UNDER-CURRENTS.
The visit took place. Pranken rode behind the carriage in which Clodwig
and Bella were seated; on the back seat of the carriage stood a
frame-work covered with paper, and a handsome box ornamented with
inlaid work, which held the crayons.
Eric and Roland received the guests, and Eric begged them to make
themselves at home; he had had everything arranged by the servants; he
would himself be at their service in an hour, when lessons were over.
The visitors looked at each other in astonishment.
Pranken looked strangely changed; a deeper seriousness was in his face;
now he shrugged his shoulders, and burst into a mocking laugh.
Bella thought Eric's conduct extremely formal and pedantic; Clodwig
declared it showed a beautiful trait of character; but Pranken saw only
idle display in this assumption of duty; the young man--he said this
quite in the tone of the Grand Master--the young man wished to make a
great impression with his faithfulness to duty.
Meantime they made themselves comfortable, and it was not to be denied
that Eric had shown great thought for the pleasure of his guests, in
his floral decorations, and other arrangements.
The hour was soon over, and Eric returned to his guests in that fresh
and cheerful mood, which only the conquest over one's self and the
consciousness of duty fulfilled can ever give.
He had selected a good room, looking towards the North, and after a
lunch the drawing began.
Clodwig remained with his wife; Roland, who was to be drawn later, went
with Pranken to the stables. Pranken conducted himself in the house as
Sonnenkamp's natural representative, or as a son of the family; he had
the horses brought out, he examined the gardenwork, and praised the
servants.
"I never saw you looking so serious and anxious," said Clodwig to Eric.
And, indeed, Eric's expression was full of uneasiness, for he suspected
that Pranken was now talking about him to Roland.
What can all education, all firm guidance effect, when one is not sure
for a moment that some foreign influence is not working against it? We
must comfort ourselves by thinking that no one man can form another,
but the whole world forms each man. Eric, meanwhile, could not but
dread what Pranken might be saying to his pupil.
First, Pranken asked whether Roland had read the daily portion in the
book that Manna sent him.
Roland said, no, directly, and then came a confused jumble of Benjamin
Franklin, of Crassus, of Hiawatha, of the observations of storms by the
telegraphist, and of Bancroft's History of the United States.
Pranken nodded; he asked if Roland wrote often to Manna, and Roland
said yes.
Pranken now told him that he had trained a snow-white Hungarian horse
for Manna, and added:--
"You can tell her so. When you write, or not, as you please."
He knew, of course, that Roland was sure not to forget any information
which he was allowed to impart, especially if it was about a snow-white
horse with red trappings. Pranken promised that Roland should himself
ride the animal some day.
"Has it a name?" asked Roland.
Pranken smiled; he perceived that his communication had interested
Roland extremely, and he answered,--
"Yes, its name is Armida."
Just then Roland was called in, as he was needed for the sketch. When
the outline was completed, the drawing was laid aside for awhile.
In a half-confidential, half-commanding tone, Pranken asked Eric to go
out with him alone, and in a friendly, even unusually friendly manner,
he entered into a discourse upon Roland's education. And now, for the
first time, Eric heard Pranken speak seriously of his strict religious
convictions.
He was amazed. Was this all put on, in order to win more securely the
rich heiress educated in the Convent?
But it certainly was not necessary for Pranken, when no one could see
and remark upon it, in travelling, and at the Baths, to unite himself
so closely with ecclesiastics. Was it not rather probable that a
conversion had really taken place in this worldly man, and that upon
just such a nature the stability and unchangeableness of the Church
would take the surest hold?
"I consider it my duty, and you will give me the credit of considering
it a duty," said Pranken suddenly, laying his hand on his heart, "to
give you some confidential information."
"If I can do anything, I shall feel myself honored by your confidence;
but if I can be of no use, I would rather avoid an unnecessary share in
a secret."
Pranken was astonished at this reluctance, and was inclined to be
displeased, but he restrained himself, and continued, in a higher
tone:--
"You know that Herr Sonnenkamp--"
"Excuse me for interrupting you. Does Herr Sonnenkamp know that you are
making this confidential communication to me?"
"Good Heavens!" Pranken broke out,--"but no, I am wrong, I respect this
regard to your position."
He was silent for a few minutes; it occurred to him that, instead of
what he had meant to say, he might warn Eric not to have too much to do
with Bella. But would not this be an insinuation against his sister? He
decided to go back to his first plan, and said shortly,--
"I think I may tell you that I am almost a son of this house, Fraeulein
Sonnenkamp is as good as engaged to me."
"If Fraeulein Sonnenkamp is like her brother, I can congratulate you
heartily, I thank you for your unexpected, and as yet undeserved,
confidence; may I ask why you have honored me with it?"
Pranken became more inwardly enraged, but outwardly still more
flattering; he nervously worked his right hand, as if he were using a
riding-whip, but he smiled very condescendingly and said,--
"I have not been mistaken in you." After a pause he continued:--"I
acknowledge fully your considerateness."
He did not answer directly the question as to the cause of his
confidence, and there was hardly time, for Roland now called Eric to
the sitting.
"One would think ten years had passed since I left off drawing," said
Bella, "you look so much older now."
Eric could not speak out his thoughts. The way in which Pranken had
treated him, and the manner in which he had borne himself, disturbed
him very much. He was sitting now quite still, but it seemed to him as
if he were being rent asunder. He felt that there was something
fundamentally false in his relations with Pranken. They were both aware
of the contrast and discord which existed between them; they ought
either to have been open enemies, or to have passed each other with
indifference; and yet some spell seemed to draw them together, and to
persuade them into apparent friendliness.
All misery springs from untruthfulness. The world would be quite a
different place, and much misery would be saved, could we be true at
all times, and not allow ourselves to be led into lasting relations and
obligations, while we silence the inward remonstrance by saying,--It
will all turn out well; the matter need not be taken so seriously. But
in thousands of cases the lie is concealed, veiled, beautified, as in
that Bible-story, where the serpent overcomes all opposition, all
argument, by the words,--"Only eat, and you will not die, but only
become wise."
The great punishment of a relation founded on false grounds is, that it
constantly demands from us farther untruthfulness; either openly
recognized as such, or concealed by our self-deception, and at last the
lie takes on the appearance of virtue, changes all the foundation of
our character, silences the protests which our better nature makes, and
says, you must not desert your friend; you have been friends so long,
you have received so much from him, and have done so much for him; it
would break up your whole life; you would take a large portion from it,
if you gave him up. No! you must now hold firmly together. And so the
lie grows and poisons life. All sorrow and all unhappiness, all
misunderstanding and deceit, arise from the fault that man will not be
faithful to himself. The devil of lies goes about, seeking whom he may
devour.
It is true there is no devil that you can see so as to describe him in
the military style, but close by every divine idea which in its
ultimate foundation is nothing but Truth, dwells the Lie, and is always
capable of assuming the form and language of its neighbor.
All these thoughts were tossing and raging in Eric's soul as he sat for
his portrait. Could any one at that moment have painted the picture of
his soul, it would, have been an unparalleled distortion.
At last, Bella declared she could not draw him as he then looked, and
the sitting was postponed.
They all went to dinner, which passed cheerfully, for the Doctor joined
them. In the evening, they went out rowing on the Rhine, and Roland
told how beautifully Eric could sing; but Eric could not be persuaded
to give them a single song. He was bantered on having displayed his
talent at the musical festival, by Pranken especially, who spoke in a
friendly tone, but with a most cutting manner.
In the evening, when the fire-flies were darting here and there in the
dusky park, Eric walked with Bella, while Clodwig sat in the balconied
room, turning over the leaves of an album filled with new photographic
views of Rome, and, at many a page, looking far away into the past.
Roland walked with Pranken, and they talked of Manna. Pranken knew well
how to suggest what he should write of him. In walking, they passed and
repassed Eric and Bella, and Pranken looked surprised at seeing his
sister leaning on the young man's arm. Like glancing fire-flies, the
brilliant flashes of wit lighted up their conversation, but left longer
trains of light behind them. Bella and Eric spoke in a low tone, and
often, as the others passed near them, they stopped speaking. Bella
talked again about her good husband,--she always called him her "good
husband,"--and said how thoughtfully Eric understood him, not only, if
she might say so, with his mind, but with his heart.
"You have made a new phrase," said Eric, and Bella repeated her
newly-coined expression, with as much pleasure as if she had found a
new style of head-dress which suited her face alone.
Eric was pedantic enough to go back to the original subject of
discussion, and said warmly, how delightful it was to find Beauty and
Peacefulness, not only in one's own ideal, but in real life; to reach
out one's hand to them and look into their calm, clear eyes.
"You are a good man, and I believe an honest one," said Bella, and
pulling off her glove she lightly tapped with it on Eric's hand.
"It is no merit to be honest," said Eric. "I could almost wish I could
be untruthful; no,--not untruthful, but a little more reticent
sometimes."
It was charming and edifying, to hear how Bella now extolled the beauty
and happiness of a thoroughly honest nature; and she spoke in a tone of
deep emotion, as she added, that she might have won early in life a
most brilliant lot, if she could have feigned, a very little love. Eric
did not know what to answer, and this caused one of those pauses which
Pranken, passing with Roland, observed.
Bella went on to say, that it is always a blessing to do anything to
help a human being; it falls to the lot of one person, to do this for a
fellow-creature in the morning of life--here she bent her head towards
Eric--while another does it for one in the decline of life, when the
sacrifice, quiet and unrecognized, can only be rewarded by the
consciousness of the service rendered.
At a bend of the road, it happened, very naturally, that Eric walked
with Roland, and Pranken with his sister. Roland was jealous of Bella,
of every person; jealous at every word, at every look, that Eric
directed to any one but himself; he wished to have him wholly to
himself. And as Roland now exhibited his childish humor, Eric shrunk
into himself affrighted; he had not only allowed himself to be diverted
from Roland, but perhaps also had been committing a wrong in a
different direction. There was yet time for him to retrace his steps.
He went to bid Clodwig good-night, and he was almost pleased to find
that he had already retired to rest.