THE VIRGIN AND THE DEVIL

THE VIRGIN AND THE DEVIL

Friend! watch and look about, the Devil is always prowling; If thou triest a bout with him, thou'lt get a thorough towelling.

Angelus Silesius, Cherub. Wandersmann, Book vi. 206.

There was a certain Count Gebizo, who possessed a wondrously beautiful wife, a magnificent castle and town, and so many valuable possessions that he was esteemed one of the richest and most fortunate nobles in the country. He seemed to be aware of and thankful for his reputation, for he not only kept a splendid and hospitable board, at which his fair and virtuous wife warmed the hearts of his guests like a sun, but he also practised Christian beneficence in the most comprehensive fashion.

He founded and endowed convents and hospitals, beautified churches and chapels, and on every high-day gave clothing, meat and drink to a great number, often hundreds, of poor; and several dozen must needs be seen every day, almost every hour, about his courtyard, regaling themselves and praising him, otherwise his dwelling, fair as it was, would have seemed to him deserted.

But by such unbounded liberality even the greatest wealth is exhausted, and so it came to pass that the Count was obliged to mortgage all his properties one after the other in order to indulge his passion for grandiose beneficence; and the more he got into debt the more eagerly he redoubled his almsgiving and feasts to the poor, hoping thereby, as he imagined, to turn the blessing of Heaven once more in his favour. In the end he impoverished himself entirely; his castle became deserted and ruinous; ineffective and foolish foundations and deeds of gift, which from force of habit he could not desist from writing, brought him nothing but ridicule; and any tattered beggar, whom he might now and again lure to his castle, threw the meagre pittance at his benefactor's feet, and took himself off with scornful words of abuse.

One thing only was left to him unimpaired, the beauty of his wife Bertrade; nay, the barer things looked in the house, the more brilliant did her beauty seem to grow. She increased too in grace, love and goodness the poorer Gebizo became, so that all the blessings of Heaven seemed to be comprehended in his wife, and thousands of men envied the Count this one treasure which still remained to him. He alone was blind to all this, and the more the fair Bertrade exerted herself to cheer him and sweeten his poverty the less he prized that jewel, and he fell into a bitter and obstinate dejection and hid himself from the world.

One day, when a glorious Easter-morning dawned, a day on which he had once been wont to see joyous throngs making pilgrimage to his castle, he felt so ashamed of his downfall that he had not even heart to go to church, and was perplexed how to pass the bright sunny feast-days. In vain his wife, with pearly tears and smiling lips, begged him not to vex himself, but come with her to church undismayed; he tore himself away crossly, and took himself off to hide in the woods until Easter were over.

Up hill and down dale he wandered, until he came to a primeval wilderness, where monstrous bearded firs surrounded a lake whose depths reflected the gloomy trees in all their length so that everything looked dismal and black. The ground about the lake was thickly carpeted with strange long-fringed moss, in which no footfall could be heard.

Here Gebizo sat himself down and complained to God of his wretched ill fortune, which no longer enabled him to still his own hunger sufficiently, his who had once gladly satisfied thousands, and, worst of all, which recompensed his efforts with the scorn and ingratitude of the world.

On a sudden he observed in the middle of the lake a skiff, and in it a man of lofty stature. As the lake was small and one could easily see across it, Gebizo could not comprehend where the boatman could have come from so suddenly, for he had not observed him anywhere before. Enough, he was now there, gave one stroke of his oar and immediately was on the shore beside the knight, and, before the latter could give a thought to the affair, had enquired of him why he turned such a rueful face to the world. In spite of his extremely handsome exterior, the stranger had an expression of deep-seated discontent about his mouth and eyes; yet this was the very thing which gained Gebizo's confidence, and without any reserve he poured out the tale of his misfortunes and grievances.

"You are a fool," the other responded, "for you possess a treasure greater than all that you have lost. If I had your wife, I should never give a thought to all the riches and churches and convents, nor to all the beggar-folk in the world."

"Give me back those things, and you are welcome to my wife in exchange!" retorted Gebizo with a bitter laugh, and the other exclaimed quick as lightning. "A bargain! Look under your wife's pillow; there you will find what will suffice for all your lifetime to build a convent every day, and feed a thousand people, though you should live to a hundred. In exchange, bring me your wife here to this spot without fail the evening before Walpurgis!"

With these words, such a fire spurted from his dark eyes that two reddish beams glanced over the Count's sleeve, and thence over moss and fir-trees. Then Gebizo saw whom he had before him, and accepted the man's offer. The latter plied his oar, and sailed back to the middle of the lake, where he and his boat sank into the water with a din which resembled the laughter of many brazen bells.

Gebizo, all in a goose-skin, hastened back by the nearest way to his castle, searched Bertrade's bed at once, and found under her pillow an old, shabby book which he could not decipher. But, as he turned over the leaves, one gold piece after another fell out. As soon as he observed this, he betook himself with the book to the deepest vault of a tower, and there, in the utmost secrecy, set to work and spent all the rest of Easter in turning out an ample heap of gold from the pages of this most interesting work.

Then he appeared in the world once again, redeemed all his possessions, summoned workmen who restored his castle more magnificently than ever, and dispensed benefactions on every hand like a prince who has been newly crowned. The principal of his works, however, was the foundation of a great abbey for five hundred capitulars of the utmost piety and distinction, a regular town of saints and scholars, in the centre of which his burial-place was one day to be. He considered this provision requisite for his eternal salvation. But, as his wife was otherwise provided for, no burial-place was prepared for her.

The midday before Walpurgis he gave the order to saddle, and bade his fair wife mount her white hunter, as she had a long journey to ride in his company. At the same time he forbade a single squire or servant to attend them. A great dread seized the poor woman; she trembled in every limb, and for the first time in her life she lied to her husband, pretending that she was unwell, and begging him to leave her at home. As she had been singing to herself only a little time before, Gebizo was incensed at the falsehood, and considered that he had now acquired a double right over her. She was forced therefore to mount her horse, dressed too in her best finery, and she rode away sadly with her husband, not knowing whither she was going.

When they had accomplished about half their journey, they came to a little church which Bertrade had happened to build in former days and had dedicated to the Mother of God. She had done it for the sake of a poor master-mason whom no one would employ, because he was so surly and disagreeable, that even Gebizo, whom others could not help approaching in a pleasant and respectful fashion, could not tolerate him, and sent him away empty-handed, for all the work which he had to give out. She had caused the little church to be built secretly, and in his gratitude the despised master-mason had with his own hands wrought a remarkably beautiful image of Mary in his spare time, and set it over the altar.

Bertrade now craved to enter this church for a moment and say her prayers, and Gebizo allowed her; for he thought she might have much need of them. So she dismounted from her horse, and, while her husband waited outside, went in, knelt before the altar, and commended herself to the protection of the Virgin Mary. Thereupon she fell into a deep sleep; the Virgin sprang down from the altar, assumed the form and garments of the sleeper, went gaily out by the door and mounted the horse, on which she continued the journey at Gebizo's side and in Bertrade's stead.

The wretch thought to continue to deceive his wife, and, the nearer they came to the journey's end, to lull her and hoodwink her by an increase of friendliness. Accordingly he talked with her of this and that, and the Virgin chatted pleasantly and gave him confiding answers, and behaved as if she had lost all her timidity. So they reached the gloomy wilderness about the lake, over which dun evening clouds hung; the ancient firs bloomed purple with buds, as only happens in the most luxuriant spring-tides; in the thicket a ghostly nightingale sang as loud as organ-pipes and cymbals; and out from among the fir-trees rode the man ye wot of, mounted on a black stallion, in rich knightly array, with a long sword at his side.

He approached very courteously, although he suddenly shot such a ferocious look at Gebizo that his flesh crept; still, the horses did not appear to scent anything dangerous, for they stood quiet. Trembling, Gebizo flung his wife's reins to the stranger and galloped off alone without so much as a glance back to her. But the stranger grasped the reins with a hasty hand, and away they went like a whirlwind through the firs, so that the fair rider's veil and garments fluttered and waved, away over mountain and valley, and over the flowing waters so that the horses' hoofs scarcely touched the foam of their waves. Hurried along by the boisterous storm, a rosy, fragrant cloud, which shone in the twilight, was wafted in front of the steeds; and the nightingale flew invisible before the pair, settling here and there upon a tree and singing until the air rang again.

At last all hills and all trees came to an end, and the two rode into an endless heath, in the midst of which, as if from afar off, the nightingale throbbed, although there was no sign of bush or bough on which it could have sat.

Suddenly the rider halted, sprang from his horse, and helped the lady out of the saddle with the manner of a perfect cavalier. Scarcely had her foot touched the heath, when round about the pair there sprang up a garden of rose-bushes as tall as a man, with a splendid fountain and seat, above which a starry firmament shone so brilliantly that one could have seen to read by its light. But the fountain consisted of a great round basin in which, like modern tableaux vivants, a number of devils formed, or represented, a seductive group of nymphs in white marble. They poured shimmering water from their hollowed hands--whence they got it, their lord and master only knew. The water made the most lovely harmony; for every jet gave out a different note, and the whole seemed in concert like string-music. It was, so to say, a water-harmonica, whose chords were thrilled through and through with all the deliciousness of that first night of May, and melted into unison with the charming forms of the group of nymphs; for the living picture did not stand still, but changed and turned imperceptibly.

Not without tender emotion, the strange cavalier conducted the lady to the seat and invited her to be seated; but then he gripped her hand with a violent tenderness, and said in a voice that pierced to the marrow, "I am the Eternally Forlorn who fell from Heaven! Nothing but the love of a good mortal woman on May-night can make me forget Paradise and give me strength to endure my eternal discomfiture. Be but my helpmeet, and I will make thee eternal, and grant thee the power of doing good and preventing evil to thy heart's content!"

He flung himself passionately on the bosom of the beauteous woman, who smilingly opened her arms. But at the same instant the Blessed Virgin assumed her Heavenly form, and enclosed the entrapped Deceiver in her radiant arms with all her might. In a twinkling, the garden had vanished with its fountain and nightingale; the cunning demons, who had formed the tableau, took flight in the form of evil spirits, uttering cries of anguish, and left their lord in the lurch; while he, never uttering a sound, wrestled with titanic strength to free himself from the torturing embrace.

But the Virgin held on bravely and did not let him go, though indeed she had to summon all her strength. She purposed nothing less than to bring the outmanoeuvred Devil before Heaven, and there expose him bound to a gate-post in all his wretchedness to the laughter of the blessed.

But the Evil One changed his tactics, kept still for a brief space, and assumed the beauty which he had once possessed as the fairest among the angels, so that he almost rivalled the celestial beauty of Mary. She exalted herself as much as possible; yet, if she was radiant as Venus the fair Evening-star, he shone like Lucifer the Son of the Morning, so that it began to be as bright on that dusky heath as if the heavens themselves had descended upon it.

When the Virgin perceived that she had undertaken too much, and that her strength was failing, she contented herself with releasing the Fiend on condition that he renounced the Count's wife, and the celestial and infernal beauties forthwith separated with great violence. The Virgin, somewhat wearied, betook herself back to her little church; the Evil One, incapable of any further disguise and mauled in every limb, crawled away over the sand in horrid, degraded form, the very embodiment of long-tailed sorrow. So badly had his purposed hour of dalliance turned out for him.

Meantime Gebizo, after abandoning his lovely wife, had gone astray in the darkening night, and horse and rider had fallen into a chasm, where his head was dashed against a stone so that he promptly departed this life.

As for Bertrade, she remained in her sleep until the sun rose on the first of May; then she awoke, and was surprised to see how the time had flown. Still, she quickly said her Ave Maria, and, when she came out of the church hale and hearty, her horse was standing before the door as she had left it. She did not wait long for her husband, but rode home blithely and quickly, for she guessed that she had escaped from some great peril.

Soon the Count's body was found and brought home. Bertrade had it entombed with all honour, and founded innumerable masses for him. But all love for him was in some inexplicable way eradicated from her heart, although it remained as kind and tender as ever. Accordingly, her exalted patroness in Heaven looked about for another husband for her, who should be more worthy of such gracious love than the deceased Gebizo had been. How this business came about is written in the next legend.