clothes just fitted, and he exclaimed with delight when, he heard it.--
"That is good; now my clothes will go about the streets until I am
there again myself; I shall be represented sevenfold."
He desired his father to express his thanks to all the persons who had
so kindly shown an interest in him, a duty which Sonnenkamp would
readily have performed without this admonition. It afforded the best
possible way, better than the most brilliant entertainment, of coming
in contact with the aristocracy.
With his handsomest carriage and horses, Sonnenkamp drove through the
whole city. His wife had refused all his entreaties that she would
accompany him; but he succeeded in inducing the Professorin to be his
companion. She, also, refused at first, but yielded to Roland's
persuasions. It was the first request, as he said, that he had asked of
her since his return to life, and she should and must gratify him by
going with his father.
In proportion to the pain it cost the noble lady to make her
reappearance before the world in such companionship, was the ease with
which all doors flew open, as if by magic, wherever Lootz showed the
cards of the Professorin and Sonnenkamp.
The lady herself was often unconscious that this was the effect of her
presence; she only knew that she was tightening between herself and
Sonnenkamp the bonds from which she would gladly be free, and, whenever
she returned to the carriage, she begged him not to say so much about
her motherly care of Roland. Sonnenkamp, who was looked upon as of
quite secondary importance by the persons visited, skilfully contrived
to make himself the central point of the conversation by praising the
Professorin's nobleness of spirit, and enlarging upon his own great
happiness in being allowed connection with such a family.
On this excursion Sonnenkamp tasted the best pleasure of which he was
capable; for his highest pleasure was in hypocrisy, and in the luxury
of its exercise, he forgot his deep-rooted indignation at the pride of
the resident families, who were now obliged to receive him as an equal.
Where he hitherto had been permitted only a few hasty and unmeaning
words, he was now allowed comfortably to display his manifold
experiences, around all of which a softening halo was cast by the
genuine sentiment that served as their setting, the sentiment of
fatherly affection. His manner, also, of confessing that he had not
always thought as favorably as he should of human nature, but had been
taught by the Dournays to honor true nobility of mind, won for him the
reluctant interest of all. He laughed to himself, as he went down the
steps, at the thought of persons saying, as he knew they would, "We
really never knew the man before; he has a vast deal of character and
great sensibility."
He treated with especial consideration the members of the committee
upon orders, knowing himself, and having had particularly enjoined upon
him by Pranken, the importance of gaining them over to his plan.
Thus had Roland's illness given a fresh impulse to the nobility
project; and the Professorin had, against her will, co-operated to the
same end.
Sonnenkamp could not do enough to testify his respect for the lady who,
after all, had gained him his greatest triumph. In spite of her refusal
to come to his fete, and help in furthering his plan, she had now
become his tool. He never grew tired of rejoicing in the conviction
that all mankind could be used like puppets; some were to be bought by
the ringing of gold, and some by the ringing of their own praises.
CHAPTER X.
DECORATION WITH THREE EXCLAMATION MARKS.
An audience had been requested of the Princess, that the Sonnenkamp
family might present their thanks. The answer returned was that the
Frau Professorin would be welcome, thus refusing to admit Sonnenkamp.
He next desired that Roland should write a letter of thanks to the
Princess for the Professorin to hand to her, but several rough drafts,
which his son wrote out, he so roughly discarded, that the poor boy was
thrown into a state of feverish excitement which threatened to bring on
a relapse. He was quieted by the interposition of the Professorin, who
promised to deliver by word of mouth all that he had to say; but this
scene put a violent end to the childlike affectionateness which had
sprung up in him since his illness.
While the Professorin was at the palace, Sonnenkamp promenaded the
palace garden, where he could keep in sight the carriage and servants,
determined to hear at once what should be said of him there. This was
the most painful experience that the Professorin had yet had to
undergo. She was obliged to acquiesce in the Princess' praises of
Sonnenkamp's generous nature, his extensive charities, and his noble
magnanimity, of which the Cabinetsraethin, lady of honor to the queen,
had given a full report, and nothing was left the Professorin but to
listen, without the power to speak a word of contradiction. It was a
fresh proof to her of the false position in which she was placed, and
the dishonest game to which she had been made to lend a hand; first in
the convent, and now at court. Yet she dared not raise her voice
against this noble reputation of Sonnenkamp's, for in what light would
she herself appear if she should confess what she knew?
When she was re-entering the carriage, after her audience from the
Princess, a voice which cried "Stop!" made her tremble from head to
foot. Sonnenkamp seated himself beside her, and required her to tell
him instantly what the Princess had said. His delight at her report
made him so far forget himself as to exclaim aloud,--
"Roland's illness has been a blessing to us all,--by giving us the
right to call the Frau Professorin our friend," he quickly added, by
way of correction. Even that she had to accept in silence, and was
further distressed by being obliged to repeat the Princess' words for
the benefit of Pranken, who, with Clodwig, now joined them.
She felt herself hemmed in on every side, and excusing herself early,
she withdrew, in the hope of finding again in solitude her true self.
Clodwig had come, as member of the Committee upon Orders, to announce
confidentially to Sonnenkamp that an order had been decreed him.
Pranken embraced him when they were again alone together, exclaiming,--
"That is the first step, the first sure step."
Sonnenkamp was greatly delighted, and begged Pranken to wait while he
hurried to carry the good news to Frau Ceres.
"So that is for you," she said, complainingly; "what is there for me?"
He assured her that the title of nobility would certainly follow
speedily.
"Oh, but it takes so long," she complained.
He confessed to some disappointment and vexation on his own part at the
slowness and formality with which everything in the Old World was
conducted, but recommended patience.
"It is a good thing, to be sure," replied Frau Ceres, "that you should
have an order; every one in society will see now at once that you are
not a servant."
Sonnenkamp smilingly shook his head, but avoided any long discussions
with Frau Ceres.
A few days afterwards, carriage after carriage drew up before the door
of the hotel, bringing congratulations. Sonnenkamp affected great
modesty, but Roland did not disguise his pleasure and pride, and
insisted that his father should never go out without his new
decoration.
The following sentence, however, in Professor Crutius's paper added
bitterness to their cup of joy:--
"(Market price of Honors) Herr Sonnenkamp, of Villa Eden, transplanted
from Havana, has received, from the highest quarter, the cross of honor
for his services, it is said, in the ennobling of horticulture, which
includes the ennobling of the horticulturist. Nothing now is wanting in
the garden of Eden but that genealogical tree, which flourishes so
excellently in our favored land."
There were malicious persons enough ready to express to Sonnenkamp
their indignation at this would-be witty sharpness, while they watched
him with curiosity to see what face he would put upon the matter. He
appeared quite indifferent, but inwardly resolved to buy over that most
virtuous of moralists, called Public Opinion.
He went to the publishing office, was shown into the editor's room, and
was received with the utmost politeness by Professor Crutius. He opened
the conversation by saying that he knew very well how to take a joke,
and that his life in America had familiarized him with publicity; which
remarks Crutius saw no occasion for answering. With great
condescension, Sonnenkamp proceeded to express his pleasure at finding
the Professor in such an influential position; Crutius bowed his
acknowledgments. A little gas jet was burning in the editor's room, at
which Sonnenkamp asked permission to light his cigar, offering one at
the same time to Crutius, who accepted with thanks.
"I remember," began Sonnenkamp, "a bold and striking remark which you
made on the occasion of my having the honor of receiving a visit from
you; you had the courage to say that America was approaching a
monarchical form of government."
"I remember saying so," replied Crutius, "half in jest and half in
earnest, and I threw out the remark not merely as starting a good
subject of conversation, but because I was of opinion that the
reluctance of the best men in America to take part in politics was a
sign of approaching monarchy."
"And you are no longer of that opinion?" asked Sonnenkamp, as Crutius
paused.
He knew that he was reported to be in league with the party who were
aiming to form an empire in Mexico, and thence to extend the
monarchical form of government over the New World. It was a harmless,
in some respects, an honorable reputation to have, that of being an
agent for establishing a monarchy in the Southern States of the Union.
Crutius sat for some time in silence, eyeing the figure before him with
a keen and smiling glance. At last he said:--
"I am no longer of that opinion. The indifference of the better classes
in America has ceased, as is evident from the papers as well as from
the public meetings. I have also seen some letters written to Herr
Weidmann by his nephew Dr. Fritz, which plainly prove that a change for
the better has taken place. All feel again their rights as citizens,
and political and party strife is everywhere uppermost."
"Ah, Herr Weidmann," said Sonnenkamp; "I am told that that worthy
gentleman has a share in your paper."
"I know no man; I know nothing but party."
"The true American principle. That is good!" exclaimed Sonnenkamp, and
went on to express, in a friendly tone, the regret that all must feel
at seeing the press here so far behind the high standard attained in
other countries. For that reason he should be very willing, he said, if
a man of the Professor's experience would establish a new journal, to
come forward to its support with a considerable sum of money, as well
as to communicate important items of intelligence from his private
correspondence.
"The matter is worth considering," replied Crutius. He went to his
strong box and opened it, evidently with the intention of returning to
Sonnenkamp the money he had formerly received from him, but saying,
almost in so many words, to himself:--No, not yet; you shall have a
public receipt for it by and by,--he closed the box, and, resuming his
seat opposite Sonnenkamp, began:--
"I have an apology to make to you; at the time I had the honor of
visiting you at your villa, I took you to be the notorious Banfield."
He carefully watched the expression of his visitor's face as he spoke.
"Thank you for telling me so," replied Sonnenkamp, very tranquilly.
"The only way to clear up such a misunderstanding is to tell it to a
man's face. Unfortunately, I have been often confounded with that man,
and once actually went to Virginia in order to become personally
acquainted with this double of mine; but he died just as I arrived
there."
"Indeed! I had not heard of his death, and am somewhat surprised that
Herr Weidmann's nephew, who was at open war with Banfield, should not
have informed me of it. But it is astonishing what a strong resemblance
there is between yourself and him. Of course I shall not mention the
circumstance in my obituary of Banfield."
"As far as I myself am concerned," said Sonnenkamp, smiling, "it would
make no difference; but you know the delight which the European
aristocracy takes in any American scandal, and such a connection of
names might to my wife and children be--well, might be very
disagreeable."
Crutius protested that all personalities were wholly indifferent to
him; he dealt only with principles, a sentiment which Sonnenkamp
entirely approved and considered one of the advantages of European
culture.
Crutius accompanied Herr Sonnenkamp with great politeness, through the
outer offices as far as the head of the staircase; but the air of the
room seemed to oppress him when he returned to it, and he threw open
the windows.
"It is he, nevertheless," he said to himself. "Take care. Knight of the
Cross of Honor, I have hold of you by another ribbon, and am only
granting you a little longer time to flutter about me."
He hunted up the paper that contained the notice, made a broad red mark
and three exclamation marks on the margin, and laid the sheet by in a
special compartment labelled, "For future use."
CHAPTER XI.
A NEW LIFE IN EVERYTHING.
The Prince must have forgotten that he had meant to send for
Sonnenkamp, who now found himself deprived of all opportunity of
expressing his thanks in person to him or to his brother, by their
departure, in company with many nobles of the court, and Pranken among
them, for a royal hunting-seat where the great Spring hunts were to be
held. Pranken had left the capital in great ill-humor at Herr
Sonnenkamp's having been guilty of the impropriety of entering into any
relations with the editor of a newspaper.
All was quiet in the Hotel Victoria. Eric's mother and aunt had already
returned to the green cottage, and Roland begged and entreated every
day that the whole family might break up their establishment in the
Capital. At last his wish was granted, and Sonnenkamp favored his
house, his servants, the park and the hot-houses, with a sight of the
glory of his button-hole. This decoration he brought back, and could
always preserve as a happy memento of that winter of pleasure and of
pain. Roland never grew weary of greeting the familiar objects with
fresh delight. A feeling and love of home seemed to be roused in him,
for the first time, in its full intensity.
"I see now," he said to Eric, "that this living in hotels and anywhere
else than in one's own house is like living on a railway. I can go to
sleep, but I hear all the time the rattle of wheels in my dreams. That
is the way when we are abroad, but now we are at home again, and I have
a grandmother near by to visit, and an aunt, and the Major is a kind of
uncle, and Claus is like a faithful old tower. The dogs too are glad to
have me at home again. Nora looked at me a little strange at first, but
soon recognized me, and her pups are splendid. Now we will be busy and
merry again. It would be nice to plant a tree to remember this day by,
and have you plant one near it, don't you think so? Don't you feel as I
do, that you have just come into the world, and that all that has
happened before was only a dream? If I could only erect something that
should always be saying to me: Remember how happy you once were, and
how happy you are, and let nothing further trouble you in the world.
Oh, how beautiful it is here! The Rhine is broader than I remembered
it, and the mountains look down so upon me! I think I saw them in my
fever, but not so beautiful as they are now. It seems as if I could
compel the vineyards to grow green at once."
As he was walking with Eric along the river bank, he suddenly stood
still and said,--
"Hark, how the waves plash against the shore! Just so have they rippled
and plashed day and night when I was not here. Would it not be
beautiful to plunge into the waves and swim? Does not the rippling
tempt you too? It seems to me we did it centuries ago."
The boy had awaked to new life, and thoughts and feelings came bubbling
ceaselessly from his heart, as from an ever running fountain. He
delighted in having the people he met tell him how tall he had grown,
and how like a man he was looking.
Eric listened patiently to all his outpourings; the boy was tasting the
double pleasure of returning health and the opening spring.
"The hen cackles for herself and the cock," he exclaimed, the first
time he heard a hen; "and I am sure it is as beautiful a sound to them,
as the song of the nightingale is to us. Don't you think our barnyard
hen makes a great deal more noise over the laying of an egg than her
wild sisters? No female of all the wild birds of the forest sings; the
hen is the only one. Do look at the grass; how beautifully green it is,
and the hedgerows there! The green leaves and buds would like to pop
out all of a sudden and cry, Here we are!"
So he chattered on, like a grateful child.
Only a little at a time could the studies be resumed. Eric observed a
certain depression in his mother, which might be the result of her
anxiety for Roland, whose illness naturally recalled to her that of her
own son, or of her constant care for the poor in the neighborhood,
whose calls for help were increasing as their winter stores were
getting exhausted. Roland was desirous of sharing these cares with her,
and of being allowed to take some of the gifts himself; but the mother
would not permit it. He was not ready for that yet, she said; he must
first come to be a strong man himself, able to carry out his own great
lifework.
Roland complained that he did not see the need of so many having to
suffer want, when there was enough in the world to satisfy everybody.
Eric and his mother had to reason with him, or he would have cursed
wealth as a misfortune and an injustice. But the elasticity of youth
came to their aid, and the boy soon forgot how much misery there was in
the world, and contented himself with the objects immediately about
him.
Sonnenkamp was very happy, too, for Eric and Roland took an active
interest in the cultivation of the trees, and he could be their
teacher.
"You will experience, as I have," he often said, "that the greatest
pleasure in the world, is to watch the growth of a tree of your own
planting."
The buds were swelling in the garden, while across the river, and over
the fields, floated an aromatic breath of spring, a fragrance as if the
air had blown over vast, invisible beds of violets. Within the house
was a cheerfulness that had never been known there before. Even Frau
Ceres could not escape its influence, for Roland shed about him a
constant atmosphere of joy, that infected all who came in contact with
him. He had, moreover, now, as he confided to the Professorin, a
project in his head, of which he would not betray, even to her, the
exact nature. On the anniversary of his birthday, which was also that
of Eric's arrival, he meant to prepare for everybody such a joyful
surprise as they never would guess.
The grass and the blossoms had come forth in the garden, the birds were
singing, and the boats sailing merrily up and down the river, when, on
the day preceding Roland's birthday, a note was found in his room,
saying that the family must not be uneasy about him, for he would
return the next day, bringing something most beautiful with him.
Upon inquiry, it appeared that Roland had set off with Lootz for the
convent.
CHAPTER XII.
ORESTES AND IPHIGENIA.
Two steamers, one bound for the valley, the other for the mountains,
were standing in the stream at a little distance from the island. In
the one bound for the valley was Roland. In answer to his impatient
question why they did not land, the captain silently pointed to the
island, where a procession of priests and nuns were following a bier
covered with flowers, and borne by girls dressed in white. The voices
of children, as they sang, rose on the clear Spring air. Roland's heart
trembled; what if his sister----?
"It must be a little child," said an elderly man standing near him;
"the bier is so small; those young girls could not carry it otherwise."
Roland breathed more freely; he knew his sister must be among the
mourners.
He had landed, and was standing on the bank beside the boatman, who was
to row him over to the island. The man shook his head and said
softly:--
"Not yet, not yet; but perhaps you are a relation of the child?"
"What child?"
"A little child has died in the convent; oh, such a beautiful child! it
made one happy only to look at her. The Lord God will have to make but
little change to turn her into an angel."
"How old was she?"
"Seven, or eight at the most. Hark, there they come!"
The bells rang out into the Spring air, the smoke of the incense
ascended, as the procession moved along the shore.
The boatman took off his hat, and prayed with folded hands. Roland,
too, stood with uncovered head, and with a sudden shock he thought:
Thus might I have been borne to the grave. Such a weakness came over
him that he was obliged to sit down; he kept his eyes fixed upon the
island; the procession went on, then disappeared, and all was still.
Now they were sinking the young body in the ground; the birds sang, no
breath of air stirred, a steamboat came towards the mountain; all was
like the figures in a dream.
The procession came in sight again, singing, and vanished through the
open doors of the convent.
"So," said the boatman, putting on his hat, "now I will row you
across."
But Roland, unwilling to surprise his sister before she had had time to
rest and compose herself, asked to be allowed to remain a while longer
on the shore. It was well he did, for no one in the convent so felt a
part of her very self taken from her, as Manna. Dear little Heimchen
had held out for a whole year, seeming to grow more cheerful, and
making good progress in her studies, but in the Spring she faded, like
a tenderly nurtured flower too early exposed to the cold.
Devotedly, day and night. Manna nursed the child, who with her was
always happy. A foretaste of heaven seemed granted little Heimchen; she
looked forward to it as to a Christmas holiday, and often said to Manna
that she should tell God, and all the angels in heaven, about her. The
next moment she would beg Manna to tell her about Roland.
"I saw him running with his bow and arrows, and oh, he was so
beautiful!"
Then Manna told about Roland, and could always make Heimchen laugh by
describing how his little pups tumbled one another over and over. The
physician, and the hospital nun, who was almost a doctor herself, urged
Manna to take more rest, but she was strong, and never left her post.
In Manna's arms the child died, and her last words were:--
"Good-morning, Manna, it is no longer night now."
Manna's experience had been manifold. She had seen a novice assume the
dress of the order, and had seen a fellow pupil enter her novitiate;
yet was it all only a strong, free, joyful self-sacrifice. Now she had
witnessed the death of a child, a little human being, dropping softly
and silently from the tree of life, as a blossom falls from the stem.
It was Manna who, at the lower end of the bier, had helped to bear the
child to the grave, and thrown three handfuls of earth upon the coffin.
She did not shed a tear until the priest described how the child had
been called from the earth, as a father might summon his child from a
play-ground where it was in danger, and keep it safe in his home; then
she wept bitterly.
On leaving the cemetery, she went once more to Heimchen's empty bed,
and there prayed God that she might enter into eternity as pure as that
little child. Then she grew composed, feeling the time could not be far
distant when, after a short return to the excitement of the world, the
great Father of all would summon her away from this play-ground into
his sheltering mansions. She seemed already to hear voices from the
noisy world without, calling her once more to return to it. She must
obey them, but made a firm resolve faithfully to return into this, her
one, only home.
She descended to the island, and took her seat under the pine-tree
where she had so often worked. There was the little bench on which
Heimchen had sat close by her side, almost at her feet. Manna sat here
long, trying to imagine the distractions which life could bring to her
in this one year, but she did not succeed. Her thoughts would return to
Heimchen, and she found herself trying to follow the young soul into
the eternity of Heaven.
Suddenly she heard steps, and looking up saw before her a youth who was
like Roland, only much taller, and more manly. She could not stir from
her seat.
"Manna, Manna, come to me!" cried the boy.
She rose, and with a loud cry, brother and sister fell into one
another's arms.
"Sit down by me," said Manna at last. They sat together upon the bench
beneath the pine-tree, and Manna, pointing to the smaller bench, told
of Heimchen, and of her often wanting to hear stories about Roland, and
when she came to tell how the child had died of homesickness, she
suddenly exclaimed:--
"Our whole life, Roland, is nothing but homesickness for our heavenly
home; of that we die, and happy is he who dies of it."
Roland perceived that his sister was in a state of overwrought
excitement, amounting almost to ecstasy; and speaking in a tone of
quiet and manly decision, he told her that she must first come back to
her earthly home. He told her of his having acted in a play, and having
been photographed in his page's silk dress; of the order his father had
received; and, finally, of a secret his father had confided to him, and
which he could not tell.
"Our father told you a secret?" asked Manna, her face growing rigid.
"Yes, and a beautiful, noble one; you will rejoice with me when you
hear it."
Manna's features relaxed.
Roland told her how he had fancied himself with her all through his
delirium, and that she ought to feel only happy at his being still
alive.
"Yes, you are still alive," cried Manna, "you shall live. All is
yours."
He reminded her that to-morrow was his birthday, and that his own wish
was that she would let him take her to their parents on that day.
"Yes, I will go with you," cried Manna, "and it is better we should go
directly."
Hand in hand, the brother and sister went to the convent, where Manna
told the Superior of her intention to go home with Roland. In a state
of feverish excitement, she then hurried to bid good-bye to all her
fellow pupils, and all the nuns, went into the church and prayed, and
finally made Roland go with her to Heimchen's grave.
Roland observed a long, straight row of gravestones without
inscriptions, and, on asking Manna about them, was told they marked the
graves of the nuns.
"That is hard," said Roland, "to have to be nameless after death."
"It is but natural," returned Manna; "whoever takes the veil lays aside
her family name and assumes a sacred one, which is hers until her
death, and then another bears it."
"I understand." said Roland. "That is giving up a great deal. The name
of the nun cannot be written on the gravestone, nor the family name
either; yet there must be a great many of noble family buried here."
"Yes, indeed; almost all were noble."
"What should you say if we should be noble too?"
"Roland, what do you mean?" cried Manna, seizing him violently by the
arm. "Can you speak of such a thing here and now? Come away; such
thoughts are a desecration to the graves."
She led him out of the little burial-place and as far as the gravel
path, when, suddenly leaving him, she turned once more to the cemetery
and knelt down by the grave; then she rejoined her brother.
Lootz was standing with the luggage ready; Manna stepped into the boat
with Roland, and the brother and sister were borne up the stream toward
their home. All in the boat gazed with a pleased curiosity at the pair,
who, however, sat quietly hand in hand, looking out upon the broad
landscape.
"Tell me," urged Roland, "why you said, when you were going to that
convent, that you, too, were an Iphigenia?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Oh yes, you can; I know all about her. I have read the Iphigenia of
Euripides, and of Goethe, too, by myself and with Eric, and you are
like neither of them."
"It was only---- ah, let us forget all about it."
"Do you know," cried Roland, "that Iphigenia became the wife of the
great hero Achilles and lived with him, on the island of Leuce, in
eternal blessedness?"
Manna confessed her ignorance, and Roland described the copy of the
Pompeian fresco that Eric's mother had showed him, where Calchas, the
priest, is holding the knife, Diomedes and Odysseus are bearing
Iphigenia to the altar, and, her father, Agamennon, hides his face,
while, at the command of Artemis, one of the nymphs leads in the stag
that is to be sacrificed in Iphigenia's place.
"How many things you have learned," smiled Manna.
"And Eric told me," continued Roland, "that the sacrifice of Iphigenia
was just like that of Isaac, and all the other sacrifices we read
about."
Manna's face darkened; that was the foundation of a fatal heresy.
"Stop, now I have it," cried Roland. "Ah, that is good! There are still
oracles in the world. Orestes had to fetch his sister from the temple
of Tauris, where she was priestess. That is it! You divined it! That
will delight Eric; ah! how it will delight him! But stay! When
Iphigenia and her brother were on board ship I am sure he must have
played off all sorts of silly tricks to amuse her, and I am sure she
laughed. Have you quite forgotten how to laugh? You used to laugh so
merrily, just like a wood-pigeon. Do laugh just once."
He laughed with his whole heart, but Manna remained unmoved, and,
during the way, sat buried in her own thoughts. Only once, when the
boat came to a sudden stop in the middle of the stream, she asked:--
"What is that?"
"That is the very question I asked Eric when we were going up the river
together, and he showed me up there a heavily-laden freight vessel,
which would be overturned and sunk by the commotion of the water, if
our steamer did not moderate its speed. Oh, there is nothing he does
not know, and then he said: Remember. Roland, that we should do the
same thing in life; we must not rush on our own way, but must think of
the heavily-laden voyagers on the stream of life with us, and take care
that the waves we raise do not overwhelm them."
Manna stared at her brother. She could trace the influence of a man who
used the actual as a symbol of the ideal, and she became herself, in a
measure, conscious of that power which in every outward aspect of life
seeks and finds the underlying thought. She shook her head, and opening
her breviary, began diligently to read it.
"See the sunlight on the glass cupola," cried Roland, as it grew late
in the afternoon. "That is home. Perhaps they have guessed at home that
you are coming back with me."
"Home, home," breathed Manna softly to herself; the word sounded
strange to her on her own lips, as it had done from Roland's. She
closed her eyes, as if dazzled by the reflection on the glass cupola.
CHAPTER XIII.
NOTHING BUT EYES.
Two carriages were waiting at the landing. Manna received the embraces
and kisses of her father without returning them, and watched, in
apparent terror, the receding steamer, which, after quickly landing its
passengers, went swiftly on its way.
"Your mother is in the carriage," said Sonnenkamp, offering Manna his
arm. She laid her hand timidly upon it, allowed herself to be led to
the glass carriage, in which sat Frau Ceres and Fraeulein Perini, and,
taking her seat beside her mother, embraced her passionately.
Sonnenkamp and Roland entered the other carriage, and all drove toward
the villa. The father muttered something to himself about not having
heard the sound of his daughter's voice.
"Where is Eric?" asked Roland.
"In the green cottage with his mother. It was considerate on the part
of a stranger to retire to his own relations at such a time, and leave
the family alone."
Roland was struck by the words. Were Eric and his family strangers?
On arriving at the villa, Fraeulein Perini also withdrew hastily, and
went to the Priest's house, whence a messenger was soon despatched to
the telegraph station.
The parents were alone with their children, but there seemed a chill in
the room which banished all feeling of quiet and comfort.
Sonnenkamp and Roland took Manna to her room, where she was pleased to
find everything in its old place, and, at sight of the open fire-place
filled with beautiful growing plants, turned to her father and thanked
him, offering him her hand for the first time, and kissing his; but she
could not repress a shudder at touching the ring on his thumb.
When Roland was left alone with his sister, he urged her to visit his
grandmother and aunt that very day; but Manna reproved him for giving
such names to persons not really related to him.
"Ah, but you must love them too," said Roland.
"Must? One can love nobody upon compulsion. Let me tell you, Roland--
but no; there is no need."
She yielded at last to his persuasions, and went with him through the
new gateway in the garden wall, along the meadows by the shore.
"There goes Eric; I will call him. Eric! Eric!" cried Roland in a loud
voice.
The figure did not turn, however, but kept on, and presently
disappeared among the shrubbery.
Roland and Manna found the Professorin waiting for them upon the steps,
and Manna received a hearty welcome.
"He gave me no peace till I consented to come to you," said Manna.
"So he makes you mind like the rest of us, does he?" said the lady with
mock severity. "Let me tell you, my dear child, that I know this wild
boy has said a great deal to you about me, and would like to force you
to love me; but even the best intentioned urgency in such matters
should be avoided. Glad as I shall be if we can be good friends, we yet
will not be forced upon each other."
Manna looked in amazement on the Mother, who asked a great many
questions about the convent, and advised her to remain much alone, as
the sudden change from a life of seclusion to one of excitement might
injure her habits of thought, as well as her health.
Manna felt herself cheered by intercourse with this quiet, composed,
harmonious nature; only the room looked strange to her with no images
of saints about. Her attention was attracted by the sewing-machine, and
the Mother had readily consented to instruct her in the use of it when
Aunt Claudine entered, whose dignified bearing interested Manna even
more than the Mother had done.
"You and Aunt Claudine," exclaimed Roland, "have two things in common.
She is a star gazer like you, and plays the harp as you do."
Aunt Claudine did not require much urging, but willingly played Manna a
piece on the harp.
"I shall be very grateful if you will accept me as a pupil," said Manna
offering her hand; and the beautiful nervous hand which grasped hers
gave her more pleasure by its touch, than she had found in the soft
little plump one of the Professorin.
When it grew evening, the Mother and Aunt set out with Roland and Manna
towards the villa, Manna walking with the Aunt, and Roland with the
Professorin. On the way Eric met them.
"At last!" cried Roland. "Now, Manna, here he is; here you have him."
Manna and Eric exchanged formal bows.
"Why don't you speak? Have you both lost your tongue? Eric, this is my
sister Manna; Manna, this is my friend, my brother, my Eric."
"Don't be excited, Roland," said Eric, and there was a ringing tone in
his voice that made Manna involuntarily raise her eyes to him. "Yes,
Fraeulein, this is the second time I have met you in the twilight."
Manna almost began to say that she had seen him once in broad daylight,
when she had not spoken to him, but had heard inspiring notes from him;
but she checked herself and pressed her lips together. Roland broke the
pause that ensued, by saying urgently:--
"Come into the house; then you will see one another by lamplight. It is
just a year ago, this hour, since I ran away; can it be only a year?
Ah, Manna, you cannot imagine how many hundred years I have lived
through in this one. I am as old as the hills, as old as that laughing
Sprite the groom told me about."
He repeated the story to his two willing listeners. When he had ended,
Eric announced his intention of staying till the next day with his
mother, for every one who was not a blood relation was a stranger at
such a time as this. Roland would hear nothing of his being a stranger,
but Manna's eyes as they gleamed in the darkness seemed to grow larger.
At the new gateway the party divided, Roland and his sister going to
the villa, and Eric returning to the green cottage with his mother and
aunt. For the second time he had seen Manna, and for the second time
she had seemed nothing but eyes.
How strange that this man should look like the picture of Saint
Anthony, thought Manna, when she was alone in her room; there seemed to
me no point of resemblance between them; some passing look of his, an
expression of his eyes, must have reminded Roland of the picture; she
too had seen nothing of Eric but his tall figure and his eyes.
She knelt long in prayer, and as she took off her clothes afterwards,
she drew more tightly round her waist a girdle--only a little cord it
was, which one of the nuns had given her--so tightly that it cut into
her flesh.
CHAPTER XIV.
A MORNING GIFT.
Before daylight Roland was at Eric's bedside, and waked him, saying:--
"I will go with you to-day."
Eric could not think what the boy meant, till he reminded him of his
having said that he ought, at least once every year, to go up on some
hill and see the sun rise. Eric remembered saying so, and, hastily
putting on his clothes, they walked together up a neighboring eminence.
A year ago that morning, Roland said he had for the first time seen the
sun rise; then he was alone, now with a friend.
"Let us keep silent," advised Eric. They looked towards the east, and
saw the light gradually appear. A new light dawned in Roland's mind; he
saw that all the splendor and glory of the world is nothing, compared
with the light which belongs alike to all. The richest can make for
himself nothing higher than the sunlight, which shines for the poorest
in his hovel; the fairest and the highest belongs to all mankind.
Roland fell into a sort of ecstasy, and Eric with difficulty refrained
from pressing him to his heart. He was happy, for the sun had risen in
Roland, the sun of thought which can never set; clouds may obscure it,
but it stands and shines for ever.
The two descended to the river, and bathed joyfully in it under the
early light, and to each the water was as a new baptism. The bells were
ringing as they returned to the villa, and in the distance they saw
Manna going to church.
Herr Sonnenkamp also had risen early, and paid a morning visit to the
Professorin.
"I have followed your good advice," he said, "and made Roland no
present to-day. Your account of the way in which royal children keep
their birthday was charming; they are not to receive, but to give. I
have followed your suggestions in every particular, and given Roland
nothing but the means and opportunity of bestowing upon others; I owe
you double thanks for allowing me to take the entire credit of the
idea. Any approach to untruthfulness is distasteful to me, but for my
son's sake, I venture to practice a little deception to-day."
The lady pressed her lips together. Here was this man, whose whole life
was a lie, trying to pass himself off for a man of truth! But she had
already taught herself not to be always inquiring too closely into the
motives of good deeds. She asked about the presents that Roland was to
distribute, and finally yielded to Sonnenkamp's desire that she should
accompany him to the villa.
As they approached the door, a carriage drove up from which jumped
Pranken. He had come, he said, because it was Roland's birthday, and
expressed great pleasure at hearing that Manna also had arrived:
Fraeulein Perini's telegram he thought it needless to mention. As he
stood upon the terrace overlooking the Rhine, he saw Manna walking up
and down not far off with a little book in her hand, and could perceive
the motion of her lips as she repeated the words from it.
Fraeulein Perini soon appeared, and exchanged a few whispered words with
Pranken. Great was her pride at having frustrated the cunningly woven
plans of this Professor's family, which so plumed itself on its lofty
sense of honor. There was no doubt in her mind that the idea of
bringing Manna from the convent had originated with Eric, and she saw
further evidence of his plotting, in the girl's having been taken to
the green cottage on the very evening of her arrival, and returning
delighted with the whole family, especially with Aunt Claudine. With a
knowing look at Pranken, Fraeulein Perini slyly remarked that the Aunt
was kept as a reserve to be brought to bear upon Manna, but she hoped
that Pranken and herself would be able to hold the field.
At last Manna herself came upon the terrace, and again offered her left
hand to Pranken, as in the right she held her prayer-book. She thanked
him cordially for his congratulations that this beautiful spring
morning found no blossom wanting on the family tree, and, as he
undertook to read what was in her mind, and interpret her feelings at
finding herself once more under her father's roof, she said quietly:--
"It is a tent which is spread and folded again."
With great tact Pranken seized upon the expression; he was sufficiently
familiar with the ecclesiastical manner of speaking, to be able to
construct the whole contingent of meditation and reflection, from which
this single remark had been thrown like a solitary soldier on a
reconnoissance. He talked with no little eloquence of our pilgrimage
through the desert of life, until we reached the promised land, adding
that the old man in us must die, for only the new man was worthy to
possess the land of promise.
There was a certain conversational fluency in Pranken's manner of
speaking which at first repelled Manna, but she seemed pleased, upon
the whole, to find this carefully trained, versatile man at home in
this sphere of thought. The fact of his belonging to the church, and
therefore living among the same ideas with herself, seemed to form a
bond of attraction between them. When at length he drew out of his
pocket the Thomas a Kempis she had given him, and told her that to that
he owed whatever of good was in him, she cast down her eyes, and,
laying her hand upon the book, said hurriedly, as she heard the voices
of the Professorin and the Major approaching: "Pray put the book back,
away."
Pranken obeyed, and while his eyes were fixed upon Manna, kept his hand
pressed on the book, which lay against his heart. This common secret
established a degree of intimacy at once between himself and the pure,
reserved girl.
The Major examined Manna as he would have done a recruit, making her
turn round and round, and walk this way and that, that he might judge
of her way of moving, all which evolutions Manna went through with
great good humor.
"Yes, yes," he said at length, extending the forefinger of his left
hand, as he always did when about to bring forth a piece of wisdom;
"yes, yes; when it works well, it is all right. Yes, yes; Herr
Sonnenkamp, when it works well, it is right, this sending a young man
into the army and a young woman into a convent, for a while. When it
works well, it is all right."
All nodded assent, and the Major was enchanted at having begun the day
by saying a good thing. But he soon changed his tone to one of
complaint at Roland's absence; he did not deserve his happiness,
keeping out of the way on such an anniversary as this, such a beautiful
spring day, too, that if they had ordered it expressly it could not
have been finer. He was just about to relate the fearful adventure in
the special train, which took place just a year ago that very day, when
Roland and Eric at last appeared.
Manna embraced her brother affectionately, as did Pranken also, but
Roland quickly disengaged himself from the latter's grasp, and said to
Manna:--
"Shake hands with Herr Eric too, for this is his birthday amongst us. A
year ago to-day he became mine, or I his; did you not, Eric? Give him
your hand."
Manna offered Eric her hand, and for the first time the two looked one
another full in the face, in the broad daylight.
"Thank you for the kindness you have shown my brother," said Manna.
Eric was much struck by Manna's appearance; she seemed to him a
wonderful mixture of gentle melancholy and lofty pride; her features
expressed a cold indifference; her motions were full of grace; there
was a bewitching softness in her voice, but mingled with a tone of
sadness.
Without knowing or wishing it, Manna became the central point of
attraction; even on this fete-day of Roland's, all seemed to turn to
her.
Presently the party adjourned to the great hall, where were Eric's
mother and aunt, Fraeulein Perini and Frau Ceres. Frau Ceres had such
fear of the morning air that all the windows were tight shut. She was
yawning when Roland entered, but embraced and kissed him. The
Professorin also embraced him, saying:--
"I wish you happiness; that is, I wish for you a constantly growing
appreciation of the happiness that has been granted you, and a
knowledge how to use it."
Sonnenkamp shrugged his shoulders at these words, and said to Pranken,
by whom he was standing:--
"How this woman is always trying to say something out of the common
course! She has actually forgotten at last how to say a simple
good-morning."
"Let us be thankful," rejoined Pranken, "that she has not yet
remarked,--As my departed husband, Professor Mummy, used to say."
The two men spoke without any change of expression, so that no one
heard or observed them.
Upon a great table lay a number of packages, each inscribed with a
name. The Professorin, with Fraeulein Milch, had made a list of the boys
in the neighborhood of Roland's own age, who were to have presents
given them on his birthday. They were mostly apprentices about to set
out on their travels, laborers on the Rhine boats, or in the vineyards:
some poor and needy persons had also been thought of, and for every one
a suitable gift was provided. In the middle of the table lay a large
envelope which Sonnenkamp had hastily placed there on his entrance, and
on which was written: "For my friend and teacher. Captain Doctor Eric
Dournay."
Roland's quick eye soon discovered the envelope, and he handed it to
Eric, who, on opening it, found a package of banknotes to a
considerable amount. His hand trembled; for a moment he looked about
him, then replaced the bills in the envelope, and advancing to
Sonnenkamp, who was standing by Manna and Pranken, and had just spoken
some words in a low tone to the latter, held the envelope towards him,
and, in a voice so agitated that he could scarcely enunciate a word,
begged him to take back his gift.
"No, no; do not thank me; it is I who should thank you."
Eric's eyes were cast to the ground, but he raised them and said,--
"Excuse me, I have never in my life accepted any present, and am
unwilling--"
"A man of independence like you," interrupted Pranken, "should waste no
words on the matter. Take the gift as cordially as it was given."
He spoke as one of the family, almost as if he had presented the money
himself. Eric stood abashed, not knowing how to refuse the gift without
seeming ungrateful and over delicate. As his eyes fell upon Manna, a
pang shot through his heart at the thought of having to appear before
her, on this first morning, as a needy receiver of money. He looked at
her as if imploring her to speak to him, but she kept silent; seeing no
other course open for him, he drew back the hand which held the
package, and soon after disappeared from the room.
Without, in the park, he walked thoughtfully to and fro for a while,
then, sitting down on the bench where Bella had sat, opened the
envelope and counted the money; it amounted to a sum large enough to
support a moderate family. As he sat there dreaming and unconscious,
holding the envelope between his two hands, and deaf to the song of the
birds in the trees and shrubs about him, his name was suddenly called,
and the servant Joseph handed him a letter from Professor Einsiedel,
congratulating him upon the anniversary, and admonishing him to earn
money enough to enable him to lead an independent life, wholly devoted
to pure science. The Professor repeated his wish, that there might be
some place of retreat established for the reception of men of science
in their old age.
Greatly comforted, Eric returned to the company in the drawing-room,
who had scarcely missed him.
"That is the way with these idealists, these reformers, these priests
of humanity," said Pranken to Sonnenkamp. "See how the Doctor looks as
if he had got wings! Yes, that is the way with them. They despise
money, till they have it themselves."
Pranken had observed aright. Eric did in truth feel himself endowed
with a new power, but also the thought arose in him: Now you too are
rich, and can care for others besides yourself. Observing, presently,
that he was keeping his hand upon the breast-pocket which contained the
money, he drew it away as if it had been upon coals.
CHAPTER XV.
A FEAST WITH UNEXPECTED DISHES.
The Major and Roland set out upon the performance of a most pleasant
office. They had the pony harnessed to the little wagon, in which all
the packages were put, and drove through the hamlets, stopping at the
various houses, and personally distributing the gifts. First of all
they drove to Claus's, in whom the last winter had worked a great
change. After the first expressions of sympathy had been received from
his neighbors, and he had once washed down all thought and care with a
good drink, he took to mitigating his troubles by the all-obliterating
wine, or by brandy, if he could get no better. His wife and children
were in despair at this change in him, and once the family came to hard
words, the Cooper having heard that his father had been begging of a
stranger from the other side of the mountains, and complaining of
having been ruined by a rich man.
The Gauger and the Burgomaster were amused with Claus's complaints and
fierce invectives, his jokes and wise sayings, and supplied him with
liquor.
When Roland and the Major arrived at this man's house, it was evident,
even at that early hour of the morning, that he had been drinking.
Roland was much shocked, but the Major said,--
"Oh, you should not think anything of that. The man drinks too much,
but only too much for his own stomach. Where is the harm? If a man is
made happy by a glass of wine too much, do let him enjoy it."
The Major's words and Roland's inward happiness soon effaced all
recollection of this first meeting. From Claus's they went to
Sevenpiper's, where was rejoicing beyond measure.
Roland said, again and again, that this day was the happiest he had
ever passed; and the Major impressed upon him that he must not throw
his good deeds into the empty air, but accept the good wishes and
blessings of those he had relieved from suffering and care.
"Fraeulein Milch," he added, "has a good saying, which should be
inscribed in the temple: The happiest hour is that which follows the
performance of a good deed. Write that in your heart, my boy."
The dogs jumped about the wagon, and Roland cried out to them,--
"Do you too know that this is my happiest day? You poor beasts, I can
give you nothing but food; you want neither clothes nor money."
Out of one house Roland came flying, pale as death.
"What has happened to you?" asked the Major.
"Oh, let us get away from here, away!" urged the youth in terror. "I
tremble all over, now, at what was done to me. If I had been attacked
by robbers, I could not have been more frightened."
"But what was it? Tell me what it was!"
"The old man, whom I brought the clothes and money for, wanted to kiss
my hand; that old man--my hand! I thought I should die, I was so
frightened. And are you laughing at it?"
"I am not laughing; you were quite right."
The Major looked upon this sensitiveness as one of the results of the
nervous fever, and said after a while,--
"Your father has planted a great many trees, and when one thrives he
calls it a grateful tree. Do you know what the most grateful tree is?
The tree of knowledge and good works."
While Roland's heart was thus swelling with the joy of health and
well-doing, Eric was in great depression. He had given his mother
Professor Einsiedel's letter, and, sitting beside her, told her how
this had comforted him for a while, but that now he was again in a
state of great uncertainty, because his relation to Sonnenkamp must
henceforth be one of painful dependence; till now he had occupied a
free and equal position with regard to him, but now he had received
favors, received a gift of money, and had lost his independence.
His mother listened patiently to the end, and then asked,--
"Do you hesitate to accept this gift because it comes from Herr
Sonnenkamp? Why not as readily or as reluctantly as from any one else,
from Clodwig, for instance?"
She put the question eagerly, thinking she perceived that Eric, as well
is herself, was aware of Sonnenkamp's past life; but she was soon
assured that he had no suspicion of it, by his replying,--
"Friendship gives differently, and makes it seem hardly a gift; from a
friend like Clodwig, I could accept anything."
His mother told him he should consider that the money came from Roland,
whose coming of age was only anticipated. But that idea troubled Eric
too: it made him feel that he was sent away, paid off; the account was
squared between them. His mother reminded him, for his consolation,
that no outward pay could compensate for the labor, the burning cheek,
the trembling nerves, the planning and thinking by day and by night,
which the education of a human being requires. Finally, Eric confessed
that it mortified him to have to accept presents before Pranken, and
Manna too, the daughter of the house.
"Pranken and Manna are one," answered his mother, "she is his
betrothed. But take comfort; look back over the past year, and you will
see that you have developed in your pupil a character which nothing can
undermine."
This thought finally enabled Eric to rise above all his depression, and
when he left his mother's house he had spirit enough to exclaim:--
"Look at Eric, old Father Rhine; he is become an independent man, and
can live upon his interest till he is seventy-seven years old!"
He met Roland and the Major returning from their round of visits. It
was not for nothing that the Major carried always two watches about
with him, one of which he called his _galloper_ because it was always
fast; the only difficulty was, he could never tell whether he had put
the galloper in his right or left pocket; however, he was on hand again
punctually at dinner-time.
Roland sat at the richly furnished table, but tasted scarcely a morsel.
"I am so full," he said to Eric, "so full of the great happiness I have
given to-day. And you--are you not happy too?"
Eric could truly say he was.
There was some discussion as to who should propose the customary toast
for Roland; whether it was for Eric or Pranken to do.
Both at length urged the duty upon the Major, who rose and said,--
"Gentlemen and ladies!"
"Bravo!" cried Pranken.
"Thank you," said the Major, "Interrupt me as often as you will; I have
learned to take flying leaps, and every obstacle gives me a chance for
a higher bound. Once more, ladies and gentlemen! the human race is
divided into male and female."
General laughter, which delighted the Major.
"Here you behold a pair in the garden of Eden--"
"Perhaps you would like this to complete your picture?" said Pranken,
handing the Major an apple.
Roland was indignant with Pranken for interfering so often, and begged
the Major not to let himself be confused by it.
"Be easy, my boy," said the Major in a low voice; "I can stand fire."
Then he continued aloud:--
"So we have here two children, the daughter of the house and the son of
the house; and the children have us. They have their parents; they have
a grandmother and an aunt by election, and here,"--giving himself a
ringing blow on his chest,--"here they have an uncle. We love them as
if they were our own blood, and they love us, do they not, children?"
"Yes!" cried Roland, and Manna nodded.
"So then, if I had a son--no, I don't mean that--if I had a teacher for
this son of mine--no, I did not mean that either--So, then, our wild
rover there--see, he has already a growth upon his face--may the
Architect of the universe bless him, and let him grow to be a man who
shall understand what is true happiness for himself, for others, for
his brethren of all faiths, for all the descendants of man upon the
earth."
Amen, he was about to say, but corrected himself, and cried:--"His
health, again and again, his health."
The Major sat down, and unbuttoned several buttons behind his napkin.
Sonnenkamp spoke next, and in happily chosen language proposed a toast
to Eric, his mother, and his aunt.
"You must speak too; you must speak too," the Major kept urging upon
Eric.
Eric rose, and with a light and cheerful tone began:--
"Two things may be particularly noticed, which the Old World has given
to the New World of America--the horse and wine. The horse is not a
native of America, neither is wine. Germans first planted vineyards in
the New World. Two natural objects, therefore, which enlarge the scope
of human strength and intellect, we have presented to the New World. I
leave out of consideration the kingdom of ideas. My toast is this: May
our Roland, who comes to us from the New World, be borne onward and
animated by the rich powers beyond himself, to great and noble ends!"
He raised his glass with enthusiasm, the sunlight sparkled in the wine,
and pointing to it he continued:
"The sun of to-day greets the sun of a past age. What we drink is the
offspring of departed days, and what we receive into our soul has
ripened in the sun of eternity. Each one of us should be a fruit that
shall ripen and live on in the sun of eternity, as God lives in
humanity, and in the stars, and in the trees and plants. Holy is the
world, and holy should we make ourselves. We are not our own, and what
we have is not our own. What we are and what we have belong to the
Eternal. My Roland, the bright, smiling, sunny light of this day which
is gilding the earth will be turned to the fire of the wine, which
after resting and ripening in well sealed casks, in the cool earth,
shall presently be carried to strangers through all the lands, to
animate and penetrate them with its sunlight. So shall the sun of
to-day become fire in our souls, which shall burn brightly through the
cold and desolate days that may be in store. May that ripen in you, my
Roland, which shall quicken your soul, and rejoice mankind, and convert
all life into the free and beautiful temple of God."
Eric's eye encountered a glance from Manna's, as he sat down. She
beheld him as it were for the first time. His face wore an expression
of ideality, of spirituality, which seemed to subdue all passion, and a
look of such manly decision as made her feel, If, in danger, I had this
man by my side, I should have an all-sufficient help. But she needed no
help.
Sonnenkamp and Pranken shrugged their shoulders at the conclusion of
Eric's speech, and had to repress a laugh which was provoked by
Sonnenkamp's whispering to his neighbor,--
"The man almost seems to believe what he says."
A diversion was here made by the arrival of the Doctor, and of the
Justice's Lina, who was eager to greet her friend upon her "return to
life," as she called it. All arose from the table in excellent spirits.
CHAPTER XVI.
ABOUT ANOTHER AND FOR ANOTHER.
The Doctor kept close watch upon the behavior of the girls, and
listened to their conversation. Manna expressed her thanks for her
friend's kind attention, but preserved all the while in her manner a
certain reserve, an indescribable something, the result of that life in
the convent which to Lina had been productive of nothing but an
acquaintance with foreign languages.
The Doctor afterwards expressed to the Professorin, as they were
walking back and forth together in the garden, great curiosity to know
whether worldly wisdom would succeed in triumphing over the influence
of the Church, and also his regret that she herself was not a Catholic,
as in that case her task would be much easier. But the lady remained
firm in her decision to exert no influence whatever on Manna; she was
not only not required by her duty to do so, but would actually have no
right, Manna being betrothed to Pranken.
"Who knows?" replied the Doctor, "who knows? The Huguenots not only
went into exile themselves; their example made others emigrate: and
often our influence is greatest when it is quite unintentional."
Sonnenkamp wished Lina to spend some of these Spring weeks with his
daughter, and Manna had no alternative but to second the invitation.
Lina accepted, on condition of obtaining her parents' consent, and
returned with the Doctor to be sent for the next day.
Pranken, who remained through the evening, was rejoiced at Manna's
confiding to him that she had already painfully experienced the world's
temptation to want of truthfulness; for that, to speak with perfect
candor, she did not desire a visit from Lina, and yet she had been
obliged to request it; that she thought was the great sin of the world,
that it makes us false to ourselves.
Pranken hoped that Lina's visit would have an enlivening effect upon
Manna; to begin with, however, he wanted to find out how she liked the
Professorin. In approaching the subject he so carefully worded his
remarks that if Manna should speak with enthusiasm he could fall in
with it, and the same if she expressed dislike.
Manna repressed the confession that rose to her lips, that she felt
herself already bewildered by the confusion that prevailed in the
house, and longed for the well-ordered quiet of the convent, and merely
complained of feeling so unlike herself in the world. But, when Pranken
thanked her for this confidence, she recoiled and said, scarce above
her breath, that the world made people talkative even when they wished
to be reserved.
"I am glad to hear you speak of reserve," resumed Pranken, after a
pause; "for our Archbishop enjoined it upon me lately in those very
words. 'Be reserved,' he said; 'persons who speak much and readily are
at bottom nothing but dilettanti.'"
He thought Manna would perceive at once that he was referring to Eric,
but, as she gave no sign of applying the charge of dilettantism to him,
Pranken spoke more openly and said:--
"Do you not perceive something of the dilettante in the very talkative
Herr Eric?"
Manna answered shortly:--
"The man talks much, but----"
Here she made a long pause, and Pranken was in great suspense,
wondering how she would finish her sentence.
"He talks much," she said, "but he thinks much too."
Pranken cast about for some turn he could give the conversation, which,
with a skilful aim, could not fail to hit the mark. He might have
spared himself his great pains, for a man whose activities extended
over so much ground as Eric's offered many points of attack.
Pranken began by declaring Eric to be a kind of Don Quixote, a man who
was always adventuring after great ideas, as in the case of the
exaggerated sentiment of his toast. Disguising the cutting nature of
his remarks under cover of gentle words, he attempted to turn Eric into
ridicule. He thought it presumption in him, in the first place, to lay
claim to any inward consecration as a cloak for his profanities, and
finally went so far as to accuse him of passing off counterfeit coin,
in the hope of deceiving a childlike, confiding mind. He looked keenly
at Manna as he spoke, but she kept silence.
"Be on your guard," he added, "he plays the model man everywhere."
The expression seemed to please Pranken so well, that he ventured to
repeat it.
"This playing the model man is very cunning, but we can see through it.
You have no idea how much trouble this pattern of pedagogues, this Herr
Dournay, has given us. You must be on your guard; his every word is
stamped with the conviction, that he unites in his own person all
possible examples of virtue."
Encouraged by a smile on Manna's face, which she tried in vain to
suppress, Pranken continued:--
"After all, his eloquence is only that of the hairdresser, who talks of
all kinds of things while he is curling your hair, only without setting
up for so much scientific and religious aplomb. Observe how often he
uses the word humanity; I counted it fourteen times, once, in a single
hour. He affects great modesty, but his conceit actually exceeds all
bounds."
Pranken laughed, knowing how easy it is to throw ridicule upon a man in
the full tide of enthusiastic action; and with pleasure he perceived
that his words were not without influence on Manna. If you can once set
a man in a ridiculous light, there is no salvation for him. This,
Pranken knew and hoped to accomplish in the present case; he, however,
went on to say:--
"Our Roland has learned a great deal under this honorable gentleman,
but he has had enough of him now; it is time he entered upon a wider
sphere."
Manna preserved her thoughtful silence, and soon after walked away,
occasionally, as she went towards the villa, nodding to herself as if
assenting to what she had heard. Pranken looked after her in
perplexity.
On the steps she met Eric, and both stopped. Eric felt obliged to say
something, and therefore began,--
"I can imagine its being hard for you to have your first day at home a
fete day; it will, perhaps, make the days that follow seem dull."
"How should you know what is passing in my thoughts?" replied Manna, as
she went on up the steps.
She was indignant with the man for forgetting his position in the
house, and taking upon himself to tell what was passing in her mind.
What right had he to put into words what she did not choose to express?
As she went up the steps, she pressed together in anger the lips which
had spoken such cruel words; she was angry with herself too. But the
words had been said, and could not be unsaid.
She spent the whole evening in her room. At a late hour Roland knocked
at the door, and insisted on being admitted.
"Ah, sister," he said, as he sat down beside her, "of all I have been
through to-day, one thing haunts me. Everybody to whom I gave a present
said he would pray for me. How is that possible, and what good would it
do? What good would it do to have another person pray for me, and say
of me and wish for me before God all sorts of good things? Of what use
would it be, if I were not in my own soul good and noble? No man can
pray for another."
"Roland, what are you saying? What are you thinking of?" cried Manna,
seizing him by both arms and shaking him; then, leaving the boy
standing in amazement, she hurried into her chamber and threw herself
upon her knees.
On this first day at home the ruin of her house was revealed to her.
She prayed for Roland, that his mind might be enlightened and delivered
from bondage, and even while she prayed, a feeling of strangeness stole
over her. She wrung her hands, she groaned, she wept. Is it true that
no one can stand in the place of another, can sacrifice himself for
another? No, it is not,--it cannot be. She felt herself burdened, as by
an actual weight from heaven, at the stirring of this great question,
this great anxiety within her. Can a human being, then, do more harm
than good to another? Is it so? Must it be so? There was a violent
struggle in her soul; at last she smiled; a great conflict is appointed
for me, she thought, and it is already beginning. She was to save the
soul of her brother, and this, she told herself, could not be done by
violence, but only by gentleness and humility.
She rose, and returning to the room where she had left Roland, held out
her hand to him.
"I see," she said, "you are my grown-up brother; we must help one
another to become better. We have much to give and to take from each
other; that will come of itself."
She sat down quietly beside him, and held his hand tightly clasped in
hers.
"How pleasant it must seem to you to be at home again!" exclaimed
Roland. "The convent is no home for any one."
"For that very reason it is the best," returned Manna. "Every day,
every hour reminds us that we have no home in this world; that our
whole life is but a pilgrimage. If this world were our home, we should
both have, you and I--no. You too tempt me to say, what I should not."
"Eric is right," said Roland. "He says you are truly pious; what
millions speak only with their lips, you utter from your heart."
"Did Eric say that?"
"Yes, and much more."
"But, Roland," interrupted Manna, "you should, never tell what one
person says of another."
"Not if it is good?"
"Not even then. We cannot tell on that very account--no," she
interrupted herself; "are you not very happy in having so true a friend
in Eric?"
"Indeed I am; and do you not like him better than Pranken?"
A smile rose to Manna's lips, but she repressed it and said,--
"Your teacher should also teach you never to make comparisons. But now,
dear brother, remember that I have come from a convent, and need to be
much alone. Good-night!" she added, kissing him.
"Remember," he called back to her as he departed, "that you must take
your two dogs with you when you go to walk."
Manna was even yet not allowed to be alone. In the convent she had had
no one to wait upon her, but here her father insisted on her having a
maid to undress her.
The woman praised her beautiful black hair as she let it down.
"Ah, my Fraeulein, you have what is so rare in these days, good, healthy
hair. Would you believe, Fraeulein, that almost all the hair we see on
ladies' heads is false or padded? they wear a hat hidden under their
hair."
And yet, thought Manna, this hair will fall. A sudden terror shot
through her, as the maid passed her fingers through the loosened hair;
she fancied that she already heard the clipping of the scissors.
At last Manna was alone. After devoting herself for some time to
meditation and prayer, she began a letter to the Superior.
"We have celebrated to-day my birthday and my return to my parents'
house; but I long for my own birthday, which shall be my entrance into
the home of my Eternal Father--"
BOOK X.
CHAPTER I.
THE GIANT'S TOY.
The legend tells of that child-giant who took the ploughman, with
plough and horse, to be a plaything, gathered them up in his apron, and
carried them off.
This was the case with Manna. Her thoughts, by day and by night, had
been so far removed from the world, so elevated, and so victorious over
it, that all its doings seemed to her like children's plays. What is it
all for? To pass away the time? Children succeed in that; they
unconsciously persuade themselves that their dolls are alive; while
children of a larger growth play with their dolls, but look upon them
as shams.
Life is all idle play to them, and death alone is something serious.
It was with some such thought that Manna stood at the window, early on
the morning after Roland's birthday; she saw nothing of the world, and
yet she saw the whole world, far, far away.
So deeply impressed upon her memory were the tones of the convent-bell
which had awakened the pupils at the first blush of dawn, that they had
aroused her, this morning also, from her slumbers. She seemed to hear
it ringing as she slept. It was some time before she realized where she
was.
Thou art at home--where is thy home? who has built a house out of these
stones, has made this bed?
In the villa all were still sleeping. Manna alone was awake, and with
her the innumerable choirs of birds in the garden; and as the birds
outside mingled together their twittering songs, so a thousand thoughts
flitted through her mind.
She went into the park, and stood for a long time before the new gate
that opened upon the path to the little green cottage. A voice within
her seemed to say: Through this gate, and in this pathway, thou wilt
have much to experience, much to struggle with, and much to overcome.
She wanted to find out, to image to herself what would enter there, but
she succeeded no better than did Eric, as he gazed at the convent
steps, in calling up before his mind's eye the various destinies of
those who had passed in and out over that threshold.
Who would have been able to tell her that Eric had once gazed with the
same feelings!
Manna had a feeling of unrest, as if she knew that an eye was watching
her. Eric was now in fact standing at the window, and his glance rested
upon her; but he took care to keep out of her sight. His soul too was
moved, but by wholly different thoughts. While he was asleep, there was
with him the abiding feeling that now he was possessed of ample means
and was his own master; and this consciousness finally waked him. In
the earliest dawn, he had again counted over the money which Sonnenkamp
had handed him on the previous day. It was enough to support himself
and his mother. He was so unaccustomed to money, that he felt impelled
to count it several times over, and finally even to write down the
amount. Then he smiled, saying to himself:--
It's well, and I am glad to be put to the test whether I can perform my
duty in life with the same earnestness, poor or rich.
He opened the window and perceived Manna. He drew back softly, and
wondered what were the feelings and thoughts of the child, who had come
from the seclusion of the cloister into the luxurious parental home.
Sounds were now heard from the neighboring village, from all quarters,
from both shores of the river, up and down the stream.
Manna left the park and turned back to the house in order to get her
prayer-book. Fraeulein Perini was waiting for her in the hall.
Manna heard Fraeulein Perini give directions to the servants to make
ready a room for the Justice's daughter, and she had it upon her lips
to reproach herself to her former governess, for having been insincere
in permitting Lina to be invited. She dreaded her visit; the
superficial and childish character, as she had seen it the day before,
seemed something new and strange. She had resolved to gain the victory
by herself alone, and had come to the conclusion to ask Lina plainly
not to make the visit at this time; she owed it to herself to remain
alone, and to admit no distracting influence.
As she was going down the steps with Fraeulein Perini, a letter was
handed her, brought by a messenger, who was waiting for an answer. Lina
wrote how much she regretted that she was not permitted to accept the
hospitable invitation to Villa Eden. She besought Manna to send back a
single word, containing the assurance that she was not angry with her.
Manna was glad that she could now reply without wounding the feelings
of Lina, whose parents, she wrote, were in the right. On reading over
again her friend's letter, it seemed strange to Manna that no sort of
excuse was assigned. Do all the neighbors still hold aloof from her
parents' house?
Perhaps so! Another parental home, yonder, extends its invitation.
The church bell again rang, and Manna went with Fraeulein Perini to
church.
Fraeulein Perini was elated and happy. Others might attempt to win Manna
with every variety of influence; she alone could go with her to church.
"Do you still prefer to be silent in the morning?" asked Fraeulein
Perini quietly, extending her hand.
Manna nodded without speaking. Not another word was interchanged.
When the mass was over, and they had left the church together, Fraeulein
Perini said that she would like to introduce Manna to the Priest, who
had been stationed here during her absence.
Manna begged to go alone. She lingered a while, without moving from the
spot, and then went to the Priest's house. She seemed to be expected,
for the Priest came out on the steps to meet her, and welcomed her with
a benediction. He led her by the hand into his room, hastily removing
his breakfast from the table, on which there was an open book.
Manna was directed to take a seat on the sofa. She began:--
"Fraeulein Perini wished to introduce me to you, Reverend Sir. That
might be necessary with a man; a stranger, but you are not a man, a
stranger, you are a servant of our holy Church."
The Priest partially closed his eyes, brought together the ends of the
fingers of his handsome hands, then drew them apart, and said in a
quiet and clear tone:--
"The right way! You are in the right way, my child, keep in it. So it
is! Worldlings come into a place, they are strangers, strangers as if
they were among savages, and they are ignorant whether there is a
single person who cherishes the same thoughts with them; and there are
no two people who have the same thoughts, even when the words are the
same, and they have no bond of unity; they are like the mote dancing
here in the sunbeam. But you, if you should enter the remotest village,
you would be at home. _There_ is a house, and within it is a man who
welcomes you as a spiritual brother, as a father. He is not there of
himself, but has been placed there by another; and you have not come of
yourself, but have been led by another. You are doubly welcome, my
child, for perceiving and realizing this immediately. You knock at my
door, and it is open to you; and it will be open whenever you may come.
You knock at my heart, and that is open to you, be sure of that. I have
no house of my own; my house belongs to him who shall come after me,
and not to him either, and my heart is His who has made it beat."
The Priest stopped speaking, and fixed his regard upon Manna, who had
closed her eyes, as if she could not bear the sunlight, could not gaze
at the countenance on which the Spirit was now descending. The Priest
could see how deeply she was moved; he placed his hand in a friendly
way upon her head, saying:--
"Look up at me. I repeat to you, that you have come alone, and you know
why you have come alone; this spares us the necessity of coming to an
understanding, as worldlings term it. Coming to an understanding!"
The Priest laughed.
"Coming to an understanding! and they never do understand each other,
they, the cultivated, as they call themselves, or the self-cultivating,
as they ought to call themselves, for they believe that they can make
themselves into anything they please. They need a recommendation from
someone, who must say who they are and what they are; but we, we need
no introduction, no recommendation. You are recommended and introduced,
inasmuch as you are a child of our holy Church. Hold fast to this, my
child, and speak to me about whatever you wish to, of what is sacred
and what is profane, of what is great and what is small; you will
always find with me a home. If they disgust you in the world, and make
you feel homeless, remember, here is rest and here is home. Look out of
doors! Your father has, above there, a hot-house for foreign plants
which, are not at home in our climate; this room is your hot-house for
the plant of holy faith which, is not at home yonder. My child, I cast
no stone at any one, but I tell you, and you know already, this plant
is not of this world, and is, in this world, in a foreign climate; it
has been brought to us from heaven."
The Priest stood looking out of the window, and Manna sat on the sofa.
For some time not a word was spoken. Manna was deeply affected by this
elevated strain of cordial sympathy. There was no need of any
hesitating preliminaries; she was at once conducted into the inmost
sanctuary.
She asked at last in a timid way, how she ought to conduct herself
towards all the persons who were received as friends in the house of
her parents, and who plumed themselves upon their culture.
"You question well, you question definitely, and that is the mark of a
mature mind," replied the Priest. "Know then, that you are to smile at
all the boastful things you will be obliged to listen to; they pretend
to be so great, and they are so very little. These learned ones believe
that the world is without understanding, and that it is ruled with no
more wisdom than their understanding and their wisdom attribute to it;
they put God in one scale, and their own brain in the other. Pah!"
The Priest spoke now in a wholly different tone; he was violent and
bitter, so that Manna shrank together with affright. The Priest, who
noticed this, composed himself again, saying:--
"You see that I am still weak, and allow myself to be carried away by
excitement. My child, there are two things which conquer the world:
their names are God and the Devil, or, when transferred into the domain
of our own interior being, Piety and Frivolity. Piety sees everything
as holy; appearances are only a veil, while Frivolity sees nothing as
holy. Piety is the law of God; Frivolity has released herself from the
law of God, and sports with the world of appearances according to her
own pleasure. Between piety and frivolity there is a half-and-half
state, and that is the worst of all. Frivolity reaches its extreme
point and is capable of being converted, to which we have some glorious
witnesses; but the heroes of reason, so-called, or, more properly
speaking, the weaklings of reason, _they_ are not capable of being
converted, for they are wholly destitute of that disposition which
tends to humility."
The Priest thought that Manna would understand him to be pointing out
Eric and Pranken; he did not want to be any more personal at first, but
the ground was to be broken. Now he turned round, smiling, and seating
himself said:--
"But, my child, let us not to-day lose ourselves in such general
considerations. What have you to say?"
Manna complained of finding it so hard to complete another year of
probation, moving about in the world in order to be released from it.
The Priest reassured her with the words:--
"You wish to take the veil; you have taken it already; it is drawn over
you, and over the world, though invisible to every body else. Things in
the world do not affect your real self at all; there is a veil between
you and the world, which will be wholly dropped only when death gives
us deliverance."
The Priest proceeded to exhort her to subject herself to what was the
hardest of all experiences to youth and ardent zeal,--she was not to
consider it as her vocation to change the opinions of others, but she
was to labor for her own perfection.
He went more cautiously to work than Pranken did; he avoided a direct
attack upon Eric, as this might awaken an interest in Manna towards
him. He even praised him; but it was done in that tone of condescension
and pity, which comes so natural to him who upholds a dogmatic faith.
He inculcated upon her the fact, that she would soon understand how
trifling an affair it would be to annihilate this liberal culture, as
it was termed,--that it was in its very nature exceedingly fragile.
This could be plainly seen from each one of these so-called liberally
cultivated people wanting to be something entirely different from his
neighbor. Each one of Roland's teachers, for instance, had a different
method, a different course of instruction, different principles, and a
different end in view.
When Manna asked why the Priest had not used his influence to keep Eric
from being received into the family, he replied that he was glad to
find her so zealous, but a person was obliged to let some things take
their course in this world; and besides, from the outset, all
resistance to her father would have been to no purpose, for Roland had
insisted upon having his own way. And notwithstanding Eric was a
complete heretic, he recognized the holy, to a certain extent, although
there was much pride mingled with this recognition.
He feared to make Eric of too much importance, and so he added, almost
with timidity, that these apparently mild and enthusiastic idealists
were just the most dangerous.
Then he went on to advise Manna to consider the world around as alien
to herself.
The interview seemed now to have become rather painful. The Priest
suddenly and abruptly said that it was time for Manna to return home,
as they would be expecting her there. She was not to conceal that she
had been with him, but he would excuse her now in advance, if she
should often suffer a considerable time to intervene between her calls
upon him; he should remain unshaken in the conviction that her inmost
soul continued devoted to the holy faith.
"Now go, my child," he said in conclusion, "and be assured that I shall
pray for you."
Manna had risen; she looked at him earnestly. The inquiry seemed to be
awakened in her own soul: Can, then, one human being pray for another?
The inquiry which Roland had proposed presented itself afresh, and grew
to be the riddle of her life. She desired to sacrifice herself for
another, her whole existence should be only a prayer for another.
How is this possible?
She wanted to ask if it were true, and if true, why it was, that one
human being could do more harm than good to another; that one could lay
a burden upon another soul, but no one could remove that burden. She
wanted to say this to the Priest, and receive some help from him, but
he repeated,--"Now go, my child!" She turned away her inquiring eyes
and went.
On her way home, she stood near a field, watching a laborer who was
busy ploughing, and the thought occurred to her: Yes, one can sacrifice
himself for another, for the souls of men are nothing by themselves;
all that breathe are nothing but a breath of God; all movement in the
earth and in the great world is nothing but the movement of a single
Being.
Everything seemed to swim before her eyes; she saw the peasant
ploughing, she saw the vessels floating upon the Rhine, and the birds
flying in the air. All is one, all is little, the whole is only a
giant's toy.
CHAPTER II.
ONE'S OWN PART IN THE WORLD.
Manna walked dreamily along, but became roused to full consciousness
when the dogs Rose and Thistle sprang up to her, rejoiced to have their
mistress with them again.
"So our wild doe has got home?" cried a voice from a distance; it was
that of the field-guard, Claus, who had the dogs with him. "I mustn't
speak to you now as I used to," he exclaimed. "Hi! how tall you are!
But what are you so sad for? Cheer up! Just see, Fraeulein, all round,
as far down as the rocks there, your father has bought it all."
"Can one buy the earth?" asked Manna, as if waking from a dream.
Claus replied:--
"What do you say? I don't understand you."
"It was of no consequence," answered Manna. Can one buy then the
immovable ground? From whom? Who has a right to it? This question
presented itself to Manna as an enigma; she gazed intently into the
empty air, and hardly heard the huntsman's narrative of his recent
experiences. When he said:--"Yes, Fraeulein, I've been a simpleton, and
am very sorry for it," she asked him:--
"What have you been doing?"
"Zounds! I repeat that I've been doing nothing; that all my life I've
been a simple, honest fellow, and not a bad one at all. The bigger
rascal one is, so much the better off. What now does the world give me?
People can make you bad, but good--who can make you that? The only
comfort grows there on the hillside--there's where the drop of comfort
comes from, but I can get only a beggar's sup. I should just like to
know whether Herr Dournay is a true man; I think there's no true men
going now except Herr Weidmann. You've been in the convent, and is't a
fact that you want to be a nun?"
Manna had not time to answer, for Claus continued, laughing:--
"I've many a time thought that I'd like to go into a convent, too.
Everybody ought to be able to go into a convent when he's sixty years
old; nothing to do there but drink and drink, until death claps his
warrant upon you. But I don't want to make death's acquaintance yet
awhile; I say, like the constable of Mattenheim: Lord, take your own
time, I'm in no hurry."
Although so early in the morning, the field-guard was a little excited
and talked a little thick. Manna was afraid of him, but now gave him
her hand and went off with the dogs.
"I'd like to ask one favor of you!" he called after her.
She stopped.
He came up, and stated to her that the gauger had given him a ticket in
the Cathedral lottery, and he had sold it to Sevenpiper, and if the
number drew the first prize, he should tear all the hair out of his
head, and never have a minute's comfort with his children the rest of
his life. If Manna would give him a dollar, he could buy the ticket
back again.
As Manna hesitated, he added:--
"It's a pious matter, and just suits you."
Manna did not comprehend what he meant, and she learned now, for the
first time, that a lottery had been set up to raise money for the
completion of the Cathedral. She gave the dollar, and walked quickly
away.
She went along the Rhine. The smooth surface was broken only by the
circling ripples, and the fishes could be seen sporting beneath; the
willows on the banks quivered in the morning breeze, and were mirrored
in the stream. Manna entered the park. The fragrance of flowers was
wafted on the fresh, sparkling air, and a divine peace was diffused
everywhere around. The flowers glistened with a lustrous brightness,
and each color was heightened and glorified by the other; the white
added to the splendor of the blue, and the red was softened in its
burning glow, making a holy, peaceful harmony.
Each flower, each tree in blossom, helps to make fragrant the air which
the daughter of the house inhales; and around her is a human atmosphere
whose elements are hard to analyze. The father, harsh, and violent,
wanted to force his will upon his child either by kindness or severity;
the mother, wrapped up in her own feelings, wholly taken up with
herself and her ardent longings for worldly show.
The Professorin thought much of Manna, and would willingly have given
her rest; would have helped her over the first days and imparted what
she could, but she knew very well that it was not best to offer
anything before it was asked for.
The Aunt's look and manner seemed always to be saying: I am all ready,
if there is anything you want of me. There was no particular thing that
she desired to proffer Manna, but she would have held back nothing.
Eric was very deeply interested; he smiled to himself as the comparison
occurred to him: This child out of the convent must feel as you did,
when you left the regiment and doffed your uniform; formerly kept under
strict discipline, she must now be under self-discipline altogether,
and must feel the want of commands, of comrades.
Manna took the single seat under the weeping ash, that had been put in
order for her again, and now she wondered why she had been so rude
yesterday to Eric.
She wanted to say the first time she saw him: Do not believe that I
presumed in this way because you are dependent and in service.
And at this same moment Eric was walking alone in the park, and
proposing to say when he should meet with Manna: I would not have our
intercourse begin with ill-humor or a misunderstanding.
Manna, hearing approaching footsteps, now looked up and saw Eric coming
along the path. She remained seated. As he came nearer, he greeted her,
but neither of them uttered the contemplated speech.
Eric began:--
"I should like to give you a proof that I hold sacred the interior
sanctuary of your thought--and if yesterday I--it was a day of great
excitement. I beg you would also remember that my employment tends to
make me interest myself even in the thoughts of those with whom I have
no concern."
His tone was subdued. Manna was at a loss what to reply. Both were
silent, and there was nothing heard but the singing of the birds. At
last Manna said:--
"Tell me about Roland. What is his character?"
"My father used to say, dear Fraeulein, that no one could describe to
another the characteristics of his fellow; that each one sees the
traits in an entirely different light."
"You are evading my question."
"No. I wanted to say to you that I do not consider it feasible to
characterize any person justly. If I praise Roland, it seems to me as
if I were praising a portion of myself; and if I point out his
deficiencies, then perhaps I am too severe, because I feel as if they
were my own. One thing, however, a human being may be allowed to say in
his own commendation; and so I may be allowed to say of Roland, that he
has industry, perseverance, and truthfulness; this is the solid rock on
which the moral superstructure can be erected."
Manna involuntarily held up her prayer-book with both hands, as if it
were a shield.
Eric, thinking he understood the meaning of this motion, said:--
"It has been, and is, a leading object with me, that Roland should gain
an eye of his own, and trust to his own eye."
"An eye of his own?" Manna asked in wonderment.
"Yes, you will readily perceive what I mean by that. And now I have one
favor to ask for myself."
"For yourself?"
"Yes Simply believe that I hold in high respect your ideal of life,
because I regard it as sincere in you; and the favor I have to ask is,
that you will do the same with me."
"I was not aware--" Manna answered, blushing deeply.
A sort of pain darted through her soul; on her face there was an
expression of perplexity and conflict, for she was haunted by what
Pranken had said. Is this demand of Eric's what Pranken had called
setting up as a pattern of honesty, and did Eric, who might know of
that view, exhort her to judge impartially, whilst he laid a special
emphasis on having an eye of one's own? She could not complete her
sentence, for Roland came up, saying,--
"Indeed! Have you found each other out so soon?"
Manna rose hastily, and went to the villa, holding Roland by the hand.
Pranken came out with Sonnenkamp to meet them, and immediately said
that he had been to church too; but he considered it a duty not to
distract Manna by speaking to her in the morning.
Manna expressed her thanks.
At breakfast, Pranken had many anecdotes to relate, and he did it well,
of the royal hunting-lodge, and particularly of events at Court. And he
succeeded in giving a new and humorous setting out to many worn-out
garrison stories, that were fresh to this circle.
"Dear child," Sonnenkamp broke in, "you have not congratulated Herr von
Pranken on his appointment as chamberlain."
Manna bowed in congratulation, and Pranken referred in a cheerful way
to the contrast there would be between his summer life as a husbandman,
and his winter as chamberlain. He said, further, that the happiest day
of his life had been the one he had spent on the island ploughing; and
a single rose was the only thing that he envied, upon which glances
fell that he would have liked to turn towards himself.
Manna blushed.
Pranken went on to say that the Prince would drink the waters, this
summer, at Carlsbad.
Sonnenkamp immediately added, that Doctor Richard some time ago had
prescribed these waters to him as better suited to his case than those
of Vichy.
All the links seemed supplied for a complete chain when Pranken
narrated, in continuation, that his brother-in-law Clodwig, and his
sister Bella, would visit Carlsbad this summer.
"And you must accompany us," Sonnenkamp said, nodding to Pranken.
Before she was fairly settled at home. Manna saw herself withdrawn from
thence into the whirlpool of a watering-place life. Mention was
made of Lina's non-acceptance of the invitation, and Pranken spoke
very cleverly of the pleasant impression that her half-childlike,
half-matronly appearance made upon him. He wanted to obviate any ill
effects from Manna's hearing that he had for a while paid court to her
friend. He then declared that he would take the snow-white pony to
Wolfsgarten with him, in order to have it perfectly trained for Manna.
Her remark, that she now took no pleasure on horseback, was set aside
in an almost authoritative way by her father, who said the physician
had directed only the day before, that Manna should keep as much as
possible in the open air, and take a great deal of exercise.
Manna must now give a name to the snow-white little horse. Pranken
wanted to have this done in due form, but Manna declined. When they
rose from breakfast, she went to the stable, and gave to the snow-white
pony three lumps of sugar.
"Now for the name--the name!" cried Sonnenkamp.
"She has given him his name," replied Pranken laughing; "she has given
it to him bodily. Sugar is the pony's name, is it not?"
A smile passed over Manna's countenance for the first time, as she
replied,--
"No, we will call him 'Snowdrop.'"
Pranken bade her good-bye with much feeling, and rode away in a smart
trot down the road, making the sparks fly under his horse's hoofs.
Manna saw the groom leading behind him the snow-white pony by the
halter; she would not be perverse, but be moderate in all things. It
seemed to her emblematic, to ride on horseback again, before she
renounced all worldly trifles, and lived wholly in herself and for
eternal realities.
Manna accompanied her father through the park and garden, and through
the conservatories, and thanked him heartily for promising to send to
the convent beautiful flowers, which could thrive well there in the
enclosed courtyard. Sonnenkamp had it in his mind to confide to her the
expected elevation to the rank of the nobility, but he wanted to wait
for a suitable opportunity. The child must not be too suddenly
introduced into the distracting whirl. He observed with satisfaction
the large southern trees and plants, which were soon to be brought out
into the open air. At first they only opened the doors in order to let
in the outside air, and then the plants were brought out into sheltered
situations out-of-doors. So would he do with his child.
Manna had soon made a fixed arrangement for the day's occupations,
which she adhered to as an established rule; and this methodical
strictness soon exerted an influence over the whole family. She found
it difficult to deal with her mother, and chiefly in the matter of
dress; for Frau Ceres, who changed her dress several times a day,
wished Manna to do the same. But she was in the habit of putting on in
the morning the dress which she was to wear all day, and was even
reluctant to accept any service from her own dressing-maid. She kept on
the morning dress, and it seemed to her as the only suitable thing, and
alone worthy of the higher human life, that the nuns never varied their
dress. By this means all distraction and waste of thought on outward
appearance were saved.
She took no part in the beneficent activity of the Professorin. She had
briefly given as a reason, that she had still too much to do for
herself, and was not prepared to do for others.
She had, moreover, a decided antipathy to the assistant, Fraeulein
Milch.
She did not express this in words, but in her whole conduct; she
avoided speaking with Fraeulein Milch; and never gave her hand to her.
This was the effect of Fraeulein Perini's teachings, who had withdrawn
her from all connection with Fraeulein Milch before Manna had entered
the convent, as if the modest housekeeper had been a witch who could do
her harm. She used to say to the child:
"The whole life and character of this person are an impropriety."
Manna took regular lessons of the Aunt in harp-playing, and Aunt
Claudine was the only one who seemed to possess her confidence. She
showed her copy-books to her, and particularly the astronomical ones
with the alternate blue leaves and the golden pictures of the stars.
During the clear evenings, she spent several hours with the Aunt upon
the flat roof of the villa, looking at the stars through a telescope.
It was evident that Manna had been thoroughly taught; for the
convent-school made a special point of surpassing the worldly schools
in scientific instruction. Of course, all science was confined within
the bounds which faith prescribes.
With all the dignified loftiness of her demeanor, there was something
charmingly attractive in Aunt Claudine; she seemed to have lost or
renounced something in life, and so there was a gentleness which more
completely won Manna's affection.
In the Professorin, with all her friendliness, there was something
commanding; she was self-contained, and gave without ever receiving.
Aunt Claudine, on the other hand, in spite of the difference of years,
could be a young person's friend, and Manna felt the tranquillizing
effect of this friendship.
Manna's maturity of thought often excited more surprise than even her
actual knowledge. Her emotional nature had been widely developed; her
religious earnestness and her settled religious convictions gave her
serene composure and elevation, which might be mistaken for pride. She
always felt as if she were placed on an invisible height, far above
those who had no living faith. But this was not a boastful feeling of
superiority; it was a sense of being supported, every moment, by all
the great influences and views through whose aid so many holy men and
women had won the battle of life.
Manna took especial delight in the lessons upon the harp; she said to
the Aunt, that it seemed to her as if she had never heard herself
before.
The Aunt explained that this was the first step of progress; that
improvement really begins when one hears and sees himself.
Manna's eyes beamed softly, and she asked Aunt Claudine if this
standing up alone by one's self in the world had not often been very
hard for her.
"Certainly, my child. When one in youth makes a decision that affects
the whole life, he does not know the real meaning of it."
Manna grasped convulsively the cross upon her bosom, and the Aunt
continued:--
"Yes, my child, it requires courage and energy to be an old maid; at
the time this resolution is taken, one is not fully conscious of how
much it will require. Now, when I am alone, I am contented and
peaceful; but in society and the world, I seem to myself often so
superfluous, and as if only tolerated out of pity. Yes, my child, and
one must take care not to be compassionate and sentimental towards
one's self, or bitter; for the pitying of one's self often leads to
bitterness and resentfulness."
"I can comprehend that," returned Manna. "Did you never have a longing
to be able to enter a convent?"
"My child, I would not like to mislead and disturb you."
"No, say what you please, I can hear it all."
"Well, then, there are some institutions productive of so much harm,
that they have forfeited the right of being perpetuated, at least, as
we regard it. And, dear child, I could not, myself, live without art,
without secular music, without the sight of what the plastic arts have
produced and are still producing; herein I agree fully with my
brother."
Manna looked in amazement at the Aunt; and she had the impression that
a new view of life was unfolded to her, that was like the religious,
and yet wholly peculiar in itself.
Towards Eric's mother. Manna was respectful but reserved. She treated
her brother's teacher as a member of the family, but as a piece of
property, an object, of utility, to which one could have recourse
whenever there was need. There were hours and days when she had no more
to do with him than if he had been a chair or a table. She often put a
question to him directly and naturally, if she wanted any particular
thing elucidated; and as soon as Eric began to expatiate beyond the
special topic under consideration, she would say with great decision:--
"I did not want to know about that. I thank you for the information you
have given."
She never received any instruction for which she did not immediately
thank him, just as she would a servant for anything handed to her.
The whole family had the feeling that here was a strength adequate to
attain its own end.
Manna did not visit in the neighborhood; she insisted upon it that she
had come only to be with her parents and her brother, and no one else.
Sonnenkamp was alarmed at this determined and uncompliant bearing.
CHAPTER III.
EVERYTHING FLIES THAT HAS WINGS.
Manna soon expressed a determined purpose to get a better insight into
the method and direction of her brother's education. She wanted to be
present at Eric's lessons.
Sonnenkamp endeavored to induce the Aunt to inform Eric of this
request, but she declined. Manna had better ask him herself.
Sonnenkamp was deeply vexed at this refusal, but Manna's resolution was
taken at once. She expressed her wish at the table, assigning no
reason, for she thought that the real one might wound, and any other
than the real one she could not consent to offer as a pretext.
After they had risen from the table, Eric gave her the arrangement of
the hours of study, and declared himself ready to conform to her
wishes, merely adding that he should continue his instruction without
any reference to her presence.
Manna now sat at the window with her embroidery, whilst Eric and Roland
pursued their occupations at the table. By noon Manna had laid aside
her work, and was listening with closed eyes. The next day she brought
no work with her, and thus she sat there day after day with the two,
listening with interest even to the mathematics. The musical voice of
Eric seemed to have a magical charm for the proud and cold maiden, and
at many an utterance she opened wide her eyes, as if she must satisfy
herself who this really was that was speaking.
One day, however, she came only to say that she should come no more.
"I could still learn a great deal from you," she said, "but it is
better that I should keep by myself. I thank you," she said again; but
as if recollecting that she was continually doing this, she quickly
added,--
"I thank you differently from what I have before. I acknowledge the
delicacy with which you have spared me the perplexity of answering the
question I see you wanted to put to me, whether I was satisfied with
your instruction. It is very kind not to have asked this question."
"You are good at reading countenances," answered Eric. And so they
parted.
From this time Manna's haughty and even her confident bearing toward
Eric was gone; there was a sort of shyness, and she seldom spoke to
him. But this want of notice was something very far removed from that
haughty indifference with which she had formerly disregarded him; there
was defiance, angry resistance in her demeanor, as if she would say, I
do not comprehend why you are of any interest to me whatever.
Manna also occasionally visited the castle, going by herself with her
two dogs. She had the Architect explain to her the plans of this
building as it was being restored, and as it existed formerly.
She took an interest in the work, and entered into consultation with
her father in regard to the fitting up of the hall already finished,
the so-called Knight's hall.
Sonnenkamp was busily employed in buying the ancient weapons to be hung
upon the walls, and the armor to be placed upon the pillars. He could
not refrain from saying to Manna beforehand, that he intended to
dedicate the castle in the autumn, on her birthday; but she desired
that this should be omitted. This continual festivity and banqueting
did not suit her; and she was particularly anxious that her birthday
should be marked by no external celebration, even of the simplest kind.
Since her return from the convent, if she would honestly confess it to
herself,--and Manna ventured to confess all,--she had taken greater
pleasure in her dogs than in anything else. She had even written a
letter to the Superior, asking whether they would allow her to bring a
dog with her into the convent, but had burned the letter afterwards.
She represented to herself how laughable it would be for a nun to be
going through the garden with a dog at her heels, and how intolerable
if every nun had a dog of her own. She smiled to herself for the first
time, and then again asked herself the question, Why do we have no
animals in the convent? Eric found her as she was sitting down and
talking to her dogs.
"Do you not think," she asked, "that a dog, this one, for instance, has
an unspeakably sad expression of face?"
"Whoever looks for it can find it. The mystics say that it came from
the fall of man; that since then, all creatures have a mournful
expression."
Manna thanked him, but this time with a look only, and not with words.
"Surprising how the man can enter into every thing! And why is he still
a heretic! Why?"
A carriage was advancing toward them, and a white handkerchief was
already waving in the distance. "Manna!" was called out; Eric withdrew.
Manna rose and went to meet Lina, who got out and let the carriage
drive on.
"Ah!" exclaimed Lina, "you are already on such good terms with one
another! you need hide nothing from me. Ah, how fine! This is right
splendid! I've something to tell you about my love; now kiss me. Ah, I
see you haven't kissed each other yet, you don't how to kiss. Just
think. Manna, how simple I've been; I made myself believe, at one time,
that the Baron von Pranken was fond of me--no, that's not exactly what
I meant, but I made myself believe that I liked him, and now I will
tell you at once, that I love and I am loved."
"We all love God, and we are loved by him."
"Ah, yes, by God too. But Albert--Do you know Albert? you must know
him, for he's building a castle for you. At that time at the musical
festival--I saw you at once, and beckoned to you, but you didn't
observe me--that was the very first time we ever came to an
explanation. Ah, you can't begin to think how happy I am. At the
beginning I couldn't take part in the singing: I was afraid all the
time I should scream too loud; but after that I sang with the rest. Ah,
it was so beautiful--so beautiful! we did nothing else but float away
in music; and he sings splendidly too, though not so grandly as Herr
Dournay. Now do tell me, Manna, how you felt when you heard him sing
so? Did you know that he was the man you asked me about when you had
the angel-wings on your shoulders."
Lina did not wait for an answer, but went on:--
"You must have seen me on the shore, when I met you, and I was leaning
on my Albert's arm for the first time. I didn't want to speak to you
there among the nuns and scholars; I shouldn't have been able to tell
you all there. You don't take it amiss that I didn't appear to see you?
Ah, I saw everybody, the whole world at once! Ah, and all was so
splendid! And at the table there 'twas so merry! And once he asked me
why I seemed all at once so sad. Then I confessed to him that I was
thinking of you, how you were going back again to the convent, where
'twas so silent and so dull. I think the corridors have all got a cold.
Ah, why can't you be as merry as we? Do be merry! There's nothing
better in the world, and you've got all, and can have all in the world.
Oh, do be merry! Ah, there flies a swallow, the first swallow. Oh,
if I could only fly in that way up to him at the castle, and bid him
good-morning, and keep flying to him and flying away again. Ah, Manna!
Manna!"
It was very odd to her to see and hear this joyous, fluttering youthful
companion; she could say nothing in response, and Lina did not seem to
expect her to say anything, for she continued:
"So I was thinking as I was coming here, that if I were you, I'd issue
an order or something of that sort to the whole country round, that in
three days they should bring me all the birds they could catch, and I'd
pay them an awful amount of money for doing it, and then I'd let all
the birds fly away again up into the air. Don't you feel as if you were
a bird that had been caught, and had got free again? Ah, and it's smart
in you to come in the spring; there's too much dancing to be done, if
you come home in the winter. Fourteen balls I went to, the first
winter, and ever so many small parties. And if one then has her
sweetheart--Ah, Manna, you can't think how beautiful that is! or
perhaps you do know now. I beg you do tell me every thing. I am not yet
betrothed to Albert, but we are as good as betrothed. You won't be a
nun, will you? Believe what I say, they don't want you for a nun at
all, they are only after your money. Would you like to be a baroness? I
shouldn't. To be 'my lady'd' all the time when there's no need of it,
and then to be laughed at behind one's back; no, I shouldn't like it at
all. If a born lady does anything foolish, there's nothing to be said;
but if one of us commits a folly, hi! the whole city and the whole land
has to bear the blame of it. Ah, such a rich girl has a good deal to
suffer for it! Here come the men and want to marry her money, and here
come the nuns and want her to become a nun for her money. You may be
sure, if you were one of those women yonder carrying coals out of the
boat, the nuns wouldn't have you; you might be as clever, and as
lovable, and as good as you are now. Yes, if you hadn't any money, and
if you hadn't so much money, the nuns wouldn't want to have anything to
do with you. Don't they try to make you believe that you've been called
to be a saint? Don't believe it. Ah, in the convent! When I hear people
telling how beautiful it was there on the convent-island, I've always
thought: Yes indeed, right pretty, if one only goes there on a pleasure
excursion; but to be a nun there!--Ah, Manna, if I could only make you
as happy as I am! Do be jolly too! Ah, good heavens, why can't one give
to another some of his enjoyment; I've so much--so much, and I should
like most dearly to give some of it to you. But what do we talk so much
for? Come, catch me! Do you remember our old play: 'Everything flies
that has wings'? Come, catch me!"
Lina ran off with fluttering garments, and when she stopped saw that
Manna had not followed her. She waited until she came up, and the two
maidens walked in silence to the villa.
CHAPTER IV.
"THROUGH THE NEW DOOR."
Lina staid with Manna, so that she was unable to shake off her
school-friend. When they went together to church, if Manna said, going
and returning, that she would rather not talk in the morning, then Lina
insisted that Manna need not say anything, she would do all the talking
herself. She chatted about everything that came into her mind, things
past and things to come.
As soon as she woke up she ran through the gamut, then ran trilling
through the house, and almost every hour of the day, when there was no
caller and they were within doors, she sat at the piano in the music
saloon, singing and playing incessantly, mixing up serious and
melancholy, classic and modern music, no matter what, so that it made
sound enough. She would follow up one of Pergolese's mournful dirges
with a merry Tyrolese carol.
The whole house was entirely changed by Lina's presence, and at the
table there was a great deal of laughter. In cherry time the hot-houses
at Villa Eden already supplied early apples; and Lina had the habit of
never peeling an apple, but biting into it whole, congratulating
herself that she could do it without being reprimanded by her mother.
She paid no regard to Sonnenkamp's reproving look; she was an
independent girl, doing recklessly whatever she fancied, and so
accustomed to being scolded, that she had become hardened to it.
Lina ate heartily, like a good healthy peasant girl, while Manna ate as
if it were a matter of compulsion. Lina took pleasure in eating, and
was hungry all the time. She could always take something, she said of
herself, and if anything at the table had a particularly good relish,
she would say:--
"Aren't you glad, Manna, that you've got rid of that convent food. Ah,
my first meal at home was a new experience to me, and here you have
very nice things."
She also liked a glass of wine, and was rallied on that account. She
begged Eric to defend her, and he replied:--
"That's easily done. It's a romantic absurdity to look upon it as a
fine thing for a girl not to take pleasure in eating and drinking; and
drinking wine is assuredly not an unfeminine act. Isn't drinking wine a
much pleasanter thing to see than eating meat, nourishing one's self
with animal food?"
Everybody laughed except Manna, who looked at Eric with an unmoved
face. Strange how this man gives a surprising turn to every thought,
and induces surprising turns of thought in other people!
Manna felt as if she were driven out of the house by Lina's presence.
Only at Frau Dournay's, for whom Lina entertained a holy awe, could
Manna get any time for being alone; she felt herself in concealment
when she fled to the green cottage, and by this means she came nearer
to the Professorin, almost in spite of herself. Her uniform serenity of
soul, her never-failing willingness to devote herself to others, were
perceived by Manna, and she was startled at hearing her say,--
"You wanted to make a request of me, dear child. Why do you hold back?"
"I, a request? What request?"
"You would like that Lina should come here, but you avoid acknowledging
this to me and to her. If you will honestly confess to me that you
would like this, I will arrange the matter."
Manna confessed that she had not had the courage to express her wish.
By the next day Lina was settled at the cottage with the Professorin,
and there she was merry as a cricket, and enlivened the whole house
with her cheerfulness, and her fresh bubbling gaiety alone. Wherever
she was, walking, standing, or sitting, she sang to herself like a bird
on the branch, and the breasts of the hearers were refreshed. The Aunt
played an accompaniment for her songs, and the clear, bell-like tone of
her voice was full of fresh health and bright joy. She sang without the
least effort, and her love added a tone of deep feeling to her singing,
which one would not have supposed she possessed.
She was perfectly undisciplined, but she was very particular about
her dress, especially since she had been in love, and she liked to
look at herself in the glass. But to bother herself about the inner
life,--"That's not my style," was her uniform manner of speaking. She
lived her own life, was a Catholic, because she was born so, and it was
too much trouble to make any change. She laughed, sang and danced;
yesterday is gone, and to-morrow will look out for itself. Amongst all
these persons who bore a heavy burden in their souls, who were imposing
some heavy task upon themselves, Lina was the only light-hearted child
of nature; and she was regarded by those who looked upon her rather
with envious than contemptuous eyes.
"Ah! could one but be like her!" sighed each one in his own way.
Lina, gradually, became less demonstrative and excitable through the
quiet influence of the Professorin. It gave her pleasure to be able to
understand a great deal of what the Professorin said; but there were
many things beyond her comprehension. What does it matter? One must not
take all there is in the dish,--one must leave something for others.
It was beautiful to see Manna coming in her bright summer dress through
the park to the cottage. But she manifested to the Professorin only a
respectful confidence; she always addressed her as Madame, and spoke to
her in French, the language she had been accustomed to use at the
convent. To all questions she gave direct answers.
"Had you any particular friend at the convent?" the Professorin once
asked.
"No, it is not allowed. One must not show any special affection, but
treat all with an equal love."
"If it would not weary you, I should like to ask another question."
"Oh, you do not weary me in the least. I like to talk of the convent
better than any thing else; I think of it all the time. Ask what you
please."
"Had you a particularly confidential relation with any one of the
ladies?"
Manna mentioned the name of the Superior, and was greatly surprised to
hear the Professorin extol the beauty of such a life as hers; that
there could be nothing more blissful than to confer peace and joy upon
young children, to aid them to become strong, to overcome the trials of
existence. It was a life that death could not change, and in which the
sorrow of parting and absence could never be known.
The Professorin repeated that she should regard it as a crime, to say a
single word that should shake a soul desiring to devote itself to such
a life.
"Dear child, thou hast chosen the right path according to thy light."
Manna bowed, and she seemed transfigured. It did not occur to her that
the Professorin had spoken to her all at once so affectionately. But
now she shrank into herself with alarm. Is this not one of the
temptations? Does not this woman praise her, enter into her utmost
soul, in order to win her over and seduce her from the faith? A glance
of suspicion shot from those youthful eyes upon the elderly lady. And
yet Manna returned, again and again, to the Professorin, as is if she
were fleeing from something, and could find concealment only there.
Frau Dournay's uniform serenity of soul, her perpetual willingness to
devote herself to the service of others, had a magnetic attraction for
her, and before she was aware of it, she formed more intimate
relations, and became more confidential with the Professorin than she
had ever believed possible.
The struggle and the vacillation of the girl's young heart were
revealed first of all to the Professorin. As they were sitting once in
the garden, having fortunately declined to go with Lina, Roland, and
Eric, on an excursion upon the Rhine, Manna said, looking timidly
around,--
"Why should it be a sin to take delight in nature? Is not joy itself a
sort of devotion?"
The Professorin making no reply. Manna said with pressing
earnestness:--
"Do speak, I entreat you."
"A writer," replied she, "whom you do not probably revere as we do, has
said: God loves better to see a heart filled with joy than with
sorrow."
"What's the man's name?"
"Gotthold Lessing."
Manna requested to have the passage pointed out. The Professorin
brought the book, and from that time there was a free interchange of
thought between them. The Professorin continued very cautious in her
remarks, and repeated that she should look upon it as a sacrilege to
deprive a believing heart of its religious convictions.
Manna declared that she was strong enough to enter into the thoughts of
the children of the world, as they are termed, without getting lost
herself.
The Professorin repeatedly warned and advised her, but she insisted
that she had returned to the world in order to perceive what it had to
proffer to her, and then to renounce all freely. She expressed a firm
determination not to become Pranken's wife, in fact, not to be married
at all. She came very near disclosing to the Professorin, that she
wanted to devote herself as an expiatory sacrifice, not from
compulsion, but, through heavenly grace, freely renouncing all the
delights of the world.
"To you," said Manna, with tearful eyes, "I could tell all."
It would have required only a single word, one encouraging appeal, and
Manna would have told everything to the Mother. But she earnestly
entreated not to be made the repository of any secret; not because she
could not keep it faithfully, but it would be a burden to her, and she
should never feel at peace if she should divert a being formed to live
in the purest sphere from occupying her true place. She spoke very
guardedly, choosing her words carefully, for Manna must not have the
least suspicion that she also was hiding a secret; she simply let it be
understood that she favored the maiden's resolution to take the veil.
Something of Sonnenkamp's nature seemed awakened in Manna's soul. Was
this woman encouraging her only in order to gain a firmer hold upon
her? But then, as she looked up into the quiet, calm face of the
Mother, she felt impelled to fall upon her neck and beg her forgiveness
for having had such unjust thoughts of her. The Professorin saw the
conflict in the child, but gave it a different interpretation; she had
no suspicion that distrust of the worst kind was felt by Manna.