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 Imperial Diet in Nuremberg!—the Imperial Advent!
The next day their Majesties were to enter into the town, and with themmy Hans.
A messenger had brought the tidings, and now we must use all diligence;Ann and Elsa and I, with one and twenty more, had been chosen among allthe daughters of the worshipful gentlemen of the council, to go forth togreet the Emperor and Empress with flowers and a discourse. This Ursulawas to speak, by reason that she was mistress of all such arts; likewisewas she by birth the chiefest of us all, inasmuch as that her latedeparted mother was daughter to the great Reynmar, lord of Sulzbach.Nor need Ann and I seek far for the flowers. The Hallers' garden had notits like in all Nuremberg, and my dear parents-in-law had promised thatwe should pluck all we needed for our posies.
Or ever I mounted my horse, I had tidings that Herdegen and JunkerHenning had, last evening, come to bitter strife, nay, well-nigh tobloodshed; for that when my brother had sung the ditty in praise of oneElselein and the other had called upon him to put in the name of Ann,Herdegen had cried: "An if you mean red-haired Ann, the tapster wench atthe Blue Pike, well and good!" Whereupon the Junker sprang up and flungthe tankard he had just emptied at Herdegen's head. Herdegen had nimblyducked, and had rushed on the drunken fellow sword in hand; but DukeRumpold had put a word in, and by this morning Junker Henning seemed tohave forgotten the matter. In Brandenburg, verily, such frays werecommon at the drinking-bouts of the lords and gentlemen, and by dawn alloffence given over-night in their cups was wiped out of mind.
My brother lodged again at our grand-uncle's, while the Junker dweltat the Waldstromer's townhouse. My Lord Duke found quarters at theHallerhof, and his Highness the Prince Elector, and Archbishop Conrad ofMainz likewise lodged there, with a great following. Cousin Maud hadmade ready to welcome the Margrave of Baden and the Count von Hennebergunder our roof. The upper floor of the Pernhart's house was given up tohis Eminence Cardinal Branda, the most steadfast friend at Rome of MasterUlman's brother the bishop. His Holiness the Pope had sent that right-reverend prelate as his legate to the assembly, and he presentlycelebrated mass with great dignity in the presence of their Majestiesand of the assembled lords and princes.
To this day my memory is right good in all ways; and of what followed onthese events much is yet as clear and plain in my mind as though I sawand heard it all at this present time; albeit I, an old woman, would fainhide my face in my hands and weep thereat. For, notwithstanding therewere certain hours in those days which brought me sweet love-making, andothers of sheer mirth and vanity, yet is the spirit of man so temperedthat, when great sorrow follows hard on the greatest joy it sufficethto darken it wholly. And thus we may liken heaviness of heart to thechiming of bells, which hurts the ear if they sound over near, but at adistance make a sweet and devout music. Now, in sooth, inasmuch as Imust make record of the deepest woe of my life, the brazen toll is a sadone, and the long-healed wounds ache afresh.
Those two months of the Imperial Diet! They lie behind