PIETRO D'ABANO.
A TALE OF ENCHANTMENT.
FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.
Chap. I.
The Funeral
The red rays of the setting sun were streaming upon the towers and houses of Padua, when a young foreigner, who had just entered that city, found his attention attracted, and himself hurried forward, by a bustling concourse of people who were pushing eagerly along. He asked a young maiden who was rapidly passing by him, what it was that bad stirred up such an unwonted commotion. "Are you not aware," answered she, "that the funeral of the fair Crescentia, the young daughter of the house of Podesta, takes place this evening? Every one is anxious to look for the last time upon the face of her who was accounted the loveliest damsel in all Padua. Her parents are inconsolable."
The maiden could say no more, for by this time the pressure of the crowd had carried her to a considerable distance.
The foreigner having turned the corner of a gloomy palace, had entered the main street, now heard the funeral dirge, and encountered the glare of the pale red torches; and, approaching nearer, he beheld a scaffold covered with black cloth. On this lofty black chairs had been placed, and on these were seated the disconsolate parents and relations of the dead maiden, all in profound sorrow, and some of them bearing in their countenances the expression of despair. Dark figures were now observed to issue from the doorway of the palace; and the priests, with their black attendants, bore forwards an open coffin, from which green wreaths of flowers were hanging. Pale, amid these blooming garlands, lay a female form in the raiment of the grave, her gentle hands, which held a crucifix, placidly folded on her bosom, her eyes closed, and her dark tresses, which fell in heavy masses around her head, enwreathed with a chaplet of roses, cypresses, and myrtles. The priests, having placed the coffin with its fair dead on the scaffold, prostrated themselves in prayer—the lamentations of the parents flowed forth afresh—the dirge of death broke out into more uncontrollable strains—and all seemed to share the burden of an almost insupportable sorrow. The foreigner thought be bad never beheld any thing so beautiful as the corpse before him, which so wofully reminded him of the transitoriness of human life, with all its charms.
By this time the funeral bells were pealing, and the bearers were about to lift the coffin, in order to convey it to its vaulted tomb in the great church, when suddenly the mourners were disturbed and shocked by a loud noise of riotous rejoicing, and shouts of the most obstreperous mirth. All looked around them with indignation, to discover the cause of this ill-timed merriment, when there came thronging forth, out of another street, a procession of young people, singing and huzzaing almost without intermission. They turned out to be the students of the University, who we carrying on their shoulders an elderly man, who sate on his chair like a king on his throne, clothed in a purple mantle, his head covered with a doctor's cap, from under which his silver locks streamed forth, in unison with a long snowy beard which flowed majestically down his black doublet: and it was in honour of him, their renowned and venerable teacher, that all this shouting took place. A fool with bells, and in a party-coloured vest, went skipping along with the procession. and, by his pokings and jokings, was in the act of forcing a way through the funeral crowd; when, upon a sign from the venerable old man, the students lowered their burden, their teacher stepped down from his seat, and, with a sad and sympathetic aspect, approached the weeping parents. "Forgive us." said he earnestly, and with tears in his eyes; "forgive us for having disturbed this sad solemnity by our wild uproar. I am profoundly distressed and shocked. I have Just returned
