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The lady, who could not support the horrible sight of her unfortunate sons, and who was soon led back tottering to her house, set off on the following morning to Herr Veit Gotthelf, a celebrated cloth-merchant of the city, to gain some intelligence as to the cause of this unfortunate occurrence. She did so because the letter from the preacher mentioned this man, and showed that he had taken a lively interest in the plan for destroying the cloister of St. Cecilia on Corpus Christi day. Veit Gotthelf, the cloth-merchant, who had become a husband and a father since the time, and had moreover undertaken his father’s extensive business, received his visitor very kindly, and when he heard the affair that had brought her to him, bolted the door, and having requested her to take a seat, proceeded as follows:

“My good lady, if you will promise to subject me to no legal investigation, I will tell you all, truly and without reserve. I was indeed on intimate terms with your sons six years ago,–yes, we entertained the project which is mentioned in the letter. How the plan, for the execution of which, the most careful preparations were made with truly impious acuteness, proved a failure, is to me utterly incomprehensible. Heaven itself seems to have taken the convent of those pious ladies under its holy protection. For you must know that your sons had already, as a prelude to some determined action, interrupted divine service by all sorts of ribaldry, and that more than three hundred rascals gathered together within the walls of our then misguided city, and armed with hatchets and links only waited for the signal which the preacher was to make, to level the cathedral with the ground. Directly the music began, your sons, with a simultaneous movement and in a manner that surprised us, suddenly took off their hats; as if overcome by deep inexpressible emotion, they bowed down their faces, and gradually covered them with their hands. At last the preacher suddenly turning round, after an astounding pause, called to us with a loud terrific voice to uncover our heads also. In vain did some of his comrades whisper to him, and sportively jogging him with their arms, desire him to give the concerted signal for destruction, the preacher, instead of answering sank upon his knees, with his hands crossed on his heart, and fervently laying his forehead in the dust, with all his brothers, recommenced the whole series of prayers, that he had before derided. The crowd of miserable fanatics, deprived of their leader, and utterly confounded by the spectacle I have described, remained in a state of irresolution and inactivity till the conclusion of the oratorium, which pealed down wondrously from the organ-loft, and as at this moment several arrests were made by order of the commanding officer, and some wicked fellows who had behaved indecorously, were seized and led off by a guard, the wretched troop had nothing to do but to avail themselves as speedily as possible of the shelter of the crowd that rose to depart, thus to escape from the cathedral. In the evening, after vainly asking several times for your sons at the inn, whither they had not returned, I went with some friends to the convent in a state of the greatest uneasiness that I might make inquiries of the door-keepers, who had assisted the imperial guard. How, noble lady, shall I describe my horror, when I saw the four men as before, with the hands folded, touching the ground with their heads and breasts, as though they had been petrified there–in short, bowed down before the altar of the church with the most intense devotion? In vain did the bailiff of the convent, who came up at this moment, pull them by their cloaks, and shake them by their arms, and desire them to leave the cathedral, which was already growing quite dark, and in which nobody was left; half-rising in their dreamy fashion they did not listen to him, until he ordered his men to take them up by the arms, and lead them out at the porch. Then, at last, they followed us into the city, though not without sighing, and frequently looking back, with the most heart-rending sorrow, at the cathedral, which shone gloriously behind us in the light of the setting sun. The other friends and I repeatedly, and in the most affectionate manner, asked them what terrible cause could possibly have produced such a thorough change in their minds. They looked kindly upon us, and from time to time, with an expression that still cuts me to the heart, wiped the tears from their eyes. When they had reached their dwelling, they ingeniously fashioned a cross of birchen-twigs, and fixed it in a little pyramid of wax on the large table in the middle of the room between two candles, with which the servant had made her appearance. While the friends, whose number increased hourly, stood by, wringing their hands, and in scattered groups, and speechless with grief, looked at their quiet ghost-like proceedings, they seated themselves down at the table, as if their senses were closed to every other object, and folding their hands, began their devotions. They neither desired the repast, which the servant brought in to regale their companions, according to the orders they had left in the morning, nor afterwards, when night advanced, did they care for the couch which she had set up in the adjoining room, because they appeared weary. The friends, that they might not provoke the anger of the host, who seemed much surprised at the whole proceeding, sat down to a side-table profusely covered, and ate the viands, which had been prepared for a large party, salting them at the same time with their tears. The hour of midnight now suddenly struck, and your four sons, after listening for a moment to the dull sound of the bell, rose from their seats with a simultaneous movement, and while we, laying down our napkins, looked at them, anxious to know what would follow so strange a commencement, they began to sing the Gloria in excelsis in the most hideous and horrible voice. The sound of leopards and wolves, when on an icy winters night they roar at the sky, may be something like it. The pillars of the house, I assure you, were shaken, and the window-panes smitten by the visible breath from their lungs, rattled and threatened to fall in, as if handfuls of heavy sand were dashed against their surface. At this frightful sight we lost all self-possession, and with hair erect, we darted off in different directions. Leaving hats and cloaks behind us, we dispersed through the neighbouring streets, which in a short time were filled, not with us, but with more than a hundred men who had been awakened from sleep. The people bursting open the hall-door hurried upstairs to the room, to discover the source of these fearful and revolting howls, which seemed to implore the divine mercy, as if from the lips of condemned sinners in the deepest abyss of the infernal regions. At last when the clock struck one, the brothers, without having listened to the indignation of the host, or the exclamations of horror that were uttered by the people, closed their lips, wiped with a handkerchief from their forehead the perspiration which fell upon their chin and breast in large drops, and, spreading out their cloaks, lay down on the floor to rest an hour from such painful labours. The host, who let them take their own course, made the sign of the cross over them as soon as he saw them asleep; and glad to get rid of the infliction, for the time at least, induced the assembled crowd of people, who were whispering mysteriously to one another, to leave the room, under the assurance that the morning would bring with it a salutary change. But, alas! with the first crow of the cock, the unhappy men rose again to recommence before the cross which stood on the table, the same dreary, ghost-like cloister-life, which exhaustion alone had interrupted for the moment. They would receive no assistance nor advice from their host, whose heart was melted at their mournful aspect; they merely asked him to dismiss with kindness their friends, who were in the habit of assembling about them every d
ay. They wished nothing from him but bread and water, and a litter of straw, if possible, for the night, so that the man who used to derive a good profit from their convivial disposition, was now obliged to submit the whole case to the legal authorities, and to request them to remove from his house the four persons, who, without doubt, were possessed of an evil spirit. By order of the magistrates they underwent a medical examination, and being proved mad, they were, as you know, removed to the lunatic asylum, which the benevolence of our late emperor founded for the benefit of such unfortunate persons within our walls.”