Villa Eden Part 106

Humility, respect, and helpful kindness were manifest in Sonnenkamp's whole demeanor, as he extended his hand to the Professorin on her getting out of the carriage; as he conducted her to the steamboat; as he looked out for a seat protected from the draught and giving an uninterrupted prospect; as he supplied all her wants and asked if there was any thing he could do for her.

The Professorin was startled when she perceived that she had forgotten a book which she had laid upon the table, intending to take it with her, but had left it there. She evaded Sonnenkamp's question what was the name of the book, for she could well imagine, that the writings of the man she held in such high veneration would not be agreeable to Sonnenkamp. She said in a joking way that she had lived so long in the society of the learned world, that even making a trip on the Rhine, in a clear, bright sunshine, she thought she must have a book with her.

She must give herself up wholly to the scenery and to her own thoughts.

Sonnenkamp seated himself near her, and said in a tone of genuine emotion, that he could not but congratulate his children, nay, almost envy them, that they were to live in the society of a woman of such a youthful spirit.

The more he talked, the tenderer he became, and his eyes glistened as if moistened with tears. He frequently said that he could not speak of his youthful years, which were arid and desolate, with no gentle hand of woman to soothe him with caresses. The strong man was deeply moved, as he spoke of his childhood in words that partly veiled and partly revealed his meaning. At last he came to the main point, composing himself by a violent effort. The Professorin felt that she must first inquire into the reason why Manna had became so alienated from him.

Bending down his head, he proceeded to say:--

"They may have told her something that I disdained to contradict. Were you, honored lady, to know what it was, you would without hesitation p.r.o.nounce it to be a falsehood devised by the most malignant hostility."

The Professorin desired to know what was said, but he replied that if he should repeat it, he should run mad here on board the boat. His features, that had been composed and placid, were suddenly distorted in a fearful manner.

The Professorin now dwelt upon the visit that she was going to make to the Superior, the friend of her youth, and begged Herr Sonnenkamp to avoid all direct endeavor to influence his daughter in favor of herself.

"Children," she said, "must make their own friends, and they cannot receive them ready made from others. One must be careful not to intrude one's self upon them, and to wait quietly and patiently, until they come of their own accord."

Sonnenkamp considered this so judicious, that he promised not to go with her, in the first instance, to the island, but to remain at the inn on this side of the river until the Professorin should send for him.

"You are as good as you are wise," he said praisingly, for he detected as he thought in the lady's un.o.btrusiveness a politic motive; and he was pleased in the notion of circ.u.mventing all cunning with a deeper cunning still.

While Sonnenkamp and the Mother were sailing down the Rhine, a strange circ.u.mstance occurred on the convent-island From one end of the year to the other, no horse was to be seen upon the island, except when the ground was ploughed. The pupils in amazement pointed out to each other a plough, which a horse was drawing up and down the extreme point of the island. A n.o.ble-looking farmer in a blue blouse, and with a gray hat drawn down over his eyes, was guiding the plough. The children stood at a distance watching the plough, as if it were some novel wonder, and looked at Manna for permission to go nearer in order to observe it. She nodded permission, and they walked along the gravelled walk by the side of the field. Then the ploughman, taking off his hat, made a salutation; Manna remained standing with a fixed look as if she were under a spell. Is that not Herr von Pranken? He continued his ploughing and said nothing. As he turned the plough, to come back, he looked towards her and smiled; it was he.

"He's a splendid-looking ploughman," said one of the girls.

"And he seems so genteel," exclaimed another.

"And he has a seal ring on his finger," cried a third. "Who knows that this is not a knight in disguise!"

Manna called to the children to return with her. She went into her cell, from which the field could be overlooked, but she kept away from the window. She felt flattered that Pranken should subject himself to the most humble condition, in order to be near her, and she felt grateful to him for being so modest and considerate as not to speak to her. She debated with herself whether she should not mention it to the Superior, but she came to the conclusion that she had no right to betray Herr von Pranken's secret; besides, so far from there being any harm in it, it was the n.o.blest tribute of respect.

Going to the window, she saw that he kept steadily at his work, and he had never seemed to her so pure and n.o.ble, so lovable as now, engaged in this rustic labor.

On the window-sill was a rose-bush with a late rose in full bloom.

Looking up she caught sight of it, and took hold of the stem, thinking she would pluck and throw it to him as a sign of recognition; but just then, a lay-sister came in and informed her that a visitor had come who asked to see Manna. The rose remained on its stem.

Manna turned round and seemed perplexed. Pranken is still there ploughing. Could he be the one who was announced? or has the Countess Bella arrived? With wavering step she descended to the reception-room.

The Superior introduced to her a good-looking, portly lady, saying:--

"This is my friend, Professorin Dournay, the mother of your brother's teacher."

CHAPTER III.

"OUT OF THE WORLD, AND OUT IN THE WORLD."

The first feeling was surprise, the second, quiet confidence, as the eyes of the Professorin and Manna met; each found the other different from the preconceived image.

Manna remembered Eric's tall figure, and his resemblance to the picture of St. Anthony, and before her stood a short, fair, gray-haired woman.

Frau Dournay had pictured to herself Roland's handsome sister as like him, and now she saw a slender, delicate creature, who, at first sight, gave no impression of beauty. A mole on her left cheek, and one on the right side of her upper lip, were quite conspicuous; her complexion was rather dark, and her wonderful brown eyes glowed with deep and quiet warmth upon every one who looked into them.

Manna bowed ceremoniously to the Professorin, who rose and held out her hand with maternal kindness, saying that she was very glad to become acquainted with the daughter of her host, while paying a visit to her friend, the Superior; and she added, with special emphasis, that she had been so fortunate as to become quite intimate with Manna's mother.

"Is my mother well?" asked Manna, with a sweet tone of warmth in her low and quiet voice. The Professorin told her of her mother's health, and added that the doctor said he had never known her so constantly cheerful as now.

"Now, I have a request to make," she continued in an animated tone; "since I have had the good fortune to be your parents' guest, I have insisted that the daily course of your brother's studies should not be in the least interfered with, and now let me beg you, my dear young lady, to go on with your usual occupations. I shall have the pleasure of dining with you, and after dinner, I shall be very glad if you will spare me a quarter of an hour."

"If you have any private message for Manna," said the Superior, "I will leave you together."

"I have not any private message."

Manna gave the Professorin her hand, and left the room. She did not know what to make of it all; why had she been summoned when there was so little to be said to her? It offended her a little to be so pushed about by a stranger--for the lady was a stranger. But as she walked through the long pa.s.sage, she still saw before her the sincere and gentle countenance of the stranger, smiling at her as if saying, You are a strange child!

Manna returned thoughtfully to her cell; she looked out of the window and saw Pranken just entering a boat with his horse, and he was soon on the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"Ah, Herr von Pranken!" cried a loud voice, and the echo repeated the sound.

What voice was that?

Pranken hurried up the bank and vanished behind the willows.

Manna longed for the time when the world would be shut out from her, and no more unrest could come over her, for now she was deeply disturbed. There was Pranken; here, the tutor's mother--what did it all mean? She took her book of devotions, but could not succeed in drawing her thoughts from the subjects which occupied them.

In the mean time, the Professorin was listening to the Superior's account of Manna's strange nature, which seemed really to hold two natures within it, one, humble and submissive, almost without a will of its own; the other, struggling, defiant, and self-willed. She had a true, earnest character, too serious, perhaps, for a girl of seventeen; she was often unable to, hold her feelings under control, but who could always do that at her age? A weight lay on her spirits which was uncontrollable; it plainly had its source in the child's keen sense of the discord between her parents and its influence upon herself. The Superior asked Frau Dournay to tell her more of the characteristic peculiarities of the parents, but she evaded the subject.

The appearance, as well as the bearing, of the two ladies offered a sharp contrast. The Professorin's figure was full, and in her face there was a constant expression of wide-awake animation; her hands were round and plump; the Superior was tall and thin, her expression severe and earnest, as if just a moment before she had given some positive order, or was on the point of giving one; her hands were long and perfectly shaped. Both women had experienced hard trials: the Professorin had won a gentle, smiling content; the Superior, a complete preparation to meet all events with firm and stoical endurance.

The first greeting between these early friends, after nearly thirty years of separation, had been a strange one, the Superior not hearing, or seeming not to hear, that Frau Dournay addressed her just as she had in the old days.

"I did not think I should ever see you again in this world," she had said directly, and when the Professorin tried to recall reminiscences of their youth, she had replied that she knew the past no longer; she had destroyed all its mementoes, and recognized only a future, the sole object that ought to occupy our thoughts.

The Superior noticed that this distant manner of speaking startled her old friend, and she said, with the same composure, that she made no distinction among the relations and acquaintances of her early life; no one was nearer to her or farther from her, and that any one who could not attain this state ought not to devote herself to a spiritual life.

The Professorin felt as if she had been turned off and shown out of the house, but she was calm enough to say:--

"Yes, you always had a strength of mind which used to frighten me, but now I admire it."

The Superior smiled; then, as if angry at having been betrayed into any self-satisfaction by this civil speech, she said,--

"Dear Clara, I beg you not to tempt me into vanity. I stand at my post, and have a strict watch to keep, until the Lord of Hosts shall call me to himself. Formerly, I must confess, I did not realize that you and I lived in different worlds; in mine, it is one's duty not to rely on one's own strength."

With all this self-denial, it seemed to the Professorin that the Superior spoke of the power and the greatness of the sphere in which she moved, with that pride, or at least with that lofty self-confidence, shown by all who belong to a great and powerful community. To the Superior, on the other hand, she seemed like an isolated, detached atom, floating it knew not whither.

They soon found, however, a point on which they could sympathize, in speaking of the difficult task of educating the young.