Villa Eden Part 100

"My heart is full of happiness and joy; it is a real blessedness to see a woman who is sixty years old, and who has never had a thought that she needed to repent of."

Bella looked up quickly. "What does this mean? Has he any idea of what has transpired?

"That cannot be; he would not, in that case, have referred to it. But perhaps it is his lofty manner of giving a hint towards a life of purity."

She was fearful of betraying herself if she made no answer, and yet she was at a loss what to say. Making a violent effort of self-restraint, she said at last,--

"This lady is very happy in her poverty; she has a n.o.ble, highly-cultivated son."

Clodwig now looked round as if some one had pulled upon him. Could Bella have had any notion that the thought had crossed his mind,--What if this wife--and then Eric be thy son?

He was better off than Bella, for there was no necessity of his making any reply; but he inwardly reproached himself for having had the faintest impression of such a thought.

They drove along in silence; there was oneness of feeling, and yet each had saddening thoughts; for the rest of the way not a word was spoken.

It seemed to Bella as if some mighty force must come and bear her away into chaos, into annihilation. The carriage rattled so strangely, the wheels grated, and the maid and the coachman looked to her like goblins, and the flitting shadows of the moon like pictures in a dream, and the carriage with its inmates like a monster; anger, shame, pride, humiliation, were stormily coursing through her heart, that had not yet been calmed.

She was enraged with herself that she, who was mature in worldly experience, had allowed herself to be carried away by such a girlish infatuation, for that was the name she still gave it. And had not her self-love been wounded? Was not this the first time that she had ever stretched out her hand without its being grasped?

It came across her that Eric might have overstated his love to her, in order to lessen the feeling of shame on her part. As she thought it over, it seemed to her that she detected something unnatural in his tone, something forced and constrained.

She thought again of Eric. Where is he now? Is he talking with any one?

He certainly suffers deeply; he has saved himself and thee. Her thoughts were like a whirlwind. Now she scornfully exulted. It was only a trifling jest, an experiment, a bold play! She, Bella, the strong, had only tried to bring a young man to his knees before her, and she would have thrust him away with contempt if she had succeeded. She can say this--who can contradict her? Her whole past life was good evidence in her favor, and yet she felt ashamed of this lie.

But what is now to be done? she asked again. She is simply to be quiet; she will meet the man with indifference; her last word to him was to warn him against any attachment to Manna. There was the whole! That was the pivot on which, turned the whole bold game. She promised herself to root out of her soul every pa.s.sionate feeling, every violent emotion.

She was now grateful to the destiny that had aroused within her the strong forces of nature--her virtue had now been tried in the fire.

She took the veil from her face, and looked up at the stars. They should be witnesses that all immoderate, all childish allurements, that were unworthy of her, should be put far away. Now she silently thought of what Eric had said, "For this end are culture and knowledge bestowed upon us, that we should rule over ourselves."

As they were going up the hill on which Wolfsgarten was situated, there came over her a feeling of imprisonment; she thought her hands were tied, and she put them outside of her mantle. Clodwig thought she was seeking his hand; he took hers and held it with a gentle pressure.

They reached Wolfsgarten in silence, and Clodwig said, as they stood in the brightly lighted garden-saloon,--

"We can be silent in each other's company; and this is the fairest comradeship, when each one abides in himself and yet is with another."

Bella nodded, looking at the whole surroundings with a wondering glance. What is all this? To whom does all this belong? What power has brought her here? Where has she been? How would it be now, here alone with her husband, if----

It seemed to her that she must fall on her knees, grasp his hand, and beg for forgiveness.

But it is better, she thought, not for herself--she believed that she was ready to humble herself to the utmost,--but better for him not to know anything of what had transpired. It ought to be concealed from him. She bowed her head, and Clodwig kissed her brow, saying:--

"Your brow is hot."

Each retired to rest.

Bella sent her maid away and undressed without her aid to-night.

After Clodwig and Bella had driven off, the Mother went to the vine-embowered house with Eric. She led him by the hand like a little child; she felt his hand tremble, but she said nothing; when they had reached the steps, she said,--

"Eric, kiss me!"

Eric understood her meaning; she wanted to see if he could kiss her with pure lips. He kissed her. Mother and son uttered no word.

Every pain was removed from Eric's whirling brain. And truth requires it to be said, that the most painful thought was, that a feeling of regret had come over Eric, a short time previously. The tempter suggested that he had been too scrupulous, too conscientious. He had thrust from him a beautiful woman, who was ready to clasp him with loving arms. When he surprised himself in these thoughts, he was profoundly wretched. All pride, all self-congratulation, and all exalted feelings of purity, were extinguished; he was a sinner without the sin. He had believed himself raised upon a lofty eminence; he had even represented his love to Bella in stronger colors than the facts warranted. Now there was a recoil, and the whole power of the rejected and disdained love avenged itself upon his doubly sinful head.

For a long time he wandered about in the quiet night.

The soul has its feverish condition from wounds as well as the body, and equally requires a soothing treatment.

Eric had amputated a part of his soul in order to save the rest, and he suffered from the pain. But as the dew fell upon tree and gra.s.s, and upon the face of Eric, so fell a dew upon his spirit.

The self-exaltation of virtue was now taken out of him, washed away by his double repentance, and he was now again a child.

As he looked back to the vine-embowered house, he thought: I will, as a man, preserve within me the child; and still further he thought: Thou hast withdrawn thyself from temptation through the consciousness of duty; be tender towards the rich and great, to whom everything is offered, to whom so much is allowed; the consciousness of duty does not restrain them so absolutely as it does him who is in the world, him who must help and be helped by others, and who has lost everything when he has lost himself.

He returned home late in the evening; and at night he dreamed that he was struggling in the midst of the floods of the Rhine, and he, the strong swimmer, was not able to contend against the waves.

He shrieked, but a steam-tug drowned his cry, and the helmswoman of a boat looked down upon him with contempt--and all at once it was not the helmswoman, but a maiden form with wings and two brightly-gleaming eyes.

CHAPTER X.

THE GUARDIAN AND HELPER.

Early in the morning, a carriage from Wolfsgarten came for Aunt Claudine and the parrot.

For the thirty years since her marriage with the Professor, Frau Dournay had not pa.s.sed a day without her sister-in-law; now, for the first time, she was letting her go from her. It seemed to both of them hardly conceivable that they could live apart from each other, but it had been decided upon, and must be.

Sonnenkamp was most politely attentive; he charged the Aunt to consider his house her home, and not to remain more than a few days as a guest at Wolfsgarten. He gave a basket full of carefully-covered grapes and bananas into the coachman's charge; the parrot's cage was on the seat near Aunt Claudine.

The parrot screamed and scolded as they drove off, and kept it up all the way, not liking, apparently, to leave Villa Sonnenkamp.

Herr Sonnenkamp proposed a drive to the Professorin, to help her forget the parting, but she answered, that not by diversion but by quiet reflection, can we compose and reconcile ourselves to the inevitable.

Roland looked at her in surprise; these wore Eric's thoughts, almost his very words.

Several days pa.s.sed quietly at the villa, which was hardly quitted even for visits to the vine-covered cottage. Bella's visit had brought a disquiet to the house, which still hung over them all, and they realized it afresh as they constantly missed the Aunt; Bella had taken something which seemed an essential part of their life. And besides, the house was again without any sound of music.

Eric and Roland were more industrious than ever, for the Mother had asked if she might not be with them in the study-hours, saying that she had never heard any of Eric's teaching. Eric knew that she wished to help him to keep a strict guard over himself; for though not a word had been said, she felt that something must have pa.s.sed between him and Bella. And she not only wanted to watch over her son at every hour, but to inspire him by her presence to keep true to his duty to Roland.

So she sat with them from early morning through much of the day, breathing low, and not even allowing herself any needlework; and Eric and Roland felt a peculiar of a calm mind, of deep insight, and wide incitement in the presence of a third person, views. At first Roland often looked up at her, but she always shook her head, to remind him that he must give his whole mind to what he was about, and take no notice of her. Eric was completely free from the first hour, when he had caught himself giving such a turn to the lesson that his mother might learn something new, and had met her gaze, which said,--That's not the thing to be considered. He returned to his simple plan, without regard to his mother's presence. She was pleased with the methodical way in which Eric gave his instruction, and knew how to keep his pupil's attention. She listened with pleasure, one day, when he said that Indolence liked to say:--Nothing depends on me, a single individual; but, a nation and humanity consist of individuals; a scholar learns through single hours and days; a fruit ripens by single sunbeams; everything is individual, but the collected individuals make up the great whole. Eric had prepared himself, and read apposite pa.s.sages from Cicero, and from Xenophon's Memorabilia. Roland must feel that he had the fellowship of the n.o.blest spirits. But when they were alone, his mother said,--"I think that in ill.u.s.trating everything and trying to give your pupil knowledge, you weaken and loosen his firm hold on fundamental principles."

Eric felt a shock of disappointment; he had hoped that his mother would express entire pleasure, and she was finding fault instead; but he controlled himself, and she continued, smiling:--

"I cannot help laughing, because my two points of criticism are really one and the same, looked at on two sides. The one view is this, that it seems to me dangerous to give your pupil, as you do, just what he desires: you follow the devious path of a young discursive mind, and just there lies the danger of private instruction. I mean, in this way it pampers the youthful mind by giving it only what it wishes for, not what it ought to have. The discipline of a definite course of study lies in the necessity of taking up and carrying forward what the connected plan requires, and not what may suit the fancy; this fits one for life too, for life does not always bring what we long for, but what we need and must have."

"And what is your second point?" asked Eric, as his mother paused.