Translations from the German · Thomas Carlyle
MELECHSALA.
When Count Ernst, on this side the Alps, again inhaled his native air, and felt it come soft and kindly round his heart, he mounted his steed; galloped forward, attended only by the heavy Groom, and left the Princess, under the escort of the mettled Kurt, to follow him by easy journeys. His heart beat high within him, when he saw in azure distance the three towers of Gleichen. He meant to take his gentle Countess by surprise; but the news of his approach had preceded him, as on the wings of the wind; she went forth with man and maid, and met her husband a furlong from the Castle, in a pleasant green, which, in memory of this event, is called the Freudenthal, or Valley of Joy, to this day. The meeting on both sides was as trustful and tender, as if no partition treaty had ever been thought of: for Countess Ottilia was a proper pattern of the pious wife, that obeys without commentary the marriage precept of subjecting her will to the will of her husband. If at times there did arise some small sedition in her heart, she did not on the instant ring the alarm-bell; but she shut door and window, that no mortal eye might look in and see what passed; and then summoned the rebel Passion to the bar of Reason; gave it over in custody to Prudence, and imposed on herself a voluntary penance.
She could not pardon her heart for having murmured at the rival sun that was to shine beside her on the matrimonial horizon; and to expiate the offence, she had secretly commissioned a triple bedstead, with stout fir posts, painted green, the colour of Hope; and a round vaulted tester, in the form of a dome, adorned with winged puffy-cheeked heads of angels. On the silken coverlet, which lay for show over the downy quilts, was exhibited in fine embroidery, the Angel Raphael, as he had appeared to her in vision, beside the Count in pilgrim weeds. This speaking proof of her ready matrimonial complaisance affected her husband to the soul. He clasped her to his breast, and overpowered her with kisses, at the sight of this arrangement for the completion of his wedded joys. "Glorious wife!" cried he with rapture, "this temple of love exalts thee above thousands of thy sex; as an honourable memorial, it will transmit thy name to future ages; and while a splinter of this wood remains, husbands will recount to their wives thy exemplary conduct."
In a few days afterwards, the Princess also arrived in safety, and was received by the Count in full gala. Ottilia came to meet her with open arms and heart, and conducted her into the Palace, as the partner in all its privileges. The double bridegroom then set out to Erfurt, for the Bishop to perform the marriage ceremony. This pious prelate was extremely shocked at the proposal, and signified, that in his diocese no such scandal could be tolerated. But, on Count Ernst's bringing out the papal dispensation, signed and sealed in due form, it acted as a lock on his Reverence's lips; though his doubting looks, and shaking of the head, still indicated that the Steersman of the bark of the universal Church had bored a hole in the keel, which bade fair to swamp the vessel, and send it to the bottom of the sea. The nuptials were celebrated with becoming pomp and splendour; Countess Ottilia, who acted as mistress of the ceremonies, had invited widely; and the counts and knights, over all Thuringia, far and wide, came crowding to assist at this unusual wedding. Before the Count led his bride to the altar, she opened her jewel-box, and consigned to him all its treasures that remained from the expenses of the dispensation, as a dowry; in return for which, he conferred on her the lands of Ehrenstein, by way of jointure. The chaste myrtle twined itself about the golden crown, which latter ornament the Sultan's daughter, as a testimony of her high birth, retained through life; and was, in consequence, invariably named the Queen by her subjects, and by her domestics reverenced and treated like a queen.
If any of my readers ever purchased for himself, for fifty guineas, the costly pleasure of resting a night in Doctor Graham's _Celestial Bed_ at London, he may form some slender conception of the Count's delight, when the triple bed at Gleichen opened its elastic bosom to receive the twice-betrothed, with both his spouses. Seven days long the nuptial festivities continued; and the Count declared himself richly compensated by them for the seven dreary years which he had been obliged to spend in the Grated Tower at Grand Cairo. Nor would this appear to have been an empty compliment on his part to his two faithful wives, if the experimental apophthegm is just, that a single day of gladness sweetens into oblivion the bitter dole and sorrow of a troublous year.
Next to the Count, there was none who relished this exhilarating period better than his trusty Squire, the mettled Kurt, who, in the well-stored kitchen and cellar, found the elements of royal cheer, and stoutly emptied the cup of joy which circulated fast among the servants; while the full table pricked up their ears as he opened his lips, his inner man once satisfied with good things, and began to recount them his adventures. But when the Gleichic economy returned to its customary frugal routine, he requested permission to set out for Ordruff, to visit his kind wife, and overwhelm her with joy at his unexpected return. During his long absence, he had constantly maintained a rigorous fidelity, and he now longed for the just reward of so exemplary a walk and conversation. Fancy painted to his mind's eye the image of his virtuous Rebecca in the liveliest colours; and the nearer he approached the walls which enclosed her, the brighter grew these hues. He saw her stand before him in the charms which had delighted him on his wedding-day; he saw how excess of joy at his happy arrival would overpower her spirits, and she would sink in speechless rapture into his arms.
Encircled with this fair retinue of dreams, he arrived at the gate of his native town, without observing it, till the watchful guardian of public tranquillity let down his beam in front of him, and questioned the stranger, Who he was, what business had brought him to the town, and whether his intentions were peaceable or not? The mettled Kurt gave ready answer; and now rode along the streets at a soft pace, lest his horse's tramp might too soon betray the secret of his coming. He fastened his beast to the door-ring, and stole, without noise, into the court of his dwelling, where the old chained house-dog first received him with joyful bark. Yet he wondered somewhat at the sight of two lively chub-faced children, like the Angels in the Gleichen bed-tester, frisking to and fro upon the area. He had no time to speculate on the phenomenon, for the mistress of the house, in her carefulness, stept out of doors to see who was there. Alas, what a difference between ideal and original! The tooth of Time had, in these seven years, been mercilessly busy with her charms; yet the leading features of her physiognomy had been in so far spared, that to the eye of the critic she was still recognisable, like the primary stamp of a worn coin. Joy at meeting somewhat veiled this want of beauty from the mettled Kurt, and the thought that sorrow for his absence had so furrowed the smooth face of his consort put him into a sentimental mood; he embraced her with great cordiality, and said: "Welcome, dear wife of my heart! Forget all thy sorrow. See, I am still alive; thou hast got me back!"
The pious Rebecca answered this piece of tenderness by a heavy thwack on the short ribs, which thwack made the mettled Kurt stagger to the wall; then raised loud shrieks, and shouted to her servants for help against violence, and scolded and stormed like an Infernal Fury. The loving husband excused this unloving reception, on the score of his virtuous spouse's delicacy, which his bold kiss of welcome had offended, she not knowing who he was; and tore his lungs with bawling to undo this error; but his preaching was to deaf ears, and he soon found that there was no misunderstanding in the case. "Thou shameless varlet," cried she, in shrieking treble, "after wandering seven long years up and down the world, following thy wicked courses with other women, dost thou think that I will take thee back to my chaste bed? Off with thee! Did not I publicly cite thee at three church-doors, and wert not thou, for thy contumacious non-appearance, declared to be dead as mutton? Did not the High Court authorise me to put aside my widow's chair, and marry Buergermeister Wipprecht? Have not we lived six years as man and wife, and received these children as a blessing of our wedlock? And now comes the Marpeace to perplex my house! Off with thee! Pack, I say, this instant, or the Amtmann shall crop thy ears, and put thee in the pillory, to teach such vagabonds, that run and leave their poor tender wives." This welcome from his once-loved helpmate was a sword's-thrust through the heart of the mettled Kurt; but the gall poured itself as a defence into his blood.
"O thou faithless strumpet!" answered he; "what holds me that I do not take thee and thy bastards, and wring your necks this moment? Dost thou recollect thy promise, and the oath thou hast so often sworn in the trustful marriage-bed, that death itself should not part thee from me? Didst thou not engage, unasked, that should thy soul fly up directly from thy mouth to Heaven, and I were roasting in Purgatory, thou wouldst turn again from Heaven's gate, and come down to me, to fan cool air upon me till I were delivered from the flames? Devil broil thy false tongue, thou gallows carrion!" Though the Prima Donna of Ordruff was endowed with a glib organ, which, in the faculty of cursing, yielded no whit to that of the tumultuous pretender, she did not judge it good to enter into farther debate with him, but gave her menials an expressive sign; and, in an instant, man and maid seized hold of the mettled Kurt, and _brevi manu_ ejected his body from the house; in which act of domestic jurisdiction Dame Rebecca herself bore a hand with the besom, and so swept away this discarded helpmate from the premises. The mettled Kurt, half-broken on the wheel, then mounted his horse, and dashed full gallop down the street, which he had rode along so gingerly some minutes before.
As his blood, when he was on the road home, began to cool, he counted loss and gain, and found himself not ill contented with the balance; for he found, that except the comfort of having cool air fanned upon his soul in Purgatory after death, his smart amounted to nothing. He never more returned to Ordruff, but continued with the Count at Gleichen all his life, and was an eye-witness of the most incredible occurrence, that two ladies shared the love of one man without quarrelling or jealousy, and this even under one bed-tester! The fair Angelica continued childless, yet she loved and watched over her associate's children as if they had been her own, and divided with Ottilia the care of their education. In the trefoil of this happy marriage, she was the first leaf which faded away in the autumn of life. Countess Ottilia soon followed her; and the afflicted widower, now all too lonely in his large castle and wide bed, lingered but a few months longer. The firmly-established arrangement of these noble spouses in the marriage-bed through life, was maintained unaltered after their death. They rest all three in one grave, in front of the Gleichen Altar, in St. Peter's Church at Erfurt, on the Hill; where their place of sepulture is still to be seen, overlaid with a stone, on which the noble group are sculptured after the life. To the right lies the Countess Ottilia, with a mirror in her hand, the emblem of her praiseworthy prudence; on the left Angelica, adorned with a royal crown; and in the midst, the Count reposing on his coat-of-arms, the lion-leopard.[27] Their famous triple bedstead is still preserved as a relic in the old Castle; it stands in the room called the Junkernkammer, or Knight's Chamber; and a splinter of it, worn by way of busk in a lady's bodice, is said to have the virtue of dispelling every movement of jealousy from her heart. [27] A plate of this tombstone may be seen in Falkenstein's _Analecta Nordgaviensia_.--M.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.