Villa Eden Part 184

"Do you know the story of the little brother and the little sister?

They lost themselves in the wood, and then found their way home again.

And we are like two children in the wild forest. But we are children no longer; you are grown up, you are strong, you must be so."

"Oh, don't speak," replied Roland, "every word goes through my brain, even the sound of your voice. O sister! no, there's none like it! Do you think in all these hundreds and hundreds of books there's one single fate like ours? No, there can't be."

After a longer interval, Manna again began:--

"Now I can tell you what I meant, when I said that I would be an Iphigenia; I wanted to sacrifice myself for you all, in order to take the expiation from you."

"Oh, don't speak. What do these stories of the children in the wood, of Orestes and Iphigenia, have to do with us? Orestes was happy, he could consult the G.o.ds at Delphi; at that time the G.o.ds could be offended and appeased; they were obliged to give a response--but now? we? Where, in these times, is there a single mouth which gives a response in the name of the G.o.ds? The Greeks had slaves too; and we? Now they tell us that love has come into the world, and that all men are the children of G.o.d!

Is this love? And the priests blessed the marriage of a man who held slaves--children of G.o.d as slaves,--and they baptized these children, letting them still be slaves! Alas! I'm getting crazed! O, my youth! O, my youth! Alas! I am still so young, and I must bear for a long, long life-time--must bear this--everything! There's a blackness before my eyes, a spot upon everything I see--all is black--black! At the time when Claus was imprisoned--Children do not suffer for the crime of their father; they can have no part in it, but they do suffer from it a whole lifetime. Where is justice--help me, sister!--do help me!"

"I cannot, I do not comprehend it! O, it was that drove me out of the sanctuary! I don't comprehend it!"

The brother and sister sat together in silence, until Roland suddenly threw himself into Manna's arms, and hiding his head on her bosom, said:--

"Manna, I wanted to kill myself, I could not bear it. Yesterday, everything so beautiful--and here on your heart I cry--I must live--I don't know what I am to do--I must live! Were the children to kill themselves for their parent's guilt, that guilt would be made still greater."

Again Roland leaned his head on the arm of the sofa, murmuring to himself:--

"He did not carry it out at once, and now it will never be done."

"What do you mean?" asked Manna. Roland gave her a gla.s.sy stare, but he kept it to himself that he had exhorted his father to put away all his property, and that the father had led him to believe it should be done; but now he seemed to see clearly that nothing of the kind would ever take place. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and lay there paralyzed as in an awful void, everything crushed and shattered within him.

Manna understood how he felt, and kneeling by the sofa, she cried:--

"Roland, I have a great secret to tell you; Eric and I----"

"What?" exclaimed Roland, sitting upright.

"Eric and I are betrothed."

"You? you two?"

He sprang up, pressed her in his arms, exclaiming again:--

"You? you two?"

"Yes, Roland; and he has known everything for a long time."

"He has known everything? And he has not rejected you with disdain?--and he has instructed me so faithfully?--Oh!"

Roland and Manna held each other in a long embrace. There was a knock at the door, and they separated, looking at each other in dismay. They knew it was their father's knock, but neither of them said so. There was another rap, and they still were silent. Retreating footsteps were heard, and they knew their father's step. Both knew what it meant not to open when their father knocked, but each refrained from speaking of it.

Roland's thoughts must have gone from one person to the other, for he now said:--

"Herr von Pranken has advised me to enter the Papal army. O, if I only knew a battle-field where human brotherhood was to be fought for! O, if I knew where that was, how gladly would I die on it! But that cannot be won upon the field of battle. Oh, sister! I don't know what I'm thinking, what I'm saying. Hiawatha fasted, and we must fast too."

"Let us go home!" said Manna, finally.

"Home! home! What is home to us? What can be our home?"

Roland, however, rose up and went hand in hand with Manna through the meadow to the villa.

The sun shone bright, the hay exhaled so sweet a fragrance, the vessels were rushing up and down the stream, and just then a merry procession was moving towards them on the road; it was a so-called harvest mummery. On a cask sat the second son of the Huntsman crowned as Bacchus with vine-leaves; around him stood maidens clad in white, with dishevelled hair; they were swinging jugs, shouting and rejoicing. On the horses rode shapes disguised with moss.

Everybody was shouting and screaming amidst the loud report of fire-arms.

Brother and sister stood and gazed after the merry train, which disappeared behind the trees, and each knew the other's thoughts. Yes, all others can be merry, but we! They went on farther, and at last Roland said:--

"I know not how it is with me, I feel as if I were not really experiencing all this; I am only dreaming of it, and looking at it like a departed spirit. Everything is so distant, so inacessible, so dim, so shadowy. When I look upon you, I feel all the time that we cannot approach each other at all, that there lies between us a dreadful immensity of distance, and father--mother!"

With a wild stare he looked around him, as if he saw ghosts everywhere.

Manna held his hand more firmly; he became more tranquil; nay, he even smiled thankfully.

Griffin came bounding along just at this moment; he was overjoyed to see his young master once more, and jumped up on him again and again.

Roland caressed him and said:--

"Yes, dear Griffin, when I had lost and forgotten you, then you found your way home. Ah, dear Griffin, don't you know a way home for me now?

I am not your master, I am nothing."

The dog seemed to understand Roland's sad looks and words; he looked up at him so affectionately, as if he wanted to say:--Ah! do not pine thy young life away.

Brother and sister stood side by side on the bank of the Rhine. Roland exclaimed,--

"I see my face in the water, sister, there is no brand upon my forehead--no brand--and still----"

He wept bitterly, for the first time.

"Come, let us go on," said Manna consolingly.

"On, on! Yes, our path is long, unendingly long," rejoined Roland, as he allowed himself to be led away by his sister.

They entered the courtyard of the villa. The servants were slowly leading away the horses with their blankets on.

Roland opened his mouth: he wanted to cry out: Take off the blankets!

Take off the blankets, and hide the shame with them! Let the horses all spring out into the open air. We have no more right over them, they are no longer ours! But he could not utter the words.

Then he looked up at the green-houses, at the trees, as if he wanted to ask them all if they knew to whom they belonged.

He asked Manna to go into the stable with him. He looked into the servants' faces as if begging respect from them, and he thanked them for saluting him, and for asking him what his commands were. Men still saluted him, men still obeyed him! In the stable, he caressed his pony and wept upon his neck.

"O Puck! shall you ever carry such a light-hearted youth again?"

The dogs were jumping round him; he nodded to them, and said sorrowfully to Manna:--

"The brutes are altogether the happiest creatures in the world; they inherit nothing from their parents, nothing but life--no house, no garden, no money, no clothes. Ah, my good Puck, what a fine long mane you have!"

There was something rising almost to frenzy in Roland's thought and speech, as, tugging at the beast's long mane, he exclaimed:--