The Romance of the Canoness. Paul Heyse

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СКАЧАТЬ the same time the baron allowed me to see that upon my success would depend my future position and promotion to the living. The present pastor, with increasing age, would become less and less capable of maintaining the strict discipline that was desirable, already displayed a lamentable tolerance in matters of faith, and, if he did not shortly apply for a discharge from his office, it would be necessary to obtain his removal.

      When I left my patron's study, I should have liked to give my pupil a short examination at once and commence the training of the young plant intrusted to my charge. Achatz, however, was neither within sight nor hearing, but had disappeared, like the other members of the Round Table. So I went up to my tower-room, and set about unpacking my books. An old servant, who appeared to be the factotum of everybody in the castle who wanted help, made me--as there was no book-case--two rude sets of shelves out of boards, which, however, after they were filled with my ecclesiastical works, looked very respectable. My pupil's room adjoined mine. "Who occupies the second story under us?" I asked. "The young baroness and Fräulein Luise," was the reply. I don't know why this annoyed me, but I should have preferred to avoid the vicinity of the Canoness.

      While thus occupied, twilight had closed in, and I resolved to walk down to the village and call on the old pastor.

      As I entered the long village street, I prepared to assume the most gracious manner. The worthy folk should have an idea of what they might expect from their future pastor. But my nods and smiles, greetings and questions, did not produce the slightest impression. The children ran shyly away, and the grown people only gave me curt, suspicious answers, though they knew very well that I was the expected candidate, and enjoyed the favor of their noble church-patron. So I was not in the best humor when I reached the little old parsonage, whose dilapidated condition was revealed, at this early season of the year, by the bare vine-trellises and empty garden. Even the church, beside which it stood, only separated by the graveyard, urgently needed repairs, and I secretly wondered that so pious a man as the baron did not set more value on the proper preservation of the house of God.

      But the interior of the parsonage looked all the brighter and more home-like. True, the walls of the rooms were only whitewashed, but there was not even a fly-speck on them; the thin white curtains seemed to have been freshly ironed only the day before, the floors were strewn with sand, and the household utensils were dazzlingly clean. A brisk, plump old lady, the pastor's wife, greeted me with so cordial a pressure of the hand, that I felt almost ashamed of having crossed her threshold with the selfish thoughts of a smiling heir.

      She led me into a small back room, that was just illumined by the setting sun. Here, in an atmosphere so oppressive from the heat of the stove that I could scarcely breathe, an old gentleman was sitting by the window in a large arm-chair covered with calico. A small black cloth cap rested on his venerable head, and his gouty, swollen knee was wrapped in a woolen blanket. His kind, blue eyes gazed so affectionately at me that I involuntarily bent over his outstretched hand and would have kissed it, had he not withdrawn it, silently shaking his head. I was requested to sit beside him, and, while we were exchanging the first common-place remarks, I had time to again reflect what a brilliant young light of the church I was compared to this feebly flickering, almost burned-out tallow stump. For on the little book-shelf beside the desk stood a scanty group of theological works, so that, recalling my own abundant store, I seemed to myself, in the presence of this aged champion of God, like a hero armed to the teeth and clad in a steel corslet, opposed to an old warrior, who could only swing a rude iron-spiked club.

      But I was not allowed to display my admirable armor, for the old gentleman subjected me to no theological examination, but merely inquired about my former life, parents, and relatives. When he heard that I had lost my mother when a child, he passed his withered hand over my arm with a gesture of timid kindness, and his old wife, who had often mingled in our conversation with some little jest, gazed at me with such maternal compassion that a very strange feeling came over me. Until then I had never realized my orphaned condition, but felt perfectly secure in my kinship to God.

      To reach a fresher theme, I began to talk of the baron and his family, praising especially the spirit of genuine piety that pervaded this aristocratic household. I perceived with surprise that neither the old pastor nor his more loquacious wife assented to my fervent eulogy. Only when I paused, the old man nodded gravely, and with his eyes fixed on vacancy, said: "Yes, yes, the baroness--she is a woman after God's own heart." "And don't forget Fräulein Luise!" added the old lady eagerly, then hastily quitted the room, as if summoned by some urgent necessity, and did not appear again even when I took my leave.

      I explained this strange silence to myself by the supposition that there were dogmatic differences between the pastor and his patron. The baron had shaken his head over the old gentleman's toleration. Desiring to avoid any dispute on this first visit, I soon rose to take leave.

      The old clergyman apologized for being compelled to remain seated. He was confined to the chair by a violent attack of his complaint, and would have been obliged to leave the pulpit vacant on the following Sunday had not God sent him so able a representative in my person. He begged me to preach in his stead, and only regretted that he could not be among my devout listeners.

      I was grateful in my heart to his gout for affording me an immediate opportunity to display my lauded oratorical talent, wished him a speedy convalescence, and took my leave with a much calmer heart than I had entered.

      When I returned to the castle, a servant received me in the hall and informed me that tea was ready.

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