Wilhelmine von Hillern

“ Donatus could bear it no longer; tears rushed to his eyes, and crying out, "My father, my dearest father!" he threw himself into the Abbot's arms. The two men stood clasped in a mute embrace, but at this instant of sacred silence Correntian came hurrying up.
"For God's sake," he cried, "go in! The storm is just over our heads, and it will be a fearful one," and he dragged them apart as if in dutiful anxiety for their safety.
They went into the house in silence. It was now bed-time; the younger brethren went to the dormitories, the elders each to his own cell. ”

“ Porphyrius looked at her much disappointed. "Do you not come from higher realms than we do?"
"Oh God knows!" sighed the child, folding her little hands across her bosom. "My foot has carried me as a fugitive about the world all the days of my life, and my eyes shun the light like a nightbird's, for the sun has rarely shone on me. I have hidden myself by day in the darkness of the wood and walked about at night."
"God preserve us!" cried Porphyrius, signing himself with a cross.
"That is a hard lot," said Donatus. ”

“ Only one face accords ill with the quiet scene and its solemn setting; a good-humoured, crafty, smiling, Epicurean countenance with fat cheeks and piercing, sharp, glittering eyes under grey, bushy brows. It is brother Wyso, the registrar and historian of the monastery; the laughing philosopher who knows everything, and lets everything go its own gait. The world lies below him in a bird's-eye-view--so small, so insignificant--all humanity is to him like an ant-hill, and altogether amusing and comical; how they build, how they fight, how they marry, and at last are buried! ”

“ Beata flung herself before him.
"My lord and master, do not drive me away; you cannot be so cruel, you only fancy that you can, and you will rue it when you are gone a few hundred yards, and you will call your child to come back to you; but it will be too late. I have been with you in the hour of anguish, my eyes are dim with watching by your bed, my bleeding feet have stained the stones on the paths along which I have led you, and you will drive me away? Oh, dear good master! you would not drive away a lost dog that humbly licked your hand, and have you no pity on my suffering and my tears?" ”

“ It is indeed a precious dew, more precious than tears or blood, and because there is no man who would not keep it at the cost even of his life, it is so precious that only the highest crown of martyrdom can requite it! You may win this crown--you may rise out of the pool of sin of which the flames are already licking you, to be a saint before whom everyone shall kneel--I the first, I who have so long despised you; and earth and heaven shall rejoice over you--! And all this bliss you may obtain by one stroke of a knife, guided by a steady hand! ”

“ His foot had crossed the threshold, and he set forth without delay towards Marienberg.
For the ninth time since he first had set out the sun was setting behind the cliffs of Mals and Burgeis when the weary wanderer returned from his dreary and fruitless pilgrimage. Poor and wretched as if the wind and waves had tossed him on shore after a shipwreck; scorched and desolate in spirit as if in some pilgrimage in the Holy Land the burning sun of the Desert had consumed him heart and brain, and he had fled without earning his title to Salvation. ”

“ They are the agonised cries of Nature, the eternal mother, over one of her children who this night is outraging her and himself; who is struggling in solitude with the very madness of self-annihilation, with none by to pity him. She rouses the brethren from their sleep, she thunders in their ears, she shouts to them in the wailing of the storm and in torrents of tears, "Rise up--save your brother!" They hear the warning indeed, but they understand it not; they start in horror from their beds and cross themselves, "Help, oh Lord! What is Thy purpose with us?" ”

“ Oh! it is hideous, and I turn from you in horror! You are not men, you are stones--stones of that proud edifice under which the whole earth groans, and all wholesome life must perish.--And you, blind shade, out of which they have wrung the very blood and marrow, can you reconcile it to your creed of mercy to plunge a dagger in cold blood into the heart of a father who opens his arms to you with eager longing, and cries for atonement as a hart for the water-brooks,--to renounce him when he would fain lead you home under the roof of your ancestors? ”

“ It is the cry of a human being that shares that fearful bed with the night and the storm--a woman who lies sunk to the knees under the cold, crushing coverlet of snow, and on her breast a newborn baby-boy, closely clasped in her stiffened arms and wrapped in her cloak. The milk which flows from the young mother's bosom to nourish her infant has frozen above her fluttering heart, and the tears on her closed lashes are turned to ice. ”

“ Only the monotonous murmur of the Etsch--that cold artery of the desolate heath--and the roar of the winds that sweep at night across the plateau; these are the eerie voices of this realm of death.
Woe to the lonely pilgrim who is wandering through the night in this boundless desert, in storm and snow, in impenetrable darkness; he is lost in nothingness, owned by neither Heaven nor Hell, and the earth knows him not! No ear can hear his cry for help, it is lost in vacancy; the raven and the wolf mark him down, but they tell no one of their mute prey. ”

“ It is true that pitying love has penetrated even to this wilderness and realm of death, and spreads her arms so far as they may reach; but they are but human arms, weak and inadequate for the great divine mind that animates them. Every evening, above the howling of the storm and the roaring of the highland lake, as dusk creeps on, the Vesper bell rings softly out like the beat of some metallic heart. Then a dull-red, flaring blaze is suddenly seen, which parts into wandering storm-blown flakes of flame that disperse themselves about the moor till they vanish in the mist and darkness. ”

“ Augustine speaks truly when he says, 'the eyes every day cast us into all sin and crime; what has been created that is more subtle than the eye?' My heart was pure, it harboured no thought but of God; but these eyes, subtle to betray me, have cast me into temptation, they have destroyed the peace of my soul, for even now they still bring the sinful image before my mind again and again. They paint it on the blue sky, on the pillars of the church, on my prayer-book--nay, on the altar-cloth. ”

“ Donatus was alarmed and his lids dropped again. "God forbid! You were joking and I thought you were in earnest. Take back your golden ornaments--they burn my hands as though they had been forged in unholy fires."
But she pushed the things from her and said with an air of sweet earnestness, "Nay--you do me an injustice. If I talk the language of the world teach me a better one. Look at me! your gaze has a purifying power; look at me, look me in the face and see if I can lie?" And once more he raised his eyes and drank the sweet poison of beauty such as he had never dreamed of. ”

“ Hunger and cold, exhaustion and death were the nurses that tended your wife in her need. Pitying love came in monk's garb through the night, and snow, and storm, and snatched the deserted woman and child from the cruel earth, and carried them home, and warmed them, and laid them on a soft bed. And when my mother succumbed to her miseries, again they were monks--these whom you see here--that made me a cradle in the name of Him who is Love. ”

“ No mother could guide her child, no sister tend her infant brother, no angel lead a soul to Heaven, as she watched over the blind man in his helplessness. The girl's pure breath fanned him like forest-airs when her bosom rose and fell quickly from some steep ascent or the fatigue of guiding him. He neither saw nor heard her; for her little bare feet went on by his side as softly as those of a fairy, he only felt her. He felt as if an angel of pity was walking by his side to cool his deadly pain with the waving of tender wings. ”

“ When at last they reached the hem of the forest, and stepped out on to the high road, he began to totter and fail.
"I can go no farther," he gasped, and fell to the ground under his burthen.
"I knew it would be so!" cried the monk, looking helplessly round for some succour.
Far and wide there was no living creature to be seen. By the wayside stood an old picture of a saint under a weather-beaten shrine, overgrown with wild roses; the storm had half overthrown it, and no one had set it up again; not a soul could have passed that way. ”

“ Nay, even the gaze you fix in devout prayer on the image of our Mother Mary is wanton, as it looks at the fair woman, at the lovely work of the painter's brush. And how then should it not wanton with the first living woman of flesh and blood who comes before you, as the first woman in Paradise appeared to the first man. You are yourself as fair to see as sin, and pleasure-loving women will everywhere run after you; for the doors by which sin may enter into you and go forth from you, are in truth fair and enticing, and those doors are your love-inviting eyes. ”

“ No, he will fight with all the strength of his soul; fight not for his eternal salvation only, but for his eyes too.
Well, he will look neither to the right hand nor to the left, he knows well that now every forbidden glance must bring him nearer to the murderous iron that threatens him. "Do not look that way; you are looking at your death," this is what he must say when temptation beckons him, and will not that terror enable him to conquer?
He fell on his knees before Correntian,
"Time--give me time, a respite," he groaned with pale lips, like a man condemned to death. ”

“ Out on the other side in the western wing brother Correntian was leaning his hot brow against his window panes and gazing out on the falling night. He had closed the window, for the evening breath of spring wafted up the sweet perfume of half-opened flowers, which soothed his senses--so he flung the window to. He who cannot resist the temptations of Satan in small things will never conquer him in great ones! So there he stood in the soft spring evening shut in by walls damp with the chills of winter, and he cast a reproving glance across to the eastern tower where the wet-nurse was housed. ”

“ It would be so much easier to throw off this whole miserable body at once and die once for all than slowly to crush this throbbing, longing heart. Eusebius, a feeling comes over me as if I must fling my arms wide open and embrace the desert air--as if I must throw myself down on the grass and rest my head on the lap of earth--as if somewhere--in the earth itself or in the warm summer-air--a heart must be beating towards mine on which I might fling myself and weep out all my pain. ”

“ You have sacrificed yourself freely and without compulsion, and have bled to death in silence. What is all that heroism and chastity have ever achieved in comparison with this deed? No--it is no power of the devil that has accomplished this. It is not with dying lips that the evil one seeks to tempt--nor with the kiss of death that he entangles his victims. It is a higher power--yes--now I see and know it! Beata, your death has released me from my bonds--there is a love, that is God--and we have loved each other with such a love, and for that love's sake we shall find mercy. ”

“ It was so fair a dream, Beata, when we wandered on together in innocence, as in Paradise, but original sin has driven us out of it! From the first hour when your sweet charm stirred my soul with earthly longings, from that hour our Paradise was lost. Beata, hell would fain have power over the immortal part of us, let us snatch it from its power. It is yet time; I have as yet withstood that hellish temptation, but now let us part lest the darker deed should follow hard on the dark thought. I gave up my eyes that I might keep myself pure, now I will give you up too. ”

“ And these storm-proof hearts quake with dread and pity for the hapless wretch to whose help they are hastening; they go forward painfully on their deadly and toilsome way, heeding neither danger nor difficulty, with only one purpose and one aim before their eyes--a struggle for life with Death.
At last--it is close by--at last they hear a faint cry; even the death-stricken woman hears them approaching, she collects her remaining strength and once more opens her eye-lids, on which the restless whirling snow has already dropped a white shroud ”

“ With such eyes a man can never be a monk!--it is God himself who has spoken by your lips."
And he fled away as from the City of Destruction, leaving the temptress startled and astonished. She called after him to stay--she implored, she conjured him--in vain. The matins bell was ringing in the valley below, and he heard that above all her tempting; that was a mightier call. Like a hunted deer that can find no shelter, the unhappy man fled back to the sacred cloister walls where only rest and peace were to be found. ”

“ He led them first to the library; the Duchess found here a rich harvest for her craving for pious learning, for sacred books and parchments of inestimable value and splendour were amassed in it, and she was soon greedily absorbed in these treasures. Hildegard was almost in despair. The dust of books and rouge! these have little in common! And no one by but the coy saint with a head like a heathen god, as fine as any to be seen in Rome--living, breathing, and yet of marble! A secret revulsion to spite and hatred sprang up in her soul. ”

“ A thunder-clap came crashing down on the convent, such a clap as shook the old building to the foundations, and all that were living crossed themselves in terror; only the still sleeper up in his solitary tower will wake and tremble no more. The brethren had all shrunk away to their beds; Correntian only remained without, calmly defying the uproar of the elements. Suddenly there was a repeated hasty and terrified knocking at the convent-gate; the porter did not hear it for the roaring of the storm, but at last it caught Correntian's ever watchful ear. ”

“ That is a curse and not an oath," cried the horrified Abbot. "God's grace is far greater than your sick soul can imagine; He pities even the sinner, and judges him after the measure of his strength, not according to his guilt. Would you prevent God's grace and pronounce your own damnation when He in His eternal and fatherly mercies would most likely pardon you? Whither will your youthful vehemence carry you? Man may not purify himself by blind self-destroying zeal, but by faithful and humble submissiveness, by silent fulfilment of duty, by incessant inward struggles. ”

“ A cry of horror broke from every one.
"Shame on you, brother Correntian! are you a man?" cried Bero in wrath.
"You see how you start at an empty word! Ye feeble ones! Do you call the physician cruel who by one swift cut obviates future--nay eternal suffering? If any one had released me from the torment of sight and its myriad temptations while I was still slumbering in the cradle, I would have thanked him as my lifelong benefactor. However, fear nothing; I know well that no shedding of blood beseems us, and it was only an idea, suggested by the truest pity." ”

“ None have trodden it on whose eyes death has not first laid its black shroud; and do you not believe that the heavenly light which can irradiate the night of death can also illumine our deepest earthly darkness? Do you not believe that God the Lord is mighty to open in your soul a spiritual eye instead of the bodily eyes you sacrifice to Him, by which you may discern more and fairer things than any mortal yet has gazed on? ”

“ Every day the little one grew stronger and more blooming; a child as sweet and winning as if angels came down from Heaven from time to time to play with him. He was like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy convent and in the closed hearts of the brethren. He could entice a smile from the sternest lips--hardly any one could resist giving him a flower in passing, throwing him a spray, or bringing him some tempting fruit from any more distant walk--a bunch of wood strawberries, an empty bird's-nest, a sparkling pebble--whatever came to hand. ”