George Meredith
Farina
THE ENTRY INTO COLOGNE
Seven days Kaiser Heinrich remained camped outside Cologne. Six times in six successive days the Kaiser attempted to enter the city, and was foiled.
'Beard of Barbarossa!' said the Kaiser, 'this is the first stronghold that ever resisted me.'
The warrior bishops, electors, pfalzgrafs, and knights of the Empire, all swore it was no shame not to be a match for the Demon.
'If,' said the reflective Kaiser, 'we are to suffer below what poor Cologne is doomed to undergo now, let us, by all that is savoury, reform and do penance.'
The wind just then setting on them dead from Cologne made the courtiers serious. Many thought of their souls for the first time.
This is recorded to the honour of Monk Gregory.
On the seventh morning, the Kaiser announced his determination to make a last trial.
It was dawn, and a youth stood before the Kaiser's tent, praying an audience.
Conducted into the presence of the Kaiser, the youth, they say, succeeded in arousing him from his depression, for, brave as he was, Kaiser Heinrich dreaded the issue. Forthwith order was given for the cavalcade to set out according to the rescript, Kaiser Heinrich retaining the youth at his right hand. But the youth had found occasion to visit Gottlieb and Margarita, each of whom he furnished with a flash,[flask ?] curiously shaped, and charged with a distillation.
As the head of the procession reached the gates of Cologne, symptoms of wavering were manifest.
Kaiser Heinrich commanded an advance, at all cost.
Pfalzgraf Nase, as the old chronicles call him in their humour, but assuredly a great noble, led the van, and pushed across the draw-bridge.
Hesitation and signs of horror were manifest in the assemblage round the
Kaiser's person. The Kaiser and the youth at his right hand were cheery.
Not a whit drooped they! Several of the heroic knights begged the
Kaiser's permission to fall back.
'Follow Pfalzgraf Nase!' the Kaiser is reported to have said.
Great was the wonderment of the people of Cologne to behold Kaiser
Heinrich riding in perfect stateliness up the main street toward the
Cathedral, while right and left of him bishops and electors were dropping
incapable.
The Kaiser advanced till by his side the youth rode sole.
'Thy name?' said the Kaiser.
He answered: 'A poor youth, unconquerable Kaiser! Farina I am called.'
'Thy recompense?' said the Kaiser.
He answered: 'The hand of a maiden of Cologne, most gracious Kaiser and master!'
'She is thine!' said the Kaiser.
Kaiser Heinrich looked behind him, and among a host grasping the pommels of their saddles, and reeling vanquished, were but two erect, a maiden and an old man.
'That is she, unconquerable Kaiser!' Farina continued, bowing low.
'It shall be arranged on the spot,' said the Kaiser.
A word from Kaiser Heinrich sealed Gottlieb's compliance.
Said he: 'Gracious Kaiser and master! though such a youth could of himself never have aspired to the possession of a Groschen, yet when the Kaiser pleads for him, objection is as the rock of Moses, and streams consent. Truly he has done Cologne good service, and if Margarita, my daughter, can be persuaded—'
The Kaiser addressed her with his blazing brows.
Margarita blushed a ready autumn of rosy-ripe acquiescence.
'A marriage registered yonder!' said the Kaiser, pointing upward.
'I am thine, murmured Margarita, as Farina drew near her.
'Seal it! seal it!' quoth the Kaiser, in hearty good humour; 'take no consent from man or maid without a seal.'
Farina tossed the contents of a flask in air, and saluted his beloved on the lips.
This scene took place near the charred round of earth where the Foulest descended to his kingdom below.
Men now pervaded Cologne with flasks, purifying the atmosphere. It became possible to breathe freely.
'We Germans,' said Kaiser Heinrich, when he was again surrounded by his courtiers, 'may go wrong if we always follow Pfalzgraf Nase; but this time we have been well led.' Whereat there was obsequious laughter.
The Pfalzgraf pleaded a susceptible nostril.
'Thou art, I fear, but a timid mortal,' said the Kaiser.
'Never have I been found so on the German Field, Imperial Majesty!' returned the Pfalzgraf. 'I take glory to myself that this Nether reek overcomes me.'
'Even that we must combat, you see!' exclaimed Kaiser Heinrich; 'but come all to a marriage this night, and take brides as soon as you will, all of you. Increase, and give us loyal subjects in plenty. I count prosperity by the number of marriages in my empire!'
The White Rose Club were invited by Gottlieb to the wedding, and took it in vast wrath until they saw the, Kaiser, and such excellent stout German fare present, when immediately a battle raged as to who should do the event most honour, and was in dispute till dawn: Dietrich Schill being the man, he having consumed wurst the length of his arm, and wine sufficient to have floated a St. Goar salmon; which was long proudly chronicled in his family, and is now unearthed from among the ancient honourable records of Cologne.
The Goshawk was Farina's bridesman, and a very spiriting bridesman was he! Aunt Lisbeth sat in a corner, faintly smiling.
'Child!' said the little lady to Margarita when they kissed at parting, 'your courage amazes me. Do you think? Do you know? Poor, sweet bird, delivered over hand and foot!'
'I love him! I love him, aunty! that's all I know,' said Margarita: 'love, love, love him!'
'Heaven help you!' ejaculated Aunt Lisbeth.
'Pray with me,' said Margarita.
The two knelt at the foot of the bride-bed, and prayed very different prayers, but to the same end. That done, Aunt Lisbeth helped undress the White Rose, and trembled, and told a sad nuptial anecdote of the Castle, and put her little shrivelled hand on Margarita's heart, and shrieked.
'Child! it gallops!' she cried.
''Tis happiness,' said Margarita, standing in her hair.
'May it last only!' exclaimed Aunt Lisbeth.
'It will, aunty! I am humble: I am true'; and the fair girl gathered the frill of her nightgown.
'Look not in the glass,' said Lisbeth; 'not to-night! Look, if you can, to-morrow.'
She smoothed the White Rose in her bed, tucked her up, and kissed her, leaving her as a bud that waits for sunshine.
CONCLUSION
The shadow of Monk Gregory was seen no more in Cologne. He entered the
Calendar, and ranks next St. Anthony. For three successive centuries the
towns of Rhineland boasted his visits in the flesh, and the conqueror of
Darkness caused dire Rhenish feuds.
The Tailed Infernal repeated his famous Back-blow on Farina. The youth awoke one morning and beheld warehouses the exact pattern of his own, displaying flasks shaped even as his own, and a Farina to right and left of him. In a week, they were doubled. A month quadrupled them. They increased.
'Fame and Fortune,' mused Farina, 'come from man and the world: Love is from heaven. We may be worthy, and lose the first. We lose not love unless unworthy. Would ye know the true Farina? Look for him who walks under the seal of bliss; whose darling is for ever his young sweet bride, leading him from snares, priming his soul with celestial freshness. There is no hypocrisy can ape that aspect. Least of all, the creatures of the Damned! By this I may be known.'
Seven years after, when the Goshawk came into Cologne to see old friends, and drink some of Gottlieb's oldest Rudesheimer, he was waylaid by false Farinas; and only discovered the true one at last, by chance, in the music-gardens near the Rhine, where Farina sat, having on one hand Margarita, and at his feet three boys and one girl, over whom both bent lovingly, like the parent vine fondling its grape bunches in summer light.
