In the Blue Pike Volume 03
Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898
English
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entire meal of them. D.W.]
IN THE BLUE PIKE
By Georg Ebers
Volume 3.
CHAPTER VIII.
As Kuni's troubled soul had derived so much benefit from the short
pilgrimage to Altotting, she hoped to obtain far more from a visit to
Santiago di Compostella, famed throughout Christendom.
True, her old master, Loni, whom she had met at Regensburg, permitted her
to join his band, but when she perceived that he was far less prosperous
than before, and that she could not be useful to him in any way, she left
him at Cologne because a kindhearted captain offered to take her to
Vlissingen without pay. Thence she really did set out upon the
pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella; but St. James, the patron saint
of the Spaniards, whose untiring mercy so many praised, did not prove
specially favourable to her. The voyage to Compostella, the principal
place where he was reverenced, which annually attracted thousands of
pilgrims, cost her her last penny, and the cold nights which she was
obliged to spend on deck increased her cough until it became almost
unendurably violent.
In Santiago di Compostella both her means and her strength were
exhausted. After vainly expecting for a long time some token of the
saint's helpful kindness, only two courses were left: either she must
remain in Compostella and join the beggars in the crowded road to the
place of pilgrimage, or she must accept the proposal made by tongueless
Cyriax and go back with him to Germany. At first she had been afraid of
the brutal fellow, who feigned insanity and was led about by his wife
with a chain; but once, when red-haired Gitta was seized by the
Inquisition, and spent two days and two nights in jail, and Kuni nursed
her child in her place, she had found him more friendly. Besides, in
Compostella, the swearer had been in his most cheerful mood. Every day
had filled his purse, because there was no lack of people and he
understood how to extort money by the terror which horrible outbreaks of
his feigned malady inspired among the densely crowded pilgrims. His wife
possessed a remedy which would instantly calm his ravings, but it was
expensive, 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. When
Kuni met her at Compostella she was a sickly little girl about two years
old, with an unnaturally large head and thin, withered legs, who seemed
to be mute because she used her mouth only to eat and to make a movement
of the lips which sounded like "Baba." This sound, Cyriax explained, was
a call that meant "papa." That was the name aristocratic children gave
their fathers, and it meant him alone, because the little girl resembled
him and loved him better than she did any one else. He really believed
this, and the stammering of the fragile child's livid lips won the rough
fellow's tender love.
The man who, when drunk, beat his wife till the blood came, and committed
plenty of cruel deeds, trembled, wept, and could even pray with fervent
piety, when--which often happened--the frail little creature, shaken by
convulsions, seemed at the point of death. He had undertaken the long
journey to the "world's end," not only because the pilgrimage to
Compostella promised large profits, but also to urge St. James to cure
his child. For his "sweet little Juli's" sake, and to obtain for her a
cheap nurse who would be entirely dependent upon him, he burdened himself
with the lame ropedancer. But he had no reason to repent this; Gitta had
enough to do to lead him by the chain and answer the questions of the
people, while Kuni nursed her charge with rare fidelity, mended the
clothing of the father, mother, and child, as well or as badly as she
could, and also helped Gitta with the cooking. The sickly, obstinate
little girl certainly did not deserve the name of a "sweet" child, yet
Kuni devoted herself to it with warm, almost passionate affection.
The vagabond couple did not fail to notice this, and, on the whole, it
pleased them. If Cyriax was vexed when little Juli began to show plainly
enough that she preferred her nurse even to him, he submitted because the
lame girl watched the child through severe attacks of convulsions and
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