There is many a chance which seems like a summons. Eric and Roland had spoken of Clodwig on the mountain, and when they reached home, they found a message from him, saying that he and the Countess had returned from the baths, and would visit them to-morrow.
Clodwig was brown from his summer-journey, and Bella looked younger than before, and seemed, as she swept with her long train through the house and park, somewhat like a peacock. As soon as they arrived, Roland gave an account of the curiosities found on the mountain, and his face fairly shone with delight when Clodwig asked him to consider them the starting-point of a museum for himself; for in making a collection of this kind, he would experience a pleasure to which scarcely anything else could be compared. Roland nodded to Eric, and Clodwig told them he had made many valuable acquisitions in his journey, which would soon be sent to him. He had met daily at the Baths a celebrated antiquarian, who had once been a teacher of Eric.
Eric apologized to Clodwig for having slighted his friendly advance, in not visiting him before he set out on his journey, and now another pleasant trait was seen in Clodwig,—that he had not one trace of sensitiveness. Kindness of heart and self-respect combined to cause this trait; he excused every neglect of himself, and, as a man of unquestioned position never thought of injury or slight.
"You are exempt from all apologies with me," he said, taking Eric's hands and holding them as though he were the young man's father. "You have cured me of selfishness. I had not believed that there was so much of it left in me, my dear young friend. Yes, you shall mould your own life, and I will rejoice that I have you for a neighbor. A good neighborhood, with the ancient Romans, was not merely a political arrangement."
They touched glasses and drank to the good neighborhood, and as the old Count drank, his eyes beamed upon Eric.
It was an animated account that Clodwig and his wife alternately, interrupting each other, gave of their having turned aside from their direct course, and spent a night in the University-town for the purpose of visiting Eric's mother and remaining an entire day with her. At last Clodwig left the field to his wife, who told with great feeling and earnestness of the life of the noble lady. She described the piano-forte in its old place, and the beautiful, dignified figure sitting at work before her window filled with flowers. On the wall before her hung the portraits of her dead husband and of her son, and in a frame by itself was a lock of her mother's hair, hanging between the crayon portraits of her parents. Still she was not at all melancholy, but cheerful and interested in every subject, taking part in every discussion.
Then Bella described the lovely valley, and their visit to the renowned mountain-chapel; and Eric could almost hear his mother's voice, and see her gentle face, as she sat by the beautiful lady, listening to Clodwig, and nodding assent and pleasure. It was for Eric an hour of deep and quiet happiness, laden with the memories of his home.
And not less beaming were Roland's eyes, as he asked:—
"And didn't she speak of me?"
"Almost more than of her own son," Bella answered. And then she turned again to Eric, and could not say enough of the impression which had been made upon her by the sight of a woman like his mother, who, living in another world, yet retained such an interest in this; who, having given up so much, yet possessed everything in herself.
Clodwig smiled, for Bella was repeating the very words he had used; but she continued,—"I think I never understood you, Captain, until I had the happiness of meeting your noble mother. We agreed to write to each other, from time to time, although she absolved me on the spot from any feeling of obligation to do so."
More and more happy, and at home, did Eric feel with Clodwig and Bella, and it seemed as though the spirit of his mother was lingering near them with a benediction.
"But we must not forget your aunt!" Clodwig exclaimed, and then went on to say that he had renewed an old acquaintance with her; he remembered well the dazzling beauty of Fräulein Dournay, and what an excitement was produced when she, a citizen's daughter, was presented at court, and invited everywhere. The story went that she and Prince Hermann, who died in his youth, had loved each other with the purest love, and, for his sake, she had refused all offers of marriage; but of this Clodwig did not speak.
As they were walking in the garden after dinner, Bella said to Eric:—"You have had a very beautiful, happy youth; but one thing was wanting."
"What is that?"
"A sister."
"I would be glad to think that she had come to me," Eric replied, in a low voice.
Bella looked down, for a minute, and then called Roland to her. They went on to the castle, and Clodwig begged the Architect, for the sake of his young friend, Roland, to be very careful whenever traces of further remains were discovered.
The company sat down on a projection of the castle-wall, where the Major had made a comfortable seat. Clodwig and Roland were together, and Bella and Eric were sitting at a little distance from them. She was inclined to be romantic. She had brought from Paris all the new fashions, but now she said to Eric, How foolishly we burden ourselves with superfluities! Then, without any apparent cause, she remarked, that everybody thought she was fond of display and fashion; but she would like best to live in a little fisherman's hut, on the Rhine, in one quiet room, with a bright fire.
"And who would make this fire?" Eric inquired.
Bella started at this question. "We must not be romantic," said she. Then I there was a long pause.
At last Eric began. "You have learned to know my mother; if you had known my father, you would have found great pleasure in him too."
"I did know him, but I thank you; I understand that you would have me share all that is yours." There was a heartfelt expression in her voice, and her eyes beamed, and she fixed them upon Eric with such a look, that he turned his own away. Biting her lip, she continued: "You have seen,—yes, you have certainly noticed how I look at you. Now I must fulfil one of Clodwig's wishes, because I think that perhaps I may succeed. He wants me to take your likeness, and I will try; but I must have your young friend with you. Roland, come here," she called, as she saw the boy approaching; and then she explained, with blushes overspreading her face, that she had wished to surprise Clodwig with the portrait on his birthday, but that that was impossible now, and she must do it openly.
"Please, Roland, sit down on the Captain's knee. So,—yes, just so,—put your right hand on his shoulder, but farther forward. Yes; now put your head a little more to the left. Pray say something, Captain. You must be telling Roland something."
"I've nothing to say," replied Eric, smiling.
"That will do; I see the motion of your lips; it will be difficult, but I hope to catch it. When will you sit to me?"
Clodwig was delighted, and said he never liked surprises; a well-prepared and long-expected pleasure was much more desirable. He urged Eric and Roland to be his guests at Wolfsgarten, until the family should come back. But Eric declined with equal friendliness and firmness; he did not like to disarrange the daily routine which he had laid out for Roland; and Clodwig approved of his resolution, and promised to come again soon to the villa with Bella, and have the portrait taken there. Bella wished a photograph of Eric and Roland in the positions she had chosen for them, but Clodwig said that a portrait taken with the help of a photograph was always stiff and unnatural; he condemned photographs of human figures, of which they could give only the mere form, and often wholly out of drawing. Roland had a word to say also, in regard to the picture. Why not have Griffin in it? Clodwig agreed, saying the dog would make a very good foreground.
Bella was out of humor. She had enjoyed companionship and gaiety so long, that she was reluctant to go back to her lonely life among the antiquities; perhaps there were further unacknowledged reasons for her regrets. The visit to Eric and Roland was a welcome reprieve to her; but the proud Captain was so reserved, and had always some great principle so ready to apply to even the smallest action, and her husband—his worst weakness was beginning to show itself, the doting fondness of old age—whenever the Captain spoke, Clodwig was wholly absorbed in the young man.
Her features seemed suddenly to become thin and faded, and to lose all roundness. She noticed this, and recovered her self-control. She was especially friendly, and when Eric took leave of her and kissed her hand, he thought he felt a returning pressure on his lips, but perhaps it was a mistake, or arose from some awkwardness on his part. While he was thinking about it, Roland said,—
"I don't know why, but I did not feel comfortable while the Countess was looking at me, did you? and she looked at you so strangely."
"It was the critical look of an artist," answered Eric; but his own words choked him. Who knew whether this reply was the exact truth?
The Major sent no notice of his approaching visit; he came himself, he looked very fresh with his reddish-brown face, and his snow-white, short-cut hair, and he said that as often as he had bathed in the warm spring, he felt as if he could remember the very first bath after he was born. He seemed to himself, every time, literally like a new-born child, with an unseen nurse, who bent smiling over him and dipped him gently in the spring. He smiled at everything, at the trees, the roofs, the houses, and now at the faces of his friends.
He was very glad that Eric had taken the boy out of the ranks and was exercising him alone; it was hard, to be sure; but more progress could be made in one day, than in weeks by the other method.
He begged Eric to excuse himself in a few words to Fräulein Milch for not visiting her when she was so lonely, and he urged Eric to come soon, for the Grand Master was there.
The Major, as has been said, lived in a wing of the country-house, beautifully situated on the mountain-side, of which he had the care. With the greatest solicitude the Major preserved his own independence in life, but he felt a deep obligation toward the Grand Master, whose universal friendliness and agreeable conversation he was never weary of extolling. He always wanted to share with him every pleasure and advantage, and now what had he better than Eric, whom he praised so continually that his stock of eulogistic expressions became completely exhausted, and he found more than usual difficulty in saying what he wished.
On his first leisure evening Eric visited the Major. He easily made peace with the Fräulein; and the Major laughed till he choked and had to be brought to with a slap on the back, because he had made a joke, a most unusual thing with him, about Eric's confinement for six weeks.
Fräulein Milch told of Eric's glory at the singing festival, and the Major said,—
"That's good. At our feasts, singers are very important. But can you sing, 'These holy halls'?"
Eric regretted that the air was too low for his voice.
"Then sing something else; sing for Fräulein Milch."
Eric had difficulty in declining this friendly request, and Fräulein Milch thanked him, and helped him carry out his wish to defer the performance to some appointed evening. The so-called Grand Master was as disagreeable in his behavior, as Fräulein Milch was charming. There was something unpleasantly patronizing in his manner; it seemed as if he were so accustomed to flattery, that only a simple unpretending nature, like the Major's, could be at ease with him. The Major took great pains to bring his true friends together, but he did not succeed. The Grand Master behaved arrogantly towards Eric throughout. He addressed him only as "Young man," and gave him instruction and advice, as if Eric were in his employ. It required all Eric's self-possession, to show the man, good-temperedly, the impropriety of his treatment for the Grand Master was so inconsiderate as to speak, even in Roland's presence, of the want of experience of the "young man," who had, of course, come to him only to listen to his oracular sayings; and his whole manner of speaking had something oracular about it, as he gesticulated with outstretched hands, as if sowing seed. Eric kept his temper enough to treat this insolent creature as a singular, natural phenomenon. He patiently allowed himself to be patronized, and when Eric had gone, the Head Master said to the Major,—"That young man has ideas."
It is true, Eric had not expressed any ideas, but he had listened well, and so was awarded praise for them, which was a great deal from the Grand Master, who considered that nobody but himself had properly any ideas; and the whole world ought to come to him to be taught. When Eric returned to the Major's, he found a messenger, who had come to say that Clodwig, Bella, and Pranken would come there the next day. Roland had gone into the court with Fräulein Milch to admire the young ducks.
The Major now asked on what terms Eric stood with Pranken. Eric could only answer that Pranken had been very friendly, and considerate, in his treatment of him.
The Major, who had risen through every grade of the militia from drummer-boy up, lived in a constant state of resentment against the haughtiness of his noble-born comrades; he admonished Eric, however, to conduct himself gratefully towards Pranken, who was really a very well-mannered fellow, in spite of his noble birth; an obstacle that it was very hard for the Major to get over. He thought that Pranken deserved Eric's gratitude for having introduced him into his present position, and reminded Eric that he had also been the means of his gaining so valuable a friend as Clodwig.
As Eric and Roland were going towards home, Eric said,—
"Now, Roland, we will show that we do not allow ourselves to be disturbed; come what will, we will have our studies uninterrupted; we won't see visitors except in play-hours. You see, Roland, this is one great difficulty in life. From complaisance towards the world, and from an unwillingness to appear disobliging and ungracious to our friends, we often allow our own privacy to be invaded. Against this we must stand firmly: each must just be something for himself, and then come out into the world. He who cannot exist for himself may possess the world, but not himself."
In the consciousness of fulfilling his duty, Eric became again strong and self-contained, and scattered every disturbing influence far away.
The visit took place. Pranken rode behind the carriage in which Clodwig and Bella were seated; on the back seat of the carriage stood a frame-work covered with paper, and a handsome box ornamented with inlaid work, which held the crayons.
Eric and Roland received the guests, and Eric begged them to make themselves at home; he had had everything arranged by the servants; he would himself be at their service in an hour, when lessons were over.
The visitors looked at each other in astonishment.
Pranken looked strangely changed; a deeper seriousness was in his face; now he shrugged his shoulders, and burst into a mocking laugh.
Bella thought Eric's conduct extremely formal and pedantic; Clodwig declared it showed a beautiful trait of character; but Pranken saw only idle display in this assumption of duty; the young man—he said this quite in the tone of the Grand Master—the young man wished to make a great impression with his faithfulness to duty.
Meantime they made themselves comfortable, and it was not to be denied that Eric had shown great thought for the pleasure of his guests, in his floral decorations, and other arrangements.
The hour was soon over, and Eric returned to his guests in that fresh and cheerful mood, which only the conquest over one's self and the consciousness of duty fulfilled can ever give.
He had selected a good room, looking towards the North, and after a lunch the drawing began.
Clodwig remained with his wife; Roland, who was to be drawn later, went with Pranken to the stables. Pranken conducted himself in the house as Sonnenkamp's natural representative, or as a son of the family; he had the horses brought out, he examined the gardenwork, and praised the servants.
"I never saw you looking so serious and anxious," said Clodwig to Eric. And, indeed, Eric's expression was full of uneasiness, for he suspected that Pranken was now talking about him to Roland.
What can all education, all firm guidance effect, when one is not sure for a moment that some foreign influence is not working against it? We must comfort ourselves by thinking that no one man can form another, but the whole world forms each man. Eric, meanwhile, could not but dread what Pranken might be saying to his pupil.
First, Pranken asked whether Roland had read the daily portion in the book that Manna sent him.
Roland said, no, directly, and then came a confused jumble of Benjamin Franklin, of Crassus, of Hiawatha, of the observations of storms by the telegraphist, and of Bancroft's History of the United States.
Pranken nodded; he asked if Roland wrote often to Manna, and Roland said yes.
Pranken now told him that he had trained a snow-white Hungarian horse for Manna, and added:—
"You can tell her so. When you write, or not, as you please."
He knew, of course, that Roland was sure not to forget any information which he was allowed to impart, especially if it was about a snow-white horse with red trappings. Pranken promised that Roland should himself ride the animal some day.
"Has it a name?" asked Roland.
Pranken smiled; he perceived that his communication had interested Roland extremely, and he answered,—
"Yes, its name is Armida."
Just then Roland was called in, as he was needed for the sketch. When the outline was completed, the drawing was laid aside for awhile.
In a half-confidential, half-commanding tone, Pranken asked Eric to go out with him alone, and in a friendly, even unusually friendly manner, he entered into a discourse upon Roland's education. And now, for the first time, Eric heard Pranken speak seriously of his strict religious convictions.
He was amazed. Was this all put on, in order to win more securely the rich heiress educated in the Convent?
But it certainly was not necessary for Pranken, when no one could see and remark upon it, in travelling, and at the Baths, to unite himself so closely with ecclesiastics. Was it not rather probable that a conversion had really taken place in this worldly man, and that upon just such a nature the stability and unchangeableness of the Church would take the surest hold?
"I consider it my duty, and you will give me the credit of considering it a duty," said Pranken suddenly, laying his hand on his heart, "to give you some confidential information."
"If I can do anything, I shall feel myself honored by your confidence; but if I can be of no use, I would rather avoid an unnecessary share in a secret."
Pranken was astonished at this reluctance, and was inclined to be displeased, but he restrained himself, and continued, in a higher tone:—
"You know that Herr Sonnenkamp—"
"Excuse me for interrupting you. Does Herr Sonnenkamp know that you are making this confidential communication to me?"
"Good Heavens!" Pranken broke out,—"but no, I am wrong, I respect this regard to your position."
He was silent for a few minutes; it occurred to him that, instead of what he had meant to say, he might warn Eric not to have too much to do with Bella. But would not this be an insinuation against his sister? He decided to go back to his first plan, and said shortly,—
"I think I may tell you that I am almost a son of this house, Fräulein Sonnenkamp is as good as engaged to me."
"If Fräulein Sonnenkamp is like her brother, I can congratulate you heartily, I thank you for your unexpected, and as yet undeserved, confidence; may I ask why you have honored me with it?"
Pranken became more inwardly enraged, but outwardly still more flattering; he nervously worked his right hand, as if he were using a riding-whip, but he smiled very condescendingly and said,—
"I have not been mistaken in you." After a pause he continued:—"I acknowledge fully your considerateness."
He did not answer directly the question as to the cause of his confidence, and there was hardly time, for Roland now called Eric to the sitting.
"One would think ten years had passed since I left off drawing," said Bella, "you look so much older now."
Eric could not speak out his thoughts. The way in which Pranken had treated him, and the manner in which he had borne himself, disturbed him very much. He was sitting now quite still, but it seemed to him as if he were being rent asunder. He felt that there was something fundamentally false in his relations with Pranken. They were both aware of the contrast and discord which existed between them; they ought either to have been open enemies, or to have passed each other with indifference; and yet some spell seemed to draw them together, and to persuade them into apparent friendliness.
All misery springs from untruthfulness. The world would be quite a different place, and much misery would be saved, could we be true at all times, and not allow ourselves to be led into lasting relations and obligations, while we silence the inward remonstrance by saying,—It will all turn out well; the matter need not be taken so seriously. But in thousands of cases the lie is concealed, veiled, beautified, as in that Bible-story, where the serpent overcomes all opposition, all argument, by the words,—"Only eat, and you will not die, but only become wise."
The great punishment of a relation founded on false grounds is, that it constantly demands from us farther untruthfulness; either openly recognized as such, or concealed by our self-deception, and at last the lie takes on the appearance of virtue, changes all the foundation of our character, silences the protests which our better nature makes, and says, you must not desert your friend; you have been friends so long, you have received so much from him, and have done so much for him; it would break up your whole life; you would take a large portion from it, if you gave him up. No! you must now hold firmly together. And so the lie grows and poisons life. All sorrow and all unhappiness, all misunderstanding and deceit, arise from the fault that man will not be faithful to himself. The devil of lies goes about, seeking whom he may devour.
It is true there is no devil that you can see so as to describe him in the military style, but close by every divine idea which in its ultimate foundation is nothing but Truth, dwells the Lie, and is always capable of assuming the form and language of its neighbor.
All these thoughts were tossing and raging in Eric's soul as he sat for his portrait. Could any one at that moment have painted the picture of his soul, it would, have been an unparalleled distortion.
At last, Bella declared she could not draw him as he then looked, and the sitting was postponed.
They all went to dinner, which passed cheerfully, for the Doctor joined them. In the evening, they went out rowing on the Rhine, and Roland told how beautifully Eric could sing; but Eric could not be persuaded to give them a single song. He was bantered on having displayed his talent at the musical festival, by Pranken especially, who spoke in a friendly tone, but with a most cutting manner.
In the evening, when the fire-flies were darting here and there in the dusky park, Eric walked with Bella, while Clodwig sat in the balconied room, turning over the leaves of an album filled with new photographic views of Rome, and, at many a page, looking far away into the past.
Roland walked with Pranken, and they talked of Manna. Pranken knew well how to suggest what he should write of him. In walking, they passed and repassed Eric and Bella, and Pranken looked surprised at seeing his sister leaning on the young man's arm. Like glancing fire-flies, the brilliant flashes of wit lighted up their conversation, but left longer trains of light behind them. Bella and Eric spoke in a low tone, and often, as the others passed near them, they stopped speaking. Bella talked again about her good husband,—she always called him her "good husband,"—and said how thoughtfully Eric understood him, not only, if she might say so, with his mind, but with his heart.
"You have made a new phrase," said Eric, and Bella repeated her newly-coined expression, with as much pleasure as if she had found a new style of head-dress which suited her face alone.
Eric was pedantic enough to go back to the original subject of discussion, and said warmly, how delightful it was to find Beauty and Peacefulness, not only in one's own ideal, but in real life; to reach out one's hand to them and look into their calm, clear eyes.
"You are a good man, and I believe an honest one," said Bella, and pulling off her glove she lightly tapped with it on Eric's hand.
"It is no merit to be honest," said Eric. "I could almost wish I could be untruthful; no,—not untruthful, but a little more reticent sometimes."
It was charming and edifying, to hear how Bella now extolled the beauty and happiness of a thoroughly honest nature; and she spoke in a tone of deep emotion, as she added, that she might have won early in life a most brilliant lot, if she could have feigned, a very little love. Eric did not know what to answer, and this caused one of those pauses which Pranken, passing with Roland, observed.
Bella went on to say, that it is always a blessing to do anything to help a human being; it falls to the lot of one person, to do this for a fellow-creature in the morning of life—here she bent her head towards Eric—while another does it for one in the decline of life, when the sacrifice, quiet and unrecognized, can only be rewarded by the consciousness of the service rendered.
At a bend of the road, it happened, very naturally, that Eric walked with Roland, and Pranken with his sister. Roland was jealous of Bella, of every person; jealous at every word, at every look, that Eric directed to any one but himself; he wished to have him wholly to himself. And as Roland now exhibited his childish humor, Eric shrunk into himself affrighted; he had not only allowed himself to be diverted from Roland, but perhaps also had been committing a wrong in a different direction. There was yet time for him to retrace his steps. He went to bid Clodwig good-night, and he was almost pleased to find that he had already retired to rest.
On looking at the picture, the next day, Bella was painfully dissatisfied with her work. What she had done with so much care and diligence seemed to her false in drawing and expression. She grew positively angry over it, and would have made a fresh beginning had not Clodwig, by his gentle persuasions and judicious praise of the many excellencies of her picture, succeeded in soothing her. She could not help saying, however, with some bitterness, that it was her fate to have everything she undertook turn out otherwise than she had desired, and upon Clodwig's assuring her that such was the necessary result of every attempt to embody our conceptions, she exclaimed impatiently, "I am not what I am." The real cause of her discontent was hard to determine. It was more than the mere dissatisfaction of the artist and disappointment in her own powers.
The strict discipline which Eric had wished to maintain was now much broken in upon. Bella always carried through whatever plan she had laid out for herself, acting upon her favorite theory that it was well to allow men to think they had some authority, but that must be all.
Roland soon turned the conversation to the subject always uppermost in his mind, the life of Franklin. Bella expressed a wish to learn something about it, and Clodwig, after a little sketch had been given of what bad been already gone over, was quite ready to resume the reading where it had been dropped before. Eric and Roland, who sat upon a raised platform, listened eagerly. The reading gave rise to many an animated discussion, for Bella entered with remarkable ease and readiness into everything that was presented to her. Eric was disturbed by her speedy detection in Franklin of "a certain dry pedantry, a stinginess of nature," which her acute criticisms set forth in strong relief. He could feel the emotion her words caused in Roland, who was sitting on his knee.
In these days, it is impossible for a young man of Roland's antecedents and present position to preserve a perfect ideal. If rightly guided, and established on a solid footing, it might perhaps be useful for him to see his ideal attacked, and even distorted.
With all the eloquence at his command, Eric stated the difficulty that beset the enlightened mind of the present day, in having no authoritative voice in the place of that of the Church, to say at every point of life's journey, "Follow thou me." We moderns must recognize what is pure and lofty in noble natures, though cramped by the many limitations incident to our age and individual constitution.
Bella's pencil worked rapidly while he was speaking, and she often nodded, her head assentingly. When he ended she looked full at him, and said,—
"You are the best teacher I ever met with;" then, with beaming eyes and glowing cheeks, she turned again to her work.
"That depends upon the pupil," answered Eric, politely acknowledging the compliment.
"I want you, now," continued Bella, still blushing deeply, "I want you to lay your hand on Roland's head. Please do; it will give precisely the effect I desire. Please do as I say."
He consented, protesting at the same time that the idea did not please him, for Roland should learn to carry his head free.
Bella shook her head with vexation, and continued her work, no longer, however, on the figure of Eric, but solely on that of Roland.
"Now I have it!" she suddenly exclaimed; "that is it! You resemble Murillo's St. Anthony."
"That is just what I noticed," cried Roland. "Manna scolded me for it at the musical festival."
Clodwig also agreed with his wife.
"It is a favorite picture of mine," he said. "How plainly I can see it now before me! The figure of Anthony on his knees, with a knotted staff beside him; the landscape barely indicated; a tree in the background, and the thicket near by. Angels are playing on the ground and floating in the air; one turns over the leaves of the Saint's book, while another holds up to an angel hovering in the heavens a lily which has grown from the earth; the flower thus forming, as it were, a link between heaven and earth."
Eric was somewhat embarrassed by Roland's relating how he had fallen asleep in the chapel of the convent, and how suddenly the black nun stood beside him, and he saw the picture above him.
A request of Eric's that the reading might stop here, and the reasons on which he based his request, assumed various shapes in the minds of his hearers.
"To-day's experience convinces me," he said, "that we cannot control our thoughts or pursue them to any worthy issue, when obliged to remain in a position foreign to those thoughts, or in one at least that has no connection with them. There is a mysterious sympathy between our thoughts and the position and state of our bodies."
Eric's words worked in four different ways upon the party assembled. In his own case, they served to describe his position as tutor. Roland thought of the masons at work on the castle, and wondered what they must be thinking of while perched in mid air on their scaffoldings, or while hammering the stone. Clodwig, too, must have found the words bear in some way upon his life, for he shook his head and pressed his lips hard together, as he was wont to do when thinking. But upon Bella they produced the most striking impression; she suddenly let fall from one hand her pencils, and from the other the bread which she used for the occasional erasing of a line. Eric instantly restored them to her, and she took them from him with a vacant look and no word of thanks. He had brought before her the picture of her married life. Thus this one key-note had struck four different chords.
For a long time no word was spoken.
The presence of Clodwig and his family at Villa Eden caused great excitement in the neighborhood, and appeared to place the tutor in a very peculiar position, Pranken, however, viewed the matter quite differently, and, as acknowledged son of the house, invited to Villa Eden the Justice, with his wife and daughter, who had just returned from the Baths.
His manner towards Lina was particularly friendly and intimate; he took long walks in the garden with her, and made her tell him about her life in a convent, which she did most amusingly, giving comical descriptions of the sisters, the Superior, and her different companions. Her only object in staying at the convent had been the learning of foreign languages. Lina's perpetually gay spirits began to have a cheering effect upon the melancholy Pranken. Something of the Pranken of old times was roused within him. Why need the present be empty and barren? it said. Bella has her flirtation with the Captain, why should he not have his with Lina? Why not indulge in a little harmless jesting, perhaps even admit the excitement of some feeling? He could control himself at any moment.
The old Pranken, the Pranken of the days before, seized his rescued moustache with both hands and twirled it in the air.
It was a good idea, during this pause in his life, to amuse himself with the Justice's Lina. He could imagine himself transported back to the days before that visit to the convent, and add this to the many other experiences of his past life which Manna would have to forget.
Lina meanwhile received his attentions very unconcernedly, showing equal friendliness of manner towards both him and Eric, whom she always called her brother in music.
There was a constant stream of jesting and laughter in the Villa and park. One day Pranken induced his brother-in-law to go boating with Lina and himself, while Bella remained at home to draw. He wanted to take Roland also, wishing, with a certain recklessness, to leave the other two alone together for once. But Roland would not leave Eric; he even openly avoided Pranken's society.
Lina sang gaily as they sat together in the boat. Her love-songs were given with a sweetness, an abandonment, that Pranken had never heard from her before. Clodwig described her singing to his wife, on his return, as being as simple and beautiful as a field flower.
Bella begged the Justice and his wife to let her take Lina back with her to Wolfsgarten. The Justice's objections were overruled by his wife, and Lina was full of delight at setting off with Bella and Clodwig.
Pranken rode beside the carriage.
The quiet of this loneliness weighed heavily again upon Eric and Roland, after the animated society of the last few days. Eric, beside, was out of tune, weary and dull. He found it a burden to be obliged to devote himself from morning to night to this boy, to have to watch his undisciplined, and often capricious, fluctuations of mind. He longed for the society of Clodwig; still more, though he hardly acknowledged it to himself, for that of Bella. There had been a novelty, an animation, an excitement, an atmosphere of graceful elegance, about the rooms, which were now so desolate. Nevertheless, he resisted for several days Roland's entreaties that they should make the promised visit to Wolfsgarten. The house had been entrusted to his care, and he refused to leave it, until Pranken, at length, offered to take all the responsibility upon himself. There was a sting in his words, as he said to Eric,—
"You were present at the musical festival, and left the house then in charge of only the servants. Besides, as I say, I assume the entire responsibility."
Beautiful it is in the valley, on the river's bank, where the waters glide by so swiftly, yet so undisturbed; beautiful to see how they glisten in the daylight, reflecting every passing change in the sky, and bearing to and fro the hurrying boats; and again in the evening, to hear the quiet murmur of the stream, as it lies under the radiance of the moon. But beautiful it is also to look from the mountain-top, over the forests, the terraced vineyards, the villages, the cities, and the far-reaching river.
A fresh impulse and animation were now given to the life at Wolfsgarten. The picture of Eric and Roland was brought to completion, and Eric set in order Clodwig's cabinet, thus introducing his pupil to the curiosities of antiquity. There was singing and laughing, there were walks and rides in the neighboring forests, and many a memorable conversation.
Bella often took the parrot with her when she walked with Eric through the park and the forest. The bird took a great antipathy to Eric, and would scold at him from its place on its mistress's shoulder. Sometimes she let it loose with the injunction, "Be sure and come home at night, Koko;" and Koko would perch upon a tree, and fly this way and that, through the forest, always returning at evening. Her freed slave, Bella called him, at such times.
Now, however, Koko had been absent two days. Clodwig offered every reward to get the bird back again, never remarking how quietly his wife took her favorite's loss.
As a matter of course, Bella walked with Eric while Roland and Lina roamed about together in the forest, Lina delighted at being allowed to revel in a child's freedom. At other times, when Eric and Bella were strolling through park and forest, Roland would sit in the potter's workshop, where the clay from the neighboring hills was moulded. He had the whole process explained to him, and was amazed to see what care and labor a single vessel required. Two boys, of about his own age, trampled the clay with their naked feet in order to render it pliable, after which workmen formed it into tiles and architectural ornaments. At a potter's wheel sat a handsome, powerfully-built youth, turning it with his bare feet; then he lifted the clay with great care into the required shape, formed the rim and the nose, and almost tenderly raised the finished vessel from the wheel, and set it in its place on a shelf with the others. He always took precisely the quantity of clay required for the vessel, and never allowed his heavy hands to make on it an impression which he had not designed.
Roland watched the whole scene thoughtfully. Could these men be helped by money? No; their life might be made richer, but they must still work.
The young man who shaped the vessels was dumb. He would give Roland a friendly glance when he entered, and then quietly keep on with his work. The master praised him very highly to Roland, who, being desirous of doing something for him, presented him with his handsome pocket-knife. It contained many instruments within it, and much delighted the poor mute.
Roland told Eric what he had seen, and what thoughts had come into his mind. He had noticed that the workmen had their food brought them, from a great distance, by old women and little children, and asked whether no better arrangement could be made for them.
Eric looked at the boy with unsympathizing eyes as he spoke. How he would once have rejoiced in this proof of his pupil's interest in the welfare of his fellow-men; but now he seemed wholly absorbed in other matters.
A beautifully engraved card brought to Wolfsgarten a piece of news that proved a fertile subject of conversation,—the betrothal of the Wine-count's daughter with the son of the Court-marshal. It seemed an extraordinary step on the part of the young man, who was suffering with a mortal disease, but still more extraordinary that the lady, a fresh young girl, overflowing with life and health, should have made up her mind to such a union. Lina, who was well versed in the private history of every one in the neighborhood, accounted for it by saying that the Wine-count's daughter had always expressed a great desire to be a widowed baroness. There was a deep undertone of meaning, a something not wholly expressed, in Bella's way of speaking of this connection, particularly when addressing Eric, which seemed to take for granted that he would understand what she half concealed.
The newspaper brought another piece of intelligence, the return of the Prince's brother from America, where he had been a careful observer; and his bringing with him for the Prince a freed slave, in the person of a handsome African.
While they were still discussing the impression which a sight of the American Republic must make on a German prince, Roland came in from the forest, exclaiming,—"I have him! I have him!"
He was holding the parrot by his claws.
"There you are again, my freed slave!" cried Bella, as the bird tore himself from Roland's grasp, and, perching upon his mistress's shoulder, began a violent scolding at Eric.
Clodwig did not allow himself to be easily interrupted in a discussion he had once entered upon, and proceeded to state the results of his observations in the world. Bella took an active part in the conversation. It sometimes seemed to Eric, that there was nothing beyond a certain superficial cleverness in her ready flow of words; but he rejected the criticism as a pedantic one.
His life among books, he said to himself, had rendered him unsusceptible to this easy, graceful, brilliancy, while his profession as teacher led him to be always on the watch for an elaborate network of thoughts and impressions, where there was meant to be nothing but a simple expression of natural feeling. He now gave himself freely up to the pleasure of enjoying the close companionship of so richly endowed a nature. These butterfly movements of the mind he began to look upon as legitimately feminine characteristics, which were not to be roughly criticized. Hitherto he had been familiar, in his mother and aunt, only with that severe and business-like conscientiousness, in all intellectual and moral matters, which borders on the masculine; here was a nature that craved only to sip the foam of life. Why require anything further of it?
When Bella was one day walking with Eric in the park, Roland and Lina meanwhile sitting with Clodwig, she complained of not being able to repress the religious doubts that often beset her, while, at the same time, existence without a belief in a compensating future life was a terrible enigma. Without wishing to weaken this idea, Eric sought to give her the assured peace which can be found in the realms of pure thought. There was a strange contradiction in the hearts of these two, imagining, as they did, that they were speaking of things far above and beyond all life, while in reality they were talking of life itself, and that in a way whose significance they would not willingly have acknowledged to themselves.
Suddenly Bertram came riding towards them, his horse white with foam, and while at a distance cried out,—
"Herr Captain, you must return instantly."
"What has happened?" asked Eric.
Clodwig came up with Roland and Lina, and Pranken also appeared at the windows, all anxious to know what had happened.
"Thieves! robbers!" cried Bertram. "The villa has been broken into, and Herr Sonnenkamp's room entered."
A few moments later, Eric and Pranken were in the wagon driving back to the villa. Pranken's vexation was extreme, for he had taken the whole responsibility upon himself.
For a long time neither of the three spoke, until at last Roland broke the silence, by asking Eric what he thought Franklin would have thought and said of such a robbery.
Pranken replied with some warmth, "I should think a son's first question would be, 'What will my father say to it?'"
Roland and Eric were silent. Again they drove on for a long while without a word being spoken. Eric was tormented by accusing thoughts. He seemed to himself doubly a thief. These men had broken into the rooms of the villa by night; what had he done? He had forgotten the soul entrusted to him, and, worse still, after being received by the kindest friendship, he had, under cover of lofty thoughts and noble sentiments, in word, thought, and look been faithless to the most precious trust in the person of his friend's wife. He pressed his hand to his heart, which beat as if it would burst his bosom. Those men, for having stolen gold, would be overtaken by the justice of the law; but for himself,—what would overtake him? Conscious that Roland's eyes were fixed upon him, he cast his own on the ground in painful confusion.
Finally he controlled himself, and said in a trembling voice, that he should assume the entire responsibility; he acknowledged Pranken's friendliness, but felt that in such a case as this, no one could interpose between himself and the consequences of neglect of duty. So severely did he reproach himself, that Roland and Pranken looked at him in amazement.