Saint Michael

"Hold your tongue, and let me look at the thing in peace and quiet," Wehlau growled, moving to get the best point of view.

Thus several minutes passed, and then the Professor began to mutter to himself in a way that sounded half angry, half approving. At last he turned to his son and asked in a low tone, "And you mean to tell me that you did this thing all yourself?"

"Certainly, papa."

"I don't believe it."

"You will surely not refuse me credit for my own work? How do you like it?"

The Professor began to mutter again, but this time it sounded more promising. "Hm! the thing is not so bad; there is force and life in it. Where did you get the idea?"

"Out of my head, papa."

Wehlau looked from the picture to his son, in whose head he had declared there was no room for anything save folly: the matter seemed to him inconceivable.

"Michael deserves the principal credit in the affair," the young artist said, laughing. "He has been an incomparable model. Of course I had no end of trouble in getting him into the right mood, but on one occasion I succeeded in irritating him so that he burst into a furious passion, and then I caught the expression and fixed it on the canvas. But you don't tell me what you think of my daubing."

The Professor's features twitched oddly; apparently he would fain have scolded and fumed afresh, but it was impossible, and at last he said, very gently, "But in future you will paint no more altar-pieces,–promise me that."

"No, papa; my next picture will portray natural science in the person of 'our distinguished investigator.' When will you sit to me?"

"Let me alone!"

"That is only half a promise, and I want a whole one. Shall we begin to-morrow?"

"Deuce take it! yes,–since there's no help for it."

"Victory!" shouted Hans, throwing his arms around his father, who no longer resisted; on the contrary, he clasped his son close, and looking into the young man's sunny blue eyes, he said, in a burst of tenderness, "You'll never make a scholar, my boy, of that I am now convinced, but, nevertheless, you may be good for something after all!"

At Saint Michael preparations were making for the festival of the saint; a very great occasion this year, since the new altar-picture was to be consecrated in its place with all due solemnity. The pilgrimage church was in festal array, and the Alpine hamlet, usually so quiet, was filled with the bustle of joyous excitement; preparations were making to receive the thousands of pilgrims who would arrive on the morrow from all parts of the mountains to pay their devotions in the sanctuary of the archangel: all was not yet ready, and it was the eve of the holiday.

On this afternoon the pastor had been as much pleased as surprised by the sudden and unexpected appearance of his former pupil, Captain Rodenberg. There was something pathetic in the old priest's delight. "Such a surprise!" he said, detaining the young man's hand in his clasp. "The last thing that I dreamed of was seeing you just at this time."

"I have only a single day at my disposal," replied Michael. "I must be in M– the day after tomorrow again to join Colonel Fernau, whom I accompanied thither. I managed to get a three days' leave, and I made this little excursion to see your reverence."

Valentin smiled and shook his head. "Do you call it a little excursion? Why, it is almost a day's journey from here to M–; you have to drive alone through the mountains for five hours. But I am glad you think your old teacher worth the trouble; I shall at least have you on St. Michael's day; my faint hope that Hans might come has been disappointed."

"He wished to come, but he thought he owed it to his father to stay away. The Professor takes it to heart that the name of Hans Wehlau should be in such close connection with a festival of the church. You know–"

"Yes, I am perfectly aware of my brother's attitude with regard to the church," said Valentin, with a half-smothered sigh. "I made an abject apology to Hans when his 'Saint Michael' arrived, for I had never given our madcap credit for the earnestness and depth of character shown in this work of his."

"You all did him injustice; his own father especially underrated him," Michael warmly declared. "I alone, seeing the picture from the first sketch, was aware of what it promised. Hans has had a great triumph during its exhibition. It was instantly appreciated by the public, and elicited a burst of admiration; the critics praised it with rare unanimity, and everything has been done to spoil the artist with flattery. Fortunately, he is one of those who cannot be spoiled. Is the picture in its place yet?"

"It has been hung since the day before yesterday,–a costly and beautiful gift from the Countess to our church. She meant to be present at its consecration, and came from Berkheim to Castle Steinrück for the purpose."

"She will be here to-morrow, then?" Michael asked.

"No; unfortunately, she has been taken ill; she caught cold on the journey, and is seriously indisposed, so she sent me–"

Here they were interrupted by the sacristan, very hurried, very worried, with a number of questions to ask and communications to make with regard to the festival. His reverence had to arrange, decide, and oversee; there was a deal to be done.

"I think I ought not to monopolize you any longer," said Rodenberg. "The Herr Pastor appears to be in constant requisition. I will go up to the church for a while, to see how Saint Michael looks in his present surroundings. We shall have some quiet hours together this evening."

"I am afraid that can hardly be. You do not yet know,–I was just going to tell you, but–"

His reverence did not finish his sentence, for old Katrin came in at that moment with her arms filled with evergreens and garlands, and wanted to know where they were to be put, and the sacristan too stood waiting. Valentin was at his wits' end.

Michael left him and took the familiar road to the pilgrimage church. It was early in May, and the mountains were beginning to show the presence of spring, always so late to arrive among them.

The Eagle ridge was still girdled with ice, in dazzling crystal splendour, but the brooks from the glaciers, their chains broken by the sun, were dashing foaming down to the valleys, and the dark hemlock forest nestling against the rocky wall had already shaken the burden of snow from its boughs. From the alps and meadows surrounding Saint Michael the snow had also disappeared; they were laughing in fresh sunny green, while through them here and there trickled tiny rivulets from the heights; it was as if the whole mountain world had awaked to life. Still, however, above the heights and depths, above forest and meadow, the wild spring blasts were careering, sounding their note of promise and of victory.

Michael entered the church, quite empty at this hour of the afternoon, but having donned its modest festal garment. Here upon these lonely heights there were no fragrant blossoms of the spring,–column and portal were wreathed about with dark evergreen, and little nosegays of Alpine flowers were the sole decoration of the altar. There was, nevertheless, a breath of spring in the solemnity reigning in the quiet, spacious structure, now filled with the golden light of the declining sun. The church might wear a more festal aspect when thronged with a devout crowd, but it was much more beautiful in the profound consecrated repose in which it awaited its festival, still untouched, as it were, by all the aspirations, prayers, and laments which would arise from within its walls on the morrow. No inharmonious sound disturbed its quiet; even the roaring of the wind outside, dying away in long-drawn notes, sounded like the tones of a distant organ.

Saint Michael was enthroned above the high altar; not the dim picture of the saint which time had half destroyed, and which had been but the crude outcome of mediæval piety,–that had been respectfully transferred to the church vestibule,–but the work of the young artist who was making a name and fame for himself. Michael had been familiar with it from its first conception, he had seen it repeatedly; but it had been for him, as for the public, and even for the painter himself, only a picture, a scene of conflict, accidentally illustrating a legend of the church. He was surprised to the last degree by the impression produced by the picture in its present place. In the twilight of the chancel, between the tall Gothic windows with their glowing colours, it took on quite another appearance; it seemed freed from all earthly taint, the embodiment of the ancient sacred legend, repeated in all religions and among all races of mankind, of the victory of light over darkness.

Rodenberg slowly approached the high altar, and as he did so he became aware of a kneeling female figure, hitherto concealed by a column from his observation. It was no peasant: a gown of dark silk fell in folds upon the ground, and beneath the veil of black lace that had been thrown over the head there was a gleam as of red gold which Michael knew only too well. He paused as if stayed by a spell. Was this a freak of his fancy which was always bringing up before him the same image? Just then the lady, roused by the sound of his footstep, turned her head; an exclamation of surprise that was almost terror escaped her lips. Those were Hertha's eyes gazing at him.

It was surely a fate that had brought these two together for the second time in a lonely Alpine village, at an hour when each had believed the other miles away,–at least thus this unexpected meeting seemed to them. Both so lost their self-possession that neither observed the other's embarrassment; there was a pause, which Michael was the first to break. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, Countess Steinrück; I thought the church was empty, and did not perceive you until this moment."

Hertha slowly arose from her knees, conscious that her exclamation, her apparent dismay, called for some explanation. She had been lost in contemplation of the picture; she could not have told how long she had been gazing at Saint Michael, when suddenly he whom the saint suggested stood before her. There was a tremor in her voice as she rejoined, "I was, indeed, surprised. His reverence had not told me that you also were to be his guest."

"I arrived unexpectedly only half an hour ago, and had not heard of your being here, having been told only that you, with the Countess your mother, were at Steinrück."

"We both meant to come to Saint Michael," said Hertha, who by this time had regained her self-possession, "but my mother was taken ill,–not seriously, however,–yet I came with some anxiety. It was her express wish that at least one member of our family should be present at the festival and at the consecration of her gift, and so I yielded to her desire."

Michael uttered a few words of condolence and sympathy, mere phrases, which fell mechanically from his lips and were scarcely heeded. He did not look at Hertha as he spoke, and she avoided glancing at him. Instinctively their looks refused to encounter each other; they dwelt upon the picture, now fully illumined by the setting sun, which, streaming through the side windows into the nave of the church, cast a broad band of golden light upon the high altar.

The picture had none of the traditional setting of its predecessor: no circle of angelic heads looked down from above; no flames flickered up from the abyss; the two life-size figures were alone within the frame, each powerful and effective in its way. Above them arched the clear shining heavens; beneath them yawned a rocky gulf, the abode of eternal night.

Dashed from on high, on the very edge of the abyss, Satan was writhing upwards with the last desperate effort of a conquered foe not in the guise of the horned dragon-like monster of the legend, but in a human form of strange demoniac beauty, with dark wings like those of a bird of night. The face expressed agony, rage, and at the same time horror of the power that had hurled him to destruction; while in the upturned eyes there was the hopeless despair of a lost soul conscious of the light that had been radiant about it, but to be henceforth quenched in eternal night. It was Lucifer, once the Son of the Morning, and now showing in his ruin a gleam of his former splendour.

Above him, in the clear heavens, Saint Michael, in glittering mail, was sustained by two mighty wings, like those of an eagle, and like an eagle he was swooping down upon the foe. In his right hand flashed the sword of flame, and flame also flashed from his large blue eyes, while his hair, loosened by his impetuous flight, waved above his brow. His look, his bearing, bore witness to the battle that had been fought, and yet the entire figure of the archangel was as if bathed in the halo of glory that beamed about the strong, victorious champion of light.

"The picture produces a totally different effect in these surroundings," said Hertha, her gaze still fixed upon it. "Much more solemn, and much more powerful! The archangel has something terrible in his aspect; one can almost feel the fiery breath of annihilation proceeding from him. I am only afraid that the peasants will not comprehend this conception; they may perhaps regret the solemn indifference of the old picture."

"Ah, you do not know our mountaineers," rejoined Rodenberg. "This is just the picture that they will comprehend, as they could no other, for this is their Saint Michael, who sweeps in wind and storm above their mountains and valleys, and whose lightnings flash destruction. This is not the heavenly champion of the ecclesiastical legend, but the archangel of the popular faith in his original form. You thought me heretical once because I saw in the story the old Pagan worship of light and the ancient German god of thunder. You see now that my friend's conception coincided with my own: he has given something of the aspect of Wotan to his saint."

"And Professor Wehlau inoculated you both with these ideas," Hertha interposed, reproachfully. "He cannot endure the thought that his son has painted a genuinely sacred picture; something Pagan and old German must be discovered in it. As if the people would see in Saint Michael only the avenger! Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his appearance, he will be in their minds all beneficence, as he sweeps down from the Eagle ridge; his sword of flame only ploughs the soil, and the sparks of light that stream from it bestow the vigour and life of spring upon the earth. I have been hearing the beautiful legend again today."

"Well, this year he seems to have determined to descend in storm," said Michael. "The wind is rising on the heights, and in all probability the Eagle ridge will send down to us in the night one of those spring storms which are dreaded in all the country round. I know the signs."

As if in confirmation of his words, the wind outside grew louder and fiercer. It sounded no longer like the tone of an organ, but like the dull roar of distant breakers, now rising, now falling. The sun sank, attended by a few light clouds, in a sea of flame, the splendour of which filled the entire church. The faded old pictures on the walls, the statues of saints on pillar and column, the crosses and church banners, all looked instinct with a strange, ghostly life in the red light. The carved angels upon the altar steps seemed to stir their wings gently, and the broad band of gold which streamed across the picture turned to crimson and grew deeper as it mounted higher. Gradually the rocky abyss and Lucifer faded into shadow and darkness, while Saint Michael's mighty form, with its eagle-wings, was still surrounded by a halo of light.

There was a long silence. Hertha broke it, and there was an uncertain sound, a hesitation in her voice as she began: "Captain Rodenberg, I have a request to make of you."

He looked at her. "I am at your service."

"I should like to know the truth with regard to a certain affair,–the entire, unvarnished truth. May I learn it from you?"

"If it be in my power–"

"Most certainly, your consent is all that is needed. My uncle Steinrück has told me that the matter in which I entreated his interference is entirely arranged; of course I do not doubt his words, but nevertheless I fear–" She paused.

"You fear?"

"That the reconciliation is only momentary and apparent. You could not, perhaps, refuse your general the obedience he required of you, any more than Raoul could refuse it to his grandfather, and when you next meet the quarrel may be renewed."

"Not by me," said Michael. "Since Count Steinrück retracted, in the general's presence, his offensive words, I am entirely satisfied."

"Raoul? Did he really do that?" exclaimed Hertha, half incredulously, half indignantly.

"Under any other circumstances no reconciliation would have been possible. The Count, in fact, submitted to his grandfather's authority, when the general expressly required him to retract his words."

"Raoul submitted thus? Impossible!"

"You do not question the truth of what I say?"

"No, Captain Rodenberg, no; but I am more and more convinced that there is something concealed from me at the root of this matter. Very strange expressions were made use of during that scene at Colonel Reval's, and yet you are a stranger to our family, are you not?"

"I am," replied Michael, with cold emphasis.

"There was an allusion to associations which you, as well as Raoul, seemed to repudiate. What associations were those?"

"Do you not think that the general or Count Raoul could answer you better than I?"

Hertha shook her head. "They could or would tell me nothing. I have asked them. I hope to hear the truth at last from you."

"And I must beg you to excuse me. An explanation would only be painful, and to what it might lead you are aware."

"I heard only the beginning of the conversation," said the young Countess, divining that here a point was touched that were best avoided. "It was enough to cause me to fear the issue; but indeed I–"

"Do not trouble yourself to spare me," Rodenberg interposed, with intense bitterness. "I know you heard the entire conversation, and the word can scarcely have escaped you with which Count Steinrück–insulted my father's memory."

Hertha was silent for a moment, and then said, in a low voice, "Yes, I heard it, but I knew that it was a mistake. Raoul, too, sees the error now, and therefore retracted his words. Is this not so?"

Michael's lips quivered; he saw that the young Countess had not the slightest suspicion of his relations to her family, or of the tragedy that had been enacted in it, and it was not for him to explain it to her; but neither would he listen any longer to that voice so filled with tender sympathy; its tones were more potent to enthrall than ever were the songs of the sirens of old. He knew, indeed, that his next word would open a gulf between them that never could be bridged over. So much the better. It could not be helped, if he would retain his self-control, and in the hardest tone he could command he replied, "No!"

"No?" repeated Hertha, recoiling a step in dismay.

"It startles you, Countess Steinrück, does it not? But it must be said, nevertheless. I can defend my own honour against all attack, by whomsoever made. Against an assault upon my father I am powerless. I can strike the insulter down. I cannot give him the lie."

His voice was calm, although monotonous, but Hertha saw and felt how the man's entire nature was writhing beneath the wound which he thus ruthlessly tore open before her. She could best appreciate his pride,–pride that refused to bow even where he loved. She could estimate what this confession cost him, and, forgetting all else, yielding to the impulse of the moment, she exclaimed, "Good God! How terribly you must have suffered!"

Michael started and gazed at her inquiringly. It was the first time that he had heard her speak in this tone which came from her very soul, and vibrated with passionate sympathy, as if she felt his torture in every fibre of her frame. It was like the first glimmer of a bliss of which he had indeed sometimes dreamed, but from which he had turned with all the pride of a man resolved never to be the sport of a caprice. What he now saw and heard was no sport; it was an outburst of entire self-forgetfulness, of reckless frankness.

"Can you thus understand and feel for me?" he asked, and his heart beat high. "You, born and bred upon sunny heights of existence, with never a glimpse of the dark depths of human misery? Yes, I have suffered terribly, and I still suffer, when forced to connect the idea of disgrace with what should be sacred and dear to me–my father's memory."

Hertha stopped close to his side, and her voice fell on his ear soft and tender as a soothing touch upon a painful wound. "If you could not love your father, you had a mother,–her memory at least is stainless."

"Her memory! Yes. But she was a wretched woman, who had given up home and family to follow the man whom she loved, and by whom she believed herself beloved. She paid for her delusion with the misery of a lifetime, and it killed her."

"And her family knew this and permitted her thus to die?"

"Why not? It had been her free choice, She only expiated her fault. Can you not understand this, Countess Steinrück?"

The words were as bitter as ever. Hertha slowly raised her eyes to his,–there was nothing in them of the keen brilliancy that sometimes made their expression half demonic; their light now shone through tears.

"No, but I can understand how she could follow the man whom she loved, and could believe in him in spite of all the world, although her path lay through darkness and disgrace, and even led to ruin. I could have done this too."

"Hertha, what words are these from you to me?" Michael burst forth passionately, seizing her hand before she was aware and pressing it eagerly to his lips. This recalled the young Countess to herself, and she hastily tried to withdraw her hand.

"Captain Rodenberg, for the love of heaven! you forget–"

"What?" he asked, clasping her hand still more firmly.

"That I am Raoul's betrothed."

"Only his betrothed, not his wife! The tie may yet be severed. Give me the right to do so and I will break–"

"No, Michael, never! It is too late. I am bound."

"You are free if you will only say the word, but you will not say it."

"I cannot!"

"Is that your final decision?"

"It is."

Michael dropped her hand and retreated.

"Then I can only pray your forgiveness for my temerity."

Hertha saw how profound was his emotion. She was now expiating the early frivolity of her conduct towards him. He had no faith in her. The old evil spirit, the old suspicion was stirring within him again, whispering to him that her courage was that of words, not of deeds, and that she surely must prefer an alliance with a count's coronet to the love of the son of an adventurer. One word from her lips would convince him of his error, but before the young Countess there arose at this moment the stern dark face of the old general. She felt the iron clasp of his hand, she heard his words: 'Surely the betrothed of Count Steinrück knows what she owes to him and to herself!' The remembrance admonished her imperiously of the sacredness of her promise. A woman could not a few weeks before marriage sever an alliance into which she had entered voluntarily, because she had changed her mind. Hertha hung her head and was silent.

Meanwhile the sun had set, and with it had departed the golden glory in which the interior of the church had been bathed. Pictures and statues were cold and lifeless again, and gray twilight shadows were softly descending over all. The bright figure of the archangel alone could be discerned in the recess behind the altar. But the wind that roared about the walls outside had found an entrance somewhere: it wailed ill long-drawn notes through the vaulted arches, to die away whispering like spirit-tones.

Hertha shuddered involuntarily at the strange moaning sound, and then turned to go. Michael followed her, but at some slight distance, and neither spoke. They came out into the vestibule of the church, where they were met by the pastor looking much distressed. "I was in search of you, Countess Hertha," said he, out of breath with his hurried walk. "Here you are too, Michael. A messenger has arrived from Castle Steinrück–"

"From the castle?" Hertha interposed. "I trust my mother is no worse?"