Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

  XI.

  Eva's Story.

  CISTERCIAN CONVENT, NIMPTSCHEN, 1511.

  Life cannot, at the utmost, last very long, although at seventeen we maybe tempted to think the way between us and heaven interminable.

  For the convent is certainly not heaven; I never expected it would be.It is not nearly so much like heaven, I think, as Aunt Cotta's home;because love seems to me to be the essential joy of heaven, and there ismore love in that home than here.

  I am not at all disappointed. I did not expect a haven of rest, but onlya sphere where I might serve God better, and, at all events, not be aburden on dear Aunt Cotta. For I feel sure Uncle Cotta will becomeblind; and they have so much difficulty to struggle on, as it is.

  And the world is full of dangers for a young orphan girl like me; and Iam afraid they might want me to marry some one, which I never could.

  I have no doubt God will give me some work to do for him here, and thatis all the happiness I look for. Not that I think there are not otherkinds of happiness in the world which are not wrong; but they are notfor me.

  I shall never think it was wrong to love them all at Eisenach as much asI did, and do, whatever the confessor may say. I shall be better all mylife, and all the life beyond, I believe, for the love God gave them forme, and me for them, and for having known Cousin Fritz. I wish very muchhe would write to me; and sometimes I think I will write to him. I feelsure it would do us both good. He always said it did him good to talkand read the dear old Latin hymns with me; and I know they never seemedmore real and true than when I sang them to him. But the fatherconfessor says it would be exceedingly perilous for our souls to holdsuch a correspondence; and he asked me if I did not think more of mycousin than of the hymns when I sang them to him, which, he says, wouldhave been a great sin. I am sure I cannot tell exactly how the thoughtswere balanced, or from what source each drop or pleasure flowed. It wasall blended together. It was joy to sing the hymns, and it was joy forFritz to like to hear them; and where one joy overflowed into the otherI cannot tell. I believe God gave me both; and I do not see that I needcare to divide one from the other. Who cares, when the Elbe is flowingpast its willows and oaks at Wittemberg, which part of its waters wasdissolved by the sun from the pure snows on the mountains, and whichcame trickling from some little humble spring on the sandy plains? Bothsprings and snows came originally from the clouds above; and both, asthey flow blended on together, make the grass spring and the leaf-budsswell, and all the world rejoice.

  The heart with which we love each other and with which we love God, isit not the same? Only God is all good, and we are all His, therefore weshould love Him best. I think I do, or I should be more desolate herethan I am, away from all but him.

  That is what I understand by my "Theologia Germanica," which Else doesnot like. I begin with my father's legacy--"God so loved the world, thathe gave his Son;" and then I think of the crucifix, and of the love ofHim who died for us; and, in the light of these, I love to read in mybook of Him who is the Supreme Goodness, whose will is our rest, and whois himself the joy of all our joys, and our joy when we have no otherjoy. The things I do not comprehend in the book, I leave, like so manyother things. I am but a poor girl of seventeen, and how can I expect tounderstand everything? Only I never let the things I do not understandperplex me about those I do.

  Therefore, when my confessor told me to examine my heart, and see ifthere were not wrong and idolatrous thoughts mixed up with my love forthem all at Eisenach, I said at once, looking up at him--

  "Yes, father, I did not love them half enough, for all their love tome."

  I think he must have been satisfied; for although he looked perplexed,he did not ask me any more questions.

  I feel very sorry for many of the nuns, especially for the old nuns.They seem to me like children, and yet not child-like. The meresttrifles appear to excite or trouble them. They speak of the convent asif it were the world, and of the world as if it were hell. It is achildhood with no hope, no youth and womanhood before it. It reminds meof the stunted oaks we passed on Dueben Heath, between Wittemberg andLeipsic, which will never be full-grown, and yet are not saplings.

  Then there is one, Sister Beatrice, whom the nuns seem to think veryinferior to themselves, because they say she was forced into the conventby her relatives, to prevent her marrying some one they did not like,and could never be induced to take the vows until her loverdied,--which, they say, is hardly worthy of the name of a vocation atall.

  She does not seem to think so either, but moves about in a subdued,broken-spirited way, as if she felt herself a creature belonging neitherto the Church nor to the world.

  The other evening she had been on an errand for the prioress through thesnow, and returned blue with cold. She had made some mistake in themessage, and was ordered at once, with contemptuous words, to her cell,to finish a penance by reciting certain prayers.

  I could not help following her. When I found her, she was sitting on apallet shivering, with the prayer-book before her. I crept into thecell, and, sitting down beside her, began to chafe her poor icy hands.

  At first she tried to withdraw them, murmuring that she had a penance toperform; and then her eyes wandered from the book to mine. She gazedwonderingly at me for some moments, and then she burst into tears, andsaid,--

  "Oh, do not do that! It makes me think of the old nursery at home. Andmy mother is dead; all are dead, and I cannot die."

  She let me put my arms round her, however; and, in faint, broken words,the whole history came out.

  "I am not here from choice," she said. "I should never have been here ifmy mother had not died; and I should never have taken the vows if _he_had not died, whatever they had done to me; for we were betrothed, andwe had vowed before God we would be true to each other till death. Andwhy is not one vow as good as another? When they told me he was dead, Itook the vows,--or, at least, I let them put the veil on me, and saidthe words as I was told, after the priest; for I did not care what Idid. And so I am a nun. I have no wish now to be anything else. But itwill do me no good to be a nun, for I loved Eberhard first, and I lovedhim best; and now that he is dead, I love no one, and have no hope inheaven or earth. I try, indeed, not to think of him, because they saythat is sin; but I cannot think of happiness without him, if I try forever."

  I said, "I do not think it is wrong for you to think of him."

  Her face brightened for an instant, and then she shook her head, andsaid,--

  "Ah, you are a child; you are an angel. You do not know." And then shebegan to weep again, but more quietly. "I wish you had seen him; thenyou would understand better. It was not wrong for me to love him once;and he was so different from every one else--so true and gentle, and sobrave."

  I listened while she continued to speak of him, and, at last, lookingwistfully at me, she said, in a low, timid voice, "I cannot helptrusting you." And she drew from inside a fold of her robe a littlepiece of yellow paper, with a few words written on it, in pale, fadedink, and a lock of brown hair.

  "Do you think it is very wrong?" she asked. "I have never told theconfessor, because I am not quite sure if it is a sin to keep it; and Iam quite sure the sisters would take it from me if they knew. Do youthink it is wrong?"

  The words were very simple--expressions of unchangeable affection, and aprayer that God would bless her and keep them for each other untilbetter times.

  I could not speak, I felt so sorry; and she murmured, nervously takingher poor treasures from my hands, "You do not think it right. But youwill not tell? Perhaps one day I shall be better, and be able to givethem up; but not yet. I have nothing else."

  Then I tried to tell her that she _had_ something else;--that God lovedher and had pity on her, and that perhaps He was only answering theprayer of her betrothed, and guarding them in His blessed keeping untilthey should meet in better times. At length she seemed to take comfort;and I knelt down with her, and we said together the prayers she had beencommanded
to recite.

  When I rose, she said thoughtfully, "You seem to pray as if some one inheaven really listened and cared."

  "Yes," I said; "God does listen and care."

  "Even to me?" she asked; "Even for me? Will he not despise me, like theholy sisterhood?"

  "He scorns no one; and they say the lowest are nearest Him, theHighest."

  "I can certainly never be anything but the lowest," she said. "It is fitno one here should think much of me, for I have only given the refuse ofmy life to God. And besides, I had never much power to think; and thelittle I had seems gone since Eberhard died. I had only a little powerto love; and I thought that was dead. But since you came, I begin tothink I might yet love a little."

  As I left the cell she called me back.

  "What shall I do when my thoughts wander, as they always do in the longprayers?" she asked.

  "Make shorter prayers, I think, oftener," I said. "I think that wouldplease God as much."

  _August_, 1511.

  The months pass on very much the same here; but I do not find themmonotonous. I am permitted by the prioress to wait on the sick, and alsooften to teach the younger novices. This little world grows larger to meevery week. It is a world of human hearts,--and what a world there is inevery heart!

  For instance, Aunt Agnes! I begin now to know her. All the sisterhoodlook up to her as almost a saint already. But I do not believe shethinks so herself. For many months after I entered the cloister shescarcely seemed to notice me; but last week she brought herself into alow fever by the additional fasts and severities she has been imposingon herself lately.

  It was my night to watch in the infirmary when she became ill.

  At first she seemed to shrink from receiving anything at my hands.

  "Can they not send any one else?" she asked sternly.

  "It is appointed to me," I said, "in the order of the sisterhood."

  She bowed her head, and made no further opposition to my nursing her.And it was very sweet to me, because in spite of all the settled, graveimpassiveness of her countenance, I could not help seeing somethingthere which recalled dear Aunt Cotta.

  She spoke to me very little; but I felt her large deep eyes following meas I stirred little concoctions of herbs on the fire, or crept softlyabout the room. Towards morning she said, "Child, you are tired--comeand lie down;" and she pointed to a little bed beside her own.

  Peremptory as were the words, there was a tone in them different fromthe usual metallic firmness in her voice--which froze Else's heart--atremulousness which was almost tender. I could not resist the command,especially as she said she felt much better; and in a few minutes, badnurse that I was, I fell asleep.

  How long I slept I know not, but I was awakened by a slight movement inthe room, and looking up, I saw Aunt Agnes's bed empty. In my firstmoment of bewildered terror I thought of arousing the sisterhood, when Inoticed that the door of the infirmary which opened on the gallery ofthe chapel was slightly ajar. Softly I stole towards it, and there, inthe front of the gallery, wrapped in a sheet, knelt Aunt Agnes, lookingmore than ever like the picture of death which she always recalled toElse. Her lips, which were as bloodless as her face, moved withpassionate rapidity; her thin hands feebly counted the black beads ofher rosary; and her eyes were fixed on a picture of the _Mater Dolorosa_with the seven swords in her heart, over one of the altars. There was noimpassiveness in the poor sharp features and trembling lips then. Herwhole soul seemed going forth in an agonized appeal to that piercedheart; and I heard her murmur, "In vain! Holy Virgin, plead for me! ithas been all in vain. The flesh is no more dead in me than the firstday. That child's face and voice stir my heart more than all thysorrows. This feeble tie of nature has more power in me than all therelationships of the heavenly city. It has been in vain--all, all invain. I cannot quench the fires of earth in my heart."

  I scarcely ventured to interrupt her, but as she bowed her head on herhands, and fell almost prostrate on the floor of the chapel, while herwhole frame heaved with repressed sobs, I went forward and gently liftedher, saying, "Sister Agnes, I am responsible for the sick to-night. Youmust come back."

  She did not resist. A shudder passed through her; then the old stonylook came back to her face, more rigid then ever, and she suffered me towrap her up in the bed, and give her a warm drink.

  I do not know whether she suspects that I heard her. She is morereserved with me than ever; but to me those resolute, fixed features,and that hard, firm voice, will never more be what they were before.

  No wonder that the admiration of the sisterhood has no power to elateAunt Agnes, and that their wish to elect her sub-prioress had noseduction for her. She is striving in her inmost soul after an ideal,which, could she reach it, what would she be?

  As regards all human feeling and earthly life, _dead_!

  And just as she hoped this was attained, a voice--a poor, friendlychild's voice--falls on her ear, and she finds that what she deemeddeath was only a dream in an undisturbed slumber, and that the wholework has to begin again.

  It is a fearful combat, this concentrating all the powers of life onproducing death in life.

  Can this be what God means?

  Thank God, at least, that my vocation is lower. The humbling work in theinfirmary, and the trials of temper in the school of the novices, seemto teach me more, and to make me feel that I _am_ nothing and havenothing in myself, more than all my efforts to _feel_ nothing.

  My "Theologia" says, indeed, that true self-abnegation is freedom; andfreedom cannot be attained until we are above the fear of punishment orthe hope of reward. Else cannot bear this; and when I spoke of it theother day to poor Sister Beatrice, she said it bewildered her poor brainaltogether to think of it. But I do not take it in that sense. I thinkit must mean that love is its own reward; and grieving Him we love, whohas so loved us, our worst punishment. And that seems to me quite true.