him the
pride of sin. For that angel's sake he would do penance with the
last humility, seek the salvation he had forfeited,--that the tears
might be sweetened which angelic eyes had shed for him, sinner. The
devotions, austerities, self-castigations of the other pilgrims
had seemed to him all too light. When they trod the greensward, he
chose flints and thorns; when they refreshed themselves at roadside
springs, he absorbed instead the thirst-breeding heat of the sun; when
they but prayed, he shed his blood to the praise of the Most High;
when they turned into the shelter of Alpine sanctuaries, he made ice
and snow his bed; with closed eyes--climax of self-denial!--with
closed eyes, that he might not behold the wonder of them, he passed
unseeing through the lovely plains of Italy! All this because he
wished to atone to the point of self-annihilation, that the tears
might be sweetened of his angel. He had reached Rome, he had bowed
praying upon the threshold of the holy place. Day had dawned, bells
were pealing, heavenly anthems resounding. Then he through whom God
manifests Himself to man had passed through the kneeling crowd. He
had given absolution, had promised grace, to thousands; thousands
he had sent away rejoicing. Tannhaeuser had approached him, had
knelt in the dust, had confessed the evil joys he had known, the
terrible craving which no self-mortification had availed yet to
quiet; he had cried to him, in agony, for deliverance from these
burning fetters. And the one thus appealed to had pronounced: "If
you have shared in such evil pleasure, inflamed yourself at the
fire of Hell, if you have sojourned in the Hill of Venus, to all
eternity you are damned! Even as the staff in my hand can never
more clothe itself with fresh green, even so can never out of the
conflagration of Hell redemption blossom for you!" The pilgrim thus
addressed had sunk to the earth, annihilated. Consciousness had
forsaken him. When he awoke, it was night in the deserted square.
Sounds came from the distance of happy hymns of thanksgiving. A
passion of disgust had seized him for the pious songs; an icy horror
of their lying promises of redemption. With wild steps he had
fled,--drawn back to the place where such great joys, such ineffable
delight, he had found of old upon _her_ warm breast. "To you, Venus,
Lady,"--he cries out in a frenzy of loathing for what lies behind,
and of longing to escape, "to you I am come back!--come back to
y