Book 3 — CHAPTER XXXV THE BRIDE OF WARTBURG

“‘For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’” So sounded the voice of Dr. Luther at my bedside, the first day I had strength and consciousness to see him. I marvelled at his dress. He had thrown off the monkish cowl, and wore a tight-fitting brown doublet and hose, the true garb of a knight. At his belt was a small dagger. On his cheeks was a ten days’ growth of beard.

“Ah, dear Doctor,” said I, “how do I behold you? You will soon pass for a very lanz-necht.”

“‘Doctor?’” spoke he, smiling, “none of that. Junker Georg they are all calling me, and tell me I am a ‘knight prisoner.’ They have given me a noble chamber, where I can sit aloft in the region of the birds, and they say to me ‘nolens volens I must do this or do that.’ But, thank heaven, they have not taken away from me ink and paper. Von Steinitz and his lieutenant, Von Berlepsch, are exceeding kind, and tell me after a little I will be suffered to ride out with a servant, and to enjoy the good green world. In the meantime if you are well, I am well, and, for that Christ be praised!”

So we talked together until Ilsa came in, with the roses again in her cheeks, and sent my master away, telling him I must not be wearied with talking longer.

Pleasant always has been to me the Maytime, whether in southland or northland, but never fairer than then, in those sweet days of gold, when strength and clear mind were returning day by day. Every morning our walk from the castle grew longer, as Ilsa and I sought out some flowery mead beside the singing brooks, and like children made ourselves flower crowns, and flower chains, and chattered of how we would play the King and Queen in the Regenstein, and rule with a loving tyranny over all our vassals. Von Steinitz had pulled at his beard a long time when I came, with Moritz at my side, to ask for a speedy wedding, even at the Wartburg, with Ilsa.

“Pardon my slow wits,” he had protested, “it is no light thing to talk of bridal with a nun, even though this old world changes fast.”

Perhaps it was the tidings that had drifted into the Wartburg only the night before, how the French Ambassador had quitted the Emperor with threats of instant war from his sovereign, that sent down the scale in our favor. It was like enough his Imperial Majesty would have plenty on his hands besides chasing Saxon heretics and enforcing vows of celibacy. In any case our petition prevailed. “Donnerwetter! Let them marry!” had been the decision, and although his good Freifrau made difficulties, these were mostly over the shortness of the time for preparing. “No great linen chest! No great assemblage of guests! When had a daughter of the family been married like a miller’s lass?” At which Ilsa had only laughed like rippling water, and vowed she was ready that selfsame day—yes! though she wore the clothes wherewith she had ridden from Giessen, an assertion at which her aunt dissolved in horror, redoubled when I vowed I was right willing to take Ilsa home that moment without more costly dowry.

On the afternoon before the day set for the wedding Ilsa escaped from the clutches of the Freifrau and all her frantically busy women. She wandered forth with me, and we went hand in hand down the slopes of the fortress mountain, scaring a deer among the saplings, following along a grassy glade and stream which the castle folk called the Annathal, till we must needs thread the sinuous, rocky ravine of the Dragon’s Dale, thrusting our way through the moss and ferns and harebells, whilst under our feet ran the glistering, cool water. Beyond the ravine we clambered up the hillside to a little eminence justly named the Violet’s Mount, and there we sat long and happily in the grass, whilst Ilsa made fragrant wreaths for both. After we had talked long of a thousand things I said to her:—

“It was on a day like this, and almost a place like this, I found you first in the forest. Do you remember?”

“To the end of time.”

“I heard you singing before I saw you. I have often wondered what were the words of that song. Do you remember them also?”

“Yes.” But she had turned red.

“A fitting spot! Give me the song again.”

“Not now, Wälterchen, not now. Although I own the place is appropriate, for it was Walter von der Vogelweide’s song, and his home was at the Wartburg.”

But I insisted, and whilst I watched with dozing contentment from the grass, Ilsa lifted her golden head and sang in her sweet clear German the old song of the Minnesinger.

“Tan-dara-dei!” The word came as an echo over our heads. We both rose very suddenly. Behind us was standing “Junker Georg,” very august and knightly indeed, in his ritter’s dress and beard; we stood looking one to the other sheepishly for a little, while his honest sides shook with laughter.

“Oh, my dear children!” said he at last, “if heaven would only teach the Emperor and the Pope the joy which even they might win from an innocent song and a wreath of wood violets, how happy this beautiful world would be.”

And with that he moved away, shaking his head when I begged him to tarry, though I vowed to Ilsa, who had never heard him sing, he had a voice full worthy to join with hers. There were long shadows over the mountains when we reëntered the castle. The Freifrau was angry with her niece “flying abroad when this was the last chance for fitting her velvet gown, as if there would not be time enough for cozening after the wedding—that is, if you two fools are still of a mind for it.” As for Dr. Luther, he was in better spirits than ever.

“His Grace the Elector is very kind. He consents to my remaining hid at the Wartburg until all peril is passed. But he is a better friend still; Spalatin will send me the books. Even here I can shoot my bullets at my friends of the Curia, and, Deo volente, I will give them one great culverin shot that will gall them shrewdly.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I will put the Bible in German, to be sure, so that the veriest ploughboy in the land will stand in no need of Latin or priestcraft to find the way to his loving Father.”

So I knew that even in his hiding, my master would speak for the Cause more eloquently than with a thousand sermons at Wittenberg....

The next day we were married. Freifrau von Steinitz vowed the simplicity of the festival was scandalous; but she was a woman of potent resources, and there were enough officers and their dames at the Wartburg to give us all the pomp and ceremonial right-minded lovers could wish. Under the rainbow lights streaming through the colored windows of the chapel, the very chapel where St. Elizabeth of Hungary knelt for worship, we knelt together, Ilsa and I, and Dr. Luther (so again for the nonce we called him) joined us as man and wife.

“And those,” sounded his deep voice, “whom—despite sinful vows and all the devils in hell—God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Then we had a great fête in the famous Sängersaal, where three hundred years earlier Walter von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the other minnesingers had joined their contest. And as we danced in honest, homely numbers to a few rasping viols, with Ilsa’s head crowned not with pearls but with wild roses, I thought of that other dancing not yet two months gone in the castle by Worms, when Marianna had whirled in my arms, and an Emperor had watched us. But I said not a word to Ilsa, and for myself I had a happiness passing utterance.

There was wine enough, and boar’s meat and venison enough at the feast to satisfy even Adolf. At the end they took the “Brautschuhe” from the feet of the resisting bride and tossed them to the unmarried damsels, and the lucky two who won them were vowed to be sure of dancing at their own weddings full soon.

The next morning, with Adolf, Gunter, Andrea, and a few other stout fellows for escort, Ilsa and I rode away. It was another June day of living green and light and fire. In the castle court all were gathered to wish us god-speed; but my master stood out from the company, and we bowed our heads to take his blessing. First he gripped me hard by the hand, and spoke the words he afterward used touching his own glad marriage.

“Walter, go forth with grateful heart, and be sure of this, God’s highest gift on earth is to have a pious, cheerful, God-fearing, home-keeping wife.”

Then more clearly he spoke in the hearing of them all.

“Dearest friends, depart. And know that now are days when the spirit of the Lord is returned to the earth, when old evils are passing away, when all things are becoming new. Yea! even now may the word of the prophet be fulfilled. ‘It shall come to pass that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall see visions, and your young men shall dream dreams. The sun shall be turned into smoke, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. But it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.’”

Silently he kissed both Ilsa and myself upon our foreheads. We mounted and called “Auf wiedersehen!” I at least with a catching of the throat.

“Auf wiedersehen!” answered Dr. Luther. And so we rode down the rocky way from the Wartburg.

A long time we went silently through the glorious country. Our horses were headed North. Far, far away we could see the swelling crests of the Harzland. We were riding homeward.

“Did ever folk go forth on a fairer day,” spoke I, at last, for the sake of breaking a silence growing tense.

Ilsa tossed the blue tassel on her hat. “Or with fairer hearts within,” she answered, with that sweet mingling of grave and gay which made all people love her. “Oh! I have joy in the greenwood, in the brooks and in the flowers, the sun on the slopes, the shimmering in the trees; but it is a joy not as in the old days at Blankenburg. For then even over the sun’s great disk hung the shadow of the over mastering fear, the fear of God’s pitiless wrath. And now, lo! the bands are broken, the prisons are emptied, the shadows are gone. The dear God is our father, the blessed Christ is our elder brother, we need not priest, nor mass, nor vows, nor pilgrimage to go to them. Wherefore then should not the world be bright? All this we owe to the love of heaven.”

“And under heaven,” I added reverently, “to the friar of Wittenberg, Martin Luther.”

AFTERWORD

The memoirs of the worthy Graf von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein place on the lips of Martin Luther various utterances for which this book is the only proof that he actually made them at the time alleged. It is inherently probable, however, that the memory of the narrator has not failed him, for there is often abundant witness that Luther expressed very similar sentiments at some other time and place, but under like conditions.

The modern reader of this book will of course make due allowance for the lack of historical perspective and for the possible personal prejudice of a writer who was an actual participant in the noteworthy scenes which he depicts. Certainly could one question the high-born narrator he would disclaim intention of casting fresh fuel upon theological conflagrations now so happily begun to smoulder, and he would profess that he had only desired to make real to us the wonderful personality of the friar of Wittenberg.

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