Produced by English translation produced by Michael Wooff
The Imperial Crown
A story by Wilhelm Raabe (1831-1910)
On the fifty-third day of the siege, one and a half thousand yearsafter the fall of Rome as a republic and nine hundred and seventyseven years after Odoacer the Barbarian had exiled the boy emperorRomulus Augustulus to the estate that had once belonged to Lucullusin Catania, Constantinople had fallen. God placed two empires andtwelve kingdoms in the hands of the son of Murad, Mehmet the Second.What Christendom in its comatose dullness, tearing itself to piecesin wars of religion and feuds between peoples and their princes,had been unable to defend itself against, had now happened. Thegreat bogeyman had finally arrived.
On Saint Lawrence's day in the year 1453 an old man sits in a narrowroom in a house on the Banner Mountain in Nuremberg writing what weare about to read. The low window looks out on a small vegetablepatch and up to the town wall beyond. The small room is bare andwithout any ornament, but the sun shines down on the garden, the dayis pleasant and the sky is blue.
It is quiet and yet not quiet. The writer's room does indeed facethe town and the streets, but a strange noise and a humming soundbuzzes through the air and the brave old high protective walls andtowers resonate most singularly. The writer's room is also filledwith a humming and ringing and wondrous rushing. Someone insecureand not in control of their thoughts and their quill would find ithard today in Nuremberg to execute calligraphy with stylus, ink,paper and parchment.
The grey-haired old man now and again holds his head in his handsand listens to the ruckus, but it does not have the power to disturbhim. His eye only looks to the sky for a moment with just a littleless pensiveness. He does not, however, put down his quill for suchtrifles.
He has talent as a scribe and has something to say of lasting valuedespite the sounds and interplay of colours of the world outside.
Tolle! Lege! Take and read! Let us see what Saint Augustine has tosay on the subject: "I heard come from a neighbouring house a softand gentle voice repeating itself as if a boy or girl were speaking:Tolle! Lege! Take and read! And my face was drained of colour andI wondered if these words were part of a children's game but couldnot remember ever having heard them before. And, suddenly, tears cameto my eyes and I stood up interpreting this as a voice from heaven!"That's it in a nutshell! Thanks to this great privilege, by the graceof God, I too heard this siren voice, half that of a child, half thatof a messenger of the Most High and discovered the Logos that madesense of worldly hubbub and gave me peace. Like Augustine I no longerbreathed the air of bread and circuses, of the military might of theEmperor and his erstwhile glory nor indeed the splendour that oncewas Rome.
I heard and saw—things wonderful to tell of and describe. While Iwas still young I saw a bright light in the gloom. While I was stillyoung my life also underwent a change.
What does the great bell Benedicta in the church of Saint Sebalduswant with its solemn tolling? What do the other bells in all thebelltowers of my home town want by ringing so? I can hear their tones,both near and far, intermingle with each other. I can hear my brothersand sisters making their way through streets and marketplaces singingpsalms and plaintive hymns. I hear the people tramp like the roar ofa faraway river breaking its banks.
To the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus, to the sound of its iron clappervoice they stream as one: V