Villa Eden Part 185

"If slaves could not speak, could not pray, they would be happy like you, and like you, my faithful dogs!"

Manna was becoming uneasy at the unwearying tenor of Roland's thoughts; she said:--

"You must now remain all the time with our friend Eric, and not leave him a moment."

"No, not now--not now! Those are no arrows of Apollo, for the pedagogue to ward off!"

Manna did not understand what Roland was saying; his mind seemed to her distracted, and he did not explain how it was that the Niobe group rose before his eyes. At length, after some time, he said:--

"Yes, so it is! The maiden hides in her mother's lap, but the boy holds up his own hands and wards off the fatal shaft. And at night, when I was wandering off to Eric, I listened to the story of the laughing sprite. It takes a long while for an acorn to grow into a tree, and a cradle to be made out of the tree, and a child that lies in the cradle to open the door. Don't you hear? he laughs; he must go through his transformation."

Manna begged him to be quiet, and said:--

"I must go to father."

"And I to mother."

Pranken met them on the steps; he held out his hand to Manna, and she said:

"I am unspeakably thankful to you for the great loyalty you have shown to my father."

"Stop a while, I beg of you."

"No, I cannot now--no longer."

The brother and sister separated, and as Roland entered his mother's room, the latter said:--

"Don't trouble yourself about this Old World, we are going back again to the New, to your real home."

Roland caught these words as if they came from afar off; and he exclaimed:--

"That's it! that's it! It is the Delphic oracle!"

"What do you say? I am not learned." Roland did not answer. Something was beginning to emerge out of the chaos around him, but it sank quickly out of sight again.

"Wait a moment, it is time to go to dinner," said the mother.

She put on a shawl and went with Roland to the dining-room.

Here, also, were Pranken and Fraulein Perini; the two were standing talking together in a low tone.

Roland went for Eric.

"Isn't it dreadful to have to eat again?" he said. "What bits of slaves do we eat to-day? Ah, Eric! lay your hand upon my forehead. So--so--now that's good."

They had to wait some time before Sonnenkamp came, and Manna did not appear until some time afterwards.

Her cheeks were glowing.

They sat there at table so near together, and so far--far apart were they from each other. Eric and Manna looked at each other only once; there was in their glance an expression full of intelligence. Roland said softly to Eric,--

"When the huntsman came home from court there were potatoes on his table."

Eric laid his hand consolingly on his shoulder; he knew everything that was going on in the soul of the youth from this reminiscence. The huntsman was innocent, and here?

Pranken displayed all his tact in managing to bring forward every safe subject of conversation; the building of the castle furnished him abundant material.

They rose from the table, and all separated as before. Roland requested Eric to allow him to remain alone by himself for that day.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BOND OF HONOR.

It was evening. Roland was going through the village. In the streets floated an odor of the May wine; everybody was merry and bustling; the wine-presses were creaking and dripping in the streets, men were moving along slowly with full heavy tubs on their backs.

Roland gazed at everybody with questioning look; he would have liked to cry out,--

See, here is a beggar, he begs of you something of love, of kindness, of pity for him and his father. Ah, only a little charity!

He saw the houses to which on his births day he had carried joy-bringing gifts; the people returned his greetings, but they were not, as formerly, gladdened and honored by them; he left the village.

Outside of it, on the river-bank, he sat behind a hedge, as he did before he ran away to Eric. Now he was sitting in unspeakable sadness, that bade fair to wither his life-strength. A water-ousel flew up near him. With childish self-forgetfulness, he bent the boughs away from each other, and saw a nest with five young ones stretching out their bills. How happy he would have been in by-gone days to have made such a discovery! Now, he stood there, and said to himself sadly,--

Ah! you are at home.

He heard a carriage come rattling towards him on the road, and he thought of that poor servant in the night, who would rather hunger and beg than possess property unjustly acquired.

Not far from him on the bank a boat was loosened from its chain; he heard the chain rattle, and at the same moment he felt in his heart as if he heard the slaves, who, bound in one long chain, were coming towards him; and this again transformed itself in his imagination, and he saw the dwarf, fettered as he had once seen him, and the groom; they were walking along the road, and behind them the constable, with his loaded gun gleaming in the sun.

He looked, up.

There, indeed, was a constable walking along. What if he were coming to arrest his father?

O no, there was no fear of that!

What was the matter, then?

And while his eye was still fastened on the bush behind which the constable disappeared, he became, as it were, clairvoyant, his sight reaching out to all things instinctively. His thought stretched away to Clodwig, to the Doctor, to the Major, to the Huntsman. What are they all saying? Profoundly it came upon him: Man does not live for himself alone. There is an invisible and inseparable community, whose bond is respect and honor. He could bear no longer to sit alone with his confused thoughts; he said to himself almost aloud;--

"To the Huntsman's."

With nimble foot and beating heart, as if he expected to find something there, he knew not what, he ascended the mountain. Before reaching the town he was met by the second son of the Huntsman; he too was slowly plodding: he was carrying a heavy tub of young wine. The lad was of the same age with Roland, and while still at some distance, he cried out:--

"Father said that you would come. Just go right in, he is expecting you."