Prologue
That all these things happened was the fault of the venerable Abbé Gottlieb, prior of the Augustine convent at Freiburg im Brisgau in 13 or thereabouts.
He was a saintly man, but he was old—very old—gentle and timid, almost child-like, half deaf and three-quarters blind.
One day, he received a visit from a young rogue of a student who claimed that he had enough of deceptive science and the errors of society, and wanted to become a monk, in order no longer to occupy himself with anything but the salvation of his soul, by means of meditation and prayer.
“Accept me as a novice in your convent, Father,” he groaned, in a cavernous, hypocritically tearful voice. “I have many since to expiate. It’s only here, in the refuge of the Augustine convent, sanctified by your virtues, sheltered from all temptations, that I can dream of cleansing my soul appropriately—with the aid of your advice and your examples, Father.”
Alas, the venerable abbé did not see, in the physiognomy of the rogue, a certain truly disquieting sarcastic smile, nor his green eyes, nor, on his forehead, two black patches underlining two protuberances that resembled flattened horns.
He did not see anything! He consented to receive the novice Schwartz, and everything was settled. The old world had ended and a new world began.4
At any rate, as soon as the novice Schwartz was introduced, the existence of the convent seemed singularly troubled. The Augustine monks, so meek and so pious, who provided the edification of the town, as they did in all the Germans’ burgraviats, margraviats, duchies and grand duchies, suddenly became anxious, nervous, susceptible and quick to disputation. The Augustine’s beautiful chapel no longer saw a full attendance every day at all the offices. The idle monks only arrived one at a time, slowly. Often, they even left Father Gottlieb all alone in the chapel, in his abbatial pulpit, and the latter was frequently obliged to ring the bell for matins himself.
The cloister where the monks had once strolled two by two, gravely, talking about edifying matters, resounded with arguments and vociferations, when it was not with laughter and songs.
Only the monk Schwartz consoled the poor prior somewhat; in him alone was piety and austerity still manifest, and all the virtues by which the good Augustines of Freiburg had once been distinguished. In chapel, when the other monks were asleep on their benches, his was the voice that was heard accompanying the quavering of the old abbé: a strange, resounding voice, with rumblings and rollings like an organ, and sudden boomings that made the windows shake.
At the sound of that voice the sleeping monks woke up, to quarrel more bitterly. Schwartz sniggered, the old abbé wept, and the convent became a veritable Hell.
What is more, that rage of disputes spread outside the walls of the convent, in starts and surges, when Schwartz’s voice, singing in the chapel, burst forth with bellowings that made the whose edifice vibrate and caused the steeple to oscillate. Domestic troubles, squabbles between burgers and the lower classes, brawls and scuffles over everything—the entire town and the surrounding areas went crazy, in a perpetual fury of fighting, and the duke, who was ruining himself with armor and arbalests, marched back and forth over his lands, showing his teeth and seeking a quarrel with his neighbors.
At the convent, the monk Schwartz deployed a prodigious activity. He seemed to be everywhere at once, circulating in the corridors and the cloister, always sniggering, with a kind of grating sound that made the two points of his long red beard stick out; and he sang in the chapel, where his mere appearance caused something akin to a shiver of fear to pass through the old colonnettes, and something like the pulse of a tocsin through the bell-tower.
He received numerous visits, from lords with nobly rebarbative faces, messengers with shady expressions and students of famished appearance, and he spent long hours of the day and night in his cell, occupied with mysterious labors.
Brother Schwartz’s cell made the other monks anxious; they ran away from it in terror. Sulfurous vapors and nauseating fumes escaped from it continually, and sometimes even flashes like lightning and long rapid flames—not to mention the muffled growls that had caused the monks to flee from the neighboring cells.
Inside, it was a genuine den of alchemy. There was no crucifix or holy images on the walls, but retorts and flasks of all kinds, furnaces, basins, mortars, bottles, incomprehensible documents nailed to the wall, old books and dog-eared parchments.
And Schwartz worked, pulverized, crushed and kneaded, always stirring, scuttling and sniggering...
The visits multiplied. Did not a day arrive when the Duke himself arrived at the convent, with three or four individuals who had their faces buried up to the nose in their cloaks?
Thicker smoke spread from the monk Schwartz’s cell, swirling around the galleries and the cloister.
Schwartz’s face became more and more disquieting; his eyes launched fulgurations, his beard danced and writhed as hoarse and creaky sniggers passed through this throat.
Finally, there was massive popular excitement one day in the vicinity of the convent, and an upheaval in the Augustines’ abode.
Here comes the Grand Duke again, with a numerous retinue, with mounted lords, leaders of troops and captains decked in shiny armor. They have been summoned by the monk Schwartz for a final experiment.
The monks are convinced the Brother Schwartz has found the means, at the peril of his soul, to manufacture gold, and has offered the secret to the Duke, in exchange for honors, in addition to some solid fief.
The noble lords crowd behind the prince in the corridors of the convent, while the latter is content to stick his head around the door of the laboratory cell in order to cast a suspicious glance around it.
A strange sight, that cell and the things inside! That big barrel, carefully covered, must be full of the product of the monk’s industry, and the smaller casks glimpsed to either side in the smoke. The monk has obviously not been lying to them. It is the triumph!
Brother Schwartz sniggers and rubs his hands. Yes, it is the triumph—you shall see, noble lords!
He whispers for a long time into the ear of the Duke, whose eyes grow wide and sparkle with satisfaction. He gives each of the lords a piece of parchment on which he has scrawled his formula, along with a cask full of a specimen, which he engages them to take home immediately and put it in a safe place.
Brother Schwartz is still sniggering and taking long strides around his cell and the corridor; at every step the gangling monk seems to expand and get taller; phosphorescent gleams pass through his eyes. In front of him the proud burgraves and mercenary leaders feel little frissons running through their bones.
The monk asks them to step away. He is going to carry out one last experiment; they will see well enough from the far side of the garden.
Now they are huddled, slightly anxiously, under the abbé’s trees, noses in the air, looking toward the gallery to which the cells open.
They do not have to wait long...
Suddenly, there are sinister rumblings, jets of flame, a frightful suffocating odor…and then a mighty explosion resounds, which throws them all to the ground, terrified. A tongue of flame roses up, dancing, into the sky, as high as the steeple of the chapel, which oscillates and leans over, and beneath the flame, whirlwinds of bitter smoke spurt forth...
Half of the convent is lying on the ground, thick walls broken, arches smashed, with a quantity of poor monks crushed and crippled.
Of the monk Schwartz not the slightest trace, not the most wretched morsel, was found. Some people, who had good eyes, claimed to have clearly distinguished him in mid-air, in the fiery tongues of the explosion, capering madly, immeasurably grown and still sniggering, with enormous horns on his forehead and a long tail.
The Duke, the noble lords and the captains, undamaged, merely frightened, ran away swiftly to their homes, in order to put away the casks of the specimen offered by Schwartz in safe places, along with the formula for renewing the provision at will.
A marvelous gift, more precious than potable gold! It is soon perceived in the world that Schwartz’s discovery has not fallen into the hands of negligent idlers.
And that is only a beginning, that coarse little powder, simple and easy to use—exactly what was needed, in times of obscurity, for rude and primitive men habituated, most of all, to striking hard in battles. Meek searchers and excellent chemists would subsequently improve it greatly!