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Sidonia The Sorceress
By William Mienhold
VOLUME I
BOOK I.
CHAPTER V.
Sidonia knows nothing of God's Word, but seeks to learn it from the young Prince of Wolgast.
Next day, Sunday, her Grace was unable to attend divine service in the church, having caught cold by neglecting to put on her mantle when she accompanied the Duke down to the water-gate. However, though her Grace could not leave her chamber, yet she heard the sermon of the preacher all the same; for an ear-tube descended from her apartment down on the top of the pulpit, by which means every word reached her, and a maid of honour always remained in attendance to find out the lessons of the day, and the other portions of the divine service, for her Grace, who thus could follow the clergyman word for word. Sidonia was the one selected for the office on this day.
But, gracious Heavens! when the Duchess said, Find me out the prophet Isaiah, Sidonia looked in the New Testament; and when she said, Open the Gospel of St. John, Sidonia looked in the Old Testament. At first her Grace did not perceive her blunders; but when she became aware of them, she started up, and tearing the Bible out of her hands, exclaimed, "What! are you a heathen? Yesterday you could not repeat a simple grace that every child knows by heart, and to-day you do not know the difference between the Old and New Testaments. For shame! Alas! what an ill weed I have introduced into my house."
So the cunning wench began to weep, and said, her father had never allowed her to learn Christianity, though she wished to do so ardently, but always made a mock of it, and for this reason she had sought a refuge with her Grace, where she hoped to become a truly pious and believing Christian. The Duchess was quite softened by her tears, and promised that Dr. Dionysius Gerschovius should examine her in the catechism, and see what she knew. He was a learned man from Daber, small town in Lower Pomerania, and her Grace's chaplain. The very idea of the doctor frightened Sidonia so much, that her teeth chattered, and she entreated her Grace, while she kissed her hand, to allow her at least a fortnight for preparation and study before the doctor came.
The Duchess promised this, and said, that Clara von Dewitz, another of her maidens, would be an excellent person to assist her in her studies, as she came from Daber also, and was familiar with the views and doctrines held by Dr. Gerschovius. This Clara we shall hear more of in our history. She was a year older than Sidonia, intelligent, courageous, and faithful, with a quiet, amiable disposition, and of most pious and Christian demeanour. She wore a high, stiff ruff, out of which peeped forth her head scarcely visible, and a long robe, like a stole, sweeping behind her. She was privately betrothed to her Grace's Master of the Horse, Marcus Bork by name, a cousin of Sidonia's; for, as her Grace discouraged all kinds of gallantry or love-making at her court, they were obliged to keep the matter secret, so that no one, not even her Grace, suspected anything of the engagement.
This was the person appointed to instruct Sidonia in Christianity; and every day the fair pupil visited Clara in her room for an hour. But, alas! theology was sadly interrupted by Sidonia's folly and levity, for she chattered away on all subjects: first about Prince Ernest--was he affianced to any one? was he in love? had Clara herself a lover? and if that old proser, meaning the Duchess, looked always as sour? did she never allow a feast or a dance? and then she would toss the catechism under the bed, or tear it and trample on it, muttering, with much ill-temper, that she was too old to be learning catechisms like a child.
Poor Clara tried to reason with her mildly, and said--"Her Grace was very particular on these points. The maids of honour were obliged to assemble weekly once in the church and once in her Grace's own room, to be examined by Dr. Gerschovius, not only in the Lutheran Catechism, which they all knew well, but also in that written by his brother, Dr. Timothy Gerschovius of Old Stettin; so Sidonia had better first learn the Catechismum Lutheri, and afterwards the Catechismum Gerschovii." At last Sidonia grew so weary of catechisms that she determined to run away from court.
But Satan had more for her to do; so he put a little syrup into the wormwood draught, and thus it was. One day passing along the corridor from Clara's room, it so happened that Prince Ernest opened his door, just as she came up to it, to let out the smoke, and then began to walk up and down, playing softly on his lute. Sidonia stood still for a few minutes with her eyes thrown up in ecstasy, and then passed on; but the Prince stepped to the door, and asked her did she play.
"Alas! no," she answered. "Her father had forbidden her to learn the lute, though music was her passion, and her heart seemed almost breaking with joy when she listened to it. If his Highness would but play one little air over again for her."
"Yes, if you will enter, but not while you are standing there at my door."
"Ah, do not ask me to enter, that would not be seemly; but I will sit down here on this beer-barrel in the corridor and listen; besides, music is improved by distance."
And she looked so tenderly at the young Prince that his heart burned within him, and he stepped out into the corridor to play; but the sound reaching the ears of her Grace, she looked out, and Sidonia jumped up from the beer-barrel and fled away to her own room.
When Sunday came again, all the maids of honour were assembled, as usual, in her Grace's apartment, to be examined in the catechism; and probably the Duchess had lamented much to the doctor over Sidonia's levity and ignorance, for he kept a narrow watch on her the whole day. At four of the clock Dr. Gerschovius entered in his gown and bands, looking very solemn; for it was a saying of his "that the devil invented laughter; and that it were better for a man to be a weeping Heraclitus than a laughing Democritus." After he had kissed the hand of her Grace, he said they had better now begin with the Commandments; and, turning to Sidonia, asked her, "What is forbidden by the seventh commandment?"
Now Sidonia, who had only learned the Lutheran Catechism, did not understand the question in this form out of the Gerschovian Catechism, and remained silent.
"What!" said the doctor, "not know my brother's catechism! You must get one directly from the court bookseller--the Catechism of Doctor Timothy Gerschovius--and have it learned by next Sunday." Then turning to Clara, he repeated the question, and she, having answered, received great praise.
Now it happened that just at this time the ducal horse were led up to the horse-pond to water, and all the young pages and knights were gathered in a group under the window of her Grace's apartment, laughing and jesting merrily. So Sidonia looked out at them, which the doctor no sooner perceived than he slapped her on the hand with the catechism, exclaiming, "What! have you not heard just now that all sinful desires are forbidden by the seventh commandment, and yet you look forth upon the young men from the window? Tell me what are sinful desires?"
But the proud girl grew red with indignation, and cried, "Do you dare to strike me?" Then, turning to her Grace, she said, "Madam, that sour old priest has struck me on the fingers. I will not suffer this. My father shall hear of it."
Hereupon her Grace, and even the doctor, tried to appease her, but in vain, and she ran crying from the apartment. In the corridor she met the old treasurer, Jacob Zitsewitz, who hated the doctor and all his rigid doctrines. So she complained of the treatment which she had received, and pressed his hand and stroked his beard, saying, would he permit a castle and land dowered maiden to be scolded and insulted by an old parson because she looked out at a window? That was worse than in the days of Popery. Now Zitsewitz, who had a little wine in his head, on hearing this, ran in great wrath to the apartment of her Grace, where soon a great uproar was heard.
For the treasurer, in the heat of his remonstrance with the priest, struck a little table violently which stood near him, and overthrew it. On this had Iain the superb escritoire of her Highness, made of Venetian glass, in which the ducal arms were painted; and also the magnificent album of her deceased lord, Duke Philip. The escritoire was broken, the ink poured forth upon the album, from thence ran down to the costly Persian carpet, a present from her brother, the Prince of Saxony, and finally stained the velvet robe of her Highness herself, who started up screaming, so that the old chamberlain rushed in to know what had happened, and then he fell into a rage both with the priest and the treasurer. At length her Grace was comforted by hearing that a chemist in Grypswald could restore the book, and mend the glass again as good as new; still she wept, and exclaimed, "Alas! who could have thought it? all this was foreshadowed to her by Dr. Martinus dropping her ring."
Here the treasurer, to conciliate her Grace, pretended that he never had heard the story of the betrothal, and asked, "What does your Grace mean?" Whereupon drying her eyes she answered, "O Master Jacob, you will hear a strange story"--and here she went over each particular, though every child in the street had it by heart. So this took away her grief, and every one got to rights again, for that day. But worse was soon to befall.
I have said that half-an-hour before dinner the band played to summon all within the castle and the retainers to their respective messes, as the custom then was; so that the long corridor was soon filled with a crowd of all conditions--pages, knights, squires, grooms, maids, and huntsmen, all hurrying to the apartments where their several tables were laid. Sidonia, being aware of this, upon the first roll of the drum skipped out into the corridor, dancing up and down the whole length of it to the music, so that the players declared they had never seen so beautiful a dancer, at which her heart beat with joy; and as the crowd came up, they stopped to admire her grace and beauty. Then she would pause and say a few pleasing words to each, to a huntsman, if he were passing--"Ah, I think no deer in the world could escape you, my fine young peasant;" or if a knight, she would praise the colour of his doublet and the tie of his garter; or if a laundress, she would commend the whiteness of her linen, which she had never seen equalled; and as to the old cook and butler, she enchanted them by asking, had his Grace of Stettin ever seen them, for assuredly, if he had, he would have taken their fine heads as models for Abraham and Noah. Then she flung largess amongst them to drink the health of the Duchess. Only when a young noble passed, she grew timid and durst not venture to address him, but said, loud enough for him to hear, "Oh, how handsome! Do you know his name?" Or, "It is easy to see that he is a born nobleman"--and such like hypocritical flatteries.
The Princess never knew a word of all this, for, according to etiquette, she was the last to seat herself at table. So Sidonia's doings were not discovered until too late, for by that time she had won over the whole court, great and small, to her interests.
Amongst the cavaliers who passed one day were two fine young men, Wedig von Schwetzkow, and Johann Appelmann, son of the burgomaster at Stargard. They were both handsome; but Johann was a dissolute, wild profligate, and Wedig was not troubled with too much sense. Still he had not fallen into the evil courses which made the other so notorious. "Who is that handsome youth?" asked Sidonia as Johann passed; and when they told her, "Ah, a gentleman!" she exclaimed, "who is of far higher value in my eyes than a nobleman."
Summa: they both fell in love with her on the instant; but all the young squires were the same more or less, except her cousin Marcus Bork, seeing that he was already betrothed. Likewise after dinner, in place of going direct to the ladies' apartments, she would take a circuitous route, so as to go by the quarter where the men dined, and as she passed their doors, which they left open on purpose, what rejoicing there was, and such running and squeezing just to get a glimpse of her--the little putting their heads under the arms of the tall, and there they began to laugh and chat; but neither the Duchess nor the old chamberlain knew anything of this, for they were in a different wing of the castle, and besides, always took a sleep after dinner.
However, old Zitsewitz, when he heard the clamour, knew well it was Sidonia, and would jump up from the marshal's table, though the old marshal shook his head, and run to the gallery to have a chat with her himself, and she laughed and coquetted with him, so that the old knight would run after her and take her in his arms, asking her where she would wish to go. Then she sometimes said, to the castle garden to feed the pet stag, for she had never seen so pretty a thing in all her life; and she would fetch crumbs of bread with her to feed it. So he must needs go with her, and Sidonia ran down the steps with him that led from the young men's quarter to the castle court, while they all rose up to look after her, and laugh at the old fool of a treasurer. But in a short time they followed too, running up and down the steps in crowds, to see Sidonia feeding the stag and caressing it, and sometimes trying to ride on it, while old Zitsewitz held the horns.
Prince Ernest beheld all this from a window, and was ready to die with jealousy and mortification, for he felt that Sidonia was gay and friendly with every one but him. Indeed, since the day of the lute-playing, he fancied she shunned him and treated him coldly. But as Sidonia had observed particularly, that whenever the young Prince passed her in the gallery he cast down his eyes and sighed, she took another way of managing him.