by Anne Boileau
While I was in the convent, I used to dream of life outside those high walls, free from the constraints of routine, silence, temperance, abstinence, self-effacement. I dreamt, as any young woman would, of running barefoot in spring grass, of playing silly games of hide and seek, of laughter and conversation. My longing for the embrace of a man had been more nebulous, I could not really imagine how it might be. But now, I knew what I wanted yet it was forbidden fruit.
That evening I lay in my little bed above the printworks and relived our afternoon together. The hum of insects, the homing cranes and tumbling eagle, the warmth of sun on our skin; the Elbe flowing clear and strong; our desire for each other as strong as that river, flowing north. My secret place, up to then dormant, was awakened. With my hand, in the darkness of the night, I discovered my petals, open like a foxglove welcoming a bumble bee: moist, warm, aching. For Hieronymous I lay awake and ached.
After that we met when and where we could: in the dairy, the cow shed, the cellar, behind the beehives in the orchard, in the hay meadows by the river. Our passion grew. Intellectually, emotionally, physically, we belonged together; life without him seemed unimaginable. Then, one day towards the end of May, I came home from the market carrying a goose and a basket full of fat white asparagus. Hieronymous was waiting for me in the entrance hall, dressed for a journey.
“Käthchen, my sweet, I’m going home for Whitsun. I want to tell my parents about you, about us. But I’ll write, my dearest, and I’ll be back, and we shall be betrothed. Be patient. Wait for me. I love you.”
He held me close, and I smelt his male pungency. At that point young Lucas and Hans and little Ursula all ran into the hall to say goodbye to him, so we drew apart; he tousled each child on the head, pulled on his gauntlets, and strode out into the courtyard where his man was holding their two horses under the linden tree. He swung up into the saddle, touched his hat, and with scarcely a backward glance, the two horsemen clattered away, sparks flying, through the archway, out into the square, turned left for the town gate and were gone.
The afternoon before, Hieronymous had been unusually ardent and now I understood his sense of urgency. The day had been hot and still. It was the midday rest and he whistled up to me quietly like an owl; I was sitting on my bedroom window ledge, my feet bare on the tiles. Hearing his call, I swung back into my room and crept down the stairs, holding my shoes; we met in the courtyard. He took my hand and led me into the farm yard behind the house; he drew me into the cool darkness of the hay shed and embraced me; then he spread out his cloak on the sweet new hay and we lay down together. We kissed with a sort of desperation; he unlaced my bodice and slid his hand beneath it, touching my breasts; but when he tried to pull up my skirt, I resisted. So instead, gently, he guided my hand to his member. Touching him down there, for the first time, I was startled, almost scared, at its hardness. It was as warm and hard and smooth as a cow’s horn and, as you can with a cow’s horn, I could feel blood pulsing in it.
I did not let him enter me. But after he had left, I would sometimes wake in the night with my whole being crying out for him. Deep within me I felt a movement like the fluttering of a linnet’s wings, a linnet trapped in a cage; its wings beating with a sweet, rhythmic ache of longing. I lay still, savouring the sweet pain until it abated, then I shifted a little in my bed, and the fluttering resumed. But in the morning, I would feel ashamed of such sinful feelings. As part of our vows the priest had told us “You should promise when evil thoughts come into your heart to dash them. Promise: Daily in your prayers with tears and sighs to confess your past sins to God. Promise: Not to fulfil the desires of the flesh. Promise: To hate your own will.”
So I did my best to banish wicked thoughts of lust, of envy, of hunger; I should focus fiercely on our Lord, and on the Blessed Virgin. If we are cold or hungry or thirsty or in pain we should accept it as a privilege, because suffering, even of such a mild sort, is sent to strengthen our souls. I told my rosary, emptied my mind of temporal things and begged the Lord to forgive me.
How young we were when we took our vows of Poverty, Obedience and Chastity and became brides of Christ! I had no concept of what I was renouncing; now it seemed to me that the hardest of all the abstentions was Chastity. The vow of obedience I had already broken by escaping from the convent, and I witnessed disobedience all around me, especially in the peasants’ rebellion against their fiefs. The vow of poverty was not difficult to keep at that time, because I had no money of my own, and had been living on the charity of Dr Luther and his friends, and now the Cranachs; my fortune was my youth, my wit and my ability to work. But chastity, it now seemed to me, was the worst of all. I had renounced the chance to marry and have children.
I remembered my talk with Tante Lena, on that Ascension Day when poor Sister Ruth tried to drown herself; I told her how I wanted to meet a man and to be a mother. Only a year ago, and I was still so naïve! I realised what a lot I had learned in the thirteen months since we escaped from the convent. I was not a nun now, I was a grown woman, with fleshly desires. I would marry Hieronymous, and we would know each other and delight in our flesh and I would bear his children.
For the first week after my lover left Wittenberg I felt buoyed up, optimistic. I imagined him being reunited with his parents; he would tell them about me and ask their permission to marry me; and I did not think they were likely to object; I may not come with a dowry but I am of noble birth. So I went about my duties with vigour. I would be up with the town crier at 6am to say Prime on my own: I find it hard to dispense with this routine, so thoroughly imbued in us at Nimbschen. At the Cranach House we said Grace before and after meals, and ended the day with family prayers, but apart from that devotions were not an important part of the household routine. The Cranachs are hardworking Christians, devout, certainly, but in a measured way. And they agree with Dr Luther’s criticism of the Church, and his exposure of the corruption and the selling of indulgences.
My first duty before breakfast was to milk the two nanny goats and allow the kids to strip suckle them. Then I let the nannies out of the yard gate as soon as Gert the goatherd arrived. I would milk them again after they came home shortly before dusk. I enjoy milking – the gentle squirt squirt into the pail, the rhythm of my hands on the teats, the warm goaty smell of her flank, the importunate bleating of the hungry kids.
After breakfast I spent three hours in the schoolroom with the boys, teaching them and supervising their work. As I went about my tasks I thought of Hieronymous. Where was he now, what was he doing? Another week passed. The boys missed him and so did I. Each Friday – the day for mail from the west – I longed for a letter and each Friday I was disappointed. When no letter came, I would find reasons to justify his silence. He is busy seeing all his relatives. The turbulence and unrest in the land means messengers are hard to find, the postal service unreliable. He is waiting to write to me until after he has spoken to his father about our betrothal. Maybe even now he’s on his way back from Nürnberg! So I decided to write to him, even though I had heard nothing from him. I would keep it cheerful and light-hearted and refrain from expressions of passion or emotion.
Dear Hieronymous,
July 15th 1524
It’s one o’clock and I am sitting on the roof in the sun; the household is quiet. After lunch I lay down to sleep as we’ve been so busy and I was tired but then I thought of you and wanted to write you a letter. I miss you. Writing to you is the closest I can come to being with you. I hope you will write back to me. Perhaps a letter is already on its way?
Hans and Lucas miss you too. They asked me to go fishing with them, but of course I couldn’t. So Hans invited me up to the studio to show me what he and young Lucas had been doing. I hadn’t been up to Herr Cranach’s studio before. I didn’t realise how big it is with the two rooms; the workshop with the various assistants and then through that his own private studio where people come to sit to him. The rooms are so spacious and light, even though the windows face north. I l
ike the smell of parchment and oil and putty and paper; and such an atmosphere of industry! When I went in, two of the apprentices were busy making ultramarine blue. One of them was pounding a lump of lapis lazuli in a bronze mortar, and the other was taking the fragments and grinding them into a fine dust. The lapis came in a large block all the way from Afghanistan, and was very costly; Herr Cranach says there’s no better blue for the Virgin’s gown and a very clear sky. He was so pleased when it arrived on a cart, wrapped up in old oriental carpets and bound together with rope. It took a crane to lift it off the cart, then they had to break it in four before carrying it up to the studio.
Another apprentice was making tracing paper with fish glue. It seemed to be a very elaborate process, but Herr Cranach likes to plan his pictures first on tracing paper.
The boys are learning a great deal by spending time in the workshop. They showed me some charcoal pens they had made only the evening before; it’s so easy, you just lay a bundle of sharpened willow twigs in a sealed casserole and leave it overnight in the ashes of the fire; and Hans gave me a lesson on how to sharpen my quills – apparently I was doing it quite wrong! Do you like my writing? This quill was fashioned by Hans. Lucas has done a creditable drawing of the crane, he did her feet separately, then her head and beak and finally the whole bird, in charcoal and wash. And Hans has been working on a study of the pigs. The spotted sow farrowed shortly after you left, so they are a fine sight, eight of them, lying asleep in a row beside their dam. He goes down to the sty with his chalk and slate and watches them and makes sketches. Then he comes up to the studio and draws them again on paper and finishes it with ink and a tinted wash. I’m impressed by how much they both know already, not just the drawing but also about preparing paper and parchment, the names of the colours and how they are made and so on.
Herr Cranach thinks Hans is the more promising of the two, but Barbara thinks that Lucas, though still young, has more application; you will have seen yourself how engrossed little Lucas is when watching the older men working. Sometimes Herr Cranach allows them to sit in the studio and watch him paint, but they have to sit very still and not talk.
I am still teaching them Scripture and Latin. They sometimes ask for my help with music as well. And we’re still singing!
Some hens have taken to laying eggs up on the roof, not far from my bedroom window, I think we should fetch the eggs down, or one of them will start sitting on them and we’ ll have a family of chicks stranded up on the roof! What would the hen do then, they would have to tumble down from a great height!
Anyway, that’s enough about us. I wonder how you are and what it’s like being back home in Nürnberg? Our times together, our afternoons by the river, our conversations, the laughter you brought to the house – they seem to be slipping away into memory. We all miss your singing too. Shall you come back soon?
Please give my kindest regards to your parents and sisters.
I send you my love,
Käthchen.
I did not want the Cranachs to know I had written to him – they would think I was being forward – but I took it round to Frau Reichenbach and she agreed to arrange for it to be sent. I think she understands my point of view, and thinks we are well matched.
I wrote him another, different letter, saying all the things I really wanted to tell him. How I desired him, his lips, his hands, his eyes, his body. How I missed his conversation, his wit and intelligence, our arguments about religion and our shared love of music and poetry. Did he long for me in the same way? Do you love me as I love you? Miss me as I miss you? I wrote it, but refrained from sending it. Instead, I put it into an envelope and posted it under my pillow. How I longed for a letter back from him!
Do you suppose he has been attacked by highwaymen? Is that the reason for his silence, his prolonged absence?
Still we heard nothing, no good news, no bad, and the weeks rolled by. I had to admit it: each succeeding day that passed with no news meant I was less likely to hear from him again. A heaviness began to pull on my heart. Had he really forgotten me? Surely he must still love me as I loved him? My energy drained away. I gave up my early prayers, lacking the will to rise at dawn. One morning I failed to milk the goats in time for Gert, so they were let out with their udders tight and full. Barbara was annoyed with me.
“Kathe, what’s the matter? Are you ill?”
She was expecting again and her body and face were thickening. She looked tired and worried. These were uncertain times to bring another baby into the world. She had already gone through three confinements, and was anticipating her next one with a mixture of dread and resignation. The three children were a joy, but they must be fed and clothed and cared for, and so many dangers await the very young. An unwritten law: refrain from loving your infant child too much. Keep a certain aloofness between the child and yourself. Be practical. Care for him as best you can, keep him warm and clean, feed him, show him appropriate affection, teach him the word of the Lord. But protect yourself from grief – for every parent knows the probability of that infant dying before it reaches its fifth birthday. Each child is only lent to you by God.
She had shadows under her eyes, her step was heavy, she held her back when rising from her chair or walking upstairs. When Ursula climbed onto her lap and stroked her cheeks with her dimpled little hands she would lean her head against the wall and shut her eyes. Where once she and I would laugh and sing together while we worked, now she seemed to have little time for me. I wanted to stretch sheets with her, something we both enjoyed and laughed over, but she turned away and told me to get Elsa to help. Her aloofness made me even more miserable. I could not confide in her about Hieronymous.
I am single and twenty-six, and the man I love has disappeared and does not write: shall I ever have a husband, a family, a house of my own? If I stop being useful to Lucas and Barbara, will they ask me to leave, and if so, where else can I go? So I apply myself all the harder to teaching the boys and helping in the dairy and the garden. There’s always so much to do in the summer; the days are long and it’s tiring. I can forget the pain when I work and then I sleep because I’m exhausted. The University closed for the summer recess and Wittenberg became rather quiet like the birds do in the hot late summer.
Then, one evening we were sitting round the table in the family Stube. Herr Holzschuher, a cloth merchant from Nürnberg, and his wife were staying with us on their way to Carlsbad for the waters. He happened to mention the Baumgartner family, who trade in furs and fabrics.
“We know their son Hieronymous, he’s been learning the publishing trade with us,” said Lucas. “He studied Theology under Philip Melanchthon a couple of years ago.”
“Yes, that’ll be their younger son. He’s just become betrothed, a suitable match, it seems. Though we were surprised at the haste, and the bride is only fifteen. Yes, a handsome fellow, that young Hieronymous.”
This news struck my heart like a rapier, and I felt my cheeks beginning to burn. Then young Hans perked up and spoke without leave: “Hieronymous? He used to come here all the time, we went fishing with him, didn’t we, Mother? He came up to the studio, to see what we were doing.”
Then Lucas joined in: “Yes, and he liked Katharina a lot. They played games together in the dairy didn’t you Katharina?”
An awkward silence ensued, and my cheeks burned like coals. I had to get up from the table, and as I left the room, Herr Cranach tactfully turned the conversation to other matters. So Hieronymous has discarded me. Was I not worthy of him? Did his parents disapprove? And yet my family has a coat of arms and a family tree going back centuries. The Baumgartners are only bourgeois merchants. From something Philip Melanchthon said, I know now what the real problem is: runaway nuns, even those of noble birth, are considered suspect, unreliable, soiled goods. The cruelty of his rejection is like a sword piercing my heart.
I go about my work with a dry mouth and heavy heart. Lessons in the morning, clean out the goat stall, wash down the dairy, feed the
hens, collect the eggs. The ones on the roof, though, are inaccessible, so I ask one of the typesetters, Caspar, if he can help me fetch them down. He clambers up the drainpipe and puts all the eggs in his hat, then slithers back down the steep tiled roof on his bottom and hands the hat down to me, laughing. Fifteen fine brown eggs. Jumping to the ground, he loses his balance and clasps onto my arm for support, then apologises, blushes and looks away, confused. I know he desires me, as so many of them do; a nice enough lad, but his leather jerkin is ill-smelling and his fingers stained with ink. I give him four of the eggs to take home to his mother, by way of reward for his trouble.
The next evening at supper I told Herr Cranach and Barbara about the rogue hens, and their secret nest on the roof.
“We must clip their wings,” said Herr Cranach. “This evening, after supper when it’s dark. We’ll do them all, for good measure.”
So after the meal Herr Cranach and I went out to the hen house with a lantern and a pair of scissors. The hens were perched for the night, already drowsy and stupid in the dark. He took each hen and held her firmly by the thighs and fanned out one wing. I took the scissors and cut off the primaries, about eight of the long strong feathers. Clipping just one wing has the effect of de-stabilising the hen when she tries to fly, so she loses her balance and gives up trying.
“We’ll leave the cockerel, he won’t disappear.”
We were nearly finished, just one more speckly hen, a beautiful glossy pullet just at point of lay; he splayed out her wing but I made a mistake: I snipped too close and cut the tip of her wing, the fleshy part – she squawked and flapped in pain and indignation, and in the light of the lantern I saw little spurts of blood, four or five times, spray out from the wound. Blood was on my hand and on my sleeve. I cried out in dismay. But Herr Cranach told me not to make a fuss, the pullet was fine, and they were all done now. We returned to the house and Lucas put the lantern on the kitchen table. I handed him the scissors and looked in shame at my white apron spotted with crimson. Barbara said: “You’d better go and wash, and change your apron.”
