Villa Eden Part 205

And then she added:--

"Very well, let him take me up here."

The carriage drove up; and Bella seated herself by Clodwig's side without his getting out: he sat shivering in one corner.

"Why do you not ask how I am?" said he, in a feeble, trembling voice.

Bella made no reply. She was internally struggling; but suddenly she exclaimed,--

"Foh! You ought all to be ashamed of yourselves! What are the whole of you in comparison with this man? He alone is a man, he alone. Here is something grand and strong among this lint-sc.r.a.ping, humanitary set.

You are all imbeciles, cowards! This Sonnenkamp is the only great man, a strong man, a real man. Oh! if such a man"--

"Well? If such a man"--

"Ask me no more questions. I will drive home with you, home,--you have the right to command,--what more do you want? Not another word, not a word, or I shall not mind the pouring rain, not the least: I shall jump out of the carriage, I shall go off, I don't know where; but I won't be imprisoned any longer; I won't be banished to your miserable, old, pot-digging, pretty-spoken, vaporing, freedom-vaunting, humanity-gouged, world!"

"Wife, what are you saying? Are good and evil then"--

"Pooh! Good and evil, these are the crutches on which you lean, because you have nothing to lean on in yourselves. A man must be strong, and have good grit: whether he is good or bad is a matter of indifference.

Any thing but weak and sentimental; any thing but hiding behind your humanity with its blissful tears. A man who is not made of iron ought to be a woman--no, he ought to be a nun. You are nothing but a set of soft-hearted nuns. Yes, it must be so; it is so. A Jew to sit in judgment on such a man, and an atheist like this Herr Dournay! Yes, the atheists are the only consistent democrats. All are equal: there's no longer any higher being, no longer any G.o.d; then there's equality, and you are everybody's equal. Dastards, loafers! May you find goodly fellowship together! He is the only man. He has done you too much honor in wanting to belong to you, you are not worthy of him. You are all of you afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau, of the fool of equal rights. It is still to be seen whether the world smothers itself in this mixed ma.s.s of equality, or whether there are heights for it to climb. You ought to go across the ocean; there's the last decisive battle-field; you are nothing but a n.o.bility in a holiday uniform. The Southern States stand erect, and if they fall, there's no more aristocracy; then you'll all be clipped by the shears of equal rights. Just call the coachman in here, your brother-man! Don't let him be out there in the rain, he ought to be sitting with us in the carriage. Or shall I call him for you?"

She seized the cord, and the coachman reined in. After letting Clodwig wait in torture for a while, she cried,--

"Drive on, it's nothing."

She turned her head restlessly, this way and that. Her eyes wildly rolling, and grinding her teeth, she exclaimed in a loud tone:

"Fie upon all the cowards! Oh! if I were only a man!"

Clodwig sat in the corner, shivering. At this moment something clinked in Bella's mouth, and she put her hand up to it. What is that? Yes, she took it out--it is so. In her angry gnashing of her teeth, she had broken a front tooth, which had been tender for a long time, and required careful treatment. Bella clinched the hand in which she held the tooth, and pressed her lips together. What has happened to her? The thought rapidly shot through her, How vexatious it was that she could no longer ridicule those who wear false teeth; but yet she can, for n.o.body will believe that she, Bella, has a false tooth.

They met the Banker waiting for them in the town: he said that he had sent the message to his house, and was ready.

Bella got out of the carriage, and holding a handkerchief before her mouth, and speaking in m.u.f.fled tones, requested the Banker to accompany her husband, and a servant to stay with her. She hurried towards the railroad. Arrived at the station, she was perplexed; and without taking the handkerchief from her mouth, she told the servant to take tickets for the Fortress. Then she sat still in a corner of the pa.s.senger-room, with two thicknesses of veil over her face. She rode to the Fortress-City. No one was to know that she wore a false tooth, no one was to see her with a gap in her teeth.

Clodwig drove homewards, and often wiped his eyes. Above all, his pride was wounded; he, Clodwig, was scorned, and by whom? By his wife. And on whose account? On account of this hollow-hearted adventurer. She has never loved me one single instant: that was a stab to his very heart, and this stab never ceased to be felt; for what he suffered bodily was trans.m.u.ted into a suffering of the soul. Who is there that can measure this action and re-action of body and soul?

The rain had ceased; but a mist seemed before Clodwig's eyes, and a heavy gloom. He reached Wolfsgarten; but all the apartments seemed full of smoke, full of haze. He seated himself in his chair.

"I am lonely, lonely," he said to himself continually.

The Banker spoke to him in gentle words; but Clodwig shook his head; he knew that Bella had never loved him, that she hated him. He felt himself humiliated, scourged. Bella's words had wounded him to the heart's core, wounded him to the death.

They drew off his coat: he looked for a long time at the coat, and nodded with a sad smile.

Did he forebode that he would never put it on again?

When Bella returned home early the next morning, he looked at her with a ghostlike countenance: he perceived the coldness and hardness of her face.

"Medusa, Medusa!" shrieked Clodwig.

Without knowing he had uttered the words, he fell back on the pillows.

They restored him to consciousness. Hours of the severest pain elapsed before the Doctor came. Clodwig had also desired Eric to be sent for.

The Doctor came, and declared Clodwig to be dangerously sick; the jury trial had excited him too violently, and the drive home through the rain--"and perhaps something else," he added to Bella, who gazed at him without changing a muscle of her face.

Bella sent for her brother; but no one knew precisely where he was.

"I am lonely," said she, too.

She was terrified when she said this; for she felt that she would soon be really alone.

CHAPTER X.

A KNIGHT ERRANT.

It was difficult to hunt up Pranken, for he had lost himself when he left Villa Eden. No man ever walked with a firmer and a prouder step, while at the same time he was inwardly crushed, than Pranken. It was something more than external a.s.sumption, it was an habitual a.s.surance that sustained him.

Pranken would have taken it hard if Manna had rejected him in order to become a nun. But to reject him on account of preference for another, reject him,--Otto von Pranken!--He was touched to the quick. Otto von Pranken had been refused; and he was very deeply in love. Can Otto von Pranken offer love, and not have it reciprocated? If the girl had taken the veil, and renounced the world, she would have renounced him with the rest, for he was a part of the world; but to be refused in this way, and dismissed on account of another man!--. Otto von Pranken loves, and his suit is not accepted!

"Unprecedented!" He ground his teeth with rage. He never thought of what he had been guilty of in his life: he only felt his dignity insulted, his pride mortified, and his love scorned; for he loved Manna, and wanted to be united to her, and naturally, also, to her money; then he would be all right, and indulge his pa.s.sion for handsome horses.

What should now become of him? For the first time in his life, Pranken felt a pity for himself: it seemed to him that he was misunderstood, misappreciated virtue, but, more than all, as if n.o.bleness of bearing had been insulted, and fidelity rewarded with ingrat.i.tude. How great sacrifices he had made for this family! And now? It appeared to him as if there were a black funeral-procession pa.s.sing along in his thoughts: you cannot crowd through it, you must wait until it has all gone by.

He rode away as if he had been thrust out of the world. Where shall he turn? To whom shall he complain?

Is Otto von Pranken to complain to a man, to appear in a helpless condition before any one?

He laughed outright as he now called to mind that he had contracted large debts, in antic.i.p.ation of the millions which would certainly be his. What next?

Involuntarily he turned round once more, and looked back at Villa Eden.

There was only a single line needed, only a brief interview: yes, he had but to ride back, and represent this to Sonnenkamp, in order to come away with hundreds of thousands. But no, it must not be done.

"Fie!" said he to himself, "how could you ever have such a thought as that?"

He rode on, and came to the country-house of Herr von Endlich. There was a young widow here: should he now go in? He knew that his proposal would not be rejected here. No, not yet. But he reined in and dismounted. He asked after the gracious lady, and was told that she was travelling in Italy with her brother.

Sneering contemptuously at himself, he again mounted his horse.

He would tell Bella and Clodwig,--no, not even that. He had not taken them into his counsel: in opposition to the rest of the world, he had connected himself with Sonnenkamp, and was he now to be pitied by Clodwig, and stuffed with wise saws?

He turned his horse, and, riding up along the river, he came to Villa Eden again, and the horse wanted to turn in at the gate; but with whip and spur he urged him on.