"To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and
+faithfully trusts good-fortune--your good fortune--is ill-advised.  Have
+you composed any new songs?"
+
+"'That is all over now!"  sighed the trooper.  "See this scar!  Since an
+infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses; yet
+it hasn't grown quiet in my upper story on that account.  I lie now,
+instead of composing.  My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash,
+when I pour it forth at the tavern."
+
+"And the broken skull: is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it...."
+
+"Look here!  It's the actual truth.  It was a bad blow, but there's a
+grain of good in everything evil.  For instance, we were in the African
+desert just dying of thirst, for that belongs to the desert as much as
+the dot does to the letter i.  Lelaps yonder was with me, and scented a
+spring.  Then it was necessary to dig, but I had neither spade nor
+hatchet, so I took out the loose part of the skull, it was a hard piece
+of bone, and dug with it till the water gushed out of the sand, then I
+drank out of my brain-pan as if it were a goblet."
+
+"Man, man!"  exclaimed Ulrich, striking his clenched fist on the table.
+
+"Do you suppose a dog can't scent a spring?"  asked Eitelfritz, with
+comical wrath.  "Lelaps here was born in Africa, the native land of
+tigers, and his mother...."
+
+"I thought you got him in Tubingen?"
+
+"I said just now that I tell lies.  I imposed upon you, when I made you
+think Lelaps came from Swabia; he was really born in the desert, where
+the tigers live.
+
+"No offence, Herr Ulrich!  We'll keep our jests for another evening.  As
+soon as I'm knocked down, I stop my nonsense.  Now tell me, where shall I
+find Navarrete, the standard-bearer, the hero of Lepanto and Schouwen?
+He must be a bold fellow; they say Zorrillo and he...."
+
+The lansquenet had spoken loudly; the quartermaster, who caught the name
+Navarrete, turned, and his eyes met Ulrich's.
+
+He must be on his guard against this man.
+
+The instant Zorrillo recognized him as a German, he would hold a powerful
+weapon.  The Spaniards would give the command only to a Spaniard.
+
+This thought now occurred to him for the first time.  It had needed the
+meeting with Hans Eitelfritz, to remind him that he belonged to a
+different nation from his comrades.  Here was a danger to be encountered,
+so with the rapid decision, acquired in the school of war, he laid his
+hand heavily on his countryman's, saying in a low, impressive tone: "You
+are my friend, Hans Eitelfritz, and have no wish to injure me."
+
+"Zounds, no!  What's up?"
+
+"Well then, keep to yourself where and how we first met each other.
+Don't interrupt me.  I'll tell you later in my tent, where you must take
+up your quarters, how I gained my name, and what I have experienced in
+life.  Don't show your surprise, and keep calm.  I, Ulrich, the boy from
+the Black Forest, am the man you seek, I am Navarrete."
+
+"You?"  asked the lansquenet, opening his eyes in amazement.  "Nonsense!
+You're paying me off for the yarns I told you just now."
+
+No, Hans Eitelfritz, no!  I am not jesting, I mean it.  I am Navarrete!
+Nay more!  If you keep your mouth shut, and the devil doesn't put his
+finger into the pie, I think, spite of all the Zorrillos, I shall be
+Eletto to-morrow.
+
+"You know the Spanish temper!  The German Ulrich will be a very different
+person to them from the Castilian Navarrete.  It is in your power to
+spoil my chance."
+
+The other interrupted him by a peal of loud, joyous laughter, then
+shouted to the dog: "Up, Lelaps!  My respects to Caballero Navarrete."
+
+The Spaniards frowned, for they thought the German was drunk, but Hans
+Eitelfritz needed more liquor than that to upset his sobriety.
+
+Flashing a mischievous glance at Ulrich from his bright eyes, he
+whispered: "If necessary, I too can be silent.  You man without a
+country!  You soldier of fortune!  A Swabian the commander of these
+stiffnecked braggarts.  Now see how I'll help you."
+
+"What do you mean to do?" asked Ulrich; but Hans Eitelfritz had already
+raised the huge goblet, banging it down again so violently that the table
+shook.  Then he struck the top with his clenched fist, and when the
+Spaniards fixed their eyes on him, shouted in their language: "Yes,
+indeed, it was delightful in those days, Caballero Navarrete.  Your
+uncle, the noble Conde in what's its name, that place in Castile, you
+know, and the Condesa and Condesilla.  Splendid people!  Do you remember
+the coal-black horses with snow-white tails in your father's stable, and
+the old servant Enrique.  There wasn't a longer nose than his in all
+Castile!  Once, when I was in Burgos, I saw a queer, longish shadow
+coming round a street corner, and two minutes after, first a nose and
+then old Enrique appeared."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Ulrich, guessing the lansquenet's purpose.  "But it
+has grown late while we've been gossiping; let us go!"
+
+The woman at the table had not heard the whispers exchanged between the
+two men; but she guessed the object of the lansquenet's loud words.  As
+the latter slowly rose, she laid the child in the basket, drew a long
+breath, pressed her fingers tightly upon her eyes for a short time, and
+then went directly up to her son.
+
+Florette did not know herself, whether she owed the name of sibyl to her
+skill in telling fortunes by cards, or to her wise counsel.  Twelve years
+before, while still sharing the tent of the Walloon captain Grandgagnage,
+it had been given her, she could not say how or by whom.  The fortune-
+telling she had learned from a sea-captain's widow, with whom she had
+lodged a long time.
+
+When her voice grew sharp and weaker, in order to retain consideration
+and make herself important, she devoted herself to predicting the future;
+her versatile mind, her ambition, and the knowledge of human-nature
+gained in the camp and during her wanderings from land to land, aided
+her to acquire remarkable skill in this strange pursuit.
+
+Officers of the highest rank had sat opposite to her cards, listening to
+her oracular sayings, and Zorrillo, the man who had now been her lover
+for ten years, owed it to her influence, that he did not lose his
+position as quartermaster after the last mutiny.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had heard of her skill and when, as he was leaving, she
+approached and offered to question the cards for him, he would not allow
+Ulrich to prevent him from casting a glance into the future.
+
+On the whole, what was predicted to him sounded favorable, but the
+prophetess did not keep entirely to the point, for in turning the cards
+she found much to say to Ulrich, and once, pointing to the red and green
+knaves, remarked thoughtfully: "That is you, Navarrete; that is this
+gentleman.  You must have met each other on some Christmas day, and not
+here, but in Germany; if I see rightly, in Swabia."
+
+She had just overheard all this.
+
+But a shudder ran through Ulrich's frame when he heard it, and this
+woman, whose questioning glance had always disturbed him, now inspired
+him with a mysterious dread, which he could not control.  He rose to
+withdraw;  but she detained him, saying: "Now it is your turn, Captain."
+
+"Some other time,"  replied  Ulrich,  repellently.  Good fortune always
+comes in good time, and to know ill-luck in advance, is a misfortune I
+should think."
+
+"I can read the past, too."
+
+Ulrich started.  He must learn what his rival's companion knew of his
+former life, so he answered quickly, "Well, for aught I care, begin."
+
+"Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the
+questioner.  Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of
+an hour, Sergeant."
+
+"Don't believe everything she tells you, and don't look too deep into her
+eyes.  Come, Lelaps, my son!"  cried the lansquenet, and did as he was
+requested.
+
+The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich
+thought: "Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do
+everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto's baton.
+That's the way blockheads are caught.  We will keep to the past."
+
+His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the
+last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying
+to meet his glance, asked:
+
+"How shall we begin?  Do you still remember your childhood?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Your father?"
+
+"I have not seen him for a long time.  Don't the cards tell you, that he
+is dead?"
+
+"Dead, dead:--of course he's dead.  You had a mother too?"
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with
+this woman about his mother.
+
+She shrank back a little, and said sadly:  "That sounds very harsh.  Do
+you no longer like to think of your mother?"
+
+"What is that to you?"
+
+"I must know."
+
+"No, what concerns my mother is....I will--is too good for juggling."
+
+"Oh," she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank.  Then
+she silently laid down the last cards, and asked: "Do you want to hear
+anything about a sweetheart?"
+
+"I have none.  But how you look at me!  Have you grown tired of Zorrillo?
+I am ill-suited for a gallant."
+
+She shuddered slightly.  Her bright face had again grown old, so old and
+weary that he pitied her.  But she soon regained her composure, and
+continued:
+
+"What are you saying?  Ask the questions yourself now, if you please."
+
+"Where is my native place?"
+
+"A wooded, mountainous region in Germany."
+
+"Ah, ha!  and what do you know of my father?"
+
+"You look like him, there is an astonishing resemblance in the forehead
+and eyes; his voice, too, was exactly like yours."
+
+"A chip of the old block."
+
+"Well, well.  I see Adam before me...."
+
+"Adam?"  asked Ulrich, and the blood left his cheeks.
+
+"Yes, his name was Adam," she continued more boldly, with increasing
+vivacity: "there he stands.  He wears a smith's apron, a small leather
+cap rests on his fair hair.  Auriculas and balsams stand in the bow-
+window.  A roan horse is being shod in the market-place below."
+
+The soldier's head swam, the happiest period of his childhood, which he
+had not recalled for a long time, again rose before his memory; he saw
+his father stand before him, and the woman, the sibyl yonder, had the
+eyes and mouth, not of his mother, but of the Madonna he had destroyed
+with his maul-stick.  Scarcely able to control himself, he grasped her
+hand, pressing it violently, and asked in German:
+
+"What is my name?  And what did my mother call me?"
+
+She lowered her eyes as if in shame, and whispered softly in German:
+"Ulrich, Ulrich, my darling, my little boy, my lamb, Ulrich--my child!
+Condemn me, desert me, curse me, but call me once more "my mother."
+
+"My mother," he said gently, covering his face with his hands--but she
+started up, hurried back to the pale baby in the cradle, and pressing her
+face upon the little one's breast, moaned and wept bitterly.
+
+Meantime, Zorrillo had not averted his eyes from Navarrete and his
+companion.  What could have passed between the two, what ailed the man?
+
+Rising slowly, he approached the basket before which the sibyl was
+kneeling, and asked anxiously: "What was it, Flora?"
+
+She pressed her face closer to the weeping child, that he might not see
+her tears, and answered quickly "I predicted things, things....go, I will
+tell you about it later."
+
+He was satisfied with this answer, but she was now obliged to join the
+Spaniards, and Ulrich took leave of her with a silent salutation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WORD, ONLY A WORD
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 5.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The Spanish nature is contagious, thought Hans Eitelfritz, tossing on his
+couch in Ulrich's tent.  What a queer fellow the gay young lad has
+become!  Sighs are cheap with him, and every word costs a ducat.  He is
+worthy all honor as a soldier.  If they make him Eletto, it will be worth
+while to join the free army.
+
+Ulrich had briefly told the lansquenet, how he had obtained the name of
+Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the Netherlands.
+Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.
+
+He had found his mother again.  He now possessed the best gift Ruth had
+asked him to beseech of the "word."  The soldier's sweetheart, the
+faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
+avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
+him birth.  He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
+hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child of
+one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her finger.
+All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely enough, they
+melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the feeling of joy
+that he had his mother again.
+
+Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo's tent, but framed
+by balsams and wall-flowers.  His vivid imagination made her twenty years
+younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
+and smile.  Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl's
+beauty, good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came
+back freshly to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw
+himself on her bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the
+sweet, pet names, which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel the
+caress of her soft hands.  How rich the solitary man felt, how
+surpassingly rich!  He had been entirely alone, deserted even by his
+mother!  Now he was so no longer, and pleasant dreams blended with his
+ambitious plans, like golden threads in dark cloth.
+
+When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
+his share of the booty.  She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow.
+The little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and
+when his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there with
+her, recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care for her,
+make her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the full the
+happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother's heart his own.
+
+At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer.  Suddenly there was a
+rustling at the tent-door.  He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
+raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: "Ulrich,
+Ulrich, it is I!"
+
+He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
+her in his arms, and let her stroke his curls, kiss his cheeks and eyes,
+as in the old happy days.  Then he drew her into the tent, whispering
+"Softly, softly, the snorer yonder is the German."
+
+She followed him, leaned against him, and raised his hand to her lips; he
+felt them grow wet with tears.  They had not yet said anything to each
+other, except how happy, how glad, how thankful they were to have each
+other again; then a sentinel passed, and she started up, exclaiming
+anxiously: "So late, so late; Zorrillo will be waiting!"
+
+"Zorrillo!"  cried Ulrich scornfully, "you have been a long time with
+him.  If they give me the power...."
+
+"They will choose you, child, they shall choose you," she hastily
+interrupted.  "Oh, God!  oh, God!  perhaps this will bring you misfortune
+instead of blessing; but you desire it!  Count Mannsfeld is coming
+tomorrow; Zorrillo knows it.  He will bring a pardon for all; promotions
+too, but no money yet."
+
+"Oh, ho!"  cried  Ulrich, "that may decide the matter."
+
+"Perhaps so, you deserve to command them.  You were born for some special
+purpose, and your card always turns up so strangely.  Eletto!  It sounds
+proud and grand, but many have been ruined by it...."
+
+"Because power was too hard for them."
+
+"It must serve you.  You are strong.  A child of good fortune.  Folly!
+I will not fear.  You have probably fared well in life.  Ah, my lamb, I
+have done little for you, but one thing I did unceasingly: I prayed for
+you, poor boy, morning and night; have you noticed, have you felt it?"
+
+He drew her to his heart again, but she released herself from his
+embrace, saying: "To-morrow, Ulrich; Zorrillo...."
+
+"Zorrillo, always Zorrillo," he repeated, his blood boiling angrily.
+"You are mine and, if you love me, you will leave him."
+
+"I cannot, Ulrich, it will not do.  He is kind, you will yet be friends."
+
+"We, we?  On the day of judgment, nay, not even then!  Are you more
+firmly bound to yon smooth fellow, than to my honest father?  There
+stands something in the darkness, it is good steel, and if needful will
+cut the tie asunder."
+
+"Ulrich, Ulrich !"  wailed Flora, raising her hands beseechingly.  "Not
+that, not that; it must not be.  He is kind and sensible, and loves me
+fondly.  Oh, Heaven!  Oh, Ulrich!  The mother has glided to her son at
+night, as if she were following forbidden paths.  Oh, this is indeed a
+punishment.  I know how heavily I have sinned, I deserve whatever may
+befall me; but you, you must not make me more wretched, than I already
+am.  Your father, he ....if he were still alive, for your sake I would
+crawl to him on my knees, and say: "Here I am, forgive me--but he is
+dead.  Pasquale, Zorrillo lives; do not think me a vain, deluded woman;
+Zorrillo cannot bear to have me leave him...."
+
+"And my father?  He bore it.  But do you know how?  Shall I describe his
+life to you?"
+
+"No, no!  Oh, child, how you torture me!  I know how I sinned against
+your father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved
+me, and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly.  But I cannot keep quiet a
+long time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in my
+blood; and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see
+nothing except himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the
+forest.  One day a fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going
+forth--forth into the wide world, no matter with whom or whither.  The
+soldier only needed to hint and I fell.--I did not stay with him long,
+he was a windy braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and
+accompanied the wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until
+he was shot.  Then ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend,
+he shares my feelings, I am necessary to his existence.  Do not laugh,
+Ulrich; I well know that youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet
+Pasquale loves me; since I have had him, I have been more content and,
+Holy Virgin!  now--I love him in return.  Oh, Heaven!  Oh, Heaven!  Why
+is it so?  This heart, this miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it
+did twenty years ago."
+
+"You will not leave him?"
+
+"No, no, I love him, and I know why.  Every one calls him a brave man,
+yet they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do.  No one
+else is so good, so generous.  You must let me speak!  Do you suppose I
+ever forgot you?  Never, never!  But you have always been to me the dear
+little boy; I never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have
+you and longed so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to the
+soldiers' orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of
+these poor things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same
+time.  It would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo
+rejoices in my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon
+bequeathed me and his own booty to the soldiers' widows and the little
+naked babies in the camp.  He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases
+him.  I will not, cannot leave him!"
+
+She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro,
+violently agitated.  At last he said firmly: "Yet you must part from him.
+He or I!  I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father's wife.
+I am Adam's son, and will be constant to him.  Ah, mother, I have been
+deprived of you so long.  You can tend strangers' orphaned children, yet
+you make your own son an orphan.  Will you do this?  No, a thousand
+times, no, you cannot!  Do not weep so, you must not weep!  Hear me, hear
+me!  For my sake, leave this Spaniard!  You will not repent it.  I have
+just been dreaming of the nest I will build for you.  There I will
+cherish and care for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as
+you choose.  Leave him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your
+child, your Ulrich!"
+
+"Oh, God!  oh, God!" she sobbed.  "I will try, yes, I will try....
+My child, my dear child!"
+
+Ulrich clasped her closely in his arms, kissed her hair, and said,
+softly: "I know, I know, you need love, and you shall find it with me."
+
+"With you!" she repeated, sobbing.  Then releasing herself from his
+embrace she hurried to the feverish woman, at whose summons she had left
+her tent.
+
+As morning dawned, she returned home and found Zorrillo still awake.  He
+enquired about her patient, and told her he had given the child something
+to drink while she was away.
+
+Flora could not help weeping bitterly again, and Zorrillo, noticing it,
+exclaimed chidingly: "Each has his own griefs to bear, it is not wise to
+take strangers' troubles so deeply to heart."
+
+"Strangers' troubles," she repeated, mournfully, and went to rest.
+
+White-haired woman, why have you remained so young?  All the cares and
+sorrows of youth and age are torturing you at the same time!  One love
+is fighting a mortal battle with another in your breast.  Which will
+conquer?
+
+She knows, she knew it ere she entered the tent.  The mother fled from
+the child, but she cannot abandon her new-found son.  Oh, maternal love,
+thou dost hover in radiant bliss far above the clouds, and amid choirs of
+angels!  Oh, maternal heart, thou dost bleed pierced with swords, more
+full of sorrows than any other!
+
+Poor, poor Florette!  On this July  morning she was enduring superhuman
+tortures, all the sins she had committed arrayed themselves against her,
+shrieking into her ear that she was a lost woman, and there could be no
+pardon for her either in this world or the next.  Yet!--the clouds drift
+by, birds of passage migrate, the musician wanders singing from land to
+land, finds love, and remorselessly strips off light fetters to seek
+others.  His child imitates the father, who had followed the example of
+his, the same thing occurring back to their remotest ancestors!  But
+eternal justice?  Will it measure the fluttering leaf by the same
+standard as the firmly-rooted plant?
+
+When Zorrillo saw Flora by the daylight, he said, kindly: "You have been
+weeping?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, fixing her eyes on the ground.  He thought she was
+anxious, as on a former occasion, lest his election to the office of
+Eletto might prove his ruin, so he drew her towards him, exclaiming "Have
+no fear, Bonita.  If they choose me, and Mannsfeld comes, as he promised,
+the play will end this very day.  I hope, even at the twelfth hour, they
+will listen to reason, and allow themselves to be guided into the right
+course.  If they make the young madcap Eletto--his head will be at stake,
+not mine.  Are you ill?  How you look, child!  Surely, surely you must be
+suffering; you shall not go out at night to nurse sick people again!"
+
+The words came from an anxious heart, and sounded warm and gentle.
+They penetrated Florette's inmost soul, and overwhelmed with passionate
+emotion she clasped his hands, kissed them, and exclaimed, softly
+"Thanks, thanks, Pasquale, for your love, for all.  I will never, never
+forget it, whatever happens!  Go, go; the drum is beating again."
+
+Zorrillo fancied she was uttering mere feverish ravings, and begged her
+to calm herself; then he left the tent, and went to the place where the
+election was to be held.
+
+As soon as Flora was alone, she threw herself on her knees before the
+Madonna's picture, but knew not whether it would be right to pray that
+her son might obtain an office, which had proved the ruin of so many; and
+when she besought the Virgin to give her strength to leave her lover, it
+seemed to her like treason to Pasquale.
+
+Her thoughts grew confused, and she could not pray.  Her mobile mind
+wandered swiftly from lofty to petty things; she seized the cards to see
+whether fate would unite her to Zorrillo or to Ulrich, and the red ten,
+which represented herself, lay close beside the green knave, Pasquale.
+She angrily threw them down, determined, in spite of the oracle, to
+follow her son.
+
+Meantime in the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets blared,
+and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like the
+distant roar of the surf.
+
+A fresh burst of military music rang out, and now Florette started to her
+feet and listened.  It seemed as if she heard Ulrich's voice, and the
+rapid throbbing of her heart almost stopped her breath.  She must go out,
+she must see and hear what was passing.  Hastily pushing the white hair
+back from her brow, she threw a veil over it, and hurried through the
+camp to the spot where the election was taking place.
+
+The soldiers all knew her and made way for her.  The leaders of the
+mutineers were standing on the wall of earth between the field-pieces,
+and amid the foremost rank, nay, in front of them all, her son was
+addressing the crowd.
+
+The choice wavered between him and Zorrillo.  Ulrich had already been
+speaking a long time.  His cheeks were glowing and he looked so handsome,
+so noble, in his golden helmet, from beneath which floated his thick,
+fair locks, that her heart swelled with joy, and as the night grows
+brighter when the black clouds are torn asunder and the moon victoriously
+appears, grief and pain were suddenly irradiated by maternal love and
+pride.
+
+Now he drew his tall figure up still higher, exclaiming: "Others are
+readier and bolder with the tongue than I, but I can speak with the sword
+as well as any one."
+
+Then raising the heavy two-handed sword, which others laboriously managed
+with both hands, he swung it around his head, using only his right hand,
+in swift circles, until it fairly whistled through the air.
+
+The soldiers shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had
+lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly,
+while his breath came quick and short: "And where do the talkers, the
+parleyers seek to lead us?  To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters'
+feet, before the men who cheat us.  Count Mannsfeld will come to-day;
+I know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except
+what is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require
+for our bare feet, our ragged bodies; money, money he has not to offer!
+This is so, I swear it; if not, stand forth, you parleyers, and give me
+the lie!  Have you inclination or courage to give the lie to Navarrete?
+--You are silent!--But we will speak!  We will not suffer ourselves to be
+mocked and put off!  What we demand is fair pay for good work.  Whoever
+has patience, can wait.  Mine is exhausted.
+
+"We are His Majesty's obedient servants and wish to remain so.  As soon as
+he keeps his bargain, he can rely upon us; but when he breaks it, we are
+bound to no one but ourselves, and Santiago! we are not the weaker party.
+We need money, and if His Majesty lacks ducats, a city where we can find
+what we want.  Money or a city, a city or money!  The demand is just, and
+if you elect me, I will stand by it, and not shrink if it rouses
+murmuring behind me or against me.  Whoever has a brave heart under his
+armor, let him follow me; whoever wishes to creep after Zorrillo, can do
+so.  Elect me, friends, and I will get you more than we need, with honor
+and fame to boot.  Saint Jacob and the Madonna will aid us.  Long live
+the king!"
+
+"Long live the king!  Long live  Navarrete!  Navarrete!  Hurrah for
+Navarrete!" echoed loudly, impetuously from a thousand bearded lips.
+
+Zorrillo had no opportunity to speak again.  The election was made.
+
+Ulrich was chosen Eletto.
+
+As if on wings, he went from man to man, shaking hands with his comrades.
+Power, power, the highest prize on earth, was attained, was his!  The
+whole throng, soldiers, tyros, women, girls and children, crowded around
+him, shouting his name; whoever wore a hat or cap, tossed it in the air,
+whoever had a kerchief, waved it.  Drums beat, trumpets sounded, and the
+gunner ordered all the field-pieces to be discharged, for the choice
+pleased him.
+
+Ulrich stood, as if intoxicated, amid the shouts, shrieks of joy,
+military music, and thunder of the cannon.  He raised his helmet, waved
+salutations to the crowd, and strove to speak, but the uproar drowned his
+words.
+
+After the election Florette slipped quietly away; first to the empty tent
+then to the sick woman who needed her care.
+
+The Eletto had no time to think of his mother; for scarcely had he given
+a solemn oath of loyalty to his comrades and received theirs, when Count
+Mannsfeld appeared.
+
+The general was received with every honor.  He knew Navarrete, and the
+latter entered into negotiations with the manly dignity natural to him;
+but the count really had nothing but promises to offer, and the
+insurgents would not give up their demand: "Money or a city!"
+
+The nobleman reminded them of their oath of allegiance, made lavish use
+of kind words, threats and warnings, but the Eletto remained firm.
+Mannsfeld perceived that he had come in vain; the only concession he
+could obtain from Navarrete was, that some prudent man among the leaders
+should accompany him to Brussels, to explain the condition of the
+regiments to the council of state there, and receive fresh proposals.
+Then the count suggested that Zorrillo should be entrusted with the
+mission, and the Eletto ordered the quartermaster to prepare for
+departure at once.  An hour after the general left the camp with Flora's
+lover in his train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The fifth night after the Eletto's election was closing in, a light rain
+was falling, and no sound was heard in the deserted streets of the
+encampment except now and then the footsteps of a sentinel, or the cries
+of a child.  In Zorrillo's tent, which was usually brightly lighted until
+a late hour of the night, only one miserable brand was burning, beside
+which sat the sleepy bar-maid, darning a hole in her frieze-jacket.  The
+girl did not expect any one, and started when the door of the tent was
+violently torn open, and her master, followed by two newly-appointed
+captains, came straight up to her.
+
+Zorrillo held his hat in his hand, his hair, slightly tinged with grey,
+hung in a tangled mass over his forehead, but he carried himself as erect
+as ever.  His body did not move, but his eyes wandered from one corner of
+the tent to another, and the girl crossed herself and held up two fingers
+towards him, for his dark glance fell upon her, as he at last exclaimed,
+in a hollow tone:
+
+"Where is the mistress?"
+
+"Gone, I could not help it" replied the girl.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Eletto, to Navarrete."
+
+"When?"
+
+"He came and took her and the child, directly after you had left the
+camp."
+
+"And she has not returned?"
+
+"She has just sent a roast chicken, which I was to keep for you when you
+came home.  There it is."  Zorrillo laughed.  Then he turned to his
+companions, saying:
+
+"I thank you.  You have now....  Is she still with the Eletto?"
+
+"Why, of course."
+
+"And who--who saw her the night before the election--let me sit down--who
+saw her with him then?"
+
+"My brother," replied one of the captains.  "She was just coming out of
+the tent, as he passed with the guard."
+
+"Don't take the matter to heart," said the other.  "There are plenty of
+women!  We are growing old, and can no longer cope with a handsome fellow
+like Navarrete."
+
+"I thought the sibyl was more sensible," added the younger captain.
+"I saw her in Naples sixteen years ago.  Zounds, she was a beautiful
+woman then!  A pretty creature even now; but Navarrete might almost be
+her son.  And you always treated her kindly, Pasquale.  Well, whoever
+expects gratitude from women...."
+
+Suddenly the quartermaster remembered the hour just before the election,
+when Florette had thrown herself upon his breast, and thanked him for his
+kindness; clenching his teeth, he groaned aloud.
+
+The others were about to leave him, but he regained his self-control, and
+said:
+
+"Take him the count's letter, Renato.  What I have to say to him, I will
+determine later."
+
+Zorrillo was a long time unlacing his jerkin and taking out the paper.
+Both of his companions noticed how his fingers trembled, and looked at
+each other compassionately; but the older one said, as he received the
+letter:
+
+"Man, man, this will do no good.  Women are like good fortune."
+
+"Take the thing as a thousand others have taken it, and don't come to
+blows.  You wield a good blade, but to attack Navarrete is suicide.  I'll
+take him the letter.  Be wise, Zorrillo, and look for another love at
+once."
+
+"Directly, directly, of course," replied the quartermaster; but as soon
+as he had sent the maid-servant away, and was entirely alone, he bowed
+his forehead upon the table and his shoulders heaved convulsively.  He
+remained in this attitude a long time, then paced to and fro with forced
+calmness.  Morning dawned long ere he sought his couch.
+
+Early the next day he made his report to the Eletto before the assembled
+council of war, and when it broke up, approached Navarrete, saying, in so
+loud a tone that no one could fail to hear:
+
+"I congratulate you on your new sweetheart."
+
+"With good reason," replied the Eletto.  "Wait a little while, and I'll
+wager that you'll congratulate me more sincerely than you do to-day."
+
+The offers from Brussels had again proved unacceptable.  It was necessary
+now to act, and the insurgent commander profited by the time at his
+disposal.  It seemed as if "power" doubled his elasticity and energy.
+It was so delightful, after the march, the council of war, and the day's
+work were over, to rest with his mother, listen to her, and open his own
+heart.  How had she preserved--yes, he might call it so--her aristocratic
+bearing, amid the turmoil, perils, and mire of camp-life, in spite of
+all, all!  How cleverly and entertainingly she could talk about men and
+things, how comical the ideas, with which she understood how to spice the
+conversation, and how well versed he found her in everything that related
+to the situation of the regiments and his own position.  She had not been
+the confidante of army leaders in vain.
+
+By her advice he relinquished his plan of capturing Mechlin, after
+learning from spies that it was prepared and expecting the attack of the
+insurgents.
+
+He could not enter upon a long siege with the means at his command; his
+first blow must not miss the mark.  So he only showed himself near
+Brussels, sent Captain Montesdocca, who tried to parley again, back with
+his mission unaccomplished, marched in a new direction to mislead his
+foes, and then unexpectedly assailed wealthy Aalst in Flanders.
+
+The surprised inhabitants tried to defend their well-fortified city, but
+the citizens' strength could not withstand the furious assault of the
+well-drilled, booty-seeking army.
+
+The conquered city belonged to the king.  It was the pledge of what the
+rebels required, and they indemnified themselves in it for the pay that
+had been with held.  All who attempted to offer resistance fell by the
+sword, all the citizens' possessions were seized by the soldiers, as the
+wages that belonged to them.
+
+In the shops under the Belfry, the great tower from whence the bell
+summoned the inhabitants when danger threatened, lay plenty of cloth for
+new doublets.  Nor was there any lack of gold or silver in the treasury
+of the guild-hall, the strong boxes of the merchants, the chests of the
+citizens.  The silver table-utensils, the gold ornaments of the women,
+the children's gifts from godparents fell into the hands of the
+conquerors, while a hundred and seventy rich villages near Aalst were
+compelled to furnish food for the mutineers.
+
+Navarrete did not forbid the plundering.  According to his opinion, what
+soldiers took by assault was well-earned booty.  To him the occupation of
+Aalst was an act of righteous self-defence, and the regiments shared his
+belief, and were pleased with their Eletto.
+
+The rebels sought and found quarters in the citizens' houses, slept in
+their beds, eat from their dishes, and drank their wine-cellars empty.
+Pillage was permitted for three days.  On the fifth discipline was
+restored, the quartermaster's department organized, and the citizens were
+permitted to assemble at the guild-hall, pursue their trades and
+business, follow the pursuits to which they had been accustomed.  The
+property they had saved was declared unassailable; besides, robbery had
+ceased to be very remunerative.
+
+The Eletto was at liberty to choose his own quarters, and there was no
+lack of stately dwellings in Aalst.  Ulrich might have been tempted to
+occupy the palace of Baron de Hierges, but passed it by, selecting as a
+home for his mother and himself a pretty little house on the market-
+place, which reminded him of his father's smithy.  The bow-windowed room,
+with the view of the belfry and the stately guildhall, was pleasantly
+fitted up for his mother, and the city gardeners received orders to send
+the finest house-plants to his residence.  Soon the sitting-room, adorned
+with flowers and enlivened by singing-birds, looked far handsomer and
+more cosy than the nest of which he had dreamed.  A little white dog,
+exactly like the one Florette had possessed in the smithy, was also
+procured, and when in the evening the warm summer air floated into the
+open windows, and Ulrich sat alone with Florette, recalling memories of
+the past, or making plans for the future, it seemed as if a new spring
+had come to his soul.  The citizens' distress did not trouble him.  They
+were the losing party in the grim game of war, enemies--rebels.  Among
+his own men he saw nothing but joyous faces; he exercised the power--they
+obeyed.
+
+Zorrillo bore him ill-will, Ulrich read it in his eyes; but he made him
+a captain, and the man performed his duty as quartermaster in the most
+exemplary manner.  Florette wished to tell him that the Eletto was her
+son, but the latter begged her to wait till his power was more firmly
+established, and how could she refuse her darling anything?  She had
+grieved deeply, very deeply, but this mood soon passed away, and now she
+could be happy in Ulrich's society, and forget sorrow and heartache.
+
+What joy it was to have him back, to be loved by him!  Where was there a
+more affectionate son, a pleasanter home than hers?  The velvet and
+brocade dresses belonging to the Baroness de Hierges had fallen to the
+Eletto.  How young Florette looked in them!  When she glanced into the
+mirror, she was astonished at herself.
+
+Two beautiful riding-horses for ladies' use and elegant trappings had
+been found in the baron's stable.  Ulrich had told her of it, and the
+desire to ride with him instantly arose in her mind.  She had always
+accompanied Grandgagnage, and when she now went out, attired in a long
+velvet riding-habit, with floating plumes in her dainty little hat,
+beside her son, she soon noticed how admiringly even the hostile citizens
+and their wives looked after them.  It was a pretty sight to behold the
+handsome soldier, full of pride and power, galloping on the most spirited
+stallion, beside the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose eyes sparkled
+with vivacious light.
+
+Zorrillo often met them, when they passed the guildhall, and Florette
+always gave him a friendly greeting with her whip, but he intentionally
+averted his eyes or if he could not avoid it, coldly returned her
+recognition.
+
+This wounded her deeply, and when alone, it often happened that she sunk
+into gloomy reverie and, with an aged, weary face, gazed fixedly at the
+floor.  But Ulrich's approach quickly cheered and rejuvenated her.
+
+Florette now knew what her son had experienced in life, what had moved
+his heart, his soul, and could not contradict him, when he told her that
+power was the highest prize of existence.
+
+The Eletto's ambitious mind could not be satisfied with little Aalst.
+The mutineers had been outlawed by an edict from Brussels, but the king
+had nothing to do with this measure; the shameful proclamation was only
+intended to stop the wailing of the Netherlanders.  They would have to
+pay dearly for it!  There was a great scheme in view.
+
+The Antwerp of those days was called "as rich as the Indies;" the project
+under consideration was the possibility of manoeuvring this abode of
+wealth into the hands of the mutineers; the whole Spanish army in the
+Netherlands being about to follow the example of the regiments in Aalst.
+
+The mother was the friend and counsellor of the son.  At every step he
+took he heard her opinion, and often yielded his own in its favor.  This
+interest in the direction of great events occupied the sibyl's versatile
+mind.  When, on many occasions, pros and tons were equal in weight, she
+brought out the cards, and this oracle generally turned the scale.
+
+No high aim, no desire to accomplish good and great things in wider
+spheres, influenced the thoughts and actions of this couple.
+
+What cared they, that the weal and woe of thousands depended on their
+decision?  The deadly weapon in their bands was to them only a valuable
+utensil in which they delighted, and with which fruits were plucked from
+the trees.
+
+Ulrich now saw the fulfilment of Don Juan's words, that power was an
+arable field; for there were many full ears in Aalst for them both to
+harvest.
+
+Florette still nursed, with maternal care, the soldier's orphan which she
+had taken to her son's house; the child, born on a bed of straw--was now
+clothed in dainty linen, laces and other beautiful finery.  It was
+necessary to her, for she occupied herself with the helpless little
+creature when, during the long morning hours of Ulrich's absence,
+sorrowful thought troubled her too deeply.
+
+Ulrich often remained absent a long time, far longer than the service
+required.  What was he doing?  Visiting a sweetheart?  Why not?  She only
+marvelled that the fair women did not come from far and near to see the
+handsome man.
+
+Yes, the Eletto had found an old love.  Art, which he had sullenly
+forsaken.  News had reached his ears, that an artist had fallen in the
+defence of the city.  He went to the dead man's house to see his works,
+and how did he find the painter's dwelling!  Windows, furniture were
+shattered, the broken doors of the cupboards hung into the rooms on their
+bent hinges.  The widow and her children were lying in the studio on a
+heap of straw.  This touched his heart, and he gave alms with an open
+hand to the sorrowing woman.  A few pictures of the saints, which the
+Spaniards had spared, hung on the walls; the easel, paints and brushes
+had been left untouched.
+
+A thought, which he instantly carried into execution, entered his mind.
+He would paint a new standard!  How his heart beat, when he again stood
+before the easel!
+
+He regarded the heretics as heathens.  The Spaniards were shortly going
+to fight against them and for the faith.  So be painted the Saviour on
+one side of the standard, the Virgin on the other.  The artist's widow
+sat to him for the Madonna, a young soldier for the Christ.
+
+No scruples, no consideration for the criticisms of teachers now checked
+his creating hand; the power was his, and whatever he did must be right.
+
+He placed upon the Saviour's bowed figure, Costa's head, as he had
+painted it in Titian's studio, and the Madonna, in defiance of the stern
+judges in Madrid, received the sibyl's face, to please himself and do
+honor to his mother.  He made her younger, transformed her white hair to
+gleaming golden tresses.  One day he asked Flora to sit still and think
+of something very serious; he wanted to sketch her.
+
+She gaily placed herself in position, saying:
+
+"Be quick, for serious thoughts don't last long with me."
+
+A few days later both pictures were finished, and possessed no mean
+degree of merit; he rejoiced that after the long interval he could still
+accomplish something.  His mother was delighted with her son's
+masterpieces, especially the Madonna, for she instantly recognized
+herself, and was touched by this proof of his faithful remembrance.  She
+had looked exactly like it when a young girl, she said; it was strange
+how precisely he had hit the color of her hair; but she was afraid it was
+blaspheming to paint a Madonna with her face; she was a poor sinner,
+nothing more.
+
+Florette was glad that the work was finished, for restlessness again
+began to torture her, and the mornings had been so lonely.  Zorrillo--it
+caused her bitter pain--had not cast even a single glance at her, and she
+began to miss the society of men, to which she had been accustomed.  But
+she never complained, and always showed Ulrich the same cheerful face,
+until the latter told her one day that he must leave her for some time.
+
+He had already defeated in little skirmishes small bodies of peasants
+and citizens, who had taken the field against the mutineers; now Colonel
+Romero called upon him to help oppose a large army of patriots, who had
+assembled between Lowen and Tirlemont, under the command of the noble
+Sieur de Floyon.  It was said to consist Of students and other rebellious
+brawlers, and so it proved;  but the "rebels" were the flower of the
+youth of the shamefully-oppressed nation, noble souls, who found it
+unbearable to see their native land enslaved by mutinous hordes.
+
+Ulrich's parting with his mother was not a hard one.  He felt sure of
+victory and of returning home, but the excitable woman burst into tears
+as she bade him farewell.
+
+The Eletto took the field with a large body of troops; the majority of
+the mutineers, with them.  Captain and Quartermaster Zorrillo, remained
+behind to hold the citizens in check.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+A considerable, but hastily-collected army of patriots had been utterly
+routed at Tisnacq by a small force of disciplined Spaniards.
+
+Ulrich had assisted his countrymen to gain the speedy victory, and had
+been greeted by his old colonel, the brave Romero, the bold cavalry-
+commander, Mendoza, and other distinguished officers as one of
+themselves.  Since these aristocrats had become mutineers, the Eletto
+was a brother, and they did not disdain to secure his cooperation in the
+attack they were planning upon Antwerp.
+
+He had shown great courage under fire, and wherever he appeared, his
+countrymen held out their hands to him, vowing obedience and loyalty unto
+death.
+
+Ulrich felt as if he were walking on air, mere existence was a joy to
+him.  No prince could revel in the blissful consciousness of increasing
+power, more fully than he.  The evening after the decision he had
+attended a splendid banquet with Romero, Vargas, Mendoza, Tassis, and the
+next morning the prisoners, who had fallen into the hands of his men,
+were brought before him.
+
+He had left the examination of the students, citizens' sons, and peasants
+to his lieutenant; but there were also three noblemen, from whom large
+ransoms could be obtained.  The two older ones had granted what he asked
+and been led away; the third, a tall man in knightly armor, was left
+last.
+
+Ulrich had personally encountered the latter.  The prisoner, mounted upon
+a tall steed, had pressed him very closely; nay, the Eletto's victory was
+not decided, until a musket-shot had stretched the other's horse on the
+ground.
+
+The knight now carried his arm in a sling.  In the centre of his coat of
+mail and on the shoulder-pieces of his armor, the ensigns armorial of a
+noble family were embossed.
+
+"You were dragged out from under your horse," said the Eletto to the
+knight.  "You wield an excellent blade."
+
+He had spoken in Spanish, but the other shrugged his shoulders, and
+answered in the German language "I don't understand Spanish."
+
+"Are you a German?"  Ulrich now asked in his native tongue.  "How do you
+happen to be among the Netherland rebels?"
+
+The nobleman looked at the Eletto in surprise.  But the latter, giving
+him no time for reflection, continued "I understand German; your answer?"
+
+"I had business in Antwerp?"
+
+"What business?"
+
+"That is my affair."
+
+"Very well.  Then we will drop courtesy and adopt a different tone."
+
+"Nay, I am the vanquished party, and will answer you."
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I had stuffs to buy."
+
+"Are you a merchant?"
+
+The knight shook his head and answered, smiling: "We have rebuilt our
+castle since the fire."
+
+"And now you need hangings and artistic stuff.  Did you expect to capture
+them from us?"
+
+"Scarcely, sir."
+
+"Then what brought you among our enemies?"
+
+"Baron Floyon belongs to my mother's family.  He marched against you, and
+as I approved his cause...."
+
+"And pillage pleases you, you felt disposed to break a lance."
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"And you have done your cause no harm.  Where do you live?"
+
+"Surely you know: in Germany."
+
+"Germany is a very large country."
+
+"In the Black Forest in Swabia."
+
+"And your name?"
+
+The prisoner made no reply; but Ulrich fixed his eyes upon the coat of
+arms on the knight's armor, looked at him more steadily, and a strange
+smile hovered around his lips as he approached him, saying in an altered
+tone: "You think the Navarrete will demand from Count von Frohlinger a
+ransom as large as his fields and forests?"
+
+"You know me?"
+
+"Perhaps so, Count Lips."
+
+"By Heavens!"
+
+"Ah, ha, you went from the monastery to the field."
+
+"From the monastery?  How do you know that, sir?"
+
+"We are old acquaintances, Count Lips.  Look me in the eyes."
+
+The other gazed keenly at the Eletto, shook his head, and said: "You have
+not seemed a total stranger to me from the first; but I never was in
+Spain."
+
+"But I have been in Swabia, and at that time you did me a kindness.
+Would your ransom be large enough to cover the cost of a broken church
+window?"
+
+The count opened his eyes in amazement and a bright smile flashed over
+his face as, clapping his hands, he exclaimed with sincere delight:
+
+"You, you--you are Ulrich!  I'll be damned, if I'm mistaken!  But who the
+devil would discover a child of the Black Forest in the Spanish Eletto?"
+
+"That I am one, must remain a secret between us for the present,"
+exclaimed Ulrich, extending his hand to the count.  "Keep silence, and
+you will be free--the window will cover the ransom!"
+
+"Holy Virgin!  If all the windows in the monastery were as dear, the
+monks might grow fat!" cried the count.  "A Swabian heart remains half
+Swabian, even when it beats under a Spanish doublet.  Its luck, Turk's
+luck, that I followed Floyon;--and your old father, Adam?  And Ruth--what
+a pleasure!"
+
+"You ought to know....my father is dead, died long, long ago!" said
+Ulrich, lowering his eyes.
+
+"Dead!" exclaimed the other.  "And long ago?  I saw him at the anvil
+three weeks since."
+
+"My father?  At the anvil?  And Ruth?...."  stammered Ulrich, gazing at
+the other with a pallid, questioning face.
+
+"They are alive, certainly they are alive!  I met him again in Antwerp.
+No one else can make you such armor.  The devil is in it, if you hav'nt
+heard of the Swabian armorer."
+
+"The Swabian--the Swabian--is he my father?"
+
+"Your own father.  How long ago is it?  Thirteen years, for I was then
+sixteen.  That was the last time I saw him, and yet I recognized him at
+the first glance.  True, I shall never forget the hour, when the dumb
+woman drew the arrow from the Jew's breast.  The scene I witnessed that
+day in the forest still rises before my eyes, as if it were happening
+now."
+
+"He lives, they did not kill him!" exclaimed the Eletto, now first
+beginning to rejoice over the surprising news.  "Lips, man--Philipp!
+I have found my mother again, and now my father too.  Wait, wait!  I'll
+speak to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride
+to Lier; there you will tell me the whole story.  Holy Virgin! thanks, a
+thousand thanks!  I shall see my father again, my father!"
+
+It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their
+wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier.  The Eletto had not grown
+weary of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.
+
+Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had
+gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years.  The
+Jew's dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living
+with the old man and kept house for him.  Navarrete had often heard the
+Swabian and his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.
+
+The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth.  He acknowledged that
+he had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his
+beautiful daughter.  The girl was slender as a fir-tree!  And her face!
+once seen could never be forgotten.  So might have looked the beautiful
+Judith, who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of
+Rome!  She was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold
+as glass; and though she liked him on account of his old friendship for
+Ulrich and the affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at,
+not touch her.  She would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still
+alive, and what he had become.  And the smith, the smith!  Nay, he would
+not go home now, but back to Antwerp to be Ulrich's messenger!  But now
+he too would like to relate his own experiences.
+
+He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly
+reverted to old days and his father.  Every person whom they had both
+known was enquired for.
+
+Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from
+gout and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age.
+Hangemarx had grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by the
+rope, though by his own hand.  Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the
+priesthood and was living in Rome in high esteem, as a member of a
+Spanish order.  The abbot still presided over the monastery and had a
+great deal of time for his studies; for the school had been broken up
+and, as part of the property of the monastery had been confiscated, the
+number of monks had diminished.  The magistrate had been falsely accused
+of embezzling minors' money, remained in prison for a year and, after his
+liberation, died of a liver complaint.
+
+Morning was dawning when the friends separated.  Count Philipp undertook
+to tell Ruth that Ulrich had found his mother again.  She was to persuade
+the smith to forgive his wife, with whose praises her son's lips were
+overflowing.
+
+At his departure Philipp tried to induce the Eletto to change his course
+betimes, for he was following a dangerous path; but Ulrich laughed in his
+face, exclaiming: "You know I have found the right word, and shall use it
+to the end.  You were born to power in a small way; I have won mine
+myself, and shall not rest until I am permitted to exercise it on a great
+scale, nay, the grandest.  If aught on earth affords a taste of heavenly
+joy, it is power!"
+
+In the camp the Eletto found the troops from Aalst prepared for
+departure, and as he rode along the road saw in imagination, sometimes
+his parents, his parents in a new and happy union, sometimes Ruth in the
+full splendor of her majestic beauty.  He remembered how proudly he had
+watched his father and mother, when they went to church together on
+Sunday, how he had carried Ruth in his arms on their flight; and now he
+was to see and experience all this again.
+
+He gave his men only a short rest, for he longed to reach his mother.
+It was a glorious return home, to bring such tidings!  How beautiful and
+charming he found life; how greatly he praised his destiny!
+
+The sun was setting behind pleasant Aalst as he approached, and the sky
+looked as if it was strewn with roses.
+
+"Beautiful, beautiful!"  he murmured, pointing out to his lieutenant the
+brilliant hues in the western horizon.
+
+A messenger hastened on in advance, the thunder of artillery and fanfare
+of music greeted the victors, as they marched through the gate.  Ulrich
+sprang from his horse in front of the guildhall and was received by the
+captain, who had commanded during his absence.
+
+The Eletto hastily described the course of the brilliant, victorious
+march, and then asked what had happened.
+
+The captain lowered his eyes in embarrassment, saying, in a low tone:
+"Nothing of great importance; but day before yesterday a wicked deed was
+committed, which will vex you.  The woman you love, the camp sibyl...."
+
+"Who?  What?  What do you mean?"
+
+"She went to Zorrillo, and he--you must not be startled--he stabbed her."
+
+Ulrich staggered back, repeating, in a hollow tone "Stabbed!"  Then
+seizing the other by the shoulder, he shrieked: "Stabbed!  That means
+murdered-killed!"
+
+"He thrust his dagger into her heart, she must have died as quickly as if
+struck by lightning.  Then Zorrillo went away, God knows where.  Who
+could suspect, that the quiet man...."
+
+"You let him escape, helped the murderer get off, you dogs!" raved the
+wretched man.  "We will speak of this again.  Where is she, where is her
+body?"
+
+The captain shrugged his shoulders, saying, in a soothing tone: "Calm
+yourself, Navarrete!  We too grieve for the sibyl; many in the camp will
+miss her.  As for Zorrillo, he had the password, and could go through the
+gate at any hour.  The body is still lying in his quarters."
+
+"Indeed!"  faltered the Eletto.  Then calming himself, he said,
+mournfully: "I wish to see her."
+
+The captain walked silently by his side and opened the murderer's
+dwelling.
+
+There, on a bed of pine-shavings, in a rude coffin made of rough planks,
+lay the woman who had given him birth, deserted him, and yet who so
+tenderly loved him.  A poor soldier's wife, to whom she had been kind,
+was watching beside the corpse, at whose head a singly brand burned with
+a smoky, yellow light.  The little white dog had found its way to her,
+and was snuffing the floor, still red with its mistress's blood.
+
+Ulrich snatched the brand from the bracket, and threw the light on the
+dead woman's face.  His tear-dimmed eyes sought his mother's features,
+but only rested on them a moment--then he shuddered, turned away, and
+giving the torch to his companion, said, softly: "Cover her head."
+
+The soldier's wife spread her coarse apron over the face, which-had
+smiled so sweetly: but Ulrich threw himself on his knees beside the
+coffin, buried his face, and remained in this attitude for many minutes.
+
+At last he slowly rose, rubbed his eyes as if waking from some confused
+dream, drew himself up proudly, and scanned the place with searching
+eyes.
+
+He was the Eletto, and thus men honored the woman who was dear to him!
+
+His mother lay in a wretched pauper's coffin, a ragged camp-follower
+watched beside her--no candles burned at her head, no priest prayed for
+the salvation of her soul!
+
+Grief was raging madly in his breast, now indignation joined this gloomy
+guest; giving vent to his passionate emotion, Ulrich wildly exclaimed:
+
+"Look here, captain!  This corpse, this woman--proclaim it to every one
+--the sibyl was my mother yes, yes, my own mother!  I demand respect for
+her, the same respect that is shown myself!  Must I compel men to render
+her fitting honor?  Here, bring torches.  Prepare the catafalque in St.
+Martin's church, and place it before the altar!  Put candles around it,
+as many as can be found!  It is still early!  Lieutenant!  I am glad you
+are there!  Rouse the cathedral priests and go to the bishop.  I command
+a solemn requiem for my mother!  Everything is to be arranged precisely
+as it was at the funeral of the Duchess of Aerschot!  Let trumpets give
+the signal for assembling.  Order the bells to be rung!  In an hour all
+must be ready at St. Martin's cathedral!  Bring torches here, I say!
+Have I the right to command--yes or no?  A large oak coffin was standing
+at the joiner's close by.  Bring it here, here; I need a better death-
+couch for my mother.  You poor, dear woman, how you loved flowers, and no
+one has brought you even one!  Captain Ortis, I have issued my commands!
+Everything must be done, when I return;--Lieutenant, you have your
+orders!"
+
+He rushed from the death-chamber to the sitting-room in his own house,
+and hastily tore stalks and blossoms from the plants.  The maid-servants
+watched him timidly, and he harshly ordered them to collect what he had
+gathered and take them to the house of death.
+
+His orders were obeyed, and when he next appeared at Zorrillo's quarters,
+the soldiers, who had assembled there in throngs, parted to make way for
+him.
+
+He beckoned to them, and while he went from one to another, saying: "The
+sibyl was my mother--Zorrillo has murdered my mother," the coffin was
+borne into the house.
+
+In the vestibule, he leaned his head against the wall, moaning and
+sighing, until Florette was laid in her last bed, and a soldier put his
+hand on his shoulder.  Then Ulrich strewed flowers over the corpse, and
+the joiner came to nail up the coffin.  The blows of the hammer actually
+hurt him, it seemed as if each one fell upon his own heart.
+
+The funeral procession passed through the ranks of soldiers, who filled
+the street.  Several officers came to meet it, and Captain Ortis,
+approaching close to the Eletto, said: "The bishop refuses the catafalque
+and the solemn requiem you requested.  Your mother died in sin, without
+the sacrament.  He will grant as many masses for the repose of her soul
+as you desire, but such high honors...."
+
+"He refuses them to us?"
+
+"Not to us, to the sibyl."
+
+"She was my mother, your Eletto's mother.  To the cathedral, forward!"
+
+"It is closed, and will remain so to-day, for the bishop...."
+
+"Then burst the doors!  We'll show them who has the power here."
+
+"Are you out of your senses?  The Holy Church!"
+
+"Forward, I say!  Let him who is no cowardly wight, follow me!"
+
+Ulrich drew the commander's baton from his belt and rushed forward,
+as if he were leading a storming-party; but Ortis cried: "We will not
+fight against St. Martin!" and a murmur of applause greeted him.
+
+Ulrich checked his pace, and gnashing his teeth, exclaimed: "Will not?
+Will not?"  Then gazing around the circle of comrades, who surrounded him
+on all sides, he asked: "Has no one courage to help me to my rights?
+Ortis, de Vego, Diego, will you follow me, yes or no?"
+
+"No, not against the Church!"
+
+"Then I command you," shouted the Eletto, furiously.  "Obey, Lieutenant
+de Vega, forward with your company, and burst the cathedral doors."
+
+But no one obeyed, and Ortis ordered: "Back, every man of you!  Saint
+Martin is my patron saint; let all who value their souls refuse to attack
+the church and defend it with me."
+
+The blood rushed to Ulrich's brain, and incapable of longer self-control,
+he threw his baton into the ranks of the mutineers, shrieking: "I hurl it
+at your feet; whoever picks it up can keep it!"
+
+The  soldiers hesitated;  but  Ortis  repeated  his "Back!"  Other
+officers gave the same order, and their men obeyed.  The street grew
+empty, and the Eletto's mother was only followed by a few of her son's
+friends; no priest led the procession.  In the cemetery Ulrich threw
+three handfuls of earth into the open grave, then with drooping head
+returned home.
+
+How dreary, how desolate the bright, flower-decked room seemed now, for
+the first time the Eletto felt really deserted.  No tears came to relieve
+his grief, for the insult offered him that day aroused his wrath, and he
+cherished it as if it were a consolation.
+
+He had thrown power aside with the staff of command.  Power!  It too was
+potter's trash, which a stone might shatter, a flower in full bloom,
+whose leaves drop apart if touched by the finger!  It was no noble metal,
+only yellow mica!
+
+The knocker on the door never stopped rapping.  One officer after another
+came to soothe him, but he would not even admit his lieutenant.
+
+He rejoiced over his hasty deed.  Fortune, he thought, cannot be escaped,
+art cannot be thrown aside; fame may be trampled under foot, yet still
+pursue us.
+
+Power has this advantage over all three, it can be flung off like a worn-
+out doublet.  Let it fly!  Had he owed it the happiness of the last few
+weeks?  No, no!  He would have been happy with his mother in a poor,
+plain house, without the office of Eletto, without flowers, horses or
+servants.  It was to her, not to power, that he was indebted for every
+blissful hour, and now that she had gone, how desolate was the void in
+his heart!
+
+Suddenly the recollection of his father and Ruth illumined his misery
+like a sunbeam.  The game of Eletto was now over, he would go to Antwerp
+the next day.
+
+Why had fate snatched his mother from him just now, why did it deny him
+the happiness of seeing his parents united?  His father--she had sorely
+wronged him, but for what will not death atone?  He must take him some
+remembrance of her, and went to her room to look through her chest.  But
+it no longer stood in the old place--the owner of the house, a rich
+matron, who had been compelled to occupy an attic-room, while strangers
+were quartered in her residence, had taken charge of the pale orphan and
+the boxes after Florette's death.
+
+The good Netherland dame provided for the adopted child and the property
+of her enemy, the man whose soldiers had pillaged her brothers and
+cousins.  The death of the woman below had moved her deeply, for the
+wonderful charm of Florette's manner had won her also.
+
+Towards midnight Ulrich took the lamp and went upstairs.  He had long
+since forgotten to spare others, by denying himself a wish.
+
+The knocking at the door and the passing to and fro in the entry had kept
+Frau Geel awake.  When she heard the Eletto's heavy step, she sprang up
+from her spinning-wheel in alarm, and the maid-servant, half roused from
+sleep, threw herself on her knees.
+
+"Frau Geel!"  called a voice outside.
+
+She recognized Navarrete's tones, opened the door, and asked what he
+desired.
+
+"It was his mother," thought the old lady as he threw clothes, linen and
+many a trifle on the floor.  "It was his mother.  Perhaps he wants her
+rosary or prayer book.  He is her son!  They looked like a happy couple
+when they were together.  A wild soldier, but he isn't a wicked man yet."
+
+While he searched she held the light for him, shaking her head over the
+disorder among the articles where he rummaged.
+
+Ulrich had now reached the bottom of the chest.  Here he found a valuable
+necklace, booty which Zorrillo had given his companion for use in case of
+need.  This should be Ruth's.  Close beside it lay a small package, tied
+with rose-pink ribbon, containing a tiny infant's shirt, a gay doll, and
+a slender gold circlet; her wedding-ring!  The date showed that it had
+been given to her by his father, and the shirt and doll were mementos of
+him, her darling--of himself.
+
+He gazed at them, changing them from one hand to the other, till suddenly
+his heart overflowed, and without heeding Frau Geel, who was watching
+him, he wept softly, exclaiming: "Mother, dear mother!"
+
+A light hand touched his shoulder, and a woman's kind voice said: "Poor
+fellow, poor fellow!  Yes, she was a dear little thing, and a mother, a
+mother--that is enough!"
+
+The Eletto nodded assent with tearful eyes, and when she again gently
+repeated in a tone of sincere sympathy, her "poor fellow!"  it sounded
+sweeter, than the loudest homage that had ever been offered to his fame
+and power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+The next morning while Ulrich was packing his luggage, assisted by his
+servant, the sound of drums and fifes, bursts of military music and loud
+cheers were heard in the street, and going to the window, he saw the
+whole body of mutineers drawn up in the best order.
+
+The companies stood in close ranks before his house, impetuous shouts and
+bursts of music made the windows rattle, and now the officers pressed
+into his room, holding out their swords, vowing fealty unto death, and
+entreating him to remain their commander.
+
+He now perceived, that power cannot be thrown aside like a worthless
+thing.  His tortured heart was stirred with deep emotion, and the
+drooping wings of ambition unfolded with fresh energy.  He reproached,
+raged, but yielded; and when Ortis on his knees, offered him the
+commander's baton, he accepted it.
+
+Ulrich was again Eletto, but this need not prevent his seeing his father
+and Ruth once more, so he declared that he would retain his office, but
+should be obliged to ride to Antwerp that day, secretly inform the
+officers of the conspiracy against the city, and the necessity of
+negotiating with the commandant, that their share of the rich prize might
+not be lost.
+
+What many had suspected and hoped was now to become reality.  Their
+Eletto was no idle man!  When Navarrete appeared at noon in front of the
+troops with his own work, the standard, in his hand, he was received with
+shouts of joy, and no one murmured, though many recognized in the
+Madonna's countenance the features of the murdered sibyl.
+
+Two days later Ulrich, full of eager expectation, rode into Antwerp,
+carrying in his portmanteau the mementos he had taken from his mother's
+chest, while in imagination he beheld his father's face, the smithy at
+Richtberg, the green forest, the mountains of his home, the Costas'
+house, and his little playfellow.  Would he really be permitted to lean
+on his father's broad breast once more?
+
+And Ruth, Ruth!  Did she still care for him, had Philipp described her
+correctly?
+
+He went to the count without delay, and found him at home.  Philipp
+received him cordially, yet with evident timidity and embarrassment.
+Ulrich too was grave, for he had to inform his companion of his mother's
+death.
+
+"So that is settled," said the count.  "Your father is a gnarled old
+tree, a real obstinate Swabian.  It's not his way to forgive and forget."
+
+"And did he know that my mother was so near to him, that she was in
+Aalst."
+
+"All, all!"
+
+"He will forgive the dead.  Surely, surely he will, if I beseech him,
+when we are united, if I tell him...."
+
+"Poor fellow!  You think all this is so easy.--It is long since I have
+had so hard a task, yet I must speak plainly.  He will have nothing to
+do with you, either."
+
+"Nothing to do with me?"  cried Ulrich.
+
+"Is he out of his senses?  What sin have I committed, what does he...."
+
+"He knows that you are Navarrete, the Eletto of Herenthals, the conqueror
+of Aalst, and therefore...."
+
+"Therefore?"
+
+"Why of course.  You see, Ulrich, when a man becomes famous like you, he
+is known for a long distance, everything he does makes a great hue and
+cry, and echo repeats it in every alley."
+
+"To my honor before God and man."
+
+"Before God?  Perhaps so; certainly before the Spaniards.  As for me
+--I was with the squadron myself, I call you a brave soldier; but--no
+offence--you have behaved ill in this country.  The Netherlanders are
+human beings too."
+
+"They are rebels, recreant heretics."
+
+"Take care, or you will revile your own father.  His faith has been
+shaken.  A preacher, whom he met on his flight here, in some tavern, led
+him astray by inducing him to read the bible.  Many things the Church
+condemns are sacred to him.  He thinks the Netherlanders a free, noble
+nation.  Your King Philip he considers a tyrant, oppressor, and ruthless
+destroyer.  You who have served him and Alba--are in his eyes; but I will
+not wound you...."
+
+"What are we, I will hear."
+
+"No, no, it would do no good.  In short, to Adam the Spanish army is a
+bloody pest, nothing more."
+
+"There never were braver soldiers."
+
+"Very true; but every defeat, all the blood you have shed, has angered
+him and this nation, and wrath, which daily receives fresh food and to
+which men become accustomed, at last turns to hate.  All great crimes
+committed in this war are associated with Alba's name, many smaller ones
+with yours, and so your father...."
+
+"Then we will teach him a better opinion!  I return to him an honest
+soldier, the commander of thousands of men!  To see him once more, only
+to see him!  A son remains a son!  I learned that from my mother.  We
+were rivals and enemies, when I met her!  And then, then--alas, that is
+all over!  Now I wish to find in my father what I have lost; will you go
+to the smithy with me?"
+
+"No, Ulrich, no.  I have said everything to your father that can be urged
+in your defence, but he is so devoured with rage...."
+
+"Santiago!" exclaimed the  Eletto, bursting into sudden fury, "I need no
+advocate!  If the old man knows what share I have taken in this war, so
+much the better.  I'll fill up the gaps myself.  I have been  wherever
+the  fight  raged  hottest!  'Sdeath! that is my pride!  I am no longer a
+boy and have fought my way through life without father or mother.  What I
+am, I have made myself, and can defend with honor, even to the old man.
+He carries heavy guns, I know; but I am not accustomed to shoot with
+feather balls!"
+
+"Ulrich,  Ulrich!  He is an old man, and your father!"
+
+"I will remember that, as soon as he calls me his son."
+
+One of the count's servants showed Ulrich the way to the smith's house.
+
+Adam had entirely given up the business of horseshoeing, for nothing was
+to be seen in the ground floor of the high, narrow house, except the
+large door, and a window on each side.  Behind the closed one at the
+right were several pieces of armor, beautifully embossed, and some
+artistically-wrought iron articles.  The left-hand one was partly open,
+granting entrance to the autumn sunshine.  Ulrich dismissed the servant,
+took the mementos of his mother in his hand, and listened to the hammer-
+strokes, that echoed from within.
+
+The familiar sound recalled pleasant memories of his childhood and cooled
+his hot blood.  Count Philipp was right.  His father was an old man, and
+entitled to demand respect from his son.  He must endure from him what he
+would tolerate from no one else.  Nay, he again felt that it was a great
+happiness to be near the beloved one, from whom he had so long been
+parted; whatever separated him from his old father, must surely vanish
+into nothing, as soon as they looked into each other's eyes.
+
+What a master in his trade, his father still was!  No one else would have
+found it so easy to forge the steel coat of mail with the Medusa head in
+the centre.  He was not working alone here as he did at Richtberg; for
+Ulrich heard more than one hammer striking iron in the workshop.
+
+Before touching the knocker, he looked into the open window.
+
+A woman's tall figure was standing at the desk.  Her back was turned,
+and he saw only the round outline of the head, the long black braids,
+the plain dress, bordered with velvet, and the lace in the neck. An
+elderly man in the costume of a merchant was just holding out his hand
+in farewell, and he heard him say: "You've bought too cheap again, far
+too cheap, Jungfer Ruth."
+
+"Just a fair price," she answered quietly.  "You will have a good
+profit, and we can afford to pay it.  I shall expect the iron day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"It will be delivered before noon.  Master Adam has a treasure in you,
+dear Jungfer.  If my son were alive, I know where he would seek a wife.
+Wilhelm Ykens has told me of his troubles; he is a skilful goldsmith.
+Why do you give the poor fellow no hope?  Consider!  You are past twenty,
+and every year it grows harder to say yes to a lover."
+
+"Nothing suits me better, than to stay with father," she answered gaily.
+"He can't do without me, you know, nor I without him.  I have no dislike
+to Wilhelm, but it seems very easy to live without him.  Farewell, Father
+Keulitz."
+
+Ulrich withdrew from the window, until the merchant had vanished down a
+side street; then he again glanced into the narrow room.  Ruth was now
+seated at the desk, but instead of looking over the open account book,
+her eyes were gazing dreamily into vacancy, and the Eletto now saw her
+beautiful, calm, noble face.  He did not disturb her, for it seemed as if
+he could never weary of comparing her features with the fadeless image
+his memory had treasured during all the vicissitudes of life.
+
+Never, not even in Italy, had he beheld a nobler countenance.  Philipp
+was right.  There was something royal in her bearing.  This was the wife
+of his dreams, the proud woman, with whom the Eletto desired to share
+power and grandeur.  And he had already held her once in his arms!  It
+seemed as if it were only yesterday.  His heart throbbed higher and
+higher.  As she now rose and thoughtfully approached the window, he could
+no longer contain himself, and exclaimed in a low tone: "Ruth, Ruth!  Do
+you know me, girl?  It is I--Ulrich!"
+
+She shrank back, putting out he1 hands with a repellent gesture; but only
+for a moment.  Then, struggling to maintain her composure, she joyously
+uttered his name, and as he rushed into the room, cried "Ulrich!"
+"Ulrich!" and no longer able to control her feelings, suffered him to
+clasp her to his heart.
+
+She had daily expected him with ardent longing, yet secret dread: for
+he was the fierce Eletto, the commander of the insurgents, the bloody foe
+of the brave nation she loved.  But at sight of his face all, all was
+forgotten, and she felt nothing but the bliss of being reunited to him
+whom she had never, never forgotten, the joy of seeing, feeling that he
+loved her.
+
+His heart too was overflowing with passionate delight.  Faltering tender
+words, he drew her head to his breast, then raised it to press his mouth
+to her pure lips.  But her intoxication of joy passed away--and before he
+could prevent it, she had escaped from his arms, saying sternly: "Not
+that, not that....  Many a crime lies between us and you."
+
+"No, no!" he eagerly exclaimed.  "Are you not near me?  Your heart and
+mine have belonged to each other since that day in the snow.  If my
+father is angry because I serve other masters than his, you, yes you,
+must reconcile us again.  I could stay in Aalst no longer."
+
+"With the mutineers?" she asked sadly.  "Ulrich, Ulrich, that you should
+return to us thus!"
+
+He again seized her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it, only smiled,
+saying with the confidence of a man, who is sure of his cause:
+
+"Cast aside this foolish reserve.  To-morrow you will freely give me, not
+only one hand, but both.  I am not so bad as you think.  The fortune of
+war flung me under the Spanish flag, and 'whose bread I eat, his song I
+sing,' says the soldier.  What would you have?  I served with honor, and
+have done some doughty deeds; let that content you."
+
+This angered Ruth, who resolutely exclaimed:
+
+"No, a thousand times no!  You are the Eletto of Aalst, the pillager of
+cities, and this cannot be swept aside as easily as the dust from the
+floor.  I....  I am only a feeble girl;--but father, he will never give
+his hand to the blood-stained man in Spanish garb!  I know him, I know
+it."
+
+Ulrich's breath came quicker; but he repressed the angry emotion and
+replied, first reproachfully, then beseechingly:
+
+"You are the old man's echo.  What does he know of military honor and
+warlike fame; but you, Ruth, must understand me.  Do you still remember
+our sport with the "word," the great word that accomplished everything?
+I have found it; and you shall enjoy with me what it procures.  First
+help me appease my father; I shall succeed, if you aid me.  It will
+doubtless be a hard task.  He could not bring himself to forgive his poor
+wife--Count Philipp says so;--but now!  You see, Ruth, my mother died a
+few days ago; she was a dear, loving woman and might have deserved a
+better fate.
+
+"I am alone again now, and long for love--so ardently, so sincerely, more
+than I can tell you.  Where shall I find it, if not with you and my own
+father?  You have always cared for me; you betray it, and after all you
+know I am not a bad man, do you not?  Be content with my love and take me
+to my father, yourself.  Help me persuade him to listen to me.  I have
+something here which you can give him from me; you will see that it will
+soften his heart!"
+
+"Then give it to me," replied Ruth, "but whatever it may be--believe me,
+Ulrich, so long as you command the Spanish mutineers, he will remain
+hard, hard as his own iron!"
+
+"Spaniards!  Mutineers!  Nonsense!  Whoever wishes to love, can love; the
+rest may be settled afterwards.  You don't know how high my heart throbs,
+now that I am near you, now that I see and hear you.  You are my good
+angel and must remain so, now look here.  This is my mother's legacy.
+This little shirt I once wore, when I was a tiny thing, the gay doll was
+my plaything, and this gold hoop is the wedding-ring my father gave his
+bride at the altar--she kept all these things to the last, and carried
+them like holy relics from land to land, from camp to camp.  Will you
+take these mementos to him?"
+
+She nodded silently.
+
+"Now comes the best thing.  Have you ever seen more beautiful
+workmanship?  You must wear this necklace, Ruth, as my first gift."
+
+He held up the costly ornament, but she shrank back, asking bitterly
+
+"Captured booty?"
+
+"In honorable war," he answered, proudly, approaching to fasten the
+jewels round her neck with his own hands; but she pushed him back,
+snatched the ornament, and hurled it on the floor, exclaiming angrily:
+
+"I loathe the stolen thing.  Pick it up.  It may suit the camp-
+followers."
+
+This destroyed his self-control, and seizing both her arms in an iron
+grasp, he muttered through his clenched teeth:
+
+"That is an insult to my mother; take it back."  But Ruth heard and saw
+nothing; full of indignation she only felt that violence was being done
+her, and vainly struggled against the irresistible strength, which held
+her fast.
+
+Meantime the door had opened wide, but neither noticed it until a man's
+deep voice loudly and wrathfully exclaimed:
+
+"Back, you scoundrel!  Come here, Ruth.  This is the way the assassin
+greets his family; begone, begone!  you disgrace of my house!"
+
+Adam had uttered the words, and now drew the hammer from the belt of his
+leather apron.
+
+Ulrich gazed mutely into his face.  There stood his father, strong,
+gigantic, as he had looked thirteen years before.  His head was a little
+bowed, his beard longer and whiter, his eyebrows were more bushy and his
+expression had grown more gloomy; otherwise he was wholly unchanged in
+every feature.
+
+The son's eyes rested on the smith as if spellbound.  It seemed as if
+some malicious fate had drawn him into a snare.
+
+He could say nothing except, "father, father," and the smith found no
+other answer than the harsh "begone!"
+
+Ruth approached the armorer, clung to his side, and pleaded:
+
+"Hear him, don't send him away so; he is your child, and if anger just
+now overpowered him...."
+
+"Spanish custom--to abuse women!"  cried Adam.  "I have no son Navarrete,
+or whatever the murderous monster calls himself.  I am a burgher, and
+have no son, who struts about in the stolen clothes of noblemen; as to
+this man and his assassins, I hate them, hate them all.  Your foot
+defiles my house.  Out with you, knave, or I will use my hammer."
+
+Ulrich again exclaimed, "father, father!"  Then, regaining his self-
+control by a violent effort, he gasped:
+
+"Father, I came to you in good will, in love.  I am an honest soldier and
+if any one but you--'Sdeath--if any other had dared to offer me this...."
+
+"Murder the dog, you would have said," interrupted the smith.  "We know
+the Spanish blessing: a sandre, a carne!--[Blood, murder.]--Thanks for
+your forbearance.  There is the door.  Another word, and I can restrain
+myself no longer."
+
+Ruth had clung firmly to the smith, and motioned Ulrich to go.  The
+Eletto groaned aloud, struck his forehead with his clenched fist, and
+rushed into the open air.
+
+As soon as Adam was alone with Ruth she caught his hand, exclaiming
+beseechingly:
+
+"Father, father, he is your own son!  Love your enemies, the Saviour
+commanded; and you...."
+
+"And I hate him," said the smith, curtly and resolutely.  "Did he hurt
+you?"
+
+"Your hate hurts me ten times as much!  You judge without examining; yes,
+father, you do!  When he assaulted me, he was in the right.  He thought I
+had insulted his mother."
+
+Adam shrugged his shoulders, and she continued "The poor woman is dead.
+Ulrich brought you yonder ring; she never parted with it."
+
+The armorer started, seized the golden hoop, looked for the date inside,
+and when he had found it, clasped the ring in his hands and pressed them
+silently to his temples.  He stood in this attitude a short time, then
+let his arms fall, and said softly:
+
+"The dead must be forgiven...."
+
+"And the living, father?  You have punished him terribly, and he is not
+a wicked man, no, indeed he is not!  If he comes back again, father?"
+
+"My apprentices shall show the Spanish mutineer the door," cried the old
+man in a harsh, stern tone; "to the burgher's repentant son my house will
+be always open."
+
+Meantime the Eletto wandered from one street to another.  He felt
+bewildered, disgraced.
+
+It was not grief--no quiet heartache that disturbed--but a confused
+blending of wrath and sorrow.  He did not wish to appear before the
+friend of his youth, and even avoided Hans Eitelfritz, who came towards
+him.  He was blind to the gay, joyous bustle of the capital; life seemed
+grey and hollow.  His intention of communicating with the commandant of
+the citadel remained unexecuted; for he thought of nothing but his
+father's anger, of Ruth, his own shame and misery.
+
+He could not leave so.
+
+His father must, yes, he must hear him, and when it grew dusk, he again
+sought the house to which he belonged, and from which he had been so
+cruelly expelled.
+
+The door was locked.  In reply to his knock, a man's unfamiliar voice
+asked who he was, and what he wanted.
+
+He asked to speak with Adam, and called himself Ulrich.
+
+After waiting a long time he heard a door torn open, and the smith
+angrily exclaim:
+
+"To your spinning-wheel!  Whoever clings to him so long as he wears the
+Spanish dress, means evil to him as well as to me."
+
+"But hear him!  You must hear him, father!"  cried Ruth.
+
+The door closed, heavy steps approached the door of the house; it opened,
+and again Adam confronted his son.
+
+"What do you want?"  he asked harshly.
+
+"To speak to you, to tell you that you did wrong to insult me unheard."
+
+"Are you still the Eletto?  Answer!"
+
+"I am!"
+
+"And intend to remain so?"
+
+"Que como--puede ser--" faltered Ulrich, who confused by the question,
+had strayed into the language in which he had been long accustomed to
+think.  But scarcely had the smith distinguished the foreign words, when
+fresh anger seized him.
+
+"Then go to perdition with your Spaniards!"  was the furious answer.
+
+The door slammed so that the house shook, and by degrees the smith's
+heavy tread died away in the vestibule.
+
+"All over, all over!"  murmured the rejected son.  Then calming himself,
+he clenched his fist and muttered through his set teeth: "There shall be
+no lack of ruin; whoever it befalls, can bear it."
+
+While walking through the streets and across the squares, he devised plan
+after plan, imagining what must come.  Sword in hand he would burst the
+old man's door, and the only booty he asked for himself should be Ruth,
+for whom he longed, who in spite of everything loved him, who had
+belonged to him from her childhood.
+
+The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant
+of the Spanish forces in the citadel.  The fate of the city was sealed!
+and when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with its
+proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower floor
+crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted:
+
+"A pretty little house, three stories high.  And how the broad windows,
+between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!"
+
+Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts
+and horses, and continued:
+
+"Look closer and choose your quarters.  Come with me!  I'll show you
+where the best things we need can be found.  Haven't we bled often enough
+for the pepper-sacks?  Now it will be our turn to fleece them.  The
+castles here, with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the
+guildhalls.  There is gold enough in each one, to make the company rich.
+Now this way!  Directly behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal.
+There live stiff-necked people, who dine off of silver every day.  Notice
+the street!"
+
+Then he led him back to the square, and continued "The streets here all
+lead to the quay.  Do you know it?  Have you seen the warehouses?  Filled
+to the very roof!  The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might
+transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras."
+
+Ulrich followed his guide from street to street.  Wherever he looked, he
+saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz stopped before a jeweller's shop, saying:
+
+"Look here!  I particularly admire these things, these toys: the little
+dog, the sled, the lady with the hoopskirt, all these things are pure
+silver.  When the pillage begins, I shall grasp these and take them to my
+sister's little children in Colln; they will be delighted, and if it
+should ever be necessary, their mother can sell them."
+
+What a throng crowded the most aristocratic streets!  English, Spanish,
+Italian and Hanseatic merchants tried to outdo the Netherland traders in
+magnificent clothes and golden ornaments.  Ulrich saw them all assembled
+in the Gothic exchange on the Mere, the handsomest square in the city.
+There they stood in the vast open hall, on the checkered marble floor,
+not by hundreds, but by thousands, dealing in goods which came from all
+quarters of the globe--from the most distant lands.  Their offers and
+bids mingled in a noise audible at a long distance, which was borne
+across the square like the echo of ocean surges.
+
+Sums were discussed, which even the winged imagination of the lansquenet
+could scarcely grasp.  This city was a remarkable treasure, a thousand-
+fold richer booty than had been garnered from the Ottoman treasure-ship on
+the sea at Lepanto.
+
+Here was the fortune the Eletto needed, to build the palace in which he
+intended to place Ruth.  To whom else would fall the lion's share of the
+enormous prize!
+
+His future happiness was to arise from the destruction of this proud
+city, stifling in its gold.
+
+These were ambitious brilliant plans, but he devised them with gloomy
+eyes, in a darkened mind.  He intended to win by force what was denied
+him, so long as the power belonged to him.
+
+There could be no lack of flames and carnage; but that was part of his
+trade, as shavings belong to flames, hammer-strokes to smiths.
+
+Count Philipp had no suspicion of the assault, was not permitted to
+suspect anything.  He attributed Ulrich's agitated manner to the
+rejection he had encountered in his father's house, and when he took
+leave of him on his departure to Swabia, talked kindly with his former
+schoolmate and advised him to leave the Spanish flag and try once more
+to be reconciled to the old man.
+
+Before the Eletto quitted the city, he gave Hans Eitelfritz, whose
+regiment had secretly joined the mutiny, letters of safeguard for his
+family and the artist, Moor.
+
+He had not forgotten the latter, but well-founded timidity withheld him
+from appearing before the honored man, while cherishing the gloomy
+thoughts that now filled his soul.
+
+In Aalst the mutineers received him with eager joy, harsh and repellent
+as he appeared, they cheerfully obeyed him; for he could hold out to them
+a prospect, which lured a bright smile to the bearded lips of the
+grimmest warrior.
+
+If power was the word, he scarcely understood how to use it aright, for
+wholly absorbed in himself, he led a joyless life of dissatisfied longing
+and gloomy reverie.
+
+It seemed to him as if he had lost one half of himself, and needed Ruth
+to become the whole man.  Hours grew to days, days to weeks, and not
+until Roda's messenger appeared from the citadel in Antwerp to summon him
+to action, did he revive and regain his old vivacity.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards' hands,
+and was cruelly pillaged.  The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to
+make common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.
+
+Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city.  Governor Champagny saw
+his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the despots
+in the fortress, which dominated the town.  A Netherland army, composed
+principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable Marquis
+Havre, the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the capital,
+to prevent the worst.
+
+Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent
+treason, if he admitted the government troops--but the majority of the
+lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger hourly
+increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently pressed the
+matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.
+
+Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while
+intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers
+in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end.
+The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of
+lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal
+for revolt.  The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and
+firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and
+murderers in his own escort.
+
+Champagny called upon the citizens to help themselves, and used their
+labor in throwing up a wall of defence in the open part of the city,
+which was most dangerously threatened by the citadel.  Among the men and
+women who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam, the
+smith, his apprentices, and Ruth.  The former, with his journeymen,
+wielded the spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl,
+with other women, braided gabions from willow-rods.
+
+She had lived through sorrowful days.  Self-reproach, for having by her
+hasty fit of temper caused the father's outburst of anger to his son,
+constantly tortured her.
+
+She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that
+Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his
+image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in the
+most sacred depths of her heart.  He was all in all to her, the one
+person destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to
+the face, the heart to the breast.
+
+She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him,
+it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.
+
+A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did
+in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect.
+She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his,
+expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter.
+Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief of her
+loving soul.  Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be one in
+their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close his heart
+against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.
+
+The child's vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden.  Every
+leisure hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had
+talked to his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him
+return as a famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid
+ship.
+
+Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared.  Now she
+found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here he
+was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he
+certainly was not base and mean.
+
+As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince,
+but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in plain
+burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside him at
+the forge.  She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her stood
+the table she covered with food for him, and the water she gave him after
+his work.  She heard the house shake under the mighty blows of his
+hammer, and in imagination beheld him lay his curly head in her lap,
+and say he had found love and peace with her.
+
+The cannonade from the citadel stopped the citizens' work.  Open
+hostilities had begun.
+
+On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the
+treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered the
+fortress.  The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage and
+terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
+
+"He is keeping them back," Ruth had said the day before.  "Antwerp, our
+home, is sacred to him!"
+
+The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled; the
+boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers and
+citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of the
+artillery.
+
+Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still
+with fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion.  Ruth remained calm.
+She detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words:  "The
+men from Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back."  Just at that
+moment the young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed
+with dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping:
+
+"The men from Aalst  are here.  They crossed in peatboats and a galley.
+They wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in the
+van, bearing the standard.  I saw them; terrible--horrible--sheathed in
+iron from top to toe."
+
+He said no more, for Adam, with a savage imprecation, interrupted him,
+seized his huge hammer, and rushed out of the house.
+
+Ruth staggered back into the workshop.
+
+Adam hurried straight to the rampart.  Here stood six thousand Walloons,
+to defend the half-finished wall, and behind them large bodies of armed
+citizens.
+
+"The men from Aalst have come!" echoed from lip to lip.
+
+Curses, wails of grief, yells of savage fury, blended with the thunder of
+the artillery and the ringing of the alarm bells.
+
+A fugitive now dashed from the counterscarp towards the Walloons,
+shouting:
+
+"They are here, they are here!  The blood-hound, Navarrete, is leading
+them.  They will neither eat nor drink, they say, till they dine in
+Paradise or Antwerp.  Hark, hark!  there they are!"
+
+And they were there, coming nearer and nearer; foremost of all marched
+the Eletto, holding the standard in his upraised hand.
+
+Behind him, from a thousand bearded lips, echoed furious, greedy,
+terrible cries; "Santiago, Espana, a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a saco!"
+--[St. Jago; Spain, blood, murder, fire, pillage]--but Navarrete was
+silent, striding onward, erect and haughty, as if he were proof against
+the bullets, that whistled around him on all sides.  Consciousness of
+power and the fierce joy of battle sparkled in his eyes.  Woe betide him,
+who received a blow from the two-handed sword the Eletto still held over
+his shoulder, now with his left hand.
+
+Adam stood with upraised hammer beside the front ranks of the Walloons!
+his eyes rested as if spellbound on his approaching son and the standard
+in his hand.  The face of the guilty woman, who had defrauded him of the
+happiness of his life, gazed at him from the banner.  He knew not whether
+he was awake, or the sport of some bewildering dream.
+
+Now, now his glance met the Eletto's, and unable to restrain himself
+longer, he raised his hammer and tried to rush forward, but the Walloons
+forced him back.
+
+Yes, yes, he hated his own child, and trembling with rage, burning to
+rush upon him, he saw the Eletto spring on the lowest projection of the
+wall, to climb up.  For a short time he was concealed from his eyes, then
+he saw the top of the standard, then the banner itself, and now his son
+stood on the highest part of the rampart, shouting: "Espana, Espana!"
+
+At this moment, with a deafening din, a hundred arquebuses were
+discharged close beside the smith, a dense cloud of smoke darkened the
+air, and when the wind dispersed it, Adam no longer beheld the standard.
+It lay on the ground; beside it the Eletto, with his face turned upward,
+mute and motionless.
+
+The father groaned aloud and closed his eyes; when he opened them,
+hundreds of iron-mailed mutineers had scaled the rampart.  Beneath their
+feet lay his bleeding child.
+
+Corpse after corpse sank on the stone wall beside the fallen man, but the
+iron wedge of the Spaniards pressed farther and farther forward.
+
+"Espana, a sangre, a carne!"
+
+Now they had reached the Walloons, steel clashed against steel, but only
+for a moment, then the defenders of the city wavered, the furious wedge
+entered their ranks, they parted, yielded, and with loud shrieks took to
+flight.  The Spanish swords raged among them, and overpowered by the
+general terror, the officers followed the example of the soldiers, the
+flying army, like a resistless torrent, carrying everything with it, even
+the smith.
+
+An unparalleled massacre began.  Adam seeing a frantic horde rush into
+the houses, remembered Ruth, and half mad with terror hastened back to
+the smithy, where he told those left behind what he had witnessed.  Then,
+arming himself and his journeymen with weapons forged by his own hand, he
+hurried out with them to renew the fight.
+
+Hours elapsed; the noise, the firing, the ringing of the alarm bells
+still continued; smoke and the smell of fire penetrated through the doors
+and windows.
+
+Evening came, and the richest, most flourishing commercial capital in the
+world was here a heap of ashes, there a ruin, everywhere a plundered
+treasury.
+
+Once the occupants of the smith's shop heard a band of murderers raging
+and shouting outside of the smithy; but they passed by, and all day long
+no others entered the quiet street, which was inhabited only by workers
+in metal.
+
+Ruth and old Rahel had remained behind, under the protection of the brave
+foreman.  Adam had told them to fly to the cellar, if any uproar arose
+outside the door.  Ruth wore a dagger, determined in the worst extremity
+to turn it against her own breast.  What did she care for life, since
+Ulrich had perished!
+
+Old Rahel, an aged dame of eighty, paced restlessly, with bowed figure,
+through the large room, saying compassionately, whenever her eyes met the
+girl's: "Ulrich, our Ulrich !"  then, straightening herself and looking
+upward.  She no longer knew what had happened a few hours before, yet her
+memory faithfully retained the incidents that occurred many years
+previous.  The maidservant, a native of Antwerp, had rushed home to her
+parents when the tumult began.
+
+As the day drew towards a close, the panes were less frequently shaken by
+the thunder of the artillery, the noise in the streets diminished, but
+the house became more and more filled with suffocating smoke.
+
+Night came, the lamp was lighted, the women started at every new sound,
+but anxiety for Adam now overpowered every other feeling in Ruth's mind.
+Just then the door opened, and the smith's deep voice called in the
+vestibule: "It is I!  Don't be frightened, it is I!"
+
+He had gone out with five journeymen: he returned with two.  The others
+lay slain in the streets, and with them Count Oberstein's soldiers, the
+only ones who had stoutly resisted the Spanish mutineers and their allies
+to the last man.
+
+Adam had swung his hammer on the Mere and by the Zucker Canal among the
+citizens, who fought desperately for the property and lives of their
+families;--but all was vain.  Vargas's troopers had stifled even the last
+breath of resistance.
+
+The streets ran blood, corpses lay in heaps before the doors and on the
+pavement--among them the bodies of the Margrave of Antwerp, Verreyck,
+Burgomaster van der Mere, and many senators and nobles.  Conflagration
+after conflagration crimsoned the heavens, the superb city-hall was
+blazing, and from a thousand windows echoed the screams of the assailed,
+plundered, bleeding citizens, women and children.
+
+The smith hastily ate a few mouthfuls to restore his strength, then
+raised his head, saying: "No one has touched our house.  The door and
+shutters of neighbor Ykens' are shattered."
+
+"A  miracle!" cried old Rahel, raising her staff.  "The generation of
+vipers scent richer booty than iron at the silversmith's."
+
+Just at that moment the knocker sounded.  Adam started up, put on his
+coat of mail again, motioned to his journeymen and went to the door.
+
+Rahel shrieked loudly: "To the cellar, Ruth.  Oh, God, oh, God, have
+mercy upon us!  Quick--where's my shawl?--They are attacking us!--Come,
+come!  Oh, I am caught, I can go no farther!"
+
+Mortal terror had seized the old woman; she did not want to die.  To the
+girl death was welcome, and she did not stir.
+
+Voices were now audible in the vestibule, but they sounded neither noisy
+nor threatening; yet Rahel shrieked in despair as a lansquenet, fully
+armed, entered the workshop with the armorer.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz had come to look for Ulrich's father.  In his arms lay
+the dog Lelaps, which, bleeding from the wound made by a bullet, that
+grazed its neck, nestled trembling against its master.
+
+Bowing courteously to Ruth, the soldier said:
+
+"Take pity on this poor creature, fair maiden, and wash its wound with a
+little wine.  It deserves it.  I could tell you such tales of its
+cleverness!  It came from distant India, where a pirate....  But you
+shall hear the story some other time.  Thanks, thanks!  As to your son,
+Meister, it's a thousand pities about him.  He was a splendid fellow, and
+we were like two brothers.  He himself gave me the safeguard for you and
+the artist, Moor.  I fastened them on the doors with my own hands, as
+soon as the fray began.  My swordbearer got the paste, and now may the
+writing stick there as an honorable memento till the end of the world.
+Navarrete was a faithful fellow, who never forgot his friends!  How much
+good that does Lelaps!  See, see!  He is licking your hands, that means,
+'I thank you.'"
+
+While Ruth had been washing the dog's wound, and the lansquenet talked of
+Ulrich, her tearful eyes met the father's.
+
+"They say he cut down twenty-one Walloons before he fell," continued
+Hans.
+
+"No, sir," interrupted Adam.  "I saw him.  He was shot before he raised
+his guilty sword."
+
+"Ah, ah!--but it happened on the rampart."
+
+"They rushed over him to the assault."
+
+"And there he still lies; not a soul has cared for the dead and wounded."
+
+The girl started, and laid the dog in the old man's lap, exclaiming:
+"Suppose Ulrich should be alive!  Perhaps he was not mortally wounded,
+perhaps...."
+
+"Yes, everything is possible," interrupted the lansquenet.  "I could tell
+you things....  for instance, there was a countryman of mine whom, when
+we were in Africa, a Moorish Pacha struck....no lies now....perhaps!  In
+earnest; it might happen that Ulrich....wait....  at midnight I shall
+keep guard on the rampart with my company, then I'll look...."
+
+"We, we will seek him!"  cried Ruth, seizing the smith's arm.
+
+"I will," replied the smith; "you must stay here."
+
+"No, father, I will go with you."
+
+The lansquenet also shook his head, saying "Jungfer, Jungfer, you don't
+know what a day this is.  Thank Our Heavenly Father that you have
+hitherto escaped so well.  The fierce lion has tasted blood.  You are a
+pretty child, and if they should see you to-day...."
+
+"No matter," interrupted the girl.  "I know what I am asking.  You will
+take me with you, father!  Do so, if you love me!  I will find him, if
+any one can!
+
+"Oh, sir, sir, you look kind and friendly!  You have the guard.  Escort
+us; let me seek Ulrich.  I shall find him, I know; I must seek him--I
+must."
+
+The girl's cheeks were glowing; for before her she saw her playfellow,
+her lover, gasping for breath, with staring eyes, her name upon his dying
+lips.
+
+Adam sadly shook his head, but Hans Eitelfritz was touched by the girl's
+eager longing to help the man who was dear to him, so he hastily taxed
+his inventive brain, saying:
+
+"Perhaps it might be risked....listen to me, Meister!  You won't be
+particularly safe in the streets, yourself, and could hardly reach the
+rampart without me.  I shall lose precious time;  but you are his father,
+and this girl--is she his sister?--No?--So much the better for him, if he
+lives!  It isn't an easy matter, but it can be done.  Yonder good dame
+will take care of Lelaps for me.  Poor dog!  That feels good, doesn't it?
+Well then....I can be here again at midnight.  Have you a handcart in the
+house?"
+
+For coal and iron."
+
+"That will answer.  Let the woman make a kettle of soup, and if you have
+a few hams...."
+
+"There are four in the store-room," cried Ruth.
+
+"Take some bread, a few jugs of wine,  and a keg of beer, too, and then
+follow me quietly.  I have the password, my servant will accompany me,
+and I'll make the Spaniards believe you belong to us, and are bringing my
+men their supper.  Blacken your pretty face a little, my dear girl, wrap
+yourself up well, and if we find Ulrich we will put him in the empty
+cart, and I will accompany you home again.  Take yonder spicesack, and if
+we find the poor fellow, dead or alive, hide him with it.  The sack was
+intended for other things, but I shall be well content with this booty.
+Take care of these silver toys.  What pretty things they are!  How the
+little horse rears, and see the bird in the cage!  Don't look so fierce,
+Meister!  In catching fish we must be content even with smelts; if I
+hadn't taken these, others would have done so; they are for my sister's
+children, and there is something else hidden here in my doublet; it shall
+help me to pass my leisure hours.  One man's meat is another man's
+poison."
+
+When Hans Eitelfritz returned at midnight, the cart with the food and
+liquor was ready.  Adam's warnings were unavailing.  Ruth resolutely
+insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk
+safety and life as freely as he did himself.
+
+Old Rahel had done her best to conceal Ruth's beauty.
+
+The dangerous nocturnal pilgrimage began.
+
+The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his
+sword-bearer, walking by her side.  From time to time Spanish soldiers
+met and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and
+dispelled their suspicions.
+
+Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and
+mistrusted scenes of horror, that congealed her blood.  But she bore up
+until they reached the rampart.
+
+Here Eitelfritz was among his own men.
+
+He delivered the meat and drink to them, told them to take it out of the
+cart, and invited them to fall to boldly.  Then, seizing a lantern, he
+guided Ruth and the smith, who drew the light cart after them, through
+the intense darkness of the November night to the rampart.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz lighted the way, and all three searched.  Corpse lay
+beside corpse.  Wherever Ruth set her foot, it touched some fallen
+soldier.  Dread, horror and loathing threatened to deprive her of
+consciousness; but the ardent longing, the one last hope of her soul
+sustained her, steeled her energy, sharpened her sight.
+
+They had reached the centre of the rampart, when she saw in the distance
+a tall figure stretched at full length.
+
+That, yes, that was he!
+
+Snatching the lantern from the lansquenet's hand, she rushed to the
+prostrate form, threw herself on her knees beside it, and cast the light
+upon the face.
+
+What had she seen?
+
+Why did the shriek she uttered sound so agonized?  The men were
+approaching, but Ruth knew that there was something else to be done,
+besides weeping and wailing.
+
+She pressed her ear close to the mailed breast to listen, and when she
+heard no breath, hurriedly unfastened the clasps and buckles that
+confined the armor.
+
+The cuirass fell rattling on the ground, and now--no, there was no
+deception, the wounded man's chest rose under her ear, she heard the
+faint throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a gasping breach.
+
+Bursting into loud, convulsive weeping, she raised his head and pressed
+it to her bosom.
+
+"He is dead; I thought so!"  said the lansquenet, and Adam sank on his
+knees before his wounded son.  But Ruth's sobs now changed to low,
+joyous, musical laughter, which echoed in her voice as she exclaimed:
+"Ulrich breathes, he lives!  Oh, God! oh, God!  how we thank Thee!"
+
+Then--was she deceived, could it be?  She heard the inflexible man beside
+her sob, saw him bend over Ulrich, listen to the beating of his heart,
+and press his bearded lips first to his temples, then on the hand he had
+so harshly rejected.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz warned them to hasten, carried the senseless man, with
+Adam's assistance, to the cart, and half an hour later the dangerously
+wounded, outcast son was lying in the most comfortable bed in the best
+room in his father's house.  His couch was in the upper story; down in
+the kitchen old Rahel was moving about the hearth, preparing her "good
+salve" herself.  While thus engaged she often chuckled aloud, murmuring
+"Ulrich," and while mixing and stirring the mixture could not keep her
+old feet still; it almost seemed as if she wanted to dance.
+
+Hans Eitelfritz promised Adam to tell no one what had become of his son,
+and then returned to his men.  The next morning the mutineers from Aalst
+sought their fallen leader; but he had disappeared, and the legend now
+became wide-spread among them, that the Prince of Evil had carried
+Navarrete to his own abode.  The dog Lelaps died of his wound, and
+scarcely a week after the pillage of flourishing Antwerp by the "Spanish
+Furies," Hans Eitelfritz's regiment was ordered to Ghent.  He came with
+drooping head to the smithy, to take his leave.  He had sold his costly
+booty, and, like so many other pillagers, gambled away the stolen
+property at the exchange.  Nothing was left him of the great day in
+Antwerp, except the silver toys for his sister's children in Colln on the
+Spree.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+The fire in the smithy was extinguished, no hammer fell on the anvil;
+for the wounded man lay in a burning fever; every loud noise disturbed
+him.  Adam had noticed this himself, and gave no time to his work, for
+he had to assist in nursing his son, when it was necessary to raise his
+heavy body, and to relieve Ruth, when, after long night-watches, her
+vigorous strength was exhausted.
+
+The old man saw that the girl's bands were more deft than his own toil-
+hardened ones, and let her take the principal charge-but the hours when
+she was resting in her room were the dearest to him, for then he was
+alone with Ulrich, could read his countenance undisturbed and rejoice in
+gazing at every feature, which reminded him of his child's boyhood and of
+Flora.
+
+He often pressed his bearded lips to the invalid's burning forehead or
+limp hand, and when the physician with an anxious face had left the
+house, he knelt beside Ulrich's couch, buried his forehead among the
+pillows, and fervently prayed the Heavenly Father, to spare his child and
+take in exchange his own life and all that he possessed.
+
+He often thought the end had come, and gave himself up without resistance
+to his grief; Ruth, on the contrary, never lost hope, not even in the
+darkest hours.  God had not let her find Ulrich, merely to take him from
+her again.  The end of danger was to her the beginning of deliverance.
+When he recognized her the first time, she already saw him, leaning on
+her shoulder, walk through the room; when he could raise himself, she
+thought him cured.
+
+Her heart was overflowing with joy, yet her mind remained watchful and
+thoughtful during the long, toilsome nursing.  She did not forget the
+smallest trifle, for before she undertook anything she saw in her mind
+every detail involved, as if it were already completed.  Ulrich took no
+food which she had not prepared with her own hand, no drink which she had
+not herself brought from the cellar or the well.  She perceived in
+advance what disturbed him, what pleased him, what he needed.  If she
+opened or closed the curtain, she gave or withheld no more light than was
+agreeable to him; if she arranged the pillows behind him, she placed them
+neither too high nor too low, and bound up his wounds with a gentle yet
+firm hand, like an experienced physician.  Whatever he felt--pain or
+comfort--she experienced with him.
+
+By degrees the fever vanished; consciousness returned, his pain lessened,
+he could move himself again, and began to feel stronger.  At first he did
+not know where he was; then he recognized Ruth, and then his father.
+
+How still, how dusky, how clean everything that surrounded him was!
+Delightful repose stole over him, pleasant weariness soothed every stormy
+emotion of his heart.  Whenever he opened his eyes, tender, anxious
+glances met him.  Even when the pain returned he enjoyed peaceful,
+consoling mental happiness.  Ruth felt this also, and regarded it as a
+peerless reward.
+
+When she entered the sick-room with fresh linen, and the odor of lavender
+her dead mother had liked floated softly to him from the clean sheets, he
+thought his boyhood had returned, and with it the wise, friendly doctor's
+house.  Elizabeth, the shady pine-woods of his home, its murmuring brooks
+and luxuriant meadows, again rose before his mind; he saw Ruth and
+himself listening to the birds, picking berries, gathering flowers, and
+beseeching beautiful gifts from the "word."  His father appeared even
+more kind, affectionate, and careful than in those days.  The man became
+the boy again, and all his former good traits of character now sprang up
+freshly under the bright light and vivifying dew of love.
+
+He received Ruth's unwearied attentions with ardent gratitude, and when
+he gazed into her faithful eyes, when her hand touched him, her soft,
+deep voice penetrated the depths of his soul, an unexampled sense of
+happiness filled his breast.
+
+Everything, from the least to the greatest, embraced his soul with the
+arms of love.  It seemed as if the ardent yearning of his heart extended
+far beyond the earth, and rose to God, who fills the universe with His
+infinite paternal love.  His every breath, Ulrich thought, must
+henceforth be a prayer, a prayer of gratitude to Him, who is love itself,
+the Love, through and in which he lived.
+
+He had sought love, to enjoy its gifts; now he was glad to make
+sacrifices for its sake.  He saw how Ruth's beautiful face saddened when
+he was suffering, and with manly strength of will concealed inexpressible
+agony under a grateful smile.  He feigned sleep, to permit her and his
+father to rest, and when tortured by feverish restlessness, lay still
+to give his beloved nurses pleasure and repay their solicitude.
+Love urged him to goodness, gave him strength for all that is good.
+His convalescence advanced and, when he was permitted to leave his bed,
+his father was the first one to support him through the room and down the
+steps into the court-yard.  He often felt with quiet emotion the old man
+stroke the hand that rested on his arm, and when, exhausted, he returned
+to the sick-room, he sank with a grateful heart into his comfortable
+seat, casting a look of pleasure at the flowers, which Ruth had taken
+from her chamber window and placed on the table beside him.
+
+His family now knew what he had endured and experienced, and the smith
+found a kind, soothing word for all that, a few months before, he had
+considered criminal and unpardonable.
+
+During such a conversation, Ulrich once exclaimed "War!  You know not how
+it bears one along with it; it is a game whose stake is life.  That of
+others is of as little value as your own; to do your worst to every one,
+is the watchword; but now--every thing has grown so calm in my soul, and
+I have a horror of the turmoil in the field.  I was talking with Ruth
+yesterday about her father, and she reminded me of his favorite saying,
+which I had forgotten long ago.  Do you know what it is?  'Do unto
+others, as ye would that others should do unto you.'  I have not been
+cruel, and never drew the sword out of pleasure in slaying; but now I
+grieve for having brought woe to so many!
+
+"What things were done in Haarlem!  If you had moved there instead of to
+Antwerp, and you and Ruth....I dare not think of it!  Memories of those
+days torture me in many a sleepless hour, and there is much that fills me
+with bitter remorse.  But I am permitted to live, and it seems as if I
+were new-born, and henceforth existence and doing good must be synonymous
+to me.  You were right to be angry...."
+
+"That is all forgiven and forgotten," interrupted the smith in a resonant
+voice, pressing his son's fingers with his hard right hand.
+
+These words affected the convalescent like a strengthening potion, and
+when the hammers again moved in the smithy, Ulrich was no longer
+satisfied with his idle life, and began with Ruth to look forward to and
+discuss the future.
+
+The words: 'fortune,' 'fame,' 'power,"' he said once, "have deceived me;
+but art!  You don't know, Ruth, what art is!  It does not bestow
+everything, but a great deal, a great deal.  Meister Moor was indeed
+a teacher!  I am too old to begin at the beginning once more.  If it were
+not for that...."
+
+"Well, Ulrich?"
+
+"I should like to try painting again."
+
+The girl exhorted him to take courage, and told his father of their
+conversation.  The smith put on his Sunday clothes and went to the
+artist's house.  The latter was in Brussels, but was expected home soon.
+
+From this time, every third day, Adam donned his best clothes, which
+he disliked to wear, and went to the artist's; but always in vain.
+
+In the month of February the invalid was playing chess with Ruth,--
+she had learned the game from the smith and Ulrich from her,--when Adam
+entered the room, saying: "when the game is over, I wish to speak to you,
+my son."
+
+The young girl had the advantage, but instantly pushed the pieces
+together and left the two alone.
+
+She well knew what was passing in the father's mind, for the day before
+he had brought all sorts of artist's materials, and told her to arrange
+the little gable-room, with the large window facing towards the north,
+and put the easel and colors there.  They had only smiled at each other,
+but they had long since learned to understand each other, even without
+words.
+
+"What is it?" asked Ulrich in surprise.
+
+The smith then told him what he had provided and arranged, adding: "the
+picture on the standard--you say you painted it yourself."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"It was your mother, exactly as she looked when....She did not treat
+either of us rightly--but she!--the Christian must forgive;--and as she
+was your mother--why--I should like....  perhaps it is not possible; but
+if you could paint her picture, not as a Madonna, only as she looked when
+a young wife...."
+
+"I can, I will!" cried Ulrich, in joyous excitement.  "Take me upstairs,
+is the canvas ready?"
+
+"In the frame, firmly in the frame!  I am an old man, and you see, child,
+I remember how wonderfully sweet your mother was; but I can never succeed
+in recalling just how she looked then.  I have tried, tried thousands and
+thousands of times; at--Richtberg, here, everywhere--deep as was my
+wrath!"
+
+"You shall see her again surely--surely!" interrupted Ulrich.  "I see her
+before me, and what I see in my mind, I can paint!"
+
+The work was commenced the very same day.  Ulrich now succeeded
+wonderfully, and lavished on the portrait all the wealth of love, with
+which his heart was filled.
+
+Never had he guided the brush so joyously; in painting this picture he
+only wished to give, to give--give his beloved father the best he could
+accomplish, so he succeeded.
+
+The young wife, attired in a burgher dress, stood with her bewitching
+eyes and a melancholy, half-tender, half-mournful smile on her lips.
+
+Adam was not permitted to enter the studio again until the portrait was
+completed.  When Ulrich at last unveiled the picture, the old man--unable
+longer to control himself--burst into loud sobs and fell upon his son's
+breast.  It seemed to Adam that the pretty creature in the golden frame
+--far from needing his forgiveness--was entitled to his gratitude for
+many blissful hours.
+
+Soon after, Adam found Moor at home, and a few hours later took Ulrich
+to him.  It was a happy and a quiet meeting, which was soon followed by a
+second interview in the smith's house.
+
+Moor gazed long and searchingly at Ulrich's work.  When he had examined
+it sufficiently, he held out his hand to his pupil, saying warmly:
+
+"I always said so; you are an artist!  From to-morrow we will work
+together again, daily, and you will win more glorious victories with the
+brush than with the sword."
+
+Ulrich's cheeks glowed with happiness and pride.
+
+Ruth had never before seen him look so, and as she gazed joyfully into
+his eyes, he held out his hands to her, exclaiming: "An artist, an artist
+again!  Oh, would that I had always remained one!  Now I lack only one
+thing more--yourself!"
+
+She rushed to his embrace, exclaiming joyously "Yours, yours!  I have
+always been so, and always shall be, to-day, to-morrow, unto death,
+forever and ever!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered gravely.  "Our hearts are one and ever will be,
+nothing can separate them; but your fate shall not be linked to mine
+till, Moor himself calls me a master.  Love imposes no condition--I am
+yours and you are mine--but I impose the trial on myself, and this time I
+know it will be passed."
+
+A new spirit animated the pupil.  He rushed to his work with tireless
+energy, and even the hardest task became easy, when he thought of the
+prize he sought.  At the end of a year, Moor ceased to instruct him,
+and Ruth became the wife of Meister Ulrich Schwab.
+
+The famous artist-guild of Antwerp soon proudly numbered him among
+them, and even at the present day his pictures are highly esteemed by
+connoisseurs, though they are attributed to other painters, for he never
+signed his name to his works.
+
+Of the four words, which illumined his life-path as guiding-stars, he had
+learned to value fame and power least; fortune and art remained faithful
+to him, but as the earth does not shine by its own might, but receives
+its light from the sun, so they obtained brilliancy, charm and endearing
+power through love.
+
+The fierce Eletto, whose sword raged in war, following the teachings of
+his noble Master, became a truly Christian philanthropist.
+
+Many have gazed with quiet delight at the magnificent picture, which
+represents a beautiful mother, with a bright, intelligent face, leading
+her three blooming children towards a pleasant old man, who holds out his
+arms to them.  The old man is Adam, the mother Ruth, the children are the
+armorer's grandchildren; Ulrich Schwab was the artist.
+
+Meister Moor died soon after Ulrich's marriage, and a few years after,
+Sophonisba di Moncada came to Antwerp to seek the grave of him she had
+loved.  She knew from the dead man that he had met his dear Madrid pupil,
+and her first visit was to the latter.
+
+After looking at his works, she exclaimed:
+
+"The word!  Do you remember, Meister?  I told you then, that you had
+found the right one.  You are greatly altered, and it is a pity that you
+have lost your flowing locks; but you look like a happy man, and to
+what do you owe it?  To the word, the only right word: 'Art!'"
+
+He let her finish the sentence, then answered gravely "There is still a
+loftier word, noble lady!  Whoever owns it--is rich indeed.  He will no
+longer wander--seek in doubt.
+
+"And this is?"  she asked incredulously, with a smile of superior
+knowledge.
+
+"I have found it," he answered firmly.  "It is 'Love.'"
+
+Sophonisba bent her head, saying softly and sadly: "yes, yes--love."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS OF THE ENTIRE "A WORD, ONLY A WORD"
+
+Among fools one must be a fool
+He was steadfast in everything, even anger
+No one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor
+Once laughed at a misfortune, its sting loses its point
+To expect gratitude is folly
+Whoever condemns, feels himself superior
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORD ONLY A WORD, BY EBERS, ALL ***
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+*********** This file should be named g138v10.txt or g138v10.zip ***********
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