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
As Kuni's troubled soul had derived so much benefit from the shortpilgrimage to Altotting, she hoped to obtain far more from a visit toSantiago di Compostella, famed throughout Christendom.
True, her old master, Loni, whom she had met at Regensburg, permitted herto join his band, but when she perceived that he was far less prosperousthan before, and that she could not be useful to him in any way, she lefthim at Cologne because a kindhearted captain offered to take her toVlissingen without pay. Thence she really did set out upon thepilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella; but St. James, the patron saintof the Spaniards, whose untiring mercy so many praised, did not provespecially favourable to her. The voyage to Compostella, the principalplace where he was reverenced, which annually attracted thousands ofpilgrims, cost her her last penny, and the cold nights which she wasobliged to spend on deck increased her cough until it became almostunendurably violent.
In Santiago di Compostella both her means and her strength wereexhausted. After vainly expecting for a long time some token of thesaint's helpful kindness, only two courses were left: either she mustremain in Compostella and join the beggars in the crowded road to theplace of pilgrimage, or she must accept the proposal made by tonguelessCyriax and go back with him to Germany. At first she had been afraid ofthe brutal fellow, who feigned insanity and was led about by his wifewith a chain; but once, when red-haired Gitta was seized by theInquisition, and spent two days and two nights in jail, and Kuni nursedher child in her place, she had found him more friendly. Besides, inCompostella, the swearer had been in his most cheerful mood. Every dayhad filled his purse, because there was no lack of people and heunderstood how to extort money by the terror which horrible outbreaks ofhis feigned malady inspired among the densely crowded pilgrims. His wifepossessed a remedy which would instantly calm his ravings, but it wasexpensive, and she had not the money to buy it. Not only in Compostella,but also on the long journey from Bavaria through the Swiss mountains,France, Navarre, and the whole of northern Spain, there were always kind-hearted or timid people from whom the money for the "dear prescription"could be obtained.
A cart drawn by a donkey conveyed the child of this worthy couple. WhenKuni met her at Compostella she was a sickly little girl about two yearsold, with an unnaturally large head and thin, withered legs, who seemedto be mute because she used her mouth only to eat and to make a movementof the lips which sounded like "Baba." This sound, Cyriax explained, wasa call that meant "papa." That was the name aristocratic children gavetheir fathers, and it meant him alone, because the little girl resembledhim and loved him better than she did any one else. He really believedthis, and the stammering of the fragile child's livid lips won the roughfellow's tender love.
The man who, when drunk, beat his wife till the blood came, and committedplenty of cruel deeds, trembled, wept, and could even pray with ferventpiety, when—which often happened—the frail little creature, shaken byconvulsions, seemed at the point of death. He had undertaken the longjourney to the "world's