A thunderbolt would not have separated those two men clasped together. The old man, although unable to look upon the son who had been given to him, uttered no complaint; his lips, his hands, his arms, were as so many eyes to him. “Before I knew,” said Gutenberg, “the treasure I possessed in thee, I recollect tracing in the frank and amiable expression of thy face something of my Gisquette.”
When they had recovered themselves a little from their first emotion, Gutenberg became sufficiently calm to speak to Claude of his mother. He could not see the eyes of the young man raised to heaven, but, in the outburst of grief with which he threw himself into his father’s arms--“I understand,” he said; “she awaits me there--above!”
Lawrence Beildech, on his return from the fields, found the old man and Claude still sitting happily side by side. “Lawrence,” cried Gutenberg, whose step he had recognized, “Lawrence, I have found a son!”
Beildech received this information with much surprise, and Claude, less to justify his allegations than to furnish a tangible proof to the old servant, drew from his trunk a little polished metal mirror, ornamented on one side with a figure sculptured on the border. “Tell the master, Beildech, what figure it is you see behind this mirror.” “A Holy Virgin, her heart pierced with three swords, carrying in her arms the infant Jesus, crucified.” “And is there not engraved underneath,” said Gutenberg, eagerly, “_Ecce mulier filium tuum?_ O give, give me that mirror, it was my gift to Gisquette the first time I saw her, in the square of the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle,” and Gutenberg, seizing this relic of happier days, pressed it to his lips.
The very hour when he placed this mirror in a beloved hand, the whole of that period of his life came before Gutenberg at this moment; it was a ray of sunshine lighting up for an instant the snow of the glacier. A little later the old man related to his newly found son as follows:--“It was in the year 1440, at the time when all Christian Europe made a pilgrimage to the ancient and celebrated city of Aix-la-Chapelle, a holy visit as it was called which was paid every seven years to the wonderful relics of the cathedral, that I lived at Strasburg in the Rue St. Arbogaste, my mind fully occupied with my art, but not having yet succeeded in accomplishing anything worth speaking of. At that time thou knowest, Lawrence, I lived somewhat poorly. For a long while I had received no help from Maïence, and the heritage of my forefathers was all exhausted in the various experiments which I had made, and which I had hoped would turn to good account and place me in a position to carry out my one idea. I was just in the meridian of life, and it became necessary that I should follow a more lucrative trade. I began polishing mirrors and stones; I engraved images and ornaments on wood; and I associated myself with those Strasburgers who afterwards treated me so ill, André Dritzehn, Heilmann, and others.