A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the CocalicoJabez, Brother
Religion
A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the Cocalico
Jabez, Brother
Christian fiction; Ephrata Cloister -- Fiction; Seventh-Day Baptists -- Fiction
Then she came to that which she knew I most cared to hear, and that was
how Sonnlein had come to her. And the manner of this has always seemed
to me little less than miraculous, for it is beyond me to explain it
otherwise. All that night that Sonnlein was with Brother Benno and me in
the chapter house, our sister--the witch at that time being in her
hiding-place--could find no rest. It seemed impossible for her to fall
asleep. She held her usual midnight devotions from the rock looking down
toward the Kloster, so that she might feel she were praying with us, and
though this gave her some peace, yet when she returned again to the hut
and lay down to sleep she found no rest; but toward the morning she
finally fell asleep, but only to have it filled with a strange dream;
for it seemed to her she saw Sonnlein lying on a hard couch in one of
our _Kammers_, worn and wasted and suffering from some great illness,
and then suddenly he arose from his couch and rushed from his cell and
out of Zion down over the hill toward the Cocalico, calling her name,
once, twice, a number of times, whereat she struggled to go to him but
could not! She awoke with a great start only to hear a heavy storm
roaring all about her; but though she knew she was awake she still saw,
or imagined she saw, Sonnlein rush through the creek and into the woods
on the other side, as though he were coming directly to her.
At first she tried to shake the matter from her mind as merely a dream,
but she could not do so. Something even against her own persuading
seemed to tell her that Sonnlein was seeking her, that she must go to
meet him, and ere she knew what she was about she found herself outside
the hut, rushing in all the storm down the mountain as fast as she
could, the witch closely following.
Our sister could not tell how long or how far they had gone in this
wild, headlong manner, but they were not far from the foot of the
mountain, when suddenly at no great distance above them, seemingly the
very way they had come, she heard a faint cry, "Genoveva!"
Not knowing whether she were bewitched or really gone mad from all these
months of loneliness, she stood like one dazed; but then again, and even
a third time, she heard her name as though the one calling were going
farther up the mountain. The witch too heard the cry and together they
hastened up the hill, but hearing no longer the calls; and in this wise
they came back again to the great rock, and there, so that she could
hardly believe her own eyes, it now being broad daylight, lay the figure
of a man face downward as though he had fallen that way, who as they
turned him about she saw was Sonnlein.
Here I interrupted our sister most foolishly by asking, "What didst
do--kiss him?" To which unmanly question she made no reply, only that I
feel sure had it not been so dark in the hut, the moon having gone down,
I should have seen exceedingly rich blushings on the face of our dear
sister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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