Villa Eden Part 124

"He is waiting in the reception-room."

"I will give him an answer," returned Manna, and began to read her letter a second time.

She paced the cell backwards and forwards; at one moment she wanted to seek the Lady Superior and ask what she should do, but the next, her heart shrank at the thought. Why ask advice of another human being? She looked at her hand, which had been pressed upon her eyes. You cannot weep, said a voice within her; you must not weep for aught in this world.

"What is the matter?" cried Heimchen from the bed. "What makes you look so cross?"

"I am not cross, I am not cross; do you think I am?"

"No; now you look pleasant again. Stay with me, Manna--stay with me; don't go away--stay with me, Manna. Manna, shall die."

Manna bent over the child and soothed her. This is the first trial, she thought, and it is a hard one. Now I must show whether love of mankind, of the Saviour, is stronger in me than family affection. I ought, I must! She committed Heimchen to the care of a lay-sister, and, promising soon to return, descended to the church. At sight of the picture, which made her think involuntarily of the man who was with Roland, she covered her face with her hands, threw herself in deep contrition upon her knees, and prayed fervently. Thus she lay long, her face buried in her hands. At length her decision was made, and she rose. I ought and must, and I can! I must have strength for it! I am resolved to live only for the service of the Eternal. Roland has good care taken of him; he recognizes no one; if I go to him it will be to remove my own distress, not his. Here, on the other hand, is Heimchen sick and needing me. There is no question as to my duty; I will stay at the post where not my will, but that of the Highest, has placed me.

She remembered the Lady Superior telling her how her father and mother had died, and she could not leave her convent to go to them. Manna resolved to do the same thing voluntarily, under the compulsion of no vow. She trembled as she thought that it might be better for Roland if he could die now before he fell into sin, and perhaps had to hear the dreadful secret. The idea was almost more than she could bear, but she held her resolution fast.

Manna returned to her cell, meaning to write and tell all that was in her soul, but she could not. She descended to the reception-room, told Lootz simply that she could not go back with him; and then, returning again to her cell, looked out upon the landscape. Life seemed frozen within her, but as the melting snow dripped from the roof, so her tears broke forth at last, and she wept bitterly; yet her decision remained unshaken. The whole night was spent in watching and prayer, and the next morning she told her story to the Lady Superior, who made no answer besides a silent inclination of the head.

Again in her cell, Manna read the letter, and was made aware for the first time that Eric's mother was nursing Roland. The paper trembled in her hand, as she read of Roland's constant talking with her in his fevered ravings. Why did her father write nothing of Pranken? Where was he? she asked herself; then, indignant that her thoughts should still cling to the world, with a sudden resolve she flung the letter into the open grate, and watched it break into momentary flame, and then float in light flakes up the chimney. So had it been in her heart, so ought it to be; nothing more from the outer world should reach her.

CHAPTER IX.

GROWTH DURING ILLNESS.

"He is saved!" said the doctor, and "He is saved," was repeated by voice after voice through the whole city.

The doctor enjoined double care in guarding Roland from the least excitement of any kind, and when the boy complained of the horrible tedium of his sick-room, both Eric and the doctor laughingly reminded him that he had his good time in the first place, and that ennui was the first sure step towards recovery. Roland complained also of being kept hungry, and then added, his face seeming to grow fuller and fairer as he spoke:--

"Hiawatha voluntarily suffered hunger, and do you remember, Eric, my thinking then that man was the only creature that could voluntarily hunger? Now I must practice what I preached."

Roland showed himself particularly full of affection toward Eric's mother. He maintained that she was the only person he had recognized during his delirium, and that it had caused him the greatest distress not to be able to say so at the time, but the wrong words would keep coming from his mouth. Even the Mother did not stay with him long at a time.

He rejoiced to see lilies of the valley in his room, and remembered that he had dreamed of them.

"Was not Manna with me too? I was always seeing her black eyes."

Heimchen's illness, they told him, prevented her leaving the convent.

He wanted to see the photograph taken of him in his page's dress, and said to Eric:

"You were right, it will be a pleasant recollection to me by and by.

Indeed the by and by is already here; it seems to me two years ago. Do give me a gla.s.s, for I must know how I look."

"Not now," returned Eric; "not for a week yet."

Roland was as obedient as a little child, and as grateful as an appreciative man. The second day, he begged Eric to let him relieve his mind by speaking out what was in it.

"If you will speak calmly I will hear you."

"Listen to me then, and warn me when I speak too excitedly. I was on the sea, and dolphins were playing about the ship, when suddenly there was nothing to be seen but black men's heads, and in the midst of them a pulpit swimming, in which stood Theodore Parker preaching with a mighty voice, louder than the roaring of the sea; and the pulpit kept swimming on and on with the ship----"

"You are speaking excitedly already," interposed Eric. Roland went on more quietly, in a low tone, but every word perfectly distinct:--

"Now comes the most beautiful part of all. I told you how as I lay in the forest that time when I was journeying after you--nearly a year ago now--there came a child with long, bright, wavy hair, and said, 'This is the German forest;' and I gave her mayflowers, and she was taken up in a carriage and disappeared; you remember it all, don't you? But in my dream it was even more bright and beautiful. 'This is the German forest,' was sung by hundreds and hundreds of voices, just as it was at the musical festival, oh, so beautifully, so beautifully!"

"That will do," interrupted Eric; "you have told enough, and must be left alone awhile."

Eric told his mother of the strange fairy story, which that decisive journey had given rise to in Eric's mind--he had heard of it before from Claus--and mentioned as a singular circ.u.mstance, that this second revolution in the boy's nature resulting in his illness, should have recalled to him this story.

The Mother was of opinion that something similar to the story must actually have happened, but warned Eric not to refer to the subject again, for every recollection of past events r.e.t.a.r.ded recovery and a return to a natural state of mind.

The first time Roland could stand up, they were all surprised to see how much he had grown during his illness. The down too, on his lip and chin, to his great delight, had increased perceptibly. When he saw, for the first time, the straw spread before the house, he said,--

"So the whole city has known of my illness, and I have every one to thank. That is the best of all. How many I owe grat.i.tude to! Whoever shall come to me now, for the rest of my life will have a claim upon me."

Eric and his mother exchanged glances as Roland spoke, and then cast their eyes to the ground. Wonderful was the awakening to life displayed before them in this young soul.

"Did Eric tell you that I had seen Pranken? asked Roland.

"Yes. Now lie down to sleep."

"No," he cried; "one thing more!"

He called for his pocket-book, in which he had written the name of the groom whom he had suspected of robbing him on his night journey.

Reproaching himself for having hitherto neglected to inquire about him, he charged Eric to find the man, who was now a soldier in his regiment here, and bring him to his room.

The soldier came, and received from Roland a sum of money very nearly as large as that in the purse at the time. Eric had no need to have given such strict injunctions to the man not to excite Roland by much talking, and vehement expressions of grat.i.tude, for the soldier had no power to speak a word. He felt as if he were in fairy land, at being thus summoned into a great hotel, before a beautiful sick boy, and presented with such a sum of money; it was like being transported into another world.

Contented and happy, Roland lay in bed again. He begged his father, when next he came to his bedside, to give away all his clothes, for he would wear none of them again.

"Do you want to put on your uniform at once?" asked Sonnenkamp.

"No, not now; but I want to go home soon, as soon as we can, back to the villa; home, home!"

Sonnenkamp promised all should be as he desired.

The Professorin soon fell in with some young people whom Roland's clothes just fitted, and he exclaimed with delight when, he heard it.--

"That is good; now my clothes will go about the streets until I am there again myself; I shall be represented sevenfold."

He desired his father to express his thanks to all the persons who had so kindly shown an interest in him, a duty which Sonnenkamp would readily have performed without this admonition. It afforded the best possible way, better than the most brilliant entertainment, of coming in contact with the aristocracy.

With his handsomest carriage and horses, Sonnenkamp drove through the whole city. His wife had refused all his entreaties that she would accompany him; but he succeeded in inducing the Professorin to be his companion. She, also, refused at first, but yielded to Roland's persuasions. It was the first request, as he said, that he had asked of her since his return to life, and she should and must gratify him by going with his father.

In proportion to the pain it cost the n.o.ble lady to make her reappearance before the world in such companionship, was the ease with which all doors flew open, as if by magic, wherever Lootz showed the cards of the Professorin and Sonnenkamp.