* * *
Oil in the Jug
THE MAN LIFTED HIS HANDS slowly from the bowl. His movements betrayed a clear hesitation. Drops of water, clear as glass, formed pearls on his smooth brown skin, ran over his short fingers, slid over the pointed fingertips, and fell back into the bowl. Each drop that landed made a new circle on the surface of the water, so that a confused interlacing of little circles shivered there.
Had Master Theophilos, the Greek physician, who was known to the citizens of the imperial city of Aachen only by his family name, Cheirisophos, nothing more important to do than to look idly at the play of the drops of water?
What was he to tell the young man as the final result of his examination? What, indeed? Was he to tell him the truth, the entire and full and terrible truth? Was he to fling this truth into the very heart of the hope that had newly sprouted? Was the only answer he had for the sick man’s extraordinarily strong hunger for life: “You are a cripple, and you will remain a cripple”?
Master Cheirisophos resumed his roaming through the room. Without noticing what he was doing, he went round the oak table again and again. Had he not already begun to deceive the lame man? When he saw the poor emaciated limbs, he had concealed his shock behind meaningless, noncommittal words, and the pleasant expression on his face had betrayed nothing of the shock he had felt on seeing this pitiable figure.
The servant’s movements were unutterably gentle, and in such a big-boned giant, that was almost amusing … but the doctor had felt as if the servant was uncovering the body of one who had died. It was translucent, transparent—not a “bodily” body at all, yet tied to the earth through its infirmity. Its paleness reminded him of the wax of noble candles.
But how much life spoke, indeed dazzled forth, from the eyes, from those blue, wise, and incredibly alert eyes! They had followed his movements with a tense attentiveness, as he carefully examined the slender joints and palpated the muscles. Distrust and hope struggled with each other for supremacy in this questing, piercing gaze; and on the deepest level, there lurked a terrible anxiety, a harrowing fear that the doctor would pronounce a verdict that dashed all hope.
Cheirisophos sighed and went to the window, where he stared with unseeing eyes at the narrow, dirty street. “Yes—and I put on a show like an impostor and a charlatan. I did what I have always deeply despised in the members of my guild. I used words that must inevitably kindle hope in the poor man. I made brief remarks, as if I was talking to myself. ‘Ah … so that is still all right. Better than I thought …’ And the fear departed more and more from his eyes. But I ought to have said to him: ‘My friend, do not let yourself be seduced by any hope. Look at the stiff joints, which have been hard for years! The leg muscles are dead, and the backbone is severely buckled. That is irreversible. And besides, I do not even know how to define your illness properly, although we physicians give it the generic name ‘gout,’ and the pious ones go so far as to speak of the working of the demons. You are a cripple, and you will remain a cripple. At most, I hope I can promise you with reasonable certainty that your pains can be relieved—but nothing more than that. You will get to know life only from a carriage or a wheelchair. You will always be an onlooker, never one of the players. You must come to terms with that.’
“Why did I not have the courage to say that? Why do I still lack the courage? Why I am too cowardly to speak these firm and honest words? The men of old in Sparta were right to refuse to bring up such a human being. They extinguished a meaningless existence in good time, and as painlessly as possible. Meaningless? Yes, it is meaningless! What could give meaning to the life of a cripple who is constantly racked with pain? Can one speak of ‘life’ at all, in such a case? Would it not be more humane simply to extinguish this existence? Would not the night of death be the greatest act of mercy that one could perform for such a man?”
The doctor sensed that this idea became an enticing temptation. Should he help the other man in this way? He thought of a white powder that worked quickly and almost painlessly. Ought he to show the sick man this “mercy”? He walked around the oak table once again, his hands clasped behind his back, as if one hand had to hold the other fast in order to prevent it from doing something imprudent.
Then he heard another voice within him, contradicting his natural feelings, contradicting his healthy paganism, by admitting that the wretched existence of the son of the count of Altshausen had a value. And this lame man wanted to live, with a desire stronger than that of the doctor, who was bored by life in its stale monotony. Cheirisophos no longer understood himself. Why did this case affect him more than the everyday cases of his many patients? He had long become accustomed to treat the sick in general with an impersonal kindness, without any inner sympathy. Sometimes, he found it hard to suppress a yawn when they described at great length the sufferings they had endured. This cripple, who did not complain, made him uneasy.
Walter, the servant, bore the lame man into the living room. The broad-shouldered farmer’s son from Swabia held the light, crooked figure in his arms as a mother holds her child. With clumsy carefulness, he set Hermann down in the soft cushions of the armchair. Now, the dark garment once again concealed the tortured body. Only the gaunt face with the lofty brow under the blond hair and the slender hands were exposed to view. The big eyes were even more demanding and inescapable. An imperious power went forth from them, and the sick man’s question sounded almost mocking:
“Tell me, Master Cheirisophos, does not my good Walter treat me far too carefully? He handles me as if I was a precious vessel that he does not want to break.”
A fragile and precious vessel? The doctor winced involuntarily as he heard these words. Did not this body, marked by sickness, recall one of those fragile alabaster vases, of translucent, veined alabaster, that he knew from Corinth? At home, there had been sealed alabaster jars with a precious content that was a mystery to the boy, and alabaster bowls where wicks swam in oil. A strange comparison …
“Please sit down, Master.” The lame man accompanied his words with a gesture of invitation. “Sit beside me and tell me your severe verdict.”
The blue eyes inspected him and put a question. The farmer’s boy behind the chair likewise stared at the doctor, as if he wanted to warn him and to protect his master.
“To protect him from my lies,” thought Master Cheirisophos bitterly. Should he … could he tell the truth? He hesitated and chewed his lower lip. The lame man stretched out his hand. The trembling, crooked hand asked for an answer. The physician smiled the confident and soothing smile of the experienced and superior expert in medicine. Had he not studied the laws of nature, and was he not capable of improving on them? Might he not think himself equal to the task, even if the chances of success were slight? Was there not often a surprising and unforeseen transformation in the process of an illness?
“My verdict?” His voice was gentle and smooth as the voice of a woman. “Well, it was good that you came to Aachen, Count Hermann. I expect much, very much indeed for you from daily baths in the hot sulphurous springs. After the baths, we will regularly massage your muscles and joints.”
The tension in the blue eyes was unbearable! Did the man from Altshausen see through his imposture? Did he sense that this was nothing more than a rather crude attempt to reassure him?
The sick man asked, in a cracking voice: “You expect much, Master? But … what do you call ‘much’?”
The doctor laid his beautiful hands on his breast, as he declared: “Your pains will lessen …”
Hermann made a contemptuous movement, as if that was unimportant. “And what else can be achieved?”
The Greek Master felt a secret disgust for himself as he gasped: “In the long term, your limbs will certainly gain a greater mobility. But that will take a long time. You must be patient, because the process of healing can take place only very slowly. Your limbs were stiff for a decade, and the muscles in the legs are completely flaccid. You can certainly not count on a quick healing. We will begin with the treatment tomorrow morning.”
The doctor got up quickly, in order to put an end to the unpleasant conversation. He wanted to get away from the spell cast by his kindly lies, and out of the field of vision of those penetrating eyes. But before he could escape, the hoarse voice of the lame man reached him, the words tumbling over one another in his excitement.
“Will … will … I learn how to walk … again?” Trembling, his breath wheezing, Hermann of Altshausen waited for the answer. His crooked hands clawed at his garment.
Cheirisophos would have loved to scream: “No, you fool, no! Am I a magician? Can I work miracles?” But he skillfully evaded the question by posing one of his own: “Why should that not be possible after a lengthy treatment, Count Hermann? Naturally, you will have to give me your unwavering support, and you must practice unwearyingly. Then our combined forces will reach the goal. And you must also practice with your hands, again and again, so that the strength comes back into your muscles and the joints will become flexible again.”
The doctor laid his right hand on the table surface, crooked like the hand of the lame man. His left hand pressed it down, up and down, up and down, up and down …
Hermann watched this attentively. How simple it seemed!
“And now please excuse me for today. Other patients are waiting for me.” With a hasty bow, Mater Cheirisophos left the room.
Hermann sat there like one under a spell. Of all the words the doctor had spoken, he had taken in only one sentence … “I am going to learn to walk again,” he murmured over and over. “To walk! Then—yes, then life will begin. I will be able to walk again …”
And it was as if he already felt the solid ground, the crunching stones, and the soft grass under his feet, as he had felt them more than a decade ago.
“I will be able to walk again,” he babbled, drunk with joy. “I will no longer be dependent on other people’s help … to walk again, to walk again …”
He did not notice that Walter responded to this outbreak of joy with an angry sigh. The servant stretched out his hand clumsily to the doctor’s washbasin, and water splashed over. He was a fine liar, this Cheirisophos!
The simple and honest mind of the farmer’s son had sensed the untruthfulness of his words, and he felt pain on behalf of the young man who was taken in by them. But he could not express what he was feeling. Gloomily, he cleaned up the pool of water, while his master stammered joyfully, over and over:
“I will be able to walk … to walk. Then life will begin …”
Arnulph of Rahnwyl entered. The elderly nobleman remained standing in the doorframe, listening somberly to the murmurs of the sick man. He saw Hermann’s right hand on the table surface and the left hand that kept on trying to press the crooked fingers downward—an effort that was both unwearying and useless. The hard arc of the right hand did not yield.
The Lord Arnulph nodded to the servant, and wondered fleetingly why his face was so gloomy and reddened. Then he went across to the armchair.
“Hermann?”
The lame man lifted his eyes joyfully to his aged host. “It’s you, Lord Arnulph? Have you already heard the news?”
What a radiant and overwhelming joy shone out of those eyes and resonated exultantly in that voice!
“I’m going to be able to walk again. Just imagine … after ten years, after ten long years. The doctor has just told me.”
The old man was taken aback and said nothing. He sat down beside his guest, while Walter left the room. Hermann was incapable of quelling the exultation in his heart. Tears of joy ran down his gaunt cheeks.
“Only someone who has had the same fate can realize what that means for me. It is more than a decade since I was able to stand upright on my feet. I have not been able to take one single step. I was always dependent on other people’s help. I always had to wait for that help and to ask for it. And it was not always given promptly and gladly. How often have I been ashamed of my helplessness! How often have I wept because of my terrible poverty. Now, my fetters will be loosened … Lord Arnulph, can you imagine the joy I feel?”
The man with the white beard nodded gravely. “I can imagine what this hope may mean for you, Hermann, but are you not being too …”
The lame man interrupted him, without noticing what he was doing. “I feel as if I was wakening to new life out of a dark grave. That is what Lazarus must have felt, when the Lord called him: ‘Come out, Lazarus!,’ and when he gave him back life—life.” Hermann uttered the last word reverently. He put all his hope, all his expectation, all his joy into this one little word.
He did not see the signs of grief and consternation on the face of his host. Arnulph had come in order to take away from him the hope that Master Cheirisophos had wrongly kindled in him. The Greek had admitted to the master of the house that he had been too cowardly to tell the sick man the truth.
“I have acted like a swindler. Hermann of Altshausen will remain a cripple.”
But now the happiness of the young man sealed the nobleman’s lips. He simply could not bring himself to thrust him down into the deep night of hopelessness, after so radiant and overpowering a joy had erupted, and Hermann’s expectations had risen to such heights.
Perhaps it would be better to break the news to him slowly, bit by bit. This was assuredly not the right moment to do so. And if Hermann did in fact go to the hot springs, perhaps he might get better—even if that seemed unlikely. And if not, well, there would still be plenty of time to intervene. This was how Lord Arnulph justified his silence to himself; but his clear feeling of guilt told him that he did not believe Hermann’s condition would improve. His hidden perplexity led him to change the subject.
“Hermann, you wanted to see my books and texts, did you not? You must not compare my modest collection with the well-stocked library on Reichenau. And yet, I am proud of it. Would you like to inspect my little ‘treasure chamber’?”
The lame man enthusiastically accepted the kindly invitation. Walter carried him into the wood-paneled room that the Lord Arnulph called the “chamber of books.” Arnulph presented his treasures one by one to the sick man, and was delighted to see how the crooked fingers caressed a book with a shy tenderness. This young man was certainly well acquainted with the marvelous world of the spirit!
The Lord of Rahnwyl took one particular parchment and handed it to his guest with an emphatic ceremoniousness, since he knew that it would give Hermann the greatest joy.
“Abbot Berno wrote this for us …”
Abbot Berno … Suddenly, the expression of the narrow face, of the blue eyes, altered. The sparkle of joy died out, extinguished all at once like the flame of a candle in a heavy gale. Abbot Berno … It was as if a mask had fallen away, and the old man saw naked pain, loneliness, homesickness, in the frozen face of the lame man. Abbot Berno … The hand shook, unable to manage a gesture of timid gentleness as it took hold of the parchment, which was beautifully written and adorned with fine initial letters. Hermann’s hand was no longer something that transmitted inner joy to him. It lay feebly on the yellow parchment leaf, as if it were handed over to suffering and pain.
“Abbot Berno wrote this for us …”
The Lord Arnulph had to ask Hermann twice if he wanted to take any texts away with him to study them. The sick man distractedly indicated one or other book, without realizing that he had also pointed to the Lord Berno’s parchment. He found it with a shock on his table, later on. Then he read the sentence that began with the letter “L.” A dove descended through a delicate tracery of tendrils.
“Love is the vital principle of the Most Holy Trinity …”
“
He stared at the dove, he stared at the letters. He read the words without grasping their meaning. Like a blind man, he sat before the text and could not fend off the storm of feelings that swooped down upon him.
“Abbot Berno wrote this for us …”
To live? To learn to walk? Are those real possibilities? Why is he here? Everything that he had learned and experienced in Aachen seemed to him meaningless, remote, and unreal.
Reichenau and Abbot Berno: they had regained their power and their reality. He almost thought he could see the waters of the Gnadensee shining, and hear the roar of the waves as they rolled onto the gravelly shore …
The air he had breathed on Reichenau was pure and mild … How well he had been able to pray in the broad nave of the abbey church! Everything there was familiar to him. It was home, and a savage homesickness took hold of him … Home …
Abbot Berno …
“Was I a fool, to take the road to Aachen? What do I really want here? Why did I leave my home, the abbey, the security? Why did I run away from Abbot Berno’s fatherly guidance? Why?”
He no longer understood himself.
He read the words a second time: “Love is the vital principle of the Most Holy Trinity …” Ought he to go home to Reichenau … home?
Then he caught sight of his crooked right hand on the table surface. Go home? No, he wanted to live. “Love is …” No, he must exercise! Exercise again and again!
“Love …”
No, exercise! Exercise! He pushed Abbot Berno’s parchment aside. He would not go home. He would stay on in Aachen. He wanted to live.
“
As they carried him through the sunny streets of the city of Aachen, he was dead tired after the bath in the hot springs and the therapy. The repulsive sulphurous vapors always caused him nausea. But he kept his eyes wide open and took in the view of the streets almost greedily, although he had been seeing it for months now.
There were wagons from Flanders with grain, wagons from the Rhine and Burgundy with barrels full of wine, wagons from the distant Romandy with spices and bales of cloth. Wagoners in their blue working clothes whistled, cursed, and swung their whips. Elegant horsemen in gaudy garments and knights in shining armor galloped past. Priests and monks in their dark robes walked serenely through the colorful crowd. Women and girls walked modestly by, keeping a surreptitious eye on the dignified men and the youths. Children played and cried to one another, they ran and laughed. For the lame man, borne in his chair, all this was music—the calling and laughing, the shouting and whistling, all came together to form a powerful, thrilling melody in his ears. It was not always beautiful and harmonious, but it was vigorous and intoxicating—life.
A woman’s shocked eyes swept over him, and he heard the words: “The poor man in the chair!”
Hermann did not admit to himself that the woman’s eyes revealed shock, and her words compassion—compassion with his distorted figure. Surely, she was reacting to the sight of his wide, dark garment. A monk in a carrying chair—that was what had startled the woman …
“They ought to stop thinking I am a monk!”
A feeling of shame crept up on him. Ultimately, was he telling himself a lie?
“No, I am not a monk. I have never been a monk. My lord father was wrong when he said that all I was good enough for was to become a monk.”
But this did not disperse his inner unease, so he gave a gruff command: “Walter, take me to the cloth merchant!”
The servant turned around in surprise. “My Lord, Vespers is about to begin in the cathedral.”
The sick man was annoyed. “Did you not understand me? I said: to the cloth merchant’s shop!”
The bells for Vespers rang out from the cathedral, loud and powerful. Normally, he delighted in their vibrant sound, which was itself a sublime praise of God. Were they not calling out his name today, the name of the traitor?
“What nonsense! I am not a monk, and I will not become a monk.”
The bells rang on and on. They ought to be silent! But he was obliged to hear them until he arrived at the cloth merchant’s, and the carrying chair stood under the cool vault.
The burly merchant skillfully hid his astonishment at the crippled figure of his customer. His knowledgeable eyes had told him at once that this sick young man came from a noble family. “How may I be of service, my Lord?”
“A cloth for a garment, or two,” replied Hermann. He was curt and impolite, because he felt unsure of himself.
At a nod from the merchant, his assistant brought out cloths, linen and wool, finely and roughly spun in snowy white, blood-red, a light and a darker blue, lush green, cheerful yellow, autumnal brown, and various shadings. The lame man’s eyes, almost drunk with joy, plunged into the sea of colors—those eyes that for an entire decade had seen nothing other than the uniform black of the monastic habits and the mild colors of the landscape around Lake Constance; those eyes that were hungry for beauty, and were so receptive to it.
Hermann was intoxicated by the sight of the many colors. Was not each color like a note of music that echoed in his heart? Each color was a tone, and the many tones united to form a melody, a soaring and thrilling melody. Here too, the lame man felt life. Was there not a life in the ecstasy of the colors, a life that was set in motion and that caught him up in its movement? He almost let himself be carried away by the wave of emotions, by the melody that he heard (but that resounded only within himself), out into the whole breadth of the sea. Was not this life?
The merchant’s businesslike voice recalled him to the barren shores of reality. “How do you like this cloth from Flanders, my Lord?”
Busy hands spread out a light woolen cloth before him, finely spun, woven without a single flaw, in the gentle red-brown of the beech trees in the fall.
“An exquisite, beautiful cloth …”
Hermann was reminded of the slender beech trees in the wood on Reichenau, with their smooth silver trunks that rose straight up to the sky. Sometimes he had spent time in the beech wood, where he delighted in the light green of springtime and the warm red-brown of the leaves in the fall. How strange, that he could not forget Reichenau …
“I like the cloth,” he murmured absent-mindedly. “Measure plenty for a garment and for a cloak of the same cloth. The tailor will need an extra quantity in my case.”
His hands caressed the fluffy woolen cloth from France. The yellow shone like the sunlight, like a friendly smile. It was like a clear musical tone. This color made him happy. Did not many of the young men on the street wear a garment like this?
The merchant bent over expectantly. “Would you like to take this cloth too, my Lord?”
The lame man said: “Yes.” He did not see the expression of contemptuous pity on the merchant’s face. All he saw was the sunny, friendly smile, and all he perceived was the bright note of joy. He felt profoundly contented, because this purchase brought him one step further, one step closer to life. Was he not in the midst of life, even before he was able to walk?
“
Walter brought a tailor to the Rahnwyls’ house, a wizened old man with very nimble movements. He scurried around the sick man, whom the servant held in an upright position, and noted his measurements under his breath.
Hermann overcame his shyness and asked: “Can you compensate for the defects of my shape?”
The old man nodded quickly. “Of course, of course, noble Lord. Some things can be compensated for. You purchased plenty of cloth, did you not? Then I can hide many things behind folds and a big collar, and high sleeves.”
The sick man was happy to hear this, but at the same time, he felt a distressing embarrassment. Was it necessary for the tailor to look in such great detail at his defects, at his ugly figure?
He gave a quick command: “Walter! The cloth!”
The servant set him down in the armchair. “He always treats me too cautiously,” thought Hermann, with unjustified annoyance. Walter brought the cloths, and the old man clapped his hands with glee when he saw the red-brown woolen cloth. His expert fingers tested the quality.
“What a wonderful cloth! What a color! My Lord, you could find nothing better suited to your blond hair, your blue eyes, and your light skin …”
Hermann reacted with a boyish displeasure to this praise, and he blushed. “That was not the reason why I chose the cloth. I am not a harlot who wants to make herself beautiful.”
The tailor was embarrassed, and took hold of the yellow cloth. He hesitated, though only for a moment. Then his face assumed once more its expression of an eagerness to serve.
“You too have decided for yellow. This color is very popular this year. Many of the young gentlemen are wearing yellow. In our rainy city, yellow is like a ray of sunshine that has stayed behind on gray days.”
He talked and talked, but the sick man did not hear his words. He had noticed the tailor’s hesitation, and his sensitive nature had shown him how to interpret it correctly. What on earth was a cripple thinking of, to choose such a striking color? It was true that he was young, like the others who can wear yellow; and he came from a rich family, like the others; but he was a cripple. He was not like the others, and never would be. He was not entitled to wear yellow, because he was a cripple …
He forced himself to be calm, but his eyes were full of shadows as he gave the order: “I have changed my mind. Put the yellow aside for now, and make the garment and cloak from the red-brown cloth, as soon as possible.”
He did not notice the old man’s deep bow. He protested, when Walter wanted to put the yellow cloth in the drawer. “Leave it here, and leave me alone!” The servant withdrew reluctantly.
Hermann of Altshausen crouched in his armchair and gazed at the yellow cloth, a wondrously fluffy woolen material from France, such as many people were wearing on the streets … But now, the yellow was no longer a smiling joy for him. It grinned at him in undisguised mockery. Instead of the light tone that rang out cheerfully, he heard an ugly discord, harsh, shrill, and so strident that it inflicted deep wounds on his sensitive spirit.
“Cripple! Nothing for you, cripple!”
A wave of bitterness washed over him. His back became even more crooked, and his trembling hands pulled and tugged at the yellow cloth in an impotent fury.
“Scissors, scissors … I am going to rip it up, until it is a worthless rag!”
Suddenly, he paused and sat for a while without moving. Then he lifted his head slowly, very slowly, and gazed at the great crucifix that stood out against the gray wall, dark and severe.
“So this is the life that you have meant me to lead. A fine life, a glorious life, truly worth living, is it not? Always being different from the others, always set apart, always marked out and despised, a cripple.”
His eyes grew wild and nasty, his speech became a scream. “It must give you an infinity of joy, O God, when I twist and turn here and struggle like a worm people trample upon! Or else, why did you permit this? Like a worm … like a worm.”
In his mind, he crawled once more over the sand on the shore, gasping and dirty, with his hands scraped. He crawled, crawled like a worm.
“We have nothing but trouble with you,” the infirmarian Ekkehard had grumbled, when he found him hanging in the tree, helpless like Christ on the cross. “Nothing but trouble? I am nothing but a burden … nothing but a burden in Altshausen, nothing but a burden on Reichenau, nothing but a burden for the Rahnwyls here, nothing but a burden … and I am the greatest burden of all for my own self. And why? What is the point? What do you get out of it, O God, when I am a worm? Does it entertain you to look at me like this?”
With a great sob, he pressed his head into the fluffy woolen cloth, into the shining yellow that was like the sun.
“
The old Lady Veronica of Rahnwyl was shocked when she visited him a couple of hours later. He crouched before the cloth like an evil gnome. Harsh old lines marked deep furrows around his mouth, lines of bitterness and almost of hate. He bowed his head in greeting, but the only words his mouth found were bitter.
“What do you think, Lady Veronica? If I wore this cloth, would I not play the part of a splendid juggler, a comedy actor who would make everyone laugh? Would not my existence then be meaningful, and … a joy … to God and to human beings?”
The Lady Veronica bent down in concern to the lame man. “Hermann, what has happened to you? Tell me.”
His blue eyes looked with a cold rejection at her kind old face. He curled his thin lips in scorn.
“You ask what has happened, noble Lady? Not very much; not more than usual. All that has happened was that I have been permitted once again to feel myself to be what I truly am—a cripple, an outcast, a worm …” With furious mockery, he dwelt on the last word. “Yes, a worm. But do not let that disturb you, Lady Veronica. Do not regard it as important in any way. My fellow pupils recognized that a sick boy like me has his moods.”
The lady of the house looked sadly at the agitated face. She would have loved to put her maternal arms around the poor young man.
“Hermann, you are full of sorrow because you are … different?” she asked in a low voice.
“You have guessed it correctly, Lady Veronica. Just imagine: I would like to be one of many,” he jeered.
She did not get angry with him, but replied in a firm tone: “You will always have to be Hermann of Altshausen. You will never become just one of the crowd, not you—not even if your frailties were to be taken away from you.”
Did he understand her? Did he want to understand her? Something strange and nasty lurked in his look, when he laughed an unmelodious laugh and asked: “What do you mean? Does that mean that you regard me as someone specially chosen?”
“God has called you,” she said simply.
He balled his impotent fists, and his face was disfigured by a furious resistance. “Oh? God has called me? Do you really mean that? Called me for what? And what if I voluntarily renounce his call? I just want to be a human being, a human being, a human being—nothing else, nothing at all. I want to live like all the others. Understand me, Lady Veronica: to live like all the others … to live, to live!” His lips twitched, as if his anger, his pain, and his bitterness would force a new sob out of his body.
The Lady Veronica wanted to console him, as a mother consoles her child. But she suppressed this emotion. She had to help him in another way. She must appear to be harsh. Her answer surprised him and affected him, although it was spoken in a low and gentle voice.
“You will live, Hermann, as soon as you submit to his will, and you will thank him for your life.”
His eyes widened, and for a moment, the Lady Veronica saw clearly that her words had affected him. Then his eyelids fell and his lips were pressed even more tightly together, so tightly that his mouth was now merely a narrow line in the arrogantly hostile mask that was his face. Was his silence a “no”? Or did it conceal the invisible groping, the search for a turnaround? Was a child stretching out its hand behind the wall of pride, and calling to the Father to come to it?
From this moment onward, Hermann could no longer find any word or gesture of prayer. His heart and his soul remained silent. The sight of the cross no longer moved him. The things of God did not concern him now. No bell wakened an echo in his soul, nor did any rejection. He did not deny that there was a God; but his God was distant, infinitely distant from human beings. Any attempt to reach him would be a meaningless and foolish undertaking. Hermann preserved his apparent calm, his apparent peace. God had ceased to be a question for him.
When he met Arnulph of Rahnwyl and his wife, he was polite and chivalrous, but he permitted them no glimpse into his inner world. He wanted to be completely alone, and he did not admit to himself that he was homesick. It was only his dreams that were haunted by the image of Reichenau, the image of the Gnadensee. When he was awake, this image was ruthlessly banished from his consciousness.
“
Master Cheirisophos too noticed the change in the sick man. In his concern, he murmured something about the bad weather as a cause of increased suffering: “All this rain is one of the disadvantages of the city of Aachen.”
The sick man looked at him silently for so long that the Greek felt compelled to ask, in his confusion: “But what is the matter? What is wrong with you, Count Hermann?”
The answer was ungracious: “I shall tell you this once and for all, Master Cheirisophos: I do not need your compassion! All I want is your skill in healing, so that I can live at long last. I bought a yellow cloth a few days ago, because I liked the color. It looked … cheerful. But I was told at once that it would be utterly unsuitable for me to wear such striking clothes. Well, now you know what the matter is. Tell me the truth: Will I ever be like the others?”
The question was uncomfortable, and the Greek felt a growing unease. Was this conversation turning into an interrogation? He put on a show of surprise and shook his head. “Is that your goal? Is that really what you want? Do you absolutely want to go around in yellow cloth like the dandies and popinjays on the streets?” He raised his hands in a theatrical gesture. “And if we were to admit that such a garment would suit you, with its cords and fringes, its buttons and braids and other such fripperies, is that not beneath your dignity? Are not you worth more than the other men? Or at least, could you not become more than them? Are you feeling completely well, Hermann of Altshausen?”
The lame man’s gaunt, pale face twitched involuntarily. “Pray do not fob me off with your well-chosen pearls of wisdom, Master. They are powerless to make me forget my wretchedness. When will my sickness get better?”
“You must have more patience!” said Cheirisophos severely. “Did I not tell you at the very beginning of my treatment that much time would elapse before any improvement? Do you remember my words? Have more patience with your body and with your physician. And in the meantime, make use of the freedom that you possess. The Lord of Rahnwyl told me, before you came here, that you were a young man with an uncommonly animated and active mind and that you were eager to perfect your studies in the various branches of knowledge. Forgive me if I speak too openly, but you have shown me very little of that eagerness in these past months. Have you touched as much as one single book?”
Hermann’s eyes had been challenging, but now he lowered them in shame. The Greek had touched him in a sensitive spot. “You are right, Master. Since I came to Aachen, I have not taken up my studies. My only thought has been how I might become the master of my illness.”
The doctor looked down at the sick man with a triumphant smile. His strategy had been successful: he had distracted his attention. “Do not reproach yourself, Count Hermann. It was good and necessary for you to take time to settle down in your new surroundings. But now, spread your wings and fly into that kingdom that knows hardly any boundaries. You have certainly acquired a good foundation in the monastery school. If you wish, I will help you a little to build on that foundation. May I bring to you Greece, so that you can get to know and to love the ancient culture of my native land? Then, if your spirit desires further nourishment, we shall travel into the Near East, which is our brother-land. A new realm of magic awaits you there. Learn Greek and Arabic, study the strict science of arithmetic and geometry, of philosophy and astronomy. Take delight in the charming poetic art of the peoples and in the solemn gravity of our dramas. You will find more water in our wells than the thirsty spirit is able to draw. Tell me, what prevents you from undertaking this bold flight into the realm of the spirit? Nothing, nothing at all … You are gloriously free, and every intellectual conquest will make you increasingly, and more joyfully, conscious of this freedom. At the same time, like a good father of the household in Greece, you will accumulate oil in your jug, so that you will have rich stores, when …” The doctor swallowed a few times before finishing the sentence: “When life begins for you.”
The lame man looked gratefully up at the doctor, since the yearning for this freedom had taken hold of him. His spirit would have liked to spread its wings at once, in order to begin the ascent. His blue eyes shone expectantly.
The doctor told him about some texts that he owned. “I have copies of the Letters of Paul in Greek, as well as texts of pagan wisdom, especially Plato and Aristotle. Would you like to read them, or are you afraid of the influence of the ancient pagans?”
Hermann laughed at this question, but at the same time, he felt hurt. Was this the inner protest of a young man who was no longer willing to be treated like a child? Or was it the protest of a Christian who was condemned to be silent?
From then on, the celebrated Master Cheirisophos spent many hours with the sick man. Initially, he devoted himself to Hermann’s service out of an unadmitted feeling of shame, since he had failed him so miserably as a doctor and as a human being; but soon, he was motivated by a genuine eagerness to supply fresh nourishment to the receptive and alert spirit of his pupil, and he led him further and further onward. He had the impression that Hermann’s strong will and his general intelligence mastered with an almost playful ease the difficulties of the foreign language and alphabet. The lame man also displayed an exceptionally powerful memory. Even when he did not write something down or check the text in a parchment, he could quote it days later with great fidelity. He was not always able to use his hands, and his bodily weakness often compelled him to listen almost passively to what the Greek said; but his spirit was continuously active, like a fire that devoured everything around it. He took everything in, and reflected deeply on what was transmitted to him. Where possible, he developed the ideas independently. Many months passed in this way. Had he now discovered life?
The world of the spirit took him captive. His endeavors in this field almost let him forget the wretchedness of his body, just as he forgot the one God when he was with the gods of Greece. He seemed to have a greater equilibrium and serenity, although there was no decisive improvement in his physical condition. The pains abated temporarily, and in general, he could move his fingers with less effort. He could write for a longer time, and more clearly. But there were always days when his old feebleness suddenly came over him; days when the gift of speech deserted him; days when Walter was obliged to tell the Greek, with a somber and worried expression, that his master’s poor body was completely paralyzed.
Master Cheirisophos had two crutches made, so that Hermann could learn to walk with their aid. When he brought them to him, he experienced a strange surprise. The sick man ran his fingertips over the smooth wood and asked: “Beech?” This was the only word he uttered, and the doctor too said nothing, as he put down the crutches in a corner. He dreaded the first exercise and the inevitable disappointment. But why did Hermann have no other question? Did he suspect something? Months passed.
“
One day, the doctor felt a dread of the intellectual hunger and thirst that led the lame man to demand ever new problems in mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy.
“How many jugs full of oil do you now have, Hermann, instead of the one jug that I recommended you to collect?”
Hermann thought that this was a joke, and replied, with a laugh: “I am gathering together a huge store, Master. I want to become a rich man.”
“Do not gather it so quickly. The olives have to ripen after they are picked. You want to harvest, but the blossom is still on the trees.”
The sick man dropped his wax tablet in astonishment. “Not so quickly? But why should we not go on, if I am ready? Let me use your own image: you need not wait for a new harvest, because you have nothing but ripe olives.”
When they were on their travels through the world of Arabic culture, the doctor sighed and confessed to the Lord Arnulph: “My wisdom will soon be exhausted. Your young guest is so restless and eager that he snatches one trump card after another out of my hand. Today, he explained to me something that I wanted to explain to him tomorrow! I fear that the wells of my wisdom are running dry.”
The aged nobleman looked critically at the Greek. “Your wells are running dry? Are there not inexhaustible wells of wisdom, Master Cheirisophos, that are able to quench even a thirst like this?”
The doctor said nothing. He knew what the Lord of Rahnwyl was alluding to, but a Master Cheirisophos did not go to that well to draw.
When guests stayed in the Rahnwyls’ house and gathered around their cultivated host for serious conversation, the lame man sat as a silent participant in the circle of scholars, monks, and cathedral canons. Some of the visitors looked thoughtfully at the narrow, expressive face of the young man. His brow and his eyes revealed an alert mind and undivided attentiveness. Hermann crouched in his armchair and listened spellbound, when the gentlemen talked about happenings in the empire, about the emperor, about the dealings and the problems of the mighty, and about the sufferings, the victories, and the scandals in the Church. The conversation often turned to the last things, to eternal matters. When they spoke about this—about God—Hermann only listened. He did not answer; nor did he put up any resistance. He simply registered what was said.
The men around Arnulph of Rahnwyl reached for the stars with reverent hands. In some way, they were at home in eternity. They had more substance than Master Cheirisophos; they were purer, and more lacking in ulterior motives. But although the sick man sensed this, he could not yet identify the root of this otherness. He felt more and more attracted to this circle. Soon, he spent the entire day waiting for the evening hours.
After one evening conversation about grace as the effective power of the good in the human person, and as a free gift of the Almighty to his creature, which has no right or claim to it, Hermann ventured for the first time to stammer a prayer to God. He trembled at his audacity, but he tried it again and again. His stammering became a sentence, and his sentence became a prayer.
“Lord, let me see you once more. I know that I have no right to that. Nevertheless, I ask you: show yourself to me. Manifest yourself to me, so that I can know you. Lord, give me a share in your grace, which I can never merit. You know my poverty and my blindness. Lord, teach me yourself! I want to know about you, as those men know about you.”
A new and imperious yearning had awakened in the sick man a new thirst. Could Master Cheirisophos quench it?
Next day, Hermann listened with only one ear to the Master’s words, until he suddenly interrupted him and cried out with urgent impatience: “Master Cheirisophos, Plato wants to get out of his cave!”
The doctor was shocked, and sat back in his chair. Was this a joke? No, there was no smile on the gaunt face of his pupil.
“Do you wish to give me a sample of your humor, Count Hermann?” he asked sarcastically.
“No, not at all, Master. I do not feel like making jokes. I have meditated a little this past night, looking back on what I have learned from you. Or, if you prefer to hear it put in this way, I have counted my jugs of oil.”
“And what conclusion did you reach?”
The sick man sighed and lifted his bony shoulders in perplexity. “Well, my jugs are full of the best Greek oil. I am profoundly grateful to you, Master Cheirisophos. And yet …”
The Greek thought he knew what was coming—Hermann had recognized the limits of his knowledge, and he wanted to go further. He had expected this. Should he recommend him to go to Arnulph of Rahnwyl, to his inexhaustible wells? This idea made him uncomfortable, since he had consciously avoided giving any space in his teaching for the world of Christian ideas.
“Master, you know better than anyone else that I am hungering for life in its fullness, but all you gave me was a symbol of life. You gave me a few single stones, well formed, beautiful, colored stones, such as one might give to a good child, and then you told me: ‘Put these together, then you will have life!’”
The doctor sprang up in anger. “Beautiful colored stones? Hermann, are you comparing the immense breadth of our culture with children’s toys?”
“Do not be angry at my comparison. It may not be perfect. But I ask you, is the culture of Greece … life, Master? Is life itself the best interpretation of life? No, no, you cannot block my path, and you cannot convince me. Plato wants to get out of his cave. He no longer wants to see only the shadows, the inexact images on the wall of the cave. He wants life.”
Cheirisophos paced up and down in a rage. The young man’s wish sounded in his ears like a mockery of his own worldview. Then he stood in front of the armchair and bent down. His black eyes flashed with malice at the lame man, but they encountered only a tranquil serenity.
“For Plato—whose venerable name you frivolously choose to apply to yourself—the images, the ideas, are the highest expression of reality and of all that exists …”
Hermann pointed to the chair. “Pray sit down again, Master, and try for once to listen to me calmly. I have assimilated Plato’s great notion, and I admire this towering spirit. ‘All that exists, exists only to the extent that the ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good are realized in it.’ The more I assimilated Plato’s teaching, the more I grasped, first with the heart and then with the mind, that the ideas are not life.”
The Greek replied automatically, in a contemptuous mutter: “And who consults his heart, where ideas are concerned? And what, in your opinion, belongs inalienably to life?”
The sick man replied at once: “Happiness!—Are you happy, Master Cheirisophos?”
A strange word, a strange question from the lips from a maimed cripple. But it touched the doctor at the point that he had consciously avoided hitherto. Happiness? How did that occur to Hermann? He was a ruminator, odd and dangerous. Cheirisophos had no idea that Manegold, the cathedral canon, had spoken of eternal happiness, of eternal joy, in the circle that gathered around Arnulph of Rahnwyl the previous evening …
The Master laughed an unfree, forced laugh. “Happiness? And what is that? You are no philosopher. It is true that the men of old also knew the word ‘happiness.’ But have you not grasped what they basically meant by it? Happiness is a product of the human mind, like the whole pantheon of Olympus. Happiness? No, only intoxication and disgust. Accepting things as they are, soldiering on with decency, broadening the boundaries, making the best out of a miserable existence—that is what human dignity and freedom are. If the concept of happiness is important to you, you could see a kind of happiness in the fact that we can develop our personality to the highest degree possible. That gives us a kind of satisfaction. If you like, you can call that ‘happiness.’”
The sick man’s eyes shone. “When our personality develops, what is its goal? The bud develops into a blossom, in order to become a fruit. What about the bud of our mind and of our heart?”
“It ripens towards the primal ideas of the good, the beautiful, and the true. It wants to come as close to these as possible. But a human being is never really perfected. He is, and remains, a torso.”
Hermann bent forward, as if a great tension were taking hold of him. Oblivious of his surroundings, his hand plucked at the silk sleeve of the doctor. “Do you believe that? Do you really believe that, Master? The human being is the one creature on this earth who may not attain perfection, because he is not only matter, but also spirit—soul? No, no, that is nonsensical, and it contradicts the logic of your own system of thought. The creation allows the creatures to come to perfection, and then takes them back into its bosom as ripe fruit. And only the human being is to remain a torso? How absurd, how horribly meaningless human life would then be!”
The Master shook off the sick man’s hand, but he did not notice, and continued, almost fiercely: “No, Cheirisophos, no! You gave me no answer to my question about the ultimate meaning of existence. Nor did Plato or Aristotle. Life is more. Life is …”
He struggled to find the right expression, and then he avowed: “Life is also a mystery. Life cannot be confined to the excessively narrow framework that you stake out for it. Life is something great, unique, and wonderful. And did you not also forget that life is a receiving and giving?”
The doctor felt as if the poor crooked body had grown. The blue eyes shone with a strange, victorious glow. The spirit of the cripple had outgrown the doctor, and he could no longer guide it and shape it. He smoothed the folds of his expensive garment and played with the buckle on his belt, while he made a confession:
“I did not speak specifically of that point. One can, of course, occasionally give other people something of one’s own riches, within prudent bounds, as a form of self-affirmation. But do not do so too zealously, for other people are always ready to take.”
“When should I give something?”
“When you feel like doing so.”
Had the doctor enriched him with his knowledge only out of a passing whim? “To whom should I give?”
“Only to one who is worthy. Assess cautiously whether the other person deserves your gift. Never waste even the slightest amount on someone who does not know how to thank you and does not know how to prize your gift. Guard your heart against an excessive compassion for the neediness of others, for otherwise you will be plundered of everything. My impression is that you have a soft heart.”
“But am I not always obliged to give, Master? And am I not obliged to give to everyone? Does a river flow only sometimes, and only for those who know how to appreciate its strength and its beauty?”
“You are a dreamer, Hermann! To give all the time, to give to everyone—what folly! You would exhaust your resources far too soon …”
The lame man struck the table angrily, and cried: “No! You do not understand me! One who wants to live must direct the river forward, so that new water can flow into its bed. One who does not give is incapable of receiving, and his heart and mind remain unfruitful.”
Master Cheirisophos breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back. “So that is what you mean! Panta rhei, ‘Everything flows.’ Being is eternal motion.”
Hermann did not accept this, and his voice clearly betrayed his impatience. “No, that is not what I mean. One must give. If one wants to live, one must not shut oneself away in self-absorption and close one’s mind to life … life … and what I mean by that word is the realm that is incomprehensible and immeasurable, and yet is real …”
He faltered, and bowed his head. Embarrassment closed his mouth—how could he speak to a man like Master Cheirisophos about grace, about the circulation of the divine grace?
The Greek looked at the silent man. He was perplexed—if only he knew what was going on in his mind! He no longer understood him.
After a pause, Hermann lifted his head and continued in an emphatic tone: “A life like yours, a life for science, is not enough for me, Master Cheirisophos. I have examined myself seriously to discover which field could satisfy me, but I found none. All that I saw were individual pieces, but no finished mosaic, no all-encompassing life.”
This annoyed the doctor. “You are insatiable, Hermann, and you are almost unbearable in your hunger for the whole of life—for something that does not exist. You will no doubt learn how to scale back your demands, since the human being is a torso and remains a torso. Accept that, and give up this useless brooding and struggling, for otherwise, you may injure your weak body.”
He laid a parchment on the table, yellowed and dingy.
“Here you can read a copy of the Letter that John the Son of Thunder wrote. He too was a passionate man, and he is related to you in a way, because he was a man of absolutes. He wanted to call down fire on those who did not believe in his Master … who did not believe in what he supposed to be life. I found this text for you in the ghetto. A Jew gave it to me, after a great deal of haggling. Read it, see how good your knowledge of Greek is, and find tranquility by playing with this … beautiful colored stone.”
The doctor departed. Hermann looked at the closed door and listened to the short receding steps. The doctor had been his companion for many hours and had guided him through Greece and the Arab world, but Hermann found him very strange that afternoon, strange and cold as the world of Plato’s ideas.
When the Lady Veronica paid him her daily visit, he asked her shyly, but not without feeling a certain tension: “Pray, tell me, Lady Veronica: Is there such a thing as happiness?”
Unlike Cheirisophos, she did not dismiss his question as nonsense. A good light played over her features, which had retained a noble dignity even in her old age.
“Yes, Hermann,” she declared in a calm and firm voice, “there is such a thing as happiness. I have experienced it, and I still experience it.”
“Are you happy?”
She smiled at his disbelief. “I am happy. You doubt that, because my son died, do you not? Hermann, I know, as far as one person can know such a thing about another person … and a mother knows a lot about her beloved child … that my son accomplished the task that God had given him. He was a sincere man, and he believed in God. Now he is at home. Ought his mother to begrudge him the happiness of being perfected at a young age? Ought I not rather to rejoice with him?”
Hermann replied, as if he had not understood her words: “Lady Veronica, what is happiness? Happiness in the truest sense of the word … while still here on earth?”
“Being loved, Hermann, and being permitted to love. We experience the deepest, truest, and most lasting happiness in being loved by God. And often, we receive that gift when we stand under the cross. When we love human beings and are loved by them, that is a small portion of the immense happiness that is to be found only in God.”
“Under the cross?” The lame man was astonished, and turned his big childlike eyes on the Lady Veronica. “Then I ought in fact to be happy?”
“Yes, Hermann, you ought to be happy. I hope, indeed, I pray that you may recognize your happiness …”
She rose to her feet, but the sick man’s voice held her fast.
“My lady mother …,” he stammered agitatedly. “Could my lady mother be happy with such a son?”
“You could do a great deal for her happiness, Hermann. She will be sad now, when she thinks of you. But I am convinced that you will soon make her happy.”
“
Hermann called his servant, as soon as Veronica of Rahnwyl had left the room. “Tell me, Walter, was the Lady Hiltrud sad when I wanted to go to Aachen?” He looked with apprehension and tension at the man’s broad face, as if his reply would be important, and even decisive.
The farmer’s son from Altshausen rubbed his broad hands thoughtfully together, and then he nodded: “Yes, my Lord, yes, that is how it was. Your lord father, Count Wolfrad, was very pleased with your decision, but the Lady Hiltrud sighed. She was sad. When we were alone, she charged me … excuse me, my Lord, but that is how it was … to take good care of you. You were on the point of taking a very dangerous and toilsome detour, before you would find the path back home to your own self. I did not understand what the countess meant by those words …”
Did the sick man understand the words of his mother? He was silent for a long time, before he murmured: “Do you want to go out? You are free until the evening meal.”
“May I remain with you, my Lord? I feel like a foreigner in this city.”
“After all this time, Walter?”
The servant scowled and looked almost guilty. “My Lord, I can’t change that. There are many lanes here where you can scarcely see the sky, and I am used to our open land with its hills, its fields and woods.”
“You are right, Walter. That is how things must be. We must remain foreigners here.”
Walter was happy that his master too was still a foreigner in Aachen, although he did not know why that was important. He remained in the room; and with him, there remained the Lady Hiltrud’s words about the dangerous and toilsome detour before the return home to his own self.
To go home? How was that possible? And where did the path lead? What “detour” was the Lady Hiltrud speaking of? How was Hermann to make her happy? She could not have meant a return home to Altshausen, because that would never be accepted by his father. To go home? A detour? What on earth had his lady mother meant?
But he did not want to brood. It would be better to read the parchment that Cheirisophos had given him, the Letter of John. He was familiar with it, and he was almost bored as he skimmed through the text in the melodious language that he had come to know so well. He was not really paying attention as he read the well-known passages, the well-known sentences, all too well-known … Would it not be better to read the Arabic poem?
“God is love.”
He stopped short, and read the sentence a second time.
“God is love.”
What an extraordinary affirmation this John made! “God is love.” He had often read this sentence, but now it gripped him for the first time.
“God is love.” If that was true … God, the Almighty, the Omniscient, the Most High, the Lord, the Judge, Creator, and Sustainer, is love. Could the being of God be held fast in such a simple sentence?
The lame man did not think through to the end what this insight might mean for himself and for his sickness. He did not reflect on the meaning it could give his wretched, fettered existence. “God is love.” He stood dazzled and helpless before the bright light of this decisively important affirmation about God, and he groped around like a blind man. Now he needed a hand to hold him and guide him, and he remembered … Had not Abbot Berno written about the love of God on the parchment that Arnulph of Rahnwyl had given him so long ago?
“Walter, come here quickly! Where is the Lord Berno’s parchment? Do you remember it? The Lord Arnulph gave it to me years ago, at the beginning of our time in Aachen.”
After a lengthy search, the servant found the parchment, forgotten and covered in dust. Hermann removed the film of dust with careful fingers. “How could I have forgotten it?”
Abbot Berno had written about the love of God. The sick man read with reverence the words of his spiritual father, which he had once despised, and it was as if he was hearing the voice he knew so well.
“Love is the vital principle of the Most Holy Trinity. Love is also the one and only meaning of human existence, because the human person is made for God. God’s love for us is the Father’s ‘yes’ to his child, taking us up into the communion of his life, which we call ‘heaven.’ The human person’s love for God is a humble and confident openness to the grace, the light, the love, and the life of God. It is a reverent act of carrying home the divine gift; and it is often a lonely and hard path of faith, through the night and through trials, leading to the morning of light.—I am made for God, and God is love.”
The lame man’s breath came quickly, and his eyes shone. “‘I am made for God, and God is love.’ Thank you for these words, Father Berno, thank you!”
To go home? A detour? Was this what his lady mother had meant? He sensed that he would soon understand her. Already, he knew: “I am made for God, and God is love.”
Was there not still one stone, one piece of the mosaic, missing from the picture that Hermann was putting together in his mind, as he trembled with joy and with fear? Only one more stone, and the whole picture would shine out, the picture that was life.
“Thank you for the Letter of John, Master Cheirisophos! If only you had known what a service you were doing for me with this ‘beautiful, colored little stone’!”
The bright splendor of the learned physician faded, and he saw him as a poor man, as a wanderer without a true home. “Greece is a lie, my friend, a shimmering lie, no doubt, but without God, only a lie. Art and science are dead, if one makes them idols, as you do. It is only their relatedness to God that breathes the spirit of life into things—even into the boldest ventures of the human spirit. ‘I am made for God, and God is love.’”
“
That evening, Hermann was once more in the circle that gathered around the noble lord of Rahnwyl. Usually, when his elders spoke, he was a silent and reserved listener, but today he was transformed. His gaunt face had lost much of its severity. A relaxed smile played around his mouth, and his eyes shone like those of a man who had had an exhilarating encounter with something new and beautiful.
Manegold, the aged cathedral canon, observed the change with a keen interest. He surprised Hermann by asking him: “Something good has happened to you today, has it not? You are cheerful, if I am not mistaken?”
The sick man breathed deeply and turned his face to him. “No, reverend sir, you are not mistaken. I have discovered a glorious … doctrine today.”
A new joy and a new seriousness made his face appear more mature and masculine. Could it be that Hermann had encountered love in the realm of the mind, which was his own true realm? The canon smiled to himself. He noticed how everything in Hermann wanted to make a statement, and he realized that he must free an overflowing heart of its burden. At the same time, he could give Hermann the gift of sharing in his joy.
“A new doctrine? Who gave it to you? Tell me, was it Plato, Euripides, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid, Tertullian, Paul, Augustine …?”
The young man laughed heartily at this arbitrary stringing together of the great names in the realm of the spirit. If only Master Cheirisophos had been there to hear it!
“You have not guessed correctly. One of the givers is the apostle John, and …”
The other men were looking at him now, and delighting in the shining of his face.
“Tell us now who the other giver is, Hermann,” demanded the Lord of Rahnwyl.
Hermann met his gaze directly and said: “The other giver is our father abbot.”
It was only with difficulty that Arnulph succeeded in concealing his joyful surprise. Our father abbot … Only yesterday, he had received a message from Abbot Berno: “When will the imperial city of Aachen give us back our beloved son in Christ? In our opinion, he has lived for far too long away from the home that Reichenau is for him, in Christ Jesus …”
Canon Manegold seemed not to have understood the answer. “Your father abbot? Whom do you mean?”
The lame man now grasped what he had just said, but he repeated it courageously and finished the sentence: “I owe my new doctrine to the apostle John and to our father Abbot Berno of Reichenau.”
He could not prevent his voice from wavering uncertainly, when he said the name of the island. It was the first time in months that he had spoken this word.
“May we be permitted to hear your new doctrine? You have awakened our curiosity.”
All at once, he found it difficult to talk about the newly discovered treasure. Would that not take away something of its value? But he had already begun, and he gasped from between clenched teeth, gruff and harsh in his embarrassment: “I am made for God, and God is love.”
His cheeks burned, as though he had said something vulgar, and had simply blurted out an unutterably tender mystery. He was ashamed of himself.
The aged canon nodded. His supposition had been correct: this young man had met love in its highest form in the realm of the spirit. The words of John had somehow become a living reality for him—a presentiment as yet, but already much more than that. “And it will become even more than that, Hermann. I am happy that you have found the beginning. One who suffers so much as you is capable of great love, if he suffers in love.”
The voice of the lame man broke the men’s pensive silence: “Permit me to withdraw, Lord Arnulph!”
The head of the house cordially granted him his request, and Hermann bowed politely as he took his leave from the guests of the house of Rahnwyl. A servant lifted him out of the armchair and pushed the crutches under his armpits. His hands trembled as they clutched the smooth crossbars. He hesitated. Although he had been using the crutches for some days now, his body still shrank from exposing itself to the torment of “walking.” He pushed the crutch cautiously a little way forward, and dragged his leg after it—he was unable to bend the knee. Then he pushed the other crutch forward … No, this was not walking. The crutches were walking. All he did was to drag and shove the powerless, stiff legs and feet behind them. The wood of the crutches cut painfully into his armpits. The entire weight of his body rested on them. Was not the floor treacherously smooth? The crutches that supported him did not give him any sensation of security.
Were the men looking at him? It was very quiet in the room; no one spoke a word. The silence caused him an additional pain. He thought that he could feel the observant eyes on his back.
The servant drew back the curtain on the door. Hermann went as far as the door and rested, leaning on the door panel. The curtain had closed again behind him. The corridor beyond it was so long that he needed fresh strength and new courage for the long path to his rooms. Trembling with weakness, he stood in the darkness, in the narrow enclosed space between the door and the curtain. The wood brought him the rich, resinous smell of the forests, and the curtain smelled like dry grass, like hay on the summer meadows. The lame man had learned from his childhood, to a greater degree than healthy persons, how to become familiar with things.
Now he heard the voice of canon Manegold, the voice of the friendly old man, in which all the kindness of the priest resonated: “Lord Arnulph, your young protégé is still Hermann of Reichenau.”
The lame man pricked up his ears. What would the Lord of Rahnwyl reply? Would he agree? The dark voice of the head of the house sounded joyful, when he answered: “Thanks be to God! Hermann will once again become what he was … and in fact has always remained.”
The man in the dark corner pressed his brow against the cool wood. He was not aware that he was smiling. “Hermann of Reichenau? Hermann of Reichenau? I will once again become what I was, and what I have in fact always remained … Hermann of Reichenau. Not Aachen, not Greece, not even Altshausen—Reichenau. Is that true?”
And he wished, with all the unspent strength of his young heart, with a great and pure yearning, that it might indeed be true.
He pushed himself along the corridor, laboriously and cautiously. He scarcely noticed the effort and the pains now.
“Hermann of Reichenau? The lame man, that is who I am, Hermann the Lame.”
He stood still in the middle of the corridor, hanging heavily on the crutches that supported him. “I will become Hermann the Lame. The border has been reached.”
He had long fought against this knowledge, and had expected and demanded more, much more, from the hot sulphurous springs and the healing arts of Master Cheirisophos. Now, he knew that the lameness would remain.
“Am I Hermann of Reichenau?” That was the question that exercised him. “Have I not lost that happiness once and for all? Did I not squander it and cast it aside through my departure for Aachen?” The question became a piercing torment. Only one voice spoke within him to deny that happiness was a thing of the past. But did that voice give an answer to the question?
“I am made for God, and God is love.”
Was it possible that the love of God was giving him the bitter chalice of an unquenchable homesickness for the happiness he had thrown away? The unresolved question numbed his tender spirit and his excessively alert mind. That night, sleep fled from his eyes, which looked unwaveringly into the darkness. The silence solidified into the one question:
“Am I Hermann of Reichenau?”
Lumen Christi
Master Cheirisophos’s brows creased when he look at the sick man. “Why did you not come to the bath this morning?” he asked, blowing into his hands. Coming from the warmth of Greece, he felt the coldness of the wet day in early spring more keenly than the people of Aachen. “I waited for you in vain. And you look terrible, like a ghost!”
Dark rings made the lame man’s eyes seem larger. In the harsh midday light, his gaunt face was pale like a ghost. His lips were bloodless, and his hands trembled more violently than usual. But his voice was calm, firm, and almost cheerful.
“You need never again wait for me at the bath, Master. You know, better than anyone, that no healing is possible. What could be done for me, has been done. As for the rest, I am, and I remain lame.”
Cheirisophos turned pale. He had not expected this so soon, and he wanted to reassure him with promises, but Hermann raised his trembling right hand in a gesture free of all reproach or hostility.
“That will do, Master. Do not talk about healing. It was wonderful to be allowed to hope for a time, and I am not angry with you for giving me too much hope. You did what was humanly possible to soothe my pains and to loosen my narrow fetters, and I am deeply grateful to you for that. Please do not say anything! I bear no grudge against you for withholding the truth from me so long ago. I would probably have been unable to bear it then. That was how things had to be. It was necessary to take that course … a detour …”
The young man’s face revealed his inner cheerfulness. “But there is another reproach that I cannot spare you.”
Another reproach? Was it not his fault that he had made Hermann hope for healing, although only all he could do was to assuage the pain, and that he had spoken of walking, although all that was possible was an agonizing crawling with the help of crutches?
“You have deceived me, Master Theophilos!”
The doctor flinched, as if he had been struck. Theophilos! Why was Hermann using for the first time his half-forgotten baptismal name, his consciously forgotten Christian name? And how had he deceived him, if not by pretending that a healing was possible? He looked uncertainly at the lame man, who met him with the mature, open gaze of an adult. This was no longer the boy who was amenable to persuasion and whom, with some craftiness, he could lead in the right direction.
On the path to his own self, Hermann of Altshausen had taken his fate into his own hands. He had formed his judgment with the clarity of his penetrating understanding. What did he mean now?—The uncertainty made the doctor uncomfortable.
“You were my physician, Master Theophilos, but at the same time, you had my mind and my soul in your power, more than is commonly the case with a physician. I was surrendered to your influence for a long time—handed over to you, defenseless, through my confidence in you, especially since I had to do without my spiritual guide here in Aachen. You never spoke to me about God.”
He spoke dispassionately, but his words were a terrible accusation.
“Am I a priest?” protested Cheirisophos, in a pointless attempt to defend himself.
“No, you are not a priest, Master Theophilos,” said Hermann serenely.—Once again, he used that name! Was it not unbearably hot in the room? The doctor wanted to open the windows, but he remained seated, crouching down, surrendered to the young man’s voice with its inexorable calm.
“But you usurped the rights of a priest. You showed me a new cult of the veneration of new gods … science and art. You showed them to me, detached from the Eternal, as absolute values, and you painted a seemingly intact and shining world without God. Such a picture of the world is a lie and a terrible deception. There is a great risk that a young, inexperienced person who hungers and thirsts for life may be content with this illusory world without God, and may believe in this mirage, for then he will perish miserably in the waterless, barren wilderness of a world without God. A deception, Master, or a dream? The dream of a proud man, of a spirit that succumbed to the temptation of the dark angel, because it refuses to bow down and adore in humility? Non serviam!1 Master Theophilos, tell me one thing: Do you believe in an intact and shining world without God?
“Your silence says everything. But you want to believe in it. You talk yourself into believing in it—this illusory world, this ideal begotten by your pride. You make yourself homeless, because you pursue something that does not really exist. You cheat your life of the one and only meaning and value, and you suffer because of the unfruitful loneliness that you yourself have chosen. You wander around in the pathless desert, because you have despised the path.”
The Greek shook off his torpor. Hermann had seen him as he was, and his words had hit home. Now, he fought back vigorously, without realizing that it was precisely his protest that confirmed the truth of what the lame man had said. He was no longer a friend talking to a friend. His black eyes blazed with hostility as he shouted at the sick man: “And what if that were the case, Count of Altshausen? What business is that of yours? Why should you worry about my interior life? Pray spare yourself this concern about my ‘soul’—and I doubt whether such a ‘soul’ exists. My world is enough for me. I do not need your world, and I do not wish—let me make myself clear—I do not wish you to make me any offer out of an ‘apostolic disposition.’ For all I care, you can love the ropes with which the Church binds you. I love my freedom, the freedom of the one who does not bow down before any god.”
A request, wooing and beseeching, resounded in the final words, but the doctor refused to open the door to it. His face remained shuttered, and his voice was dismissive. He got up and said:
“My Lord Count, we are speaking two different languages. That is a pity! I take it that you no longer need me.”
He bowed slightly and went to the door, without giving the sick man his hand and without even turning round. His departure resembled a flight. Hermann called after him:
“I no longer need you, but I remain your friend.” When the door closed behind the Greek, Hermann knew that one period of his life had ended. Would the next period be in Reichenau, for a second time? Would he be permitted to dwell once again in the place that had nourished him for a decade, and where he was still rooted? He did not have an answer to this question, but he sensed that the problem would soon be resolved. And he yearned for this with all the power and purity of his love.
The breach with Master Cheirisophos was painful. It was not easy for him to detach himself from a teacher who had guided and inspired him for many years. In the ensuing weeks, he had several good conversations with Arnulph of Rahnwyl, but he did not yet dare to take the final step. On several occasions, he spread out a parchment and took the goose quill in his hand. He wanted to write to Abbot Berno and ask for permission to come home. But he did not write. He felt that something essential was missing, and that the time had not yet come to make the request.
“Pray for me, Lady Veronica,” he said on Good Friday before the church service. “Without a special grace of God, I do not know what step to take. I want to do his will, but my eyes are bound at present.”
“You no longer yearn for healing, Hermann?”
“No, Lady Veronica. Now, all I ask for is to know what God wants of me. I have said my ‘yes’ to being different and being set apart.”
She laid her withered hands kindly on his hands. “You will know that, Hermann. And God’s love will sustain you, because you no longer yearn for healing.”
“
Had the Lady Veronica erred in her prediction? The sick man was tired and discontented as he took part in the service. Not one of the words in the apostle John’s narrative of the Passion pierced through to his heart. All he felt was his pains. He was feeble and peevish. The moving account gave him as little as if it had been the story of some completely unknown person. He was profoundly shocked at his coldness and his listless torpor. What had become of the hoping and yearning of the last few weeks, as he struggled and kept watch for the Lord?
An insurmountable wall towered between God and him. He felt nothing and saw nothing. He was sheer powerlessness. And then, a prayer like a cry detached itself from his weakness and the congestion of his spirit. It surged up, out of the depths of his new distress, with all the momentum of his inner turmoil: “Lord, have mercy on me!”
And the wall collapsed. A man, bowed deep in all the wretchedness of human misery, besought the Lord for mercy. His soul descended into the dust before the greatness of God and his own unworthiness and powerlessness.
“Lord, have mercy on me!”
He found no other words for his prayer.
“
Then the choir began to chant the “Reproaches”: Popule meus, quid feci tibi?—“My people, what have I done to you?” … The Savior’s laments rang out, full of pain, through the imperial cathedral in Aachen. The faithful listened, deeply moved, but no one was affected to the same degree as Hermann of Altshausen. There was no longer any wall to protect him from the coming of God …
Christ asked him: “What more ought I to have done for you, but did not do? I planted you as my most beautiful vine. But you have become very bitter to me.”
As if in a vision, Hermann grasped the grace that had been bestowed on his life, the gifts of God to him, the fullness of God’s gifts. If the son of the count of Altshausen had not been lame, would a monastery door ever have opened to him? Even lameness is a gift.
“Lord, you always gave me everything, everything, but I wrangled with you. You gave me Reichenau, and I wanted to get away. I was bitter to you, I rebelled against you, I wanted to forget you, I fled from you. I was bitter to you. Lord, have mercy on me!”
“
And the choir took up the cry for mercy and sang in Greek and Latin: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.”
Then the lament rang out through the church: “In my thirst, you gave me vinegar to drink, and you pierced the side of your Redeemer with the lance …”
And Hermann heard the words of this lament as if the Lord had addressed them to him personally: “Yes, Lord, my complaints and accusations were the vinegar for your thirst—my moods and hardnesses, my narrowness and my touchiness. The lance that pierced your heart was my lack of trust, my lack of faith, my doubt about your love. Lord, have mercy on me!”
The choir sang. But it was Christ who stood before Hermann’s soul, and the words: “Answer me!” were addressed by Christ to him …
Suddenly, the lame man received an insight, incisive in its clarity and stunning in its impetus:
“My suffering, my sickness, is a share in the cross of the Lord.”
No further thought was possible—nothing more, nothing at all. All he could do was to wait in silence, blinded by the new, excessively bright light that brought both pain and joy, shame and consolation … and that was pure grace.
“
He said nothing on the way to the house of the Rahnwyls. He was paler and more introverted than usual. When he arrived, he dismissed the servant, after telling him that he would not go to rest on this Good Friday evening. Walter would have preferred to remain beside him, but his protest died away when he saw the faraway look in the eyes that did not focus on him. Walter lit a candle and tiptoed away.
As soon as the door had closed behind him, the lame man braced himself, and then he reached for his crutches. It was only after repeated attempts that he succeeded in getting up, and the effort brought perspiration to his brow, although he scarcely noticed this. Slowly, he pushed himself forward to the cross. Years ago, he had gazed at this cross, with a piece of yellow cloth in his hands, and he had cried out bitter words of accusation. Could he now kneel down? He took his position before the cross, wobbling and trembling on his crutches. He faced the cross.
God is love. On this Good Friday evening, before the cross, he understood (as far as a human being can be allowed to understand) what the love of God meant. He understood the merciful redemptive love for him, Hermann of Altshausen. And the Lord showed him that his lameness, his torment, his pains, and his separateness, were more than a burden. They were a share in his cross, and thus both a grace and an offer. In that hour, he heard God’s question in his suffering:
“Hermann, son of Wolfrad, do you love me, and are you ready to fetch the world home into the love of the Father through your loving suffering?”
The final ice in his soul burst at that moment. The river flowed freely, with nothing more to hold it back.
“Yes, Lord, yes! I want to love you …”
New life, becoming new in Christ … the last stone had found its place in the mosaic. The picture showed Christ the Lord. Christ was life, all-encompassing life.
“Christ is my life!”
The joy within him threatened to burst the poor shell of the sick body. Hermann raised his trembling hands.
“
On the following morning, Walter found the lame man lying on the cold stone slabs, right under the great cross. He lifted him up with care and bore him to his bed. Hermann opened his eyes with an effort.
“My Lord, are your pains severe?”
The bloodless lips attempted a smile. “Do not worry, good Walter,” he whispered. “The pains will not last, and then we shall go home.” The servant could not decipher the expression on his face. But then, how was he to understand the peace that the world cannot give, and the joy that fills the heart with exultation in the very midst of tribulation? The bodily torments were terrible, but Hermann was happy and felt secure in the joy and the peace of Christ.
The Lady Veronica looked with concern at the waxy paleness of his face. He tried to reassure her, but she sent the servant to fetch Cheirisophos, and waited at the bed of the sick man, who lay motionless, with his eyes closed. The twitching of his lips betrayed the intensity of his pains.
Once he whispered, and she bent down to him. “My lady mother … my lady mother need no longer be sad … Thank you for praying for me.”
She understood then, and knew that he had completely found God and his own special vocation.
Toward evening, Walter brought the Master to the house. He had had to look for him everywhere in the city, and a great deal of persuasion had been required before he was willing to come to the house of the Rahnwyls. “No, your master does not need me,” he had said dismissively. But finally, he had yielded to the inflexible insistence of the faithful servant, and had reluctantly gone with him.
He examined the sick man by the light of many candles. “How could this happen?” he asked in irritation, when he saw the bruises and swellings that disfigured the poor body in many places. In addition, the right ankle was broken.
The only explanation came from the weak voice of the sick man, who breathed: “It had to happen.”
The doctor, who was bandaging him, paused and said, indignantly: “You are speaking in riddles, Count Hermann. But at any rate, you will pay for this ‘had to happen’ with a lengthy and painful spell in bed. Is that not much too high a price?”
“No … much too low a price, Master … Theophilos. Much too low. I … have … found … life, the … final stone … for the mosaic.”
That was why the eyes of the sufferer shone with that unbearable light, so full of joy! The Master felt jealous. A happiness that could triumph over these bodily torments must be enormous. He sensed instinctively that this foreign happiness could be a danger to him.
“Oh, really?” he replied, with hurtful mockery. “And what was the glorious picture that unfolded before your eyes?”
The sick man looked into his dark, troubled eyes without speaking. Finally, his mouth bore witness, although only in a gasping whisper, light as a breath. The Greek was obliged to bend down, and he did so with a haste that he himself found incomprehensible.
“My friend …”
This address both disarmed the doctor and frightened him.
“My friend, I am … happy … secure … rich. Life … Our Lord Jesus Christ … He is … life … my life.”
The Greek looked at the lame man, appalled. He had given his testimony with joy, in a state of utter weakness. But did that mean that this testimony was true? Did not Hermann of Altshausen have a marvelous freedom? His spirit had won the victory over his poor body. The lame limbs bore narrow fetters, but his spirit rose up in freedom over distress and pain, over weakness and failure.
Cheirisophos felt that his mockery was turning into reverence, into reverence before the unique meaning that Hermann’s existence possessed. He stood before the bed for a long time, strangely puzzled and disturbed. Finally, he murmured: “I cannot understand you, Hermann. But I am happy for you, that you have found a home.”
The sufferer opened his eyelids, which the pain had forced him to close, and smiled.
“Home … yes, home … mine and … yours, my friend. You do not … understand me … not yet. I … know. But I will pursue … you, I will not … give you up. Until you open … want to be … only a bowl … a bowl … for the oil … from the jug … He is light … he gives … you light. You are … made for … God. That … that … is your happiness … too. Happiness … does exist … Christ … your freedom … your home …Theophilos.”
The doctor bowed in silence before the pale face that shone from within, before the joy and bliss that he could not comprehend. He took the trembling right hand that groped weakly for his hand, but he was unable to say anything. What could he still give this Hermann of Altshausen? The lame man was the victor now. Should Cheirisophos, the defeated man, allow the victor to give him something? He was unsure whether he wanted to receive any gift.
Walter brought him to the door of the house. “Will the master live?” he asked anxiously.
“Your master will live. He is just now beginning to live, Walter,” replied the Greek, and went out into the night.
Master Theophilos Cheirisophos went out into the darkness of the Easter night that was descending upon the imperial city of Aachen, a night of deep, dark velvet without stars. He walked through the night.
Soon, a light would brighten this night. “Lumen Christi.” And the deacon would proclaim in the “Exsultet” the praise of this truly holy night, the night in which death was compelled to give way before life; the night in which the victorious light of Christ triumphed over the darkness.
“Lumen Christi!”—“Deo gratias!”2
Master Theophilos Cheirisophos walked through the night.
1. [“I will not serve!”]
2. [“The light of Christ!”—“Thanks be to God!”]