Yet it presently became evident that Herr Friedrich’s wounds, although dangerously affecting vital parts, were by some strange providence not mortal; on the contrary not many days passed before the doctors who had been assigned to him were able to assure his family with certainty not only that his life would be saved but also that given his natural strength he would make a complete recovery within a few weeks without any permanent injury to his body. As soon as he regained consciousness, of which pain had deprived him for a long time, he repeatedly asked his mother what had become of Littegarde. He could not help weeping when he heard that she was in a dismal prison and a prey to the most terrible despair, and, caressing his sisters’ faces, begged them to visit her and comfort her. Frau Helena, amazed at his words, urged him to forget so shameless and contemptible a woman; in her view the crime which Count Jakob had mentioned to the court, and which the outcome of the duel had now fully brought to light, was pardonable, but not the ruthless cynicism of appealing to the sacred judgement of God as if she were innocent, although knowing herself to be guilty, and without any consideration for the noble-hearted friend whom she thereby brought to ruin. ‘Oh, mother,’ said the Chamberlain, ‘what mortal man, even if he were possessed of the wisdom of the ages, could presume to interpret the mysterious verdict that God has given in this duel?’ ‘What!’ cried Frau Helena, ‘is the meaning of this divine judgement not clear to you? Were you not defeated in the fight by the sword of your adversary, in a manner all too plain and unequivocal?’ ‘Perhaps so!’ replied Herr Friedrich. ‘For a moment he had the advantage of me; but did the Count really defeat me? Am I not alive? Have I not returned miraculously to flourishing health, as if God had breathed new life into me? Perhaps in no more than a few days I shall have strength enough again, indeed be doubly and triply strengthened, to continue the fight which a trifling accident obliged me to interrupt.’ ‘Foolish man!’ cried his mother, ‘do you not know that according to the law a duel which has been declared by the judges to be concluded cannot be resumed in order to invoke the divine verdict a second time in one and the same case?’ ‘That is of no consequence!’ retorted the Chamberlain. ‘What do I care for these arbitrary human laws? Can a fight that has not been continued until the death of one of the two opponents be held to have been concluded, if one considers the matter at all rationally? If I were permitted to resume it, have I not cause for hope that I should make good the mishap that befell me, and win from God with my sword a verdict quite contrary to that which, on a limited and short-sighted view, He is at present assumed to have delivered?’ ‘Nevertheless,’ replied his mother with misgivings, ‘these laws which you claim to disregard are the established and prevailing laws; whether rational or not, they have the authority of divine commandments, and by them you and she, as a pair of abominable criminals, are consigned to the utmost rigour of penal jurisdiction!’ ‘Alas!’ cried Herr Friedrich, ‘wretch that I am, that is the very thing that plunges me into despair! She is judged to be guilty and her life is forfeit; and I, who sought to prove her virtue and innocence to the world, I myself have brought this misery upon her, because for one fatal moment I tripped in the fastenings of my spurs. Perhaps God intended, quite independently of her cause, to punish the sins of my own heart – and now her lovely limbs must be given to the flames and her memory be ignominious for ever!’ At these words bitter tears of manly grief rose to his eyes; seizing his handkerchief he turned to the wall, and Frau Helena and her daughters knelt at his bed in silent emotion, mingling their tears with his and kissing his hand. Meanwhile the gaoler had entered the room with food for him and his family, and Herr Friedrich, on asking him how the lady Littegarde was faring, gathered from his curt and indifferent replies that she was lying on a bundle of straw and had not yet spoken a word since the day of her imprisonment. This news filled Herr Friedrich with the utmost alarm; he commissioned the gaoler to tell the lady, for her reassurance, that by a strange dispensation of Providence he was making a complete recovery, and that he begged leave, as soon as his health should be restored and with the permission of the castle warden, to visit her in her prison. But according to the gaoler’s report – and he said he had had to shake her several times by the arm, for she was lying on the straw like a madwoman neither hearing nor seeing anything – her reply was a refusal: for the rest of her days on earth she desired to see no one. It was even learnt that on the very same day she had written to the warden in her own hand bidding him admit no one to her presence, whoever it might be, and Chamberlain von Trota least of all. In consequence, Herr Friedrich, impelled by the most acute anxiety as to her state of mind, chose a day on which he felt an exceptional revival of his strength, and with the warden’s permission went with his mother and sisters to the room in which she was confined, unannounced yet sure that she would forgive him.
But it was with indescribable horror that the wretched Littegarde, hearing the noise at the door and rising from the scattered straw on which she lay, with her breast half exposed and her hair all undone, saw instead of the expected gaoler her noble and excellent friend the Chamberlain, entering with the assistance of Bertha and Kunigunde; a sad and moving spectacle, for he bore many signs of the sufferings he had endured. ‘Leave me!’ she cried, falling back on her couch with an expression of despair and covering her face with her hands: ‘leave me, if there is any pity in your heart!’ ‘Dearest Littegarde, what does this mean?’ answered Herr Friedrich. Supported by his mother he stood at her side and stooped down with inexpressible emotion to take her hand. ‘Let me alone!’ she cried, crawling on her knees over the straw until she had retreated several paces from him. ‘Do not touch me or I shall go mad! You fill me with horror; the crackling of flames is less terrible to me than the sight of you!’ ‘I fill you with horror?’ answered Herr Friedrich in amazement. ‘Sweet, generous Littegarde, I am Friedrich, your friend: how have I deserved such a reception from you?’ As he spoke, his mother motioned to Kunigunde to place a chair for him and make him sit down on it, weak as he was. ‘Oh God!’ cried Littegarde, throwing herself at his feet and burying her face in the ground in the most terrible anguish, ‘oh my beloved, leave this room and leave me to myself! I clasp your knees with all the ardour of my heart, I wash your feet with my tears, I writhe before you like a worm in the dust and beg you for one act of mercy: oh my lord and master, leave the room, leave it at once and leave me to my fate!’ Herr Friedrich stood there before her in utter consternation. ‘Is it so painful for you to see me, Littegarde?’ he asked, looking gravely down at her. ‘It is horrifying, it is unbearable, it breaks my heart!’ answered Littegarde, leaning on her outstretched hands and desperately hiding her face between the very soles of his feet. ‘Hell with all its ghastly terrors is sweeter to me, and I can better bear to contemplate it than to see your face turned towards me in grace and love and shining on me like the spring!’ ‘Oh God in heaven!’ cried the Chamberlain, ‘why is your soul in such contrition? What am I to think? Unhappy woman, did the ordeal speak true, and are you guilty of that crime of which the Count accused you before the court, are you guilty of it?’ ‘Guilty, convicted and cast out, judged and condemned in time and for eternity!’ cried Littegarde, frenziedly beating her breast. ‘God speaks the truth and is infallible; go, I am at my wits’ end, I have no strength left. Leave me alone with my grief and my despair!’ At these words Herr Friedrich fainted; and as Littegarde, covering her head with a veil, lay back on her pallet as if to take final leave of the world, Bertha and Kunigunde rushed weeping to the side of their senseless brother to try to revive him. ‘Oh, may God’s curse be upon you!’ cried Frau Helena, as the Chamberlain opened his eyes again. ‘May you be cursed to everlasting remorse on this side of the grave and beyond it to everlasting damnation, not for the sin which you now confess but for your merciless inhumanity in not confessing it until you had dragged my innocent son down with you into destruction! Fool that I am!’ she continued, turning her back on Littegarde in contempt, ‘if only I had believed what I wa
s told just before the duel began by the Prior of the Augustinian monastery here! He told me in confidence that the Count had made his confession to him, in pious preparation for the decisive hour that awaited him, and had sworn to him on the sacred Host that the statement he made to the court about this wretched woman was the truth! He told the Prior about the garden gate at which, as they had agreed, she waited for him at nightfall and let him in; he described to him the room, a remote one in the uninhabited castle tower, to which she led him, unnoticed by the guards; and the bed, piled high with comfortable and luxurious cushions under a canopy, in which she secretly lay with him in shameless debauchery! An oath taken at such a moment cannot be a lie; and had I, blind as I was, reported this to my son, even as the duel was just about to begin, it would have opened his eyes, and he would have shrunk back from the edge of the abyss by which he stood. But come!’ Frau Helena exclaimed, gently embracing Friedrich and kissing his brow. ‘Indignation that deigns to speak to her does her too much honour; let her see our backs turned on her, and be crushed by the reproaches we refrain from uttering, and so may she despair!’ ‘The infamous wretch!’ retorted Littegarde, stung by these words and sitting upright. She bowed her head to her knees in misery, and, weeping hot tears into her handkerchief, she continued: ‘I remember that my brothers and I, three days before that night of St Remigius, were at his castle; he was giving a feast in my honour as he often did, and my father, who liked to see homage paid to my youthful charms, had persuaded me to accept his invitation, accompanied by my brothers. Late that evening, when the dance was over and I went to my bedroom, I found on my table there a note, in unknown handwriting and unsigned, which contained a declaration of love in clear terms. As it happened, both my brothers were in my room to discuss arrangements for our departure, which we had agreed should be on the following day; and since I was not accustomed to having any kind of secrets from them I showed them the strange find I had just made and about which I was speechless with astonishment. They at once recognized the Count’s handwriting and were wild with fury, indeed my elder brother wanted to take the paper and go at once to the Count’s room; but my younger brother persuaded him that this would be unwise, since the Count had prudently not signed the note; and so, deeply outraged by his insulting behaviour, they both left with me in the carriage that very same night and returned home, vowing never again to honour his castle with their presence. And this,’ she added, ‘is the one and only association I have ever had with that vicious and contemptible man!’ ‘What?’ said the Chamberlain, turning his tear-stained face towards her. ‘These words were music to my ears! – speak them again!’ he went on after a pause, kneeling down in front of her and folding his hands. ‘Did you then not betray me for that scoundrel, and are you pure of the sin with which he charged you before the court?’ ‘Beloved!’ whispered Littegarde, pressing his hand to her lips. ‘Are you?’ cried the Chamberlain, ‘are you?’ ‘As pure as the heart of a newborn child, as the conscience of an absolved penitent, as the body of a nun who has died in the sacristy while taking the veil!’ ‘Oh almighty God!’ cried Herr Friedrich, clasping her knees, ‘thank you for saying that! Your words restore me to life, death holds no further terrors for me, and eternity, which only just now I saw extending before me like an ocean of limitless misery, rises again in my sight like a realm filled with a thousand radiant suns!’ ‘Unhappy man,’ said Littegarde, drawing back from him, ‘how can you have any faith in my words?’ ‘Why not?’ asked Herr Friedrich ardently. ‘You are mad, you are deluded!’ exclaimed Littegarde. ‘Did God not give his judgement against me in the sacred ordeal? Were you not defeated by the Count in that fateful duel, and did he not prove by combat the truth of what he alleged against me to the court?’ ‘Oh my dearest Littegarde,’ cried the Chamberlain, ‘preserve your senses from despair! Build up, firm as a rock, the feeling that lives in your heart – hold fast to it and do not waver, even if earth and heaven should perish under your feet and over your head! Between two thoughts that confuse our senses, let us choose the more intelligible, the more comprehensible one, and before you believe yourself guilty, rather believe that I won the duel I fought for you! – Oh God, lord of my life,’ he added, burying his face in his hands, ‘save my soul too from confusion! As surely as I hope to be saved, I believe that the sword of my adversary did not defeat me, for though he cast me down in the dust and trod me under foot, I have risen to life again. When in faith we invoke the supreme wisdom of God, what obligation lies upon Him to reveal and pronounce the truth at that very same instant? Oh Littegarde,’ he concluded, pressing her hand between his, ‘in life let us look ahead to death, and in death to eternity, and hold fast and unshakeably to the conviction that your innocence will be brought to light; by means of the duel I fought for you it will be brought to the bright radiant light of the sun!’ As he said this the castle warden entered, and reminded Frau Helena, who sat weeping at a table, that so much emotion could be harmful to her son; Herr Friedrich therefore let himself be persuaded by his family to return to his prison, but he carried with him the sense of having given and received some comfort.
In the meantime, before the tribunal which the Emperor had set up in Basle, the charge of sinful invocation of divine judgement by ordeal had been brought against both Herr Friedrich von Trota and his friend the lady Littegarde von Auerstein, and in accordance with the existing law they had been condemned to an ignominious death by fire at the place where the duel itself had been fought. A deputation of officials was sent to announce this sentence to the prisoners, and it would have been carried out at once, as soon as the Chamberlain was restored to health, if it had not been the Emperor’s secret intention that Count Jakob Rotbart, against whom he could not suppress a certain feeling of mistrust, should be present at the execution. But the strange and remarkable fact was that Count Jakob still lay sick of the small and apparently insignificant wound which Herr Friedrich had inflicted on him at the beginning of the duel; an extremely corrupted condition of his bodily humours prevented its healing from day to day and from week to week, and all the skill of the doctors who were gradually called in from the whole of Swabia and Switzerland could not avail to close it. Indeed, a corrosive discharge, of a kind quite unknown to the medical science of those days, began to spread through the whole structure of his hand, eating it away like a cancer right down to the bone; in consequence, to the horror of all his friends, it had become necessary to amputate the entire diseased hand, and later, since even that did not put an end to the purulent corrosion, his entire arm. But this too, although commended as a radical cure, merely had the effect, as could easily have been foreseen nowadays, of increasing the malady instead of relieving it; his whole body gradually began to rot and fester, until the doctors declared that he was past saving and would even die within a week. The Prior of the Augustinian monastery, believing that the terrible hand of God was at work in this unexpected turn of events, vainly urged him to confess the truth concerning his dispute with the Duchess-Regent; the Count, shaken and appalled, once more took the holy sacrament on the truth of his testimony, and with every sign of the utmost terror committed his soul to eternal damnation if he had falsely slandered the lady Littegarde. Now in spite of the viciousness of the Count’s habits there were two reasons for believing that this assurance was essentially given in good faith: firstly because the sick man did indeed have a certain piety of disposition which seemed to preclude the swearing of a false oath at such a time, and secondly because the watchmen at Breda Castle, whom he claimed to have bribed to let him in secretly, had been interrogated and had definitely stated that this was correct, and that the Count had in fact been inside Breda Castle on the night of St Remigius. The Prior was therefore almost bound to conclude that the Count himself had been deceived by some unknown third party; and the wretched man, to whom this terrible thought had also occurred when he had heard of the miraculous recovery of the Chamberlain, had not yet reached the point of death when, to his utter despair, the new suppo
sition was fully confirmed. For the reader should know that before the Count had begun to turn lustful eyes on the lady Littegarde he had already for a long time been conducting an improper liaison with Rosalie, her maid-in-waiting; almost every time her mistress paid a visit to him he used to entice this girl, who was a wanton and loose-living creature, into his room at night. Now on the occasion of Littegarde’s last stay at his castle with her brothers she had received, as already mentioned, an amorous letter from him declaring his passion for her, and this had aroused the resentment and jealousy of the maid, whom the Count had already neglected for several months. She had had to accompany Littegarde on her immediate departure, but had left behind her a note to the Count in her mistress’s name, in which she informed him that the indignation of her brothers at his behaviour made it impossible for them to meet now, but that she invited him to visit her, for the purpose he had in mind, on the night of St Remigius, in the apartments of her father’s castle. The Count, delighted at the success of his enterprise, at once wrote a second letter to Littegarde assuring her that he would duly arrive on the night in question, but asking her, in order to avoid any mischance, to send a trustworthy guide to meet him who would lead him to her rooms; and since the chambermaid, who was practised in all sorts of intrigue, had been expecting such a reply, she succeeded in intercepting it, and in another forged letter wrote to him that she would wait for him herself at the garden gate. Then, on the evening before the appointed night, on the pretext that her sister in the country was ill and that she wanted to visit her, she asked Littegarde for leave of absence, and having obtained her consent she in fact, in the late afternoon, left the castle carrying a bundle of belongings and set out in the direction of her home, making sure that everyone saw her do so. But instead of completing this journey she reappeared at the castle at nightfall, on the pretence that a storm was blowing up; and in order, as she said, not to disturb her mistress, as she wanted to start off again early the next morning, she managed to get herself accommodated for the night in one of the empty rooms in the tower, a part of the castle which was neglected and little used. The Count, who was able to get into the castle by bribing the keeper and was admitted at the garden gate at midnight, as agreed, by a veiled woman, suspected nothing, as one may well imagine, of the trick that was being played on him; the girl pressed a fleeting kiss on his lips and led him by way of various stairs and passages in the disused side wing to a room which was one of the finest in the castle itself, and in which she had already carefully shuttered the windows. Here she had taken his hand and made a tour of the doors, listening at each of them with a great air of mystery, and had warned him in a whisper, on the pretext that her brother’s bedroom was close by, not to speak a word; whereupon she sank down with him on the bed that stood ready beside them. The Count, mistaking her shape and figure, was intoxicated with delight at having made such a conquest at his age; and when she dismissed him at the first light of dawn, placing on his finger, as a souvenir of the night that had passed, a ring which Littegarde had received as a present from her husband and which the maid had stolen on the previous evening for this very purpose, he promised her to requite this gift, as soon as he got home, with another ring which his late wife had presented to him on their wedding day. And three days later he kept his word, secretly sending this ring to the castle, where Rosalie was again skilful enough to intercept it; but being perhaps apprehensive that this adventure might lead him too far, he sent no further word and found various pretexts for avoiding a second meeting. Later on, the girl was dismissed on account of a theft, the suspicion of which rested fairly clearly on her, and sent back to her parents’ home on the Rhine, where in the course of nine months the consequences of her immoral life became visible; and on being very strictly questioned by her mother she named Count Jakob Rotbart as the father of her child and disclosed the whole story of her secret intrigue with him. As to the ring which the Count had sent her, she had fortunately only been able to offer it very cautiously for sale, fearing to be taken for a thief, and in fact its value was so high that she had not found anyone willing to buy it from her; consequently there could be no doubt that what she had said was true, and her parents, relying on this obvious piece of evidence, went to the courts and brought an action against Count Jakob for maintenance of the child. The courts, to which the strange story of the legal proceedings in Basle was already known, hastened to communicate this discovery to the imperial tribunal as being of the greatest importance for the outcome of the case before it; and since an official happened to be leaving just then for Basle on public business, they gave him a letter for Count Jakob Rotbart, enclosing the girl’s sworn statement and the ring, in the hope of thus clearing up the terrible mystery which had become the chief topic of conversation in the whole of Swabia and Switzerland.
The Marquise of O and Other Stories Page 32