The Wife of Pilate and Other Stories by Gertrud Von Le Fort

Author:Gertrud Von Le Fort [von le Fort, Gertrud]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781681495699
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2015-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

And now, Reverend Mother: you know what the whole world knows, I mean the distressing end of the Lady Regent, which was caused by a wound that was seemingly so insignificant and so accidental for someone of her station. The next day the Lady Regent could not rise, nor the day after that. On the third day, a severe wound-fever set in, and the doctors helplessly observed its virulent course. Soon it was no secret that gangrene had affected the injured limb and threatened to poison the whole body. Do not ask me to describe my own state! I had alternately loved and hated the Lady Regent; now I knew that at bottom even my hatred had been love. I cried my eyes out when I thought about her sufferings—after all, it was my exclamation that had caused her anger to run over. The wish that had prompted me had been fulfilled: she had felt that she, too, was unwilling to bow down to the Empire, but she had to pay for it with her life! A profound and quite helpless remorse filled me; alas, I was facing remorse for the first time—I did not know how I was supposed to deal with it! For several days it drove every other feeling from my heart, even my yearning for Valladolid. Often I stole after the Countess Croy when she was about to hurry into the sickroom with bandages and ointments; I had only one wish, to be allowed to follow her, so that I could ask Her Highness for forgiveness. But the Countess paid no attention to me, no one did; they were all filled with their sorrow and care about the sick woman. Only the haughty little daughter of the beautiful Johanna van der Gheenst, who now was just as abandoned as I, occasionally threw her arms around my neck when she met me in the empty halls and chambers of the Regency, and then we wept together like two children who had always been on good terms with each other.

On the seventh day, I heard a scratching at my door. When I opened it, Her Highness’ whippet stood there in front of me and looked at me with its sad dog eyes. I fell to my knees and wept into its little silken coat. It wriggled loose in a refined, solemn way, almost reproachfully, and slowly walked back the way that it had come, turning back toward me again and again, as if it were trying to bid me to follow. I did, and it led me down the stairs and across to the Regency. There it stopped outside Her Highness’ bedroom and scratched again. I opened the door for it, and it slipped inside and approached the Regent’s bed, the curtains of which had been drawn back. I could not see her, though, because her councilors stood gathered around the bed; her notary was present, too. I heard her dictating a letter. As I appeared, two chambermaids stood up from the foot of the bed and tried to send me away.

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