This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
The ropedancer, Kuni, really had been with the sick mother and her babes,and had toiled for them with the utmost diligence.
The unfortunate woman was in great distress.
The man who had promised to take her in his cart to her native village ofSchweinfurt barely supported himself and his family by the tricks of histrained poodles. He made them perform their very best feats in thetaverns, under the village lindens, and at the fairs. But the childrenwho gazed at the four-footed artists, though they never failed to givehearty applause, frequently paid in no other coin. He would gladly havehelped the unfortunate woman, but to maintain the wretched mother and hertwins imposed too heavy a burden upon the kind-hearted vagabond, and hehad withdrawn his aid.
Then the ropedancer met her. True, she herself was in danger of beingleft lying by the wayside; but she was alone, and the mother had herchildren. These were two budding hopes, while she had nothing more toexpect save the end—the sooner the better. There could be no newhappiness for her.
And yet, to have found some one who was even more needy than she, liftedher out of herself, and to have power to be and do something in herbehalf pleased her, nay, even roused an emotion akin to that which, inbetter days, she had felt over a piece of good fortune which othersenvied. Perhaps she herself might be destined to die on the highway,without consolation, the very next day; but she could save this unhappywoman from it, and render her end easier. Oh, how rich Lienhard's goldcoins made her! Yet if, instead of three, there had been as many dozens,she would have placed the larger portion in the twins' pillows. How itmust soothe their mother's heart! Each one was a defence against hungerand want. Besides, the gold had been fairly burning her hand. It camefrom Lienhard. Had it not been for Cyriax and the crowd of people in theroom, she would have made him take it back—she alone knew why.
How did this happen?
Why did every fibre of her being rebel against receiving even thesmallest trifle from the man to whom she would gladly have given thewhole world? Why, after she had summoned up courage and approachedLienhard to restore his gift, had she felt such keen resentment andbitter suffering when the landlord of The Blue Pike stopped her?
As she now seized his gold, it seemed as though she saw Lienhard beforeher. She had already told Cyriax how she met the aristocratic Nurembergpatrician, a member of the ancient and noble Groland family, whom hisnative city had now made an ambassador so young. But what secretly boundher to him had never passed her lips.
Once in her life she had felt something which placed her upon an equalfooting with the best and purest of her sex—a great love for one fromwhom she asked nothing, nothing at all, save to be permitted to think ofhim and to sacrifice everything, everything for him—even life. Sostrange had been the course of this love, that people would have doubtedher sanity or her truthfulness had she described it to them.
While standing before St. Sebald's church in Nuremberg, the vision of theyoung Councillor's bride at first made a far stronger impress