The
duskiness
of the place concealed Ekkehard's kneeling figure.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
He manœuvres his battalions of argu-
ments with a precision of logic and an ardor of temperament
that are marvelous. The phrases fall from his authoritative lips
with an amplitude, correctness, and force to which everything
XXII-803
---
___
## p. 12834 (#256) ##########################################
12834
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
bends. He is to be found entire in his lecture: the lecture is
excellent, then, because it is of him; or rather, because it is he.
Old Boileau had already expressed these truths in some verses
that are not among his best known:-
"Chacun pris dans son air est agréable en soi;
Ce n'est que l'air d'autrui qui peut déplaire en moi. ” *
If I should try to talk like Brunetière, I should be execrable:
it is possible, on the other hand, that if Brunetière tried to appro-
priate some of my methods he would not succeed; because, to
tell the truth, my air of good-fellowship, my familiarities of lan-
guage, my jovial anecdotes interspersed with frank laughter, my
unpolished and torrent-like phrases, are not methods, they are all
of a piece with myself; it is all I-a little more I perhaps
than I ordinarily am, but Brunetière is also probably a little more
himself in his lecture than in his chimney-corner at home.
May I be permitted to end these reflections on the art of the
lecturer with some practical advice?
Never dine before the lecture hour. A soup, some biscuits
dipped in Bordeaux, nothing more. If you fear gnawing at the
stomach, add a slice of roast beef, but without bread. Do not
fill the stomach. There is a rage in the provinces for inviting
you to a gala dinner when you have a lecture to give. It's the
worst of all preludes. It is in vain to try to restrain yourself.
You eat and you drink too much; you arrive at the lecture hall
chatting with the dinner company. You have infinite trouble in
recovering yourself.
Dine lightly and alone an hour beforehand; stretch yourself
for half an hour on a sofa, and take a good nap. Then go, en-
tirely alone, to where you are expected, improvising, reimprovis-
ing, pondering upon your exordium, so that when the curtain
rises you are in perfect working order; you are in form. I do
not know how the political orators manage to deliver their long
discourses after gala banquets. It is true that they generally do
not dine. I have seen some who all during the repast abstract-
edly roll balls of bread under their fingers, and only respond
vaguely with insignificant monosyllables to the tiresome talk of
their neighbors.
*"Every one taken in his own manner is pleasing in himself;
It is only another's manner that is displeasing in me. "
## p. 12835 (#257) ##########################################
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
12835
Speak standing: one commands a fuller and stronger voice,
but especially the audience is dominated; you hold it with your
eye. Speak from behind a table, even though (according to the
rules that I have laid down) you have no notes to read, no
quotation to make, book in hand. One is sustained by the table,
and brought around to the conversational tone. If one has
before him the wide space of the platform, in proportion as one
warms up he makes more motions, he surprises himself strid-
ing across the stage; the voice rises, and is soon no longer in
harmony with the level of the things that are to be delivered.
Beware of these balks. Watch the play of your physiognomy and
your gestures, but not too much. I leave mine to the grace of
God; what is natural, even though it be exuberant and trivial, is
worth more than a factitious and studied correctness.
Have I other recommendations to make? No, I truly believe
that I am at the end of my list. All the rest can be put into
one sentence: "Be yourself. " It is understood, is it not, that it
is necessary first to be some one? You now know the processes
which I have used, which I still use.
FURTHER HINTS ON LECTURING
From 'Recollections of Middle Life. Copyright 1893, by Charles Scribner's
Sons
You
ou have to speak, we will suppose, of 'Le Cid' by Corneille.
Do not weary yourself at first by reading all that has been
written on 'Le Cid': steep yourself in the play, think of
it, turn it over and over, go to see it if it is being played: if
neither the reading nor the representation of the drama suggests
to you any impression that is properly yours-good gracious,
my friend! what would you have me say? Don't meddle with
lecturing either on 'Le Cid' or any other theme drawn from
literature. Manifestly you are not born for the trade.
But if you have shuddered and thrilled at a given passage; if
there has been presented to your mind some comparison that has,
so to speak, sprung from the depths of your reading; if you have
yourself formed an opinion upon the whole or upon some scenes
of the work, you must cling to that: it is that which must be
told, it is that which I call having something to say.
-
## p. 12836 (#258) ##########################################
12836
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
Do not trouble yourself to know if others have thought it
before you, and have said it perhaps even better than you will
say it yourself. That is not the question. The idea, however old
it may be, will appear new; and will be so, indeed, because you
will strongly impress upon it the turn of your mind, because you
will tinge it unconsciously with the colors of your imagination.
As you will have made it flash from the reading, as you will
yourself have drawn this truth from its well, your passion will
go out to it, you will naturally put into its expression a good
faith, a sincerity, a transport, the heat of which will be com-
municated to the public.
Not until you have performed this first task, the only neces-
sary one, the only efficacious one, shall I permit you- pay atten-
tion: permit you, not advise you to read what your predecessors
have thought of 'Le Cid,' and written about it. If by chance
you run across some interesting point of view that had escaped
you, and that strikes you, take care, for the love of heaven, not
to transfer it just as it is to your lecture, where it would have
the mischievous effect of second-hand and veneer. No: take up
'Le Cid' anew; re-read it with this idea, suggested by another,
in mind; put that back into the text in order to draw it out
yourself, rethink it, make it something of your own; forget the
turn and the form given it by Sainte-Beuve, from whom it first
came to your notice. If you cannot succeed in taking possession
of it, in melting it so well in the crucible of your mind that it
will be no longer distinguished from the matter in fusion which
is already bubbling there, better discard it, however pleasing,
however ingenious it may be:
Be assured there will be nothing good in your lecture but
what you shall have thought for yourself; and what you shall
have thought for yourself will always have a certain seal of ori-
ginality. You have thought that Chimène sacrifices her love to
her duty, that Rodrigue is a hero boiling over with love and
youth, that Don Diègue is an epic Gascon. Do not embarrass
yourself with scruples, and repeat to yourself in a whisper, “But
every one has said that. ”
-
Every one has said it! So much the better, because there is
some chance that your audience will be enchanted, seeing you
plunged up to your ears in the truth. But every one has not
said it as you will say it; for you will say it as you have
thought it, and you have thought it yourself.
## p. 12837 (#259) ##########################################
12837
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
(1826-1886)
SUCCESS So splendid and so sustained as that which has attended
'Ekkehard' and the Trumpeter of Säkkingen,' has not be-
fore been witnessed in the history of German literature. It
is safe to regard as final an emphatic popular verdict, which has not
only stood unreversed but has annually been reaffirmed in the course
of nearly half a century. The Trumpeter' was published in 1854,
'Ekkehard' in the following year; in 1895 the former reached its two
hundred and sixteenth edition, the latter passed its one hundred and
forty-third. This great and growing demand
is the plébiscite of two generations; and
the decision of this high court of appeal
has gone in favor of Scheffel's claim to a
poet's immortality.
Joseph Victor von Scheffel was born at
Karlsruhe on February 16th, 1826; and there,
sixty years afterward, he died on April 9th.
He was another example of the young
man of many capabilities who fails at first
to find the right one. His father was an
engineer, and the son's talent for drawing
was inherited; the poetic gift came from
his mother, who, besides other works, had
written a drama which was produced at
the court theatre of Karlsruhe. But young Scheffel, through the per-
sistence of his parents, was forced to study law and prepare himself
for the career of a government official. After taking his degree he
held several public positions, and practiced law at Säkkingen.
J. V. VON SCHEFFEL
During the six years which he spent in this uncongenial employ-
ment it was his ardent desire to become a painter. At last in 1852
he abandoned his profession, and went to Rome. Fortunately, how-
ever, his friends and his own failures soon made it clear to him that
he had mistaken the direction of his genius; and the man who three
years later had completed the most popular German poem and the
most popular German novel of the century, retired to Capri in the
depths of despondency because he could not paint.
During the winter at Capri and Sorrento, he sought to comfort
himself in his disappointment by shaping the memories of his Rhine-
## p. 12838 (#260) ##########################################
12838
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
land home into the half playful, half melancholy romance of the
'Trumpeter of Säkkingen. ' The success of this poem was not im-
mediate. Scheffel returned to Germany, determined to produce a
scholarly work on the history of the Middle Ages. The 'Monumenta
Germaniæ Historica' formed a part of his systematic studies; and in
these his imagination was captivated by the Chronicles of St. Gall.
At St. Gall, and at the foot of the Hohentwiel, he spent his
Easter vacation, writing the opening chapters of 'Ekkehard. ' It was
finished at Heidelberg early in 1855. Upon the novel and the poem
together his fame was firmly established. This period of his great-
est productivity was the happiest period of his life. His high spir-
its found expression in the rollicking student songs which appeared
under the title of 'Gaudeamus. ' These songs are now the permanent
possession of the university youth of Germany, to whom they have.
doubly endeared the poet's name. The volume has passed its sixti-
eth edition.
But these happy days fled swiftly. The severe mental strain of
two years of uninterrupted literary creation left Scheffel a nervous
wreck. He planned several more historical works; but in each case
his painstaking preparations broke down his weakened health, and
his task was left unfinished. The death of his sister in 1857 was a
blow from which his spirits never recovered. The gay poet and con-
vivial student became gradually a morose and disappointed man. He
married in 1864 Fräulein von Malzen, the daughter of the Bavarian
ambassador; but his shattered nerves and erratic habits made him
an incompatible companion, and a separation followed two years later.
He wrote many more tales and novels, but none ever attained the
popularity of the first two works. The poet's fiftieth birthday was
celebrated by all Germany; and the Grand Duke of Baden conferred
upon him a patent of hereditary nobility. The last years of his life.
were spent in melancholy retirement on his estate at Radolfszell on
Lake Constance, where he had once been wont to play the generous
but eccentric host. Soon after the attainment of his sixtieth birthday
he died. On the great terrace of Heidelberg Castle stands his statue
in bronze.
It is only by comparison with 'Ekkehard' and the 'Trumpeter'
that Scheffel's other works may be called unsuccessful. Frau Aven-
tiure' (Lady Adventure) reached some twenty editions, and 'Juni-
perus five. Both works are parts of a broadly planned attempt to
portray the features of the olden time when the Nibelungenlied at
last assumed its classic form. The scheme was never carried out,
and the scholarly element in these detracts somewhat from their
directness of appeal; but the graphic touch is not altogether lost. A
lyric play called 'Der Brautwillkomm auf Wartburg' (Welcoming the
Bride on the Wartburg) was likewise a product of these mediæval
## p. 12839 (#261) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12839
studies, as were also the 'Bergpsalmen (Mountain Psalms). These
psalms appeared in 1870. Ten years later came Waldeinsamkeit '
(Woodland Solitude); which with 'Der Henri von Steier' (Henry of
Styria), and an ancient tale of Hugideo' (1884), completes the list of
the poet's works.
In a century which began with Scott and ends with Sienkiewicz, a
discussion of the historical novel as an allowable form of art would
be academic. In Germany, Hauff's 'Lichtenstein' (1826), modeled
after Scott, was the first distinctively historical novel of import-
ance. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer attained a high mastery of form in
this genre; but it is to Scheffel that we must look for the one clas-
sic example and supreme achievement. In 'Ekkehard' he skillfully
avoids the dangers of partisanship, in the delineation of well-known
characters and in the interpretation of famous events, by seeking
rather to show the thoughts, ambitions, and customs of the age in the
daily life of convent and castle; while the onrush of history is heard
only from afar,—coming for a moment, in the attack of the Huns,
to the very gates of the monastery. The book is an authentic pict-
ure of the tenth century in Suabia. Even had such men and women,
such conditions, such events, never had their actual counterparts, the
work would be still instinct with life; for its vitality is in no wise
dependent upon its historical setting. Scheffel in his own charming
preface asserts that "neither history nor poetry will lose anything by
forming a close alliance. " This depends, it is true, upon the genius
of the man who makes the treaty; but in 'Ekkehard' men will long
continue to enjoy the vivid and faithful presentation of a picturesque
age, in which the elements of poetry and history are exquisitely
blended.
<
The Trumpeter' is a romantic love tale full of playful humor
and graceful trifling, sustained by a true and tender sentiment. Of
course the humble trumpet-blower marries the high-born maiden in
the end. In its rhythmic measures the poem reminds one of Heine's
'Atta Troll'; but it is kindlier and born of a serener mood than that
brilliant piece of bitterness, in which the old Romantic School, expir-
ing, laughed in frivolous self-ridicule. Gentleness, chivalry, and love
are the themes of Scheffel's Rhineland romance; and the satirical
blows of Hiddigeigei are delivered with velvet paws.
Scheffel has himself declared that the ironical flavor of his poetry
was the result of an underlying melancholy. The events of 1848,
although he was an ardent advocate of a united Fatherland, failed
to stir him; and the hopeless, reactionary period that followed made
him a political pessimist. "My soul," he said, "took on a rust in
those days which it will never wear off. " His humor was a con-
scious concealment of an essentially melancholy disposition; and as
## p. 12840 (#262) ##########################################
12840
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
the years wore on, he was less and less able to maintain his mental
disguise. He lived in an atmosphere of medievalism, and there is
a natural touch of antiquity in his style which removes the last trace
of pedantry from his historical pictures. His mild mockery and de-
lightful drollery have an old-time flavor that mellows the effect; and
his work is wholesome and refreshing through its pure and healthy
sentiment.
REJECTION AND FLIGHT
From 'Ekkehard. Copyright 1895, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
E
KKEHARD remained long sitting in the garden bower; then he
rushed out into the darkness. He knew not whither his
feet were carrying him.
In the morning he found himself on the top of the Hohen-
krähen, which had stood silent and deserted since the forest
woman's departure. The remains of the burnt hut lay in a con-
fused heap. Where the living-room had once been, the Roman
stone with the Mithras was still to be seen. Grass and ferns
grew over it, and a blindworm was stealthily creeping up on the
old weather-beaten idol.
Ekkehard burst into a wild scornful laugh.
"The chapel of St. Hadwig! " he cried, striking his breast with
his clenched hand. "Thus it must be ! "
He upset the old Roman stone, and then mounted the rocky
crest of the hill. There he threw himself down and pressed his
forehead against the cool ground, which had once been touched
by Frau Hadwig's foot. There he remained for a long time.
When the scorching rays of the midday sun fell upon him, he
still lay there, and slept.
-
Toward evening he came back to the Hohentwiel, hot and
haggard, and with an unsteady gait. Blades of grass clung to
the woolen texture of his cowl.
The people of the castle timidly stepped out of his way, as if
before one on whose forehead ill-luck had set her seal. In other
times they had been wont to come toward him to entreat his
blessing.
The duchess had noticed his absence, but made no inquiries
about him. He went up to his tower, and seized a parchment,
## p. 12841 (#263) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12841
as if he would read.
«<
It was Gunzo's attack upon him. Will-
ingly I would exhort you to aid him with healing medicine; but
I fear, I sadly fear, that his disease is too deeply rooted,"
what he read.
He laughed. The arched ceiling threw back an echo; he
leaped to his feet as if he wanted to find out who had laughed
at him.
Then he went to the window, and looked down into the
depths below. It was deep, deep down: a sudden giddiness came
over him; he started back.
The small phial which the old Thieto had given him stood
near his books. It made him melancholy. He thought of the
blind old man! "The service of women is an evil thing for him
who wishes to remain good," he had said when Ekkehard took
leave.
He tore the seal off from the phial, and poured the Jordan
water over his head and drenched his eyes. It was too late.
Whole floods of holy water will not extinguish the inward fire,
unless one plunges in never to rise again.
Yet a mo-
mentary feeling of quiet came over him.
"I will pray," said he. "It is a temptation. "
He threw himself on his knees: but soon it seemed to him
as if the pigeons were swarming round his head, as they did on
the day when he first entered the tower room; but now they had
mocking faces, and wore a contemptuous look about their beaks.
He got up and slowly descended the winding staircase to the
castle chapel. The altar below had been a witness of earnest de-
votions on many a happy day. The chapel was, as before, dark
and silent. Six ponderous pillars, with square capitals adorned
with leaf-work, supported the vault. A faint streak of daylight
fell in through the narrow windows. The recesses of the niche
where the altar stood were but faintly illuminated; the golden
background of the mosaic picture of the Redeemer alone shone
with a soft glitter. Greek artists had transplanted the forms of
their church ornaments to the German rock. In a white flowing
garment, with a gold-red aureole round his head, the Savior's
emaciated figure stood there, with the fingers of the right hand
extended in the act of blessing.
Ekkehard bowed before the altar steps; his forehead rested
on the stone flags. Thus he remained, wrapt in prayer.
"O Thou who hast taken the sorrows of the world on thyself,
send out one ray of thy grace on me unworthy. "
## p. 12842 (#264) ##########################################
12842
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
He raised his head and gazed up, as if he expected the earnest
figure to step down from the wall and hold out his hand to him.
"I am here at thy feet, like Peter, surrounded by tempest,
and the waves will not bear me up! Save me, O Lord! save me
as thou didst him when thou didst walk over the raging billows,
extending thy hand to him and saying, 'O thou of little faith,
wherefore dost thou doubt? › »
But no sign was given him.
Ekkehard's brain was giving way.
There was a rustling through the chapel like that of a woman's
garments. He heard nothing.
Frau Hadwig had come down under the impulse of a strange
mood. Since she had begun to bear a grudge against the monk,
the image of her late husband recurred oftener to her mind.
Naturally, as the one receded into the background, the other
must come forward again. The later reading of Virgil had also
been responsible for this, as there had been said so much about
the memory of Sichæus.
The following day was the anniversary of Herr Burkhard's
death. With his lance and shield by his side, the old duke lay
buried in the chapel. His tomb at the right of the altar was
covered by a rough stone slab. The eternal lamp burned dimly
over it.
A sarcophagus of gray sandstone stood near it, resting
on small clumsy pillars with Ionic capitals; and these again
rested on grotesque stone animals. This stone coffin Frau Had-
wig had had made for herself. Every year, on the anniversary
of the duke's death, she had it carried up and filled with corn
and fruits, which were distributed among the poor,- the means
of living coming from the resting-place of the dead. It was a
pious ancient custom.
―
To-day it was her purpose to pray on her husband's grave.
The duskiness of the place concealed Ekkehard's kneeling figure.
She did not see him.
Suddenly she was startled from her devotions. A laugh, sub-
dued yet piercing, struck her ear. She knew the voice. Ekke-
hard had risen and recited the following words of the Psalms:-
"Hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
From the wicked that oppress me,
From my deadly enemies who compass me about.
With their mouth they speak proudly. "
## p. 12843 (#265) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12843
He spoke it in an ominous tone. It was no more the voice of
prayer.
Frau Hadwig bent down beside the sarcophagus: she would
gladly have placed another on it to hide her from Ekkehard's
view. She no longer cared to be alone with him. Her heart
beat calmly now.
He went to the door.
Then suddenly he turned back. The everlasting lamp was
softly swinging to and fro over Frau Hadwig's head. Ekkehard's
eye pierced the twilight.
With one bound,- quicker than
that which in later days St. Bernard made through the cathedral
at Speier when the Madonna had beckoned to him,- he stood
before the duchess. He gave her a long and penetrating look.
She rose to her feet, and seizing the edge of the stone sar-
cophagus with her right hand, she confronted him. The ever-
lasting lamp over her head still gently swung to and fro on its
silken cord.
·
"Blessed are the dead: prayers are offered for them," said
Ekkehard, interrupting the silence.
Frau Hadwig made no reply.
"Will you pray for me also when I am dead? " continued he.
“Oh, you must not pray for me! Have a drinking-cup made out
of my skull; and when you take another doorkeeper away from
the monastery of St. Gallus, you must offer him the welcoming
draught in it,- and give him my greeting! You may put your
own lips to it also: it will not crack. But you must then wear
the circlet with the rose in it. "
"Ekkehard," said the duchess, "you are outrageous! "
He put his right hand to his forehead.
"Oh," said he, in a mournful voice,-"oh, yes! the Rhine
is also outrageous. They stopped its course with giant rocks;
but it gnawed through them, and now rushes and roars onward
in foam and tumult and destruction! Bravo, thou free heart
for he has allowed the
Duchess of Suabia, and
of youth! And God is outrageous also;
Rhine to be, and the Hohentwiel, and the
the tonsure on my head. "
The duchess began to shiver. Such an outbreak of long-
repressed feeling she had not expected. But it was too late: she
remained indifferent.
"You are ill," she said.
"Ill? " asked he: "it is merely a requital. More than a year
ago at Whitsuntide, when there was as yet no Hohentwiel for me,
## p. 12844 (#266) ##########################################
12844
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
I carried the coffin of St. Gallus in solemn procession out of
the cloister, and a woman threw herself on the ground before
me. 'Get up,' cried I; but she remained prostrate in the dust.
'Walk over me with thy relic, priest, so that I may recover,'
cried she; and my foot stepped over her. That woman was
suffering from the heartache. Now it is reversed. "
Tears interrupted his voice. He could not go on. Then he
threw himself at Frau Hadwig's feet, and clasped the hem of her
garment. The man was all of a tremble.
Frau Hadwig was touched,- touched against her will; as if
from the hem of her garment, a feeling of unutterable woe
thrilled up to her heart.
"Stand up," said she, "and think of other things. You still
owe us a story. Overcome it! "
Then Ekkehard laughed through his tears.
"A story! " cried he; "oh, a story! But not told. Come, let
us act the story! From the height of yonder tower one can see
so far into the distance, and so deep into the valley below, so
sweet and deep and tempting. What right has the ducal castle
to hold us back? No one who wishes to get down into the depth
below need count more than three, and we flutter and glide
softly into the arms of death there. Then I should be no longer
a monk; and I might wind my arms around you. "
He struck Herr Burkhard's tombstone with his clenched
hand.
――――――
-
"And he who sleeps here shall not prevent me! If he - the
old man
- comes, I will not let you go. And we will float up
to the tower again, and sit where we sat before; and we will
read Virgil to the end; and you must wear the rose in your cir-
clet, as if nothing whatever had happened. We will keep the
gate well locked against the duke, and we will laugh at all evil
tongues; and folks will say, as they sit at their fireplaces of a
winter's evening: That is a pretty tale of the faithful Ekkehard,
who slew the Emperor Ermanrich for hanging the Harlungen
brothers, and who afterwards sat for many hundred years before
Frau Venus's mountain, with his white staff in his hands, and
meant to sit there until the Day of Judgment to warn off all
pilgrims coming to the mountain. But at last he grew tired of
this, and ran away, and became a monk at St. Gall; and he fell
down an abyss and was killed; and he is sitting now beside
a proud, pale woman, reading Virgil to her. And at midnight
may be heard the words ringing through the Hegau: "Thou
## p. 12845 (#267) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12845
And
commandest, O Queen, to renew the unspeakable sorrow. "
then she will have to kiss him, whether she will or not; for death
makes up for what life denies. '»
He had spoken with a wild, wandering look; and now his
voice failed with low weeping. Frau Hadwig had stood immov-
ably all this time. It was as if a gleam of pity shone in her
cold eyes; she bent down her head.
"Ekkehard," said she, "you must not speak of death.
madness. We live, you and I! ”
He did not stir. Then she lightly laid her hand on his burn-
ing forehead. A wild thrill flashed through his brain.
He
sprang up.
་
"You are right! " cried he. "We live
you and I! »
A dizzy darkness clouded his eyes; he stepped forward, and
winding his arms round her proud form, he fiercely pressed her
to his heart; his kiss burned on her lips. Her protest died away
unheard.
This is
――――
He raised her high up toward the altar, as if she were an
offering he was about to make.
"Why dost thou hold out thy gold glittering fingers so quietly,
instead of blessing us? " he cried out to the dark and solemn
picture.
The duchess had started like a wounded deer. One moment,
and all the passion of her hurt pride revolted within her. She
pushed the frenzied man back with a strong hand, and tore her-
self out of his embrace.
He had one arm still round her waist, when the church
door was suddenly opened, and a flaring streak of daylight broke
through the darkness; they were no longer alone. Rudimann the
cellarer, from Reichenau, stepped over the threshold; other fig-
ures became visible in the background of the court-yard.
The duchess had grown pale with shame and anger. A tress
of her long dark hair had become loosened and was streaming
down her back.
"I beg your pardon," said the man from the Reichenau, with
grinning politeness. "My eyes have beheld nothing. ”
-
Then Frau Hadwig tore herself entirely free from Ekkehard's
hold and cried out:
"Yes, I say! Yes, yes, you have seen a madman, who has
forgotten himself and God. I should be sorry for your eyes if
they had beheld nothing, for I would have had them torn out! "
## p. 12846 (#268) ##########################################
'12846
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
It was with an indescribably cold dignity that she pronounced
these words.
Then Rudimann began to understand the strange scene.
"I had forgotten," said he scornfully, "that he who stands
there is one of those to whom wise men have applied the
words of St. Hieronymus, when he says: "Their manners
more befitting dandies and bridegrooms than the elect of the
Lord. '"
are
Ekkehard stood leaning against a pillar, with arms stretched
out in the air, like Odysseus when he wanted to embrace his
mother's shade. Rudimann's words roused him from his dreams.
"Who comes between her and me? " he cried threateningly.
But Rudimann, patting him on the shoulder with an insolent
familiarity, said:-
"Calm yourself, my good friend: we have only come to de-
liver a note into your hands. St. Gallus can no longer allow
the wisest of all his disciples to remain out in the capricious,
malicious world. You are summoned home! And don't forget
-
the stick with which you are wont to ill-treat your confraters
who like to snatch a kiss at vintage-time, you chaste moralist,"
he added in a low whisper.
Ekkehard stepped back. Wild longings, the pang of separa-
tion, burning passionate love, and the added insults,- all these
stormed up in him. He hastily advanced toward Frau Hadwig;
but the chapel was already filling.
The abbot of Reichenau himself had come to have the pleas-
ure of witnessing Ekkehard's departure. "It will be a difficult
task to get him away," he had said to the cellarer.
It was easy
enough now. Monks and lay brothers came in after him.
"Sacrilege! " Rudimann called out to them. "He has laid his
wanton hand on his mistress even before the altar! "
―
Then Ekkehard boiled over. To have the most sacred secret
of his heart profaned by insolent coarseness, a pearl thrown before
swine! He tore down the everlasting lamp, and swung the heavy
vessel like a sling.
The light went out; a hollow groan was heard, the cellarer
lay with bleeding head on the stone flags. The lamp fell clat-
tering beside him. A blow, fierce struggle, wild confusion — all
was at an end with Ekkehard.
They had overpowered him; tearing off the girdle of his cowl,
they bound him.
-
## p. 12847 (#269) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12847
There he stood, the handsome youthful figure, now the very
picture of woe, like the broken-winged eagle. ' He gave one
mournful, troubled, appealing look at the duchess. She turned
away.
"Do what you think right," she said to the abbot, and swept
through the throng.
IT WAS a dreary, depressing evening. The duchess had locked.
herself up in her bow-windowed room, and refused admittance to
every one.
Ekkehard had been hurried away into a dungeon by the
abbot's men. In the same tower, in the airy upper story of which
his chamber was situated, there was a damp, dark, vault; frag-
ments of old tombstones-deposited there long before when the
castle chamber had been renovated were scattered about in un-
sightly heaps. A bundle of straw had been thrown in for him,
and a monk was sitting outside to guard the entrance.
Burkhard, the monastery pupil, ran up and down, wailing and
wringing his hands. He could not understand the fate which had
befallen his uncle. The servants were all putting their heads
together, eagerly whispering and gossiping, as if the hundred-
tongued Rumor had been sitting on the roof of the castle,
spreading her falsehoods about.
"He tried to murder the duchess," said one.
-
"He has been practicing the Devil's own arts with that big
book of his," said another. "To-day is St. John's day, when the
Devil has no power, and so he could not help him. "
At the well in the court-yard stood Rudimann the cellarer, let-
ting the clear water flow over his head. Ekkehard had given
nim a sharp cut; the blood obstinately and angrily trickled down
into the water.
She was the only
Praxedis came down looking pale and sad.
soul who felt sincere pity for the prisoner. On seeing the cel-
larer, she ran into the garden, tore up a blue corn-flower with the
roots, and brought it to him.
•
"Take that," said she, "and hold it in your right hand till it
gets warm: that will stop the bleeding. Or shall I fetch you
some linen to bind up the wound? "
He shook his head.
«<
"It will stop of itself when the time comes," said he. 'Tis
not the first time that I have been bled. Keep your corn-flowers
for yourself. "
## p. 12848 (#270) ##########################################
12848
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
But Praxedis was anxious to conciliate Ekkehard's enemy.
She brought some linen: he allowed his wound to be dressed.
Not a word of thanks did he proffer.
"Are you not going to let Ekkehard out to-day? " she asked.
"To-day! " Rudimann repeated sneeringly. "Do you feel in-
clined to weave a garland for the standard-bearer of Antichrist,
-the leading horse of Satan's car, whom you have petted and
spoiled up here as if he were the darling son Benjamin ?
day! In a month ask again over there! "
He pointed toward the Helvetian mountains.
Praxedis was frightened. "What are you going to do with
him? "
"What is right," replied Rudimann with a dark look. "Wan-
tonness, deeds of violence, disobedience, haughtiness, sacrilege,
blasphemy-there are scarcely names enough for all his nefarious
acts; but thank God, there are yet means for their expiation! "
He made a gesture with his hand like that of flogging. "Ah,
yes, plenty of means of expiation, gentle mistress! We will write
the catalogue of his sins on his skin. "
"Have pity! " said Praxedis: "he is a sick man. ”
"For that very reason we are going to cure him. When
he has been tied to the pillar, and half a dozen rods have been
flogged to pieces on his bent back, then all his spleen and his
devilries will vanish! "
"For God's sake! " exclaimed the Greek girl.
"Calm yourself: there are better things yet. A stray lamb
must be delivered up to the fold it belongs to. There he will
find good shepherds who will look after the rest. Sheep-shearing,
little girl, sheep-shearing! There they will cut off his hair,
which will make his head cooler; and if you feel inclined to
make a pilgrimage to St. Gall a year hence, you will see on
Sundays and holidays some one standing barefooted before the
church door, and his head will be as bare as a stubble-field,
and the penitential garb will become him very nicely. What do
you think? The heathenish practices with Virgil are at an end
now.
ments with a precision of logic and an ardor of temperament
that are marvelous. The phrases fall from his authoritative lips
with an amplitude, correctness, and force to which everything
XXII-803
---
___
## p. 12834 (#256) ##########################################
12834
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
bends. He is to be found entire in his lecture: the lecture is
excellent, then, because it is of him; or rather, because it is he.
Old Boileau had already expressed these truths in some verses
that are not among his best known:-
"Chacun pris dans son air est agréable en soi;
Ce n'est que l'air d'autrui qui peut déplaire en moi. ” *
If I should try to talk like Brunetière, I should be execrable:
it is possible, on the other hand, that if Brunetière tried to appro-
priate some of my methods he would not succeed; because, to
tell the truth, my air of good-fellowship, my familiarities of lan-
guage, my jovial anecdotes interspersed with frank laughter, my
unpolished and torrent-like phrases, are not methods, they are all
of a piece with myself; it is all I-a little more I perhaps
than I ordinarily am, but Brunetière is also probably a little more
himself in his lecture than in his chimney-corner at home.
May I be permitted to end these reflections on the art of the
lecturer with some practical advice?
Never dine before the lecture hour. A soup, some biscuits
dipped in Bordeaux, nothing more. If you fear gnawing at the
stomach, add a slice of roast beef, but without bread. Do not
fill the stomach. There is a rage in the provinces for inviting
you to a gala dinner when you have a lecture to give. It's the
worst of all preludes. It is in vain to try to restrain yourself.
You eat and you drink too much; you arrive at the lecture hall
chatting with the dinner company. You have infinite trouble in
recovering yourself.
Dine lightly and alone an hour beforehand; stretch yourself
for half an hour on a sofa, and take a good nap. Then go, en-
tirely alone, to where you are expected, improvising, reimprovis-
ing, pondering upon your exordium, so that when the curtain
rises you are in perfect working order; you are in form. I do
not know how the political orators manage to deliver their long
discourses after gala banquets. It is true that they generally do
not dine. I have seen some who all during the repast abstract-
edly roll balls of bread under their fingers, and only respond
vaguely with insignificant monosyllables to the tiresome talk of
their neighbors.
*"Every one taken in his own manner is pleasing in himself;
It is only another's manner that is displeasing in me. "
## p. 12835 (#257) ##########################################
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
12835
Speak standing: one commands a fuller and stronger voice,
but especially the audience is dominated; you hold it with your
eye. Speak from behind a table, even though (according to the
rules that I have laid down) you have no notes to read, no
quotation to make, book in hand. One is sustained by the table,
and brought around to the conversational tone. If one has
before him the wide space of the platform, in proportion as one
warms up he makes more motions, he surprises himself strid-
ing across the stage; the voice rises, and is soon no longer in
harmony with the level of the things that are to be delivered.
Beware of these balks. Watch the play of your physiognomy and
your gestures, but not too much. I leave mine to the grace of
God; what is natural, even though it be exuberant and trivial, is
worth more than a factitious and studied correctness.
Have I other recommendations to make? No, I truly believe
that I am at the end of my list. All the rest can be put into
one sentence: "Be yourself. " It is understood, is it not, that it
is necessary first to be some one? You now know the processes
which I have used, which I still use.
FURTHER HINTS ON LECTURING
From 'Recollections of Middle Life. Copyright 1893, by Charles Scribner's
Sons
You
ou have to speak, we will suppose, of 'Le Cid' by Corneille.
Do not weary yourself at first by reading all that has been
written on 'Le Cid': steep yourself in the play, think of
it, turn it over and over, go to see it if it is being played: if
neither the reading nor the representation of the drama suggests
to you any impression that is properly yours-good gracious,
my friend! what would you have me say? Don't meddle with
lecturing either on 'Le Cid' or any other theme drawn from
literature. Manifestly you are not born for the trade.
But if you have shuddered and thrilled at a given passage; if
there has been presented to your mind some comparison that has,
so to speak, sprung from the depths of your reading; if you have
yourself formed an opinion upon the whole or upon some scenes
of the work, you must cling to that: it is that which must be
told, it is that which I call having something to say.
-
## p. 12836 (#258) ##########################################
12836
FRANCISQUE SARCEY
Do not trouble yourself to know if others have thought it
before you, and have said it perhaps even better than you will
say it yourself. That is not the question. The idea, however old
it may be, will appear new; and will be so, indeed, because you
will strongly impress upon it the turn of your mind, because you
will tinge it unconsciously with the colors of your imagination.
As you will have made it flash from the reading, as you will
yourself have drawn this truth from its well, your passion will
go out to it, you will naturally put into its expression a good
faith, a sincerity, a transport, the heat of which will be com-
municated to the public.
Not until you have performed this first task, the only neces-
sary one, the only efficacious one, shall I permit you- pay atten-
tion: permit you, not advise you to read what your predecessors
have thought of 'Le Cid,' and written about it. If by chance
you run across some interesting point of view that had escaped
you, and that strikes you, take care, for the love of heaven, not
to transfer it just as it is to your lecture, where it would have
the mischievous effect of second-hand and veneer. No: take up
'Le Cid' anew; re-read it with this idea, suggested by another,
in mind; put that back into the text in order to draw it out
yourself, rethink it, make it something of your own; forget the
turn and the form given it by Sainte-Beuve, from whom it first
came to your notice. If you cannot succeed in taking possession
of it, in melting it so well in the crucible of your mind that it
will be no longer distinguished from the matter in fusion which
is already bubbling there, better discard it, however pleasing,
however ingenious it may be:
Be assured there will be nothing good in your lecture but
what you shall have thought for yourself; and what you shall
have thought for yourself will always have a certain seal of ori-
ginality. You have thought that Chimène sacrifices her love to
her duty, that Rodrigue is a hero boiling over with love and
youth, that Don Diègue is an epic Gascon. Do not embarrass
yourself with scruples, and repeat to yourself in a whisper, “But
every one has said that. ”
-
Every one has said it! So much the better, because there is
some chance that your audience will be enchanted, seeing you
plunged up to your ears in the truth. But every one has not
said it as you will say it; for you will say it as you have
thought it, and you have thought it yourself.
## p. 12837 (#259) ##########################################
12837
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
(1826-1886)
SUCCESS So splendid and so sustained as that which has attended
'Ekkehard' and the Trumpeter of Säkkingen,' has not be-
fore been witnessed in the history of German literature. It
is safe to regard as final an emphatic popular verdict, which has not
only stood unreversed but has annually been reaffirmed in the course
of nearly half a century. The Trumpeter' was published in 1854,
'Ekkehard' in the following year; in 1895 the former reached its two
hundred and sixteenth edition, the latter passed its one hundred and
forty-third. This great and growing demand
is the plébiscite of two generations; and
the decision of this high court of appeal
has gone in favor of Scheffel's claim to a
poet's immortality.
Joseph Victor von Scheffel was born at
Karlsruhe on February 16th, 1826; and there,
sixty years afterward, he died on April 9th.
He was another example of the young
man of many capabilities who fails at first
to find the right one. His father was an
engineer, and the son's talent for drawing
was inherited; the poetic gift came from
his mother, who, besides other works, had
written a drama which was produced at
the court theatre of Karlsruhe. But young Scheffel, through the per-
sistence of his parents, was forced to study law and prepare himself
for the career of a government official. After taking his degree he
held several public positions, and practiced law at Säkkingen.
J. V. VON SCHEFFEL
During the six years which he spent in this uncongenial employ-
ment it was his ardent desire to become a painter. At last in 1852
he abandoned his profession, and went to Rome. Fortunately, how-
ever, his friends and his own failures soon made it clear to him that
he had mistaken the direction of his genius; and the man who three
years later had completed the most popular German poem and the
most popular German novel of the century, retired to Capri in the
depths of despondency because he could not paint.
During the winter at Capri and Sorrento, he sought to comfort
himself in his disappointment by shaping the memories of his Rhine-
## p. 12838 (#260) ##########################################
12838
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
land home into the half playful, half melancholy romance of the
'Trumpeter of Säkkingen. ' The success of this poem was not im-
mediate. Scheffel returned to Germany, determined to produce a
scholarly work on the history of the Middle Ages. The 'Monumenta
Germaniæ Historica' formed a part of his systematic studies; and in
these his imagination was captivated by the Chronicles of St. Gall.
At St. Gall, and at the foot of the Hohentwiel, he spent his
Easter vacation, writing the opening chapters of 'Ekkehard. ' It was
finished at Heidelberg early in 1855. Upon the novel and the poem
together his fame was firmly established. This period of his great-
est productivity was the happiest period of his life. His high spir-
its found expression in the rollicking student songs which appeared
under the title of 'Gaudeamus. ' These songs are now the permanent
possession of the university youth of Germany, to whom they have.
doubly endeared the poet's name. The volume has passed its sixti-
eth edition.
But these happy days fled swiftly. The severe mental strain of
two years of uninterrupted literary creation left Scheffel a nervous
wreck. He planned several more historical works; but in each case
his painstaking preparations broke down his weakened health, and
his task was left unfinished. The death of his sister in 1857 was a
blow from which his spirits never recovered. The gay poet and con-
vivial student became gradually a morose and disappointed man. He
married in 1864 Fräulein von Malzen, the daughter of the Bavarian
ambassador; but his shattered nerves and erratic habits made him
an incompatible companion, and a separation followed two years later.
He wrote many more tales and novels, but none ever attained the
popularity of the first two works. The poet's fiftieth birthday was
celebrated by all Germany; and the Grand Duke of Baden conferred
upon him a patent of hereditary nobility. The last years of his life.
were spent in melancholy retirement on his estate at Radolfszell on
Lake Constance, where he had once been wont to play the generous
but eccentric host. Soon after the attainment of his sixtieth birthday
he died. On the great terrace of Heidelberg Castle stands his statue
in bronze.
It is only by comparison with 'Ekkehard' and the 'Trumpeter'
that Scheffel's other works may be called unsuccessful. Frau Aven-
tiure' (Lady Adventure) reached some twenty editions, and 'Juni-
perus five. Both works are parts of a broadly planned attempt to
portray the features of the olden time when the Nibelungenlied at
last assumed its classic form. The scheme was never carried out,
and the scholarly element in these detracts somewhat from their
directness of appeal; but the graphic touch is not altogether lost. A
lyric play called 'Der Brautwillkomm auf Wartburg' (Welcoming the
Bride on the Wartburg) was likewise a product of these mediæval
## p. 12839 (#261) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12839
studies, as were also the 'Bergpsalmen (Mountain Psalms). These
psalms appeared in 1870. Ten years later came Waldeinsamkeit '
(Woodland Solitude); which with 'Der Henri von Steier' (Henry of
Styria), and an ancient tale of Hugideo' (1884), completes the list of
the poet's works.
In a century which began with Scott and ends with Sienkiewicz, a
discussion of the historical novel as an allowable form of art would
be academic. In Germany, Hauff's 'Lichtenstein' (1826), modeled
after Scott, was the first distinctively historical novel of import-
ance. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer attained a high mastery of form in
this genre; but it is to Scheffel that we must look for the one clas-
sic example and supreme achievement. In 'Ekkehard' he skillfully
avoids the dangers of partisanship, in the delineation of well-known
characters and in the interpretation of famous events, by seeking
rather to show the thoughts, ambitions, and customs of the age in the
daily life of convent and castle; while the onrush of history is heard
only from afar,—coming for a moment, in the attack of the Huns,
to the very gates of the monastery. The book is an authentic pict-
ure of the tenth century in Suabia. Even had such men and women,
such conditions, such events, never had their actual counterparts, the
work would be still instinct with life; for its vitality is in no wise
dependent upon its historical setting. Scheffel in his own charming
preface asserts that "neither history nor poetry will lose anything by
forming a close alliance. " This depends, it is true, upon the genius
of the man who makes the treaty; but in 'Ekkehard' men will long
continue to enjoy the vivid and faithful presentation of a picturesque
age, in which the elements of poetry and history are exquisitely
blended.
<
The Trumpeter' is a romantic love tale full of playful humor
and graceful trifling, sustained by a true and tender sentiment. Of
course the humble trumpet-blower marries the high-born maiden in
the end. In its rhythmic measures the poem reminds one of Heine's
'Atta Troll'; but it is kindlier and born of a serener mood than that
brilliant piece of bitterness, in which the old Romantic School, expir-
ing, laughed in frivolous self-ridicule. Gentleness, chivalry, and love
are the themes of Scheffel's Rhineland romance; and the satirical
blows of Hiddigeigei are delivered with velvet paws.
Scheffel has himself declared that the ironical flavor of his poetry
was the result of an underlying melancholy. The events of 1848,
although he was an ardent advocate of a united Fatherland, failed
to stir him; and the hopeless, reactionary period that followed made
him a political pessimist. "My soul," he said, "took on a rust in
those days which it will never wear off. " His humor was a con-
scious concealment of an essentially melancholy disposition; and as
## p. 12840 (#262) ##########################################
12840
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
the years wore on, he was less and less able to maintain his mental
disguise. He lived in an atmosphere of medievalism, and there is
a natural touch of antiquity in his style which removes the last trace
of pedantry from his historical pictures. His mild mockery and de-
lightful drollery have an old-time flavor that mellows the effect; and
his work is wholesome and refreshing through its pure and healthy
sentiment.
REJECTION AND FLIGHT
From 'Ekkehard. Copyright 1895, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
E
KKEHARD remained long sitting in the garden bower; then he
rushed out into the darkness. He knew not whither his
feet were carrying him.
In the morning he found himself on the top of the Hohen-
krähen, which had stood silent and deserted since the forest
woman's departure. The remains of the burnt hut lay in a con-
fused heap. Where the living-room had once been, the Roman
stone with the Mithras was still to be seen. Grass and ferns
grew over it, and a blindworm was stealthily creeping up on the
old weather-beaten idol.
Ekkehard burst into a wild scornful laugh.
"The chapel of St. Hadwig! " he cried, striking his breast with
his clenched hand. "Thus it must be ! "
He upset the old Roman stone, and then mounted the rocky
crest of the hill. There he threw himself down and pressed his
forehead against the cool ground, which had once been touched
by Frau Hadwig's foot. There he remained for a long time.
When the scorching rays of the midday sun fell upon him, he
still lay there, and slept.
-
Toward evening he came back to the Hohentwiel, hot and
haggard, and with an unsteady gait. Blades of grass clung to
the woolen texture of his cowl.
The people of the castle timidly stepped out of his way, as if
before one on whose forehead ill-luck had set her seal. In other
times they had been wont to come toward him to entreat his
blessing.
The duchess had noticed his absence, but made no inquiries
about him. He went up to his tower, and seized a parchment,
## p. 12841 (#263) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12841
as if he would read.
«<
It was Gunzo's attack upon him. Will-
ingly I would exhort you to aid him with healing medicine; but
I fear, I sadly fear, that his disease is too deeply rooted,"
what he read.
He laughed. The arched ceiling threw back an echo; he
leaped to his feet as if he wanted to find out who had laughed
at him.
Then he went to the window, and looked down into the
depths below. It was deep, deep down: a sudden giddiness came
over him; he started back.
The small phial which the old Thieto had given him stood
near his books. It made him melancholy. He thought of the
blind old man! "The service of women is an evil thing for him
who wishes to remain good," he had said when Ekkehard took
leave.
He tore the seal off from the phial, and poured the Jordan
water over his head and drenched his eyes. It was too late.
Whole floods of holy water will not extinguish the inward fire,
unless one plunges in never to rise again.
Yet a mo-
mentary feeling of quiet came over him.
"I will pray," said he. "It is a temptation. "
He threw himself on his knees: but soon it seemed to him
as if the pigeons were swarming round his head, as they did on
the day when he first entered the tower room; but now they had
mocking faces, and wore a contemptuous look about their beaks.
He got up and slowly descended the winding staircase to the
castle chapel. The altar below had been a witness of earnest de-
votions on many a happy day. The chapel was, as before, dark
and silent. Six ponderous pillars, with square capitals adorned
with leaf-work, supported the vault. A faint streak of daylight
fell in through the narrow windows. The recesses of the niche
where the altar stood were but faintly illuminated; the golden
background of the mosaic picture of the Redeemer alone shone
with a soft glitter. Greek artists had transplanted the forms of
their church ornaments to the German rock. In a white flowing
garment, with a gold-red aureole round his head, the Savior's
emaciated figure stood there, with the fingers of the right hand
extended in the act of blessing.
Ekkehard bowed before the altar steps; his forehead rested
on the stone flags. Thus he remained, wrapt in prayer.
"O Thou who hast taken the sorrows of the world on thyself,
send out one ray of thy grace on me unworthy. "
## p. 12842 (#264) ##########################################
12842
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
He raised his head and gazed up, as if he expected the earnest
figure to step down from the wall and hold out his hand to him.
"I am here at thy feet, like Peter, surrounded by tempest,
and the waves will not bear me up! Save me, O Lord! save me
as thou didst him when thou didst walk over the raging billows,
extending thy hand to him and saying, 'O thou of little faith,
wherefore dost thou doubt? › »
But no sign was given him.
Ekkehard's brain was giving way.
There was a rustling through the chapel like that of a woman's
garments. He heard nothing.
Frau Hadwig had come down under the impulse of a strange
mood. Since she had begun to bear a grudge against the monk,
the image of her late husband recurred oftener to her mind.
Naturally, as the one receded into the background, the other
must come forward again. The later reading of Virgil had also
been responsible for this, as there had been said so much about
the memory of Sichæus.
The following day was the anniversary of Herr Burkhard's
death. With his lance and shield by his side, the old duke lay
buried in the chapel. His tomb at the right of the altar was
covered by a rough stone slab. The eternal lamp burned dimly
over it.
A sarcophagus of gray sandstone stood near it, resting
on small clumsy pillars with Ionic capitals; and these again
rested on grotesque stone animals. This stone coffin Frau Had-
wig had had made for herself. Every year, on the anniversary
of the duke's death, she had it carried up and filled with corn
and fruits, which were distributed among the poor,- the means
of living coming from the resting-place of the dead. It was a
pious ancient custom.
―
To-day it was her purpose to pray on her husband's grave.
The duskiness of the place concealed Ekkehard's kneeling figure.
She did not see him.
Suddenly she was startled from her devotions. A laugh, sub-
dued yet piercing, struck her ear. She knew the voice. Ekke-
hard had risen and recited the following words of the Psalms:-
"Hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
From the wicked that oppress me,
From my deadly enemies who compass me about.
With their mouth they speak proudly. "
## p. 12843 (#265) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12843
He spoke it in an ominous tone. It was no more the voice of
prayer.
Frau Hadwig bent down beside the sarcophagus: she would
gladly have placed another on it to hide her from Ekkehard's
view. She no longer cared to be alone with him. Her heart
beat calmly now.
He went to the door.
Then suddenly he turned back. The everlasting lamp was
softly swinging to and fro over Frau Hadwig's head. Ekkehard's
eye pierced the twilight.
With one bound,- quicker than
that which in later days St. Bernard made through the cathedral
at Speier when the Madonna had beckoned to him,- he stood
before the duchess. He gave her a long and penetrating look.
She rose to her feet, and seizing the edge of the stone sar-
cophagus with her right hand, she confronted him. The ever-
lasting lamp over her head still gently swung to and fro on its
silken cord.
·
"Blessed are the dead: prayers are offered for them," said
Ekkehard, interrupting the silence.
Frau Hadwig made no reply.
"Will you pray for me also when I am dead? " continued he.
“Oh, you must not pray for me! Have a drinking-cup made out
of my skull; and when you take another doorkeeper away from
the monastery of St. Gallus, you must offer him the welcoming
draught in it,- and give him my greeting! You may put your
own lips to it also: it will not crack. But you must then wear
the circlet with the rose in it. "
"Ekkehard," said the duchess, "you are outrageous! "
He put his right hand to his forehead.
"Oh," said he, in a mournful voice,-"oh, yes! the Rhine
is also outrageous. They stopped its course with giant rocks;
but it gnawed through them, and now rushes and roars onward
in foam and tumult and destruction! Bravo, thou free heart
for he has allowed the
Duchess of Suabia, and
of youth! And God is outrageous also;
Rhine to be, and the Hohentwiel, and the
the tonsure on my head. "
The duchess began to shiver. Such an outbreak of long-
repressed feeling she had not expected. But it was too late: she
remained indifferent.
"You are ill," she said.
"Ill? " asked he: "it is merely a requital. More than a year
ago at Whitsuntide, when there was as yet no Hohentwiel for me,
## p. 12844 (#266) ##########################################
12844
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
I carried the coffin of St. Gallus in solemn procession out of
the cloister, and a woman threw herself on the ground before
me. 'Get up,' cried I; but she remained prostrate in the dust.
'Walk over me with thy relic, priest, so that I may recover,'
cried she; and my foot stepped over her. That woman was
suffering from the heartache. Now it is reversed. "
Tears interrupted his voice. He could not go on. Then he
threw himself at Frau Hadwig's feet, and clasped the hem of her
garment. The man was all of a tremble.
Frau Hadwig was touched,- touched against her will; as if
from the hem of her garment, a feeling of unutterable woe
thrilled up to her heart.
"Stand up," said she, "and think of other things. You still
owe us a story. Overcome it! "
Then Ekkehard laughed through his tears.
"A story! " cried he; "oh, a story! But not told. Come, let
us act the story! From the height of yonder tower one can see
so far into the distance, and so deep into the valley below, so
sweet and deep and tempting. What right has the ducal castle
to hold us back? No one who wishes to get down into the depth
below need count more than three, and we flutter and glide
softly into the arms of death there. Then I should be no longer
a monk; and I might wind my arms around you. "
He struck Herr Burkhard's tombstone with his clenched
hand.
――――――
-
"And he who sleeps here shall not prevent me! If he - the
old man
- comes, I will not let you go. And we will float up
to the tower again, and sit where we sat before; and we will
read Virgil to the end; and you must wear the rose in your cir-
clet, as if nothing whatever had happened. We will keep the
gate well locked against the duke, and we will laugh at all evil
tongues; and folks will say, as they sit at their fireplaces of a
winter's evening: That is a pretty tale of the faithful Ekkehard,
who slew the Emperor Ermanrich for hanging the Harlungen
brothers, and who afterwards sat for many hundred years before
Frau Venus's mountain, with his white staff in his hands, and
meant to sit there until the Day of Judgment to warn off all
pilgrims coming to the mountain. But at last he grew tired of
this, and ran away, and became a monk at St. Gall; and he fell
down an abyss and was killed; and he is sitting now beside
a proud, pale woman, reading Virgil to her. And at midnight
may be heard the words ringing through the Hegau: "Thou
## p. 12845 (#267) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12845
And
commandest, O Queen, to renew the unspeakable sorrow. "
then she will have to kiss him, whether she will or not; for death
makes up for what life denies. '»
He had spoken with a wild, wandering look; and now his
voice failed with low weeping. Frau Hadwig had stood immov-
ably all this time. It was as if a gleam of pity shone in her
cold eyes; she bent down her head.
"Ekkehard," said she, "you must not speak of death.
madness. We live, you and I! ”
He did not stir. Then she lightly laid her hand on his burn-
ing forehead. A wild thrill flashed through his brain.
He
sprang up.
་
"You are right! " cried he. "We live
you and I! »
A dizzy darkness clouded his eyes; he stepped forward, and
winding his arms round her proud form, he fiercely pressed her
to his heart; his kiss burned on her lips. Her protest died away
unheard.
This is
――――
He raised her high up toward the altar, as if she were an
offering he was about to make.
"Why dost thou hold out thy gold glittering fingers so quietly,
instead of blessing us? " he cried out to the dark and solemn
picture.
The duchess had started like a wounded deer. One moment,
and all the passion of her hurt pride revolted within her. She
pushed the frenzied man back with a strong hand, and tore her-
self out of his embrace.
He had one arm still round her waist, when the church
door was suddenly opened, and a flaring streak of daylight broke
through the darkness; they were no longer alone. Rudimann the
cellarer, from Reichenau, stepped over the threshold; other fig-
ures became visible in the background of the court-yard.
The duchess had grown pale with shame and anger. A tress
of her long dark hair had become loosened and was streaming
down her back.
"I beg your pardon," said the man from the Reichenau, with
grinning politeness. "My eyes have beheld nothing. ”
-
Then Frau Hadwig tore herself entirely free from Ekkehard's
hold and cried out:
"Yes, I say! Yes, yes, you have seen a madman, who has
forgotten himself and God. I should be sorry for your eyes if
they had beheld nothing, for I would have had them torn out! "
## p. 12846 (#268) ##########################################
'12846
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
It was with an indescribably cold dignity that she pronounced
these words.
Then Rudimann began to understand the strange scene.
"I had forgotten," said he scornfully, "that he who stands
there is one of those to whom wise men have applied the
words of St. Hieronymus, when he says: "Their manners
more befitting dandies and bridegrooms than the elect of the
Lord. '"
are
Ekkehard stood leaning against a pillar, with arms stretched
out in the air, like Odysseus when he wanted to embrace his
mother's shade. Rudimann's words roused him from his dreams.
"Who comes between her and me? " he cried threateningly.
But Rudimann, patting him on the shoulder with an insolent
familiarity, said:-
"Calm yourself, my good friend: we have only come to de-
liver a note into your hands. St. Gallus can no longer allow
the wisest of all his disciples to remain out in the capricious,
malicious world. You are summoned home! And don't forget
-
the stick with which you are wont to ill-treat your confraters
who like to snatch a kiss at vintage-time, you chaste moralist,"
he added in a low whisper.
Ekkehard stepped back. Wild longings, the pang of separa-
tion, burning passionate love, and the added insults,- all these
stormed up in him. He hastily advanced toward Frau Hadwig;
but the chapel was already filling.
The abbot of Reichenau himself had come to have the pleas-
ure of witnessing Ekkehard's departure. "It will be a difficult
task to get him away," he had said to the cellarer.
It was easy
enough now. Monks and lay brothers came in after him.
"Sacrilege! " Rudimann called out to them. "He has laid his
wanton hand on his mistress even before the altar! "
―
Then Ekkehard boiled over. To have the most sacred secret
of his heart profaned by insolent coarseness, a pearl thrown before
swine! He tore down the everlasting lamp, and swung the heavy
vessel like a sling.
The light went out; a hollow groan was heard, the cellarer
lay with bleeding head on the stone flags. The lamp fell clat-
tering beside him. A blow, fierce struggle, wild confusion — all
was at an end with Ekkehard.
They had overpowered him; tearing off the girdle of his cowl,
they bound him.
-
## p. 12847 (#269) ##########################################
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
12847
There he stood, the handsome youthful figure, now the very
picture of woe, like the broken-winged eagle. ' He gave one
mournful, troubled, appealing look at the duchess. She turned
away.
"Do what you think right," she said to the abbot, and swept
through the throng.
IT WAS a dreary, depressing evening. The duchess had locked.
herself up in her bow-windowed room, and refused admittance to
every one.
Ekkehard had been hurried away into a dungeon by the
abbot's men. In the same tower, in the airy upper story of which
his chamber was situated, there was a damp, dark, vault; frag-
ments of old tombstones-deposited there long before when the
castle chamber had been renovated were scattered about in un-
sightly heaps. A bundle of straw had been thrown in for him,
and a monk was sitting outside to guard the entrance.
Burkhard, the monastery pupil, ran up and down, wailing and
wringing his hands. He could not understand the fate which had
befallen his uncle. The servants were all putting their heads
together, eagerly whispering and gossiping, as if the hundred-
tongued Rumor had been sitting on the roof of the castle,
spreading her falsehoods about.
"He tried to murder the duchess," said one.
-
"He has been practicing the Devil's own arts with that big
book of his," said another. "To-day is St. John's day, when the
Devil has no power, and so he could not help him. "
At the well in the court-yard stood Rudimann the cellarer, let-
ting the clear water flow over his head. Ekkehard had given
nim a sharp cut; the blood obstinately and angrily trickled down
into the water.
She was the only
Praxedis came down looking pale and sad.
soul who felt sincere pity for the prisoner. On seeing the cel-
larer, she ran into the garden, tore up a blue corn-flower with the
roots, and brought it to him.
•
"Take that," said she, "and hold it in your right hand till it
gets warm: that will stop the bleeding. Or shall I fetch you
some linen to bind up the wound? "
He shook his head.
«<
"It will stop of itself when the time comes," said he. 'Tis
not the first time that I have been bled. Keep your corn-flowers
for yourself. "
## p. 12848 (#270) ##########################################
12848
JOSEPH VICTOR VON SCHEFFEL
But Praxedis was anxious to conciliate Ekkehard's enemy.
She brought some linen: he allowed his wound to be dressed.
Not a word of thanks did he proffer.
"Are you not going to let Ekkehard out to-day? " she asked.
"To-day! " Rudimann repeated sneeringly. "Do you feel in-
clined to weave a garland for the standard-bearer of Antichrist,
-the leading horse of Satan's car, whom you have petted and
spoiled up here as if he were the darling son Benjamin ?
day! In a month ask again over there! "
He pointed toward the Helvetian mountains.
Praxedis was frightened. "What are you going to do with
him? "
"What is right," replied Rudimann with a dark look. "Wan-
tonness, deeds of violence, disobedience, haughtiness, sacrilege,
blasphemy-there are scarcely names enough for all his nefarious
acts; but thank God, there are yet means for their expiation! "
He made a gesture with his hand like that of flogging. "Ah,
yes, plenty of means of expiation, gentle mistress! We will write
the catalogue of his sins on his skin. "
"Have pity! " said Praxedis: "he is a sick man. ”
"For that very reason we are going to cure him. When
he has been tied to the pillar, and half a dozen rods have been
flogged to pieces on his bent back, then all his spleen and his
devilries will vanish! "
"For God's sake! " exclaimed the Greek girl.
"Calm yourself: there are better things yet. A stray lamb
must be delivered up to the fold it belongs to. There he will
find good shepherds who will look after the rest. Sheep-shearing,
little girl, sheep-shearing! There they will cut off his hair,
which will make his head cooler; and if you feel inclined to
make a pilgrimage to St. Gall a year hence, you will see on
Sundays and holidays some one standing barefooted before the
church door, and his head will be as bare as a stubble-field,
and the penitential garb will become him very nicely. What do
you think? The heathenish practices with Virgil are at an end
now.
