V. THE GOOD COMRADE…

V. THE GOOD COMRADE

The Major lived in a beautifully situated house in the vineyard of a rich vintner from the fortress, or rather, to use the proper expression, of a brother of the order, for the central point of the Major's life rested firmly, in Freemasonry, and he cherished it within his life and thought, as his holy of holies; and if men talked of the riddles of life, his face always said,--I see no mystery, all is clear to me; only come to us, we have an answer to everything.

The small house which the Major inhabited was attached to the large mansion; one side looked toward the highroad, and the other commanded a view of the river and the mountains beyond. The Major confined himself strictly to his little house, and his own special little garden with its arbor. He watched over the larger dwelling and its garden, like a castellan, but he never lived there, and often did not enter them for the many months during which they stood empty.

Eric found the Major in his little garden, smoking a long pipe and reading the newspaper, with a cup of cold coffee before him. An exceedingly neat-looking old lady, with a large white cap, was sitting opposite, engaged in darning stockings; she rose as soon as Eric entered the garden, and hardly waited to be presented. The Major touched his cap in military fashion, and took the long pipe from his mouth.

"Fräulein Milch, this is my comrade, Herr Doctor Dournay, lately Captain."

Fräulein Milch courtesied, took up her basket of stockings, and went into the house.

"She is good and sensible, always contented and cheerful; you will become better acquainted," said the Major, as she withdrew; "and she understands men,--no one better,--she looks them through and through. Sit down, comrade, you have come just at my pleasantest hour. You see, this is the way I live: I have nothing particular to do, but I get up early,--it prolongs life,--and every day I gain a victory over a lazy, effeminate fellow, who has to take a cold bath, and then go to walk; he often doesn't want to, but he has to do it. And then, you see, I come home, and sit here in the morning:--and here is a white cloth spread on the table, and before me stand a pot of coffee, good cream, a roll--butter I don't eat. I pour out my coffee, dip in the roll which is so good and crisp--I can still bite well, Fräulein Milch keeps my teeth in order--then at the second cup, I take my pipe and puff out the smoke over the world, and over the world's history, which the newspaper brings me every day. I still have good eyes, I can read without spectacles, and can hit a mark; and I can hear well, and my back is still good; I hold myself as straight as a recruit--and look you, comrade, I am the richest man in the world. And then at noon I have my soup--nobody makes soup like her--my bit of good roast meat, my pint of wine, my coffee--with four beans she makes better coffee than any one else can with a pound--and yet it has happened to me a thousand times to have to sing this song to the fellow sitting here: You are the most ungrateful fellow in the world, to be cross as you often are, and wish for this and that which you have not. Only look round you; see how nice and neat everything is,--good bread, a good arm-chair, a good pipe and so much good rest,--you are the happiest man in the world to have all this. Yes, my dear comrade, you may be deucedly learned--I beg pardon--I mean, you may be very learned--look you--I never studied, I never learned anything, I was a drummer--I'll tell you about it sometime--yes, comrade--what was I saying? ah, that's it, you know a thousand times more than I do, but one thing you can learn of me. Make the best of life; now's the time, be happy now, enjoy yourself now, this hour won't come back again. Don't always be thinking about to-morrow. Just draw a long breath, comrade--there, what sort of air is that? is there better anywhere?--and then we have our nice, clean clothes on!--Ah, thank the Builder of all the worlds!--Yes, comrade, if I had had any one, when I was your age, to tell me what I'm telling you--Pooh, pooh!--What an old talker I am--I'm glad you've come to see me!--Well, how do you get on? Are you really going to drill our boy? I think you are the right man to do it, you will bring him into line--you know, comrade, what that means--only a soldier can do that. Only a soldier can school men. Nothing but strict discipline!--I'll warrant, he'll come out right--he'll do well--Fräulein Milch has always said, 'He'll come out right, if he only falls into the right hands.' The school-masters are all of no use; Herr Knopf was very worthy and good-hearted, but he didn't hold the reins tight. Thank the Builder of all the worlds, now it's all right!--Thank you for coming to see me. If I can help you, remember that we are comrades. It's very fortunate that you have been a soldier. I have always wished--Fräulein Milch can testify that I've said a hundred times, none but a soldier will do!--Now let us make a soldier of Roland, a true soldier, he has courage, he only wants the training!"

"I should like," answered Eric, "if I really have the position--"

"Really have the position? There's no doubt about it, I tell you--Pooh, pooh; I'll wager something on that. But, I ask your pardon, I won't talk any more--what were you going to say, comrade?"

"I think we ought not to train him for any special calling; Roland must be a cultivated, wise, and good man, whatever his profession may prove to be--"

"Just so, just so--excellently said--that's right--the fellow has given me much anxiety! How foolish people are, to hanker after millions. When they get them, all they can do is to eat their fill and sleep eight hours, that's all any one can do. The chief point is--" here the Major lowered his voice, and raised his hand--"the chief point is, he must return to nature; that is all the world needs--to return to nature."

Eric luckily abstained from asking the Major what he precisely meant by this mysterious proposition, for the Major would, unfortunately, not have been able to tell him; but he was fond of the phrase, and always used it, leaving every one to find out the meaning for himself.

"To return to nature, everything is included in that," he repeated.

After a while he began:--

"Yes, what was I going to ask?--Tell me, did not you have a great deal to bear as a soldier, because you were a commoner and not a noble?"

Eric answered in the negative, and the Major stammered out,--

"Indeed, indeed--you--a liberally educated man, felt less of it. I asked for my discharge. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Eric mentioned that he had been at the priest's, and the Major said,--

"He is an excellent man, but I call for no aid of the ecclesiastics. You know I am a Freemason."

Eric assented, and the Major continued: "Whatever is good in me has its home in that; we will talk farther of it--I will be your god-father. Ah, how glad Herr Weidmann will be to know you."

And again, at the mention of Weidmann's name, it seemed as if a beautiful view of the highest mountains of the landscape was brought before the mind. The Major resumed:--

"But now as to the ecclesiastics. Look"--he drew his chair a little nearer--"look at my drum, it's all there in that--look you, I was a drummer--yes, smile away, if you like--look you, everybody says such a drum makes nothing but racket, and I tell them there's music in it, as beautiful as--I won't disparage any one--as beautiful as any other--look you, then, I say,--mark my words--then I say, 'I will not quarrel with you if you hear nothing but noise, but don't quarrel with me, if I hear something else.' Look you, I have thought it all over, everything else will be made by machinery, men are very clever, but drum and trumpet-signals can not be made by machinery, human hands and mouths are needed for that; I was a drummer, for example, I'll tell you about it. Look you, I know by the sound what sort of a heart a man has, when he beats a drum; where you, my brother, hear nothing but noise and confusion, I hear music and deep meaning. Therefore, for God's sake, no strife about religions; one is worth as much or as little as another, they only lead the march; but the main thing is, how every man marches for himself, how he has drilled himself, and what sort of a heart he has in his body."

Eric was amused by the eccentricity of this man, who had a deep earnestness and moral freedom peculiar to himself.

Standing his pipe near him, the Major asked,--

"Is there any human being in the world whom you hate, at the sight of whom the heart in your body gives a twist?"

Eric answered in the negative, and said that his father had always impressed it upon him, that nothing injured one's own soul like hatred; and that for his own sake, a man ought not to let such a feeling take root within him.

"That's the man for me! that's the man for me!" cried the Major. "Now we shall get on together. Whoever has had such a father is the man for me!"

He then told Eric that there was a man in the village whom he hated: he was the tax-collector, who wore the St. Helena medal given by the present Napoleon to the veterans, for the heroic deeds in which they had taken part in the subjugation of their fatherland. "And would you believe it!" exclaimed the Major, "the man has had himself painted with the St. Helena medal; the portrait hangs framed in his room of state, and under it, in a separate frame, the diploma signed by the French minister. I don't bow to the man, nor return his bow, nor sit down at the same table with him; he has a different principle of honor from, mine. And tell me, ought there not to be some way of punishing such men? I can only do it by showing my contempt; it is painful to me, but must I not do it?"

The old man looked much astonished when Eric represented to him that the man ought to be judged mildly, since vanity had great powers to mislead, and besides, many governments had been well pleased to have their subjects win the St. Helena medal, and the man, who was in the service of the State, was not to be sentenced without hearing.

"That's good! that's good!" cried the old Major, nodding frequently, according to his habit; "you are the right kind of teacher! I am seventy years old, that is, I am seventy-three now, and I've known many men, and let people say what they will, I have never known a bad man, one really bad. In passion, and stupidity, and pride, men do much that's wrong; but, good God! one ought to thank his heavenly Father that he isn't such as he might very often have become. Thank you; thank you: you have lifted the enemy from my neck;--yes, from my neck; he has sat there, heavy and--look, here comes the man himself!"

The collector was walking by the garden; the Major went to the hedge with many nods and gestures of his hand; he hoped, perhaps, that the man would utter the first greeting; but as this did not happen, he suddenly called out, with a voice like the explosion of a bomb,--

"Good-morning, Herr Collector!"

The man returned his salutation and went on. The old Major was entirely happy, and passed his hand several times over his heart, as if a stone or burden were removed from it. Fräulein Milch looked out of the window, and the Major asked her to come out, as he had something very good to tell her. She came, looking still neater than before, having put on a white apron, in which the ironed folds were still fresh. The Major told her that the collector was not to blame, for he had received the St. Helena medal only in obedience to the government.

They went together to the house, and the Major showed his guest the rooms where simple neatness reigned; then he looked at the barometer, and nodded, saying to himself, "Set fair."

Then he looked at the thermometer screwed up by the window, and wiped his forehead, as if he had not felt till then how hot it was.

A shot was heard in the distance, and the Major pointed out to Eric the direction whence the sound came, saying,--

"I can hear the gun-practice from the fortress. I find that the rifle-cannon have just the same sound as the smooth-bore. Ah, comrade, you must instruct me in the new art of war. I don't know anything about it, but when I hear them firing down there, all the soldier in me wakes up."

He asked Fräulein Milch to bring a bottle of wine, one of the very best. Fräulein Milch seemed to have it all ready; she brought bottle and glasses directly, but gave the Major a significant look, which he understood, and answered:--

"Don't be afraid; I know very well that I can't drink in the morning. Pray, captain, give me your cork-screw. I take you to be the right sort of man, and the right sort of man always has a cork-screw in his pocket."

Smiling, Eric handed him his knife, which was fitted with a cork-screw.

While the Major was opening the bottle, he said,--

"And another mark of a genuine man is, that he can whistle. Comrade, be so kind as to whistle once for me."

Laughter prevented Eric from drawing up his lips. The bottle was uncorked, and they drank to good comradeship. The Major said,--

"Perhaps we are in better spirits here, than our friend Sonnenkamp in his grand villa. But Herr captain, I say again, an elephant is happy, and a fly is happy too; only the elephant has a larger proboscis than the fly."

The Major laughed till he shook with delight at his comparison, and Eric found the laughter contagious, and as often as they looked at each other, the laughter began afresh.

"You show me the meaning of the proverb," cried Eric, "'a gnat may be taken for an elephant,' and in fact it is correct; not the size, not the mass, but the organism is the life."

"Just so, just so!" exclaimed the Major. "Fräulein Milch, come in again a moment."

Fräulein Milch, who had left the room, re-entered, and the Major continued,--

"Pray, captain, say that once more about the organism. That is the sort of thing for Fräulein Milch, for, look you, she studies much more than she chooses to let any one know. If you please, comrade, the organism once more. I can't tell it half so well."

What was Eric to do? He explained his figure again, and the laughter broke out anew.

Fräulein Milch recommended to Eric the school-master of the village, as a remarkably fine writer, and the Major cried, laughing,--

"Yes, comrade, Fräulein Milch is a living roll of honor for the whole region; if you want information about anyone, ask her. And for Heaven's sake, don't let the Countess Wolfsgarten give you any medicine. Fräulein Milch knows much more about it--and no one can apply leeches so well as she can."

Eric saw the good old woman's embarrassment, and began to praise her beautiful flowers, and thriving plants, which stood in the window. The Major asserted that she understood gardening perhaps even better than Herr Sonnenkamp, and if it were only known with what small means she raised her plants, she would get the first prize at the exhibition, instead of the gentlemen with their great forcing-houses.

Turning the conversation, Fräulein Milch said to Eric that it was the chief misfortune of Roland, the poor rich boy, that he had no real satisfaction.

"No real satisfaction?" laughed the Major; "just listen to that!"

"Yes," asserted Fräulein Milch, the ribbons and bows on her cap nodding assentingly as she spoke, "he has merely pleasure and amusements that money can buy, but they are not genuine; and any one who only drives through the world for pleasure, with nothing to do in it, seeks satisfaction in vain."

A gleam of pleasure from Eric's eyes rested on the good Fräulein, and at that moment a secret bond of union, a sense of mutual understanding, was formed between them.

Accompanied by both as far as the garden-gate, Eric left the house. When the door was opened, a brown and white spaniel jumped upon the Major.

"Halloo!" cried the Major, in a tone of mingled scolding and caress, "where have you been again, you disorderly vagabond, who can tell where? and here we've had a visitor; old as you are, you will never learn good behavior and regular habits. Shame on you--shame!"

So spoke the Major to his dog Laadi, well-known in all the country round; he kept a female dog, because the village dogs never fought with her.

As the Major left the garden with Eric, he said,--

"Look at these two posts, these closely-trimmed ash-trees. Several years ago I noticed that the one at the left got its leaves ten or eleven days before the one at the right. Now, once the frost came unexpectedly, and the leaves withered on the left-hand one, and it drooped all summer; since then it has been prudent, and lets the other get its leaves first, and then itself leaves out. Doesn't it seem as if trees had understanding? Yes, dear comrade, everything is better arranged in the world than we understand, and, look you, though I have a pension and nothing to do, I have so many things to keep in sight, that the day is often too short. Now, good-by, and remember that you can always feel at home with us."

And as Eric shook hands, he added:--

"I thank you, for now I have another man to hold dear, and that's the best thing in the world to keep one young and sound."

Eric had gone several steps, when the Major called to him to stop, and coming up to him, said:--

"Yes, as to Herr Sonnenkamp--do not be led astray, comrade. Men of the world either make an idol of a successful man, or they abuse him. Herr Sonnenkamp is somewhat rough outside, but he is good at heart; and, as to his past history, who is there who can feel satisfied with all his past life? can any man? certainly not I, and I don't know anyone who can. I have not always lived as I wish I had. But enough, you are wiser than I."

"I understand perfectly," replied Eric. "American life is an existence without a seventh day of rest; there is a continual working and striving to win money, nothing else. If men have led such a life for half a score of years, they lose the power of turning to anything else; they say to themselves that if they only had enough--ah, those who strive for gold never get enough--they say then they would devote themselves to nobler ends. If it were only still possible! I understand you, and wonder at Herr Sonnenkamp."

"Just so--just so," said the Major, "he must have dragged himself through a good deal of mud, as a gold-hunter, to get such a great property together. Yes, yes, I am easy--you are wiser than I. But now, just for the first time, the main question occurs to me--look at me, tell me honestly, is it true that you have been to see Fräulein Manna at the convent?"

"I have been at the convent, and saw Fräulein Manna, but without knowing her or speaking to her."

"And you didn't come to establish yourself in the house, in order to marry the daughter?"

Eric smiled, as he said in reply, how strangely this question came to him from every direction.

"Look you, comrade, put the maiden out of your thoughts, she is as good as betrothed to Baron Pranken--I would rather you should have her, but it can't be changed."

Eric at last got away, and went back toward the villa with cheerful thoughts. Good powers were working together to keep Roland constantly in a circle of thought and feeling, from which he might not deviate through his whole life.

He stopped before a wide-spreading walnut tree, and looked up smiling into its rich branches.

"Sonnenkamp is right," he said to himself; "the planting of trees and their growth depend upon the surrounding heights and the prevailing winds. There are nervous trees, which are killed by the blasts, and others which only strike root when they are blown this way and that by the wind. Is not the life of man such a plant? the men around it constitute its climatic zone."

Eric thought he was constantly getting a better insight into the influences which were helping, and those which were hindering, the true growth of his pupil.

How rich is the world! Up there at the castle sits the old count by his young wife's side, and creates for himself an ideal realm of thought, after a full and active life;--here sits the old Major with his housekeeper. How Bella would turn up her nose if she were compared with that housekeeper, and yet--

Suddenly Eric heard carriage wheels behind him, and a man's and a woman's voice called out to him.

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VI. A THIRD PERSON

On the day that Eric had left Castle Wolfsgarten, an habitual visitor made his appearance there; this was the son of the eminent wine-merchant, the so-called Wine-count. He came once a week, to play chess with the count. He looked young, but he was worn out in soul, not knowing what to do in the world; he derived no satisfaction from the business of his father, had money enough, had learned a variety of things, was something of a musician, drew a little, had very various talents, but no one predominant. All was wearisome to him; hollow and stale seemed that enjoyment of life which was to be decorously pursued. Wherefore should he devote himself to the restricted limits of some regular pursuit, in order to make money? That is wholly needless. He was a director in several railroads, and for a period it had satisfied him to oversee and to manage, to be saluted respectfully, and listened to obsequiously, by the subordinates held strictly to their place; but that too became distasteful to him. Travelling, too, proffered him nothing further, one had to drag along with himself continually such an extra weight of ennui. He turned a disgusted eye upon the world which had nothing to do for him, and in which he could do nothing. He had cultivated one talent, that of chess-playing, and as Clodwig also took great pleasure in the game, and was skilful in it, he came every week to Wolfsgarten, and played with Clodwig, for it conferred upon him a special regard in his own eyes, and in those of others.

He had also a great reputation, among all those in the neighborhood who prided themselves upon the same qualities as he, of being a rake, and appearing to the world as a gallant. He had a collection of lewd pictures of every kind, and one must be very intimate with him to be able to say that he had seen them all, even to the most carefully hidden. Of course the Wine-chevalier presented a very respectable appearance before the world. No one had ever seen him intoxicated, and, in general society, he always played the part of one very condescending and indifferent, who is yet so noble as to remain in intercourse with these inferior people, as much as to say. One owes that much for old acquaintance' sake. Mothers always warned their daughters of the Wine-chevalier, just as one speaks to children of the wolf howling outside there in the fields, but the mothers themselves did not take it in bad part when he sometimes cast a languishing glance upon them, and even when he frequently said something to them in whispers.

The Justice's daughter, Lina, was not so simple as the mother always said, for she declared that the Wine-chevalier was that transformed manikin in the fairy-tales, who travelled to learn what shivering meant.

The Wine-chevalier of course kept himself fresh in his toilet and his anecdotes, and in everything, externally and internally, that the prevailing fashion required, from year to year, living also for several months in Paris. He did not, like his father, speak of his friend this and the other ambassador, minister so and so, and prince so and so, but he let it be known that he lived in the most inseparable intimacy with the most famous members of the Jockey Club.

The Wine-chevalier always experienced, besides, some degree of pleasure in devoting himself to paying courteous compliments to the virtuous Frau Bella, but she looked at him to-day, as if he were not present, and as if she heard not a word of what he was saying. The count also was so abstracted and absent-minded; that he speedily lost all the games, often gazing at him with wonderment, sitting there in the same chair that Eric had occupied.

A new ally to the Wine-chevalier made his appearance, but this was also of no avail to-day. A corpulent man dressed with fastidious nicety likewise called at Wolfsgarten; he was formerly a famous basso, who had married a rich widow from the neighboring commercial city, and settled down here in this beautiful region. At other times he was well received by Bella, for he sang very agreeably with the remnant of his voice. When he perceived that his greeting to-day was not so cordial as usual, he said that he only came to make a passing call, and Bella was vexed so much the more; she did not like to have Wolfsgarten regarded as a place for casual visits. When both had departed, Bella and Clodwig breathed again freely.

Clodwig went into the cabinet, where he kept the collection of objects that had been excavated from the ground; but all here seemed changed. The urns, the vases, the lachrymatories, swords, necklaces, and many figures in relievo looked so very desolate, and a warrior, only half of whose face in burnt clay could be dug out, wore to-day such a hideous visage.

All looked so forlorn, as if these thousand things, brought out of the darkness under ground into the light, were making their moan to Clodwig: What then are we here for? There is something wanting to us,--a piece to each. And if Clodwig had been able to exhibit his soul with all its emotions, he, the well-regulated, would have had nothing but potsherds to show. Something was wanting to him since Eric rode off.

With closed lips, and restless eyes that seemed to be in search of something, he went all day long through house and park. Bella succeeded at last, in bringing him to say that the ideal of his whole life might have been realized, but that he had strangely wanted the requisite energy. He complained, for the first time, of feeling the hesitancy and timidity of age. He made a pause, hoping that Bella would complete the suggestion, but she kept silence; and in a very roundabout way, he explained that people indulged in many luxuries, and yet not the right ones. Finally he came directly to the point, that he considered it wrong to have permitted Eric to depart, he had long wished for such a man, and he might venture perhaps to say, that he would also contribute to the advancement of the young scholar with the Apollo-form.

The upper lip of Bella quivered, and she said,--

"The captain"--she was going to say, the captain in Goethe's "Elective Affinities," and stumbling over this thought, she continued:--"The captain,--I mean, the doctor,--would certainly consider himself very fortunate. But--we ought surely to speak openly. I have the happiness of a firmly established good name, and we do not ask what people say--"

"Speak out direct," Clodwig said encouragingly, and Bella continued after she had passed a fine pocket-handkerchief over her face:--

"Do you not think that this young man--would often--how shall I express it?"

"Put us into an awkward position?" suggested Clodwig. Bella nodded, but Clodwig had already thought that matter over, and he combated the notion, dwelling upon the consideration of how great an enslavement it would be of the good, if they must omit doing what was noble because the bad committed the basest things under the cloak of deceit.

Bella now advised her husband to send a messenger to Eric immediately, so that he might not enter into any engagement. Clodwig pressed her hand, and went into his study, with an elastic step not often seen in him. He began to write there, but soon came to Bella and said that he could not write, and the simplest thing to do was to order the carriage and drive over at once to Villa Eden.

Clodwig avoided, as a general thing, all immediate connection with Sonnenkamp and his family, so far as it was possible with the intimacy of his brother-in-law there, but to-day nothing was said of this, and they drove off in good spirits.

Frau Bella often drew her veil down over her face and raised it again; she was very uneasy, for she thought over a great many things, and when she noticed the quick beating of her heart, she grasped hastily her husband's hand, saying,--

"Ah! you are so good, so angel-pure! I could never have believed that I should be continually discovering new excellencies in you."

With the utterance of these words aloud, she silenced in some degree the voice speaking within her what she was not willing to acknowledge to herself,--yes, she consciously disowned it. It is an incomprehensible whim, a freak--not of passion, no--how could Bella confess that of herself? It was the freak of an evil spirit! This young man must possess some incomprehensible, bewildering, magic influence! Bella hated him, for he had disturbed the quiet of her husband, and now was attempting to do the same with her. He should atone for that! She straightened herself back; she was resolved to interrupt the childish, enthusiastic plan of her husband by the very means of her going with him, and if Eric did not perceive her opposition, she would acknowledge it in so many words, and thereby induce him to decline.

Entertaining this thought, she looked up again in a cheerful mood, and Clodwig, perceiving it, settled upon a room for Eric, and laid out the new household arrangement.

A new member of the family too was to be added for Bella, as she was to invite Eric's mother to visit them. It was fortunate that Bella had already known her for some time before, and held her in high esteem. Clodwig informed her that the Dournays also were really of the nobility, and their appellation was Dournay de Saint Mort, and that they had dropped the title only at the expulsion of the Huguenots from France, and he would see to it, in case Eric made a suitable marriage, that his title was renewed,--yes, he could probably do more in his behalf.

Bella asked jokingly, whether he might not desire to adopt him as a son. Clodwig declared that he was not disinclined to do so. With a bitter smile, but to all appearance very lively, Bella answered that it would seem very strange for her to have a son only a few years younger than she was herself.

Now the disentombed antiquities danced joyously before the eyes of Clodwig, and indulged in all sorts of antics. Frau Bella, on the other hand, was exceedingly out of humor; it was a perpetual astonishment to her, that her husband felt so deep an interest in these matters. She had not used deception when, the winter before their betrothal, she had appeared to be a cultivated nature, recognizing the more serious depths of existence, and had manifested an interest in the art-productions of the classic age, in the sciences, and in the higher realities of life; she had, in fact, not wilfully misled him, for she had always supposed that every one regarded these as conversational topics, proper subjects for small-talk. And in regard to the study of the historical development of the past and the present, it appeared to her as a tacitly conventional pastime.

She was terror-stricken to perceive that these great thoughts constituted her husband's very life, that he sorrowed and rejoiced in all that related to the world's progress as in family occurrences, and moreover that he was even religious. He did not speak, as she did, of the dear God, but he would remain in devout contemplation at every manifestation of the Eternal Providence, and wherever a contradiction, a riddle, presented itself, he experienced even a degree of feverish disturbance.

Bella did not confess to herself that the whole appeared to her horribly pedantic, like a preacher or a pedagogue; she had not thought that she was to marry a pedantic professor, instead of a live man.

But whether avowed or not, this whole matter of cherishing a so-called higher interest was extremely wearisome to her. Every one plays only his part in life, and who is to regard it in serious earnest? Those poor devils, the scholars and the philanthropists, may do so, if they please, but not a man of a higher station. Now it appeared that Clodwig was ready to break up a regular routine existence, tedious indeed, but yet tranquil and honorable, by the sudden introduction of a stranger. It was pure calumny, when they said of Bella that she had married the count in the hope of becoming soon a rich and attractive widow. The old Head-equerry had looked out for a good marriage settlement, and a certain part of the income of the great estate was retained and invested yearly, which did not go to the heir by the collateral line. As I have said, it was unmitigated slander that Bella had gone to the altar cherishing a hope of widowhood, but to her alarm--she covered it up whenever she became conscious of it--she found herself growing prematurely old by the side of her husband, who was old enough to be her father.

And who knows how much money Clodwig will spend upon this adventurer, Dournay, who has no regular occupation, and besides, is not in favor at court! But the worst is, that this young man, with his confident expectation of success, will wholly withdraw from her the attention of her husband. They will study with one another, and make explorations, whilst thou wilt be sitting all alone, thou, the young and fresh heart that has devoted itself so nobly, so truly, so self-forgetting, to the care of the old man!

Bella was sorely vexed at Eric, because he made her entertain evil thoughts, and suddenly, while looking at her husband, she cried,--

"In God's name! Your lips are white. What is the matter?"

Were her evil thoughts suddenly to be realized? But Clodwig answered,--

"It's nothing. Look! There he stands. What a wonderful form! I fully believe that he is occupied with thoughts of deepest moment, as he stands there dreamily, gazing down at the grass."

The carriage rolled on. Eric heard his name called, and looked in amazement at the husband and wife, who gave him a cordial greeting. He was made to take a seat in the carriage, and Clodwig's glance to his wife said, "Hast thou ever seen a nobler specimen of a human form?"

Eric was asked whether he had accepted definitely the situation, and when he replied in the negative, Clodwig extended his hand to him, and said,--

"You will find a welcome with me."

Nothing farther could be said, for just then Sonnenkamp trotted up on his black horse, and he was extremely glad to be able to salute such visitors; he was very much surprised, however, to see Eric on such intimate terms with them. He rode up to the coach-door, and very joyfully and respectfully welcomed the guests to the villa.

Hardly had they left the carriage, when another drove into the court, and the physician got out.

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VII. THE FIRST ROSE IN OPEN GROUND

Eric acquired an entirely new regard by the arrival of Clodwig and Bella. For the first time Sonnenkamp called him "dear friend."

Herr Sonnenkamp offered his arm to Bella, which she accepted, turning slowly toward him, that Clodwig might see how great a sacrifice she was making; her hand rested lightly on Sonnenkamp's arm. As she was thus walking on, holding the arm of the master of the house, she stopped full of wonder, for there was a rose blooming in full beauty upon a rose-bush raised in the open air.

Herr Sonnenkamp hastened to pluck it, and presented it to her in some pretty words. Bella said that she was very much obliged to him, and seemed not to notice that he again proffered his arm. They went at once to the hot-houses. Joseph, who was always present at the right time, as if specially summoned, received from his master orders to inform Fräulein Perini and Frau Ceres of the visit. Joseph understood.

The doctor had been summoned to Frau Ceres, but when she learned what guests had arrived, she immediately declared that she was well; but she was cunning enough to say to the doctor, that merely seeing him had made her well. Doctor Richard understood.

In the meantime, Clodwig had said to Eric, "You don't remain here; you go with us. I can't leave you."

He jerked the words out briefly and rapidly, as one utters in a compressed, uniform tone something which has lain in his mind for a long time.

Just then, Roland came down the mountain, with his camp-stool and drawing-board, and Bella called out to him, while far off, in a very friendly "welcome."

"How handsome he is!" said she to those standing about her. "He who could fix permanently this image of the marvellous boy as he is coming along, would have a picture out of the Grecian age, by changing camp-stool and portfolio into spear and shield."

Bella perceived the look of happiness in Eric's eyes, and said to him:--"Yes, Herr Doctor, I once gave to an artist at the capital the design for a picture as I saw Roland; he had sprung across the road, and had cast an alms into the hat of a street-beggar sitting upon a heap of stones; and as he sprang back, so well formed and graceful, every muscle stretched, and his countenance so beaming with the delight of beneficence, it was a wonderful sight that can never be forgotten."

Clodwig looked down to the ground; Bella was evidently not aware that it was not she, but he, who had thus seen Roland and given the order to the artist.

Roland was very much surprised at the visit, and the manner in which he was greeted, Bella saying to her husband,--"Clodwig, kiss him for me!" Clodwig embraced the youth, who now turned to Eric with a puzzled look.

"If the Herr Captain remains with us, you must visit us often, dear Roland," said Bella.

Sonnenkamp was at a loss to know what that meant, but the danger of losing Eric seemed immediately to affect the youth, so that he looked up in a help-imploring way. And it was now clear to Eric, what was intended in regard to him, and he now for the first time understood what was interrupted by Sonnenkamp's coming up to the carriage.

They took only a hasty look at the greenhouses, for Bella said that when it was green and blooming outside, the imprisonment of the plants had something oppressive to her.

Fräulein Perini soon appeared, sent by Frau Ceres, to make known her intention not to be sick to-day.

Bella and Fräulein Perini had separated themselves from the men; they had much to say to each other, and Eric was naturally the first subject. Bella could not forbear expressing her surprise to Fräulein Perini, that she had so completely seen through the singular man, although Fräulein Perini had not really yet said anything. But this remark forced her to reply, though nothing of her real opinion was given; for Fräulein Perini said that she constantly felt fresh admiration at the German learned world, meaning to include Bella, who was to be almost looked upon as a learned woman.

Bella took no notice of this equivocal compliment; she assumed a matronly tone, while confessing that she had no near relation to the young men of the day, and was not sure that she understood them. Neither one of the ladies seemed to come out fully with her opinion, and each appeared to regard the other as cherishing a secret inclination for Eric.

"Do you know," said Frau Bella, looking very attentively at the rose which Sonnenkamp had given her, "do you know that this man with the double title has an insultingly low opinion of the female sex?"

"No, I did not know that, but it may be a part of that radical heresy, as Baron von Pranken calls it, which he parades with such manifest conceit."

"But what opinion have you formed about Herr Dournay?"

"I have not formed any opinion about him."

"Why not?"

"I am not impartial; he does not belong to our church."

"But supposing that he did belong to our church, how would you then regard him?"

"It is not to be supposed. This complacent self-assumption is not possible with a person who has subjected himself to the divine law; his deportment is that of a prince travelling incog., or more properly, as Herr Baron von Pranken says, 'the man coaches round the world in a lecturer's invisible chair.'"

The two women laughed. Bella had found out enough. She very carefully impressed upon Fräulein Perini the necessity of exerting all her influence against the reception of a man proud of his unbelief. Fräulein Perini held her cross with her left hand, and looked somewhat mischievously at Bella. Then the countess does not wish to have him here. Is she trying to bring him into her own house, and getting up a nice intrigue against her husband? She hinted, not without mischievous satisfaction, that Herr von Pranken, who had occasioned all this, must also find the proper remedy. Bella gave out also that Eric was, perhaps, unsuitable in another view; and here, for the third time, it was expressly said, that Eric was a "dangerous" man.

Fräulein Perini had spoken of it as applicable, in two respects, to one present and to one absent, for the special interest of Bella had not escaped her penetrating eye.

Quickly, and in order to conceal how well she had hit the mark, she added, that a man like Otto von Pranken had certainly no one to be afraid of. She spoke with sympathizing eagerness of his journey, that perhaps it was imprudent, but one must let the passionate youthful heart take its own course, and it often brought about the right result better than cautious deliberation and consideration. But Fräulein Perini spoke very plainly, and Bella replied as plainly, in condemnation of Pranken's desire to go counter to the social ordinances, but any such tendency must be indulged, though with great reluctance on their part.

Again the conversation reverted to Eric; and Bella was now extremely good-humored. She pitied the man's aged mother, regarded the self-conscious bearing of the youth as in reality timidity; he carried a haughty outside, that he might cover up thereby the menial dependence. An elevation of the eyelids disclosed that Fräulein Perini was slightly hurt, and Frau Bella quickly added, that pious natures are never really oppressed by dependence, for they, have in themselves a higher position, yes, they are through piety constituted the equals of anybody.

Fräulein Perini smiled; she understood how kindly Bella; treated her, and there was no need of the friendly pressure of the hand to make her perceive it.

A servant came, and announced that Frau Ceres would receive the gracious countess in the balcony-saloon; she was not allowed by her physician to go out into the open air.

Fräulein Perini accompanied Bella as far as the outside-stairs, and made there a very polite courtesy; Bella, however, grasped both her hands with irrepressible cordiality, and said that she should like such a friend as Fräulein Perini for daily intercourse; she pressingly urged her to confer the honor of a visit without any delay.

When the rustling of Bella's garments was no longer heard, Fräulein Perini clawed with her little hand like a cat, which, silently lurking, has caught something; contemptuously she opened her eyes, always so veiled, and her small mouth almost uttered the words,--

"You are all deluded."

Frau Ceres complained of her constant suffering, and Frau Bella attempted to console her, saying that she had everything, and especially such splendid children. She knew not which to praise most, the charming attractions of Roland, or the angelic nature of Manna.

Bella seldom came into Sonnenkamp's house, but when she came there, she was always seized by a passion which is perhaps peculiarly a woman's passion. She lived at Wolfsgarten in an abundance which left nothing to be desired, but as soon as she drove through the gate of Villa Eden, an evil spirit came over her; and the demon's name is Envy--envy of this exuberant superfluity, where there was no dragging along under the burden of old lumber and decaying remnants, but everything newly created. And as often as she thought of Frau Ceres, sparkles flashed before her eyes, for she saw then the diamond ornaments of Frau Ceres, such as the reigning princess herself did not possess.

She was thoroughly condescending and gracious to Frau Ceres, and she was happy that she could be condescending. These people can buy everything for themselves, but not a noble, historically famous name; and if the proposal of Otto succeeds, it is only the covering up of lowness with a fresh varnish, which is always begging, "Do not touch me, if you do, I shall rub off."

Eric was here also naturally a prominent subject of conversation, and Frau Bella pressed the rose to her mouth, in order to hide her laugh, when Frau Ceres said,--

"I should like to have the Herr Captain for myself."

"For yourself?"

"Yes. But I don't think I can learn anything more, I am too old and too stupid. He hasn't let me learn anything."

Frau Bella contested very zealously this modesty. Was not Frau Ceres beautiful and young? She might be taken indeed for Roland's sister. Was she not prudent and elegant in her deportment? Frau Ceres smiled and nodded continually, appearing to believe that it was all true. But now Bella felt obliged to take her leave, as she desired to spare the delicate organization of Frau Sonnenkamp.

Frau Ceres looked up timidly at these words; she did not know whether that was praise or blame. Bella took leave, kissing Frau Ceres upon the forehead.

Herr Sonnenkamp had left the count and Eric; he had many things to see after in the house, also letters and despatches had come in, which required an immediate answer. He sent moreover for the Major to dinner, and gave orders that if they did not find him at home, they should go for him to the castle.

Clodwig went with Roland and Eric to their room, and before they were aware, they became engaged so earnestly in conversation that they wholly forgot Roland. The youth sat there dumb, looking sometimes at one, and sometimes at the other. He did not understand what they were saying, but he could feel how much they were enjoying. When Clodwig had retired to his own room, Roland seized Eric's hand and cried:--

"I will also learn, I will also study all, whatever you want; I want to be like you and Clodwig."

A thrill passed through Eric's soul. The invitation from Clodwig was exactly the ideal of all that he could desire, but here was an actual duty of life; he could not choose any longer what course, to take.

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VIII. I SERVE

The Major fortunately came as they were about to sit down to dinner. He was extremely glad to meet Clodwig and Bella here; every manifestation of friendliness between individuals was a cordial to him: it confirmed his proposition that all human beings were immeasurably good, and he could thereby silence the revilers and the doubters. He was grateful to Clodwig and Bella, as if he had received a personal favor; he looked at the chairs as if he would enjoin them to seat right comfortably their occupants. He extended his hand to Eric as to a son; he had become thoroughly attached to him, and now he complained to him, with the tone of a child who has eaten dainties by stealth, that he had allowed himself to be enticed; for, wishing to see for himself whether the workmen at the castle had good food to eat, he had made trial of it, and it tasted so unexpectedly good, that he had completely satisfied his appetite.

Eric comforted him with the suggestion, that the nice dishes might yet perhaps find some spare room.

The Major nodded; he said, to Joseph the magic word, "Allasch." Joseph understood. At a small side-table he poured out from a bottle surrounded by little glasses; the Major drank off the tonic.

"That's a quartermaster;" then he nodded to Eric, and his face laughed all over, as Eric responded:--

"Of course, the spirit orders the vulgar mass to give way."

Frau Ceres did not come to dinner. They had hardly taken their seats, before the physician was called away; he immediately rose. Sonnenkamp entreated him to remain, but Clodwig said in a very decided tone, that he would like to urge him to obey the summons, for if one placed himself in the situation of those who were expecting the physician, it would appear a cruel thing to be detaining him here meanwhile for one's own enjoyment.

"That is a nobleman, a genuine nobleman!" said the Major to Eric, and Roland, on hearing it, looked round as if somebody had suddenly seized hold of him. Is his father, then, not noble, for desiring the contrary?

Eric had a feeling of what was passing in the boy's mind, and said to the Major, so that Roland could not but hear him,--

"Herr Sonnenkamp spoke on the very just supposition, that the country people very often exaggerate the danger, and needlessly hurry the physician."

"That's true. I've made a mistake,--I thank you, comrade."

Roland drew a long breath, he gave Eric a smile; he would have liked to embrace and to kiss him.

Eric understood this smile. The table seemed disturbed, for the physician, who had easily and briskly led the conversation, left a gap by his departure; and as they were obliged to sit more closely together bodily, in order to fill up this vacant space, so it seemed as if they must now also for the first time draw nearer together spiritually. And the call made upon them to go, in imagination, with the physician to the bedside of a moaning patient, and to the lamenting relatives, had also interrupted the pleasant mood with which they had seated themselves in good cheer at the table.

Eric, who might well consider that the visit of Clodwig and Bella was meant for him, felt under a double obligation to entertain the guests as well as he could, and bring the company at table into a congenial mood. But while he was yet in search of some thoughts to direct the general conversation, the Major stole a march upon him.

He smiled beforehand very pleasantly, for he had something to tell, and now was the aptest time.

"Herr Sonnenkamp," he began, and his face again became blood-red, for he had to speak in the presence of many persons,--

"Herr Sonnenkamp, it is said in the newspaper that you are soon to receive a great number of visitors."

"I? In the newspaper?"

"Yes. It is not said in so many words, but I infer so. It is said there, that an emigration is now taking place from America, on account of the high cost of living there; many families are coming from the New World to Europe, because they can live with us at more reasonable prices, and in a pleasanter way."

The Major congratulated himself, that he had pushed forward into the gap something very agreeable and very suitable. He drank off, at one draught, with great gusto, a glass of his favorite Burgundy.

Sonnenkamp remarked in a careless way, that probably a prejudice would be created against Americans, like that which existed against English travellers.

No one again took up the conversation; they would gladly have heard Clodwig talk, but he was constrained from the feeling that he had intruded into a strange house, had there sat down as a guest, and yet all the time, he was intending to commit a theft. This made him ill at ease and reserved.

Eric took a different view of his deportment. He gave a fortunate turn to the conversation, referring to Goethe's poem which extolled America because it had no ruined castles, and passing on to the favorite pursuits of Clodwig and of Sonnenkamp, and indeed drawing a parallel between a fondness for antiquity and for the rearing of plants. Eric was very animated and communicative, introducing matters which, he knew would awaken interest, and yet in the very midst of his talk there was an accompanying feeling of self-reproach. Until now, throughout his whole life, he had simply replied to questions put to him, and had always spoken either to impart something to others, or to enlighten them; now he was speaking with the view, at any rate with the secondary view, of appearing well, taking pleasure in the effect of this and that expression. He was startled when he became aware of it, and continued speaking further. He repelled the reproachful suggestion, saying to himself that it was really his duty to play the part of host. His eyes glistened, and he brought Sonnenkamp and Clodwig into a state of pleasant animation. The ladies also received their share. But Bella had a manner,--and since she had it, it must be well-mannered,--when she was not leading the conversation,--no matter who was speaking, or what was spoken about,--a manner of introducing into the little circle, where it was a disturbing element, a dialogue with the person sitting next to her, and hindering him, even if he wished to do so, from falling into the general stream of conversation.

Eric had vanity enough to make him note her want of interest; it vexed him at first, but afterwards he thought no more about it.

Herr Sonnenkamp was very well satisfied with the family-tutor, who not only made a good appearance in his own sphere, and gave to him the rightful consideration, but whose very presence was an ornament of the house, and brought to his table the noblest of the land.

Clodwig again requested that he might be immediately informed of every remains of Roman Antiquities discovered in the restoration of the castle; Sonnenkamp promised it with readiness, and gave an extremely humorous account of the silly motives attributed to him for rebuilding the castle. Some said he wished to figure in "Bädeker's Traveller's Manual," which people carried with them in the summer season, when they passed up and down the river, so that the castle might be pointed at, and the bored English, with finger upon the line of the book, might gape at it awhile with open mouth; but that really an æsthetic reason determined him. He honestly confessed that he intended, in rebuilding the castle, to give a harmonious finish to the view from his work-room window, desiring at the same time to make some contribution to the beauty of the German fatherland.

There was always a peculiar tang in Sonnenkamp's utterance of these words, "German fatherland;" one could detect therein something like deep-seated savage hate, and yet the tone was rather that of tender pity and commiseration. Sonnenkamp knew that Clodwig was, of all things else, a patriot, and he was ready to strike this chord. Eric looked at Roland, to see if he noticed the hypocrisy, for it was no longer ago than Sunday, that Sonnenkamp had expressed himself so strangely and contemptuously, when the conversation turned on the subject of voting. But Roland's features were motionless.

In one view, it was encouraging that the inconsiderate mind of the youth did not perceive the contradiction; while in another, Eric saw here an enhancement of the difficulty of his work as an educator; it was indeed his principal problem, to awaken and to establish in the mind of his pupil the consecutiveness and interlinking of all thought and all action.

Sonnenkamp expatiated, too, on the many strange things imputed to him; and yet no one had really made the charge: but he himself, together with Pranken, had spread the report, that he was desirous of giving his own name to the castle, the line of the original family having long since become extinct. It was reported that the Rauhenberg coat of arms was not accurately known, and yet that it was purposed to place it again over the entrance of the restored castle.

Clodwig, who prided himself, notwithstanding all his liberality, in knowing the genealogy of all the princely and noble families, with their coats of arms, affirmed that the Rauhenberg coat of arms was unmistakably certain, and that it had as a device a Moor's head on a blue ground in the left field, and in the right, a pair of scales. The family had greatly distinguished itself in the crusades, and had been at that time invested with a high judicial function.

Sonnenkamp smiled in a very friendly manner, and he almost grinned, as he requested the count to favor him, as soon as possible, with a drawing.

Eric's rich store of knowledge was again a matter of surprise, as he excited attention by the information he gave concerning armorial mottoes.

They were in very good spirits whilst assigning to some one of their circle of acquaintance one and another motto, which sometimes seemed a laughable contrast to the real character, and sometimes a striking expression of it.

"What motto would you select for yourself?" Sonnenkamp asked Eric; and he gave for a reply these two simple words:--

"I serve."

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IX. A DOUBLE RESCUE

It happened, as if by accident, that Eric and Frau Bella walked together, and Bella tried a little experiment to see in what direction it would be safe to venture, by remarking that she was surprised at Eric's understanding her good husband so thoroughly, for it was not so easy to live with him as it seemed. She said this very warily, and it might be taken for simple praise. Eric replied:--

"The world is so much the more indebted to you, gracious lady, for the count has gained new youth through you."

Bella nodded. Eric had quietly and securely taken the first step toward a good understanding; to recognize her sacrifice was a delicate politeness on his part. She went on to speak very enthusiastically of Clodwig, and of her happiness in being able to do anything towards cherishing a pure spirit, without making any demand for herself. It was so beautiful to sacrifice one's self, to serve quietly, unrecognized and unnoticed; and here there came in a word about the childlike mind, so placed that Eric could apply all she had said to his vocation as a teacher.

Eric expressed his agreement with her, simply and without embarrassment, and Frau Bella could not tell whether he had really not understood her, or whether he chose to seem not to understand. She knew how to intimate with delicacy how difficult it was to deal with just such a man as Clodwig, though he seemed so unexacting and so yielding; she begged Eric to help her in making the evening of his days completely happy; she said all this with a tone of feeling which was not to be mistaken.

Eric expressed his doubt whether it would be well to disturb so peaceful a life by the introduction of a third person; he acknowledged that he was still wanting in tact, was capricious, and passionate.

"You are so sincere that you have no need of being diffident," answered Bella.

She looked searchingly at Eric; her fan fell, and as he picked it up she gave him her hand in thanks. With much tact and elegance of expression, but with emotion which made her breast heave, she extolled the good fortune which allowed her to devote herself to a noble man, and to have a friend who thoroughly understood her. Eric could not tell whether the latter part of her remark applied to him or to Clodwig.

"There he comes!" cried Bella suddenly. "See, it is a peculiarity of his never to carry a cane, though he needs it."

She went to meet her husband, and he turned his steps towards her. Clodwig seated himself under a fine cedar, where pretty rustic chairs were placed; Eric and Bella stood before him. And now Clodwig explained his whole plan, painting so attractively the pleasantly busy life which they would lead together, that Eric's cheeks glowed. In a voice full of emotion he expressed his gratitude, and said that he felt bound by duty to the decision which his heart had made.

Bella rested one hand on Clodwig's chair, and Eric went on to say that he rejoiced that anything so attractive had been offered him, because he derived thence an assurance that he had chosen the right course, that which accorded with his duty. A great and difficult task was laid upon him in Roland's education, and the very fact, that so different and charming a life was now opened to him, made him happy by renewing and confirming his confidence in his decision; and the offered alternative helped him to recognize his choice as a real duty.

For a while Clodwig looked down, and Bella, taking her hand from his chair, stood suddenly erect. Then, as Eric represented his delight in Roland, and the mysterious, happy attraction which he felt towards him, even towards his faults, Clodwig smiled, as he looked up into the branches, for just as Eric felt drawn to Roland with enthusiastic love, he was drawn to Eric; the sentiments were exactly analogous. Yet he was unwilling to give Eric up, and pointed out to him again that he could not cut off all other influences in educating Roland, but that he would have to contend with elements which perhaps he could never conquer.

"Ah, there comes the doctor," he interrupted himself; "are you willing to call in a third person to the decision?"

"No one but myself can make the decision," answered Eric, "however difficult it may be; but I have not the least objection to entrust the office of umpire to our friend."

This was done; but, to the surprise of all, the physician decided against both parties; he expressed his wish that some one would enable Eric to see Italy and Greece.

Before Clodwig could answer, Eric interposed, saying that he was bent on finding some employment, so that he could support himself and his mother from his own means.

Rising with difficulty, Clodwig said,--

"Young friend, give me your arm." He stood erect, and turned toward Eric, on whose arm his hand lay heavy and trembling.

"I don't know," said he, "I should not think I was the man who had been through such hard experience as I have; I am today undergoing a bitter experience. Is it old age which makes it so difficult for me to give up a desire? I have learned to do so before now. Yes, yes; a man becomes childish--childish; a child cannot give up."

He leaned heavily on Eric, who was shaken to the depth of his soul by the emotion of the noble man. He did not know what to reply, and Clodwig continued:--

"I feel as if I knew not where I am. Do you not think it is very close?"

"No. Will you not sit down?"

Hastily loosing his hold of Eric's arm to pass his hand over his face, Clodwig said,--

"My young friend, when I die--"

Hardly had he uttered the word, when he sank down: Eric caught him in his arms. Bella, who was walking behind with the physician, uttered a cry; the physician hurried to the spot; Eric stooped, raised Clodwig in his arms like a child--all this was the work of a moment.

Clodwig was carried into the great drawing-room, and laid upon a sofa. Bella sobbed aloud, but the doctor soothed her. He had a remedy with him which soon restored Clodwig to consciousness; he begged Eric and Bella to leave the room as soon as the count had spoken.

Outside, Bella threw herself on Eric's breast, and he trembled as he felt her breath on his face, and a thrill ran through him as the beautiful woman leaned upon him in such passionate and unrestrained excitement.

"You are our helper, our friend in need! O my friend, my friend!"

Sonnenkamp entered hastily, and Bella, standing erect, with wonderful composure addressed him, saying,--

"Herr Sonnenkamp! our mutual friend. Captain Dournay, is a blessing to us all; with the strength of a giant he carried my husband. Thank him with me."

Eric was astonished at this rapid recovery of self-control.

The physician came out, and Sonnenkamp asked anxiously,--

"How is he? how is he?"

His mind was set at rest by the doctor's declaration that it had been a very slight attack, which would have no bad consequences. Clodwig requested that Eric would come to him.

Eric entered the drawing-room. Clodwig sitting upright held out his hand to Eric, saying, with a wonderfully bright smile,--

"I must finish my sentence; I was going to say: When I die, my young friend, I should like to have you near me. But don't be anxious, it will not be for a long time yet. There, now sit down by me. Where is my wife?"

Eric went to call her, and she entered, with the physician and Sonnenkamp.

The doctor was not only willing, but expressly desired that Bella and Clodwig should return directly to Wolfsgarten. Sonnenkamp raised various objections, wishing to keep his noble guests with him, and saying with great hospitality,--

"Consider my house exactly as if it were your own."

"Will you permit Herr Dournay to accompany us?" asked Clodwig.

Sonnenkamp started as he answered quickly,--

"I have no permission to give the captain, but if you are determined to go, I would ask him as a favor to accompany you, with a promise of returning to us."

"You will go with us also?" begged Bella of the physician, who assented.

So the four drove off through the mild spring night; little was said, though once Clodwig seized Eric's hand, with the words, "You are very strong."

Eric and the doctor spent the night at Wolfsgarten. In the early morning, the physician prepared for departure while Eric was still sleeping soundly; he woke him and said,--

"Doctor, remain here to-day, but no longer."

Eric stared at him.

"Did you understand me?"

"Yes."

"Now, good-bye."

Again Eric spent a whole day at Wolfsgarten. Clodwig was as cheerful and serene as ever; Bella's bearing toward Eric was shy, almost timid.

In the evening Sonnenkamp and Roland rode over, and Eric returned with them to Villa Eden. Sonnenkamp was in very good spirits, and the blood mounted to Eric's face as he said, looking sharply at him,--

"Countess Bella will make a beautiful widow."

On the evening of the following day the physician appeared again at Villa Eden; he had been at Wolfsgarten and brought a good report. He took Eric aside, and said,--

"You have confided to me that you neither expect, nor will accept in a personal interview, a decisive answer from Herr Sonnenkamp. I approve of that; it can be much better settled by letter. You will see more clearly, away from him, and so will he. So I advise you to leave the house; every hour that you remain is your ruin."

"My ruin?" Eric was startled.

The physician said, smiling,--

"Yes, my dear friend, this forced exhibition of yourself, which has now lasted almost a week, is injuring you."

He continued, after a pause,--

"No man can be on parade for a week without receiving some harm. You must go away, or you will become an actor, or a preacher, or both together. You repeat what you have learned, and repeat it with the conscious purpose of producing a given effect. Therefore away with you! you have been examining, and examined, long enough. Come with me, spend the night at my house; to-morrow return to your mother, and wait quietly for what may come next."

"But Roland," asked Eric, "how can I leave the boy behind? His heart has turned to me, as mine has to him."

"That's well, very well. Then let him wait and long for you. Let him learn that the rich cannot have everything. Let him feel obliged to sue for you. All that will give you a power of incalculable influence in the family and over your pupil. Let me act for you now; to-morrow morning you will see with my eyes."

"There is my hand. I'll go with you!" answered Eric.

There was great surprise in the house when the announcement of Eric's sudden departure was made; an hour had scarcely elapsed when he entered the physician's carriage.

Eric was glad that his leave-taking of Roland was hurried. The boy could not understand what had happened; his emotion prevented him from speaking. After Eric had seated himself in the doctor's carriage, Roland came with one of the puppies and laid it in his lap, but the physician gave it back, saying that he could not take it, it was too young to be taken from the mother; but he would see that Eric should have it eventually.

Roland gazed wonderingly after the departing guests. In the boy's heart there was a confused whirl of all the feelings which he had experienced in the few days since Eric's arrival; but Eric did not look back. In his father's house the boy felt as if abandoned in a strange land. He took the young dog by the nape of the neck, and was about to throw it from him, but the puppy whimpered pitifully, and he pressed it to his breast, saying,--"Be quiet, nothing is hurting you; but I'm not a dog, and I don't whine, now don't you whine any more either. He didn't want either of us." Roland carried the dog to its mother, who was very glad to see her pup again.

"I'll go to my mother, too," said Roland; but he had first to be announced. She allowed him to enter, and when he lamented that Eric had gone so suddenly, she said,--

"That's right; I advised him to go."

"You? Why?"

"Oh, your stupid why! One can't be always answering your why!"

Roland was silent, and his mother's kiss almost pained him.

He wanted to go to his father, but found that he had driven to the castle with the Major.

Deserted and lonely, he stood in the court; at last he went into the stable, sat down by his dogs and watched their amusing actions; then he went to his horse, and stood quietly leaning on his neck for a long time. Strange thoughts rolled tumultuously through the boy's brain. The horse and dog are yours; only what one can buy and possess is his own.

Like a flash of lightning, just seen, then gone again, there woke in the boy's soul the idea that nothing but love can give one human being possession of another. He was not used to steady thinking, and this into which he had fallen brought on a real headache. He had his horse saddled, and rode off over the road which Eric and the doctor had taken.

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X. THE PRACTICAL NATURE

Eric sat quiet and thoughtful by the doctor's side, and was disturbed by no word from him, seeming to himself to be driven hither and thither by wind and wave. A few days before, he had ridden to this place on a stranger's horse, and now he sat in a stranger's carriage; he had become intermingled with the life and destiny of so many persons, and this could no longer count for anything in his and their existence. He could not anticipate, however, that an unexpected event was awaiting him.

"You believe then in education?" asked the doctor at last.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I place no dependence whatever on education; men become what nature fits them to be. They attain, under all relations, what is called their destiny. As the human being lies in his cradle, so he lies in his coffin. Some little help comes from talents and capabilities, but as a whole they are only incidental; the natural bias gives the home blow."

Eric had no heart to enter upon these discussions; he was weary of this everlasting game of words.

The doctor continued:--

"I have a peculiar grudge against these people; it vexes me that these rich people should buy for themselves the fragrant fruits of higher culture; then, again, I am consoled by the word of Him who stood at the very centre of thought, and said, 'A rich man cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' The rich are too heavily ballasted; they have a pampered existence, they are removed far from the actual needs of life, and they withdraw themselves from the natural influences of the seasons; they flit into different climates and out of them again, and everywhere they have comfortably prepared swallow-nests. It would be an intolerable heartlessness of fate, if, without any irksome toil, they, are to have also the higher joys as a possession, which belong alone to us."

"There is no royal road to geometry, is Euclid's saying," Eric interposed; "science and knowledge are acquired only through labor, and what I want to do with this boy can all be comprehended in one word: I want to give him self-activity."

"Just so," replied the physician; "yes, that's it! we who live to the spirit have the advantage over the rich in this respect, that we are alone by ourselves; the rich man does not know the silent growth in the dewy stillness of solitude; he always has so much, he never has himself, and never himself alone. This is what I understand by that verse of the Bible, 'What shall it profit thee, if thou shalt gain the whole world, and lose thine own soul? That is to say, Art never alone in thyself, with thyself? He who has nowhere to lay his head, he can yet carry his head high and free. You see it was to some purpose that I studied theology for two years, until I came to see that though much cannot be effected, yet more is to be done by practising quackery on the body, than on the soul."

The doctor could not speak, he laughed so heartily. At last he said,--

"The great question always is, how receptivity itself confers upon one all that is desirable. That would be your principal task, to awaken and to perfect in Roland his power of receptivity. He must first of all, be taught in a regular way. In what he knows of the world, he is yet a child, and in what he desires of the world, he is a man, one may say a live man."

Eric had much to say in reply, but he smiled to himself, for he thought how easy it is to theorize. The doctor had justly found fault with him for enlarging upon so many topics, and now he was to perceive that he could be silent. He said nothing, and the doctor continued:--

"As to the rest, I can tender you effectual aid, if you conclude to accept the position. Pity that you are not a medical man; as I look at it, no one but a physician should be an educator. Have you taken notice that the young fellow has a poor digestion? a young man in these times ought to be able to digest pebble-stones! I cannot bring it about that only simple kinds of food should be given him. The noble and the rich eat without hunger, and drink without thirst. This young man can have everything but one real, substantial enjoyment. It is a small matter, but take it just for an example: Roland receives no enjoyment from new clothes. Now strike this joy out of your childhood, out of your youth. I must confess, that I can take pleasure for weeks in a well-fitting garment, as often as I put it on. What are you smiling at?" the physician interrupted himself.

"I am thinking of a theological friend," answered Eric. "How he would be astonished, if any one should say to him, that the fall, which brought with it the consciousness of nakedness, has become the very foundation of all the enjoyment that comes from weaving, making, and sewing clothes."

The doctor smiled too, but he stuck to his subject, and went on,--

"Food and clothes are of the greatest importance, but the third most important thing is sleep; it is the regulator of life. Air, nourishment, and sleep are the three fundamental conditions of vegetative life. I believe, captain, that I know something about you already, but I cannot pronounce a full verdict upon you, until I have seen you sleep. Our nineteenth century sleeps poorly; our education, our labor, and our politics ought to be so arranged that people can once more get better sleep. I should like to be able to write a history of sleep, showing how different nations and different ages have slept; that would lay bare to us the deepest roots of all the manifestations of civilization. As far as regards Roland, there is in him a strange blending of temperaments from the father's and the mother's constitution."

The doctor pictured out the muscular organization of Sonnenkamp, and the struggle he was obliged to make every moment with his violent natural tendencies. "A certain indomitable energy in him always enters a disclaimer against his mildness, which is at once seen to be a result of self-compulsion and of voluntary effort. He is a suppressed pugilist, and he has in fact, as he once himself boasted in an unguarded moment, an iron fist. The old Germans must have possessed this stalwart force, who, with their naked arms, overthrew and crushed the mail-clad Romans."

The physician laughed, and he could hardly succeed in narrating how, when he first saw Sonnenkamp, he always looked for the club which seemed to belong to such a man's hand. When he behaved in a friendly way, then it seemed always as if he said. Be quiet, I won't hurt you. And moreover, Sonnenkamp had a heart-disease, according to all pathologic signs, and he was obliged, therefore, to guard against every agitating emotion.

He cautioned Eric, particularly, not to make easy terms with Sonnenkamp when he came to a definite understanding, for if he did he would lose all hold upon him.

"You see," he said, "the priests, and we physicians, always give our masses and receipts in Latin; for who would gulp down for us sulphuric acid, if that were written on the paper in good German? So you will see that you can make an impression upon Herr Sonnenkamp only by a certain mysterious loftiness; otherwise he fancies that he can make quick work with you."

The doctor then gave a very humorous description of the sleepy existence of Frau Ceres, to whom the sharp-tongued, but still more envious Countess Wolfsgarten had given the epithet "crocodile," because she really had some of the traits of that monster as he basks in the sun. For Herr Sonnenkamp, there was no mode of activity in which he could let out his energies; and for Frau Ceres, there was no exertion that was not an effort. She was not really to be blamed for having her dress changed three times a day, without sticking in a single pin herself; that she walked about her chamber for hours together, looked at herself from every point of view, fed her parrot, played "patience," and cherished her nails. The poor creature ought always to live simply and naturally, but even those more highly endowed cannot do that. She was indeed weak and dependent, but she was also artful and capricious.

Eric was on the point of confiding to the doctor his interview with Frau Ceres, but before he could open his lips, the doctor began to narrate:--

"It may be now almost a year since an occurrence took place which I could not have believed possible. I was sent for to the villa. The daughter of the house was in a condition of muscular rigidity, and at the same time delirium, which I could not comprehend. Fräulein Perini told me that the girl had clasped her hands together so tightly, that they had been drawn apart only by the aid of two servants, although the girl herself opposed no resistance, and when I came the fingers were still clenched. I could never find out what extreme mental excitement could have produced such a condition of the body; I could only learn this much, that Herr Sonnenkamp had refused his wife something or other which she strongly desired. She revenged herself by confiding to her daughter, who had hitherto reverenced her father as a higher being, something which put the poor girl into this state of excitement. But when she recovered, she continued melancholy, until they sent her to the convent, where she gained new animation."

Eric turned the conversation to the reasons why Sonnenkamp was so much hated and calumniated. The physician readily took up the subject, and explained that the poor nobility looked out for every blemish as a natural defence against a man of such immeasurable wealth, who almost personally insulted them by his outlays. Herr von Pranken was the only one favorably disposed towards him, and he was so, not merely because he wanted to marry his daughter, but there was also a natural attraction to each other, for Herr Sonnenkamp was deeply interested in himself, and Herr von Pranken deluded his neighbor as himself. "And now, my friend," concluded the physician, "now see to it, how you come into this house with the right understanding."

"I have one request," Eric at last began. "Let me hear what you would say to a friend concerning me, if I were absent. Will you do that?"

"Certainly; this is what I intended to do. You are an idealist. Ah! how hard a time people have with their ideal! You idealists, you who are always thinking, toiling, and feeling for others, you seem to me like a landlord who has an inn on the road, or in some beautiful situation. He must get everything in readiness, and pray to God all the time: Send good weather and many guests! He himself cannot control either weather or guests. So the counsel is very simple. Don't be a landlord of the inn of ideality, but eat and drink, yourself, with a good zest, and don't think of others; they will themselves call for their own portion, or bring it with them in their knapsack; if not, they can go hungry and thirsty. I have found that there are only two ways of coming to terms with life: either to be wholly out with the world, or wholly out with one's self. The youth of to-day have yet a third way: it is to be at the same time out with the world and with themselves.

"That is, I am sorry to say, my case."

"And just for that reason," continued the doctor, taking off his huge glove, and laying his hand on Eric's shoulder, "just for that reason, I should desire for you some different lot--I don't know what--I cannot think of any."

A long row of wagons loaded with stripped beech-boughs came along the road. The physician gave the information that they had already extracted from these branches various chemical substances, and now they were carrying them to a powder-mill. Eric said that he knew it, that he had been ordered to a powder-mill in the mountains for a long time, and was employed there.

The doctor was silent, and looking up, he saw that some one was greeting him. An open carriage drawn by two dapple-gray horses came towards them, and a handsome young man, sitting in it and driving himself, was already bowing from a distance.

The doctor ordered his carriage to be stopped.

"Welcome!" he cried to the young man. They shook hands from their vehicles, and the doctor asked,--

"How are Louise and the children?"

"All well."

"Have you been to your mother's?"

"Yes."

"How are your parents?"

"They are well too."

The doctor introduced the young man as Herr Henry Weidmann, his daughter's husband.

"Are you the son of the Herr Weidmann whom I have so often heard of?"

"Most certainly."

"Where is your father now?" asked the doctor.

"Yonder there in the village; they are considering about establishing a powder-mill."

Something seemed to come into the doctor's mind like a flash; he turned quickly round to Eric, but did not utter a word. The young man asked excuse for his haste, as he was obliged to be at the station at a particular hour, and soon took leave.

The young Weidmann said hurriedly to Eric, that he hoped this would not be their last meeting, and that next time he hoped they would not pass each other in this way, and that his father would be glad to see him.

The two carriages drove on, each in its own direction.

The doctor informed Eric that his son-in-law was a practical chemist, and he murmured to himself,--

"Trump called for, trump shown." Eric did not understand him; he thought, smiling, how Pranken had spoken of Weidmann's sons, with the impertinently white teeth.

The carriage drove on. Just as they were entering the next village, the steamboat from the upper Rhine came along; the doctor ordered the coachman to drive as rapidly as possible, in order to reach the landing in time. They went at a tearing gallop. The doctor cried,--

"I have it now! I have it now!" He struck Eric's arm at the same time, as if he were giving a blow upon the table that would make the glasses jingle, and he held it with no gentle grasp.

The carriage reached the landing just as the plank was thrown from it to the steamboat. The doctor got out quickly, and told the coachman to say to his wife that he would not be home until evening; then he took Eric by the arm, and went with him on board the boat. Only after it had got under way, could Eric ask him if he were going to visit a patient. The doctor nodded; he thought that he was safe in saying so, for he had a patient with him whom he was curing constitutionally.

The physician was immediately greeted by acquaintances on board, and a company around a punch-bowl invited him and his friend to join them; he touched glasses, but did not drink, for he said that he never took mixed drinks. The company was merry; a deformed passenger played upon an accordion, and accompanied the singing.

On the deck, at a little table upon which stood a bottle of champagne in a wine-cooler, the Wine-cavalier was seated, and opposite him was a handsome woman, with a great deal of false hair, and also peculiarly attractive charms of her own. They were smoking cigarettes, and chatting very fast in French. The Wine-cavalier avoided meeting the physician's eye, and the physician nodded to himself, as much as to say, "Good, a little shame yet left."

When they came in sight of the village which his son-in-law had mentioned, the doctor told Eric that he would now inform him directly that he was going with him to Weidmann's; he was the man who understood how to help him, and his advice was to be unconditionally followed. For a time Eric was perplexed, but then it appeared to him again as a strangely interesting thing, that now perhaps he was to pass through an entirely new and unanticipated examination. He and the doctor entered the boat which landed the passengers from the steamboat, and those on board, with glass in hand, bade them farewell; the steamboat was soon out of sight. Even the boatman knew the doctor, and said to him, greeting him in a familiar way,--

"You will find Herr Weidmann yonder in the garden."

They landed at the quiet village. Eric was introduced to Weidmann. He was a lean man, and, at first sight, seemed uninteresting; his features had an expression of quiet self-possession and intelligence, but in his gleaming eye lay a burning enthusiasm. Weidmann sat with several persons at a table, on which were papers, bottles, and glasses.

He nodded in a friendly way, and then turned to the persons with whom he had been conversing.

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XI. STRIVE TO MAKE MONEY

It is not well to hear a man so much spoken of and praised, before seeing him face to face. It seemed incomprehensible to Eric how this man exerted such a wide influence, and impossible for himself to enter into his life. The doctor was immediately called away, for the landlord's father being sick, his arrival was regarded as very fortunate. Eric walked up and down the shore; he seemed to himself to be thrown into a strange world, and to be borne along by strange potencies. How long it was since he had left Roland, how long since he went by this village, which was then to him only a name! Now, perhaps, some eventful occurrence was to take place here, and the name of this village to be stamped indelibly upon his life.

"Herr Captain! Herr Weidmann wishes me to ask you to come into the garden," the boatman cried to him.

Eric went back into the garden, where Weidmann came to him, with an entirely different mien, saying that he would now, for the first time, bid him welcome; previously he had been very busy. A short time afterwards the doctor also came.

The three now seated themselves at the table in a corner of the garden, where there was an extensive prospect, and Weidmann began in a humorous way to depict "the heroic treatment" of the doctor's, practice, who liked to deal in drastic remedies. A suitable point of agreement was established between Eric and Weidmann, while they united in a facetious, but entirely respectful assault upon the doctor.

Eric learned that the doctor had already proposed that he should undertake the superintendence of the powder-mill. Weidmann, in the meanwhile, explained that the difficulties were too great, and that the government threw in the way all sorts of obstacles, although they wanted principally to open a market in the New World, and with this view, his nephew, Doctor Fritz, had sent over from America, and had well recommended, one of the men with whom he had just been conversing. And his nephew desired that they would find some experienced German artillery officer, who would emigrate to America, and there take charge of a manufactory of gunpowder and matches, with the sure prospect of soon making a fortune.

The doctor looked towards Eric, but he smiled and shook his head in the negative.

Weidmann informed them further, that a discovery had been lately made of a deposit of manganese, and that they were desirous of forming a company to work the mine; that a man who knew how to regulate matters might easily make himself acquainted with the business.

He also looked inquiringly at Eric, and then made him the direct offer of a considerable salary, and an increasing share of the profits.

Eric declined, courteously and gratefully, as he had not entirely decided whether he would engage at all in any new pursuit. The doctor entered warmly into the matter, and extolled the superiority of our age, in which men of ripe scientific attainments devoted themselves to active employments, and, through their independent property; created a commonalty such as no period of history had ever before known.

"'This is ours, this is ours,' we commoners can say. Don't you think so?"

"Most certainly."

"Now then, go thou and do likewise."

And he added to this, how glad the Weidmann family would be to receive him into their circle.

Eric smilingly replied, that he felt obliged to decline this very friendly offer; that he valued very highly the independence which property gives, but was not adapted to a life of acquisition.

"Indeed?" cried the doctor, and there was something of contempt in his tone. "Do you know how the question of our age is put? It is, To use, or to be used? Why are you willing to be used by this Herr Sonnenkamp?"

"You surely would not want me to use other people, and appropriate to myself the product of their labor?"

"It is not well," interposed Weidmann, "to generalize in this way upon a wholly personal question. I see--I expected that the utter separation of the rich and the poor would vitally interest you; but here we have our doctor, and he will agree with me, that it is with the so-called social maladies as with those of the body. We know to-day, better than any period has ever known, the scientific diagnosis of disease, but we are ignorant of the specific remedy, and a disease must be known a long time, and known very thoroughly, before its method of cure is discovered; yet we must put up with it, in the meantime, and let it pass."

"Have you had no craving to be rich?" the doctor cried, apparently excited.

"It would be unwise to have a craving for what I cannot obtain through my own capabilities."

Weidmann's eye was quietly fixed upon Eric's countenance; the latter was aware of it, and whilst he thought, at this moment, that he could with a motion of his hand quietly relinquish all the offered riches of the world, the temptation came over his soul. What it would be for one to be free from all the cares of life, and to be able to devote himself to life itself; and he saw also how he could gratify every wish of his mother and his aunt.

But no; the first wish of his mother will be that he should remain true to himself. And the more Clodwig there, and here the physician, wanted to turn him aside from his vocation, so much the clearer was it to him, that he not only must abide by that vocation, but that he also had incurred a moral obligation to Roland.

Weidmann related that he had received a letter from New York, from his nephew. Doctor Fritz, who was going to send immediately his young daughter to be educated in Germany. The conversation now turned upon persons and things with which Eric was unacquainted.

The boatman came to inform them that the last steamboat was now coming up the river.

The doctor and Eric took hasty leave of Weidmann, who warmly shook Eric's hand, and requested him to claim his help in any situation in life where he could be of service.

The physician and Eric got into the boat and were rowed to the steamboat. Hardly a word was spoken by them during the passage to the town, where they were to disembark.

When they reached it, men and women were walking under the newly-planted lindens, for it is always a significant event of the day when the steamboat arrives, which remains here over night. The wife of the doctor was also at the landing, and she went homeward with Eric and her husband. She was very friendly to Eric, whom she had already met at Wolfsgarten; Eric, indeed, had no recollection of her, for at that time he had scarcely noticed, in fact, the modest, silent woman.

Many persons were waiting at the house for the physician. Eric was shown into his chamber, and then into the library; he was glad to see that the physician kept abreast with all the new investigations of his science, and he hoped through his help to fill up many a gap in his own knowledge.

The twilight came on; as Eric was sitting quietly in a large chair, he heard a horse trotting by the house. He involuntarily stood up, and looked out; he thought that the rider who had just passed was Roland, or had only his own imagination, and his continual thinking about the boy, deluded him?

There was an air of comfort in the physician's house, and everything gave evidence of solid prosperity; but the physician was obliged to go from the tea-table to a neighboring village.

Eric walked with the doctor's wife along the pretty road on the bank of the river, and there was a double satisfaction in her words, as she said that she greatly desired that her husband could have constant intercourse with such a mentally active friend as Eric, for he often felt himself lonely here in the town, and he was often obliged to depend wholly upon himself.

Eric was happy, for he perceived in this not only a friendly appreciation of himself, but also the deep and intelligent esteem of the wife, who would like to bestow upon her husband a permanent blessing.

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XII. A CHEERFUL LITTLE TOWN

There was a genuine neighborly feeling among the inhabitants of this small town. People called out to friends who were standing at the windows and on the balconies, or walking in the streets; groups were formed, where much chatting and jesting went on, while from windows, here and there piano-playing and singing were heard.

The justice's wife and her daughter Lina joined Eric and his hostess. People were surprised that he was leaving Sonnenkamp's house, as the report had already spread that he was to remain there. And now Eric learned that Roland had really ridden through the town, passing several times before the physician's house, and letting his horse prance so that it frightened one to look at him.

Lina was burning with eagerness to speak to Eric alone for a moment, and she found her opportunity when they met the school-director and his wife, and the two elder ladies stopped to inquire about the health of the forester's wife, who lived in the director's house. Lina went on with Eric, and said abruptly:--

"Do you know that your pupil Roland has a sister?"

"Certainly. I have heard so."

"Heard so? Why, you have seen her. She was the young girl with the star on her forehead, and the wings, who met us in the twilight on the cloister steps."

"Ah, indeed!"

"Ah, indeed!" mimicked Lina. "Oh! you men are dreadful; I have always thought that you----"

She stopped and Eric asked:--

"That I--what of me?"

"Ah, mother is right, I am too heedless and clumsy, and say everything that comes into my head; I should have believed you now----"

"That you may do; it is a sin to be untrue, and a double sin to be so towards you."

"Well then," said Lina, taking off her straw hat, and shaking the curls in her neck, "well then, if you will honestly confess, that Manna made an impression on you at that time, I will tell you something; but you must be frank and sincere."

"My dear young lady, do you think I would say no? You tempt me not to be sincere."

"Well then, I'll tell you--but please keep it to yourself won't you?--Manna asked me who you were, and that's a great deal from her. Oh, Herr Captain, wealth is a dreadful thing; people offer themselves only for the sake of a girl's money--no, I didn't mean to say that--but try to manage that Manna shall not be a nun."

"Can I prevent it?"

"Did you see the wooden shoes that the nuns wore? Horrid! Manna would have to wear those shoes, and she has the prettiest little foot."

"But why shouldn't she be a nun, if she wants to?"

Lina was puzzled, she was not prepared for such an answer. She remembered, too, that she was a good Catholic.

"Ah," she said plaintively, "I fancied to myself--I am a silly child, am I not?--in old times a knight used to enter a castle disguised as a squire or something else--well, I thought now the squire must be a tutor and then--"

She could not go on with her fancy sketch, for her mother overtook them, rather anxious lest her daughter had made some of her dreadfully simple speeches in her walk with the stranger.

"May one know what you are talking about so earnestly?" asked the Justice's wife. Lina drew a long breath, and put her hat-elastic in her mouth, which her mother had often forbidden, as Eric answered with great unconcern,--

"Your daughter has been reminding me that I was not very attentive when we first met on the convent island. I must ask your pardon now, madame. It relieves my mind of a burden of self-reproach to have the opportunity of excusing myself to you, and I earnestly beg that you will carry my apologies to your husband. One meets in travelling so many people who think to make themselves of importance by being ill-tempered, that one catches the unfriendly spirit, and harms himself the most. If I had not had the good fortune to meet you again, a little misunderstanding would have remained between us. Ah! on such a beautiful evening, by your beautiful river, where people are so friendly and cheerful, one longs to do some good to every one he meets, and to say, Rejoice with me, dear fellow-mote, dancing in the sunlight, for the little time which is called life."

Eric was very animated, and the Justice's wife much pleased with his demeanor. The evening walk was most refreshing. Lina directly gave up to her mother the place next Eric, and walked on the other side of the doctor's wife. The walk lasted a long time, till the doctor's carriage was heard in the distance by his wife, who knew the sound of its wheels before the others could distinguish anything.

The doctor joined them with a fresh fund of cheerfulness, saying,--

"I was sent for to receive a confession, and now I have lost an excellent reminder."

He went on to tell them that a man had lived in the next village, the sight of whom had always given him a stab in the heart, for the man had sworn a false oath about a hundred florins which he owed him. But as time went on, he had become quite grateful to this person for serving him as a reviver of his faith, because every time he met him he felt a fresh belief in the meanness of mankind, which one easily forgets. Now, before his death, the man had confessed to him and given back the money. So here he was, a hundred florins richer, but he had lost his faith. How could he laugh now at the world, if he had no longer the meanness of men to laugh at?

"What will you do now with the hundred florins?" asked Lina.

"What would you do with them?"

"I don't know."

"What would you do, captain?" said the physician, turning suddenly to Eric; "what would you do, if you had a million to give away?"

"I?" asked Eric, somewhat taken aback. He did not understand the reason of the sudden question.

"Yes, you."

"I never thought about it, but first I would found valuable scholarships at all the German universities. The man of wealth ought to be able to reflect how he is cultivating the mind of the man of genius."

"Good," answered the doctor, "every one thinks first of his own circle. Here's my little friend Lina; if she had a million to give away, she would spend it all on blue muslin, and dress all the female world in it. Wouldn't you, Musselina?"

Lina was silent, and her mother said, "Give some smart answer; can't you think of one?" Lina apparently could not think of one, but there was a pleasant, merry tone in the intercourse between the doctor and the child.

After their friends left them, the doctor said to Eric,--

"You can become familiar with a new method of instruction here. The Justice's lady tries with all her might to make her daughter a pert, worldly chatterbox, but fortunately the child has a simple, genuine nature which can't be spoiled, and when you talk with her alone she is full of bubbling life, and rightly deserves the name of Musselina."

The doctor was more friendly than ever in his bearing towards Eric, for he saw that he had wished to interfere in his life too hastily and roughly. He expressed regret that Eric had not seen Herr Weidmann to advantage that day, as the latter had been preoccupied, or something had gone wrong with him, and he advised Eric not to adopt a wrong impression in regard to him. The doctor smiled, well pleased, when Eric replied that he should not allow himself to form an opinion of a view on the Rhine which every one admired, if he had seen it only through rain or mist. The physician had evidently been thinking much of Eric during his drive; he always addressed him to-day as Herr Captain in a very marked manner, and he explained this when he held out his hand in bidding him good-night, by saying,--

"You are the first soldier with whom I have ever been able to live quite comfortably. With all other officers, I have always had a feeling of--I can't say fear, exactly--but a certain consciousness of being unarmed in the presence of an armed man. You soldiers always have an air of preparation, of readiness for attack, in which there's much that's good. I take back my words; perhaps a soldier can be a still better educator than a physician. Well, good-night!"

When Eric was alone, everything vanished which he had seen or experienced during the day, and Roland's form alone remained before him. He tried to fancy what the boy's thoughts were in riding after him. He sought to transport himself into the boy's state of feeling; he could not entirely do so, for Roland was full of anger with Eric, for deserting one who was so truly and fondly devoted to him. The boy felt as if he had been robbed, and so he rode over to the town fancying that Eric must be coming to meet him, or must be watching for him at the window; he rode back weeping with anger.

The world, of which he was to possess so much, appeared to him worthless and strange, while it seemed to Eric, who had nothing but his own thoughts, bathed in a dew of blessing. In the stillness of the night he thought over the hospitable and homelike reception he had met from Clodwig, and now from the physician, and hospitality seemed to him the purest fruit of noble manhood. In ancient times men entertained gods and angels, and they still entertained them, for in freely offering what one has to a stranger, whose very existence was yesterday unknown, the divine is unfolded in the pure soul.

Up yonder at Wolfsgarten, Eric had met with a fatherly good-will, based upon congeniality of thought--here with the doctor, as much goodwill as difference of opinion; but here, too, that personal friendliness which is so satisfying and home-like.

There was Bella who always wished to make an impression in her own behalf, and here was the doctor's wife, who wished nothing for herself, who thanked Eric in her heart, and wished only that her husband might have the good fortune to be able to talk over learned subjects with another man. And were these many forms, were all these events, to be only the passing occurrences of a journey?

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XIII. AGAIN ALONE WITH THYSELF

"In the morning," the doctor often said, "I am like a washed chimney-sweeper." He rose, summer and winter, at five o'clock, studied uninterruptedly several hours, and answered only the most pressing calls from his patients. Through this practice of study he not only kept up his scientific knowledge, but as he bathed his body in fresh water, so was he also mentally invigorated; let come what would of the day, he had made sure of his portion of science. And that was the reason--we may congratulate ourselves upon knowing this secret--that was the reason why the doctor was so wide awake, so ready primed, and so vivacious. He himself designated these morning hours to an old fellow-student as his camel-hours, when he drank himself full, so that he could often refresh himself with a draught in the dry desert. And life, moreover, did not seem to him a desert, for he had something which thrived everywhere, and was all-prevailing, and that was an indestructible cheerfulness, and an equanimity, which he attributed above all to his sound digestion.

So was he sitting now; and when he heard Eric, whose room was over his study, getting up, he sent word to him to come soon to breakfast; and in this hour the freshness of the man was yet wholly unimpaired. His wife, who had to be busy, or rather, who made herself busy about household matters, in order not to oblige her husband to enter into any conversation on less learned matters, had soon gone into the garden, in which flourished many scions and seeds of various kinds out of Sonnenkamp's garden. But the doctor conversed with Eric upon no scientific topics.

In the breakfast-room there hung portraits of the parents and the grand-parents of the physician, and he took occasion to give some account of his own life. His grandfather and father had been boat-men, and the doctor had been present at the golden wedding of both, and expressed his hope to celebrate also his own. And after he had portrayed his own struggle with life, he proceeded to ask Eric about his pecuniary affairs, and those of his mother.

Eric disclosed the whole state of the case; he described how his mother had noble and rich friends; on whom she placed great expectations, but he did not believe in, and to speak honestly, he did not desire, any help of that sort. The doctor asserted in confirmation, that no one would help them substantially and handsomely; he unfolded, as he went along, wholly heretical views upon beneficence; he expatiated upon the nonsense of leaving endowments and legacies in one's will, and on scattering small donations. He thought it was much handsomer, and more permanently beneficial, to make an individual or a family entirely independent, so that they may thereby be the means of accomplishing greater good. He stated that he had often attempted to bring this about; nothing of this kind was to be effected with Herr Sonnenkamp, who would have nothing further to do with people into whose hat he had cast an alms.

The conversation, in this way, having once more turned upon Sonnenkamp, the doctor offered to take upon himself all the external financial arrangements with Sonnenkamp, insisting upon Eric's consent to his doing so.

"And do you take no farther trouble about this man," said the doctor, opening an egg. "See, it is all a fair exchange. We devour this egg with the greatest zest, while the hen got her living out of the manure-heap."

Eric was happy with this lively, practical man. He expressed his satisfaction that, here in this little town, there were so many noble persons, who could constitute a rich social environment. The doctor contested this, for he considered that the necessity of being thrown upon one another, and the not being able to make a selection, as one can do in a great city, belittled, contracted, and created gossip. One had, indeed, in a great city, no larger circle than was here formed for the direct participation in the various duties of life, but the necessity of contracting marriages within such a limited circle did not permit the existence of a free social community.

"On the whole," he said in conclusion, "we are no more to each other than a good whist-party."

It was time to think of departing. Eric left the house with a feeling of serene satisfaction. The doctor drove him to the nearest railroad station, where he got out and warmly shook Eric's hand, repeating the wish that they might be able to live together.

The train, meanwhile, stopped longer than usual at the little station, waiting the arrival of the train from the lower Rhine which was behind time. A merry crowd of men, young and old, greeted the doctor and seated themselves in the same car with Eric. The doctor told him that they were wine-testers, who were going to a sale which was to take place to-day at the wine-count's cellar. He called Eric's attention specially to a jovial-looking man, the gauger, the finest judge of wine in the district. The doctor laughed heartily when Eric said to him, that he had also gone about the whole district testing wines, that is, the spiritual wine of character.

"Strange how you make an application of everything!" laughed the physician. "Count Wolfsgarten, Pranken, Bella, Sonnenkamp, the huntsman, Sevenpiper, Musselina, Weidmann, Fräulein Perini, the Major, the priest, I, and Roland--a fine specimen-catalogue of wines. Look out that you do not stagger as you come out of the wine-cellar."

The doctor suddenly turned round, and cried:--

"You may yet induce me to put something in print. I am verily of the opinion, that though there must be some consumers who are not producers, there are no graduated German heads that don't want, at some time or other, to write a book; perhaps that helps them to study. And when you come again, you will, perhaps, bring me to the point of writing my history of sleep."

The train from the lower Rhine whistled, and the doctor, grasping Eric's hand again, said with emotion,--

"We are friends! take notice, that if either one of us is to be no longer the other's friend, he pledges himself to give a week's notice. And now farewell."

The last word was cut off, for the locomotive whistled, and Eric set out towards home.

He was sitting with downcast eyes when he heard some one in the car say,--

"There's young Sonnenkamp on horseback!"

Eric looked out, and caught one more glimpse of Roland, just as he disappeared behind a little hill.

Eric heard nothing of the lively talk, often interrupted by loud laughter, which the wine-party kept up; he had much in the past and future to think over, and he was glad when the party left the car at the next station, and he remained alone. He felt some repentance, and some doubt whether he had not acted wrongly and unwisely in not concluding an arrangement with Sonnenkamp, but he soon took courage again and cast his regret behind him.

We are rapidly rolled along by the power of steam. And in spirit? How far are we masters of our destiny?

At several stations, school-boys, with their satchels on their backs, entered Eric's car. He learned, in answer to his questions, that they lived with their parents in country-houses and distant villages, but went every day to school in the city, returning home in the evening. Eric thought long on the new race of youths which is growing up; taking their places in the noisy railway-train in the early morning, then assembling for instruction, and going home again over the railroad; these boys must and will learn to guard, in the restlessness and tumult of the new age, their own inner life, which is, indeed, quite different from ours. And then he looked farther on into a future, when the alarming growth of the great cities shall cease, and men shall again live outside of them, where the green fields, the rushing streams, and the blue sky shall be daily before their eyes, and yet it shall be granted them to make their own the elements of culture, and all which is now supplied by the union of men in large towns. Then again will country air force its way into the soul.

At the time when Eric and the doctor were setting out, the justice's wife sat with her husband and her daughter over their morning coffee. The conversation turned on the evening walk with Eric, and the lady repeated his frank apologies.

"Very good, very good," said the justice. "He is polite and clever, but it's well that he has gone; he's a dangerous man."

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I. THE STRUGGLE IN A CHILD'S HEART

The sparrows in the alders and willows on the shore of the convent-island twittered and chattered noisily together, they had so much to say to each other about what they had experienced during the day; and who knows whether their to-day was not a much longer interval of time than ours? One puffed up by his experience--perhaps we should say her experience, for the feathers had lost their colors from age--sat quietly in the crotch of a bough, comfortably resting against the trunk; he echoed and re-echoed his delight at the splendid time he enjoyed over the river, under the closely-trimmed branches of a shady linden, in the inn-yard by the shore.

The waiter there had long delayed removing the remnants of an English breakfast, and there were cakes, the pieces, alas! too large, abundance of eggs, honey, and sugar; it was a feast without parallel. He considered that the real joy of existence had its first beginning when one wished to know nothing more of all other things, and had supreme satisfaction in eating and drinking alone. Only in mature life did one really come to that perception.

Others would listen to nothing from the swaggering fellow, and there was an irregular debate, whether lettuce-seeds or young cabbage-heads were not much better than all the cooked-up dishes of men. A young rogue, fluttering around his roguish mate, reported to her that behind the ferryman's house, there hung from the garret-window a bulging bag full of flax-seed; if one only knew how to rip open the seam a little, one could gradually eat up all the tidbits, but it must be kept a profound secret, else the others would come too; and hemp-seed, it must be acknowledged, was just the most precious good which this whole round earth could furnish. The rogue was of the opinion that her delicate bill was exactly the nice thing to pick open the seam; it was the most contemptible baseness in human beings, to hang up in the open air just the most tempting dainties all fastened and tied up.

A late-comer, flying up in breathless haste, announced that the scarecrow, standing in the field, was nothing but a stick with clothes hung upon it.

"Because the stupid men believe in scarecrows, they think that we do too," laughed he, and flapped his wings in astonishment and pity at the manifest simplicity.

There was a frantic bustle in the alders and willows, and almost as frantic in the great meadow, where the girls from the convent caught hold of each other, chattered together, tittered, teased one another, and laughed.

Apart from her noisy companions, and frequently passing under the alder-trees where there was such a merry gathering of the birds, walked a girl slender in form and graceful in movement, with black hair and brilliant eyes, accompanied by a tall and majestic woman in a nun's dress, whose bearing had an expression of quiet and decisive energy. Her lips were naturally so pressed together, that the mouth seemed only a narrow streak of red. The entire brow was covered with a white kerchief, and the face, the large eyes, the small eyebrows, the sharp nose, the closely pressed lips, and the projecting but rather handsome chin, had something commanding and immovable.

"Honored mother," began the maiden, "you have read the letter from Fräulein Perini?"

The nun--it was the superior--only turned her face a little; she seemed to be waiting for the maiden--it was Hermanna Sonnenkamp--to speak further.

As Manna, however, was silent, the superior said:--

"Herr von Pranken is then to make us a visit. He is a man of good family and good morals, he seems a wordling, but he is not one exactly. He has, indeed, the impatience of the outside world; I trust, however, that he will not press his wooing as long as you are here our child, that is to say, the child of the Lord."

She spoke in a very deliberate tone, and now stopped.

"Let us go away from here; the noise of the birds above there allows one hardly to hear herself speak."

They went by the churchyard, in the middle of the island, to the grove growings near a small rocky ledge, which the children called the Switzerland of the island; there they sat down, and the superior continued:--

"I am sure of you, my child, that you will decline hearing a word from Herr von Pranken that has any reference to protestations of love, or to the soliciting your hand in marriage."

"You know, honored mother," replied Manna,--her voice was always pathetic, and as if veiled with tears;--"you know, honored mother, that I have promised to take the veil."

"I know it, and I also do not know it, for what you now say or determine is for us like a word written in the sand, which the wind and the footsteps of man may efface. You must go out again into the world; you must have overcome the world, before you renounce it. Yes, my child! the whole world must appear to you like your dolls, which you tell me of,--forgotten, valueless, dead,--a child's toy, upon which it is scarcely conceivable that so much regard, so much love, should be lavished."

For some time all was still, nothing was to be heard but the song of the nightingale in the thicket, and above the river ravens were flying in flocks and singing--men call it croaking--and soaring to their nests in the mountain-cliffs.

"My child," began the superior, after a while, "to-day is the anniversary of my mother's death; I have to-day prayed for her soul in eternity, as I did at that time. At the time she died--men call it dying, but it is only the birth into another life--at that time, my vow forbade me to stand by her death-bed; it cost me hardly a struggle, for whether my parents are still out there in the world, or above there in heaven, it makes no difference to us. Look, the water is now tinged with the glow of evening, and people outside, on the hills and on the banks, are speaking in raptures of nature, that new idol which they have set up, for they are the children of nature; but we are to be the children of God, before whose sight all nature seems only a void, under whatever color it may appear, whether clothed in green, or white with snow."

"I believe, I comprehend that," Manna said assentingly.

"That is why I say it to you," continued the worthy mother. "It is a great thing to overcome the world, to thrust it from one's self, and never to long for it a single instant, and to receive in exchange the eternal blessedness, even while we dwell here in the body. Yes, my child," she laid both hands upon the head of Manna, and continued, "I would like to give you strength, my strength--no, not mine, that which God has lent me Thou art to struggle hard and bravely with the world, thou art to be tried and sifted, before thou comest to us forever, to the fore-court of the Kingdom of Heaven."

Manna had closed her eyes, and in her soul was the one only wish, that now the earth might open and swallow her up, or that some supernatural power would come and lift her up over all. When she opened her eyes, and saw the marvellous splendor of the sunset sky, the violet haze of the mountains, and the river glowing in the red beams of evening, she shut her eyes again, and made a repellant movement with her hand, as if she would have said,--I will have nothing of thee; thou shalt be naught to me; thou art only a doll, a lifeless thing, on which we waste our love.

With trembling voice Manna mourned over her rent and tempest-tossed spirit; a few days before, she had sung and spoken the message of the heralding angels, while dark demons were raging within her. She had spent the whole day in prayer, that she might be worthy to announce such a message, and then in the twilight a man had appeared before her, and her eye had rested on him with pleasure; it was the tempter who had approached her, and the figure had followed her into her dreams. She had risen at midnight, and wept, and prayed to God that he would not suffer her to fall into sin and ruin. But she had not conquered. She scorned and hated the vision, but it would not leave her. Now she begged that some penance might be imposed upon her, that she might be allowed to fast for three days.

The superior gently consoled her, saying that she must not blame herself so bitterly, because the self-reproach increased the excitement of fancy and feeling. At the season when the elders were in bloom and the nightingales sang, a maiden of seventeen was apt to be visited by dreams; Manna must not weep over these dreams, but just scare them away and mock at them; they were only to be driven off by ridicule.

Manna kissed the hands of the superior.

It became dark. The sparrows were silent, the noisy children returned to the house, and only the nightingale sang continually in the shrubbery. Manna turned back to the convent, the superior leading her by the hand. She went to the large dormitory, and sprinkled herself with holy water. She continued praying silently long after she had gone to bed, and fell asleep, with her hands folded.

The river swept rustling along the valley, and swept rustling by the villa where Roland slept with contemptuously curled lip; it rushed past the streets of the little town, where Eric was speculating upon this and that in the doctor's house; it rushed by the inn where Pranken, leaning against the window, stared over at the convent.

The moon shone on the river, and the nightingales sang on the shore, and in the houses thousands of people slept, forgetting joy and sorrow, until the day again dawned.

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II. A GREEN TWIG

Os the west side of the convent, under the lofty, wide-spreading, thickly-leaved chestnut-trees, beeches, and lindens, and far in among the firs with their fresh shoots, stationary tables and benches were arranged. Girls in blue dresses were sitting here, reading, writing, or busy with their hand-work. Sometimes there was a low humming, but not louder than the humming of the bees in the blossoming chestnut-trees; sometimes a moving this way and that, a change in one's position, but not more than the fluttering of a bird in the trees overhead.

Manna sat at the table beneath a large fir-tree, and at a little distance from her, on a low seat under a lofty beech on whose trunk many names were carved, and on which was suspended a framed picture of the Madonna, sat a little child; she looked up frequently at Manna, who nodded to her, indicating that she must study her book more diligently, and be as busy as the rest. The child was nicknamed Heimchen, because she had suffered so much from homesickness, and Heimchen had become the pet of all the girls. Manna had cured the child, to all appearance at least, for on the day after the representation of the sacred play, she had received permission from a lay-sister who presided over the gardening, to prepare for the child a separate little garden-plat; and now she seemed to be taking root in the foreign land, as did the plants which she had since watered and cared for, but she was inseparable from Manna.

Manna worked diligently; some pale blue paper was lying before her, and she was painting on it, with a fine brush, pictures of the stars in color of gold from small shells.

She prided herself especially on having the neatest writing-books, every leaf ruled very regularly with lines close together, and uniformly written upon, neither too coarse nor too fine. Manna had received, a few days since, the highest mark of honor ever conferred on a pupil, by being unanimously made the recipient of the blue ribbon, which the three classes of the children, namely, the children of Jesus, the angels of Mary, and the children of Mary, had adjudged to her. There had hardly been any election, so much a matter of course did it seem that nobody but Manna could be designated for the blue ribbon. This badge of distinction gave her a sort of right to be considered a superior.

While she was thus drawing, and frequently running her eye over the children left under her care, she had a book open by her side; it was Thomas à Kempis. While putting in the stars, which she did with that delicate and beautiful finish attainable, perhaps, only in the convent, she snatched a few sentences out of Thomas à Kempis, that her soul might be occupied with higher thoughts during this trifling occupation.

The stroke of oars sounded from the shore on that side: the girls looked up; a handsome young man was standing in the boat, who lifted his hat and waved it, as if saluting the island.

"Is he your brother? your cousin?" was whispered here and there.

No one knew the stranger.

The boat came to land. The girls were full of curiosity, but they dared not intermit their work, for everything had its allotted time. Luckily, a tall, fair-complexioned maiden had used up all her green worsted, so that she must go to the convent for more, and she nodded significantly to the others that she would find out who was the new arrival. But before the blond girl could come back, a serving-sister appeared, and informed Manna Sonnenkamp that she was to come to the convent. Manna arose, and Heimchen, who wanted to go with her, was bidden to remain; the child quietly seated herself again on her little stool under the beech-tree from which hung the picture of the Madonna. Manna broke off a little freshly-budding twig from the tree under which she had been sitting, and placed it in her book as a mark; she then followed the sister.

There was great questioning among those who remained: Who is he? Is he a cousin? But the Sonnenkamps have no relatives in Europe. Perhaps a cousin from America.

The children were uneasy, and seemed to have no longer any inclination for their studies. Manna had given to a companion the blue sash which she wore on her right shoulder, and this one felt it incumbent on her to keep strict order.

Manna came to the convent. As she entered the reception-room, to find the lady-superior. Otto von Pranken rose quickly and bowed.

"Herr von Pranken," said the superior, "brings you a greeting from your parents and Fräulein Perini."

Pranken approached Manna, and extended his hand, but as she had the book in her right hand, she gave him in a hesitating manner her left. Pranken, the fluent talker, only stammered out--for Manna's appearance had greatly impressed him--the expression of his satisfaction at seeing Manna so well and so much grown, and of the joy it would give her parents and Fräulein Perini to see her again, so much improved.

The stammering manner of Pranken, moved as he was by repressed feeling, lasted while he continued to speak further; for in the midst of his involuntary agitation, he became suddenly aware that this evident emotion could not fail to be noticed by Manna, and must produce some impression upon her. He skilfully contrived to keep up the same tone with which he had begun, and congratulated himself on his ability to play so well a bashful, timid, and surprised part. He had many animating narratives to give of her family at home, and congratulated the maiden on being allowed to live on a blissful island until she could return to the mainland, where a pleasant company of friends formed also a social mainland. Pranken contemplated with a great deal of self-satisfaction this comparison, as pretty as it was new.

Manna did not say a great deal; at last she asked,--

"Who may this Captain Dournay be, of whom Roland writes to me so enthusiastically?"

Pranken winced a little, but he said smilingly,--

"I was so fortunate as to find a poor young man to instruct our Roland--permit me to speak of him so, for I love him like a brother--in a variety of matters. I think that it will do Roland no harm to acquire information from the man."

"Roland writes me that he is an intimate friend of yours."

"Herr Dournay has probably said so to him, and I will not contradict it, if Roland is thus led to entertain a higher respect for a teacher. But, my dear Fräulein, I may venture to say to you that I am somewhat sparing in the use of the word friend, and I would therefore rather not--"

"Then tell me something of the character of this man who calls himself your friend."

"Excuse me from giving the particular details. You yourself will certainly agree with me, that it is our duty to help toward the good one who is striving to turn from the error of his ways, even if we cannot wholly blot out the past."

"What, then, has this Herr Dournay done?" interposed the superior. "I should be sorry on his mother's account, who was a companion of my youth; she is a Protestant, to be sure, but she is what the world calls good and noble."

Pranken appeared perplexed, but with a motion of the hand which implied careful consideration, kind intentions, and a sort of delicate reservation, he said, looking down at the floor,--

"Honored mother, and dear Fräulein! Spare me from making such a statement here in the convent, and consider what I have touched upon as if it had not been said. When I look around me here--as little ought certain words, not perhaps so inappropriate in the world outside, to be spoken aloud in this pure air, as unsaintly pictures, to use a mild expression, to hang by the side of the pious, transfigured forms upon these pure walls. Permit me to say to you, I have special guaranties that the poor young man will not conduct himself unworthily."

Manna's countenance suddenly assumed an expression of noble indignation as she said,--

"But I cannot conceive how they can commit my brother to the charge of a man, who--"

Pranken prayed to be excused for interrupting her. He conjured her by what was high and holy, to forget that he, in his zeal for the truth, had said anything against a former comrade; he had done it involuntarily in his contemplation of purity and loveliness. He besought so earnestly, he manifested so good a heart, so full of human love, that Manna now voluntarily extended to him her hand, and said,--

"I believe you. Ah, how rejoiced I am you are so good!"

Pranken was happy, but determined that Eric should not be received into the family. It seemed more and more puzzling to him that he should himself have raised up such an antagonist; he was now doubly out of humor with Eric, for he had been the occasion of his being untrue and unjust, and Pranken was too proud to be so misled, especially when a little caution on his own part might have prevented the necessity of it.

"Might I venture to request you to show me the lines?" he now said. "My object is to see how good a judge of men Roland has become. Would you be willing to show me what our splendid brother has written of this Herr Dournay?"

Manna blushed, and replied that they had better say no more about the captain; and she besought Pranken to do all he could to remove the man out of the house, if it were still a possible thing. Pranken promised to do all in his power, and he recovered his natural elasticity while he prayed Manna, in a lively tone, but subdued to the proprieties of the place, that instead of giving him so easy a task, she would commission him, like a knight of the good old times, to contend against the dragon-brood. And yet, while calling it easy, he felt in his own heart that the task could not rightly be called so.

The superior rose; she thought that it was high time, and a good time, too, to break off the conversation. Pranken had renewed his acquaintance, and that must suffice for the present. The superior was not so resolutely bent upon the convent for Manna, as to desire that Pranken might not win her affections. Such a house and such a family, endowed with such incredible wealth, might be of great advantage to the convent and to the Church.

"It was very kind in you to visit us," she now said. "Carry my greeting, I pray, to your sister, the Countess Bella, and say to her that she is remembered in my prayers."

Pranken saw that he was expected to take leave, and yet he wanted to say something more definite, and to hear some word which should give him the desired security. His countenance suddenly lighted up, as he said, with such modesty and such friendly feeling that one could not refuse compliance,--

"Fräulein Manna! We erring creatures outside like to have a lasting token in our hands."

"What do you want?" quickly and sharply struck in the superior.

"Honored mother! I would beseech you," Pranken said, turning quickly with humble mien toward the severe lady, "I would beseech you to permit Fräulein Sonnenkamp to give that book into my hand."

"Wonderful!" cried Manna, "I wanted to do that! I wanted to give it to you to carry to my brother. Ask him to read every day a chapter, beginning from the place where the green twig is put, so that he may receive every day the same thoughts into his soul that I do."

"What happiness this harmony of feeling, this oneness of sentiment, gives me! It would be a profanation to try to describe it!"

The superior was at a loss what to do, and Pranken continued:--

"I beseech you, then, my honored Fräulein, to pardon my presumption; I would like to request you to give me this holy book for my own edification, and that I too may be allowed to keep even step with your brother and you."

"But my name is written in the book," said Manna, blushing.

"So much the better," Pranken wanted to say, but luckily he was able to withhold it; he turned to the superior, folded his hands, and stood as if praying her to grant his petition. The superior nodded her head several times, and at last said,--

"My child, you may, perhaps, comply with this request of Herr von Pranken. And now, farewell."

Pranken received the book. He left the convent. As he sat in the boat, the ferryman said to him,--

"Perhaps some maiden over there is betrothed to you?"

Pranken did not reply, but he gave the ferryman a whole handful of money. His heart throbbing with bliss, Pranken rushed up the bank, and immediately sent a telegram to his sister.

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III. HERCULES IN A HAIR-DRESSER'S SHOP

The telegraphist was very much astonished, but did not dare to express his surprise, when the handsome, noble young man, with the polished exterior and the unassuming air, through which there was plainly discernible a feeling of condescension towards a public officer, handed in a telegram mysteriously worded, and running thus:--

"God be praised! a green twig from the island of felicity. New genealogical tree. Heavenly manna. Endless possessions, A consecrated one, new-born.

"OTTO VON PRANKEN."

Pranken walked about in the tasteful, well-arranged grounds of the station, looked up to the mountains, down to the river, to the island; the whole world was as if freshly created to him, he seemed to himself in a new earth; a veil was removed from everything, and all was ravishingly beautiful. In a copse, where no one saw him, he knelt down; and while he knelt he felt inexpressibly happy, and as if he never wished to rise again. He heard a noise in his vicinity, stood upright, and brushed his knees carefully. It was nothing but a beggar that disturbed him. Without waiting to be spoken to, Pranken gave him a considerable sum of money, and after the beggar had gone away, he called him back and gave him as much again.

The air was loaded with aromatic fragrance, intermingled with that delicate resinous perfume that comes from the opening buds; innumerable rose-buds hung from the trellises, as if waiting for the word to open; from the steep wall of rock, where a passage for the railroad had been cut, a cuckoo called, and thousands of birds joined in with their song. The whole world was full of blossoming fragrance and music of birds,--all was redeemed, ransomed, blessed.

The people at the station thought that the young man who was thus walking to and fro, sometimes hurrying, sometimes standing still, sometimes looking up, and then casting his eyes to the ground, must be expecting a relative by the next train; but Pranken was waiting for no person and no thing. What could there be in the world to come to him? He had everything. He could not conceive how he could stay here, and Manna be over there; no moment ought to pass away without their being together, one, inseparable.

A finch now flew away from the tree beneath which he was standing; it flew over the river to the island. Ah! could I also fly over and look at her and greet her from the tree, and at evening fly to her window-sill, and look upon her until she went to sleep, and in the morning when she awoke!

All the feelings that ever moved the heart of youth now took possession of Pranken, and he was frightened at himself, when that demon of vanity and self-conceit, whose growth he had so fostered within him, whispered in his ear. Thou art a noble, enthusiastic youth! All great qualities are thine! He now hated this evil spirit, and he found means of driving him out.

He sat in a retired arbor and read in Thomas à Kempis. He read the admonition: "Learn to rule thyself, and then thou canst rule the things of the world." Pranken had, until now, regarded life as a light jest, not worth the trouble, indeed, of attempting to do any thing with it. He had that contemptuous tone with which one orders a poodle to jump over a stick, and he looked up amazed as to what this should mean.

Is it possible that there is such a way of thinking as this, even in those who belong to the church? "In my father's house are many mansions, and perhaps, it is very well to show for once to the children of the world, that they are not the sole possessors of the right to sport freely with the world."

All was to Pranken more and more amazing, more and more enigmatical, and, at the same time, more and more illuminated. If the buds there upon the hedge could tell, in the moment when they open, how the light thrills through them, it would be like what was now taking place in the soul of this young man. And if a man, who had heard the old legend without believing it, should find down there in the river the Niebelungen treasure, the old, beautiful, splendid, rare and solid jewelry--he would feel as Pranken did when he really discovered, for the first time, the Christian doctrine in this searching and impressive little book. All is here so comprehensive, expressing thine own inner conflicting desires, and expressing them with such tenderness, and disclosing their secret springs, and giving too, the directions how thou canst lay aside what is wrong, and make the true thine own.

Pranken sat there a long time in a reverie; railway trains came, railway trains went; boats went up and down the river, but Pranken heard and saw all as if it were only a dream. The noon-day bell at the convent first aroused him. He went to the inn.

He met here a comrade, who was making a wedding tour with his young bride. Pranken was warmly welcomed; they were very glad to meet him. Pranken must join a water-party on an excursion to the mountains, after dinner; but he declined, he knew not why. But he looked at the young bride and bridegroom with gleaming eyes; so will it be,--so will it be, when he journeys with Manna! It thrilled him with ecstasy to think that he should be alone with her, alone out in the wide world! Why can he not, even now, go for her and bring her out? He promised to himself to learn patience.

They were very merry at dinner-time, and Pranken was delighted that he could still crack his old jokes; his comrade should not have a fine story to tell at the military-club, its members should not have a chance to jeer; and the stout Kannenberg should not bet a flask of Canary that this pious mood was only one of Pranken's whims. Pranken brought out his witticisms as if he had learned them by rote, and it seemed to him a century ago, almost as if it had been in a previous state of existence, that there had been such a thing as appearing on parade.

At table, Pranken heard accidentally that, on the next day, a pilgrimage was to leave the town near by with great pomp. The new-married couple took counsel whether they should not be spectators of the display at the place of pilgrimage; they would decide in the evening.

After Pranken had accompanied them to the boat, he went to the station, and took a ticket for town; he was glad to be able to be in time for the evening service at the cathedral. He reached the town and smiled compassionately, when obliging servants in the streets offered themselves as guides to places of amusements; he smiled compassionately, when a servant in the church asked the "gracious gentleman," whether he should show him everything. Pranken knelt among the worshippers.

Refreshed, and satisfied with himself, he left the church. He strolled through the town, and stood long before a hair-dresser's shop. No one would have thought, and Otto von Pranken least of all, that there was a battle-field destined for him, not outside in the wild contest of arms, but before a great window filled with various perfumes, false hair for men and women, with dolls' heads, whose glass eyes stared under the artificial brows and lashes. Over the door was printed in golden letters, "Hair-dressing and shaving done here." Is it not laughable that a battle is to be fought here? so far from being laughable, it is serious, bitter, earnest.

Pranken had made a heroic resolve to take part in the pilgrimage, and indeed he wanted to unite himself with the pilgrims in a humble manner, and join in their prayers and mortifications. And in the meanwhile, not to attract attention, and all alone, to allow the change to proceed silently in himself, it seemed expedient, first to get rid of his very noticeable whiskers and moustaches; and it was very important to make recognition difficult, for he feared that some one might meet him and change his determination, and other people be guilty of the sin of mockery. And he was especially troubled in regard to the young married couple, who wished to make the pilgrimage. He would be one of the sights of their journey which they could talk of on their return home. And, besides, how many might be seduced into impiety by laughing over it, and they certainly would laugh at Otto von Pranken's being among the pilgrims! Therefore, for your own sake, and that of others, you must be disguised somewhat.

So with heroic resolution--and it was certainly heroic, for who would be willing to deprive himself of an ornament so highly prized and not to be replaced at pleasure?--Pranken entered the fragrant shop, sat down in an arm-chair, and looked at his beard and moustache reflected in a great mirror hanging opposite. His eyes almost overflowed. A great white apron, a true sacrificial mantle for the sacrificial lamb, was thrown over him, and an exceedingly polite young man, who had no suspicion of the priestly office assigned to him, asked,--

"Does the gracious gentleman wish to be shaved, or to be curled?"

"Curled," answered Pranken, quick as lightning, for it came to him like an inspiration, that he would mingle with the pilgrims curled and elegantly dressed; this would be a fuller and deeper confession, and it would bring more honor to the sanctuaries, if it were seen that a man of rank, evidently a military officer, offered to them his veneration.

Finally, with hair nicely dressed, Pranken went out of the shop, and in all the large windows of all the stores he passed, he looked not without satisfaction at his rescued treasure,--his beard and moustache.

He smiled victoriously upon the world.

Pranken knew of an inn, in the town, which was the resort of the élite of the nobility, and he went there hoping to find some companion of equal rank, and with the firm determination to induce him to go on the pilgrimage with him. He found no one whom he knew, and he could not remain in the public parlor, for he saw there, on entering, a famous actress, who was fulfilling here a star engagement, and whom he had formerly known; he pretended not to recognize her and withdrew to his own room.

The morning came; the bells rang for the pilgrims to take their departure. Pranken formed a weighty resolve. Nothing hasty! he said to himself. Make no show! Give the world no opportunity for misconstruction! One has a duty to perform to the world and to the past! One must be putting off the old man, by degrees, and let the new man be unfolded.

From the window of the inn Pranken saw the pilgrims go forth, as he puffed clouds of smoke from his cigar. Then he went to the station, bought a ticket, and returned to Wolfsgarten.

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IV. BITTER ALMONDS

In the country where the tankard rules, the ladies assemble to take coffee, and wine and coffee are equal in this respect, that they can be had at all seasons of the year. In spring and summer, it is pleasant to drink them on a gentle eminence, in a shady arbor where there is a fine view of the country around; in autumn and winter, in comfortable rooms furnished with an abundance of sofa-cushions, embroidered in patterns of parrots or fat woolly dogs.

The coffee-party has the advantage of being given in succession by various persons, and as the pint of wine is not strictly a pint, but can be increased at pleasure, so coffee is only a modest expression for the May-bowls and fruits of the culinary art which follow it; and a hostess who wishes to do something surpassing the rest sends to the great city for ice, to be brought over the railroad.

The Justice's wife led off in the spring coffee-parties. The little garden behind the house was very pleasant, where the lilacs were blooming in all their glory, but the surrounding houses overlooked it, and it was better to have the party in the best parlor opening upon the balcony.

The rustling chintz covers were taken off the sofa-cushions. The invitations were sent out, among the rest to the Countess Wolfsgarten, who had returned an acceptance; but the regular course of proceeding was, that about an hour before the appointed time, a delicately scented, prettily written note should arrive, in which Frau Bella expressed her regret that an unfortunate head-ache would deprive her of the long anticipated pleasure of meeting the highly respected wife of the Justice, and her much esteemed company.

To-day, contrary to all expectation, the Countess had come herself, and had indeed arrived before any of the rest of the party, which was not exactly the thing in fashionable society.

The Justice's wife sent Lina directly into the state parlor to place one more chair, for they had felt quite sure that the Countess would not come.

"I expect my brother to-day, he has been down the Rhine," Frau Bella soon said.

She did in fact wish to carry her brother home from the town, that she might hear more of Manna and the enigmatical telegram; but she had a second purpose in view, and an opportunity of carrying it out soon presented itself.

The Justice's wife complained that Captain and Doctor Dournay--"what is one to call him--?"

"Call him simply doctor."

That Doctor Dournay, then, had paid a visit to the priest, to the major, and to the physician. The Major's housekeeper had told the beadle a great deal about him. But very singularly, though he seemed to be a man of excellent manners, he had neglected the very central point of the town, which was certainly the Justice's court. He had certainly apologized very humbly when he spent the night at the doctor's, and the doctor's wife said that he was soon to return and enter Sonnenkamp's service with a salary more than double that of a Justice. Herr von Pranken had done a very kind thing in getting this position for the young man, who, it was to be hoped, would show himself worthy of his recommendation.

Bella nodded acquiescingly, and praised the Justice's wife for acknowledging in so friendly a manner the kindness which it was a duty to show to an unfortunate man, but added that she must certainly see the danger also, that an untrustworthy man could be injured in no way more than by benefits, which served only to nourish enemies, who lay in wait for the right moment to show themselves in their true light.

The Justice's wife was delighted with the manner in which this lady of acknowledged intellect dressed up her own plain commonsense so finely. She assented, and felt much pleased with the idea, that, as soon as one enjoyed personal intercourse with the Countess Wolfsgarten, one could think more clearly and understand everything better. Both ladies smiled contentedly, and each declared that the other was dressed most becomingly and tastefully, though of course with the acknowledgment that Frau Bella was the most marked in this respect, for to attempt to rival her would be folly.

Bella certainly looked very animated. She spoke lightly--for the matter must not be misrepresented--of the slight attack of illness which the Count had had at Villa Eden, when "Herr Dournay" who had lifted him had behaved right bravely. The Justice's wife launched out in praise of the Count, and of the care which was taken of his life.

Frau Bella led the conversation back, and with cautious circumspection insinuated that Eric had omitted a visit to the Justice, because he felt a certain shyness of legal tribunals, and still more of all faithful servants of the reigning king.

With considerable eagerness, the Justice's wife pressed for further information, and under a promise of strict secrecy--though, of course, the Justice must know all--she was informed that people knew of certain political declarations, even of printed announcements in a foreign paper, or rather a paper published beyond the boundary line, which had induced the former Lieutenant Dournay to ask for his discharge, before it was given him without his asking.

"Then why was the rank of captain given him?" asked the Justice's wife.

"You question with as much shrewdness as the Justice himself," replied Bella.

She did not seem prepared for this inquiry, and only said that it was not for her to wish to stand in the way of a poor young man's earning a living. Very likely it had been done--at this point she seized the hand of the Justice's wife and held it between her own, as if signifying that she was entrusting a great secret to her charge--very likely it had been done for the sake of his mother, who had been a favorite lady of honor to the dowager princess; of course the matter was kept as quiet as possible.

Bella tried to put on a pleased smile, and to repress an expression of mild compassion, when the Justice's wife said,--

"There my husband guessed right again. As we were driving home from your reception--ah, what a pleasant, cheerful time we had--my husband said to me and my daughter, 'Children, I tell you, this Herr Dournay is a dangerous man.' Oh, men are always more keen-sighted, and know more about each other than we women can ever find out."

She seemed to be losing herself in general reflections on mankind, which she liked to make, saying that any one who lived over a ground-floor full of legal documents took a very gloomy view of men.

This did not seem to be what Bella wanted to-day. She asked very carelessly,--

"Has your husband spoken to Herr Sonnenkamp of his very sagacious opinion that this Herr Doctor Dournay is a dangerous man?"

"It's true that would be proper," said the Justice's wife. "Will you not tell my husband, gracious lady, that he ought to make his views known? He doesn't heed me, I'm sorry to say, but he is glad to do anything for you."

"Don't ask me," Bella replied. "You must see that I cannot mix myself up in this affair. My brother has a sort of regard toward his former comrade although they were not in the same regiment, and my husband has taken a morbid, I mean enthusiastic fancy to the young man. You are quite right; your husband is bound--"

Bella did her work so securely, that she felt sure that the Justice would go to Sonnenkamp before evening, and Herr Dournay might make the most of his confident bearing somewhere else, for Bella wished, on many accounts, that Eric should not be established in the neighborhood; he caused her uneasiness, almost pain indeed. As she tapped one hand with the closed fan which she held tightly grasped in the other, she inwardly repeated the words of the Justice: This Dournay is a dangerous man.

The Justice's wife was a woman of democratic principles; she was the daughter of a Chief-Justice who had offered unbending resistance at the time when Metternich ruled Germany, and, besides, she had a comfortable property of her own, which helps one to keep to liberal ideas. She felt a sort of democratic pride in not yielding anything to the nobility; but she saw in Frau Bella an amiable, highly intellectual lady, and she submitted to her, without acknowledging to herself that her submission amounted to subserviency toward a countess. Bella was acute enough to see and understand it all, and treated the Justice's wife with that confidence which is shown only to equals; but she took care to be more than usually amiable, that the Justice's wife might attribute her visit to some other than the real object.

Lina entered the room, looking like a charming little housekeeper in her blue dress, and high-necked, white apron. Her mother sent her away again very soon, as the child must not be present if the gracious lady had still any private matter to speak of.

"Your dear child has developed finely, and she speaks very good French."

"Thank you," said the mother. "I don't know much of the young people of the present day; but Lina is still so slow, there's nothing piquant about her, and she is frightfully simple. Just think, the child has formed a fancy--how she ever got hold of such ideas in the convent, is a mystery to me--but only imagine, she believes that this Herr Captain Dournay has forced himself in as Roland's tutor, only because he is secretly in love with Fräulein Manna, whom he saw at the convent."

Frau Bella pretended much surprise, and heard the story of the meeting with Eric again, but the Justice's wife soon led the conversation back to the failure of all her efforts to make Lina a wide-awake girl.

Frau Bella might have said to her, if she had been disposed, You want to change this child, who has no special talent or beauty, from her genuineness and openness; you are continually teasing her to be lively, arch, and merry, to sing and to jump! You want to turn your fair-complexioned daughter with clear, light-blue eyes, into a dark-haired maiden with flashing brown eyes! Frau Bella might have said all this, but she did not. She pressed her thin lips close together; her nostrils quivered; she despised, at this moment, the whole of mankind. She was spared the necessity of saying anything, however, for the ladies who were invited came in successively. They were particularly glad to meet the Countess Wolfsgarten, and yet every one was a little vexed that she could not be the first in dress and appearance.

Ah, such a coffee-party of the fair sex!

There are some things, institutions, and arrangements, that have received a bad name, and cannot get rid of it again; this is the case with this fine institution of coffee-drinking. As soon as any favorable mention is made of it, every hearer and reader is convinced that is only downright irony, or a good-humored jest; for it has been settled, once for all, that this coffee-drinking of the ladies is only a hoax, and a pretence of kindly intercourse, with the participants. And yet this institution is a very excellent one, except when cards are introduced, and they carry it so far as to get up a regular gambling-party, as do the ladies at the small capitals, who have a handsome book with black morocco-binding, lettered on the back, "Hours of Meditation," but containing, inside, only blank leaves on which to mark down the points, and to enter the score. But that is only in the smaller capitals; here in our sociable little town, civilization has not advanced so far. Cards are not yet the book of salvation from all the evil of ennui; here they rely upon their own resources, the best way they can. And why should they not talk of persons, and occasionally say something pretty severe? What do other people, yes, even the men, in higher spheres, and at the tankard? Do they converse always about abstractions?

To be sure, there is talk here of town news, and whoever takes no part in this, holding himself aloof, does nothing for the town, nothing for his neighbor. And these ladies, who here have something to say about the so-called higher dignitaries, as well as the so-called inferior people, they are the same ladies who have established benevolent reunions, and behave in a strictly proper manner. So let us be pleasant and well-disposed guests, without any tendency to find fault, at this coffee-drinking of the fair sex.

Here comes Frau White. She is called Frau Coal behind her back, for she is the wife of a wood and coal-dealer. She has black locks and a dark complexion, which looks as if she had never washed herself thoroughly; and since the good woman is aware of her being nicknamed Mrs. Coal, she always dresses herself in dead-white colors, which are not very becoming to her dark hair and complexion by bright daylight, but by lamp-light she is very charming to look at. Unfortunately she has the defect of squinting, and with so sweet an expression, as if her eyes had been permanently arrested in the midst of a killingly affectionate glance.

Here is the wife of the cement-manufacturer, a tall and stately woman, never laughing, always inexpressibly serious, as if she carried about with her some great secret; she has no secret to impart, except that she has nothing to say.

Here sits the handsome wife of the school-director, a little too portly perhaps, nicknamed the Lay-figure because she is always dressed so finely; she has a perpetual smile upon her face, and one might almost imagine that she would still smile and show her beautiful teeth, even if she were to be the bearer or hearer of the tidings of death.

Here is the wife of the steamboat agent, a very fine looking woman, the mother of eleven children. The whole company are quite provoked with the little, plump, good woman, who never lets her cup stand on the table, but holds it up in her left hand, and repeatedly dips into it her biscuit, nodding assent to every one's remark, and seldom giving her own opinion, or, when she does, speaking with her mouth so full, that nobody understands her.

Here are the two Englishwomen who reside in the town; they were plain citizens, much beloved, without any title of lady, but were truly lady-like in appearance, for the reason that they needed no rank to set them off. They passed their time at home, did not depend upon visiting, and were like their own island, which produces all that man requires. Whenever the two ladies went into society they were always fresh, and were very cordially welcomed; and the amiable, awkward way in which they spoke German, and made use of strange constructions, served to increase the general kindliness. Bella was especially friendly toward the Englishwomen. The ladies' conversation was all intermingled together, like the singing of birds in the woods. Each one sings its own song, then polishes its own bill, and has no concern about the rest,--hardly hears them. Only two remarks were generally listened to and repeated; once, when Frau White made the happy observation that one would be aware of Count Clodwig's many badges of distinction, even if he did not wear any, which the Justice's wife took occasion to report to Bella; and again, when they came upon the subject, no one could tell how, whether the men's smoking was agreeable or disagreeable, Frau Lay-figure said that her good man often expressed the wish that he could be passionately fond of smoking, so as to wean himself from being so fond of her. Frau Bella had that perpetual complaisant smile which is so cold, and yet so fascinating.

The conversation only grazed Herr Sonnenkamp lightly. It remained fixed upon Eric, and why should it not? Here in the summer time, thousands frequent the little town, and swarm on the road leading to the old castle and to the other objects of interest for sight-seers, but when had there been a person who remained among them, and such a noteworthy personage too? Eric was a strange bird who wanted to take refuge in the mysterious house of Sonnenkamp; they will do him no harm, ruffle not one of his feathers, but each one wishes to have her say concerning where he comes from, and how he looks.

The Justice's wife remarked that she would have liked to invite the Major to the coffee-drinking, for he could tell the most about the captain-doctor.

The ladies were busy, of course, with their crochet, embroidery and sewing; but these are only make-believe labors, for one must not seem to be wholly idle.

When they understood that Eric's mother was a lady of unimpeachable nobility, each one wanted to make out that she had perceived that in him at once, it was something that could not be concealed. Bella accorded to this remark one of her most friendly looks of general approval.

When the Justice himself now came, for a little quarter of an hour, to join the company, Bella requested him to take a chair by her; she declared that they were very happy in this harmless circle, and she desired that no disturbing element should ever enter, to have only a decomposing influence upon it.

The Justice looked at her with his good-natured eyes, wholly at a loss to know what she meant, and stroked his obstinate whiskers; he could not imagine that this was intended to prepare the way for what his wife was to impart to him. He excused himself and soon went away; his wife informed them that Lina had joined the Liederkranz of the town; they were practising now for the great musical festival which was to be held in the neighboring city, and to Lina would undoubtedly be assigned a solo-piece.

Frau Bella spoke very advisingly, and at the same time very discouragingly. She expressed her dislike of musical festivals, being convinced in her own mind that she alone understands music, and that the music which she fancies is the only genuine music. In these days, hundreds of young people of both sexes, of ordinary standing in society, sing in the musical festivals an oratorio of Händel, Haydn, Bach, and this vexed Bella; these people are convinced that they know something. If she had had power, she would have had the police put a stop to these meetings. For this reason, Frau Bella had a special spite against the oratorio, but she only said,--"I have no appreciation of it;" and inasmuch as she said, "I have no appreciation of it," this ought to be ample evidence that there is nothing in it to be appreciated.

She was exceedingly gracious and condescending. She said that she did not question the merits of the German masters in oratorio. The truth is, that it was extremely repugnant to her to have the Justice's wife, the wife of the school-director, and the two daughters of the head-forester, and even perhaps the tailor's and cobbler's daughters, presuming to be interested in high art, when not one of them could sound a single true note.

Lina now acquired a new importance, for there was a general expression of desire to hear her sing. The English ladies asked very pressingly for a German song, but Lina, who usually was not backward, to-day was not willing to comply. Her mother's eyes flashed, but Frau Bella placed her hand upon the arm of the angry mother, and an unheard of event happened; saying that she did not blame Lina for not being willing to begin to sing abruptly, without any preparation, she arose, went to the grand piano, preluded, and then played a sonata of Mozart in masterly style. All were happy, and the Justice's house, highly exalted, for none could boast, except the Castle Wolfsgarten and the castles of the nobility, that Bella had ever touched a key in any other than her own house.

Bella received overwhelming laudation, but she rejected it, and in a half serious, half contemptuous way, maintained that every one who wore long dresses wanted to play the piano. Bella was a genuine sister of her brother; she could be happy a whole day if she succeeded in uttering one pointed speech, and she took great delight now in saying,--

"Every girl, now-a-days, thinks she must learn to knit a musical stocking."

She continued to repeat these words, musical stocking, in a measure of three-fourths time. Every one laughed, the English ladies looked up in surprise, and Bella, was glad to explain to them what she meant by these words, adding,--

"Yes, they knit a stocking out of notes, and the great thing with them is, not to drop a single stitch. I truly believe that the good children consider the four movements of the sonata to be the four parts of the stocking; the top is the first movement, the leg is the adagio, the heel is the scherzo, the toe is the finale. Only one who has a real talent for it ought to be allowed to learn music."

This was generally agreed to, and they spoke of the amount of time spent upon the piano in youth, and that after marriage it was given up.

The Justice's wife had been appealed to, and if there can be a higher heaven in heaven itself, it was opened when Frau Bella praised Lina's singing, which she had heard, and requested that Lina might make her a visit of some weeks, when she could, perhaps, give her some instruction. The glance which the Justice's wife cast to her husband was inexpressibly joyful; and how delightful it is to have the ladies ear-witnesses of all this! It seemed to her that she was very good-natured and very condescending, to be still friendly and affable with the doctor's wife, and also, indeed, with Frau Coal and the merchants' wives.

Bella extolled now, in the warmest terms, the delicious, spicy cakes which the Justice's wife knew how to make so excellently well; she would like to know the ingredients. The Justice's wife said that she had a particular way of giving them their flavor by putting into them a certain quantity of bitter almonds; and she promised to write out the receipt for her, but she resolved in her own mind never to remember to do it.

They had hardly tasted of the May-bowl, and declared that no one else knew how to mix it so well, before the Justice was informed that Herr von Pranken had arrived. The Justice went down, his wife detained Bella, and Lina, looking out of the window, saw that Pranken decidedly refused to come in for a moment. Bella now drove away, after taking a very hasty leave.

When she had gone, it seemed to all as if the court had withdrawn; they drew near to each other in a more confidential way, and had for the first time a really easy and home-like feeling.

The English ladies were the first to take their departure; the rest would not be less genteel than they, and in a short time the parents and the child were by themselves.

The wife took her husband into an adjoining room, and impressed upon him very earnestly, that it was the duty of a Justice to keep his district clean.

The Justice was faithful in his office, and whoever spoke of him would always affirm that he was the best man in the world. But he had no particular zeal for his calling; he was in the habit of saying,--Why am I mixed up with the affairs of other people? If I were a man of property, I would have nothing to do with the quarrels of other persons, but live quietly and contentedly to myself. But inasmuch as he had been inducted into the office, he performed its duties with fidelity. He was very reluctant to come to the determination to interfere in the matter of Eric, and he consented only when his wife told him in so many words, that the countess Bella had expressed the wish that he should.

They had come to the best understanding, when suddenly a slam, crash, and shriek were heard. Lina had let fall a whole tray full of cups.

The Justice's wife could not give a more satisfactory evidence of her serene content, than by saying, as she did, to Lina,--

"Be quiet, dear child. The mischief is done; it's of no sort of account. Cheer up, you've looked so blooming, and now you're so pale. I could almost thank God for sending us this trifling mishap, for in every joy there must be some little sorrow intermingled."

Lina was quiet, for she could not tell what she was thinking of when the coffee-tray fell out of her hands.

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V. THE WORLD-SOUL

"Why did you not look in, for a moment, upon the worthy people?" asked Bella of her brother, after they had both taken their seats in the carriage.

Whenever she came from a company where she had been amiable, this mood continued awhile, and she would look smilingly into the air, then smilingly upon the furniture around; it was so now. There was in her the dying echo of a pleasant and cheerful frame of mind, but her brother came out of an entirely remote world, having spoken to-day with no one,--who would have thought it of him?--but his own soul, or more properly, Manna's soul.

"Ah! don't speak to me of the world," he said; "I wish to forget it, and that it should also forget me. I know it well, all hollow, waste, wilted, mere puppet-show. If you have been helping the puppets dance there awhile, you can lay them away again in the closet of forgetfulness."

"You seem rather low-spirited," said Bella, placing her hand upon her brother's shoulder.

"Low-spirited! that's another catchword! How often have I heard it used, and used it myself! What is meant by low-spirited? nothing. I have been knocked in pieces, and newly put together again. Ah, sister, a miracle has been wrought in me, and all miracles are now clear to me. Ah! I may come back to the words of the world, but I do not see how."

"Excellent! I congratulate you; you seem to have really fallen in love."

"Fallen in love! For God's sake, don't say that; I am consecrated, sanctified. I am yet such a poor, timorous, wretched child of the world, that I am ashamed to make my confession even to you, my only sister. Ah! I could never have believed that I should feel such emotion--I don't know what to call it--exaltation, such rapture thrilling every nerve. O sister, what a maiden!"

"It is not true," said Bella, leaning her head back against the soft lining of the carriage, "it not true that we women are the enigma of the world; you men are far more so. Over you, over Otto von Pranken, the ballet connoisseur, has come such a romantic feeling as this! But beautiful, excellent, the mightiest power, is the power of illusion."

Pranken was silent; he heard Bella's words as if they were uttered in a past state of existence. When, where, did they speak and think of the ballet? And yet, at these words there came dancing before his memory merry, aerial, short-dressed, roguish, smiling forms. His heart thumped like a hammer against the book, the book placed there in his breast-pocket. He was about to tell his sister that for several days he had no longer known who he was; that he was obliged often to recall to mind his own name, what he had wished, and what he still wished; that he went like one intoxicated through the world, which was only a flitting by of passing shadows; here were swiftly darting railway-trains, there towns and castles reflected in the river: all were fleeting shadows which would soon be gone, while only the soul had real being, the soul alone.

Such had been the influence of Thomas à Kempis, so had he read the words on which Manna's dark-brown eye had rested. All this passed through his mind; he could not make his sister comprehend the transformation, he could hardly comprehend it himself. He came to the conclusion to keep it all to himself; and changing his tone, with great self-command, he said smiling:--

"Yes, Bella, love has a sort of sanctifying power, if the word is allowable."

Bella told him in a bantering way, that he uttered this like a Protestant candidate for the ministry, who is making a declaration of love in the parsonage arbor to the minister's blonde little daughter, clad in rose-colored calico. She looked upon it, however, as an excellent, very commendable guaranty of his feelings, that he had declined, in his present state of mind, to enter the Justice's house; she praised his intention of breaking off now his flirtation with Lina.

Otto nodded, with a feeling of shame; and he began now to speak of Manna, in so gentle a tone, and in such serious earnestness, that Bella was more and more amazed. She let him go on without interruption, and, clasping together the fingers of her right and left hand, she said to herself in a low tone:--

"Nut-brown eyes seven times, gazelle three times, glorious beyond all count."

They drove through a little, fragrant pine-wood, and it seemed to Pranken as if this perfumed air from without, and that from the book in his bosom, enveloped him, enwrapped him in its sweet odors, and elevated him above everything. He said, looking fixedly before him:--

"Since our great-uncle, the Archbishop Hubert, no one of our family has entered the service of the church; I shall--"

"You?"

"I shall," continued Pranken, "dedicate my second son to the church."

It appeared exceedingly comical, and yet Pranken said it with the deepest seriousness, while leaning comfortably against the back of the carriage, and puffing thick clouds of smoke in quick succession from the cigar in his mouth.

Bella, who always had some direct reply or some apposite remark to make in continuation, now said nothing, and Otto, who found it very hard to change the tone of conversation, seemed to himself to be under a spell. He, the merry one, he, always so free and easy, was reduced to the level of some intrusive Swaggerer in a convivial company, who had pretended to be a boon-companion, and must drink and drink, whether he relished it or not.

"I should like to give you one piece of advice," said Bella at last.

"I should like to hear it."

"Otto, I believe that your feeling is genuine, and I will also believe that it will last; but, for heaven's sake, don't let anything of it be perceived, for it will be considered hypocrisy, and the abject submission of a suitor, to win by this means this pious, wealthy heiress. Therefore, for the sake of your own honor, for the sake of your position,--I pass by every other consideration,--keep all these extravagances under safe lock and key. Otto, it is not my mouth that speaks, I am but the mouth-piece of the world: lock up all these heavenly sensations. Forgive me if I have not used the right word; I can think now of no other. In short, be the same as you were before you took this journey, at least in presence of the world. Are you offended with me? Your features are so painfully contracted."

"O, no, you are shrewd and kind, and I will do as you say."

As if a new stop had been drawn out, Pranken immediately asked:--

"What's the state of things at the Villa? Is the All-wise, the great World-soul, still there?"

"You mean, perhaps, your friend?" Bella could not refrain from bantering her brother.

"My friend? He never was my friend, and I never called him so. I have allowed myself to be bamboozled only through pity. It is a long-standing trait in our family, that we are not able to see anyone in misfortune, and I, when I help an unfortunate one, come readily into a more intimate relation with him than is natural and proper. If one wishes to rescue a man from drowning, one must grasp him in his arms and to his heart, but this does not make him our bosom-friend."

Here was again the flippant, galloping style of speaking, but there was a depth of thought in the illustration derived from the meditations of the previous days.

Bella handed her brother a note which Fräulein Perini had given her for him. Pranken broke the seal and read it; his countenance became cheerful. He put the letter in his breast-pocket, but as it did not seem to suit the neighborhood of Thomas à Kempis, he took it out again, and put it in another pocket. Then he folded his arms over his breast, and looked peacefully and serenely before him.

"Might I be permitted to read Fräulein Perini's note?" said Bella, extending her hand.

Otto took it out, hastily ran through it again, and handed it to his sister. It contained the information that Eric had gone away, and that he had held a secret interview with Frau Ceres; the details must be given by word of mouth.

Otto said that he wanted, some time or other, an answer to this riddle.

"The riddle is solved for me," said Bella exultingly. "Lina, the Justice's daughter--it just occurs to me that Egmont's Clara had no surname, needed none--well, Lina, the Justice's daughter, has declared to all the world, that the Captain World-soul was with her at the convent where Manna is, and without saying a word about it, he gets himself introduced by you, the next day, to her father. You then, as well as the rest of us, have been taken in by this loftily sublime World-soul."

Pranken drew a long breath, doubled up his fist, and then made a repelling motion with his hand. Bella imparted the further information that she had seen to it, at the coffee-party, that the World-soul--this word seemed to her just the one to designate Eric--should be obliged to seek another abiding place; the Justice would give the finishing stroke to him. Bella perceived, to her amazement, that Otto did not agree with her in this method of proceeding. It was entirely unworthy of the higher life--he did not explain whether he meant the higher social or spiritual life--to intrigue in this way against a poor deceitful wretch; he would much rather go openly to work, and directly enlighten Sonnenkamp.

Bella was in very good spirits, and took it in good part. She began with saying, that it was in the highest degree contemptible to make such a stir about the appointment of a private tutor, a personage that must always play a subordinate part, however fine may be his appearance. She advised her brother, in the mean while, not to let the Justice be beforehand with him if he himself wanted to have credit in the matter.

Otto declared his intent to visit Herr Sonnenkamp the next day, and then to cut off Dournay's secret threads. But he let the next day, and yet another, pass by, without going to the villa. If other tools and other hands did the work of annihilation, so much the better. The Justice should have time to carry out his design. Otto read Thomas à Kempis, to see if there was not some direction given for such a case; he found none.

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VI. SKILFUL STRATEGY

On the third day after his return, Pranken set out for the villa. He stopped at the Justice's, for he wanted to know what he had done. But the Justice said, modestly as well as wisely, that he did not think it fitting to take any step before speaking with Herr von Pranken, who had recommended his friend to the house; he was ready, however, to drive with Herr von Pranken to Villa Eden.

Pranken bowed his thanks. He must then himself take a part in the affair. He did not decline the offer of the Justice, perhaps the pedantic little man might serve as a reconnoitering party, to find out where, and in what condition, the enemy was.

In his new frame of mind, Pranken was not inclined to enter into any intrigue, and he said to himself that this was nothing of that sort; but strategy was always permissible, even required. One must lay hold of the enemy wherever and howsoever he can. Pranken drew himself up erect, and laid down the precise method of proceeding: he would pretend to apologise for Eric, in order to help the Justice accomplish his object more directly. He was, again, the spirited, confident, captain of the horse-guards leaping the barriers.

The Justice requested that he would see the ladies, while he got ready for the drive. He had not yet shaved. The good Justice lived all the year round in violation of the law; every day his mustaches were liable to fell a sacrifice to the stringent regulation of the Prince, that the officers of the civil service should not wear a moustache. He gave as an excuse for wearing it his suffering from tooth-ache, but the real reason was, that he wanted to hide the loss of his teeth.

Pranken went up stairs. The Justice's wife welcomed him, and could not find words strong enough to describe her rapturous admiration of Bella, and the regret of the whole company that Herr von Pranken had not come in for a moment.

"Might one be allowed to ask where you have been?" enquired the wife of the Justice.

"I have been to see a dear friend on the lower Rhine."

"Might one ask the name of the friend?"

"Herr von Kempen."

She congratulated Pranken on having such intimate friends; if they could be always worthy of his friendship. The conversation might naturally, at this point, have brought in Eric, but Pranken refrained, and asked after Fräulein Lina. The mother said that her child was learning to cook, which every good housewife ought to be able to do; only it was to be regretted that there were no cooks fit to give any instruction. Pranken expressed himself in praise of this proceeding, and spoke of the demoralised condition of service, for which they had to thank the revolutionists, who undermined all fidelity and all belief.

The lady considered this very true, and was again on the point of referring to Eric, when luckily the Justice entered. He had put on his official dress, and his sword, making an almost ridiculous appearance, but Pranken was highly delighted at this respect for the occasion. They drove together to the villa. When Pranken left the Justice's house, he twirled his mustaches, in a most serene state of self-satisfaction and content. He is still honorable in the highest degree, shamefully good would many of his comrades call it, so to spare the girl. With this feeling of exemplary virtue--and it has a fine relish--he was extremely amiable, and full of elasticity, feeling convinced that he was, every instant, a benefactor of the family, and that at no small sacrifice on his own part.

Lina looked at them from the servant's room near the kitchen, as they drove off; she stood behind the flowers in full bloom upon the window-seat, and, as she inhaled the fragrance of a new-blown monthly rose, a fragrance not less sweet breathed through her soul. When she could no longer see the carriage in which her father sat with the baron, she hastened to the best room, opened the piano, and sang, with clear voice and ardent expression, love-songs to the world in general. Her mother came in, with her hair in disorder, and considered it wholly incomprehensible that Lina should be singing, while two pots put there in the kitchen were boiling over.

"You'll never be anything but an ignoramus; except a little bit of language you learned there, the convent has only made you simpler than ever."

Lina went into the kitchen again, and stood before the hearth, lost in reverie. She would like to have heard what her father and Pranken had to say to one another.

Their conversation was very constrained. Pranken praised the Justice for his zeal in keeping his district pure; the Justice complained that he had, in this case, no overt acts to proceed upon, only a supposed dangerous tendency. He understood how to draw Pranken out, and the latter narrated many charges, of course wholly unjust, an appearance of treason among others, which had been brought against Eric. He prayed him, however, to spare the poor, young man to whom the Prince himself had been merciful, and he thanked the Justice for neutralizing the effects of the impulse, by which he himself had been violently carried away. The Justice did not know exactly what course he ought to take, and he was terrified when they came in sight of the villa.

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VII. A SUBSTITUTE

Roland had gone to sleep with anger in his heart, on the evening of the parting, and he awoke in sorrow. It seemed impossible that Eric could have left him, and so strong was his faith in the bond between them, that he wished to go to Eric's room to ask forgiveness for having dreamed such evil things of him. But it was all true. He went to the room; it was empty, with only the doctor's diploma lying upon the table, a sign that it had not been all a dream.

Roland was not to remain long alone; he was summoned to his father.

His father introduced him to a man of gentlemanly bearing, who spoke only in French and somewhat broken German. This agreeable-looking young man, the Chevalier de Canne by name, was from French Switzerland, and came warmly recommended by a banker in the capital, who did not himself know the fountain-head of the stream which had brought the man to him, for it was all Fräulein Perini's work.

Fräulein Perini was never seen to send her letters by post, for they went through the hands of the priest, but her relations with the French clergy were such, that, by safe mediation, a lay-pupil who could be depended on was called to the position in Sonnenkamp's household. Sonnenkamp's prejudices against such a connection were well known, and it was carefully concealed.

By his modest and dignified bearing the Chevalier knew how to win the favor of the whole household, not excepting Herr Sonnenkamp. In contrast with Eric, he had about him something impersonal, so to speak; never obtruding any peculiar expression of his own special views, skilfully agreeing with everything, and succeeding, without flattery, in giving back each person's own words in such a way that they seemed to the speaker remarkably significant and excellent. He was able so to illustrate and interpret even the few words which Frau Ceres uttered, that one would believe he had long known the lady; he was besides especially welcome to Herr Sonnenkamp, from having a thorough knowledge of botany. With Fräulein Perini, he said grace before dinner, with so modest and elegant an air that it only added to the attractiveness of his appearance. Everyone was charmed except Roland, who, without knowing why, was constantly comparing the Chevalier with Eric. For the first time, he begged his father to send him to some school, no matter what one, and promised to be perfectly tractable; his father would not yield to his desire, but declared instead that Roland was very fortunate to have such a tutor found for him.

Roland could not complain that the Chevalier made his studies a burden to him, but he could not put Eric out of his thoughts. He had already thrice written to him directly, letters like the lament of a maiden who tells her lover how she is urged to a loveless marriage, and implores him to come to her. He begged Eric, who knew nothing of his angry mood, to forgive him for having fallen away from his allegiance for a moment; he clung to the hope that his father, who always spoke well of Eric, would still summon him.

So wrote Roland; he did not send the letters, but carelessly left them lying open, and the Chevalier took copies, which Fräulein Perini received.

Eric had in Joseph a firm ally in the family. He asked Roland continually when Eric would return, told him much of his parents and his grandfather, and also of a brother who was just Roland's own age. This gave new intensity to the longing after Eric, for Roland thought he would bring his brother with him, and then he would also have a brother and comrade.

Several days had passed thus; Roland was sitting on a camp-stool, near the road, where there was a fine view of the park, from which the tower of the castle seemed to spring up as a natural growth. Roland was drawing, and the Chevalier, who was a master in the art, sat near him. Roland soon saw that he had heretofore received too much assistance; he was now really painstaking and earnest. The Chevalier drew whatever Roland was drawing, and, from time to time, they compared their work. His teacher had advised him to make drawings of all the views of the castle before it was rebuilt, and Roland had succeeded in doing so. Sometimes he believed that he had done it himself, then it all seemed like a humbug to him, for the teacher had really done most of the work.

Roland heard carriage-wheels, his heart beat, it was certainly Eric coming. He hurried to the road, and saw Pranken sitting by the Justice.

The Chevalier had followed Roland, who stood staring at the carriage. Pranken held out his hand and asked Roland to introduce the gentleman; Roland was obliged to mention his name, and the Chevalier added, in a tone of studied respect, the position he held. Pranken nodded in a very friendly manner, and left the carriage to walk with Roland, telling him that he brought him greetings from his sister, and that he wanted to speak with him alone, by and by, as he had an important message for him. Then he praised the noble bearing of the stranger, and said that such a man was far better than a conceited German doctor.

"Eric has a right to be conceited, but he is not," answered Roland.

Pranken twirled his moustache; he might be easy, and let Eric have due, since he was out of the way.

Roland felt an anxiety for which he could not account; he had a foreboding that something was going on which concerned Eric. At the villa Pranken left Roland to the Chevalier, to whom he nodded graciously; he asked the Justice to go without him to Herr Sonnenkamp, and, while the Justice stared in astonishment, vanished, without waiting for an answer, and went to find Fräulein Perini.

There was a most cordial greeting between the two, who held out both hands to each other. When Pranken asked about the Chevalier, Fräulein Perini pretended to know nothing of him; Pranken spoke strongly of the good impression he had received of the man, and affected not to suspect that she had brought any secret influence to bear in the matter.

Then came an account of the visit to Manna. Not fully, but in some measure, Pranken made known what a change had taken place in himself.

Fräulein Perini listened attentively, holding her pearl cross in her left hand; then she gave the particulars of Eric's secret visit to Frau Ceres, which she had referred to in her note: she showed Pranken a letter, which she had received from the superior in answer to her inquiries about the meeting between Eric and Manna. A copy of a letter from Roland to Manna, in which Eric was mentioned, was also at hand.

But now all the chivalry in Pranken's nature showed itself, increased by a moral and religious impulse. He stretched out his hand, as if he would shelter Manna from every breath, and said firmly and decidedly, that not a syllable more should seem to put her in a doubtful position. The whole thing was nothing but a school-girl fancy of the Justice's silly daughter, Lina. Manna's radiant being should not be dimmed by the least cloud of suspicion, for she was pure, and great, and noble. Pranken felt himself her knight, the defender of innocence, and he was noble enough to extend his defence to Eric, who was blameless in this respect: honorable feeling and elevated sentiment required that he should do him justice. Fräulein Perini watched Pranken's noble ardor with surprise, as he continued:--

"From this moment let us forget Lina's childish fancy; neither you, nor I, nor my sister, nor Herr Sonnenkamp, who fortunately knows nothing of it, you say, will ever cherish a thought of it again."

Fräulein Perini, instead of being hurt, was quite happy at this greatness of mind and acuteness in Pranken; she was modest enough to make a jest at the petty ideas of women. With great tact she declared that this was now the true knight's service, for the ground on which the tournament was held in our days was higher than of old.

Fräulein Perini would, on no consideration, come into collision with Pranken, knowing what power she would thereby put out of her hands. Pranken left her, with calm self-satisfaction, to go to Herr Sonnenkamp: he was almost ready to defend Eric since he was already set aside. With great peace of mind he laid his hand on the book in his breast pocket; the man who spoke in it would be content with him.

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VIII. BALAAM

Pranken found the Justice and Sonnenkamp engaged in general conversation; the greeting between him and the master of the house was very cordial, and he seated himself astride on a chair.

"I will tell you, honored friend," began Pranken,--he liked to call Sonnenkamp "honored friend" before people,--"I will tell you, by and by, about my journey. Now, let me congratulate you on having apparently found the right man for our Roland."

Herr Sonnenkamp answered that he should hardly keep the Chevalier; he was only in the house on trial. Something seemed to tell him that the highly cultivated Swiss would lead Roland's disposition too much towards the clergy and the church. Eric was exactly the man whom he should like the best.

Pranken looked around, as if to make sure whether the enemy was taking up a new position, and said,--

"We must undoubtedly estimate the true market-value of this man."

Sonnenkamp looked at him sharply, as Pranken rattled out the words "market-value." Did the baron think he must adapt his language to him, the merchant? He could not guess that Pranken prided himself on the expression which he had carefully arranged beforehand; he answered,--

"The market-value of the man is not small, but this Captain Doctor is an eccentric man, and eccentric men are very agreeable, but one can not rely upon them."

With the warmth of a new convert Pranken dwelt on Eric's scepticism, and the necessity of Roland's being trusted to the guidance of a truly religious man, who might, at the same time, know the world and its ways.

Sonnenkamp asked, smiling,--

"Then would you really advise making an ecclesiastic of Roland?"

"If it were his mission----"

Pranken played with his moustache, as he noticed Sonnenkamp's watchful look, bit his lips, and quickly corrected himself.

"If it were his true vocation, who would take the responsibility of holding him back? Perhaps it would be the noblest thing for him to renounce the treasures of this world, in order to win eternal treasure."

The Justice played, in an embarrassed manner, with his sword-belt; these words of unction from the Captain of the Guards seemed to him incomprehensibly, and yet they could not be spoken in jest. He avoided meeting the eye of either of his companions. Sonnenkamp looked serious. It only appeared inconceivable to him that the young man could speak so incautiously, if, not satisfied with the prospect of Manna's rich dowry, he wished to appropriate Roland's portion.

In the consciousness of superiority, and in the triumph of playing with men, Sonnenkamp stated that Doctor Richard had spoken to him of Eric so enthusiastically, that it would seem that one could not bring the man back fast enough in a coach and six.

"Ah, the doctor!" exclaimed Pranken, swinging his right hand as if it held an invisible riding-whip. "The doctor! Of course! Atheists and Communists stand by each other. Has the doctor also told you that he had a private conversation with Herr Dournay on Sunday?"

"No; how do you know it?"

"By an accident. I heard--through--through a servant: there was a pretence of going to give medical advice, then a rubbing of hands, and the remark that there was no need of Herr Sonnenkamp's knowing that they were united by old ties."

Sonnenkamp thanked him warmly for this information, but inwardly it grated upon him. A suspicion that one of his servant's was in Pranken's pay, was confirmed. The Pole, to whom Pranken always spoke so pleasantly, must be the man, and he should leave the house.

Sonnenkamp whistled inaudibly, only from the position of his lips could it be seen that he was whistling.

The Justice considered it his duty to permit no attack on the doctor, inasmuch as he was the official district-physician; their positions called for mutual support. After he had defended the doctor from any harsh judgment, while Pranken continually stroked his beard and mustache, he gave the conversation a turn by saying:--

"Herr von Pranken had the best intentions in recommending him, but might I express my opinion of the young man?"

Sonnenkamp replied that he should attach much weight to the opinion of the Justice. This was the moment when the strategic movement ought to be made. Pranken set himself more firmly on his chair, and cheered the Justice on to the charge, crying,--

"Explain yourself clearly. I ought to reproach myself for not having considered that any connection with this young man would be looked upon as a disrespect to the supreme authorities, even as an act of hostility."

"Allow me," answered the Justice, with a tone and manner as if he were in the court-room, remanding the accused into custody, "allow me to keep within the limits which it behooves me to observe."

Pranken was beside himself with this Justice; this little, insignificant, almost impotent mannikin maintained a deportment which was quite incomprehensible. Pranken had expected that he would work Sonnenkamp into a state of great excitement, and would give him an indelible impression of the hatred of the court towards Eric, and what really came? An exceedingly mild, most prudently-weighed, amicable consideration.

The Justice had called Eric a dangerous person considered only as a man, as a member of society. He said he did not know how rightly to express himself; he had meant it only in a moral sense; but he immediately took back the word moral, for Eric was known to be a highly moral man. And when he now came to the question whether, through any association with Eric, one would draw upon himself the displeasure of the court, a mild and benignant loyalty beamed from the countenance of the little man.

"The princes of our line," said he, "are not vindictive, but, on the contrary, extremely generous and forgiving; and our present reigning master! Good heavens! he has his peculiarities, but they are quite innocent, and with them he has inexhaustible kindness of heart, and do you think he would persecute the son of his teacher and the comrade of his brother's youth? I would sooner assert that he would show favor to any one who should assist Herr Eric--this Herr Eric, who has made it impossible for him to aid him in person."

Pranken was in despair. He looked at the Justice as if he were a hunting-dog that would not obey. He kept opening and shutting his hand, which seemed to feel a desperate longing for a whip; he made signs to the Justice, but in vain, and at last he smiled bitterly to himself. He looked at the Justice's mouth, thinking that his teeth must have grown again, he spoke fluently and decidedly as he never had done before. Ah, these bureaucrats! thought Pranken, pulling up his top-boots. Yes, these bureaucrats are not to be depended on!

"I am very glad," he cried at last, with a forced smile, "I am delighted that our respected Justice dispels all apprehension. Certainly, these official gentlemen understand their business excellently."

The Justice received his stab, but it did not penetrate the uniform. Sonnenkamp seemed to have played with the two men long enough. With an air of triumph, he went to his writing-table, where several sealed letters lay, tore the cover from one which he selected, and gave them the enclosed sheet, saying,--

"Read that, Herr von Pranken, and you too, Herr Justice, read it aloud."

And the Justice read,--

Villa Eden, May--, 186-.

RESPECTED HERR CAPTAIN DOCTOR DOURNAY,--You will not take it ill of an old and experienced man, honored sir, if he takes the liberty of questioning from his one-sided, practical point of view, whether you are not committing an injustice in employing your mind, so richly endowed by nature, and furnished with knowledge, upon a single boy, instead of a large community. Allow me to say to you that I regard mind and knowledge as capital, and you make of your capital an investment at far too low a rate of interest. I honor the nobleness of mind and the modesty so manifest in your offer, but feeling assured that you entirely mistake yourself, when you think that you can be satisfied in so limited a sphere. I must, no less decidedly than gratefully, decline your offer to undertake the education of my son.

I desire that you would give me the opportunity, by offering you a situation for a year, with no special employment attached to it, to show to you how truly I am, most respectfully,

Your obedient servant, HENRY SONNENKAMP.

While the Justice was reading, Sonnenkamp whistled to himself, keeping time with one foot thrown over the other, manifestly very well satisfied with the letter.

He received it back with a triumphant glance, put it in a fresh envelope, and addressed it to Eric. While he was writing the address, he said,--

"I should like very much to take the man into my house on a different footing; he should do nothing but sit at the table and converse. Why should not that be had for money? If I were a Prince, I would appoint conversation-councillors. Are not the chamberlains something of this sort?" he asked Herr von Pranken, with a slight touch of sarcasm.

Pranken was disturbed. There was often in this man a height of presumption, which did not spare even the sacred precincts of the court; but Pranken smiled very obsequiously. Lootz was summoned through the speaking-tube, the letter was put into the post-bag, and Lootz departed.

Roland was waiting for Pranken, who now went with him into a retired place of the park, and there gave him an account, of his journey, and delivered to him a second copy of Thomas à Kempis. He pointed out to Roland the place where he was to begin reading that day, and what he was to read every day; but always secretly, whether his tutor should be a believer or an unbeliever.

"Isn't Eric coming back any more?" asked Roland.

"Your father had written to him a decided refusal before I came, and the letter has been put into the post before this."

The boy sat upon the bench in the park, and stared fixedly, the book open in his hand.

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IX. DEJECTION AND COURAGE IN A CHILD'S HEART

At the table, Frau Ceres thought that her son looked very pale; she besought the Chevalier not to tax him so severely, and especially not to let him draw so long out of doors.

The Chevalier entirely coincided with this; it was his plan to have Roland draw from plaster-models, and after that, he would take him out into the free air.

"Taken out into free air?" said Roland to himself; and it seemed to strike him that there was a contradiction in the idea of being taken into the free air.

Sonnenkamp was unusually cheerful at dinner; his contempt for men had to-day received new confirmation, and he had fresh conviction of his ability to play with them. He enjoyed a special sense of freedom in the thought that this Herr Dournay, who undertook to dictate matters for him and for so many other people, was now done with. Yet he must acknowledge to himself, that he could, probably, have made no better choice for his son.

After dinner, Pranken allowed the Justice, who was in a hurry, to be driven to town in Sonnenkamp's carriage; he himself remained in very confidential conversation with Sonnenkamp, who admired the art with which a young man, who was a suitor for a wealthy maiden, worked himself into a state of enthusiasm thereat.

After Pranken had departed, Sonnenkamp went to the conservatory, where Roland soon came to him and said:--

"Father, I have a request."

"I shall be glad, if it is a request that I can grant."

"Father, I promise to learn everyday the names of twenty plants, if you will give me Herr Eric again."

"Very nice of Herr Dournay to teach you to promise me that."

The boy looked at his father, as if confounded, his lips swelled, and gazing timidly around upon the plants, as if he called upon them to bear testimony that he was speaking the truth, he cried:--

"Eric has not said to me anything of the kind, any more than those plants have; he has not taught me to say that; but if he had, I would learn it from him, and from nobody but him."

"Not even from me?" exclaimed Sonnenkamp.

The boy was silent, and his father repeated the question:--

"Not even from me?"

His tone was vehement, and he doubled up his great fist.

"Not even from me?" he asked the third time.

The boy drew back, and cried with a thrilling voice:--

"Father!"

Sonnenkamp's fist unclosed, and with forced composure he said:--

"I didn't mean to punish you, Roland--come here--nearer--nearer yet."

The boy went to him, and his father placed his hand upon his forehead, which, was hot, while the father's hand was cold.

"I love you more than you can understand," said the father. He bent down his head, but the boy stretched out both hands, crying with a voice full of anguish:--

"Ah, father! I beseech you--father, I beseech you, not to kiss me now."

Sonnenkamp turned and went away. He expected that the boy would follow him, and clasp him round the neck, but he did not come.

Sonnenkamp stood in the hot-house near the palms; he felt chilly; then he asked himself: "Why does not the child love you? Is that crack-brained German revolutionist, that Doctor Fritz, in the right, who used the words in a published letter: Thou who extirpatest filial and parental love in thy fellow human beings, how canst thou hope for the love of thine own children?"

He could not comprehend how these words, which were uttered in a contest long gone by, and which he wished to forget, now came into his mind. Suddenly a loud cry made the strong man shudder.

"God bless you, massa! God bless you, massa!" seemed to be uttered by the voice of a spirit.

He searched about, and found his wife's parrot, which had been brought in its cage to the hot-house. The gardener, when summoned, informed him that Frau Ceres had ordered the parrot to be brought here, as the dwelling-house was too cold for it.

"God bless you, massa! God bless you, massa!" cried the parrot behind Sonnenkamp, as he was leaving the palm-house.

Roland, in the meanwhile, stood as if rooted at the spot where his father had left him; the park, the house, everything swam round before his eyes. Joseph then came. Roland was rejoiced that there was yet one human being with whom he could lament over Eric's expulsion. He told him what had happened, and made complaint about his father.

"Don't say anything to me that I cannot repeat to your father," interposed Joseph. He was a prudent and faithful servant, who would have nothing to do with secrets, or with tale-bearing. His father had impressed that upon him, when he went away from his home, and he had resolutely and faithfully kept his counsel.

Roland asked Joseph if he was not going to return soon to his native city; Joseph replied in the negative, but went on to tell, with great animation, how splendid it was the first time he had leave to go home. He described very minutely the road, and whom he met at this place and at that, and how his mother was peeling potatoes when he stepped into the house, and how then his father came in, and all the neighbors, and expected to see him wearing golden clothes, because he was in the service of so rich a man. Joseph laughed at this simplicity, but Roland did not. He went back to the house, and it seemed to him as if the whole house thrust him out. He went into Manna's chamber; he thought it would seem homelike here, but the pictures on the wall, and the flowers in the chimney-place, looked at him so strange and so inquiring. He wished to write to Manna, and tell her of all his troubles, but he could not write.

He left the house and went into the court; here he stood for a while, looking round dreamily. The Chevalier came out and asked him if he did not want to do something; Roland stared at him, as if he did not recognize who he was, and made no reply. He took his cross-bow, but he did not draw the string. The sparrows and doves flew about hither and thither; the handsome dogs crowded up to him and sniffed around him, but Roland was like one bewildered.

He went to the river-bank, followed by his great dog, Devil, and there he sat down under the huge, tall willows, putting his hat on the ground near him, for his head seemed on fire. He bathed his brow with water, but his brow was no cooler. He did not know how long he had been sitting there, gazing fixedly into vacancy without any conscious thought, when he heard some one call him by name. He involuntarily clapped his hand upon the muzzle of the dog lying near him, scarcely breathing himself, in order not to betray his place of concealment. The voice grew fainter, and ceased to be heard. He still sat quiet, and cautioned the dog in a low tone to be still also; the dog seemed to understand him.

Roland took put of his side-pocket the letter he had written to Eric, and read it; his eyes overflowed with tears of longing and grief, and getting up, he hurled the letter into the river.

The night came on. Noiselessly, as a hunter who is stalking a deer, Roland left his lurking-place, and wended his way through the narrow path of the vineyard back from the river. He wanted to go to the huntsman, he wanted to go to the Major, he wanted to go to somebody who would help him. Suddenly he stopped.

"No! to nobody--to nobody!" he breathed low to himself, as if he hardly dared trust the silent night.

"To him! to him!"

He crouched down, so that nobody should see him in the vineyard, although it was dark. He did not stand erect, until he came to the highway above.

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