He clasped his head between his hands, and groaned aloud.
“That is not much of a story, so far as it goes,” said Orm. “But now perhaps it will get better. Let us hear what happened when you met the Devil.”
“I did not meet him in his bodily form,” said the magister, “but it was enough as it was. The merchant Dudo lived in a large house by the river; he welcomed me warmly, and each morning and evening I led his household in prayer. I applied myself with industry to the task of teaching his son, and sometimes Dudo himself would come and listen to us, for he was, in truth, a godly man, and often bade me not to be sparing with my rod. His wife was named Alchmunda. She had a sister who lived in the house with them, a widow called Apostolica. They were both young, and fair to look on. They conducted themselves most modestly and virtuously; when they walked, they moved slowly, with their eyes directed toward their feet, and at prayer-time no one showed greater zeal than they. But since the lewd poet Ovid yet nested in my soul, I dared not glance too closely at them and avoided speaking with them; so all went well until the time came when the merchant had to go on a long business voyage southwards and into Lombardy. Before he set out, he confessed himself to me and vowed to give rich gifts to the Church to ensure his safe return; he delivered parting admonitions to his household, made me promise that I would pray for his safety every day, and so, at last, departed with his servants and horses. His wife and her sister wept loudly as he left; but once he had gone, their weeping quickly ceased, and they now began to conduct themselves otherwise than as they had done before. At household prayers they behaved as piously as ever; but they often came to hear me instructing my pupil at his lessons, sitting whispering together with their eyes on my face. Sometimes they expressed concern lest the child might be overstraining his mind, and suggested that he should go and play, in order, they whispered to me, that they might ask my advice on matters of serious import. They were amazed, they said, that I was such a solemn and earnest young man, in view of my youth, and Mistress Apostolica asked whether it was true that all young priests were timid of women. She said that she and her sister might both now be regarded as poor widows in mourning, and that they were in grievous need of comfort and exhortation. They told me they were both anxious to confess all their sins before Easter, and Alchmunda asked whether I had the power of granting absolution. I replied that the Bishop had given me that power, because, he had explained, this good household was known for its piety, so that its members would, in any case, have few confessions to make. At this they clapped their hands in joy; and from that moment the Devil began to make me his plaything, so that these two women occupied more and more of my thoughts. For their good names’ sake, Dudo had strictly forbidden them ever to walk alone in the town, and had commanded his steward to see that they did not disobey this order; for which reason they often cast glances at me and so, in time, tempted me into the cave of sin. I should, alas, have been steadfast and resisted their entreaties, or else have fled from their presence, as the blessed Joseph did in the house of Potiphar; but Joseph had never read Ovid, so that his situation was less perilous than mine. When I looked at them, my mind was no longer filled with piety and chastity, but rather with lust and sinfulness, so that I trembled when they passed close to me; but I dared do nothing, being as yet youthful and innocent in such matters. But these women, who were as full of sinful thoughts as I, and far less timid, lacked not the courage. One night, when I was lying asleep in my chamber, I was awakened by a woman coming into my bed. I could not speak, being filled with great fear and joy; she whispered that it was beginning to thunder, and that she was much afraid of storms. Then she flung her arms around me and began to kiss me furiously. Suddenly a flash of lightning lit up the room, and I saw that the woman was Apostolica; and although I, too, greatly feared the thunder, I had little time to think of such things now. A short while later, however, after I had enjoyed pleasure with her which far surpassed anything that Ovid had described, I heard the thunderclap just above the roof, and at that I became greatly frightened, for I supposed that God would strike me with His thunderbolt. This, though, did not happen; and on the following night, when Alchmunda came to me as eagerly as her sister had done, there was no thunder at all, and my lust was even greedier than before, so that I surrendered myself to the pleasures of sin with gay courage and a hard heart. These women were of a sweet and gentle temper, never upbraiding me or quarreling with each other, and there was no evil in them, save only their great lust; nor did they ever show fear or remorse at what they had done, apart from their anxiety lest any of the servants should come to suspect what was afoot. But the Devil was strong in them; for what could be more pleasing to him than to cause the downfall of a servant of Christ? When Easter arrived, the whole household came to me in turn to confess their sins. Last of all came Alchmunda and Apostolica. Solemnly they described to me all that had taken place between them and me, and I had no alternative but to pronounce God’s absolution upon them. This was, indeed, a terrible thing for me to have to do; for although I was by now steeped in sin, yet it felt as though I had deliberately betrayed God.”
“I sincerely hope that your conduct underwent a change for the better,” said Father Willibald severely.
“I hoped it would,” replied the magister, “but fate willed it otherwise, as the wisewoman told me when she warned me about my three sins. As yet, however, the Devil had not wholly ensuared my soul, for every day I prayed for the merchant as I had promised to do, that he might be preserved from danger and return safely home; indeed, after a time I prayed for him twice and thrice a day, to soothe the remorse and terror with which my heart was filled. But my terror waxed greater every day, until at last, on the night after the festival of Christ’s resurrection, I could stand it no longer and fled secretly out of the house and the town and made my way, begging, along the weary roads until I came to my home, where my mother was yet living. She was a godly woman, and when I told her of all that had taken place, she wept bitterly; then, however, she began to comfort me, saying that it was no great wonder that women lost their prudence when they saw me, and that such things happened more often than people generally supposed. The only course for me to follow, she continued, was for me to go back to the good Dean and tell him of all that had happened; and she blessed me as I left her to obey her bidding. Dean Rumold stared at me in amazement when I arrived at his house, and asked why I had returned; then, weeping, I gave him a truthful account of the whole matter, from beginning to end. He simmered furiously when he learned that I had read Ovid without his permission; but when I told him what had taken place between me and the two women, he slapped his knee and broke into a thunderous bellow of laughter. He wanted, he said, to know about this business in detail, and whether I had found the women satisfactory; then he sighed, and said that there was no time in life to be compared with youth, and that no deanery in the whole of the Empire was worth the loss of it. But as I proceeded further with my story, his face began to darken, and when I had concluded, he smote the table with his fist and roared that I had behaved most scandalously, and that this was a matter for the Bishop to decide. So we went to the Bishop and told him everything; and he and the Dean agreed that I had acted most wickedly, having doubly betrayed my trust; firstly, in that I had abandoned the post to which I had been appointed, and secondly, in that I had betrayed the secrecy of the confessional by telling my mother what had occurred between me and the women. That I had committed fornication was, of course, a grievous sin, but not an uncommon one, and not to be compared with these others which I had committed, which could only be wiped out by the most rigorous penance. Since, however, I had acted out of youthful folly rather than with evil intent, they would, they said, punish me as mildly as possible; so they gave me three penances to choose from: either to spend a year as chaplain to the lepers in the great hospital at Jülich, or to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and bring thence to the crowning-church oil from the Mount of Olives and water from the river Jordan, or to go as a missionary to convert the Danes. Fortified by their compassion, and fired with the desire to wipe out my sin, I therefore chose the most difficult penance. So they sent me to Bishop Eckard of Hedeby. He received me warmly and soon made me one of his canons, because of my learning; and I remained with him for two years, applying myself assiduously to the cause of piety and teaching in the school that he had founded there, until, again, my fate overtook me, and I committed my second sin.”