paul flemming resumed his solitary journey. the morning was still misty, but not cold. across the rhine the sun came wading through the reddish vapors; and soft and silver-white outspread the broad river, without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving current. a little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at anchor, keel to keel with another, that lay right under it, its own apparition,--and all was silent, and calm, and beautiful.
the road was for the most part solitary; for there are few travellers upon the rhine in winter. peasant women were at work in the vineyards; climbing up the slippery hill-sides, like beasts of burden, with large baskets of manureupon their backs. and once during the morning, a band of apprentices, with knapsacks, passed by, singing, "the rhine! the rhine! a blessing on the rhine!"
o, the pride of the german heart in this noble river! and right it is; for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as this. there is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy alps to its grave in the sands of holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. by heavens! if i were a german i would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes, that hang about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards, in a triumphal march, like bacchus, crowned and drunken.
but i will not attempt to describe the rhine; it would make this chapter much too long. and to do it well, one should write like a god; and his style flow onward royally with breaks and dashes, like the waters of that royal river, and antique, quaint, and gothic times, be reflected in it. alas! this evening my style flows not at all. flow, then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of the rhine! out of thy prison-house,--out of thy long-necked, tapering flask, in shape not unlike a church-spire among thy native hills; and, from the crystal belfry, loud ring the merry tinkling bells, while i drink a health to my hero, in whose heart is sadness, and in whose ears the bells of andernach are ringing noon.
he is threading his way alone through a narrow alley, and now up a flight of stone steps, and along the city wall, towards that old round tower, built by the archbishop frederick of cologne in the twelfth century. it has a romantic interest in his eyes; for he has still in his mind and heart that beautiful sketch of carové, in which is described a day on the tower of andernach. he finds the old keeper and his wife still there; and the old keeper closes the door behind him slowly, as of old, lest he should jam too hard the poor souls in purgatory, whose fate it is to suffer in the cracks of doors and hinges. but alas! alas! the daughter, the maiden with long, dark eyelashes! she is asleep in her little grave, under the linden trees of feldkirche, with rosemary in her folded hands!
flemming returned to the hotel disappointed. as he passed along the narrow streets, he was dreaming of many things; but mostly of the keeper's daughter, asleep in the churchyard of feldkirche. suddenly, on turning the corner of an ancient, gloomy church, his attention was arrested by a little chapel in an angle of the wall. it was only a small thatched roof, like a bird's nest; under which stood a rude wooden image of the saviour on the cross. a real crown of thorns was upon his head, which was bowed downward, as if in the death agony; and drops of blood were falling down his cheeks, and from his hands and feet and side. the face was haggard and ghastly beyond all expression; and wore a look of unutterable bodily anguish. the rude sculptor had given it this, but his art could go no farther. the sublimity of death in a dying saviour, the expiring god-likeness of jesus of nazareth was not there. the artist had caught no heavenly inspiration from his theme. all was coarse, harsh, and revolting to a sensitive mind; and flemming turned away with a shudder, as he saw this fearful image gazing at him, with its fixed and half-shut eyes.
he soon reached the hotel, but that face of agony still haunted him. he could not refrain from speaking of it to a very old woman, who sat knitting by the window of the dining-room, in a high-backed, old-fashioned arm-chair. i believe she was the innkeeper's grandmother. at all events she was old enough to be so. she took off her owl-eyed spectacles, and, as she wiped the glasses with her handkerchief, said;
"thou dear heaven! is it possible! did you never hear of the christ of andernach?"
flemming answered in the negative.
"thou dear heaven!" continued the old woman. "it is a very wonderful story; and a true one, as every good christian in andernach will tell you. and it all happened before the deathof my blessed man, four years ago, let me see,--yes, four years ago, come christmas."
here the old woman stopped speaking, but went on with her knitting. other thoughts seemed to occupy her mind. she was thinking, no doubt, of her blessed man, as german widows call their dead husbands. but flemming having expressed an ardent wish to hear the wonderful story, she told it, in nearly the following words.
"there was once a poor old woman in andernach whose name was frau martha, and she lived all alone in a house by herself, and loved all the saints and the blessed virgin, and was as good as an angel, and sold pies down by the rheinkrahn. but her house was very old, and the roof-tiles were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones, and the rain kept coming in, and no christian soul in andernach would help her. but the frau martha was a good woman, and never did anybody any harm, but went to mass every morning, and sold pies by the rheinkrahn. now one dark, windy night, when all the good christians in andernachwere abed and asleep in the feathers, frau martha, who slept under the roof, heard a great noise over her head, and in her chamber, drip! drip! drip! as if the rain were dropping down through the broken tiles. dear soul! and sure enough it was. and then there was a pounding and hammering overhead, as if somebody were at work on the roof; and she thought it was pelz-nickel tearing the tiles off, because she had not been to confession often enough. so she began to pray; and the faster she said her pater-noster and her ave-maria, the faster pelz-nickel pounded and pulled; and drip! drip! drip! it went all round her in the dark chamber, till the poor woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to the window to call for help. then in a moment all was still,--death-still. but she saw a light streaming through the mist and rain, and a great shadow on the house opposite. and then somebody came down from the top of her house by a ladder, and had a lantern in his hand; and he took the ladder on his shoulder and went down thestreet. but she could not see clearly, because the window was streaked with rain. and in the morning the old broken tiles were found scattered about the street, and there were new ones on the roof, and the old house has never leaked to this blessed day.
"as soon as mass was over frau martha told the priest what had happened, and he said it was not pelz-nickel, but, without doubt, st. castor or st. florian. then she went to the market and told frau bridget all about it; and frau bridget said, that, two nights before, hans claus, the cooper, had heard a great pounding in his shop, and in the morning found new hoops on all his old hogsheads; and that a man with a lantern and a ladder had been seen riding out of town at midnight on a donkey, and that the same night the old windmill, at kloster st. thomas, had been mended up, and the old gate of the churchyard at feldkirche made as good as new, though nobody knew how the man got across the river. then frau martha went down to the rheinkrahn and told all thesestories over again; and the old ferryman of fahr said he could tell something about it; for, the very night that the churchyard-gate was mended, he was lying awake in his bed, because he could not sleep, and he heard a loud knocking at the door, and somebody calling to him to get up and set him over the river. and when he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a lantern and a ladder; but as he was going down to him, the man blew out the light, and it was so dark he could not see who he was; and his boat was old and leaky, and he was afraid to set him over in the dark; but the man said he must be in andernach that night; and so he set him over. and after they had crossed the river, he watched the man, till he came to an image of the holy virgin, and saw him put the ladder against the wall, and go up and light his lamp, and then walk along the street. and in the morning he found his old boat all caulked, and tight, and painted red, and he could not for his blessed life tell who did it, unless it werethe man with the lantern. dear soul! how strange it was!
"and so it went on for some time; and, whenever the man with the lantern had been seen walking through the street at night, so sure as the morning came, some work had been done for the sake of some good soul; and everybody knew he did it; and yet nobody could find out who he was, nor where he lived;--for, whenever they came near him, he blew out his light, and turned down another street, and, if they followed him, he suddenly disappeared, nobody could tell how. and some said it was rübezahl; and some, pelz-nickel; and some, st. anthony-on-the-health.
"now one stormy night a poor, sinful creature was wandering about the streets, with her babe in her arms, and she was hungry, and cold, and no soul in andernach would take her in. and when she came to the church, where the great crucifix stands, she saw no light in the little chapel at the corner; but she sat down on a stone at the foot of the cross and began to pray, and prayed, till she fell asleep, with her poor little babe on her bosom. but she did not sleep long; for a bright light shone full in her face; and, when she opened her eyes, she saw a pale man, with a lantern, standing right before her. he was almost naked; and there was blood upon his hands and body, and great tears in his beautiful eyes, and his face was like the face of the saviour on the cross. not a single word did he say to the poor woman; but looked at her compassionately, and gave her a loaf of bread, and took the little babe in his arms, and kissed it. then the mother looked up to the great crucifix, but there was no image there; and she shrieked and fell down as if she were dead. and there she was found with her child; and a few days after they both died, and were buried together in one grave. and nobody would have believed her story, if a woman, who lived at the corner, had not gone to the window, when she heard the scream, and seen the figure hang the lantern up in its place, and then set the ladder against the wall, and go up and nailitself to the cross. since that night it has never moved again. ach! herr je!"
such was the legend of the christ of andernach, as the old woman in spectacles told it to flemming. it made a painful impression on his sick and morbid soul; and he felt now for the first time in full force, how great is the power of popular superstition.
the post-chaise was now at the door, and flemming was soon on the road to coblentz, a city which stands upon the rhine, at the mouth of the mosel, opposite ehrenbreitstein. it is by no means a long drive from andernach to coblentz; and the only incident which occurred to enliven the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced man on horseback, trotting slowly towards andernach. as they met, the mad little postilion gave him a friendly cut with his whip, and broke out into an exclamation, which showed he was from münster;
"jesmariosp! my friend! how is the man in the custom-house?"
now to any candid mind this would seem a fair question enough; but not so thought the red-faced man on horseback; for he waxed exceedingly angry, and replied, as the chaise whirled by;
"the devil take you, and your westphalian ham, and pumpernickel!"
flemming called to his servant, and the servant to the postilion, for an explanation of this short dialogue; and the explanation was, that on the belfry of the kaufhaus in coblentz, is a huge head, with a brazen helmet and a beard; and whenever the clock strikes, at each stroke of the hammer, this giant's head opens its great jaws and smites its teeth together, as if, like the brazen head of friar bacon, it would say; "time was; time is; time is past." this figure is known through all the country round about, as "the man in the custom-house"; and, when a friend in the country meets a friend from coblentz, instead of saying, "how are all the good people in coblentz?"--he says, "how is the man in the custom-house?" thus the giant has a great partto play in the town; and thus ended the first day of flemming's rhine-journey; and the only good deed he had done was to give an alms to a poor beggar woman, who lifted up her trembling hands and exclaimed;
"thou blessed babe!"
