XIV. MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD OF A DYING SEER…

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.

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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.

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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.

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I. MANY KINDS OF LOVE

The modest little dwelling of the Major became once more the place where all sought rest and found it.

As Eric had first gone to the Major to tell him of his happiness, so the Cooper also, and his betrothed, first sought the Major and Fräulein Milch, to tell their new-found joy.

Here they met Knopf, who was an especial favorite with Fräulein Milch, because he had a faculty for being taken care of; and besides he had brought her a great many books in former days, and instructed her in many things. He must always be the young ladies' school-teacher, even with Fräulein Milch.

When Knopf heard of Eric's betrothal with Manna, he said,--

"That is the way! If is the old story over again,--the story of the maiden freed from enchantment, which is a great favorite here on the Rhine. This is a new version of it. Only a youth as pure as Dournay could have set the pure virgin free."

He spoke in a kind of low, dreamy mysterious tone, which so touched the Major's heart, that he fell upon the speaker's neck, embraced and kissed him, and cried,--

"You must enter our society. You must speak so there. That is the place for you."

Knopf had come to fulfil Weidmann's commission, and to make some inquiries of Eric about the black man Adams. When the Cooper and his betrothed entered, and the Major gave them his blessing, and Fräulein Milch brought in a bottle of wine, Knopf was the merriest of the company. He could not fully say what was in his heart; but he laid his hand on the tablets in his breast-pocket, which meant, "Here is another beautiful romance for me to write down. Ah, how beautiful the world is!"

Into the midst of this joyful company came the tidings of Sonnenkamp's flight.

"And we have not yet passed sentence upon him!" cried the Major.

Fräulein Milch smiled knowingly at the Major, as much as to say, "Did I not tell you he was making fools of you?"

Without waiting to finish their wine, the Major and Knopf hurried to the Villa.

Eric was busy with the notary, and they had to wait some time before they could speak with him.

The notary had brought Eric a paper in Sonnenkamp's handwriting, which declared that he had taken with him all the property made in slave-traffic; he appointed Weidmann and Eric guardians of his children, and arranged for Roland's being declared of age in the spring.

Another messenger came from Weidmann bringing the good news, that, according to a letter just received from Doctor Fritz, Abraham Lincoln had been elected President.

The thought passed through Eric's mind, that there might be some connection between this event and Sonnenkamp's flight.

He had no time to dwell upon the idea, for immediately after Weidmann's messenger had been admitted, the Major and Knopf entered.

News followed hard upon news. A telegram arrived, desiring Eric to go to the city and wait at the telegraph-office, as some one wished to communicate with him. The despatch was signed, "The Man from Eden."

Eric requested the Major to stay with his mother and send for Fräulein Milch to join him; at the same time he begged Knopf to bring Roland home, and prepare him as gently as he could for what had happened.

From every side, fresh difficulties poured in upon Eric. How every thing had come together! Clodwig's death, Sonnenkamp's flight, the fate of Roland, the fate of Manna--all weighed upon his heart.

As he was mounting his horse, he fortunately descried Professor Einsiedel, to whom he told in a few words what had happened, and begged him to stay with Manna.

He rode to the city. A despatch awaited him, telling that in an hour he should receive some definite tidings.

This suspense was most trying to Eric: he knew not what steps he should take next.

He walked through the city: everywhere were men and women safe in the privacy of their homes, while he and his seemed cast out into the street. He lingered long before the Justice's house. Lina was singing her favorite song from "Figaro;" and the words, "that I with roses may garland thy head," were given so feelingly, with so much suppressed emotion, that Eric's breath came hard as he listened. He knew just how it looked up there in the sitting-room. The Architect was leaning back in the red armchair, while his betrothed sang to him; flowers were blooming in the window; and the whole atmosphere was rich with music and perfume.

Unwilling to disturb their comfort by his heavy thoughts, he returned to the telegraph-station, and left word that he should be sent for at the hotel if any despatch came for him.

He sat alone in a dark corner and waited. The guests were gathered about the long table with their glasses of beer before them. Their talk was dry, and seemed to make the liquor the more refreshing. Eric forced himself to listen to their chat. They talked of Paris, of London, of America; one man was going to one place, another to another, a third was coming back: the free, mobile character of the Rhineland people was spread out before him; they live as if always floating on their native stream.

Suddenly the cry was raised,--

"Hurrah! here comes the story-teller."

Eric recognized the man who had been a great favorite with all ever since he had spent his first night in the city, at the Doctor's house. He had one of those faces, red with constant drinking, whose color makes it impossible to distinguish any age short of forty, and his countenance was as mobile as if made of gutta-percha.

The new-comer winked to the bar-maid, who knew what kind of liquor he drank; then he established himself comfortably in a chair, threw open his wraps, and drew some cigar-ends out of his pocket.

"What's the news?" asked the guests.

The man gave the usual answer: "Fair weather, and nothing beside."

"Where have you been for these three days, that we have seen nothing of you?"

"Where a man can prolong his life."

"What sort of a place is that?"

"I have been in the dullnesses of the capital: and there you can prolong your life; for every day is as long as two."

"Old, old!" cried the drinkers. "Give us something new!"

"Something new! I tell you many lies have no truth in them, and those often the best. But go out among the boats yonder; there's a jolly life going on in the cabin. Each one brings his own cook-book to the wedding, and then they marry the messes together."

The speaker was ridiculed on all sides for having nothing but such nonsense, such dry husks, to give them.

"If you will keep quiet, I will tell you a story; but first, one of you must go out to the Rhine, that he may be able to bear me witness afterwards that my story is true, as the old forester says."

A cooper was sent out to the boat that lay at anchor in the Rhine, and, after letting him know what he was to inquire about, the man began,--

"I do have the luck of falling in with the best stories! they come without my looking for them."

"Let us hear! let us hear! Is it about that big Sonnenkamp, or about the handsome Countess?"

"Ah, bah! that would be stale: this is one fresh from the oven. It is called the loves of the 'Lorelei' and the 'Beethoven,' or a sucking pig as matchmaker. Oh, yes! you may laugh, but you will see that it is all true. To begin, then. You know the steward of the 'Lorelei?'--the great Multiplication-table they call him. A man of standing he is, and an honest one, too; for he honestly confesses, that, by a skilful adding up of accounts, he has added together a pretty little property for himself. Now, he is single, frightfully so. He can eat and drink, but"--

"Yes, yes; we know him. What next?"

"Don't interrupt me. I must not anticipate my story: it is enough for me if I know it myself. So, then, the state of the case is this: the captain of the 'Lorelei,' you know him, that tall Baumlange, he was steersman on board the 'Adolph' for some years; he managed to make his cook's mouth water for the stewardess of the 'Beethoven,' a round, dainty little body, and two years a widow. Greetings were exchanged between the paper cap and the muslin; but they never spoke together except for a few minutes a fortnight ago at Cologne, when the 'Lorelei' and the 'Beethoven' lay side by side. Since that time, the great Multiplication-table smiled graciously upon the 'Lorelei,' but would not hear of marriage. His great delight is to get up a nice little dish that no one should know any thing about; and so one day he prepared a neat little sucking-pig, that was to be roasted on the morrow. Now, his captain knew, that the next day, and that is to-day, the two boats would anchor here together for the night: so he steals the pig, and hands it to a fellow-captain, who, in turn, delivers it to the widow of the 'Beethoven,' with directions to serve it up nicely, and something else with it, which order she obeys with a good will. Then the Captain invites his steward to supper on board the 'Beethoven;' and, since the stewardess has furnished the meat, it was but fair that the 'Lorelei' Multiplication-table should add the wine. They sit down to supper on board the 'Beethoven,' the stewardess of course, with them, and all goes on merrily. The Multiplication-table said a pig could not be better served, and that it was almost as fine a one as his. Then the trick came out; but they took it in good part, and the upshot of it all was, that the two were betrothed over the little pig."

The story-teller had got thus far in his tale, when the cooper returned with the Captain of the 'Lorelei,' who confirmed the whole history. The merriment became noisy and riotous; and the Captain told how the newly-betrothed couple were sitting together, and how the same tastes were in both of them. They collected all the gold they could in the summer, and now they were sitting and laughing together as they polished it up with soap-suds.

Eric listened to it all as if he were in another world. There are still those, then, who can take life lightly: a change for the better must come in time.

Now the pilot entered, who, as custom required, had been taken on board the steamer for a little while, to steer it through the part of the stream he was familiar with. He amazed the company by telling them that, the night before, in the storm, the Countess von Wolfsgarten and Herr Sonnenkamp had gone down the river: he had recognized them both distinctly.

Eric had risen from his seat to question the man further, when he was summoned to the telegraph station. The despatch, which was signed, like the first, "the man from Eden," was to the effect that the writer was to sail the next morning for the New World, and that if, in the course of a year, no further tidings were received from him, he might be considered dead. It almost seemed as if the last part of the telegram could not have been correctly written; for the question was asked, whether Frau Ceres was living, and in what condition. In case of wishing to send any news of her to the New World, the name of a Southern paper was given, in which a paragraph should be inserted over the initials S. B.

While Eric was still holding the despatch in his hand, Pranken entered, and signed to him to come into an adjoining room. "I was in search of you," he said. He looked pale and agitated, and Eric was fully prepared to receive a challenge. His first question, however, was, whether Eric knew whither Sonnenkamp had fled, and how he could be addressed. Eric replied that he was not at liberty to answer that question.

"Ask him then whether"--he could hardly bring his lips to utter what he had to say,--"ask him whether there is anyone with him. No, better still, give me his address."

Eric repeated that he was not at liberty to do so. Pranken gnashed his teeth with rage.

"Very well: ask him yourself, then, whether any one is with him about whom I have a right to inquire."

As the two stood side by side, looking out upon the landscape, it suddenly flashed through Eric's mind, that in this very room, at a table before this window, they had sat together that day over their new wine. Prompted by the feeling of gratitude that overpowered him, he said,--

"I regret sincerely that there should be such ill feeling between us."

"This is no time to speak of that--of that presently. If you will--no, I will ask no favors. You are to blame for all this wretched complication: you have made every one go wrong. This would never have happened but for you."

A cold shudder passed through Eric's frame. Was he in truth to blame for Bella's fall? There was an expression of humility in his face as he answered,--

"I am at your service; I am only waiting for a despatch."

"Good: I will wait with you."

Pranken left the room, and walked restlessly up and down the embankment without, until the despatch arrived, and Eric summoned him.

"Very well: now put my question."

"Will you repeat your question to me once more exactly?"

"How long since you became so slow of comprehension? This then. Tell Herr Sonnenkamp, or Banfield, that if, before twelve hours are over, he does not let me know where he is, I shall take his silence as a proof that--No! ask--outright--whether my sister is with him."

Pranken's lips trembled: he had grown sadly old in these few days. Here he was obliged to stand and beg for information from Sonnenkamp; information on what a subject, and at whose hands!

"Will you have the goodness," he added, "to send the answer to me at the parsonage?"

He left the room, mounted his horse, and rode away.

"Medusa sends greeting to Europe," was the answer Eric received.

As he was about to start for home, the Doctor came up: he also had heard of Bella's flight.

"That is a master-piece!" he cried. "Herr Sonnenkamp, with the most skilful diplomacy, could have done nothing better than that. Bella's flight and fall will eclipse every thing that he himself has done. This will divert tongues from him: all is eclipsed by this new development. His children, too, will be freed from the old scandal; for the fact of Bella Pranken's eloping with him will count for more than years of selling slaves. From this time we shall hear of nothing but that: all else is obliterated."

Eric did not believe that the fugitives had yet started for America.

Immediately on his return to the Villa, he was summoned to Manna.

"Have you news of him?" she said. "Is he living?"

"Yes."

"Is he alone?"

"No."

"That, too, must we have to bear!"

"Does your mother know?"

"She only knows that father has fled; and she keeps crying, 'Henry, Henry, come back!' For hours, she has kept saying those words over and over. It is incredible how her strength holds out. O Eric! when we were in your father's library, Roland said, 'In all these books is there a fate to compare with ours?'"

All Eric's attempts to soothe her were fruitless.

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II. THE CHILDREN OF MAMMON

Roland arrived, and Herr Weidmann with him. He had heard of his father's flight, but not of Bella's. A great change had come over the boy in these four days, especially in the lines about his mouth: its childish expression had changed into one of pride and sadness, and his whole character had gained in firmness. He went directly to his mother, who had not once paused in her cry of, "Henry, Henry, come back! Henry, I will give you my ornaments: come back!"

She appeared not to have noticed Roland's absence, and showed no surprise now at seeing him. She only said,--

"Your father will soon come back: he is only gone for a vessel, a great vessel; he sits at the helm, he guides"--

For the first time in his life, Roland was friendly and affectionate to Fräulein Perini, and thanked her warmly for her fidelity to his mother.

Fräulein Perini replied, that she was sure the young master would treat her kindly, and not forget her services. Roland hardly understood her meaning.

He went to Manna, he went to the Professorin, and had for every one a word of encouragement.

The notary came, and, on being asked if he had received any further news, answered hesitatingly, and fell back upon his power of attorney.

Roland, Manna, Eric, and Weidmann were summoned into the great hall; and, as they entered the room which his father had left, Roland for the first time shed tears, and threw himself on his sister's neck. But he quickly recovered his composure.

The lawyer told them that he knew the secret of opening the great fire-proof safe that was built into the wall on one side of the room. The keys lay in the writing-desk, and the mysterious word which the letters must be made to spell before the keys would turn the locks, was Manna.

"My name!" cried Manna, more touched than she could tell at her father's thus opening the rich treasures of his wealth with her name. To the notary's amazement, she grasped Eric's hand.

A strange chill spread through the room as the great safe was opened.

On the top lay a little box labelled, "My last will and testament." They opened it. A sealed paper lay in it on which was written, "To be opened immediately after my death." These words, however, had been erased, and beneath them was written, "To be opened six months after my disappearance."

Every thing was in perfect order. In different compartments lay the notes of hand, state bonds of all the countries in Europe, and more still of America, deeds of mining companies and of various banking-houses; there were papers of every sort and color: all the shades of the rainbow were represented.

Roland and Manna hardly heard the great sums that were named. They fixed their eyes with the curiosity of children upon separate valuable documents as they were taken out. That is money then--

Manna turned to Eric, with a timid entreaty that he would do and say in her place all that was necessary: she felt her head growing dizzy.

Eric replied, that he hoped she would not have the affectation of those persons who receive thoughtlessly the burden of great wealth without being willing to learn their own position in the world.

"I do not understand," said Manna. In view of all these great possessions she addressed him for the first time by the familiar German "Thou" in the presence of others.

"You will soon learn to understand it. We are children of the actual world; and, if we cannot preserve our ideality in the midst of the actual world, we have no ideality. We will learn together to use aright this immense wealth. This is the first time, too, that I ever saw such a vast amount."

"It is a great thought that the whole world is made up of debtors and creditors," exclaimed Roland.

Still greater was the amazement of the children when the lower drawer was opened, which, being on casters, was easily drawn out in spite of its great weight.

Here lay piles of gold from the mint, and gold in bars.

Roland and Manna involuntarily knelt down, like little children, and felt of it. After the notary had sat down to his writing in the adjoining room, and Eric and Weidmann had been called away, they remained still upon the floor, gazing wonderingly at the gold and then in one another's faces. Manna was the first to recover her voice.

"Are we not like the children who lost their way in the wood, and stumbled upon hidden treasure? But"--

She could not finish her sentence; for what she wanted to say was, "an evil spirit guards the gold."

"Come," said Roland, "lay your hand here on mine and on the gold. This gold shall do good, only good, and always good, and shall make amends for the past. We swear it."

"Yes, we swear it," repeated Manna. "Ah! if only our father may not have to be suffering want out in the world, while we here have all things in abundance. Perhaps he is seeking a shelter, while these luxurious rooms are his own. Oh! why do men strive for riches, and sell their own brothers? O God, why dost thou suffer it? Take all that we have, and drive the iniquity out of the world."

The girl's tears fell upon the gleaming gold. Roland soothed her, and laid her head on his breast; and so the two children knelt in silence before the glittering gold.

"Now we have had enough of this," said Roland at last. "We must be strong: we have great duties before us."

Almost with an angry hand, he pushed in the heavy drawer; and as they rose to their feet, while the boy still had hold of the door of the great safe to shut it, the Major, Knopf, and the negro Adams, entered.

For a moment, Roland and Manna stood motionless: then Roland ran up to the black man, embraced him, and exclaimed with a loud cry,--

"Let this make atonement to your whole race, to all your brothers! Come, Manna; give him your hand, embrace him: we owe it to him."

Manna approached, but with difficulty held out her hand to him; she trembled as she did it.

Adams held her hand long and firmly; and a shiver, a shudder, which made her blood stand still, shot through her whole frame.

With a great effort she controlled herself, and said in English, she hardly knew why,--

"We welcome you as a brother."

"Yes," cried Roland, "you shall counsel us, you shall help us, we will do every thing through you."

Manna whispered to Roland that they would give Adams at once a handsome sum of money; but Roland explained, that, although they must undoubtedly provide generously for Adams, it would be better first to find out if he understood the proper use of money.

Manna looked at her brother in wonder.

The notary now came from the adjoining room. Eric and Weidmann returned, and signed a receipt for the whole amount.

Eric now learned for the first time that Roland had insisted on Adams being brought. Knopf said in an aside to Eric, that he might be proud of the boy: there was great strength of character in him. He had repeatedly said that he must show he felt no hatred towards the innocent cause of this great calamity, and that, instead of persecuting the negro, he was bound to show him kindness.

Weidmann urged Adams's immediate departure from the Villa, fearing the effect that a chance meeting with him might have upon Frau Ceres, associated as his appearance would be with recollections of her home. He advised the man's going with him to Mattenheim: but Roland bogged that Adams might be allowed to remain till he himself went back to Mattenheim; and the Major joyfully agreed to take him home with him.

Eric was incensed that Knopf should have brought Adams at all; but Knopf told how he had met the negro on the way to the Villa, and, with an air of triumph, went on to tell what a model of knavery the fellow was. He had devised a plan for going to Sonnenkamp, openly expressing repentance for his deed, and offering to appear as a false witness, on condition of being handsomely paid for it. He was beside himself, therefore, when he learned that Sonnenkamp had fled, and his false testimony was of no value.

An important consultation took place in Sonnenkamp's room, upon the subject of a new enterprise which Weidmann had in contemplation. He was about to purchase a large estate three leagues from Mattenheim, in the direction of the mountains, and asked Roland and Eric if they would not invest a considerable sum in the land. He wanted to make the attempt to settle a new village there, in combination with an old design of his, of attracting artisans by establishing them on small pieces of land of their own.

Eric questioned whether they would have a right to use this money in a foreign land for the benefit of foreigners; and, besides, at present they were only stewards of the property.

Weidmann praised his caution, but convinced him that this was a safe investment, and one that would be of benefit to many. He promised not to act alone, but to take the advice of the Banker in the matter. Security should be given that the amount of capital invested, should be set free again in a certain number of years.

That evening, Weidmann departed for Mattenheim with a great chest of gold.

Eric was to bring the papers to the city, and then deliver them into the Banker's keeping.

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III. A SON OF HAM

On no one of the persons interested in Villa Eden, had the startling events that had taken place produced a greater impression than on the Major. He could find no rest at home, and, since hearing Sonnenkamp's statement, he had lost the best possession he had,--his sound, healthful sleep. He wandered about restlessly all day, often talking with Laadi, throwing the dog sometimes a mushroom fried in fat, and then punishing her severely when she tried to eat it. At night, his inward excitement was so great, that he kept talking in a low voice to himself, and occasionally even roused Fräulein Milch in the hope that she would dispel the disturbing thoughts. Sonnenkamp's flight, and now the news that Bella had gone with him, increased the distemper of his mind.

He summoned all his strength when Knopf brought in the negro, received him most cordially, and insisted upon his staying in his house first. Adams consented; and the Major took him at once to the castle, where the work was still going on.

Fräulein Milch confessed to Herr Knopf that she was oppressed by a fear she could not control, and begged him to stay with them; but he regretted that his duties to Prince Valerian made his stay impossible. So far from allaying Fräulein Milch's anxieties, he rather increased them by the satisfaction with which he dwelt upon the consummate knavery of this Adams.

"I take delight," he repeated, "in observing what a savage the fellow is. A savage nature is not soft, not good-natured, but sly as a tiger-cat. After all, how can you expect a slave to be a model of virtue, and an example of all that is good?"

The good-natured, soft-hearted Knopf took a real pleasure in knowing consummate rascals like Sonnenkamp and Adams. When he had discovered evil in a man, he carried it to extremes at once, like all idealists: the man must instantly be a consummate villain. The royal descent that Adams boasted of, was, according to him, nothing but a lie: he was usurping the character of some man of princely blood who had been drowned. "For," added Knopf, with great satisfaction, "he could not have taken the stamped sailing papers from him before he was launched on the sea of eternity."

He declared to Fräulein Milch that he had caught Adams in the lie; for the man had made a mistake in the dates: and Knopf was not a teacher of history, with all the dates at his tongue's end, for nothing.

On the Major's return with Adams, his disease fairly broke out, and he was obliged to take to his bed.

The Doctor came, and administered soothing remedies, which relieved the Major; but he had no soothing remedies for Fräulein Milch. She was to receive these from a man who had no knowledge of medicine. When the Professorin could not be with Fräulein Milch to relieve her loneliness, and keep up her courage, she sent Professor Einsiedel; and to him the poor woman confided all her uneasiness with regard to Adams. The man would engage in no occupation; he could drink and smoke all day; but that was all. He had worked only while he was a slave, and driven to it; and as lackey he had had nothing to do but to sit in fantastic livery upon the box of the royal coach. So there he remained in the house with Fräulein Milch, doing nothing but inspire her with an unconquerable terror. The greater her fear became, the more pains she took to preserve a friendly manner towards him.

Only to Professor Einsiedel did she complain of the presence of the negro.

"I must take care," she said, "not to let this one black man give me a prejudice against the whole race."

"What do you mean by that?"

Fräulein Milch blushed as she replied,--

"If we do not know a foreign nation, or a foreign race, and our preconceived notions of it are unfavorable, we are very apt to consider the solitary individual who may come under our observation as a representative of the whole, and to charge upon the whole his peculiar characteristics and faults. This Adams, now, is a man who will neither learn nor labor. As a slave, he was used to being taken care of, and as a lackey the same: it would be very unjust to let him prejudice me against the whole race, and to conclude that all negroes have these peculiarities."

"Very good, very reasonable," was the Professor's verdict. "But I should like to know how you come to be so carefully on your guard against prejudices. I know very little about women, to be sure; but I had supposed this quality was not common among them."

Fräulein Milch bit her lip. This acknowledgment of the claim of every individual to be judged by his own merits had had a peculiar origin in herself; but she could not tell it. She felt the Professor's keen glance fixed upon her face, and fancied he must have discovered her secret. She waited, expecting to hear it from his lips, but he was silent: after a pause, she continued,--

"Do you not think with me that the blacks will never be free until they free themselves, until a Moses appears from among their own number, and leads them out of bondage? And do you not think, also, that this generation which has been in bondage must perish in the wilderness, and that the new generation, that has grown up in freedom, will be the one to enter the promised land of freedom?"

"You seem very familiar with the Old Testament," said the Professor.

Fräulein Milch colored up to the border of her white cap.

"But you have the right idea," continued Professor Einsiedel. "I hope you understand me. The black race has developed nothing original: as far as we can yet see, it contributes nothing to the intellectual possessions of the human family. Certainly no outsider can free them; but our new age, the only redeemer which we acknowledge, culture, will reach and deliver them. Are you acquainted with the recent investigations into the Japhetic races?"

"Alas! no."

"Certainly; I forgot myself. But you must know that the sons of Ham, this, of course, you have learned from the Bible, are without a history: they bring nothing of their own conquest, acquisition, creation, into the great Pantheon. It is the Semitic, Japhetic races that must free the descendants of Ham."

The Professor was about to lay before Fräulein Milch the result of the latest investigations; to tell her what extraordinary discoveries had been made among the Egyptian papyri; how it was proved that the author or the compiler of the Bible had not understood Egyptian; in fact, that the contents of the Bible had existed before in Egyptian writings, and the deliverance of the slaves was the only one great act of the mythical Moses in the whole ancient world. In his delight at finding so good a listener, he was about to deliver himself at great length, when Claus came in, having been sent by the Doctor to take Adams home with him. Fräulein Milch whispered in his ear that he would have difficulty in making Adams work, at which he cried with a smile,--

"Yes, yes: slaves and rich men are alike in that. The slave does nothing because his master feeds him, and the rich man does nothing because his money feeds him."

Fräulein Milch impressed upon Claus that he must treat the black man kindly, and remember that he did not represent the black race. The field-guard laughed heartily, and carried Adams off to his house.

The dogs barked fiercely, and the women screamed in terror, when the negro appeared. The screams soon ceased; but, whenever Adams went out of the house, the dogs set up a fresh chorus of barks.

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IV. BELLA'S LEGACY

When the Doctor came with the Professorin, he was highly rejoiced that Adams had left the house, and still more that the Major was able to sit up in bed, and smoke his long pipe. After enjoining upon him great quiet, he went with the two women into the sitting-room, and there informed them that he had reason to be proud; for Bella had written to him from Antwerp, and to no one else. He read the letter to them which was as follows,--

"You alone are no puppet; you never made a pretence of friendship for me, and therefore you shall have a keepsake. I give you my parrot. The parrot is the masterpiece of creation: he says nothing but what he is taught. Adieu!

"BELLA."

The ladies exchanged glances of surprise; and Fräulein Milch rejoiced the Doctor by saying, for once in her life, an unkind word; for she could not help expressing pleasure that Frau Bella had come to such an end. The Doctor, on the other hand, said, in a tone of complaint,--

"I feel a want now that she is gone. I miss in her a sort of barometer of thought and an interesting object of study. Strange! now that this woman is gone we see, for the first time, how widely her influence was extended,--more widely perhaps than was her due. But still the story pleases me, as a proof that there still exist persons of courage and strong will."

"You like eccentricity," suggested the Professorin.

"Oh, no! What seems eccentric to others appears to me the only natural and consistent course, Bella could not have acted otherwise than she has: this very step was a part of her heroism. Your son can tell you that I suspected something of this sort before it happened. There is much in common between Bella and Sonnenkamp. Both are quick and clear in judgment where others are concerned; but, when self is touched, they are tyrannical, malicious, and self-asserting. And, now that she is fairly gone, I may say that she has fled a murderess: to be sure, she did not kill Clodwig with poison or dagger, but she smote him to the heart with killing words and thoughts. He confessed to me that it was so, and now I may repeat it."

"I am confounded," said the Professorin. "With all her culture, how were such things possible?"

"That was just it," broke in the Doctor delighted. "All this intellectual life was nothing to Frau Bella: she found herself in it, she knew not how. She had to destroy something, or what would she have done with all this culture? Formerly there was hypocrisy only in religion; now there is hypocrisy in education. But, no: Frau Bella was no hypocrite, neither was she really ill-natured; she was simply crude."

"Crude?"

"Yes. Thought of others educates at once the heart and the mind; Frau Bella thought only and always of herself; of what she had to say and to feel."

"Do you think," asked the Professorin with some hesitation, "that these two persons can be happy together for a single hour?"

"Certainly not, according to our ideas of happiness. They have no real affection for each other: pride and disappointment, and a desire to shock the world, have induced them to make their escape together. There is one other motive which persons like us cannot enter into. I tried for a long time to discover it, and believe at last that I have succeeded: it is the consciousness of beauty. I am a beauty: that is a principle on which a whole system is founded. Other people are only made for the purpose of seeing and admiring the beauty. Bella committed an act of treason against herself when she married Clodwig: she could not have done it except in a moment of forgetfulness of this great principle. But how can we judge such people aright? The longer I live, the more clearly I see that human beings are not alike: they are of different species."

"You want to provoke us by heresies."

"By no means: that is the reason why this anti-slavery fever is distasteful to me. This claiming equality for all men is a wrong."

"A wrong?"

"Yes. Men are not all the same kind of beings; one is a nightingale that sings on a tree; another is a frog that croaks in the marsh. Now, to require of the frog that he should sing up in a tree is a wrong, a perversion of Nature. Let the frog alone in his marsh, he is very well off there, and to him and his wife his song sounds as sweet as that of the bird to his mate. Men are of different kinds."

The Major called from his room to know what the Doctor was talking so loudly and excitedly about. Fräulein Milch soothed him by telling him it was nothing for a sick man to hear, though she confessed that they had been talking of Bella. As she re-entered the sitting-room, a messenger arrived from Villa Eden with intelligence which summoned the Doctor and the Professorin thither instantly: Frau Ceres was dangerously ill.

The Doctor and the Professorin made all haste back to the Villa.

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V. THE BLACK HORROR

"Henry, come! Henry, come back! these are your trees, and your house. Come back! I will dance with you. Henry, Henry!"

Such was Frau Ceres' incessant cry.

She refused all nourishment; she insisted on waiting till her husband said "Dear child, do take something." Only after the most urgent entreaties of Fräulein Perini, did she at last consent to eat something. She wanted to embroider, and took up her work; but the next moment she laid it down again.

Weeping and lamenting, she went through the gardens and greenhouses.

Fräulein Perini had the greatest difficulty in soothing her.

Then Frau Ceres reprimanded the gardener for raking over the paths. The marks of her husband's feet were in the gravel, and they must not be removed, or he would die.

At other times, she would sit at the window for hours together, looking out upon the hills and the clouds, and the river where the boats were sailing up and down; and all the while she would be grieving in a low voice to herself,--

"Henry, I grieved you sorely, I wounded you; you may whip me as you would your slaves; only let me be with you, forgive me. Do you remember that day when you came out to me, and Cæsar played the harp, and I danced in my blue frock and my gold-colored shoes? Do you remember?"--"Manna," she suddenly cried; "Manna, bring your harp and play for me. I want to dance; I am still pretty. Come, Henry!"

Suddenly she turned to Fräulein Perini, and asked, "He is coming back, is he not?" Her tone was so quiet and natural as for the moment to re-assure them.

"Tell him he shall marry Frau Bella when I die," she suddenly began again, her great eyes gazing vacantly before her. "Frau Bella is a handsome widow, very handsome; and he shall give her my ornaments, they will look so well on her."

"Pray, do not speak so."

"Come, we must see that his heaths are well taken care of. He taught me all about them. We will have some good bog-earth dried and pounded and sifted. Then, when he comes home, he will say, 'That was very clever of you, Ceres: you did that well.'"

She went with Fräulein Perini to the hot-house, and gave intelligent directions to the head gardener that he should be careful to keep the heaths very moist, and not in too high a temperature.

Fräulein Perini sent one of the boys who was working in the garden to fetch Eric. Her anxiety was so great, she could not bear to be left longer alone with Frau Ceres.

Frau Ceres appeared very composed. After examining all the heaths, and lifting each one up to see that the saucers were kept properly damp, she left the hot-house, saying as she went,--

"It is quite time that Captain Dournay should learn the care of plants. These scholars fancy there is nothing they can learn from us: I can assure them they can learn a great deal from my husband. There are more than two hundred heaths at the Cape. Yes, you may take my word for it; he told me so. Now let us go back into the house."

On their way, they came to an open space, where was a pond, and a little fountain playing.

Suddenly Frau Ceres uttered a piercing cry. Down the broad path towards them came the black man Adams, with Roland on one arm, and Manna on the other.

"You are changed into a negro! Who did that to you? Henry! Fie, Henry! Take off the black skin!" With piercing cries, she threw herself upon Adams, and tore the clothes from his body; then sank lifeless on the ground before him. They were just bearing her into the house, when Doctor Richard and the Professorin arrived.

Frau Ceres never woke.

Her body was laid in the great music room; and the flowers that Sonnenkamp had so tenderly cared for were set about his wife's corpse. Here in the music room, where the young people had so often sung and danced--would there ever be dancing and music here again?

The friends came, and kissed and embraced Roland; Lina also appeared, and embraced Manna in silence. By a pressure of the hand, a silent embrace, each one expressed to the mourners his sympathy, his desire to help them.

Pranken appeared also among the mourners, and, with Fräulein Perini, knelt beside the body.

After a blessing had been pronounced in the church, the funeral-train moved towards the burial-ground.

The members of the music-club had been gathered together by Knopf and Fassbender, and sang at the open grave. Roland stood leaning on Eric, while the Mother and aunt Claudine supported Manna.

Eric's thoughts reverted to that day in spring when he had sat over his wine with Pranken, and had looked out at the churchyard where the nightingale was singing. Who could have foretold then that he would be standing here a mourner at the grave of the mother of his betrothed, and of his pupil?

The music ceased, and the Priest advanced to the edge of the grave. There was a hush for a while over the whole assembly. The chattering of the magpies, and the screaming of the nut-peckers, was heard in the trees.

After repeating a prayer in a low tone, the Priest raised his voice, and cried,--

"Thou poor rich child from the New World! Now thou art in the new world indeed. Thou hast gone hence with thy sins unforgiven, in delusion, in frenzy. Thou hast left thy children behind to atone, to suffer, to sacrifice, for thee. They will do it: they must do it. Children, God is your father; the church is your mother. Hearken unto me. Here we stand beside an open grave. Ye can live without us, without the church; but, when ye come to die, ye must call upon us: and, though ye have scorned us, we shall come full of grace and compassion; for God so commandeth us. O thou departed one! now thou art ennobled; for death gives nobility: thou art decked with ornaments fairer than thy diamonds; for, with all thy worldliness, thou didst have a believing spirit. Grief set her crown of thorns upon thee: thou hast suffered much, and thou wilt be forgiven. But I call upon ye who stand here this day alive: Ye can build country houses, and furnish them sumptuously; but the prince of all life, which is death, shall come and mow you down, and ye shall moulder in the ground. A house of boards, that is the country house which is decreed to every one, deep in the bosom of the earth. But woe to those men whose holy ark is the fire-proof safe! The men of so-called philosophy and natural science come and flatter the believers in the fire-proof safe, and when the bolt from heaven falls, they say, 'There is a lightening-rod on our house, we have nothing to fear.' And if death comes, what say ye then? Ye have no answer. O ye poor, rich children! Turn unto us! The arms of mercy are open to receive you; they alone can defend you. To that rich young man the answer was:--I speak not of how the wealth was won from which the young soul will not part; I only call--no, it is not I who call--my passing breath but bears the eternal word. Leave all that thou hast and follow me. Wilt thou too, go hence weeping, because thou canst not give up the riches of the world? Oh! I call thee--no, He who has brought this day upon us, who looks down from the height of heaven into this grave--He calls to thee: Rend asunder the bonds of slavery! Thou art thyself a slave: be free! And thou, noble maiden, who hast the highest in thyself, look down into this grave, and forward to the time when such a grave shall open for thee. Save thyself! Despise not the hand that will save thee. Days of sorrow, nights of desolation will come upon thee. In the day thou wilt ask, 'Where am I?' and for what is my life on the earth? And thou wilt send forth thy voice weeping into the night, and wilt shudder at the night of death? Thou knowest what is salvation; thou bearest it in thyself. And now? Faithless--thrice faithless! Faithless to thyself, to thy friends, to thy God!" Beating himself upon the breast, he cried in a voice broken by tears,--

"How willingly, how joyfully would I die, I who am speaking to ye now, if I could say, I have saved them. And yet, not I, but the Spirit through the breath of my mouth. Come, leave all that holds ye back, all on which ye lean--come to me, ye children of sorrow; to me, ye children of misery, of pain, of riches, and of helpless poverty!"

There was a pause in which no one stirred, and the Priest resumed,--

"I have spoken, I have warned, I have called as I was forced to, and because I was forced. I appeal to thee whose mortal frame we are here consigning to the earth, speak to thy children, 'Children, the three handfuls of earth which you were to throw upon my grave, ye shall throw them when this hand resigns what is called the riches of this world, but which is nothing but the ransom of a lost soul.' If ye do it not, we shall still pray for ye who are dead in the living body, as we do for thee whose dead body we are sinking into the grave, but whose soul is risen into eternity. Grant that thy, children may receive eternal life, only the life eternal!"--

The Priest's whole body trembled, and Roland trembled as he stood by Eric. Weidmann approached the boy on the other side, and, laying his hand on his shoulder, said in a low voice, "Be calm."

The grave was filled up with earth; the Priest hurried from the church-yard and Pranken with him: the mourners took their way back to the Villa.

"Who would have believed that the Priest would dare to speak so at the grave? But it is well. What more can come? Is not all accomplished now? It is best that she should have died when she did. The poor rich children!"

"What will the children do now?" Such were the words that might have been heard on all sides, as the people dispersed after the burial of Frau Ceres.

The children returned from their mother's grave to the Villa.

Roland was the first to recover his self-command.

"I will not let myself be broken down," he cried. "The black horror shall not frighten me. Give me something to do, Eric. Herr Weidmann, now for the first time, I am yours: I will work, and not let myself give way."

Manna, too, began to be herself again.

Their mother's death, and the painful scene at her grave, had given added firmness to the character of both.

The day after the funeral, Roland was first applied to upon a question of money: Fräulein Perini asked for her discharge. With the approval of Eric and Weidmann, she was abundantly provided for, besides receiving Frau Ceres' entire wardrobe. She packed the clothes in great trunks, and had them taken to the parsonage; but she herself soon departed for Italy, where she joined the young widow, the daughter of Herr von Endlich.

Villa Eden stood now entirely at the disposal of Eric and Roland.

Once more, the Professorin became the one point of attraction; and all assembled in her cottage. She had now a good helper in Professor Einsiedel, who had obtained leave of absence, and promised to spend the winter at the Villa.

After the shocks that Roland and Manna had experienced, their mourning for their mother was almost a relief. That her death should have been caused as it was by terror at the sight of Adams, by a diseased imagination, and that the Priest at the grave had made his last, desperate attempt upon them,--these things were almost a comfort to them. Roland gratefully clasped his sister's hand as she said,--

"Let us not have any feeling of hatred or bitterness towards the negro for having been the innocent cause of our mother's death."

"If there were only something else in prospect for you, if you could only find such an active interest as I have at Mattenheim," said Roland, in whose mind the idea became uppermost, that he must return to Mattenheim. But with a sad smile, like a sunbeam breaking through heavy clouds, he soon added,--

"I forgot: there is something else for you, and something so beautiful! You will be Eric's wife."

Manna was silent.

"What are you reading so earnestly?" she asked Roland one day, after he had been sitting for hours without looking up from his book. He showed her what it was, a book treating of forests. That subject was the only one which now fascinated him, he told her; and, as she spoke, it seemed almost as if it must be Eric talking, so entirely had the boy entered into the spirit of his teacher.

He felt refreshed by the study of this perpetual and permanent growth, and the voluntary protection of it by men. With a real enthusiasm he added,--

"I could not be interested in raising flowers, as my father was; but I get from him the love with which I can devote myself to the trees and woods."

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VI. THE VOLUNTEER

In accordance with a wish of Weidmann's, Eric accompanied Roland and Joseph to the city, in order to deposit the valuable papers in a place of safety.

The first house they visited on arriving in the city was the Banker's, which, situated in a garden outside the gates, combined the repose of the country with the animation of the city. The business life of the owner was in the heart of the city: here he was his own master. Everywhere throughout the richly furnished house were marks of refinement and elegance.

To Eric's surprise, he found the Banker in the great library where were several beautiful statues. The man, who, at Wolfsgarten, at the time of Clodwig's death, had kept so modestly in the background, here in his domestic life presided over a rich and solid establishment.

After a short explanation of the object of their visit, the Banker took his guests to his office. Here, in his business activity, he seemed another man, or rather two men. He had, so to speak, an office nature and a home nature: in his own house friendly, amiable, generous, and communicative; at his office chary of words, curt, decided, and cautious.

He declined receiving all these valuable papers himself, but advised their being taken to the city bank for deposit: as an additional precaution, the coupons should be separated from the bonds, and kept by themselves.

The Banker advised that Roland should acquire some insight of his own into business and money matters. As he would one day have the management of such a large property, it would be desirable for him to enter some business house for a while; otherwise he would always be in a measure dependent upon others. He offered to make an exception in Roland's favor, and, contrary to his custom, receive the young man into his own office.

Eric assented, seeing what an advantage this would be; but Roland looked embarrassed. The Banker now produced Weidmann's letter in which the same desire was expressed.

Roland cast a timid look about the room, where several young men were standing at desks writing, or were walking to and fro. Should he be standing there too? What did these strangers mean by disposing of him so, and wishing to give him a career?

All this passed rapidly through his mind, and, when he was asked his opinion, he replied,--

"I am grateful not only for the kindness, but for the frankness, of Herr Weidmann and yourself in speaking so openly with me."

The Banker sent word through a speaking-tube, that he desired Herr Rudolph Weidmann to come up to his room.

Weidmann's youngest son, who was a clerk in the banking house, soon entered.

There was a general introduction: the young man bowed to Eric, and shook hands with Roland. The Banker told young Weidmann that he should be excused from work as long as Roland remained; but the young man replied, that there was so much work going on as to make that impossible. The Banker dismissed him with an invitation to come that evening to his house; and, after a few friendly words with Roland, the boy departed.

The Banker considered whether it would not be well to sell some of Sonnenkamp's American paper, owing to the unsettled state of the times; but, on the other hand, he could hardly take upon himself the responsibility. He received with a cordial smile Roland's suggestion, that they were bound to keep his money as it was till there should be some new developments.

Roland and Eric next accompanied the Banker to the house. It was just at the time, when, owing to the election of Lincoln, American paper was falling from day to day in value, occasioning great excitement in business circles. Roland and Eric were greatly impressed by the fact; and the question arose in their minds. How could men take a purely moral and disinterested view of great public events, when the rise and fall which they occasioned affected so immediately their own profit and loss?

Bewildered by the noise and the contradictory emotions that the scene aroused in them, they left the Exchange, and became the Banker's guests in his own house.

Here the Banker assumed the part of teacher, and explained to his two guests that the laws of economics and those of humanity were hard to reconcile, almost as hard as the conflict between the freedom of the will and the limitations of nature in the department of philosophy. They are parallel lines that rarely meet, and then only to part again at once. After all, what was one man's loss was another man's gain, so that none of the world's property was really lost.

Eric showed how these contrasts had been recognized, though in a different way, in the most ancient times. The rod of Hermes is at once the wand of divination and the symbol of that instantaneous flash--the introduction into life and the dismissal from it--by which the old myths represented human life and death.

The Banker, who was always ready to receive information, listened to Eric's explanation of the myths and sagas, and their similarity in all the different nations. He was always eager to penetrate any new realm of knowledge, and grateful for instruction.

While the company were at table, several telegrams were brought to the Banker, who read them tranquilly, and then handed them to his two sons, who were sitting at table with him.

Here, at this table, Eric was for the first time conscious of a change in himself. The Banker liked to have every finished result of science served up for him, and he brought intelligence and relish to the enjoyment of it, as he did at the same time to a perfectly ripe pine-apple; but Eric was not so communicative as he used to be, and no longer felt called upon to give himself out at every demand. He kept silence, and left the talking to others. As soon as he had finished his comparisons of the different mythologies, the Banker, in his turn, spoke of the effect that was produced by the rise or fall of this or that paper; the exchange also he described as an organic existence.

Eric was a ready listener, he wanted now to be instructed by others.

The Banker's daughter-in-law, a lady of noble bearing, treated Eric and Roland with marked cordiality, and expressed a great desire to become acquainted with the Professorin and Manna.

Eric was surprised at being reminded of an incident that had almost passed from his memory. This lady had heard him sing at the festival, and said how much pleasure it would give her to hear him again, as she sang a little herself: upon his saying, however, that he was not at that moment at all in the mood for singing, she at once ceased from her request, in the hope that it might, by and by, at some happier time be granted her.

As the company were rising from table, young Weidmann and the cashier Fassbender were announced. The host made them come in, and sit down with the party at dessert. The young men were evidently embarrassed, and felt it a great favor to be thus admitted into the private life of their chief.

The gentlemen repaired to the billiard room. And the young men, as a special favor, were allowed to smoke a cigar in the house of the chief, even in his presence.

As Roland showed ho inclination to take part in the game, the Banker told him to consider himself at perfect liberty to go to his room, or to take a walk with Weidmann and Fassbender. He preferred going with the young men to his room. He returned presently, when the gentlemen, having finished their game, were sitting in familiar chat about the open fire, and with many thanks announced his resolution of entering the office for a while; only stipulating that he should not be charged with fickleness of purpose, if he did not stay long in the employ.

Far into the night, Roland talked with Eric, telling him how strange it seemed to have so much guidance and protection offered him, although he acknowledged the advantage it was to him, and the gratitude he felt towards these gentlemen for it.

The next morning, the box of papers was taken to the vaults of the bank. Eric and Roland stood as in a fairy tale before all this hidden treasure. Some old recollection must have been stirred in Roland; for he suddenly said to Eric,--

"What would Claus say if he could see all this?"

He looked in amazement at Eric, standing there so tranquil and indifferent.

"Does it not impress you strongly too?" he said.

"Not at all; for what is all this treasure? From the top of a mountain, you see things of much more value than this stamped metal. Houses, fields, trees, are much more, much greater."

Roland looked disheartened. For a long time to come, he would have nothing to do but cast accounts, and watch the money market. The full life at the Villa, the mountains, the river, the drives, and Mattenheim, all seemed removed to an immeasurable distance. Nevertheless, he remained firm.

Eric took Roland to the counting-house, where the latter was assigned a place at young Weidmann's desk.

Eric staid several days; for he wished to become acquainted with Roland's associates. He was especially pleased with the cashier, Fassbender's son, a young man of much discernment and youthful freshness, active in body, and vivacious in mind. He was president of the mercantile turnverein, and assiduously cultivated the love of learning in himself and his companions.

Eric could resign the guidance of Roland to this young man with entire confidence.

He talked much with the Banker about Clodwig. The Banker was very lenient in his judgment of Bella, and could not refrain from reproaching Clodwig with having married again: he had deceived himself, and allowed Bella to be deceived; for the latter had really believed that she could find pleasure in a quiet life, and relinquish all the privileges of youth; and it was the smothered passion for adventure which had driven her to this extreme.

Eric listened, but said little. He even felt it his duty to tell the Banker that he had got over his old zeal for imparting knowledge, and was no longer in a condition to give the total results of his thoughts and study.

The Banker considered this perfectly natural. The knowledge which constituted a man's calling, he said, was a man's capital, and ought not to be drawn upon: every man held a kind of trust fund, and the interest only should be risked and freely employed in trade.

He thought it eminently proper that Eric should now learn to be economical of himself.

On the third day, Eric returned alone to Villa Eden, promising to forward all necessary aids for Roland.

He came, as it were, out of another world; but his heart was lightened: he rejoiced at Roland's sudden resolve, and even began to consider himself no longer as a mere scholar, but as one to whom a great treasure has been intrusted which he is to care for next to truth.

The announcement of Roland's decision created great astonishment at Villa Eden.

Eric found Professor Einsiedel and Fräulein Milch at his mother's; and all gazed wonderingly at the latter when she suddenly exclaimed,--

"Roland enter the house of a Jew!" But to the inquiry what there was strange about this, she made no reply, only looking round as if bewildered.

Eric told the Professor he should now make great allowance for the rich, to whom full aspiration could scarcely be possible with their vast possessions ever in their thoughts. The safe-key in the breast pocket must, he thought, lock up something in the heart.

Manna, alone, comprehended the true grounds of Roland's strange resolve; for she said that it would not merely prove the youth's salvation to learn the management of wealth, which, after all, was only a kind of military drill, but that he evidently considered it a fortunate opportunity to be transplanted into an entirely new sphere of life.

And so it was.

Manna almost envied her brother the opportunity of doing and becoming something new. She, too, would gladly have engaged in some occupation. A trait of Sonnenkamp's strange nature asserted itself within her. She wanted to go forth into the world. She was more with the Aunt than with the Professorin, who desired, if possible, to effect a speedy and fundamental cure; while the Aunt preferred to begin by a tender fostering care.

Eric and his mother pondered much upon how best to deal with Manna's restless mood, and to satisfy her longing aspirations.

So much had come upon her at once; and her love for Eric did not seem quite to compensate her for what she had lost, since at heart she still yearned for a firm support in the Church.

Weidmann came, and with him they discussed the question of waiving all ordinary considerations, and celebrating Manna's and Eric's marriage at once.

He declared that one ought never to have recourse to marriage as a remedy, but should enter into a new phase of existence with a tranquil heart, and a new joy in existence itself.

This coincided with Eric's own secret feeling, and he said to Manna,--

"Your desire to travel, to find something outside yourself, is a perfectly natural one. You miss that great other home of yours, the church, which you could visit at any time, and come back in an altered frame of mind. You want some other human being to proffer you out of his own thought and soul, and upon constituted authority, something distinct from yourself,--something which you yourself have lost. Instead of this, you have now to find your all at home and in yourself. It is hard, I know; but so it must be. So long as you seek any thing without, you are not at home with yourself. Here in this place, in these rooms where such horror overwhelmed us, we must learn to compose and control ourselves. 'Stand to your post!' is the military command; and it has also a moral significance."

With such words, and more to the same effect, did Eric lighten Manna's perplexities: she embraced and thanked him for thus entering into her very soul, and freeing her from every yoke.

Quietly and serenely the days glided by, until an invitation arrived from the Justice's wife. The Professorin accepted at once; but Manna said she could not accompany her: she was not yet chastened and calm enough to mingle with the world and submit to being received with compassion.

Eric made a sign to his mother not to urge Manna; and she was left to do as she liked.

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VII. BITTER ALMONDS BECOME SWEET

The Justice's wife was an object of envy in that the first coffee-party of the winter was to be at her house. It seemed hardly necessary to provide any entertainment; for who would care to eat and drink when there was so much to talk about?--of Sonnenkamp, of Bella, of the betrothal of Eric and Manna, of poor Frau Ceres, of the negro, of the Prince, of Clodwig's death. There was so much, that only a part of it could be brought into play.

At length the company assembled.

The corner of the sofa where Bella used to sit--it seemed decades ago--was shunned with a kind of superstitious dread. Frau "Lay-Figure" was so extremely fortunate as to have a story to tell about a sofa-corner. There was a physician back in the country, with a very small practice, and the sofa in his parlor had a great hole in it: so, whenever a caller came, the doctor's wife was very affable, and seated herself forthwith upon the torn place in the sofa. It was a good story enough, and Frau Lay-Figure told it well, too: and she laughed, as she generally did; for she laughed at every thing: but nobody else laughed very heartily.

Luckily, a stranger was now introduced; quite a distinguished personage, who now made her first appearance at the grand coffee-party. This was the wife of the Director of the Water-works, who, in the discharge of his duties as Rhine Commissioner, had come to reside for a short time in the little town.

The Frau Directorin of the Water-works seated herself, all unconsciously, in Bella's old place.

And now they could begin.

But who would have guessed that the covetousness of the Cabinetsräthen would be first discussed as a kind of appetizing morsel! This was the way with great people. Of course, one could get clothes from Paris by such machinations. A magnificent system of bribery indeed! Who knew what else she might have got out of Sonnenkamp, and others besides? The ladies were almost ashamed of their own virtuous stupidity.

The English lady spoke with great respect of the Americans who had purchased the villa of the Cabinetsrath.

The Consul's wife in particular, she said, belonged to one of the first families in the Northern States; for there was a decided aristocracy there, distinguished for its noble bearing. The great merchants, the millionaires of the North, were usually called "merchant-princes."

Frau White, or Frau "Coal," as she was called, gazed reverently up at the English lady. Her glance said that she considered the latter a happy woman to have any thing so well worth telling.

The Rhine Commissioner's wife had a very good time. To her they could tell the whole story of the house of Sonnenkamp; and the ladies took turns, and supplemented one another's narratives.

The wife of the cement-manufacturer wore her perpetual frown, and nodded occasionally, as if she had much to say, when, in reality, she had nothing.

Frau Lay-Figure observed, smiling sweetly, that it was very interesting to have known a slave-trader. She had often wished to see one.

"And a cannibal too!" said the wife of the steamboat-agent, who, as usual, held her cup aloft in her left hand, and dipped her cake in it from time to time. She had always the very best appetite.

"Yes, that is interesting too," assented Frau Lay-Figure, smiling so as to show her teeth.

It was remarkable that no one ventured at first to allude to Frau Bella, until the wife of the steamboat-agent told how she had gone with her eldest daughter to the dentist, and he had told her he was never so startled in his life as when the Countess von Wolfsgarten came to him, the very night Count Clodwig was so ill, to have a front tooth set.

The Doctor's wife said that Frau Bella was not guiltless of her husband's death.

All now fell upon her. She must tell them what she knew; and, before she could explain herself, Frau Lay-Figure added,--

"And no doubt Herr Sonnenkamp was guilty too! Who knows what he did?"

The good Doctor's lady turned pale; but though she protested earnestly and solemnly, that her husband had said nothing about it, that she never would have spoken if he had, they would not believe her. The Doctor's wife was exceedingly sorry, and retracted her remarks, that Bella, in a passionate outburst, had wounded deeply her husband's feelings. The mistaken declaration of the coroner, so strenuously contradicted, was revived; and they said it was evident that Frau Bella had felt herself in some way to blame, and had fled on this account.

"I pity Herr von Pranken," said Lina suddenly.

All eyes were turned upon her; and Lina quietly continued,--

"Yes, he is not so bad a man after all. He has lost his bride, and now his sister has deserted him; and for so much shame and misery to be heaped upon his head is too hard."

The wife of the Director of the Waterworks praised Lina's kind-heartedness, and wanted to know more about Bella's character. Frau Lay-Figure said she was the one to inform her; for she had a cook who had formerly lived with Bella. The latter was not bad to her servants, only capricious. She sometimes scolded them dreadfully, but made them presents afterwards, and took care to have them enjoy themselves.

A good deal of curiosity was expressed by one and another, as to whether Eric and Manna would soon marry. The death of Frau Ceres and the Priest's violent harangue were next discussed.

The steamboat-agent's wife had some further information to give about Bella's nocturnal journey. She had questioned the pilot; and universal astonishment was expressed that Bella had taken no wardrobe with her.

"I fancy she will assume man's attire, and she will look remarkably well in it."

Frau Lay-Figure rolled her eyes about the circle after this audacious remark; but she encountered no glance. The eyes of all the ladies were cast down.

The question was now asked, whether the Professorin had been invited. The Justice's wife replied in the affirmative; and Frau Lay-Figure began, that people said,--but they all knew no one had ever said it but herself,--that the Professorin had managed very adroitly to oust Pranken, and substitute her son. Before any one could reply, there was a knock, and the Professorin entered. All rose; and Frau Lay-Figure, who had ensconced herself in the harmless corner of the sofa, insisted upon giving the Professorin her place.

With winning frankness, the lady remarked, that she had had a strong desire to see something of her fellowmen once more, and could enter most heartily into their simple and delightful mode of life. Amidst so much confusion, one was apt to forget that there could be any thing steadfast in the world.

Every one was struck with respectful surprise, Frau Lay-Figure most of all.

Inquiries were made for Manna; and the Professorin said she had wished to be remembered to them, and regretted that she could not come. A genial feeling prevailed; and Lina did not wait to be entreated, but, at the request of the Professorin, seated herself at the piano, and sang. She felt that her music would refresh the good lady; and she sang with her whole soul. She had never sung better. In the midst of her performance. Manna appeared with Aunt Claudine in the adjoining room. Both waited in silence till the song was ended.

Lina was overjoyed at Manna's arrival, and accosted her thus,--

"Forgive me for being so naughty! It has vexed me that my happy betrothal-time should be spoiled by all this trouble; and now it is just the same with you! I was thinking even now, as I sang, how I wished I could give you some of my joy and forgetfulness and hopefulness and all the rest."

The eyes of all were fixed upon Manna, whose appearance was totally changed by her mourning dress. The Rhine Commissioner's wife observed in a low tone, that she had never seen such dark eyes, or so broad and fair a forehead. Manna was perfectly self-possessed, and bowed when assailed on all sides with entreaties that she would continue to live at the Villa, and not sell it, and remove to another country. They were all so much attached to Eric and herself, and would like so much to have them for friends and neighbors.

In fact, a magnanimous spirit took possession of the company; and, on their way home. Manna exclaimed,--

"O Mother! Eric was perfectly right. He persuaded me to come here, and I am glad I did. We ought not to seclude ourselves from people when they are kindly disposed towards us."

During the whole drive. Manna held the Professorin's hand, and, when they arrived at the Villa, ran up the steps for the first time with a firm and rapid tread. She ordered the room to be brightly lighted, and also begged Eric to sing to her. He knew what songs to choose; and, when they separated, she said,--

"Yes, my dear ones, I have taken my journey, and now I am once more quite at home."

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VIII. TRANSPLANTED

Roland, meanwhile, was living quietly at the commercial town, industrious and happy. He resided in the Banker's house, and made friends with the children of the latter, particularly with a younger son, who, just returning from the University, had laid aside his books, and entered immediately upon the banking business. But for Weidmann's youngest son he cherished a genuine youthful friendship, very unlike that artificial intimacy with the cadet, which had been forced upon him by others. They were incessantly busy during the day, which closed with a late dinner, after which they had a game in the billiard-room, or attended some concert or play, or, more frequently, read or studied quietly, each by himself.

Roland often sat in his room till late at night, teaching English to his young friends Weidmann and Fassbender.

He, too, had now become a teacher, and derived a singular pleasure from thus imparting something of himself, and not merely of his possessions,--a pleasure which was exalted into the purest joy by the bright and cordial nature of young Weidmann.

Wherever Roland appeared, he was the object, first of remark, afterwards of kindly attention. He thought often of his winter at the capital, and how different life had been there. Here he found a circle of commoners, understanding itself thoroughly, and not without pride in its own strength. All the officials at the counting-house were particularly friendly to Roland. His beauty, his confiding disposition, above all his hard fate, seemed to recommend him to their especial consideration. The Banker praised him for having mastered, in so short a time, the essentials of the business; for he could now compute the price of any public funds by means of the exchange lists, and had a good insight into book-keeping.

So passed several weeks, until the elder Weidmann arrived, and invited his son, the cashier Fassbender, and Roland to visit him.

Weidmann first saw his son and Fassbender alone, and learned from them that the younger tradesmen had discussed the subject of the slave-trade, and had even held a meeting, and formally debated the question, but disagreed in their final vote. They stood twelve against twelve; it having been strongly urged that a man might lawfully carry on this traffic, provided he were not personally engaged in it; especially since others would be sure to carry on the lucrative business if he were held back by scruples.

Weidmann looked grave.

Roland came. He was very animated, and re-assured by Weidmann's encouraging glance, he begged to be allowed to return to Mattenheim.

The Banker assented readily.

With expressions of genuine affection, they bade Roland good-by. First of all, he revisited Villa Eden with Herr Weidmann. He had left it a boy; he returned a mature man.

In a few days, Roland's effects were all packed, ready for a removal to Mattenheim.

Eric accompanied him thither, and Roland turned crimson, when, on entering his room--it was the same that Lilian had formerly occupied--Knopf handed him a note from the latter. She had expressly requested that it might not be given to Roland until he returned permanently to Mattenheim.

The next day, Eric went back to Villa Eden, and announced to Manna and his mother his own intention of removing to Mattenheim.

A strange conflict ensued in Manna's breast; but, as she made no allusion to it, Eric thought it right to respect her reserve.

The Major, to whom Eric confided his plan, complained that he, too, had got to build himself a new nest in his old age; for his brother, the Grand-master, whose wife had died, had become engaged, and was to be married again in the spring. Now, Fräulein Milch had no mind to be tolerated, and patronized by a young wife; and when his Masonic brother, the Grand-master, had informed them that he should wish to reserve one of the rooms which the Major had formerly occupied, for a guest-chamber, Fräulein Milch had behaved in a most independent manner.

She thanked him, but declared her fixed determination to leave the house.

They had never had a quarrel before.

But when the Major perceived how sorrowfully Fräulein Milch repented her obstinate determination, he scolded himself for being too meek and yielding, and thanked the Fräulein for preserving her dignity as he ought to have done himself, but which he was so apt to lose sight of.

He proposed to Fräulein Milch the plan of removing to the castle, where there were fine rooms all in readiness, and where it must be very pleasant to live; but Fräulein Milch would hear nothing about living in a knightly castle. She set forth to the Major the bother it would entail: with the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the milkmaid, with all the various trades and callings, did she persecute the Major, until he was sore dismayed.

"We will say no more about it," he cried, "but pray don't let me forget to ask Captain Dournay how the old knights used to live."

Upon Eric's arrival, this had been the Major's opening question, and then, for the first time, he made known his own difficulty.

Eric did not regret it; for he hoped, that, in the spring, the Major would remove to the green cottage, while his mother would live with Manna at the Villa.

The Major laughed. "Did you ever hear," said he, "the story of the man who was a suitor forty years? Courting-time is very fine, I tell you; but even ten years is too long. And now away with you! There is something for you to learn yet. But don't tell a soul about that stale old suitor, will you? On your honor? He, too, was once young."

On the eve of his departure, when he and Manna were alone, Eric said,--

"Manna, we have no betrothal time. Our hearts are torn by sorrow and separation, we must comfort one another."

"And might I know why you, too, forsake me?"

"I shall be much with you and my mother; but I must be alone also. Just think, I have to become a new man, to change my scholarly vocation for some other, I know not what; but whether I am near you, or not, whether I hold your hand, and look into your eyes, or am far away, be sure that you are the inmost life of my heart: I bear you about with me like a blessed faith."

As Eric continued in this strain, a new and delightful understanding was established between the two, and Manna embraced him, saying,--

"I will not shed a tear to-morrow when you leave; and I will follow you in all your wanderings with trustful eyes. I know that I am with you and in you, as you are with me and in me. It seems inconceivable to me that I never knew you before that spring day. I cannot think what the world was like before I knew you; for I cannot imagine the world without you."

When Eric left for Mattenheim, the next day, he kissed his betrothed for the first time before his mother; and, after he had mounted his horse. Manna said to him,--

"I am glad you are going; and I will stay quietly with your mother, and be perfectly content. Thank you for letting me be a child once more before I become your wife. Ah! I had no childhood; but forgive me. I will never cease to be grateful for what has come to me, and I will not mingle sorrow with it all. And I promise that you shall have in me a strong and trustworthy wife."

So Eric departed.

Adams went with him. He, too, was to learn husbandry at Mattenheim.

The ladies were now alone with Professor Einsiedel and the Major, who was more at the Villa than ever.

The Villa itself, however, was silent and deserted; for they all lived at the green cottage. Many of the servants were dismissed, and the gardeners only were kept at the Villa.

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IX. UPON NEW SOIL

A cheerful life they led at Mattenheim. The day began and ended early. There was no trespassing upon the night. All were incessantly occupied, and even Adams could not hold aloof.

Weidmann had arranged matters very methodically.

Adams received no orders; but they allowed him to see that every one about him was busy, and, in the end, he could not choose but follow their example. He became ashamed of his idleness; and the servant who had once been a criminal must now teach him to plough and sow. He was even eager to thresh; but this was exceedingly difficult for him, because he could not keep time. He liked best to work in the mill; and it was a droll sight to see the stalwart negro pass and repass, powdered with meal. He also applied himself zealously to his books, in the evening, with Knopf for a teacher.

Of all the dwellers at Mattenheim, Knopf was the happiest. What more could he desire? He had Weidmann whom he revered, Eric whom he held in high esteem, Roland whom he loved enthusiastically, and a prince and a slave to instruct; for Prince Valerian had to submit to being taught at Adams's side; and, while Adams toiled at his writing-book, the Prince pursued his studies in history and mathematics; and it was often amusing to hear Knopf say, when giving a lesson in the history of literature, "Observe, my dear young lady," for hitherto his pupils in this department had been mostly girls.

During the day-time, they were employed, whatever the weather, in the open air. Surveys were undertaken, especially of the recently purchased domain; and many a good hunt came off, in which Roland distinguished himself by his great expertness.

Roland was passed, so to speak, from hand to hand; for each of Weidmann's sons took possession of him for hours or days at a time, and found a peculiar pleasure in affording the youth all possible assistance. Roland gained an insight into many different processes of manufacture; but his curiosity was also awakened in quite another direction.

In the cement-manufactory all was so still, that Roland asked the Inspector, Fassbender's eldest son, whether the workmen were not allowed to speak.

"They prefer not to," was the answer; "for talking distracts their attention, and, as they work by the job, it would hinder them very much."

Roland looked confounded. These men imposed silence upon themselves for the sake of earning their bread!

The noon-bell rang. He saw young men and girls of his own age come out of the manufactory: some of the girls were knitting as they walked; and the question arose within him, In what respect do you and your sister differ from these, and why?

On Saturday evening, Roland stood by while the workmen were paid off. They were gathered in groups before the house. Some had washed themselves, and others were still covered with dust. The little sliding window in the counting-room was opened, and Roland stood near the Inspector, as the latter opened a drawer in which lay various packages of money, and read aloud the list of the workmen's names. He watched their hard hands as they took up the money from the shelf, or swept it with the right hand into the left.

When they were all paid off, he went out and mingled with the people. There were soldierly fellows among them: some were young, and some old; and all carried sticks with sharp ferrules, and were chaffering with a baker-woman for loaves of bread, which they wrapped in cloths, and carried away under their arms. One called to another to bear him company in his walk; and they dispersed up and down the mountain.

Is it really the lot of human beings to live so? How old are these men? Where are their homes?

Roland gazed thoughtfully after them.

Is there any help for such things? or is there none?

"What are you thinking about?" asked the Inspector.

"I am wondering why these tired men should have so far to go."

"It is good for them. It is what keeps them well. The worst feature of their lot is being pent up in a confined space."

Roland was silent; but countless questionings arose within him. He could not cope with them; and no one else, however well disposed, could solve them for him. He did not regain perfect composure except after an interview with Weidmann.

Weidmann possessed a firm and unvarying equipoise of character, before which the stormy agitation of other souls subsided. He had dignity without severity. He was not so vivacious and stimulating as Eric; but he preserved a steady and quiet moderation in all things. He took note of a blunder, a disaster, whether in public or private affairs, with manly calmness; never allowing himself to be bewildered or disheartened thereby.

Eric had caused his pupil to see things through a polished and many-sided prism, which seemed to remove objects from their true position, and make them appear higher or lower than they really were. Weidmann, on the other hand, revealed them in their simple, natural aspect. He introduced method into Roland's thought, life, and work; for, thus far, the latter had been too unstable, even in spiritual things. He gave Roland a course of lessons in agricultural chemistry, which, at the same time, served Prince Valerian as a review of the teaching he had already received.

Eric, too, came in for a share of this instruction, and became Roland's fellow-pupil.

Very seldom did Weidmann pass from positive facts to spiritual interpretations; but he was all the more impressive when he did. He led Roland to a comprehension of human life, to patience, and wisdom. He showed him, that, despite the stress laid on the equality of mankind, men differed as widely in their power of grasping thoughts, as different substances in their ability to conduct heat. Earth warms quicker than water; but it cools more rapidly also. Thus, by analogies from Nature, did Weidmann endeavor to teach his pupil justice, and humanity, and was not unfrequently surprised to discover in Roland a kind of previous preparation, which enabled him to receive new ideas readily, and to develop them; for ideas having an analogy to each other must needs suggest and flow into one another, giving rise to new combinations of thought, as we see in mechanics, and conspicuously in chemistry.

Weidmann often expressed briefly to Eric his pleasure at Roland's zeal in work and study, and his interest in the labor of others in the manufactories.

But, if a great and noticeable change was taking place in Roland, a still greater transformation was being effected in Eric. Here, where a man wrought always with reference to his neighbor, where no one dreamed of grasping the entire system, but each throve quietly by himself; here Eric's lips were often sealed for days together. He no longer felt it his duty to be always imparting. He not only found a deep joy in his love for Manna, but he preferred listening to talking, and seeing to showing. He felt as if he were on some peaceful island, where yet he could hear a friendly voice at any hour. Pranken might now have watched him from morning till night in vain: he would have had to retract that bitter speech of his about Eric's zeal for imparting knowledge.

Roland and Knopf often regarded him with surprise. He would accompany them on long walks without uttering a single word.

The evening of each day was devoted to festivity. Great stress was here laid upon that evening recreation, which, unfortunately, has become obsolete in the world. Frau Weidmann, who dressed neatly but plainly during the day, appeared regularly each evening in holiday attire. They did not have prayers at Mattenheim; but Weidmann held private worship in his soul.

When Roland expressed his peculiar pleasure in the fine and efficient system of horse-breeding at Mattenheim, Weidmann would say,--

"I have a story to tell about that. Everybody has heard, and possibly seen with his own eyes, how the old lord of the manor used to drive through the village with his span of dock-tailed bays, to the admiration of all beholders. And it is customary to say that we have no such horses now-a-days, so large, so fat, so handsome! Well, that may be. But no more are there such miserable nags to be seen as in old times. All horses are moderately strong and handsome, and of tolerably good blood. The breed generally has improved. And there you have the present age. The horse is a fine emblem to my mind; the lilac is another. They used to bring this flowering shrub from Persia, and set it only in the parks of great people; but now it grows everywhere, and is none the less beautiful for being common. And so the beautiful enlarges its circumference perpetually."

Roland's eyes sought Eric's at such words; and their flash said, "How new, how glorious, how wide, the world is!"

On another evening, Weidmann made the casual remark,--

"If the last century deserves to be called the age of enlightenment, ours should be called the age of free labor; for self-imposed labor is alone genuine and productive."

Roland did not look at Eric after this, but sat with downcast eyes. He knew what the expression signified, having heard it used before now in contradistinction to slave-labor.

Prince Valerian, too, created much amusement. He had always retained that insatiable desire for knowledge, which he had displayed on his first day at Wolfsgarten; but Weidmann was as indefatigable in his answers as the Prince in his questions.

Teaching had acquired a new impressiveness for Roland. He was a member of society. He heard questions answered which he himself had not proposed, and, when he subsequently asked these same questions of himself, the replies sank into his heart more deeply than the answers to his own inquiries used to do. Weidmann's teachings were always clear and definite. They fixed attention on the subject exclusively, never on the teacher, insomuch, that Weidmann's own worth was often quite overlooked.

A stream so clear that its bed is plainly visible frequently appears shallower than it really is; and so it was with Weidmann. He was not brilliant; but he had genuine common sense.

There was always unusual excitement at Mattenheim when a letter arrived from Dr. Fritz; and Weidmann said openly, that, since storms were abroad in the world, he trusted that the tempest which had broken over America might clear the air in Europe.

Encouraged by this remark, Knopf related how it had been represented to Louis XIII. that he could never convert savage nations, and bring them into the church, without first enslaving them: now, however, he said, the heathen were brought into the church, but the little matter of freeing them afterwards was forgotten.

Frau Weidmann deprecated this sort of discussion before Roland, but comforted herself with the thought that her husband must have some deliberate purpose in it all.

And, in fact, it was Weidmann's design to lead Roland to a full consideration of this question. He knew the sophistry of the world, and how accessible to such sophistry is a heavy heart. He had often in the commercial town heard intelligent and philanthropic people discuss the question of the slave-trade, and offer all manner of palliations for it. Roland must feel to the full the anguish of having to work out the solution of this problem as best he could. With a vehemence altogether unusual, Weidmann expressed his indignation that any one should ever justify the trading in human beings endowed with speech and reason, as if they were inanimate things.

It was, however, impossible to brood long over any one thought amid the far-reaching and many-sided activity of the place. Moreover, the laying-out of a new village upon the lately-purchased domain afforded manifold occupation.

Weidmann particularly enjoyed the carrying out of this plan. He admonished the younger men that it was a misfortune not to have arable land connected with a vineyard, not only because crops sometimes fail, but because the smaller vine-dresser, who must sell in the autumn, is underpaid for his petty crop. A peasant who has wheat or potatoes to sell receives the same fixed price for a given amount of produce as others do whose crops are large; but it was not so with grape-culture.

Knopf was very urgent that the village should not be one of those tiresome colonial settlements built exactly in a straight line: and the architect consoled him by pointing out that the meandering brook, and the church upon the hill hard by, gave an effect of grouping by no means geometrical.

Knopf won Roland over to his plan of building a music-hall forthwith.

So there was perpetual interest and variety about the life at Mattenheim.

When they came home from the fields, the manufactories, the mines, or the domain, they could see it at once in Frau Weidmann's face, if she had had a letter from America.

Doctor Fritz wrote often; but their greatest pleasure was when Lilian wrote also.

Roland's interest in Lilian was stimulated and enhanced in two ways. Prince Valerian liked particularly to congratulate Roland on cherishing an early love without losing his manly energies. Knopf had a poet's deep delight in being the secret confidant of so romantic a love.

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X. THE LOST ORGAN-TONES

Mattenheim was the seat of a hearty Rhenish hospitality. There were almost always visitors in the house. The Banker came, and was rejoiced to find Roland so busy and cheerful. Professor Crutius came, and made friendly overtures to Roland; but the latter said,--

"You cannot want my friendship."

The information brought by Crutius concerning the state of affairs in the New World gave rise to many an animated discussion on the great, decisive, protracted struggle between freedom and slavery apparently impending there. Crutius could corroborate from his own observation the statement, that the Southern States were abundantly provided with disciplined officers; for in the military school at West Point, where he had formerly been a teacher, there were many more Southern than Northern students. If the Union succumbed, if, as was very possible, the slaveholders should conquer, the cause of freedom was wounded to the core. Not only would men lose their faith, but the cause itself would be injured; who knew how deeply or for how long a time?

Soon after Professor Crutius departure, a kind of dulness and dejection was observable in Roland. He did what was required of him; but he wore, for hours together, a fixed and hard expression. Neither to Weidmann nor to Eric did he reveal what was passing in his mind. To Knopf alone he confessed his anxieties, making the latter promise that he would tell no one else.

Roland had learned that Dr. Fritz was his father's bitterest foe; he had also accidentally heard Crutius tell Weidmann, that he had no doubt Sonnenkamp was one of the most zealous of the Southern leaders, and would take an active part in the war.

Like a smothered fire which suddenly sends up countless tongues of flame, so did all Roland's anguish revive. Anguish for his father's deeds, for his flight and the elopement of Bella while his mother yet lived, for his mother's death and his own inheritance of sorrow--all these several pains were blended confusedly within him, and his one hope of deliverance seemed annihilated. Lilian is the child of one of his father's most determined enemies, and, if forced to decide, can he take the field against his father?

Roland became desperate. Is there any thing like a righteous moral order in the affairs of this world? No: all is chaos and barbarism.

Knopf knew not how to comfort him, and found it hard to keep his own promise of secrecy.

One day, a bright, cold, bracing winter day, Weidmann crossed the river to close a contract for the supply of railway sleepers, and took Roland with him.

On their return, they found the Rhine full of floating ice. The bells were ringing in the valley and on the hills; the sunset-glow in the heavens, spread in strange waves of light over a background of pale green sky. Griffin stood in the prow of the boat, looking out upon the landscape; and as they made their way, the boatmen pushing aside the blocks of ice, Roland said suddenly,--

"It was just such a day, just such an evening, when Washington crossed the Delaware."

He said no more. Weidmann divined that Roland was wondering why Washington had not abolished slavery immediately on the close of the war; but he turned the subject aside, saying that he thought it one of the finest traits in the great Washington's character, that he was so ready to be convinced of an error.

Roland was startled. What might that mean?

Weidmann continued, "I have left you to yourself, Roland; but now I will tell you the state of your mind. You are involved in doubt and despair; but you are no strong man unless you rise above them."

The young man's eyes dilated, and Weidmann continued,--

"Two things are to be noted. In the first place, you have ceased to believe that the world is under the dominion of moral law, you have lost your faith in that Supreme Being whom we, as well as the Priests, call God; and, secondly, you believe (and this is worse still),--you believe that you must take upon yourself the expiation of sins which you never committed. You dread the inevitable consequences entailed by every earthly event, and are confused by your fears."

Roland gazed wonderingly at the man who thus calmly and deliberately spoke out his own inmost thought.

Weidmann continued,--

"On the one hand, you deny the operation of eternal laws; on the other, you fear it. Now look at these masses of ice in the river. Do you care to learn something of that immeasurable and all-pervading wisdom which interrupts the laws of Nature when their strict, logical consequences would involve the destruction of the world?"

"Oh, if that were so! If I might but learn it!"

"Well, then, stop there. Do you know what changes regularly take place in bodies as they become warmer or colder?"

"Heat expands, and renders them lighter. Cold contracts, and makes them heavier."

"Is it the same with water?"

"I think so."

"No, it is not. If ice were heavier than water, it would sink, and the streams would freeze from the bottom upward. There suddenly we have a deviation, an exception to the so-called stern and implacable law of Nature. Water attains its utmost weight and density at a temperature of 38°.75 Fahrenheit. Beyond this point, it grows lighter, and expands. And I tell you I do not comprehend how a man knowing this can persist in denying God. For God is here. Here is no mere blind, self-regulative, natural law. Here is the free Genius of the Universal. Here is Wisdom. Observe, if solidified water went on increasing in weight, and streams froze from beneath upward, the river-beds would remain undisturbed until the spring-thaws. And do you understand what the consequences would be?"

"Certainly; the fish would all die."

"Even so. Here is the wisdom of God. Here is the Deity who modifies the law of Nature for the preservation of his creatures. Our God no longer towers aloft above the waters and their laws. He lives and works within the waters. The law of Nature is broken that Nature may be preserved. There are no more visible miracles; but all life, beyond a certain point, subsists by a miracle,--the miracle of Genius. The very surface of the earth, whereon we plant and build, is such a natural miracle. Our globe is molten fire inside, and the crust remains cool above it. Do you understand?"

"I believe I do."

"And now, my son, you have not to suffer and repent and make atonement under some iron law of Nature, because the man who was your father sinned. You are free. Least of all creatures, is man the helpless subject of natural law. He is lord of his fate. Look up! The world is very bright, and this whole, vast, beauteous world is full of God. Let the bell-ringers, yonder, understand and address him after their own fashion. It is not ours. The churches are but little chambers in the great temple of the universe. Let no man, in my presence, restrict the Highest to one revelation and one mode of worship. God, the great, the holy, is everywhere. It is impossible not to find him. We have him here, out under the broad arch of heaven, and we have him in our own hearts. He who thus feels the breath of the Infinite upon him--he lives a holy life. Come to my heart, my son! You have wrestled manfully! You are saved!"

Roland threw himself into the arms of this man, and kissed his garment, and wept in the fulness of his heart.

It was night when they disembarked; but within and around Roland all was ineffably bright. A new man stepped upon the shore.

Roland and Weidmann walked home in silence.

With a feeling of release, as if the evil spirit which possessed him had been exorcised by a spell, Roland entered the house with Weidmann. He stood at the window, gazing long into the starlit heaven, and then wrote a letter to Manna. Out of an overflowing heart, he told her that to-day he had found the Highest--a trust, a faith, a rest, such as he had never believed possible. But he could not finish the letter.

He sought Eric, and begged that he would go back with him to Villa Eden.

Eric understood him; and the next day they departed together.

It was a happy coming home, when Eric and Roland arrived at the Villa.

They found the ladies tranquil and happy. Manna beamed with a twofold rapture. Her brother and her lover had come; and both brought strength with them and substantial invigoration.

They had much to tell one another; yet, when the first greetings were over, they reverted to higher and more general themes. All were struck with surprise, that Manna should have a story so like Roland's to tell.

Professor Einsiedel had several exceptions to take to Roland's communication; but he stifled them. The youth might some time advance another step; still it was needful for him to have taken this.

To the story of Manna's experience he listened with satisfaction. He could reflect that he had helped to establish her self-dependence.

Sitting with her hand in Eric's, Manna told her tale.

"It was hard for me to forego the old sacred consolations. Whenever I went to church, I thought of you and of myself. The strong, tremulous swell of the organ speaks so directly to the heart. Those tones are lost to you and me. You have told me that your friends used to deride you as a sentimentalist, because you could not overcome the longing in your soul for those organ-tones; and now that same desire awoke within me when I thought of you. But 'tis vain! It must be enough for us that the realm of music and of feeling is still vast and wide, without the strains of the church-organ. I cling to those noble words, 'My temple are ye.' If the human soul has become the temple of the Holy Ghost, we need no visible temple."

A spirit of consecration hovered over them as they were now assembled in the vine-clad house. They felt that they were members of the communion which has no name.

When Eric visited the little town, he was informed by the cooper, now, mine host of the "Carp," that the comedy-writer had wanted to make a carnival play out of Sonnenkamp's story, and bring it out in the market-place; but that he himself had not favored it, and they were going to represent a nobility-mill instead. Commoners in front were to be thrust in above, and noblemen with weapons and shields were to come out below, on the back side.

He begged Eric to be present at the carnival performance next day; but Eric was not in the mood.

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XI. A FULL HOUSE AND FULL DAYS

On the following day came the Major, and Fräulein Milch, and Lina with her betrothed.

It was settled, that, if the snow remained, they were all to have a sleigh-ride to Mattenheim; for they wished to say good-by to Prince Valerian, who was soon to return home.

It was a day of domestic happiness and cheer.

Manna said repeatedly, that she had often wondered why they should have imposed this separation upon themselves; but she now understood that it was better so.

Fortune smiled upon them. They went to Mattenheim in several large sleighs; and, on their arrival, Knopf took his young friend, Roland, aside, and gave him a private letter from Lilian.

No one else knew why Roland was so extravagantly gay; but Knopf smiled quietly to himself.

Manna and the Professorin were cordially received by Frau Weidmann and her daughters-in-law. It refreshed the heart to see how full and rich at every stage of existence was the home-life at Mattenheim.

While Lina expressed her especial satisfaction in the fact, that here at Mattenheim one had five good meals a day, and insisted upon it that love sharpened the appetite, the ladies from Villa Eden thoroughly enjoyed a glimpse into Frau Weidmann's housekeeping arrangements.

The Professorin had known her in her early years, and remembered what a fine appearance had been made by this tall lady, who now always wore a huge pair of spectacles. She, Manna, and Aunt Claudine, were moved to reflection and self-examination, as they beheld the woman's active life. All her household were busily employed, and yet it was perfectly quiet and orderly; and Frau Weidmann discharged her round of duties without tormenting herself by needless anxiety. She was proud to show the ladies her whole house, and particularly her great preserve-jars, containing provision not only for the various branches of her own family, but for the poor who have no forethought. She frankly complained that she had not time enough for self-culture, but said smilingly, that it was like the question of driving the birds away from her garden: she must either forego their singing, or good berries and lettuce, as it was impossible to have both.

Manna learned from Frau Weidmann many particulars of Pranken's life; of his bearing during his short stay at Mattenheim, as well as the facts generally known at the capital.

It had been painful to Manna to be obliged to deal so harshly with Pranken; for he had shown himself kind and good, both to her father and herself: but she was now relieved from this trouble also.

The ladies of Villa Eden were not a little surprised, however, to hear at Mattenheim of the great commotion in the New World; for papers and despatches had come with Lilian's letter from America, and Weidmann could not withhold from them his conviction that the new year would bring the great crisis of the century, perhaps of all modern history. Were it possible to break up the Union, and to elevate slavery, which had been tolerated hitherto as a species of smuggling, into a prominent article of state-policy, the cause of freedom and humanity, for which they were all laboring, would be so fearfully injured and impeded, that the petty efforts of individuals would seem of no account.

Relief from this dark apprehension was experienced by all the company, as Weidmann read aloud a passage from his nephew's letter.

Doctor Fritz wrote,--

"Surpassing all others in the greatness and majesty of his bearing, bright as the brightest example of classic times, we have the noble Seward: and Germans ought especially to honor him, for he has publicly declared, that, wherever the Germans go, it is their task to clear the way for liberty, and that the true Germanic spirit is the spirit of freedom and toleration. This man, who had been named as a Presidential candidate along with Lincoln, and even before, when he saw that Lincoln's chances were better than his own, resolved that there should be no split in the Republican vote, and became a most zealous agitator in Lincoln's behalf."

Weidmann paused, adding the remark that Prince Valerian, who was now leaving for his native land, would there find a similar state of transition.

The last remark was lost upon Manna, who said to Eric in an undertone,--

"Oh, our father! Do you not think that he will take part in this struggle?"

"I do; and that, too, we must bear."

The Prince departed. At the last moment, Lina and Eric had to sing, "We meet again." He deeply regretted that he could not take Knopf with him; but the latter had promised Lilian that he would come to America, and do something there. He did not specify what it was to be.

After the Prince had left, they drew closer together. Roland, Manna, and Eric were sitting in Roland's room when the latter said,--

"Manna, if it comes to war in our native land, I shall go there. I have decided, and no one can deter me."

The words were upon Manna's lips, "And what if our father is fighting on the other side?" but she checked herself, and only said,--

"If you go to the New World, I shall go with you."

"And then Eric will go too. I have talked with Herr Weidmann about it. He has consented; and the thing which he sanctions is, beyond question, right and safe. But I have promised him that I will not go until he says, 'Now is the time.'"

Manna was comforted. She saw that her brother's life was in safe keeping.

On their way home, Aunt Claudine expressed the general feeling, when she said,--

"It seems to me as if these days had been all music and feasting."

"Yes," cried Lina; "one could eat there enough for the whole year."

And they drove on their way laughing.

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XII. FETTERED HANDS UPLIFTED

The great law of our time, that of the unity of all existence, asserted itself with peculiar and perpetual force in the busy home at Mattenheim. A man of mature years had deliberately concentrated his thoughts upon the movement in the New World; and the destiny of a youth was bound up in the same.

Papers and despatches from America came thicker and faster.

They lived a twofold life, immersed in pressing and manifold business here, but intent, meanwhile, upon the sharp crisis so rapidly approaching in a remote quarter of the world.

Roland devoured the letters and journals in which the so-called slavery-question was discussed. Doctor Fritz wrote doubtfully of Lincoln. The man's nature was so simple, and his faith in men's goodness so thorough, that he feared he would not be decided enough with the chivalry of the South.

For the first time, Roland heard the slaveholders called chivalry; and Weidmann declared that it was no mere form of speech, but a perfectly explicit term. The slave-owners wanted to live merely for the nobler passions, as they were called: other men must toil for their subsistence, and even for their luxuries. This is the true feudal spirit, which looks upon labor as something humiliating and disgraceful, whereas, in reality, man's only true nobleness consists in labor.

Two books exercised a powerful influence upon Roland's mind. He read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for the first time, and wept over it, but presently roused himself, and asked,--

"How is this? Shall we point the scourged and oppressed to a reward in the next world, where the master will be punished and the slave elevated? But who can compensate him for the torment he has endured here? Is it not as it was with Claus? Who could indemnify him for the captivity he had to undergo before he was pronounced innocent?"

Very different was the effect produced upon the young man's mind by a book of Friedrich Kapp's, entitled "Slavery in America," which had grown up out of a dense mass of previously accumulated material, and, by a remarkable coincidence, appeared at precisely this time.

At first, Roland could not comprehend how it was possible for a man to give so clear and lifelike a picture of facts so revolting. When he came to the ensuing passage, he wept aloud.

"The owners of the slave-ships are almost always foreigners,--Spaniards, Portuguese, and, alas!" here followed a dash that was like a dagger to the reader,--"alas! even Germans."

Everywhere, by day and by night, Roland talked of what was agitating his soul; and, for the first time, he felt something like distrust of Benjamin Franklin. He learned, indeed, that Franklin was president of the Abolition Society in Philadelphia, but, also, that he, like the other great heroes of the American War for Independence, in his earnest desire for unanimity at the time the Union was founded, had trusted to the expectation that slavery would be extinguished within a lifetime by the mere increase of free labor.

This hope had proved deceptive, and Roland recalled with anguish that remark of Theodore Parker's,--

"All the great charters of humanity have been written in blood."

Often did Roland stand thoughtfully before a picture of Ary Scheffer's, which hung in the large sitting-room. It represented the adoration of Jesus; and there was a negro in it, stretching out his fettered arms toward the redeeming and consoling Saviour, with a most affecting expression. For two thousand years, this race had been extending its fettered hands toward the redemptive thought of mankind. Why had this lasted so long?

To Weidmann, Roland confessed what was weighing on his heart; and Weidmann succeeded in changing his sorrow into joy, that the time had now come in which these things would have an end. He was peculiarly severe upon those, who, like sentimental criminals, represent, sin and crime as evil, and yet say, "There is no help for it. So it has been, and so it must be."

Goethe's verses now occurred to Roland, and he repeated them to Weidmann, who said,--

"It is the free man's inherited privilege to see absolute perfection in no man. Like Goethe, the Americans boast in having no mediæval conditions to overcome; but they have inherited slavery, which many even declare to be the natural condition of the laboring classes."

Weidmann gave Roland, Abraham Lincoln's speech at the Cooper Institute in New York.

Roland was requested to read it aloud; but his voice choked, and his utterance was painfully agitated, when he came to the words,--

"Were we even to withhold our votes, Republicans, you may be sure the Democrats would not be satisfied. We could not stop there. We must leave off calling slavery a wrong, and justify it loudly and unconditionally; we must pull down our Free State Constitutions; the whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

"And since the Southerners pretend that slavery is a righteous institution, honorable to mankind, the logical inference is, that it ought universally to be recognized as a moral good and a social blessing, and everywhere introduced.

"Our sense of duty forbids such a thought. And, if so, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored,--contrivances such as seeking for some middle ground between the right and wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man,--such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care,--such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling not sinners but the righteous to repentance.

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us; nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and, in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Tears rose to Roland's eyes. He glanced up at the picture where the slave was stretching out his fettered hands; and within him rose the words, "Thou art free."

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XIII. IN THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD

"The bees we brought from Europe are flying out into the spring air," wrote Lilian from New York.

At Mattenheim, also, spring was close at hand. Out-door work became pressing; sunshine and hail followed one another in swift succession; but the buds were swelling, and verdure refreshed the eye. In the new shoots, or sleeping eyes, as they are called, choice grafts were set, that the tree henceforward might bear richer fruit. The same thing was to take place elsewhere.

One evening, when they were all together at Mattenheim, Weidmann read a letter from Doctor Fritz, in which he described the base league of the so-called Knights of the Golden Circle. A network of their societies extended over all the Southern States, and they had their accomplices even in the North.

They conducted a kind of criminal court by means of signs; and murders and secret executions without number were accomplished by their means.

He added that if one wanted to realize the entire range of man's capabilities, both for virtue and vice, he had but to offset against this band a character like Seward's.

While they were still pondering upon this intelligence, a letter with the royal seal arrived, containing expressions of high consideration for Weidmann, together with the Prince's request that he would inform young Sonnenkamp Banfield that no obstacle existed to his entering the military service, and that especial pains would be taken to show the young man, personally, all due regard.

"It cannot be," said Roland with a fixed look. "Too late!"

He expressed his gratitude, however, for the kindness of the Prince, and added with an accent of deep pain, that it was a comfort to know that the privilege of fellowship was restored to him.

"You shall have one of a different kind," said Weidmann. "You shall be received with your brother and friend, the Herr Captain, into our Order. Strictly speaking, you are too young; but we will show you how much we honor you."

In the evening, it rained steadily; and as Weidmann lay beside the window, gazing out upon the landscape, he called Roland to his side, and said,--

"These are pleasant hours, my son, in which we can look out of the window, and know that the rain is quickening and refreshing all things. A spirit who has awakened and refreshed the souls of many men, a benefactor who has renovated the being of numbers of his fellow-creatures, must experience in tranquil and elevated hours a similar joy. Rejoice that this happiness may be yours also. If I am not here to welcome you back from the war, know that I feel this on your behalf, and be thankful for it."

"Is the crisis, then, so near?"

"Yes. I have by me a letter from my nephew, and I tell you that the time has come."

Roland shuddered. He seized Weidmann's arm, and held it fast.

Weidmann continued,--

"My nephew writes, it is true, that they think the war will not last long; and that those who have enlisted hope to return to their homes in a few weeks. I think otherwise. You will be quite early enough for the great struggle. Rejoice that you are prepared for it beforehand."

Roland hastened to Eric; and the latter said,--

"Give me your hand, Roland: I go with you!"

Adams approached them with flashing eyes, and cried,--

"We will all go,--all."

They embraced one another, as though the world's deliverance had arrived.

They passed a sleepless night; and, on the morrow, Roland and Eric rode to the Villa. They made known their resolution, and Manna responded,--

"I shall go too."

But she gave Eric a look which was perfectly intelligible to him; for it said, "You approve, then, of the son's taking the field against the father."

Eric told her that he had sent by way of Paris a notice to the Confederate journal which Sonnenkamp had designated, couched in terms which he alone would understand, to the effect that Roland would join the land-forces of the Union, hoping that he should not encounter his father, who was probably in the naval service.

Eric found it difficult to restrain Roland, and to convince him that days must elapse before their departure. They went together to the Major, who said,--

"It is all right! Now you must join! Brother Weidmann told me long since that you were to be initiated before engaging in this philanthropic struggle. And now let me tell you that our bond is especially effective in war. You will receive a sign; and, if you make that sign, no enemy, even though his weapon were raised against you, can kill you face to face; and you cannot kill any one who gives you this sign. Yes, my dear brothers, I must begin to call you so, all the good in this world has been wrought by Freemasons; for those who have wrought it have all been Freemasons at heart, if not in reality. But I'll say no more. Brother Weidmann will tell you all. Now go! I must be off to the castle. It has come at last."

Once up at the castle, the Major wandered about, saying to himself, over and over again,--

"If the Builder of all the worlds will only suffer me to hold together! I want this and one thing more, and then I shall be satisfied!"

* * * * *

Men are coming and going; workmen are hammering; the Major's long cherished wish is fulfilled. There is to be a great Masonic celebration at the castle, and what a celebration! Eric, Roland, and Adams are to be received into the order.

From all the surrounding country, men came flocking to the castle. The Major went with Roland, the Architect with Adams, the Banker, who, with his daughter-in-law, was visiting at Villa Eden, accompanied Eric. At the castle, the three separated, and each was taken into a room by himself. Presently the Major came to Roland, and took away all the money and jewelry he had about him. Shortly after, men appeared who bandaged the eyes of each of the candidates. They were then conducted through long passages, up stairs and down, until they seemed to emerge into the open air. At last, they were told to stop, and sternly reproved for venturing to intrude here; but they remained firm.

Roland was comforted by the sound of Weidmann's voice, although it seemed to come from a great distance. The latter said that their being led blindfold by friends who saw, signified that they must learn to trust those who were pledged to afford them guidance and protection in life. Voices now called out, that it was time to removed the bandages.

"No," cried a powerful voice: "Roland, I cannot admit you."

Roland did not know this voice. What did it mean? What was required of him?

"Back, back! you stand on the brink of an abyss!" was shouted on all sides.

Roland's knees shook. The first voice continued,--

"Roland, are you ready to renounce all that you now possess, or will ever call your own, to become naked, poor, and helpless as you were by nature? Will you relinquish all your wealth, whether justly or unjustly acquired? Speak!"

"Speak, speak!" cried a chorus of voices. "Will you become poor?"

"Speak!" the voices repeated; and the question was asked for the third time, "Will you renounce all, and become naked, poor, and helpless?"

"No. I will not!"

A pause ensued: then Weidmann said in a re-assuring tone, "And why not?"

"Because it is not my duty, and I have no right to relinquish what was intrusted to me,--to transfer my responsibilities even to the highest and noblest. I am required myself to watch and work."

"Where is your obedience? Can you be a soldier, a fighter in the cause of humanity, and not obey? Do you know what obedience is?"

"I think I do. I am ordered, for my part of the great campaign, to hold a certain post, and I pledge my life that I will be faithful without knowing why I am stationed just there. This is a soldier's duty, as I understand it. But in life it seems to me different. What right have you, more than another, to say, 'Intrust your possessions to us, that we may dispose of them as we think fit'? Here I stand, with I know not whom about me: I only know the voice of my noble friend Weidmann, and him I trust: Wherever he is, I will take my place at his side, and stand there blindfold. My eyes are bandaged; but I can look within, and I know that I am in duty bound, according to my strength and my wisdom, with the free assistance of others, to make the best of my life and endowments; but I will not give myself and my life away blindfold. Take me back! Reject me if I am wrong; but I cannot do otherwise."

"Off with the bandages! Off with the bandages!" was now vociferated for the third time by the whole assembly.

The strains of an organ were heard in the distance. Roland's bandage was removed, and a veil thrown over his head, that he might not be dazzled by the light.

When the veil was removed, he stood with Eric on one side and Adams on the other.

Weidmann spoke the words of initiation; and Roland, kneeling, humbly took the oath, with Eric's hand resting on his right shoulder, and Adams's on his left. Swords clashed, and in the distance singing was heard with an organ accompaniment.

The powerful singer whom we heard at Herr Endlich's entertainment, and at Wolfsgarten, sang here in the arched hall a pathetic air in a rich bass voice; and all hearts were gently soothed.

Roland arose. Weidmann kissed him, and afterwards embraced his brother Eric on the right, and his brother Adams on the left. They received the signs; and the so-called sign of distress, in particular, moved Roland deeply.

Eric, Roland, and Adams were now led out of the hall, and received back their money and jewels, the Major remarking,--

"You did bravely, young--forgive me--my brother!"

On returning to the hall they all rose; and Weidmann, bidding Roland and Eric take Adams's hand, began as follows,--

"Here, while we clasp our dusky brother in our arms, you see what we are! Through the jubilations of our century, a sound pierces, which, in time to come, shall be heard no more: it is the sound of clashing chains, of the fetters wherewith our fellow-men have been bound. Henceforth, these chains shall be but an emblem, a melancholy symbol. We who are men, and who want to be men fully and entirely, we take one another by the hand, and form a living chain. My brothers, you will be told, and, perchance, will tell yourselves, that our Order is antiquated, without significance in these modern times; but I tell you it will never be antiquated, never insignificant, for they who are dedicated to the service of the free Spirit must ever hold one another in a living clasp.

"We know the deficiencies of our Order. It is a matter of great difficulty to found an association firmly upon a universal thought apart from any historical basis. This is our principal disadvantage as compared with the Church. Hence enthusiasts and hypocrites seek for an historical foundation; nevertheless, our Order is the stronghold of virtue; and its unity is doubly formidable in that it is a league of free men; for free men will not suffer themselves to be bound. Yet our league, were its name never mentioned, would have a most important bearing upon the solution of the social problem, as it is called, of which the slavery question is only a part. And it is the thing we want, not the name. No deliverance was ever wrought by mere calculation, and there can be no permanent effect produced without the co-operation of love. The lust of pleasure and the lust of gain would seem to be the essential characteristics of our time; yet I, and we all, proclaim aloud. Great is our century! Europe, with her ancient culture and her waning nobility, is endeavoring to lay all men under an obligation to labor: America and Russia, to render all labor free. Ever since I beheld the great millennial wave bearing down upon me, I have lived a new and happy life. I have been filled with holy confidence; and, all unseen, our league is working towards the same end.

"Two principles are contending in this world, egoism and humanity. We meet selfishness by benevolence. The more thou servest others in love, the freer art thou. The more thou givest of thyself, the richer art thou. To every man we say, 'First free thyself from servitude.' Great things in this world come from small beginnings. To every one of you and to myself I say, 'Begin by abolishing slavery in thyself!' We have all a slave within us, a slave to precedent, to inertia, to obsequiousness. Free this slave within, and then wilt thou be worthy to emancipate the slaves around thee. And now, my new brothers, consider this. As the signs of intelligence which you have received are not verbal, but visible, sensible motions, as our own mutual understanding supersedes and transcends speech, so is it with the idea of our Order. It is something older and broader than all single religious associations. We seek repose and peace in labor and trade. To our doctrine each may give his own private interpretation, as every man speaks in his own peculiar voice, which can never be exactly imitated. The deed alone, the free, righteous, noble deed, cannot be explained away, cannot be misunderstood, cannot be affected by any individual. Ours is a brotherhood of noble deeds."

Turning to Roland he said,--

"To you, my young brother, much has been given; and you must say with your brother here, so rich in intellectual gifts, and this your other brother, now armed for free labor, 'What I am, and what I have, I have not of myself, and so I have it not for myself.' Self-sacrifice is self-exaltation. Your own highest good is the good of the whole world. What you do, do not with the hope of reward from another; but be yourself your own reward. A revolution is now taking place in the minds of men, such as there must have been wrought when they first learned the fact of the motion of the planet on which we live. Mankind, who had always known slavery, and believed that its continuance was right, were long unable to conceive a different state of things; and it was thus with the authors of that great sacred book. I say, mankind could not conceive of labor as other than a disgrace, a curse pronounced upon the race. But now, not by any new and external revelation, but through a free and natural unfolding of knowledge, we are enabled to get beyond this view. A new age is beginning. Labor is no longer a disgrace, but an honor; no longer a curse, but a blessing. No formal religion can sanctify labor; for it belongs not to the other world, but eternally to this. Were a medal to be struck to commemorate our century, it should bear upon the face the symbol of free labor, and upon the reverse, that of the love of nature. Neither has yet been represented by art. Our idea has not yet attained to many-hued loveliness, and to a picturesque variety; for philanthropy is colorless like pure light. Walk therefore in the light, and die for the love of your kind. You have lived in the light; live ever so, and in the eternal ideas of self-sacrifice and brotherly love."

Deeply moved, Eric made a brief reply. Roland, too, was called upon, but could only say,--

"My brother and teacher has expressed all that I feel."

Adams also offered a few words. He would try to show himself worthy the honorable brotherhood which had been conferred upon him.

The three now seated themselves in the ranks of the brotherhood, and took part in the transaction of some urgent and existing business.

With ready and practised eloquence, the Major's host, the Grand Master, informed them that the Pope had condemned all Masonic leagues; and he read a protest to be adopted by the present lodge.

Weidmann asked if any brother desired to offer any comment, and the Doctor came forward, and said,--

"I move the rejection of this protest, and also the open acknowledgment of that notoriously false principle with which we are reproached in the bull of excommunication. I find Masonry as wordy at home as it is dastardly abroad; for dastardly it is, not to be perfectly open. It is all true! We recognize and acknowledge man to be morally complete, independent of any positive church; not necessarily hostile to the church, but independent of it. But this prevaricating, and ducking under ecclesiastical phrases, this spiritless sailing under false colors,"--

"A little less vehemently, if you please," observed Weidmann.

Quietly, but firmly, the Doctor continued:

"I move that the protest be rejected."

The Grand Master gazed helplessly about. He, with all his honors on his head, bring forward a proposition, and not have it accepted!--

The Doctor at length begged Eric, as one not yet bound by the traditions prevailing here, to explain his meaning more precisely.

Eric arose and said, that, though strongly inclined to agree with the Doctor, he was not quite sure where right lay. He could only permit himself to quote the words of a noble spirit now passed away. Clodwig had seen, as in a vision upon his death-bed, the combatants of the present day dividing into two hostile camps, one of which rallied around the Pope, the other around the standard of free thought. A third party, agreeing partly with the former, and partly with the latter, he thought impossible.

The protest was rejected; but the Doctor's proposition, openly to acknowledge the justice of the Papal animadversions, was also set aside. At the close of the celebration the brethren sat down to a banquet. Roland was once more welcomed by the Banker with peculiar heartiness.

The youth asked the Major in a low voice, why Professor Einsiedel and Knopf were not members of the order.

"They are natural members of the association," answered the Major.

As they left the castle by the light of the full moon, Roland said to the Major,--

"To have lived a day like this makes death seem easy."

"I say with Claus," answered the Major, "we won't look for death till the very last."

And so their high-strung mood passed over into merriment.

On the following morning, the Major begged for the Banker's advice on a matter bearing decisively upon his life; and in which the Banker could assist him more than any one else.

The Banker declared himself ready to render any assistance.

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XIV. A VOLUNTARY SACRIFICE AND A FULFILMENT OF DESTINY

Flowers of all sorts were blooming in the conservatories, buds upon the artistically trained espalier trees were opening, and the park was resounding with songs of the birds, restlessly chirping and flying about at this time of wooing and mating.

Never before had Eric enjoyed the dawn of spring so intensely as now. He was filled with the joy of love, and the heavy burdens which Fate had laid upon him seemed like an accident, a dream, which he could all at once shake off.

Early in the morning he would stroll in the park; a peculiar feeling of joyousness would come over him at the thought that Spring would soon reign over this, his own estate. Why should not these trees, these meadows, these plantations put on new bloom and verdure, now that they were his? And while wondering whether it would really ever be his lot to pass here an industrious and peaceful life, he could not free himself from a feeling of compassion for Sonnenkamp. The man had planted and fostered all this--where was he now?

Manna and the Professorin were walking with the Banker's daughter-in-law, who had been drawn thither by her desire to know Roland's sister, and her much praised mother-in-law. The three ladies had quickly formed a league of friendship, based on the foundation of a fine and liberal culture. Yet, though the inmates of the Villa were so happy together, each one harbored the restless longing to depart.

The ladies entered the conservatory.

A wave of aromatic perfumes floated towards them, and flowed around them. Their eyes were refreshed by the thousand hues of the newly-opened blossoms.

The Professorin spoke of the rest she should find in watching over the culture of these plants.

Manna expressed her intention of devoting herself, in the days that were to come, to botany, both theoretical and practical. The Banker's daughter-in-law promised soon to do the same.

With a feeling of pleasurable excitement, they sat in the green-house, where to-day, for the first time, the great windows had been opened. Manna sent for her harp, and they found that the Banker's daughter-in-law could sing several songs of which the harpist knew the accompaniment. It was an hour filled with the pure joy of existence, untroubled by one thought of the past, by one anxiety for the morrow.

Manna had caused a beautiful myrtle-tree to be placed on the table, wishing to weave from its boughs a crown for Lina, whose marriage was to be solemnized almost immediately. As she sat thus, with the blooming branches before her, Weidmann entered, and said joyously,--

"This tree bears leaves and blossoms enough for threefold bridal wreaths, and I hope they will be worn."

Then he told them that he came as the Major's ambassador, to summon the ladies' attention to the story of Fräulein Milch.

The Major came in with the Fräulein, who, casting a strange look at the Banker's daughter-in-law, said,--

"You are to be present too."

The Major, having called thither the Banker and Professor Einsiedel, declared his readiness to yield to the instance of his friends, and reside at the Villa, in order to superintend and keep everything in good condition; but only with the stipulation that Fräulein Milch should at last be released from her vow; stating that she was ready, after having related her life-history, to submit to the verdict of their friends, the Banker and the Professor.

"Another story!" moaned the Professor. He dreaded the idea of pronouncing a judgment which was wholly without results, as in the case of Sonnenkamp.

The Major, however, begged so urgently that he consented, and Fräulein Milch began:--

"You, Herr Professor, are just like my father, and yet you are very different! He, too, was a learned man, but in a very different sphere.

"You have many of his habits, and, if you accompany me to the altar, it will seem as though my father were with me, although you are much younger. And you, my friends,--you, Frau Professorin, who have honored me before knowing my life, and you, Fräulein Manna, who, after conquering a strong prejudice, have given me your rich love,--you shall now be made really acquainted with me. But you (turning to the Banker), you will best be able to pass sentence upon me; for you are a Jew, as I am a Jewess."

All were astounded.

Fräulein Milch waited quietly until her auditors had recovered from their amazement, then continued:--

"I am the daughter of a learned Hebrew, and an only daughter. I had one brother, of whom we shall hear later. My father was a noble and pious man; he was considered a scholar of great discernment, with fine polemical gifts; but in life he was childishly simple and--why should I not say it?--shiftless. He read the sacred books from morning till night.

"My mother sprang from a wealthy house, had once been blessed in early childhood by the hands of Moses Mendelssohn; from this it was predicted that she would one day marry a man of great knowledge. This proved true. According to the will of her parents she became the wife of my father, on account of his piety and learning.

"Such was the way in which the opulent Israelites formerly exhibited their gratitude and respect for a learned man of their faith, as the Christians bestowed gifts upon the convents. The Jews could found no establishments. They had no protection; all their goods were movable, and thus they devoted a portion of their wealth to the support of our scientific men.

"My mother's whole being was absorbed in her adoration of my father. The quiet and uniformity of life; the calm content which reigned in my parental abode; how the poor were fed; how our entire existence was nought save the pause between one pious deed and another, between one festival and another, no one present can know but you (turning towards the Banker), you alone can conceive of it. I myself often recall it as a dream. In winter, when my father was unable to go out, the community came to my father, to unite together in prayer in his study, and, while a little child, I used to hear much discourse on worldly events.

"What did we know of the world?

"The world belonged to the officials outside, to the soldiers. They were, in our eyes, beings moving in a fabulous realm, into which we could never enter.

"My brother, who was a handsome man--he resembled Herr Dournay--formed a friendship with a young drummer named Grassler, who was billetted in our house. We were all made perfectly happy by the reverence which this youth showed towards my father, whom he regarded as a saint, and by his gentleness and timidity when in his presence. I yet remember, as though it were but yesterday, how I stood on the steps, turning round and round with my hand one of the knobs of the balustrade, when the drummer said to me:--

"'Yes, Rosalie, when you are grown up, and I have become an officer, I will come back and take you away with me.'

"He went away drumming; but I kept hearing those strange words in the sound of the drum, and still stood on the steps, twirling the knob, while the whole world seemed to whirl with me. But I beg pardon, I am growing too prolix."

"No, go into details as much as you like."

"But I cannot," replied Fräulein Milch. "Well, then, they went to the war. My brother fell. Conrad came back. He had become an ensign, and he brought back to my father my brother's little prayer-book, its cover and leaves pierced by a ball. My father and my mother and I sat on the ground, mourning for seven days. Conrad came and sat with us: he honored our foreign observances.

"Father seated himself again among his sacred books; but, whereas he used formerly to read with a low, humming sound, he now spoke the words aloud and with violence. He seemed obliged to put a constraint upon his thoughts, which would go out after his son.

"Time gradually healed our wounds. My brother had long been at rest in his grave,--who can say where? Conrad had returned to his home. I was seventeen. It was on Easter eve; we had solemnized the Passover, and my father discoursed much on the liberation from servitude, in commemoration of which we keep Easter, and lamented the oppression beneath which we were sighing still. He loved Jesus heartily and warmly, and only bewailed unceasingly the misuse of his name as an authority for the misery into which we, members of his race, were plunged. That night I heard him say that our great and wise Rabbi, Moses ben Maimon, had taught that Jesus had overthrown heathen idolatry; that he was not Messias, but his fore-runner!

"It was late at night ere we went to rest. I slept in a room adjoining that of my parents. Thus I heard my father say to my mother:--

"'How wretched we Jews are! there is that splendid man, so loyal, so good-hearted, Conrad Grassler, returned. He has worked his way up to a captaincy, and retired on a major's pension, and now here he comes and asks for our Rosalie. If the good man were only of our faith, if he were a Jew, how gladly would I give him my child! I could not desire a better husband for her; but, as it is, it cannot be, and God forgive my sin in thinking of it!'

"I heard this from my chamber, and that night, though I was still under my parents' roof, my spirit was already far away, out into the wide world, where the officers lived, and the soldiers, and those who owned it.

"Father had nothing against Conrad if it had not been for that one thing. A voice within me repeated this all night long. And in the morning, while my father and mother were in the synagogue, I sat alone with my prayer-book. See this little prayer-book. It is a devotional manual for women, composed by my father--but my thoughts were not upon it. How still it was! I was alone in the house. No one was to be seen in the streets, for the whole community was at the synagogue. I seated myself in the middle of the room; I did not wish to look out of the window; Conrad would surely be passing by.

"But how did he look? How wonderful that he had kept that promise made to me in my childhood! What had he become? How would I seem to him?

"Then, I cannot tell how it was, but as I was standing at the window, looking out, I saw Conrad, grown into a noble-looking man. I withdrew from the window, but then, came footsteps on the stairway, and my heart throbbed as though it would burst. Conrad stood alone in the world; he is a military orphan."

A smile passed round the circle of listeners, and Fräulein Milch went on:--

"I told Conrad what my father had said to my mother, the night before. I could give him up for my parents' sake; but he was not in duty bound to renounce me, and I had not the right to relinquish for him, and it was settled that I should elope with him.

"My father returned from the synagogue, and I have never felt a heavier sorrow than when he laid his hand in blessing on my head, as is the custom with us. I would not disturb the joy of the feast, and not until it was ended--oh! I ruined the joy of his whole life! There were no more feasts for him--did I flee with Conrad. I persuaded myself that my father would give us his blessing, when he should see that it could not be otherwise. We wrote to him, but he did not answer. He sent us word, through a friend, that he had had two children, who were dead, and for whom he earnestly prayed that it might be well with them in the other world. And one word more he sent me,--'Thou seekest honor before the world, and for honor hast thou forsaken thy father.' I wrote back protesting with a solemn oath that I had wished to obtain no earthly honor through Conrad, promising to clothe myself with humiliation and shame in the eyes of the world, and that oath I have kept until the present day.

"Conrad soon received tidings of my mother's death, and my father followed her in a few months. I inherited a small fortune, and we went to the Rhine. Down below, yonder, we lived twelve years in a little lower Rhenish village, hidden from all the world, happy in each other. We needed nothing from the world but ourselves. Conrad wished constantly to marry me; but I had vowed to robe myself in ignominy during the whole period of my existence. We might have been united here by civil contract. That, too, I refused. I used to attend church, impelled by the desire to pray in common with my fellow human beings. I had my quiet corner, and while the organ was pealing, and a divine service different from my own was being solemnized, I would sit alone and pray out of the prayer-book which my father had composed, and from the other, which my brother had had on the field of battle, and which had rested on his heart till it beat no more. I was in the church and was no stranger, for there were people beside me, praying after another fashion, but to the same Spirit which I also invoke, and this Spirit will know and explain why men turn themselves to him in such different ways. Now I believe I may revoke my sentence of self-excommunication."

"You may, you must," said the Banker, speaking first, and rising as he spoke. The Professorin rose and embraced the narrator.

"Well, then, will you hear the close, too?" resumed Fräulein Milch. All were still, and she proceeded:--

"We came hither. How I have lived here, you know. At our change of residence, Conrad expressed his wish for a formal union, but I preferred not to be called Frau Majorin; it was to me a constant penance and chastisement for my faithlessness to my parents and my desertion of all my people. Now we lived in faithfulness, in oneness, without any formal tie. Thus we have lived, and now it is fulfilled."

"I shall go with you to the wedding," cried the Professor and Weidmann.

But the latter now took Manna's hand, saying:--

"Do you know for whom is the third bridal wreath which shall be woven from this myrtle-tree?"

Manna trembled, and he went on:--

"It is for you. You have struggled and waited. Help me, Frau Dournay."

The Mother, too, took Manna's hand. The Major, hastening out, came back bringing Eric, to whom, on their way, he said a great many things mixed up in strange confusion.

The following day saw the three couples united, and no one can say who were the happiest. Manna and Eric, the Major and Fräulein Milch, or Lina and the Architect.

Rooms were fitted up in the castle, and there Manna and Eric were to pass the first days of their marriage.

They were sitting at the wedding-feast, which had been tastefully arranged under the direction of Joseph, who was himself betrothed. Manna and Eric had helped him to buy an inn at the capital, and he had plighted his troth to the daughter of mine host of the Victoria. Now, however, he had returned of his own accord, and was the servant of the house as formerly.

Very modestly did Knopf bring forward three different poems which he had composed for the triple wedding; into these he had skilfully interwoven all sorts of little occurrences, to the amusement of all.

Eric whispered to Manna, as he sat by her side: "I am glad that I have already danced with you. I feel as though I must now whirl round with you in the dance, and forget everything. But I must hush: our good teacher is about to speak."

Einsiedel arose, with a smile upon his face, saying with sparkling eyes: "Come hither, you children of the Rhine, and I will teach you something. My pupil, here, Dr. Dournay, knows it, I shall only remind him of it; but to you I must say it:--

"All my theologies tell us of immortal gods; but they are not immortal by nature, they are only so by the divine drink, by means of nectar, wine, and mead: these are the potions which give eternal life; and, floating in the clouds, and drinking from the clouds, the deities become immortal, and with them the inspired breath of arisen souls. Yes, it is by drinking! Look here, see how the sun shines in this glass, and here the lightning is embosomed, the primitive life-fire. We drink, and are immortal, like the gods. And this is my desire! Drink always a drop of this divine draught from the ocean of ether, the spirit-sea, which undulates and floats over the world. Then you will be forever happy and immortal."

Evening came, and Manna and Eric went hand in hand to the castle.

The moon stood over the stream, bathing with trembling light tree and bush, where the buds were gently bursting and the nightingale unweariedly singing. The world was flooded with bliss.

For three days they remained alone at the castle, and on the third evening they came down again to Villa Eden.

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XV. A JOYOUS FAREWELL, AND HUMBOLDT'S BLESSING ON THE JOURNEY

In the Carp Inn was a noisy hubbub. The Cooper, as young host, was merrily pouring the wine, and both fathers, the Screamer and the Sevenpiper, looked on delightedly, often clinking their ribbed glasses.

It was known throughout the whole region that the Cooper was a confidant of Roland and Eric. Now came the young men from all sides, wishing to be enrolled for the American war; there was even a deputation appeared from Weidmann's cement factory, begging for the passage-money for thirty-two men.

The Cooper had given information of what was going forward to Roland, who was highly excited by the news.

Now has come a use for his wealth. He would raise a regiment with which he would go to America. They would land, and the columns would march at once.

Eric, too, felt a great interest the carrying out of this plan, but Weidmann opposed it stoutly, affirming that we had no right to withdraw from Germany the strength needed for her development.

This objection was of no avail; but another remonstrance was decisive. He told Roland that President Lincoln would be absolutely obliged to take a step further,--he must arm the negroes. Then it might be Roland's part to give pecuniary assistance, and it would be far grander that the negroes themselves should fight for their own liberation and for that of their brethren.

Roland had been before the court, where he had been declared of age; he now came into the Carp Inn, where all were full of astonishment when the young man informed them that he should only take with him three young physicians--the Banker had undertaken the expenses of one of the three--that he should engage no one else, as the negroes themselves must fight for their liberty.

He went back to Villa Eden, accompanied by Claus. There lived the Major.

He also made a wedding-tour, with the Frau Majorin. They stopped awhile in that part of the garden called Nice.

They went through the park and ascended the hill, where there was a view down the Rhine. The Major said in a tone of supreme satisfaction:--

"Now, Frau Majorin, here we are, on the highest mountain in Switzerland."

And at the lake he said:--

"Frau Majorin, will you have the goodness to admire the Lago Maggiore?"

They went through the conservatories, and the Major declared that the world had collected here its most beautiful show of flowers, in order to spare them the great annoyance of travelling. He besought his wife to excuse him if he did not show her the devotion of a newly married husband during the following days. So much had yet to be provided before the departure of the new knights of the Brotherhood.

There were, indeed, so many things to be settled, that Eric was at last obliged to entrust much that was essential to Weidmann and the Justice. Before he could start, he must obtain his discharge, as he was in the reserve corps. The reply to his application was, that the Prince desired a personal interview. He was obliged to go to the city, and was not a little surprised by the gracious and complimentary expressions of the Prince. He said that he was not willing to give such a man his discharge, but he would grant him leave of absence for an indefinite time.

Eric's pride, however, was very soon humbled, for the Prince hinted that Eric, now made the possessor of so much wealth, had better remain in the country.

During his stay in the city, officers also came to Eric, offering either to accompany or to follow him to America.

Eric positively declined all such offers.

Joseph the valet came with his betrothed. Means had been given him to set up an inn of his own in the capital, but he conducted himself like a servant of the house.

Fassbender's son, who had been working in the Banker's office, was going to the New World, wishing to engage in the occupation of his brother, who was an influential building-contractor. In compliance with the urgent request of Claus, he took with him a great quantity of birds, by which means he was to establish a regular bird-trade with the Old World.

The deaf-mute from the cement factory, to whom Roland had given a knife, came on the eve of their departure, bringing him a mug, on which was marked in very clumsy letters: "Comeback."

Roland made permanent provision for the care of the forsaken youth.

It was very hard for Roland to take leave of the horses and dogs. He had wished to take Griffin with him, but gave up the idea when the difficulties of so doing were represented to him. Laying his hand on the dog's head, he said:--

"My old friend, I can't take you with me; I must leave much more than you behind me. I don't myself know how it will end. Just stay quietly here, and wait till I come back."

The dog looked up sadly at his master.

On the morrow there was a great pilgrimage from the Villa to the steamboat-landing.

They sent the carriages on before. Weidmann walked with Eric, holding his hand, the Major with Roland, and Knopf with the negro. Manna walked between the Professorin and the Major's wife. The Aunt and Professor Einsiedel had remained behind at the Villa. Roland wept; and Manna, weeping also, leaned on the arms of those who led her. Looking up at the churchyard, she said:--

"On the bank of this river we are at home: here rests our mother in the earth. I remember an old saying, but where it came from I do not know:--

"'The nomadic races wander and wander; but where they have dug a grave for one of their number, there they must finally remain.'"

Her voice failed her. After a time she went on:--

"There stand the trees which father planted."

Tears choked all further utterance.

Arrived at the landing, they found a great assemblage of people. Claus kept laughing and nodding, having made a merry night of it at the Carp, wishing to have one more good time before he went forth into the wide world.

The Cooper, now landlord of the Carp, and the Sevenpiper presented, in behalf of a large number of donors, a keg of virgin wine, crowned with fresh garlands.

Now the Screamer became animated, and speedily reckoned up what would be the daily portion of each of the travellers until their arrival in New York. It would be at least two bottles apiece; and he instantly tendered his services in despatching the virgin wine, as probably Eric would not drink his whole share, and perhaps Roland too would fall short.

The Gauger told in doleful fashion how the voyagers would to-day have the good luck of travelling with a young married couple, for the steamboat which was coming was called the "Beethoven," and the steward of the "Beethoven" had married the "Lorelei."

Eric and Manna sat by their mother, holding her hand; and she said to them consolingly:--

"Eric, spare your life; but should you fall in the great cause, I shall mourn, but I will not bewail your loss."

"Mother, I am confident of returning home alive out of this struggle; and yet, if I should fall, mother, be steadfast: I have lived the highest life, through you, through my father's, and through my Manna's, love."

The Mother silently pressed his hand.

Now came the Doctor and the Justice with their wives, and Lina with her husband. The Doctor put the finishing touch by imparting the intelligence, agitating to all, that Pranken had entered the Papal army.

Weidmann was much moved by this news; he exhorted Eric to keep uppermost in his thoughts, even above the grief of parting, the wonderful way in which all this had come to pass: Pranken there and he here. He expatiated on this with emphasis, and succeeded in his intention of dispelling personal sorrow by the consideration of universal views. That which this man and this youth had done in accordance with their own choice and the leadings of destiny, that was no longer at the disposal of their own individual free will, but was absorbed into, and had become a part of the great whole.

And now the real mirthfulness of Rhenish life began to display itself. The glee-club made its appearance with a band of music, and clear songs rang out from the pretty and graceful steamer which now came down the stream. The cannon were fired; the boat stopped; and hurried partings were made. Eric, Manna, and Roland kissed the Mother, who cried:--

"Be faithful to the end."

They were soon on board.

The steamer had pushed off, when a cry was heard. The dog Griffin had broken loose from the Cooper's hold upon his collar, sprung into the Rhine, and was swimming after the boat. She stopped once more; the dog was hoisted out of the water and taken along with them.

The party on shore waved their farewell signals, and were answered from the boat, as long as they could see each other; but for a long time after this, the gaze of the departing ones lingered on the Villa.

What will become of the house? What shall they be when they return? What kind of life will there be established?

As Manna stood leaning on Eric, something came softly up to them.

The dogs, Rose and Thistle, had forced their way aboard. Roland, who had likewise been standing lost in thought, suddenly brightened up, for Griffin was also with them.

And now they had a fresh surprise. No one had noticed that the Major had not been among those who had bid them goodbye. He now emerged from the cabin with his wife. He was now making his wedding tour, and accompanied the wanderers as far as the Lower Rhine. It seemed as if they had with them a goodly portion of the home.

There was music on board, and the Major soon brought up the steward and stewardess, to whom he introduced himself and his wife, and Eric and Manna, as newly-married couples.

"Yes," said he to Eric, "you know I have been a drummer. I'll tell you the story some time or other. Yes, when you come back you shall have it."

At the station before the Island, the Major and wife disembarked. Here they had dwelt in the first days of their union, and here they wished to be again for a day, and to show themselves as married people to those who had then been friendly toward them. The Major still waved his hand from the row-boat, and strove to show a cheerful countenance, but the tears ran down his cheeks, and as he bent over the side of the skiff, they flowed into the Rhine.

Silently they glided on, and, as they passed the Cloister Island, a flock of white doves were winging their way over it. The nightingales were singing so loud as to be heard, in spite of the continual plash of the paddle-wheels. The children of the Island were walking along the shore, two by two, and singing.

Manna sighed deeply, and wafted a greeting over to them.

No one imagined, who was passing by, away, away to the New World.

When, at evening, the vessel stopped for the night, Eric remembered a sheet of paper which Weidmann had given him. He read it. It contained words from the close of Humboldt's Cosmos:--

"There are some races more civilized, more highly ennobled by culture than others, but there are no races nobler by nature. All are equally destined for freedom."

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