"Give me something to tear in pieces, or I do not know what I shall do.

You"--

Pranken laid his hand on his shoulder. The three stood facing each

other in silence. All breathed hard, but Pranken the hardest.

Manna endured her father's gaze calmly; but she had no foreboding of

its real meaning. He again called through the speaking tube,--

"Let Herr Dournay come here."

Then he went on.

"Manna, I do not force you; but I desire you to renounce this teacher,

Yet more. Did you not tell me that you had sent word to the priest to

come hither?"

"Certainly: you ordered that he should be summoned."

"I hear him in the ante-room. Admit him."

The Priest entered, and Sonnenkamp addressed him thus:--

"Sir priest, I announce to you, before these witnesses, my resolution

to give my Villa for the foundation of a convent, provided my daughter

Manna, here, takes the veil, as she has always wished to do."

Manna could not comprehend this. She could not suspect the cruel game

which her father was playing with her, with Pranken, with Eric, with

the Villa, with every thing. She knew not how to help herself, when,

just as the Priest, turning toward her, offered his hand, Eric entered.

He saw at once what had happened.

"Do you know who I am?" were the words with which Sonnenkamp turned

upon him.

Eric bowed.

"And do you know who this man here is, and this girl? And when you look

into that mirror, do you know whose image you see?"

Then, pointing to the wall where the hunting-whip hung, he cried,--

"And do you know what that is yonder? The back of many a slave"--He

broke off suddenly:

Eric looked proudly around him, then said in a calm voice,--

"To be whipped by men of a certain sort is no dishonor."

Sonnenkamp gave a hollow groan, and Eric went on--

"I beseech thee, Manna, to leave the room."

"_Thee_!--_Manna_!--" yelled Sonnenkamp, and would have sprung upon

him, had not Pranken caught his arm, saying,--

"Herr Sonnenkamp, if any one here is to demand satisfaction from Herr

Dournay, I have the first right."

"Very good!" cried Sonnenkamp, throwing himself into a chair. "Yours is

the revenge, yours the honor, yours the life, and yours every thing

else. Speak yourself; I've nothing more to say."

"Herr Dournay," began Pranken, "I brought you into this family; and I

told you in so many words what relation I held to the daughter. Up to

this time, I have had a degree of respect for you; and I regret to be

compelled to withdraw it."

Eric jumped up.

"I shall not challenge you to fight," Pranken continued. "You have put

on a coat of mail that makes you invulnerable to me. Your life rests

under Fraeulein Manna's protection, and so your life is inviolable, as

far as I am concerned. This is my last word to you so long as my tongue

can speak. Herr Sonnenkamp, I have one request only to make of you.

Give me your hand, promise to grant it to me."

"I promise you every thing but the regiment, every thing else but

that."

"Very well: I have your word that you will not harm this man."

He felt about with trembling hands, and then taking out of his pocket a

little book, he handed it to Manna. His voice was filled with emotion,

as he said,--

"Fraeulein Manna, you once gave this to me: the twig is still lying in

it, and it is bare. Take it again. As this twig, broken off from the

tree, can never grow to it again: so am I detached from you and from

every one here."

He looked Manna full in the face; and then closed by saying,--

"Now we are parted forever."

He drew on his gloves quietly, buttoned them, took up his hat, bowed,

and left the room.

Manna looked after him with a humble glance, and then seized Eric's

hand. The two stood before Sonnenkamp, who had covered his face with

his hand, and who now said,--

"Are you waiting for my blessing? To be horse-whipped by a man like me

is no disgrace; and such a man as I am can give no blessing. Go, go! or

have I no longer any right to command, that you remain so motionless?"

"Herr Sonnenkamp," Eric began, "I might say, and it would be to some

extent true, that I intended those severe words for Herr von Pranken,

and not for you; but, as they were also applicable to you, I ask your

pardon. I was not master of myself, and it was wrong in me to provoke

and grieve you so sorely; not merely because you are Manna's father,

but because you are a man who has had to endure so much. It was sinful

in me"--

"Very well, very well; I know all about sermonizing; it's sufficient.

And has not your whole life been a lie? Have you not been a thief? Did

I not ask you if you had any such views when I was conducting you over

the house? And could you so long play the hypocrite and retail your

fine speeches? Curse upon all faith in mankind! I had faith in you, I

believed you incapable of a breach of trust; and you've been a

hypocrite from that first hour I went with you over the house until the

present moment. As to the future--I've torn away the mask."

"Herr Sonnenkamp," replied Eric, "I have wrestled long and desperately

with myself, before yielding to this love; but it is stronger than I

am, stronger than every thing besides. That I am not seeking for your

wealth, I prove by declaring to you that I shall take none of your

possessions. I can add no farther assurance; for if you do not believe

my simple word, how are you to believe an oath!"

"Indeed? Then you expect still to be believed? Yes, fine, noble, good,

magnanimous man, I possess a great deal, but not what you ask,--faith

in you. I had this faith once, it was my last illusion. I don't swear

it; but I know that it's my last illusion."

"I entreat Roland's father and Manna's father"--Eric's voice

trembled,--"I entreat him, as a child, to be just towards me. You will

yet learn that I spoke the truth at that time, and speak it now."

"Truth? Whew, truth! Leave me, I wish to be alone: I must be alone."

Eric and Manna left the room, holding each other by the hand. They

waited outside for a long time. Joseph, who had been summoned, now

entered Sonnenkamp's room. When he came out, he told Manna that Herr

Sonnenkamp had sent to the city for a notary.

Eric and Manna went into the garden. And this is the power of love: in

the midst of the most direful pain and suffering, they were inwardly

cheerful as if all misery had been removed far away from them.

"You must take it from me," said Manna, after they had walked together

for a long time in silence. "I don't know what it signifies; but it

will not leave me. At that time, when the Prince visited us, his kind

message to you affected me as if he had bestowed a benefit upon myself

Do you remember? I delivered the message to you. At that time he said

you were to remember that you had been the companion of his boyhood,

and that he would like to prove to you that he was not forgetful of the

fact. Now, don't you believe that you could do something for us? I

don't know what; but I think--well, I don't know what I do think."

"It's the same with me," replied Eric. "I remember it as if it were the

present moment; but I have no idea how to begin to avail myself of this

gracious favor. O Manna! that was the first time it broke upon me how

you felt towards me."

And the lovers lost all idea of their anxieties in recalling the past,

how they wanted to avoid each other, and could not. All present sorrow

vanished away.

On Manna's face there was a light as of an inextinguishable gleam of

sunshine: her large dark-eyes glowed, for a free and strong soul shone

through them.

"What are you smiling at now?" she suddenly asked Eric.

"Because an image has occurred to me."

"An image?"

"Yes. I've heard that a precious stone is distinguished from an

imitation of one, by the fact that the dimness of lustre caused by

breathing upon it immediately disappears. You, my Manna, you, are such

a genuine pearl."

Whilst the lovers were promenading in the garden, Sonnenkamp sat alone,

almost congratulating himself that he had something new to trouble him;

and in the midst of his vexation there was a degree of pride, of

pleasure, when he thought how courageously his child stood up there

before him. She was his daughter, his proud, inflexible child. And his

thoughts went further: Your child forsakes you, follows her own

inclination, and your duty is done: your duty was to the daughter, for

the son will build up an independent life. Frau Ceres--poh!--let them

supply her with dresses and ornaments, and lull her to sleep with a

pretty story. He went into the garden, into the green-house, where the

black mould was lying in a heap. He put on his gray sack, grubbed in

the dirt, smelt the fresh earth; but to-day there seemed to be no odor

to it. He rent the garment in pieces as he took it off.

"Away forever!" he exclaimed. "Childish folly! It's all over!" He stood

for a while before the spot where Eric had taken breakfast on the first

morning. So this was the man, and he to be sole master here for the

future? He to possess all this,--a schoolmaster?

The Cooper came along the road. Sonnenkamp called out to him, and

commended his bringing up the fire-engine, adding, with a zest, that

the settlers in the far West found this their best weapon against the

savages, spurting hot water upon them; and it was still more effective

to put in a trifle of sulphuric acid, and blind every one hit in the

face. The cooper stared, with eyes and mouth wide open, at the man who

could say these horrible things in such a free and easy way.

Sonnenkamp left him standing there, and, going into the orchard, helped

very carefully and tenderly to gather the fruit. He thought of the days

when this fruit was growing, of the spring when Roland was

convalescent, of the visit of the Prince, the journey to the springs,

the days of sunshine until now, the dewy nights; and he thought

silently, when will there be another crop of fruit? how will it be with

you then? where? perhaps under ground; then you cannot turn over the

black mould: then his head swam.

It is a shame that we must die, and a double shame to know that we

must.

He stared fixedly as if he were bewildered, for it came over him that

on this very spot he had said something like this to Eric, the first

morning he had come there. Has this place a peculiar power to awaken

thoughts of death? Are you standing over the spot of earth which shall

be your grave?

He was called away; for the notary with his two assistants had arrived

just at the dinner hour. He sat down with him at the table, and

appeared in as good spirits as if nothing had happened. The notary

occupied Pranken's usual seat. After dinner, he transacted business

with the notary, being long and busily engaged in writing. The two

assistants signed as witnesses: so that nobody except those under oath

knew any thing of the contents of the will.

After this was done, a letter came from Bella. She wrote to Sonnenkamp

that she and Clodwig would come to the jury-trial, and he must bring it

about that she should be among the twelve. Sonnenkamp smiled, for he

had almost forgotten about it: it was all very well. Eric requested

Roland and Manna to accompany the Mother, who wanted to make a visit at

Mattenheim. They consented, and so the house was now perfectly still,

almost entirely deserted.

CHAPTER VII.

PRELIMINARIES.

The days passed away quiet and dull. Sonnenkamp sent off many letters,

and read the newspapers, without sending them to Frau Ceres, as was his

former custom.

The men came who had declared themselves ready to constitute the jury.

Sonnenkamp sent word to them that he would see no one until the time

came for appearing before the tribunal. But an exception was made in

regard to one person. Lootz was made the confidential agent, and Bella

came to Sonnenkamp's room, through the climbing mistaria and the

seed-room.

"Just a few words," Sonnenkamp said. "You could not form one of the

jury; but I assure you, because such a being lives with me on the

earth, I will live, and will yet show what constitutes a man. Here, in

this room, will I speak."

He escorted her back through the seed-room: she knew that the door

would be left open.

Bella went restlessly about the Villa, and she saw Lina who had come

with her father, and who wanted to keep Manna company at this terrible

time; but Lina was at a loss what to do with herself, when she found

how the family was scattered.

She entreated Bella to go with her to Aunt Claudine, who was the only

one left at home.

Bella said that she would come by and by.

Lina went to Aunt Claudine, and afforded her some real consolation, and

even pleasure.

"Oh," asked Lina, "are Africans and negroes the same thing?"

"Most certainly."

"Well, I can't tell you how much I dislike Africans and negroes. I've

nothing to say against their being free, why shouldn't they be? But

they might have become so before this or afterwards: why, just at this

very time? Why must they deprive me of my beautiful season of

betrothal? Nobody is disposed to be merry, nobody talks of any thing

else, by reason of these negroes. It's the fashion even to wear

chains now, called _Chaines d'esclaves_,--Oh, I wanted to ask you

something--what was it--yes, I know now. Just tell me what they're

going to do when the negroes get to be good people just like everybody

else, what they're going to do then with the Devil?"

"What has the Devil to do with it?"

"Why, how are they going to paint the Devil, if he's not to be black

any longer?"

Aunt Claudine had to indulge in a most hearty laugh, and she was very

much rejoiced to be reminded that, in the midst of this monotonously

sombre life, there was some liveliness still left in the world.

She was ready to go with Lina to the Castle, but just as they were

leaving the house, Bella came. She begged that Aunt Claudine and Lina

would not put off their excursion on her account, and shut herself up

in the library, while the Aunt and Lina proceeded to the castle. They

remained there until the afternoon, and often looked down to the Villa

where "the men were all engaged in such a queer business," as Lina

expressed herself.

Bella did not stay long in the library, but quickly returned to the

villa, and noiselessly went up the steps overgrown with mistaria.

Sonnenkamp went to his wife, thinking that he must inform her of what

was now going on. She tauntingly reminded him of his promise to return

to America; she did not want the decision to be in the hands of

strangers.

Sonnenkamp's practice was to let Frau Ceres speak just as long and as

much as she pleased; for it was a matter of perfect indifference to him

what she said.

When he had got through with this, he returned to his room, and sent

word to those who arrived, that he would extend a welcome to them when

he appeared before the tribunal.

Weidmann came first with the Prince Valerian and Knopf, then Clodwig

with the Banker, and the Doctor with the Justice. Professor Einsiedel

stopped a while at the dog-house, and talked very earnestly with the

field-guard, and was highly delighted at the sound views of the man in

dog-training. Once he tapped upon his forehead with the fore and middle

fingers, wishing to impress upon his memory one observation of Claus,

which explained to him a passage in the eighth book of Pliny, treating

of land-animals.

The Major came in full uniform, wearing all his decorations; and when

he saw that Clodwig had come in plain citizen's clothes, without a

single decoration, he said to himself in vexation,--

"She was right here, too; but I thought as it was a tribunal of

honor--well, no matter; it's no harm, anyhow."

Eric had made all the requisite arrangements in the music-saloon; but

by Sonnenkamp's order, the chairs, the side-board set out with eatables

and drinkables, and every thing else needful, were removed to

Sonnenkamp's room. He placed his chair with a table before it near the

door leading into the seed-room, to which he then withdrew.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW CAIN.

After the men had assembled, Eric knocked at the door, according to a

pre-concerted arrangement; and, as it opened, Sonnenkamp came forward.

A bluish pallor rested on his countenance, as he stepped up to the

little table where two sticks for whittling and a pocket-knife were

placed. Resting one hand upon the table, he began,--

"Gentlemen of honor and worth!"--here pausing a moment, he continued,

"I use the words worth and honor, because they are not always, and, in

fact, are very seldom, united together,--you fulfil a human duty in

coming here at my call, and bestowing upon me a portion of your life,

these hours, your feelings, and your thoughts. I acknowledge this

favor. On the Western prairies, in the lonely log-house, in order to

form an opinion of a man from whom wrong has been suffered, and in

order to pronounce a verdict thereupon, and to execute it, we call in

the neighbors living on the solitary farms for miles around; and I have

done this now, and you have come here in obedience to the call. You are

to pass a judgment, you are to decide upon what penalty shall be

inflicted in reference to acts that cannot be weighed in the balances

of legal statutes. I shall lay open to you, without reserve, my past

life. I can do this the more easily, as you know already the worst in

my case. You are to see how I have grown up from childhood, and then to

decide and to judge. I have never felt pity myself, and I ask no pity

from you: I ask for justice."

Sonnenkamp had begun in a depressed tone, and with downcast eyes; but

he soon grew more animated, his countenance became more intent, and his

eye lighted up.

"I make the declaration, therefore, that I accept your finding, and

submit myself to whatever expiation you may determine upon. I have only

one request. Let each one of you, within a week, write out his opinion,

and render in his verdict; then let the paper be given into the hands

of Herr Captain Doctor Eric Dournay, who will break the seal in the

presence of two other persons.

"I will now withdraw a moment, in order that you may determine whether

you will undertake the service under this condition, and, if you think

it expedient, may choose a foreman."

He bowed. There was something theatrical and yet gravely composed in

his manner of speaking, and in the way in which he now withdrew for a

moment into the adjoining apartment.

The assembled gentlemen looked at one another; but no one spoke: all

eyes were turned upon Clodwig, from whom an opinion was first expected.

He said now in a quiet and low tone,--

"Herr Weidmann will be so good as to undertake the office of foreman.

We need one to make, in the first place, the necessary preliminary

arrangements."

Weidmann at once accepted the position, and announced that he agreed to

the proposal for a written verdict. The rest were also ready; but

Professor Einsiedel, beginning timidly, and gaining more and more

confidence as he proceeded, said that this ought not to exclude

consultation together in order to elucidate and confirm the individual

opinion: otherwise, all the effect of a common tribunal would be lost,

and it would be superfluous for them to sit there together.

This opinion was acceded to, and Eric was deputed to call Sonnenkamp

again into the room.

As Eric opened the door, he thought he noticed a nestling like that

made by a silk dress, and he was at a loss what to make of it.

He found Sonnenkamp in the seed-room, hurriedly smoking a cigar: he

laid it down, and went back to the audience-room.

Weidmann informed Sonnenkamp of the conclusion they had come to, and

the remarks of Professor Einsiedel. Sonnenkamp nodded assent. "Before I

resume," he said, taking one of the pieces of wood with a smile, "I

must beg indulgence for a habit which I am sorry to say I cannot drop.

I am in the habit, when I am alone, busy in thought--and I shall

address you as if I were alone--as I remarked, I am accustomed either

to smoke or to whittle, oftentimes both together. I can compose myself

better if my accustomed practice is now indulged in."

He seated himself, took one of the bits of wood, and, cutting a deep

notch around it, began,--

"I beg that any one of you will interrupt me with questions if

involuntarily I leave any thing obscure or unexplained. Now then: I am

the only son of the richest man in Warsaw. If I tell you of my youth,

it is not because I wish to throw the responsibility of my acts upon

circumstances or upon fate. My father had the largest business in wood

and grain. When I was six years old, he removed to a large German town,

for in clearing a forest my older brother had been killed by a falling

tree; My mother died soon after, and lies buried with him in the

village near by. I was often told that I should have a step-mother; but

it was not so. My father--I speak as openly of him as of myself--was

one of the most popular of men, but felt no affection for any person or

thing on earth. He gave both hands to every one who approached him, and

was extremely complaisant, kind, cordial, and expressive; but, as soon

as a man had turned his back; he spoke slightingly of him. He was a

hypocrite from choice, even where there was no necessity of being so.

He was so even towards the beggar. This, however, I did not perceive

until at a later period. At my father's table there were present state

officials, artists, and learned men: they liked good eating, and, in

order to get it, were obliged to set off our table with their

decorations and titles. We gave great parties, and had no social

visiting. There were grand banquets in the house, and there sat down at

them men decorated with stars, and women with bare shoulders: at the

dessert I was brought in, passed from lap to lap, carressed and

flattered, and fed with ices and confectionery. I was dressed

handsomely, and in some old lumber-room there must be a portrait,--I

would give a great deal to come across it again,--painted life-size,

and with crisped locks, by the first court-painter, and afterwards sold

with the rest of our household stuff. We had no relatives. I had a

private tutor; for my father did not want to send me to a public

school. I grew up the idol of my father, and he always kissed me warmly

when I was carried to him by his order. My tutor indulged me in every

thing, and taught me to regard myself alone as the central point of

all, and never to pay any regard to my dear fellow human beings. This

helped me more than he could imagine. The capital thing is to blunt the

conscience, as it is termed: all men do it, but some more superficially

than others. The world is nothing but a collection of egoisms hanging

loosely together. When I was sixteen years old, I had already fallen

into the hands of usurers; for I was the heir of a million, and that

was a larger sum then than seven times as much to-day. My father's

solicitor settled with them, and, as soon as that was done, I ran up

new bills, delighted that my credit was so good. In short, I was a fast

youth, and I continued to be so. I have already said, I believe, that I

had no love, no respect even, for my father, who was--the truth must be

told--one of the most exquisite hypocrites that ever wore the white

cravat of respectability. My father was a very honest hypocrite. Others

dissemble, and whitewash it over with a coating of ideality, persuading

themselves that there is something real and actual in other things than

money and pleasure. My father was also a philosopher, and used to say,

My son, the world belongs to him who has strength or cunning enough to

conquer it; and whoever takes a sentimental view has the pleasure of

taking it, and nothing more."

Sonnenkamp scraped energetically at the bit of wood which he held in

his hand, and for a moment nothing was heard but the scratching of the

knife rounding off the end.

"This being said," he resumed, "I can continue with calmness. At

seventeen years of age, I was a spendthrift, inducted into all kinds of

respectable iniquities. I was a jolly comrade, a good-for-nothing

fellow; but I was respectable, rich, and therefore very popular; for

nature and destiny had been terribly lavish in securing this result. My

father regularly paid my gambling debts and other debts also. He went

with me to the ballet, and often handed me his more powerful opera

glass, that I might get a better view of the sylph-like Cortini, who

was no stranger to me, as he very well knew. Yes, we were a jovial set.

My father gave me only one counsel, and that was, Don't confine

yourself to one. Every Sunday I must dissemble, and say I was going to

church; but my father knew well enough, and took a secret satisfaction

in the knowledge, that I went elsewhere. Our carriage stood every other

Sunday at the church where the most pious and celebrated preacher held

forth; and on the alternate Sunday we did not drive, but walked, for

then our coachmen also went, and our horses, too, had a Sunday. Our

very servants must appear pious. My father was Protestant, and I was

Catholic out of regard to my mother. I leave it for others to decide in

which confession hypocrisy is cultivated the more successfully.

"Now the question came up what was I to do? I had no fancy for sitting

at the accountant's desk, and wanted to be a soldier; but I was not of

noble rank, and was not willing to be received at the Jockey Club

simply on sufferance. I dropped off from my youthful companions, and

from that time played the gentleman. I went to Paris. I enjoyed a

superfluity of the pleasures furnished by the world. Most people plume

themselves upon their virtue, and their virtue is nothing more than a

feebleness of constitution; they make a virtue of necessity. When I had

sowed enough wild oats, my father sent for me. I lived at home, and the

specimens I saw before me of what was termed virtue were nothing but

cowardice, and fear of not being respected. To be virtuous is a bore;

to appear virtuous is amusing and profitable at the same time. Every

thing that can be done without detection is allowable: the main thing

is to belong to society. I often went from the most brilliant

assemblies into the wretchedest dens; and the lowest vice seemed to me

the most worthy of respect. I was a roue, and remained so. We were

proud of being a rollicking and reckless crew. It had a sort of poetic

tinge. Let one be a poet like Byron, be a genius, an exception to the

ordinary crowd, and what in lower conditions would be crime is then

regarded as a gallant feat. I saw that the whole world was vice under a

mask, and I think there is no vice; the name is given, poison is

written on the phial, so that the bulk of mankind may not drink out of

it. I was made acquainted, whether accidentally or designedly I do not

know, with a beautiful girl, fresh as a rose. It was time that I, at

one and twenty, should settle down as a married man. All congratulated

me on having sowed my wild oats, as it is termed, and that I was now to

become a respectable husband and the head of a family. My betrothed was

an enthusiastic child, and I don't understand it to this day, how she

could make light of my past as she did, probably under the direction of

her mother. Why I married the child I do not know. As I was going to

church, and returning from it, as I was making the wedding trip, in

which every thing was very modest and proper, it seemed to be somebody

else, and not myself, who was the actor. We returned, and--but I will

spin out the story no further than to say, that I discovered an earlier

attachment of the sweet child. The only thing that vexed me was to be

laughed at. I left her, and while the arrangements were being made for

a separation, she died, and with her an unborn life. I was again free,

free! That means that I was in Paris. I wanted to enjoy life: to drain

the cup to the very dregs. Dissipation, dissipation, was my sole end: I

yearned for distracting pleasure--I wanted to exhaust life, and every

morning it was new born. My soul was a void, a void everywhere. I

despised life, and yet did not fling it from me. What has life to

offer? Reputation or riches--the former I could not strive after, the

latter was open to me. My father wanted to hold me within a narrow

range. I operated on the Exchange. I gained considerable sums, and lost

them again, but still had enough left to keep afloat by means of

gambling. I was at Marseilles, among a jolly set, when I heard of my

father's death. The largest part of my inheritance was seized upon by

my creditors, and, because I wanted to have no recollections of home, I

wrote to the attorney to sell off every thing. A malicious saying went

the rounds after his death. We had had no idea how well he was known;

now it was said, 'There was one good thing about him, and that is, he

was better than his son.'

"The Germans say that God and the Devil are wrestling with one another

for the dominion of the world. I have hitherto only heard of these two

mighty potencies, they have never yet presented themselves before me;

but I was convinced that there were two things engaged in a strong

tussle, and these were Work and Ennui. Men benumb themselves in work,

in pleasure, in the foolery of morality, as it is termed. All is

vanity, the wise king has said; but it ought to be said, All is stale,

tedious, flat, a long-drawn yawn, that ends only in the death-rattle. I

have run over the whole sandy desert of ennui, and there is no remedy

there but opium, hashish, gambling, and adventure. I took lessons of a

juggler, and acquired great skill, for which I stood in high repute

among my companions; I had the most splendid apparatus. I lived in

Italy at a later period, out of pure wantonness, as a juggler by

profession. I was in Paris at the time of Louis Philippe; there's

nothing merrier than these frequent _emeutes_: they are the people's

games of chance."

Sonnenkamp stopped, and now, boring with his knife very delicately, he

said,--

"Do you look at me in astonishment, because I impart wisdom? Well, that

is also insipid like every thing else: honor, gold, music, friendship,

glory, all is emptiness. The men of virtue, the men of honor, are all

like those augurs who could not look into each other's faces without

laughing at the idle tale which they impose upon the world. The gods of

to-day, in the church as well as in the world, say, we know that you

are only hypocrites; but that you must play the hypocrite is an

evidence of our authority. And the so-called delight in nature, in

mountain and valley, in water and forest, sunlight and moonlight and

starry brightness--what does it all amount to? a mere cheat, a curtain

to hide the grave you are to lie in. What is a man to do in the world?

Do you know that millions have lived before him, and have looked at the

stars? Is he to be proud of playing the same old tune over and over

again, like the man with his hurdy-gurdy, grinding out the same melody

to-day and to-morrow that he did yesterday? You see I had learned my

Byron by heart. The misfortune was, that I was neither a poet nor a

highly interesting pirate. I was disgusted with the world and with

myself. I did not want to kill myself. I wanted to live, and to despise

every thing. I had madly, as if in mockery of myself, lost every thing

at play; and now came the merriest thing of all. It was a cold, wet

night; but it suited me well, as I went through the streets, completely

plucked as I was. Whew! How lustily the wind blew! it was cooling. Here

was I traversing the ant-hill of the great city; my money I had gambled

away, and my love had been unfaithful. A nice, prudent little fellow

there was, who proved to me over a bottle of canary, that I possessed a

capital which I didn't understand how to put at interest; that I was a

born diplomatist. I knew the decoy-duck at the first whistle. I was to

be a diplomatist, and so I sported that character. New horses, new

servants, a new love, and a large new house, were now mine. I was an

attache; in good German, I was a spy. I cover the word with no nice

little moral cloak. The life was a merry one. This time the discovery

had been made: now dissembling had a definite end. The praise which the

ambassador lavished upon me I deserved more than he was aware. Did you

ever hear of being insured against the insurance company? I brought the

ambassador most important information; but I had an after appointment

with the minister of police, and gave him secret notice of the

ambassador's machinations. The ambassador gave me false information;

but we could extract from this what his real intention was."

A smile passed over the countenances of the hearers, and Sonnenkamp

continued,--

"A day came when I must flee. I had the choice of five passports with

five different names under which to travel. I wanted, first of all,

concealment; and one is best concealed among so called honest people. I

came to Nice, where I was a gardener. All my senses were paralyzed. I

seemed to myself a corpse, and as if I with my thoughts were only the

companion of this corpse. Here I and the gardener became one again; the

odor of the moist earth was the first thing that, for a long time, had

given me any pleasure, no, that made me feel I was alive. Chemistry can

imitate every thing; but the fragrance that rises out of the fresh

earth no perfume ever possessed. Herr Dournay surprised me on the first

hour of his arrival, just as I was digging in the fresh mould. It gave

me strength. The masquerade pleased me; I had good sleep, a good

appetite. The gardener's daughter wanted to marry me. I had again a

reason for flight. I had laid away a good sum of money; now I dug it

up. I began a new life of pleasure at Naples. I confess I was proud of

assuming all sorts of transformations: I was entirely afloat, in good

health and good spirits. I had a good circulation, and social talent:

the world was mine. I had friends wherever I went: how long were they

my friends? Perhaps only so long as I stuck fast to my money. That was

a matter of indifference to me. I desired no loyalty, for I gave none.

I was always thankful to my parents for one thing; they had given me an

indestructible constitution. I had a body of steel, a heart of marble,

and unshakable nerves; I knew no sickness and no pity. I have

experienced many provocations to pity"--

He paused. It was the only time during his whole speech that he smiled;

and a peculiar smack of satisfaction proceeded from him.

Then he continued:--

"A strange trait of sentimentalism stuck fast to me, however. It was at

Naples, on a wonderfully beautiful evening, we were sailing in a

miscellaneous and merry party on the sea, and I was the merriest of the

whole. We disembarked. Who can tell what transpires in a human being?

At this time, there, under the bright Italian sky, in the midst of

laughing, singing, jesting men and women, the thought darted through my

mind: What hast thou in the wide world? Nothing. Yet there is one

thing: yonder in Poland thy mother's grave. And out of laughing, wanton

Italy, I travelled without halt through the different countries, saw

nothing, journeying on and on towards dreary, dirty Poland. I came to

the village that I had not seen since my sixteenth year. And such is

man--no, such am I! I did not want to undergo the pain of seeing my

mother's grave. I looked over the burial-ground hedge; but I did not go

inside, and travelled back again without having seen the grave. Such am

I, so good or so bad; I believe they are one and the same thing. I

travelled through Greece and Egypt, and was in Algiers. I have led a

life of utterly unbridled excess, and have done every thing to

undermine my vital power, but have failed to accomplish it. I have an

iron, indestructible constitution. I was in England, the land of

respectability. It may be that I have a special eye to see them; but I

saw everywhere nothing but masks, hypocrisy, conventionalism. I took

ship for America. You will laugh when I tell you that I meant to join

the Mormons, and yet such is the fact. These people have the courage

and honesty to ordain polygamy by law, while in the rest of the world

it exists under a lying disguise. But I was not suited to that

community. I soon returned to New York, and there I found the

high-school and the Olympus of gamblers. The fast livers of Paris and

London are bunglers compared with the Yankees. It was the fashion to

declaim against the Southern chivalry; but I have found among them

truly heroic natures, of the stuff out of which conquering Rome was

built up. Only he who has been in America knows what the being that

calls himself man is in reality. Every thing there is reckless,

untramelled. They only dissemble in the matter of religion, that's

respectable."

Eric and Weidmann looked at each other. Weidmann had given expression

to the same thought a few days before at Mattenheim, but in a wholly

different connection.

Sonnenkamp went on.

"My five passes were still good. I went here under the name of Count

Gronau: the Americans are fond of intercourse with noblemen. After a

wild night, I shot a man who had insulted me on the public street. I

fled, and lived for a time among the horse-thieves of Arkansas. It was

a droll life, a life of craft and adventure that nowhere else has its

like. Man becomes there a lurking beast of prey, and my body underwent

the most monstrous experiences. I left this partnership, and became a

sailor on a whaling-ship. I had shot lions and leopards in Algiers, and

now I was hunting the king of the ocean. The whole world is here only

to be captured and subdued. I have been through all sorts of

experience. I soon gained dexterity enough to reach the position of

boat-steerer, and I was appointed to this. There was one thing more; to

hunt men, the merriest of all. This was adventure worth engaging in,

this man-hunting: here was a new excitement, a novel attraction. We

sailed for Madagascar through many perils. We caught men and bought

men; boldness and cunning were called into activity, and the business

pleased me. Great risk, great profits. In Louisiana, where the great

sugar plantations have each three, four, and five thousand slaves, and

in Charleston, South Carolina, are the chief slave-markets; for the

most part, boys are carried there, and no elderly men. You will

consider it contemptible; but it does appear to me a triumph of human

freedom and power for one man to steal and sell another. No animal

can so seize and serve his kind, always supposing, though by no

means granting the fact, that negroes are men. Yes, I have been a

slave-trader: they called me the sea-eagle. That bird has the sharpest

scent, he flies off, and cannot be caught. It was a bold and beautiful

pastime. I have even stolen the chief who was selling me his subjects.

These talking black beasts are equal to their so-called fellow-men in

one respect, perhaps,--I say perhaps,--they can play the hypocrite like

white men. No beast can dissemble, and, if dissembling can give a title

to human rights, then the blacks deserve that title. After the first

burst of rage, the chief was very tractable; but one day I was pursued,

with my cargo on board, by an English ship, and had to pitch the whole

human dust-heap into the sea. This gave food to the sharks. Look here,

this is the finger which the chief tried to bite off: you know how he

has made his appearance in these days. From that time I left off going

to sea, and carried on the business through others; finally I gave it

up altogether. I had enough, I had large plantations, and the child of

the boat-steerer, who had died in the whale-fishery, had been brought

up by me, and I married her. Such a being, only half-awake, prattling

like a child in every thought, or, rather, with no thought at all, was

pleasing to me. I had at that time no idea that there were women with

great, heroic, world-conquering souls."

Sonnenkamp spoke these last words in a very loud tone. After a short

pause, he continued,--

"I was living in quiet retirement when the insane party of the North

arose, whose object was to abolish slavery. And when my own countrymen

entered into the front ranks as the magnanimous friends of man, I came

forward in the newspapers and acknowledged myself a German, in order to

say that all were not like these shriekers about humanity. I showed

that it was madness to desire to free the slave. Humane men wanted to

render benevolent aid; but the wretchedness of the world is not cured

by benevolence, nor the poverty, nor the crime. The works of mercy, all

seven together, do not help the world, they are all quack-remedies: the

only real benevolence to the lower orders of men is slavery. They want

to be nothing else than what they are: the best thing is for them to be

taken care of by their masters--for the blacks certainly, and no less

so, perhaps, for the whites. Herr Weidmann knows that his nephew has

been my bitterest enemy. I was in the Southern States, and there I and

my compeers were nobles. We are the privileged class. There are

privileged races, and privileged persons among those races. The barons

of the Southern States seemed to me the only honest men I had become

acquainted with; everywhere else there was hypocrisy. I was displeased,

indeed, that they wanted to get for their cause the cover of religion;

but it was a rich joke that the ministers of religion volunteered their

aid in this attempt.

"But I soon learned to have less regard even for this Southern

chivalry. They are hypocrites, too; for they hold slaves, and yet

despise him who imports the slaves. This is a remnant of the old

hypocrisy of setting up a standard of virtue. Why deny the natural,

open, pitiless mastership? Why not openly acknowledge that which they

acknowledge in secret? Because the English worshippers of rank place

slave-traders in the category of pirates? Even the freemen of the South

are themselves the slaves of a vulgar notion. Now it came over me. When

I had a son, a longing was awakened within me which I could not

appease. I know not whether I have already told you, that, in my early

days, the thought often occurred to me, had I been a noble, had I with

my courage and my ability entered the military service, I should have

become a steady man like the rest; I might have been for a time

dissipated; but then I should have managed my estate, and been the

founder of an honorable line. The fundamental cause of my adventurous,

restless life always seemed to me to be the fact that I was a commoner,

having every claim to a privileged station, and yet always thrust into

the back-ground. I know that it is an inconsistency; I despise the

world, and I strive after honor. This proceeds from a youthful

impression of what was meant by the nobility. The only guaranty for the

world's smile is rank and genius; without one of these you do not

escape from mediocrity and sufferance. I pictured to my wife what a

grand life was led at some little court in Germany, and it became a

fixed idea in her mind. One can tear out the heart more easily than

root out from it a thought. I see the struggle coming in the New World:

courage and strength are on our side. There will be a slaughter

unparalleled; but we shall be victorious. The Southern States want

independence, and this is the only, the highest thing. I have labored

in Europe for our cause. We lived in England, in Italy, in Switzerland.

I thought, for a time, of becoming what is called a free, sober citizen

of Switzerland. But I hated Switzerland: it suffers the foreigner to be

free, so long as he is a foreigner; if he becomes a citizen of the

State, he can no longer be a free man, but must take part in all their

petty concerns. He who is not earning money, and who will not be

pious--one can do both at the same time without much trouble--he who

doesn't want to live frugally, will not do for Switzerland. No court,

no nobility, no barracks there!--nothing but church, school, and

hospital, things that are of no account to me. I didn't want to remain

in Switzerland, with inaccessible heights before my eyes; it's

oppressive, and for that reason, here on the Rhine it's cozy and

homelike. Germany is and will be the only land for free men. Here one

pays his tax, and is let alone. No one has any claim, and in his

position the nobleman is liable to no interference. I returned to

Germany, because I wished to acquire for myself and for my son a

brilliant position in society. The regard of one's neighbors, one's

fellow-men, is a fine luxury, perhaps the very finest: this, I wanted

to have too. I wanted to give my son what only the German perfectly

knows, dutiful service; and with this view there was perpetually

ringing in my ears one melody--the only sentimentalism I can reproach

myself with--a villa on the Rhine. This was the dream of my childhood,

this, of my mature life, and this has been my ruin. When I looked the

whole world over, and asked myself where life could be passed most

happily, then I had to confess, as I said before, that it is the

highest pinnacle of enjoyment to be a rich baron of some small German

state. Here one may have a life fraught with enjoyment without any

claim of duty, and receive all honor in a limited circle, and enjoyment

besides. I have become familiar with all the different strata of

existence. I have caroused and scuffled with the red-skins, and more

than once have been in danger of adorning some Indian with my scalp,

and I wanted now to make trial of the red-collars and _their_ chief. I

did not want to leave the world without knowing what court life was. I

cherished still one idyllic dream--something of the German romance

hangs by me yet--and, not without reason, I called my house Villa Eden.

Here it was my purpose to live in enjoyment with my plants, and like my

plants; but I have been dragged again into the world, more by the

thought of my children than any thing else. Enough; you are well aware

that I wanted to be ennobled. Let it be. I have now come to the end.

But"--

He paused, and looked at what he had whittled out; it was an African's

head, with the tongue lolling from his mouth. With one sharp cut,

Sonnenkamp suddenly cut off tongue and mouth, so that they fell down

into his lap; then, grinning like the figure in his hand, he went

on:--

"I have placed myself and mine under the protection of civilization; I

have taken refuge, not in the savage wilderness, but in the bosom of

cultivated life, as it is termed. To be honest, I do not repent it. I

am no milk-sop; my soul has been tempered in the fire of hell. I made

no concealment of my past history, because I considered it bad. What

in this world is bad? I concealed myself from folly and weakness.

Thousands repent without becoming any better. Had I been a soldier in a

successful war, perhaps I should have been a hero. I am a man without

superstition: I haven't even the superstition of the so-called

humanity. I live and die in the conviction that what is called equal

rights is a fable; to free the negro will never do a particle of good,

they will be exterminated, when it comes to the pass that a negro may

sit in the White House at Washington. The world is full of hypocrisy,

and my only pride is, that I am no hypocrite.

"But now, honorable and worthy gentlemen, is there any question you

would like to ask? I am ready to answer it."

He made a pause.

No one made any response.

"Well, then," was his close, "gentlemen of honor and of virtue, I

demand of you, not for my own sake, but for the sake of my children, to

impose upon me some sort of reparation. If you demand that I should

kill myself, I will do it; if you enjoin banishment, I will go away; if

you require the half of my property, which is far more than I have ever

acquired from the negroes, my fellow-men, as they are called, I will

resign it. I thank you, and await your verdict on the appointed day."

He retired, and left the men by themselves.

Clodwig whispered to Eric,--

"Cain slew his brother: the Cain of today sells his brother."

CHAPTER IX.

CONSULTATION OF THE MEN, AND A WOMAN'S VERDICT.

Who could describe the various changes of expression in the features of

the judges during Sonnenkamp's speech!

After he had retired, they sat together in silence.

Weidmann looked bright and unmoved: his clear blue eye was calm, and

he seemed surprised by nothing he had heard.

The Major was busy with an internal struggle, passing, in review before

him, his neglected youth. He often struck his breast with his clenched

hand, thinking to himself,--

"Yes, who knows but that you might have become just like this!"

And he was overpowered by the emotion caused by considering his own

case, and that of the man who had spoken so defiantly. He wanted to

keep from shedding tears, but did not succeed. He wiped off the

perspiration from his face with his handkerchief, and at the same time

got rid of the tears. He longed to go to the poor rich man, embrace

him, and call out to him, "Brother, brother, you have been a very bad

brother; but now you are going to be a good brother: you will be?" But

he did not venture to give way to the impulse of his heart. He looked

round, to see whether any one would begin; but no glance was directed

towards him, except the kindly one of Professor Einsiedel, to whom the

Major nodded, as if he would say,--

"Yes, in all your books, you have never seen any thing like this. It is

horrible, that a man can think and do all this; but I pity him from the

bottom of my heart, and you pity him too: I see you do."

The Doctor was the first to speak aloud, and he said to Clodwig,--

"We have been, without meaning it, the listeners to a comic

performance. A simple-minded transgressor, a transgressor from the

impulse of passion, can, perhaps, be converted; a cunning and hardened

one, never."

"With all my detestation," replied Clodwig, "I admire this power, which

can so lay bare the hypocrisy of the world. Oh,"--

His mouth seemed parched; and he moved his tongue frequently, this side

and that, appearing unable to say any thing further. He looked at the

expressive countenance of the Banker, and, nodding to him, said,--

"I see you have a word to say. Pray say it."

The Banker, coloring very red, responded,--

"Certainly. I will not speak of the emotion this life-history has

excited in me. It is--I know not what to call it; but I think it is a

history of humiliation: and perhaps a Jew ought to be inclined to judge

righteously, I will say mercifully, of all sins and transgressions

which proceed from being slighted and contemned. Humiliation, placing

the matter in a social point of view, awakens bitterness, hardness,

recklessness; and it must be a peculiar nature, which becomes, under

its influence, mild, even to faint-heartedness and weakness."

The Doctor respected the man's point of view; but he did not seem

disposed to accede to it. He urged a decision, asking,--

"Have you any method of punishment or reparation to propose?"

"First of all," replied the Banker, "I don't know any thing else,

except to take away from this man all parental power over his children;

and we must devise some delicate way of doing this, in order not to

inflict suffering upon them."

"We Germans," cried the Doctor briskly, "are for ever and ever

schoolmasters. This hard, seared villain of a Sonnenkamp wants to teach

that his villany is pure wisdom and logic; and he contemptuously

garnishes his cynicism with ideas."

"Exile," began Professor Einsiedel,--"exile would be the only sentence

we, like the ancients, could pronounce upon him who has desecrated and

insulted all the blessings of civilization; but there is no land to

which we could banish him, where, stripped of all the conquests won by

civilization, he could atone for his past life."

Professor Einsiedel seemed not to take it amiss that he had an

opportunity to put to a practical use the studies he had made of the

history of slavery, and to show how the Greeks had no perception of its

iniquity; but the Doctor laid his hand upon the professor's shoulder,

as much as to say,--

"Some other time, I pray."

The Professor gave him a nod.

"Every punishment we suspend over him," said Prince Valerian, "is a

punishment of his children: he is protected by an invulnerable shield."

There was now a longer pause. "And yet we shall and must find one,"

cried Weidmann. "I beg you to come together here, a week from to-day,

at the opening of the sealed opinions; and then we will come to a

decision. It is our duty to find some punishment that will make

atonement without striking the guiltless."

In a faltering voice, the Major entreated the friends not to separate:

they had, as yet, come to no proper decision; and he could not help

himself out of the difficulty. He would have been very glad to ask that

he might be allowed to take Fraeulein Milch into counsel, for he was

sure that she could help him; but in a jury one must make up an opinion

for himself.

The heavy head of the Major swayed this side and that, and seemed to be

almost too heavy for him to hold up.

Those assembled seemed to desire to be freed from the painful

situation; and Weidmann exclaimed,--

"I pronounce the meeting adjourned."

They all rose as if they must escape from imprisonment, or from an

infected atmosphere. They would have liked to go out into the fresh

air; but it rained steadily, and there were puddles and small rills

in the garden walks. They went into a spacious apartment, and Claus

said,--

"How would it answer--allow me, gentlemen, to ask--how would it answer,

if we sentenced Herr Sonnenkamp to go back home, and sell himself for a

slave?"

As no one replied, he went on timidly,--

"I don't know whether that would be just the thing; but 'twould be

something, anyhow."

Weidmann told him that no white man could be made a slave.

"This Herr Sonnenkamp," said Clodwig with quivering lips to Eric, "is

nothing but a victim of the distracted condition of our age. The whole

of humanity at the present time has a troubled conscience; it knows

that it is not in harmony with, itself, and this creates a universal

unrest. This individual man, driving hither and thither, prosecuting

iniquity by night, and extremely respectable by day, this is the

outbirth of our life. Ah! excuse me, I feel quite sick."

Clodwig requested the Doctor to accompany him to Wolfsgarten, as he

felt very unwell; but, just as the Doctor was getting into the carriage

with him, he was called to Frau Ceres.

Joseph came, in a short time, and informed Clodwig that the Doctor

could not leave his patient.

The Doctor remained with Frau Ceres, who had strangled the parrot in a

paroxysm of madness, and smashed every thing in the room.

He opened a vein, from which the blood flowed very dark; and she became

more quiet.

Sonnenkamp did not leave his room when the account of his wife's

illness was brought to him.

The doctor again sent word to Clodwig, that he had better remain here,

especially as it was raining very hard, and the Rhine was beginning to

rise; but Clodwig insisted on returning home.

Now the Doctor came himself, and begged the banker to drive with

Clodwig to Wolfsgarten, and Clodwig himself entreated this favor of his

old friend. The latter agreed at once, only saying that he would first

drive speedily to the town to send a telegram, that they need not

expect him at home until some further notice. He drove away.

Bella had gone to the green cottage to see Aunt Claudine, and behaved

there very amiably towards her and Lina; but she could not help letting

fall some severe expressions in reference to the Professorin and Manna,

who had so selfishly taken themselves out of the way whilst such a

terrible transaction was taking place in the house.

When a servant came and informed her that Clodwig wanted to set out

immediately, she exclaimed, stamping with her foot,--

"I will not!"

And then she added:--

"Very well, let him take me up here."

The carriage drove up; and Bella seated herself by Clodwig's side

without his getting out: he sat shivering in one corner.

"Why do you not ask how I am?" said he, in a feeble, trembling voice.

Bella made no reply. She was internally struggling; but suddenly she

exclaimed,--

"Foh! You ought all to be ashamed of yourselves! What are the whole of

you in comparison with this man? He alone is a man, he alone. Here is

something grand and strong among this lint-scraping, humanitary set.

You are all imbeciles, cowards! This Sonnenkamp is the only great man,

a strong man, a real man. Oh! if such a man"--

"Well? If such a man"--

"Ask me no more questions. I will drive home with you, home,--you have

the right to command,--what more do you want? Not another word,

not a word, or I shall not mind the pouring rain, not the least:

I shall jump out of the carriage, I shall go off, I don't know

where; but I won't be imprisoned any longer; I won't be banished

to your miserable, old, pot-digging, pretty-spoken, vaporing,

freedom-vaunting, humanity-gouged, world!"

"Wife, what are you saying? Are good and evil then"--

"Pooh! Good and evil, these are the crutches on which you lean, because

you have nothing to lean on in yourselves. A man must be strong, and

have good grit: whether he is good or bad is a matter of indifference.

Any thing but weak and sentimental; any thing but hiding behind your

humanity with its blissful tears. A man who is not made of iron ought

to be a woman--no, he ought to be a nun. You are nothing but a set of

soft-hearted nuns. Yes, it must be so; it is so. A Jew to sit in

judgment on such a man, and an atheist like this Herr Dournay! Yes, the

atheists are the only consistent democrats. All are equal: there's no

longer any higher being, no longer any God; then there's equality, and

you are everybody's equal. Dastards, loafers! May you find goodly

fellowship together! He is the only man. He has done you too much honor

in wanting to belong to you, you are not worthy of him. You are all of

you afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau, of the fool of equal rights. It is

still to be seen whether the world smothers itself in this mixed mass

of equality, or whether there are heights for it to climb. You ought to

go across the ocean; there's the last decisive battle-field; you are

nothing but a nobility in a holiday uniform. The Southern States stand

erect, and if they fall, there's no more aristocracy; then you'll all

be clipped by the shears of equal rights. Just call the coachman in

here, your brother-man! Don't let him be out there in the rain, he

ought to be sitting with us in the carriage. Or shall I call him for

you?"

She seized the cord, and the coachman reined in. After letting Clodwig

wait in torture for a while, she cried,--

"Drive on, it's nothing."

She turned her head restlessly, this way and that. Her eyes wildly

rolling, and grinding her teeth, she exclaimed in a loud tone:

"Fie upon all the cowards! Oh! if I were only a man!"

Clodwig sat in the corner, shivering. At this moment something clinked

in Bella's mouth, and she put her hand up to it. What is that? Yes, she

took it out--it is so. In her angry gnashing of her teeth, she had

broken a front tooth, which had been tender for a long time, and

required careful treatment. Bella clinched the hand in which she held

the tooth, and pressed her lips together. What has happened to her? The

thought rapidly shot through her, How vexatious it was that she could

no longer ridicule those who wear false teeth; but yet she can, for

nobody will believe that she, Bella, has a false tooth.

They met the Banker waiting for them in the town: he said that he had

sent the message to his house, and was ready.

Bella got out of the carriage, and holding a handkerchief before her

mouth, and speaking in muffled tones, requested the Banker to accompany

her husband, and a servant to stay with her. She hurried towards the

railroad. Arrived at the station, she was perplexed; and without taking

the handkerchief from her mouth, she told the servant to take tickets

for the Fortress. Then she sat still in a corner of the passenger-room,

with two thicknesses of veil over her face. She rode to the

Fortress-City. No one was to know that she wore a false tooth, no one

was to see her with a gap in her teeth.

Clodwig drove homewards, and often wiped his eyes. Above all, his pride

was wounded; he, Clodwig, was scorned, and by whom? By his wife. And on

whose account? On account of this hollow-hearted adventurer. She has

never loved me one single instant: that was a stab to his very heart,

and this stab never ceased to be felt; for what he suffered bodily was

transmuted into a suffering of the soul. Who is there that can measure

this action and re-action of body and soul?

The rain had ceased; but a mist seemed before Clodwig's eyes, and a

heavy gloom. He reached Wolfsgarten; but all the apartments seemed full

of smoke, full of haze. He seated himself in his chair.

"I am lonely, lonely," he said to himself continually.

The Banker spoke to him in gentle words; but Clodwig shook his head; he

knew that Bella had never loved him, that she hated him. He felt

himself humiliated, scourged. Bella's words had wounded him to the

heart's core, wounded him to the death.

They drew off his coat: he looked for a long time at the coat, and

nodded with a sad smile.

Did he forebode that he would never put it on again?

When Bella returned home early the next morning, he looked at her with

a ghostlike countenance: he perceived the coldness and hardness of her

face.

"Medusa, Medusa!" shrieked Clodwig.

Without knowing he had uttered the words, he fell back on the pillows.

They restored him to consciousness. Hours of the severest pain elapsed

before the Doctor came. Clodwig had also desired Eric to be sent for.

The Doctor came, and declared Clodwig to be dangerously sick; the jury

trial had excited him too violently, and the drive home through the

rain--"and perhaps something else," he added to Bella, who gazed at him

without changing a muscle of her face.

Bella sent for her brother; but no one knew precisely where he was.

"I am lonely," said she, too.

She was terrified when she said this; for she felt that she would soon

be really alone.

CHAPTER X.

A KNIGHT ERRANT.

It was difficult to hunt up Pranken, for he had lost himself when he

left Villa Eden. No man ever walked with a firmer and a prouder step,

while at the same time he was inwardly crushed, than Pranken. It was

something more than external assumption, it was an habitual assurance

that sustained him.

Pranken would have taken it hard if Manna had rejected him in order to

become a nun. But to reject him on account of preference for another,

reject him,--Otto von Pranken!--He was touched to the quick. Otto von

Pranken had been refused; and he was very deeply in love. Can Otto von

Pranken offer love, and not have it reciprocated? If the girl had taken

the veil, and renounced the world, she would have renounced him with

the rest, for he was a part of the world; but to be refused in this

way, and dismissed on account of another man!--. Otto von Pranken

loves, and his suit is not accepted!

"Unprecedented!" He ground his teeth with rage. He never thought of

what he had been guilty of in his life: he only felt his dignity

insulted, his pride mortified, and his love scorned; for he loved

Manna, and wanted to be united to her, and naturally, also, to her

money; then he would be all right, and indulge his passion for handsome

horses.

What should now become of him? For the first time in his life, Pranken

felt a pity for himself: it seemed to him that he was misunderstood,

misappreciated virtue, but, more than all, as if nobleness of bearing

had been insulted, and fidelity rewarded with ingratitude. How great

sacrifices he had made for this family! And now? It appeared to him as

if there were a black funeral-procession passing along in his thoughts:

you cannot crowd through it, you must wait until it has all gone by.

He rode away as if he had been thrust out of the world. Where shall he

turn? To whom shall he complain?

Is Otto von Pranken to complain to a man, to appear in a helpless

condition before any one?

He laughed outright as he now called to mind that he had contracted

large debts, in anticipation of the millions which would certainly be

his. What next?

Involuntarily he turned round once more, and looked back at Villa Eden.

There was only a single line needed, only a brief interview: yes, he

had but to ride back, and represent this to Sonnenkamp, in order to

come away with hundreds of thousands. But no, it must not be done.

"Fie!" said he to himself, "how could you ever have such a thought as

that?"

He rode on, and came to the country-house of Herr von Endlich. There

was a young widow here: should he now go in? He knew that his proposal

would not be rejected here. No, not yet. But he reined in and

dismounted. He asked after the gracious lady, and was told that she was

travelling in Italy with her brother.

Sneering contemptuously at himself, he again mounted his horse.

He would tell Bella and Clodwig,--no, not even that. He had not taken

them into his counsel: in opposition to the rest of the world, he had

connected himself with Sonnenkamp, and was he now to be pitied by

Clodwig, and stuffed with wise saws?

He turned his horse, and, riding up along the river, he came to Villa

Eden again, and the horse wanted to turn in at the gate; but with whip

and spur he urged him on.

He rode to the Priest's, and sent for Fraeulein Perini, who came.

First he asked her if she wished to remain any longer in the family.

Fraeulein Perini, looking him full in the face, declared that she hoped

she had not mistaken him in supposing that he would not abandon every

thing to the Huguenots. She asserted that she was the daughter of a man

who had fallen in a duel caused by a less provocation.

The Priest here said,--

"My noble young friend! Not that, no, not that: what does it signify,

this petty duel in a corner of the wood, and you killing one man even,

according to the code of honor? You sons of the nobility must wage,

under the banner of the Pope, the great contest with the revolution.

Also for your own sake. On that field will be fought the great duel

between faith and irreligion, between eternal law and frivolous

self-deification, and the victory is yours."

Pranken smiled to himself; but he did not express how odd it seemed to

him, when the Priest went on to state, that, before it was known how

Sonnenkamp's money had been acquired, they might have applied a part of

it to holy ends; but now it could not be done.

Pranken looked at the Priest, and smiled. Did not the Priest know the

origin of the money before this?

He had it on his lips to say, "It is very amiable and prudent in you

now, when nothing can be got, to act as if you had declined it." But it

was not necessary; and why should he imbitter against him the only

parties who remained his friends? Yes, he was here still an honored

personage, not the solitary, abandoned one, who rode outside there on

the road, up and down, not knowing which way to turn. He would now be

prudent, he would play with men. He said he had separated from

Sonnenkamp, because the latter would not give up to him, and devote a

large sum for a pious purpose. He had the right to say this, he

thought, for he had desired that it should be done. This was what he

would now maintain; Manna's refusal was by this means put out of sight,

and his obstinate adherence to Sonnenkamp had in it a sort of religious

consecration.

The Priest reminded Pranken that to-day was the time for the church

conference, and he was expected to be there.

Pranken took leave.

Fraeulein Perini returned to the Villa, wearing a proud smile. Odd

people, these Germans! She would at any rate stay until she had got

enough for herself; she did not want to leave empty-handed.

Pranken rode off. He passed the villa which had belonged to the

Cabinetsrath. Ah! they were prudent, they had secured their part of the

booty before the decision. Why were you so simple, so considerate, and

so trustful?

He put up his horse at the station, and rode in the cars to the city

where the Bishop lived. He was expected there; but how was he to

present himself to the company? He came, luckily, just as the meeting

had broken up. He was received with marked consideration at the palace

of the Bishop; and he was glad to feel that there was still honor for

him in the world: and here he came to a hurried resolve.

Here, also, Bella's messenger overtook him.

He set out, and reached Wolfsgarten. The first person he met was the

Banker, who told him, with great emotion, that Clodwig was very ill.

Pranken looked haughtily at the man; but he had good breeding enough to

address him civilly.

He came to Bella. After she had told him of Clodwig's illness, she

lauded Pranken as the only true freeman in remaining true to

Sonnenkamp.

Pranken pressed his lips together, but made no reply. It was not the

time now to make known what had happened, and the conclusion he had

formed. And, when Bella asked him why he seemed so disturbed, he could

give no answer.

"Why were you not at the trial? Have you come from Villa Eden? How are

they there?" asked Bella.

"I don't know," Pranken finally replied.

Yes, how are they at Villa Eden!

CHAPTER XI.

SMOKE AND DESOLATION AT THE VILLA.

Sonnenkamp sat alone. He seemed to hear in his solitude a crackling, a

low, almost inaudible gnawing, like a tongue of flame lapping the beams

and joists, devouring more and more, and increasing as it devoured its

prey. Such a low crackling, and such a lapping, he believed that he

heard in his solitude.

He was mistaken, and yet he was well aware that there was a spark

kindled, and it was burning noiselessly; it ran along the floor of the

room, it reached the walls; the chairs, the closets, the books, are all

on fire; the painted faces on the canvas are grotesquely distorted, and

blaze up; and the flames spread on and on, creeping through all the

apartments, enveloping at last the roof and the whole house, and

flaring up into the sky.

Suppose that one should burn it all up, and every thing in it? No,

there is another, a better means of deliverance, an energetic deed, a

splendid, grand--here came a knock. It must be Bella coming to explain

why she was not there when he returned from the trial to the seed-room.

He opened the door quickly, and Weidmann, not Bella, entered.

"Have you any thing to ask me in private?" asked Sonnenkamp angrily.

"I have only a favor to beg of you."

"A favor? you?"

"Yes. Give me your son"--

"My son?" cried Sonnenkamp in astonishment.

"Will you be so good as to let me finish my sentence. Let your son come

into my family for days, weeks, months, as long as you please; only let

it be long enough for him to get a new hold in a different sphere. He

needs an energetic and free activity. When your son passed a short time

with me before this thing happened, I perceived with satisfaction that

he had very little personal vanity with all his beauty. He takes

pleasure in looking at others rather than at himself. This would be of

help; and I would like to aid him still further. As your son will not

become a soldier, perhaps it will be well for him to be instructed in

husbandry."

"Is this a plan which you have agreed upon with Herr Dournay?"

"Yes, it is his wish; and it seems to me a very good plan."

"Indeed?" said Sonnenkamp. "Perhaps Roland has already been informed of

this wish, and of how well it suits?"

"I cannot blame you for this bitter feeling, I can very well understand

it; for it is no trifling matter to be placed in a situation where

others undertake to dispose of us and ours."

"I thank you, I thank you very kindly.'"

"If you decline, then no one knows any thing about it, except Herr

Dournay and myself."

"Have I said that I was going to decline? You will yet receive one

proof how much confidence I place in you: I have made you one of my

executors."

"I am much older than you." Sonnenkamp made no reply to this remark,

and Weidmann continued,--

"What conclusion have you come to about my request concerning your

son?"

"If he will go with you, he has my consent. Allow me one question. Is

this the expiation you would exact of me, or a part of it?"

Weidmann said it was not.

The carriage in which the Professorin, Roland, and Manna returned, now

entered the court-yard. Weidmann welcomed the Professorin very

cordially, having known her a long time ago. He saw now for the first

time, as a matron, the once blooming beauty. The three brought from

Mattenheim a fresh strength for all that lay before them.

As they were sitting together in the green cottage, a messenger on

horseback came from Clodwig to summon Eric to his side.

Weidmann now renewed the proposal for Roland to go with him to

Mattenheim. Roland was advised by them all to go. Declaring that he

needed no inducement, he readily assented, and drove away with

Weidmann, Prince Valerian, and Knopf. He was protected and sheltered by

such a number of good men.

Mattenheim was situated on the other bank of the Rhine; and, while the

carriage was being ferried across, Roland stood at the stern of the

boat, and gazed in silence for a long time at the parental home. Tears

came into his eyes; but he restrained them.

A tornado swept through the park, eddying around the house; and the

fires just kindled in it were extinguished. The many fire-places were

of no avail, the whole house was full of smoke; and a whirling gust of

wind seemed to tear all the inmates of Villa Eden away from each other.

Roland was gone, Pranken was seen there no more, Manna lived with the

Professorin in the green cottage, and Eric had ridden away. Only

Sonnenkamp and Frau Ceres were there. Fraeulein Perini came, and

informed Sonnenkamp that his wife desired to speak with him instantly:

she was in a state wholly beyond her control.

Sonnenkamp hurried to Frau Ceres' apartment; but she was not there. The

maid said that as soon as Fraeulein Perini had left the room, she had

hurried through the house into the park. They went after her

immediately, calling her by name. They found her, at last, sitting on

the river bank, in the midst of the storm, splendidly dressed, with a

coronet on her head, thick rows of pearls on her bare neck, heavy

bracelets on her arms, and a girdle of glittering emeralds around her

waist. She looked at Sonnenkamp with a strange smile, and then said,--

"You have given me rich and beautiful ornaments."

She seemed to grow taller: she threw back her black hair.

"Look, here is the dagger! I wanted to kill myself with it; but I hurl

it away from me."

The hilt of precious stones and pearls sparkled through the air,

plunged into the water, and sank.

"What are you doing? What does this mean?"

"Come back with me!" she cried, "or, look, I will throw myself into the

river, and take with me these ornaments, the half of your riches."

"You are a deluded child," said Sonnenkamp contemptuously. "You think,

do you, that these are genuine stones? I have never given into your

keeping, you simple child, any but imitation jewels: the genuine ones,

in a like setting and case, I have fast enough in my own possession, in

the burglar-proof safe."

"So! You are shrewd," replied Frau Ceres.

"And you, my wild child, you are not crazy."

"No, I am not, if I'm not made so. I shall remain with you, and never

leave you for a single instant. Oh! I know you--Oh! I know you, you

will forsake me."

Sonnenkamp shuddered.

What does this mean? How does it come to pass that this simple-minded

creature has called out his slumbering thoughts, and brought them up

from the depths of his soul? He addressed the kindest words to Frau

Ceres, and, bringing her back to the house, kissed her. She became

quieter; but the determination was fixed in him to become free. There

was only one thing to be won, and then away into the wide, wide world!

But first of all, he must go to the capital, and shoot down Professor

Crutius. He struggled and wrestled with the thought, and at last he was

obliged to give it up. But the other thing must be. In confirmation of

this hidden impression of his soul, there came a messenger from Eric,

with the tidings that he could not leave Wolfsgarten, for Count Clodwig

was at the point of death.

CHAPTER XII.

A TRYING INTERVIEW.

Eric rode to Wolfsgarten. He met on the way the Major and Fraeulein

Milch, who were walking close together under one large umbrella.

Eric told them that Clodwig was dangerously sick, and the Major said,--

"Don't let him have any other nurse. Fraeulein Milch will come and take

care of him. Herr Captain, one ought to be sick for once, so as to have

Fraeulein Milch nurse him."

Fraeulein Milch declared herself ready to come to Clodwig, if she were

called upon.

Eric rode on, and now sought to put in a right point of view all that

he had experienced, so that he might gain the strength necessary to

bear up under coming events. How much had happened to him and to others

since he rode out from Wolfsgarten to Villa Eden? Every thing passed

through his soul, and he breathed deep in silent satisfaction as he

thought what would have been his condition now, if he had not exerted

all his strength to bring himself into right relations with Bella. How

different would it be, were he riding now with a soul torn by

conflicting feelings, unable to help wishing for Clodwig's death in

order that he might get possession of Bella, and obliged to stand like

the most abject hypocrite by the bedside of the dying one. No poet yet

has ventured to depict the mental state of two people who expect to

base their happiness on the news of another's death; and these, no

criminals but cultivated, and intelligent.

Eric looked upon himself as one rescued from destruction. Never was a

man possessed by more pious emotions than Eric was now, as, stopping,

he said to himself,--

"I thank thee, thou Eternal and Ineffable Spirit; for it is not I who

have, through my education and inherited tendencies, become what I am.

I am now pure; I will not be unworthy of it, but keep myself pure and

innocent."

Wanting to get rid, finally, of his thoughts and speculations, he spoke

to the messenger, an old confidential servant of the Wolfsgarten

family. The messenger related how Clodwig had come home from Villa Eden

in company with the Banker, and how they had thought he would have died

at that time.

The servant turned round, and, pointing with his whip to Villa Eden,

said, "There's no queerer state of things anywhere than in this world."

In the midst of his deep distress, Eric could not help laughing aloud

at this odd remark.

"Is any one of the relatives at Wolfsgarten?"

"No: the Jew is the only one there. But he is a friend of our master."

Eric regretted that he had entered into conversation with the servant,

for he could not restrain him from talking about what he thought would

be done, if the gracious master should die.

At the last hill, Eric dismounted, and walked over the wooded height.

It was all still. The hornbeam tree, which first leaves out, was now

the first to let fall its yellow leaves: there was a rustling and a low

crackling in the wood, and only the hawk screeched above on the height.

Eric came in front of the manor-house, and entered the courtyard. He

went to Bella, who looked pale and as if suffering severely. He entered

just at the moment that Bella was asking her brother of the news at

Villa Eden.

Eric was startled to meet Pranken here. Both had to use the strongest

self-control in order to stand up under the interview.

Bella thanked Eric for being the first one to come to her.

"He is now asleep," said she: "he talks constantly of you. Be composed:

you will hardly know him; give in to him in every thing, he is very

excitable."

Bella's voice was hoarse; and, covering her eyes with a white

handkerchief, she asked,--

"Were you present when your father died?"

Eric said that he was.

Bella went to inform Clodwig of Eric's arrival. Pranken and Eric were

by themselves. For a long time neither spoke: at last, Pranken began,--

"I never thought that I should speak again to Herr Dournay; but we are

now at a sick-bed, and for the sake of the invalid"--

"I thank you."

"I beg you to give me no thanks, and to speak to me just as little as

possible,--just enough to excite no remark and nothing more."

He turned round and was about to go.

"Just one word," Eric requested. "We shall soon see an eye closed in

death that has always beamed with gentle and noble feeling; let all

bitterness toward me disappear, or, for a time, be suspended. Let us

not, at such an hour as this, stand in hostility to each other."

"You can talk well: I know that."

"And I want to say what it is well for you to listen to. It troubles me

that I appear to you ungrateful; but now, in this mysterious presence

which awaits us all, I repeat"--

Bella returned and said,--

"He is still asleep. O Herr Dournay! Clodwig loves you more than he

loves any other person in the world."

She gave Eric her hand, and it was cold as ice. The three were

speechless for some time, until Eric asked,--

"Is there no hope?"

"No. The Doctor says that he has probably only a few hours to live. Do

you hear any thing? The Doctor has promised to come,--to return

immediately. Oh, if I could only induce Clodwig to call in another

physician! Do urge him to do it: I have no confidence in Doctor

Richard."

Eric made no reply.

"Ah, my God!" lamented Bella, "how forsaken we are in our need. You

will remain with us, will you not? You will not abandon us?"

Eric promised to remain.

It had a strange sound, a reminiscence out of the past, with its forms

of courtesy, as Bella now asked pardon for not having inquired after

Eric's mother, Frau Ceres, and Manna; and, with a peculiar jerking out

of the words, she asked,--

"How is Herr Sonnenkamp?"

A servant came, and announced that the Herr Count had waked up, and had

asked immediately, if Herr Captain Dournay had not yet come.

"Go to him," said Bella, laying her hand upon Eric's shoulder. "Go to

him, I beg you; but let it come as if from you, and not from me, that

another physician should be called in."

Eric went; and, as soon as he had gone, "Bella said hurriedly to

Pranken,--

"Otto, get rid of the Jew as politely as you can. What does he want

here?"

Pranken went to the Banker.

Bella was alone, and could not control her feeling of unrest. She had

already arranged in thought the announcement of the decease, and had

even written the words,--

"To relatives and friends I make the painful announcement, that my

beloved husband, Count von Wolfsgarten of Wolfsgarten, formerly

ambassador of his royal Highness at Rome, Knight of the first rank, has

died after a short illness, at the age of sixty-five. I beg their

silent sympathy.

"BELLA COUNTESS VON WOLFSGARTEN (_nee_, Von Pranken)."

A demon continually whispered to her this announcement: she saw it

before her eyes with a black border, even while Clodwig was still

living. Why is this? What suggests these words, and brings them so

clearly before her eyes? She could not get away from them. She took up

the sheet of paper, tore it up, and threw the pieces out of the window

into the rain.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LAST BLUE FLOWER.

Eric, meanwhile, had entered the sick-chamber.

"Are you here at last?" cried Clodwig. His voice was faint; and the

small childlike hand which the sick man extended toward him appeared

more delicate than ever.

"Sit down," said he; "don't be so broken down: you are young and

strong, and have a good conscience. Let me take your hand. It is a

happiness to die in the full possession of my senses: I have often

desired to die a sudden death. Better as it is. Tell me, how is your

mother? Are you really betrothed to the daughter of that terrible man."

Eric could not yet utter a word: he only nodded without speaking, and

Clodwig continued,--

"That is fine, an instance of the grand truth of compensation in the

world. Once, you were to become my son--my son! It is better as it is.

I am to have no son. But tell me, how is Roland? Did he not want to

come with you? I see him, the splendid youth! he is present all the

time. You have done well, Eric, entirely well. You will stay with the

young man. If we could only know what will become of the father!"

Before Eric could answer, the invalid lay back upon the pillow. He

seemed to have fallen asleep. Nothing was heard but the ticking of the

clock; and now a carriage drove into the court-yard, the wheels cutting

into the gravel.

Clodwig awoke.

"That is the Doctor," he said aloud. He requested the attendant to say

to the physician that he would like to be left with Eric alone for a

time. The nurse gave the commission to the servant, and remained in the

anteroom. Sitting upright, Clodwig said,--

"Shut the door: I want to speak to you in private."

Eric sat by the bedside, and Clodwig began,--

"This Sonnenkamp, so audacious, and yet--hypocrisy, it is everywhere; a

jumble of grimaces, of masks who do not know one another. A sentence

upon Sonnenkamp? I have let him off entirely. His path is zigzag, his

goal horrible. Who shall judge? I say it here to you, my brain received

a fatal lesion when the fearful thought entered into it. When I look

over my own life, what is it? I have filled out a uniform: we are

walking, empty sentry-boxes, painted with the national color. If a

discharge comes, we think it something very mysterious; we whisper--all

a farce. The life of most persons is hypocrisy, and so is mine, so

long, so honorable! We have no courage, we do not confess what we are.

We are encumbered with forms, compliances, courtesies, conformities;

and all is false inside. We never tell each other what we are as we

acknowledge it to ourselves. Don't be afraid. I have no crime, no

transgression, now, to acknowledge and to feel remorse for. I have been

all my life pure as thousands, as millions, by my side; but I have not

been the person that I really am. Do you know that grand word which God

spake when he revealed himself in the desert to the holy Shepherd? It

is this. This is God. 'I am that I am.' This is the truth,

truthfulness, the divine in every man; and men deny it. Who can say I

am that I am? I never could, and millions by my side could not. We are

all glossed over outside, all and everywhere over-refined--no, not all,

but most of us: were all so, the sun would never again rise upon the

earth. But the time will come, and you are one of those awaiting its

coming, you will share in its life,--the time will come, when men shall

dissemble no more, shall lie no more, shall pass themselves off for no

more than they are, and shall be what they profess to be. Do you

comprehend me?"

"Perfectly, perfectly."

"Know, then, I tell you that I have not done what I ought to have done.

I have not gone from hour to hour into the presence of those in power,

and said, 'Thus am I, and thus must you be.' I have lulled myself with

a false philosophy; I have persuaded myself that all would be

spontaneously unfolded of itself; that we are in the direct line of the

developing tendencies, and we have nothing to do in furtherance

thereof. Ha, ha! unfold of itself! Yes, death comes of itself, death

comes, and takes away the life that was no real life, no candid

revealment, no genuine self. I once knew a great actor. To an actor,

death will always be the hardest, not only because he has so often

counterfeited death, but because he knows that he leaves behind him his

parts, his masks, his paints, his wilted wreaths, his rounds of

applause, and he can never be called out again. My son, we

diplomatists, we die the death of the actor. I have led an unprofitable

life. I had no fatherland to give me other than diplomatic farces to

perform. My life has been a busy inactivity: I have spent the greatest

part of my life in the livery and the defence of a cause which I did

not respect, scarcely had any regard for. Here is this slave-trader.

Fie! the whole world calls out in horror: and yet, in circles held in

high estimation, there are far worse than slave-traders. Others, again,

are not in the house of correction, because they were under no

necessity of stealing, and because they were bought off by money from

being positively immoral. There, give me now, I beg, a cooling draught,

my mouth is parched."

Eric gave Clodwig a draught; but they were both so awkward, that it was

almost all spilled.

"No matter, no matter," said Clodwig, smiling, "that's the way in this

world: only the smaller part is really drunk, the larger part gets

spilled, wasted. There, now go, and let the Doctor come, but come back

again afterwards."

Eric went and called the physician. Bella asked what Clodwig had been

talking about. He could only answer in general terms, and begged to be

allowed to go into the open air for refreshment.

Eric went into the garden. The November wind was raging, and the rain

driving fiercely. Eric wrapped himself in his cloak, and went into the

wood: it did him good to walk in the midst of the uproar of the

elements. He went through the park and the wood, by the game path which

he had followed on the morning after telling the story of his life to

his newly-won friend Clodwig. Now he could not stride on in exultant

mood, as if borne onward by an external force; now he must battle with

the storm which roared over him through the tree-tops. Now, as then, he

stood under the covered pavilion; but in the wide landscape he could

see nothing but clouds of driving rain. Close to the wall of the

building there was still one beautiful blue-bell: unconsciously he

broke it off, and, as he returned to the house, it occurred to him to

carry the flower to the invalid. He entered the sick-chamber, and

Clodwig cried,--

"Ah, the blue flower! You gather it and bring it to me. We have dreamed

of them often in my youth. Youth, youth!" repeated the sick man often.

He seized the flower, then leaned far out of bed, and smelled of Eric's

clothes, saying,--

"Ah I my son, why do the Bible pictures come up before me now? The

patriarch Isaac said to his son as he came to his sickbed, 'The smell

of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.' Yes,

Eric, you bring all the free air of the fields into my sick-room. When

I am no more, remember that you have done me good."

Eric wept.

"Yes, weep, it is well, it will do you no harm that I make your heart

heavy. You will be happy and active on the earth whose clods will soon

rest on me. Only, I pray you, stay by me when I die; and when I am

dead, and they prepare me for the grave, take something from my heart

which must stay there till it has stopped beating. Stay with me, Eric,

I will not think of petty, individual interests. I will not leave the

world in hatred and anger--no, not in hatred and anger against any man.

Help me to attain to the universal, the grand: in those I will live and

die."

He lay back on his pillows; and, as Eric leaned over him, his breath

came quietly, and on his face was a gentle smile. What thoughts might

now be stirring this soul?

Eric wanted to send a messenger to Villa Eden, to say that he must

remain where he was. Lootz, who had been sent by Herr Sonnenkamp to

inquire for the Count, carried the message back.

CHAPTER XIV.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD OF A DYING SEER.

Clodwig slept several hours, while Eric sat with the Banker, and drew

refreshment from his self-forgetting sympathy. The Banker failed in

many of the ordinary forms of society; but he possessed a nature full

of tact, and, in the midst of his deep emotion, Eric thought that only

unselfishness has genuine tact. Want of tact is at bottom selfishness;

for the man who is without it thinks and acts only for himself.

Eric now saw the Banker in a new light. In Carlsbad he had made rather

an effort to display his intelligence; but now his gentle and sensible

character showed itself naturally. Eric remembered the Banker's once

having said to him at Carlsbad, "The Jews are the children of

compassion: they understand how to bear and to relieve sorrow much

better than to create joy; the remembrance of past oppression gives

them sympathy with all suffering."

The Banker was ready to lend help at any moment, but allowed himself to

be put in the background again immediately.

Bella treated him with manifest neglect, but he took it good-humoredly,

showing without words that he was not offended. She acted like her

mother's own child; and moreover, he thought, she was not his friend.

Clodwig was his friend, and he regarded it as a duty to bear something

for his sake. He sat in the library, ready to answer any call, and

retiring again as soon as he believed himself in the way. Towards

midnight, Eric was suddenly summoned; Clodwig had waked, and asked for

him.

"Ah! I have slept so well," said Clodwig; "and it's strange, I

constantly dream now of my cousin Hatty, whom I am to marry. I like

her, and she likes me; but she has learned, and will learn nothing at

all, and she has such a shrill laugh, and says, 'Come, Clodwig, you're

so sad, come, marry me, we'll be merry.' And then I say, 'Child, I'm so

old already! see, I've no teeth left, and what will Bella say to it?'

'Ah, what' she says, 'nonsensical things! Come, we'll dance.' And then

we dance down to the chapel; and there stands the priest beckoning to

us, and we dance on, past the priest; and she's a splendid child with

beautiful eyes, and loves me dearly; and so we dance on and on, and I

can keep it up very well till I wake, without being tired."

"Is your cousin Hatty still living?"

"Oh, no! she died long ago. A few weeks since a grandson of hers was

here with me. But isn't it strange that my first youthful love--I was

hardly ten years old--should have awakened in me? And she had an apple

in her hand, and bit into it, and then said, 'Take a bite too;' but,

when I wanted to take the apple, she wouldn't let me, and said, 'Don't

bite too much.' And, when I awoke, the taste of the apple seemed still

in my mouth. Now it just comes back to me that we were once painted

together. The painter declared that it would please us very much some

time or other. He did it secretly, and, of course, the picture was

bought of him; I believe it is still in existence; but I don't know

where. Don't you like her name of Hatty? She is a half-grown girl in a

pink calico dress and white apron, and that's the way she was always

dressed, and she had a broad Florence straw hat, whose brim drooped

down upon her shoulders." So Clodwig went on, and said with a repressed

sigh, "Bella has never cared to hear about my youth;" but then, as if

not wishing to speak of her, he quickly added in a trembling voice,

stretching out both hands, "Now attend, and I can tell you my story. I

have had a very different life from that Herr Sonnenkamp. My father was

Prime-Minister, and I was born in the ministerial residence, the son of

a late marriage, an only son, like Herr Sonnenkamp; but my life was

different. My father became representative of the Confederacy to the

German Diet, and then I often lived here in summer on our estate. The

society of the representatives of the Confederacy,--who knows whether

it is not passing away without any one's having pictured it truly,--I

might have done it; even when I was still a student, it was plain to me

that it was a society which exists only to stand in the way of every

improvement. Come a little nearer and I will tell you what the German

Diet is,--it is the evil conscience of the Princes. I thought so very

early, and I was soon sure of it, and yet I stayed in the midst of it;

and the farther I advanced, the more plainly I saw that it was true.

All progress has built itself up apart from the Diet; and there is

something like it in the Church. Progress is made without her, aside

from her; she has not done away with capital punishment, nor torture,

nor the confinement of prisoners in irons: none of these has she

abolished. And now are coming the two great works of emancipation,--the

emancipation of the slaves and of the serfs, and what is bringing

them about? Humanity alone in its freedom of action. You see, this

Herr Sonnenkamp lived in quite another world than mine, and yet my

life,--Ah, wait a minute, wait, I cannot say more now."

After a while, Clodwig began again,--

"This Sonnenkamp is another proof to me, our civilization has the same

defects as religion; it also gives no definite moral laws; it is not a

complete, not the true civilization."

He sat up in bed, saying,--

"Come, I want to say my last word to you. Two things I see looming up

in the future; the one is imperialism, which is trying to establish

itself in America; and the other, yet more terrible, is called a war

for religion. One party gathers around Rome; the other, around no man,

no idea, but around freedom. Two great standards are raised, and around

these standards gather two armies. Invisibly on the one banner is

inscribed, 'We cannot!' on the other, 'We will!'

"Hear yet more. A new faith, a new knowledge is to come, which will

re-create the world. We wander continually in a grave-yard, our life is

dead. Only a renewal through a great idea, through a new religion.

Ah"--

He broke off abruptly as Bella entered the room.

She expressed her satisfaction at Clodwig's animation, and Clodwig

still preserved a courtly politeness towards his wife. She wanted to

hand him some medicine, and he said,--

"Oh, yes! give it to me, but do not say any thing against Doctor

Richard; please do not."

Bella sat quietly by the bed for a while; then Clodwig begged her

to go to rest, and she complied. When he was again alone with Eric, he

said,--

"In many painless hours by day and night, I have fancied to myself how

the human race of to-day will gather in countless hosts, and press,

shoulder to shoulder, up some lofty height, to plant the banner under

which they assemble. What watch-word can they inscribe upon it which

shall unite them one and all? Then I saw you; you were carrying the

banner, and on it was your motto, your words which you have spoken, the

only motto, Free labor! That is it. Happy are you that you have said

it, and I that I have heard and seen."

A glorious light rested on Clodwig's countenance, and beamed from his

eyes, as he gazed into the empty air; then he laid back his head, and

closed his eyes, but he felt for Eric's hand, and clasped it tight.

After a while he raised himself again, saying,--

"Go into the room that you had when you first came here; take Robert

with you, and bring the bust of the Victoria here to me."

Eric went with the servant to the balcony chamber, and had the head of

the Victoria taken down; that of the Medusa lay upon the floor in

fragments. He asked Robert who had broken it, but Robert knew nothing

about it. He hesitated to ask Bella or Clodwig about the matter, but he

learned that Clodwig had not been in this room since his return.

When Eric had placed the bust opposite the sick man's bed, and arranged

the lights properly, Clodwig said,--

"Yes, it looks like her, your mother knew her too."

He said nothing more. After he had gazed at the bust for a long time in

silence, he asked Eric to call the Banker, and, when he came, he said

to him with a child-like smile,--

"It belongs to you too. There's a story about a little child, very

young, I can see him now, dressed only in a little shirt, sitting on a

cushion on the table, and my mother is holding me, and telling me--I

think I can feel the warm breath of her words, as it comes against my

breast, she had laid her head on my breast, and she said, 'There was

once a child who went into the woods to look for flowers, and he found

beautiful red flowers, and picked them; and then he found beautiful

blue flowers, and he threw the pretty red flowers away, and gathered

the blue ones; and then he found beautiful yellow ones, and threw away

the beautiful blue flowers to gather those; and next he found beautiful

white ones; and he threw the pretty yellow ones away, and picked the

white; and then he came out of the wood, and there was a brook; and he

threw the lovely white flowers into the brook, and had nothing left in

his hands.' That is my story, and that is the other one. I understand

it now. The nations all came upon the earth, and they held the

revelations in their hands,--the red, the blue, the yellow, and the

white flowers--and at last they stood with nothing but their empty

hands. And then they said, 'It is well.' The empty hands speak, and

say, 'Unforced labor shaft thou perform.' Isn't it true, Eric, that I

understand what you said when you first came here? I see you now as you

stood under the blossoming apple-tree, and your words came to me like

my mother's warm breath on my little breast. And now may you sleep

well. Good-night."

Eric sat by Clodwig's bed, with his hand clasped in his, till at last

the grasp relaxed, and the sick man slept. Bella came again, and

Pranken with her; he prayed with the Sister of Mercy for the

dangerously sick man, doing it without shyness or display, with

unembarrassed air.

Eric made a sign to Bella to be very quiet. She sat silent for a time,

and then withdrew with Pranken.

Eric struggled with sleep and weariness. The morning dawned, and

flooded the chamber with its ruddy light. Eric went to the Sister of

Mercy, and told her that the long sleep of their patient made him

uneasy: he had leaned over him, and could hear no breathing; but

perhaps it was on account of his own exhaustion.

They went to Clodwig's bed-side, and bent over him--death had come to

him in his sleep.

CHAPTER XV.

A GOOD CONCLUSION TO A BAD RESULT.

Eric had Pranken called, and charged him with the duty of informing his

sister; but Pranken insisted that they should let Bella sleep as long

as she would, as she needed the strength. So the dawning day grew

brighter and brighter, and the Sister of Mercy sat praying by the

bedside of him who had fallen asleep.

Eric went down into the garden, where he met the Banker: he silently

gave him his hand, and they walked on together without speaking. Eric

was called in to Bella, who was upon the sofa, weeping. The Sister of

Mercy had broken the news to her when she woke. Bella had been with the

corpse, and now was mourning loud and immoderately. Eric consoled her,

requesting that she would excuse his absence for a few hours, as he

must see how they all were at the Villa, and would return by evening.

He rode homewards.

At the foot of the mountain, Claus met him with his son, the Cooper;

and the field-guard cried,--

"Good luck, Herr Captain! good luck for you; and you are good luck for

us too. We've just bought the Carp Inn for Ferdinand. Could there be

any thing better? I'm father of an inn."

Eric hushed him, but could not get in a word; for Claus exclaimed,--

"Do you know that now Sevenpiper's going to let his daughter marry

Ferdinand? and it's all owing to you."

"Me?"

"Yes, indeed. If the rich Sonnenkamp can let his daughter marry a

teacher, Sevenpiper can give his daughter to the Cooper. Isn't that so?

O Herr Captain! You are a good luck for us all. And here, Herr Captain,

here's my hand: I'll drink not a drop more after to-day, except when

I'm thirsty: mayn't I quench my thirst? Thank heaven, I've got a very

good thirst. But at the wedding I'll have a time of it; for nobody can

go it like the Screamer. Come along with me, Herr Captain, put up your

horse, we've a good stable, it's a first-rate inn."

Eric could not reconcile the contradiction: he comes from a death-bed

into the very midst of jollity. He told Claus nothing of Clodwig's

decease, and only begged to be allowed to ride on, and so left them.

He reached Villa Eden.

"Has Bella any female friend with her," the Professorin asked, as soon

as she learned of Clodwig's death.

Eric said that she had not. It was painful to the Professorin that she

could not render any assistance and consolation to Bella. Bella had

triumphed in the fact, that, self-contained, she had been more feared

than loved by women; and now, in her time of affliction, she had no one

whose right and dutiful privilege it was to come to her, that she might

lay her head, weighed down with sorrow and tears, upon a friendly

bosom. But Aunt Claudine said to Eric,--

"When you drive to Wolfsgarten again, take me with you."

Manna begged Eric to rest; but Eric saw that there was no rest for him,

for he received very soon a note from Bella by a messenger, in which

were these words, written in great haste,--

"You must come immediately to bear witness for me. I am ruined and

disgraced."

Eric drove to Wolfsgarten. Aunt Claudine accompanied him, and Professor

Einsiedel had offered his services also; but the Mother and Manna urged

him to remain with them. The Professor was a consolation and a quiet

support for them at the Villa. Eric promised to return that night. What

can have happened at Wolfsgarten in these few hours since Clodwig's

death?

They came to Wolfsgarten. The servants stood around, and looked shyly

at Eric; one of them saying,--Eric heard it very distinctly,--

"Who knows whether he has not helped do it?"

The Sister of Mercy came to meet Eric, and said to him hurriedly,--

"A horrible thing has happened. The layer-out of the corpse, in

removing the clothes, found a wound upon the Count's neck, and has

called the coroner: now it is said that Count Clodwig was strangled.

You were present until the very last breath, you are involved in the

most horrible suspicion. Inconceivable, incomprehensible! If the Doctor

would only come! We have despatched messengers everywhere for him; but

he is not to be found."

Bella had heard of Eric's arrival, and pulled incessantly at the bell:

she desired that he would come to her. Eric requested Aunt Claudine to

remain in the lower room, where the Banker was still sitting quietly,

and went with the Sister of Mercy to Bella.

"Leave us alone together for a moment," begged Bella. "No, that would

excite suspicion. Remain."--"Foh! suspicion!" shrieked Bella. "You men

are all hypocrites. Let the world say what it will, leave us alone.

Every thing is a lie, and he was a liar too."

Eric was alone with Bella who said,--

"I have received a punishment more horrible than the most cunning Devil

could ever have contrived. Herr Dournay, it is said that I, Bella

Pranken, have strangled my husband,--I have sacrificed my life to be

now suspected of this! Here I stand: whatever I have done, whatever I

have thought, now is it a thousand-fold atoned for. And I curse it that

I have been faithful. He wore the picture of another woman on his heart

until his heart ceased to beat."

"The Doctor is here," was suddenly called outside.

The Doctor and Pranken entered; and the Doctor said,--

"I know the whole. This blockhead of a coroner! Every ignorant person

knows that a wound on a corpse is a very different thing from one on a

living body. There is only a trifling mark, a little abrasion of the

skin on the Count's neck. Can't you tell me what made this?"

Bella now narrated that Robert had come to ask her whether they should

leave the picture, which the Count wore on his heart, to be buried with

him. She asked what sort of a picture it was, and was told that it was

that of a lady. Hurrying there in her excitement, which she now

lamented, she had snatched from the corpse the picture which was hung

by a small cord about the neck.

"It was the miniature of his deceased wife: here it is," said she. She

pointed to a gentle face, on a thin plate of gold.

The Doctor and Eric looked at the picture, and then at Bella. Eric

thought to himself, "This was why he had the bust of the Victoria

brought to his bedside. Wonderful likeness!"

The Doctor said that they must not make known publicly this passionate

act of the Countess as the occasion of the coroner's mistake. He begged

them to fall in with his explanation, that some of the caustic medicine

which the invalid had taken had dropped down about the string, and

caused this abrasion.

To his horror, Eric now recollected that Clodwig had exhorted him to

take something from his bosom after he was dead. He told of this now;

and the Doctor and Bella shook their heads.

The Doctor requested Bella, Eric, Pranken, the Banker, and the Sister

of Mercy to go with him into the chamber of death. He had all the

servants called, and rebuked the coroner sharply, pointing out to him

that only the outer skin had been reddened by a caustic medicine.

Eric cast one more look at the dead body of his friend. Even the statue

of the Victoria, that stood opposite, seemed to look in sorrow upon it.

The gentlemen led Bella back into her chamber. Aunt Claudine entered.

Bella extended her left hand to her, while with the right she held a

handkerchief pressed to her face. The gentlemen went down to receive

the King's private physician, whose carriage was just driving into the

court. Doctor Richard stated in few words the cause of Clodwig's death,

which was the result of a cold, together with great mental excitement.

They then all repaired to the room looking on the garden, whither

Doctor Richard ordered wine to be brought, and insisted on Eric's

drinking with them, as he would need to use every means to keep up his

strength.

"Drink," he said, "you cannot do without it. Great demands are making

upon you now, and the machine must be fed with wine."

Eric drank, but he drank a tear with the wine; for tears fell from his

eyes into the glass. He left the room for a moment, and returned with a

little box in which, he said, were Clodwig's orders, which his friend

had commissioned him to return to the Prince. As his presence was

necessary now at the Villa, he requested the court-physician to

undertake the commission for him; to which he readily assented, adding,

that in Clodwig a nobleman had been taken away, whose memory was a

source of strength to them all: the moderation and perfect balance of

his nature, his repose and gentleness, were characteristics which

belonged to a generation that was passing away.

Doctor Richard, who was sitting in an arm-chair, with his legs crossed

one over the other, exclaimed,--

"All that is true: the expression, 'He was too noble for this world,'

might be used with truth of him. He had the advantage, or the

disadvantage, of viewing every individual thing in its connection with

humanity; and, as to the thing itself, it was a matter of perfect

indifference to him, whether it was done to-day or to-morrow, by you or

anybody else. He might have accomplished great things, have exerted a

wide-spread influence; but the task seemed to him too hard, and he

excused himself from it. Every event, every experience, was made

subservient to the development of his beautiful character. Good,

beautiful, lofty, but a childless, barren existence is that, whose

mother is a philosophy which accepts all things, comprehends all

things, only to reduce them afterwards to a system. I have often

reproached him with that while he lived; and I venture to do the same

now that he is dead."

"He repeated to me once an expression of yours, Captain Dournay," said

the Banker. "You once said to him, 'Man has to do railway duty on the

earth;' and the words made a great impression on him. So it is, we all

have to act more or less as guards on the swiftly-rolling train of our

generation; but it is not every one who is fitted for the post."

There was much that Eric wanted to say, and he might have explained

many points; for what had Clodwig not discussed with him? But he had no

chance to speak; for the doctor cried,--

"I do not believe that I am inclined to find fault with this man. Of

all in the wide world who will hear of his death, and mourn for him,

not one respected him more than I."

Some reference was made to the horrible suspicion which had fallen upon

Bella; but the Doctor repeated emphatically that this was a monstrous

mistake, and heartily regretted that nothing could be done to efface

all remembrance of it; for men would always hold fast to such a

calumny, at least, they would not wholly forget it.

Pranken entered with a clergyman of the neighborhood, who finally

consented, after much persuasion on the part of Pranken and the royal

physician, to pronounce a benediction over the body.

The Doctor presently drove off with the Court-physician: and, soon

afterward, Eric also departed, with the Banker and Aunt Claudine; for

Bella had requested to be left alone.

They looked back sorrowfully at the mansion, from whose summit a black

flag was now waving.

For two days, Clodwig's body lay upon satin cushions in the great

drawing-room, exposed to the public gaze. His countenance was peaceful.

He was surrounded by palms and flowers, and candles burned at the side

of the coffin.

People from the whole country round flocked to take a last look at

Clodwig; some from respect, and some from curiosity. Bella could hear

them say as they left the house, "He shows no signs of having been

strangled."

On the third day, Eric, the Justice, the Banker, the Major, the chief

men of the city, besides an ambassador from the King, and several high

officers of state, followed Clodwig's body to the tomb of the

Wolfsgartens.

The bells rang from mountain and valley: it was the funeral of the last

of the Wolfsgartens.

Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he had

actually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among the

mourners.

The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: he

would have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed the

solemnity of the occasion.

Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knew

that, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror,

and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which he

pretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in the

public room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, a

cattle-dealer, who said,--

"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Very

fine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulated

of us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"

The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spoke

of the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which was

true, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red mark

about the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which he

always wore the picture of his first wife.

A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this charge

against Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to a

decision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must be

favorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will be

to get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she is

won."

Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligence

of every thing that was going on.

CHAPTER XVI.

AWAY UNDER FIERY RAIN!

A damp, autumnal fog penetrated Clodwig's sick-room through the open

windows, and lay in drops on the brow of the statue of Victory.

Still and desolate it was at Wolfsgarten: even Pranken had gone.

Bella sat in her room enveloped in her mourning weeds. She had black

bracelets on her wrists, and had just been trying on her black gloves.

She drew them off now, laid her hands together, and gazed with that

terrible Medusa look into vacancy, into the future, into the great

blank. "You are alone," said a voice within her; "you were always alone

in yourself, in the world,--a solitary nature; lonely as wife, always

alone."

Once more her cheeks flamed with sudden rage to think that any one, the

veriest fool, could for an instant imagine that she had murdered her

husband. Was it for this that she had so long crushed every impulse of

her heart? Was the world after all not believe in her happiness? She

went in imagination from house to house of the capital, and heard her

name on all tongues.

The ticking of the clock reminded her of what Clodwig had once said,

"The pendulum of our life vibrates between recollections of the past,

and desires for the future."--"That was true of him, but not of me: I

do not stand between recollection and desire: I want the present. I

crave life, ardent life."

She rose, and was vexed that she could not resist going to her mirror;

but once there she staid, and was still more vexed to see that her

figure was not as slender as it used to be; and yet black makes one

look slender. She seemed to have lost all her charms! Her thoughts went

further: since he had to die before you, why could he not have died

years ago, while you were still beautiful? She shuddered at the

thought, but the next moment commended her own sincerity. Further spoke

the voice within her, and, proudly raising her head, she said almost

aloud to herself,--

"I care nothing for conventionality. What I may think a year hence, I

will think now, to-day. What to me is the world's division of time?

Thoughts that others would have a year hence, I permit myself to-day.

Yes; you are a widow, who will be visited only from compassion,--a

widow, with none to stand by her. And then this degrading suspicion! I

can go to the capital; I can take a house. Oh, what a god-like destiny!

I am myself a house, and shall be made lady president of a soup

establishment, and shall have a select dozen of orphans in blue aprons

come to my funeral. I have had enough of that sort of thing already.

No! I cannot live alone. Shall I travel again, seek forgetfulness and

fancied pleasure in landscapes, crowds, works of art, and then talk,

laugh, play in society? I have proved it all vanity, emptiness. Prince

Valerian could be won. Hut could I play the hypocrite again in a

strange world, and charitably rejoice that the Russian peasants are,

figuratively, to have their hair curled? The Wine-cavalier would be

very complaisant, always making his bows, and paying his devotions: it

is only manner to be seen, but then the manner is good, agreeable,

and--false, the whole of it!

"No, no! I must away into conflict, into war, danger, distress; but

life, mighty, all-absorbing life, I must have. I scorn the whole world;

I hurl back in its face its honors, its caprices of philanthropy."

A horseman gallops into the court-yard, a tall figure in black. Is it

not Sonnenkamp? What can he want?

Sonnenkamp was announced.

"He is welcome," was her answer.

Sonnenkamp entered.

"Countess," he said, "I bring back to you what once I received from

you,--the courage of a hero."

"Ah, courage! I am in humiliation; deserted, broken, weak."

"You humiliated deserted, weak? You kindled in me a strength great

enough to defy the world: I am young again, fresh again. Countess, in

this bitter and critical hour I come to you, only to you. You alone are

now the world to me; you alone make the world of value to me; I would

gladly give you something, be to you something, that shall make the

world seem precious to you again."

Bella stood motionless, and he continued:

"Raise yourself above this hour, above this year, above this country,

above all conventionalities. If it be possible for any human being to

do this, you are that one.

"Bella, I might tell you that I would escape into the wide world; would

sacrifice, destroy every thing ruthlessly; put from me wife, children,

all, only on condition that you would follow me, that you would dare to

turn your back upon every thing, and be a free, independent nature: I

might tell you that, and it would be true. But it is not that which

should decide you. It is not for me you should live, but for yourself.

Bella, we read in old histories of men and women who bound themselves

together by a crime: such unions seldom last. I see your soul open

before me--no, I have it within me, and speak from it. You say as I do,

'Here I am in conflict with the world. The world requires concern for

others, and I have the spirit of egoism; I am no philanthropist, I am

no charitable institution.' You desire, as I do, to assert self; I

desire a thing for you, only because I desire it for myself. Others

would decoy you, persuade you with honeyed phrases; I honor you too

highly: you have courage to be yourself."

"I do not understand you. What do you mean? What do you desire for

yourself; what do you desire for me?"

"For myself, what have I left to desire? A bullet through my head. But

there is one thing which can save me."

"What is that?"

"It is yourself. To show you what greatness is, to see you great--for

that I would still gladly live and fight. If there is such a thing as

admiration, as bowing before what is noble, before a world-subduing

genius, I"--

He made a motion, a step forward. Bella regained composure, and said

quietly,--

"Be seated."

A singular expression passed over his face at the words; but he seated

himself, and continued,--

"Countess, I know not what plans you may have--yet no: I think I do

know your present plans. Do not interrupt me; let me speak. If I have

been mistaken in you, then is my whole life, then are all my thoughts,

my efforts, my conflicts, nothing but madness, and the pathetic

declaimers of lofty phrases are in the right. Countess Bella, you once

said a noble thing to me: 'A resolute nature knows no family, must have

no family.' That is my guiding star. I have no longer a family; I am

nothing in the world but myself; and you--you should be nothing but

yourself. You have never been yourself till now; but now you ought, you

can, you must be."

"I will. You are a wonderful man; you clear away all the rubbish that

clogs my being. Speak further; what do you bring?"

"I bring nothing but myself, Countess; I have put away from me all the

ties of this world; I say this to you, to none but you. This very day I

depart for the New World. Yes, there is a new world yonder!"

Sonnenkamp suddenly rose, and seized her hand.

"Countess, you are a great woman: yours is a nature born to rule. Come

with me, you have the courage for it. There is a throne to be

established in the New World; and upon this throne will I set you as

queen. Come!"

There was a tone of authority, of command, in Sonnenkamp's voice, as he

grasped her by the hand. She rose; her lips trembled, her eyes

sparkled.

"I thank you," she said. "You are great, and you fancy greatness in me.

That is it. I thank you. O my friend, we are weak, pitiful creatures.

Too late, too late! Why does such a call come too late? Ten years ago,

I should have had the strength for it; then it would have tempted

me; I would have risked every thing then, and taken the chance of

shame and death; any thing had been better than this maimed, idle,

good-for-nothing, musty, relic-hunting, sickly, sanctimonious--no, I

did not mean to say that--and yet--I thank you. You pay me a higher

honor than was ever paid me before: you recognize what I might have

been; but I cannot be it now. Too late!"

"Too late!" cried Sonnenkamp, seizing both her hands. "Bella, you say,

that, if I had come in your youth, you would have gone with me into the

wide world. Bella, Countess, we are young so long as we will to be. You

are young, and I will be young. When you came to me that time in the

spring, I gave you a rose, a centifolium, and said to you, you are not

like this flower. And you are not like it; for your bloom is ever

fresh; your will, your strength, blossoms. Be courageous; be yourself;

be your own. What are seventy maimed, idle years? One year full of life

is more than they all."

Bella sank back in her chair, and covered her face with her

handkerchief.

"Why did you appeal to the Court," she said at length, "if you meant to

leave before sentence was pronounced?"

"Why? I thank you for the question. I am free: henceforth I can speak

the honest truth, and to you above all others. For a while, I really

believed that this would offer me a way of escape. But I soon abandoned

that idea, and now"--

He paused.

"And now?" repeated Bella.

"I wanted to show these puppets, these children who are always giving

themselves up to leading-strings which they call religion or morality

or politics,--I wanted to show them what a free human being was, an

undisguised egoist. That tempted me. When the time came for putting my

plan into execution, it was only for your sake that I carried out what

I had proposed; for you only I laid bare my whole life. I was resolved

you should know who I am. I hardly spoke to the men who were before me;

I spoke to you; behind myself, above myself, I spoke to you, Bella."

"Were you then already decided not to wait for the sentence?"

Sonnenkamp nodded with a smile of triumph. There was a long pause. He

held her hand firmly. At last she asked hesitatingly,--

"Would not my flight confirm the injurious suspicion, the suspicion

that Clodwig was"--

"Fie!" interrupted Sonnenkamp; "as if it would not have been easier to

desert a living husband than to murder him first!"

Bella shuddered at the words, and Sonnenkamp exclaimed,--

"O Bella! noble soul, alone great among women, cast away all these

European casuistries; with a single step put this whole, old-maidish

Europe behind you!"

A still longer pause followed: there was no sound but the screaming of

the parrot.

"When do you start?" asked Bella.

"To-night, by the railway."

"No, by boat. Is no boat going?"

"Certainly; one this very night."

"I will go with you. But leave me now, leave me. Here is my hand, I go

with you."

She sat motionless, her hands folded, her eyes closed. Sonnenkamp took

her hand firmly in his, touched her wedding-ring, and drew it gently

from her finger.

"What are you doing?" exclaimed Bella in sudden passion. Her eyes were

fixed on Sonnenkamp; she saw the ring in his hand.

"Let me keep it as a pledge," he urged.

"What do you mean? We are not people to make a scene. Give it to me."

He gave back the ring; but she did not return it to her finger.

That night, a steamer stopped at the little town; there was a storm of

wind and rain, and the engine screeched and hissed. On the wharf stood

a man wrapped in his cloak, and presently a tall veiled figure passed

him.

"Leave me to myself!" the woman said as she hurried by.

A plank was laid across from the steamer: the woman crossed it,

followed by the man.

The plank was drawn up, the boat turned, and steamed away into the

darkness and the storm. No one was on deck except those two figures:

the sailors made haste into the cabin. The pilot, wrapped in his suit

of India-rubber, whistled softly to himself as he turned the wheel.

The tall figure of the woman, muffled in black, stood upon the deck of

the steamer as it shot down the stream. Long she stood, abstractedly

gazing at the water and the towns and villages on the shore, with here

and there a light flashing from the windowpanes, and casting a

swiftly-vanishing gleam upon the river. A fiery shower, a stream, of

bright sparks from the chimney, swept over the figure. A hand appeared

from under the folds of the cloak; it held a ring between its fingers

for a while, then dropped it into the stream below.

BOOK XIV.

CHAPTER I.

MANY KINDS OF LOVE.

The modest little dwelling of the Major became once more the place

where all sought rest and found it.