Villa Eden Part 226

"You are to be present too."

The Major, having called thither the Banker and Professor Einsiedel, declared his readiness to yield to the instance of his friends, and reside at the Villa, in order to superintend and keep everything in good condition; but only with the stipulation that Fraulein Milch should at last be released from her vow; stating that she was ready, after having related her life-history, to submit to the verdict of their friends, the Banker and the Professor.

"Another story!" moaned the Professor. He dreaded the idea of p.r.o.nouncing a judgment which was wholly without results, as in the case of Sonnenkamp.

The Major, however, begged so urgently that he consented, and Fraulein Milch began:--

"You, Herr Professor, are just like my father, and yet you are very different! He, too, was a learned man, but in a very different sphere.

"You have many of his habits, and, if you accompany me to the altar, it will seem as though my father were with me, although you are much younger. And you, my friends,--you, Frau Professorin, who have honored me before knowing my life, and you, Fraulein Manna, who, after conquering a strong prejudice, have given me your rich love,--you shall now be made really acquainted with me. But you (turning to the Banker), you will best be able to pa.s.s sentence upon me; for you are a Jew, as I am a Jewess."

All were astounded.

Fraulein Milch waited quietly until her auditors had recovered from their amazement, then continued:--

"I am the daughter of a learned Hebrew, and an only daughter. I had one brother, of whom we shall hear later. My father was a n.o.ble and pious man; he was considered a scholar of great discernment, with fine polemical gifts; but in life he was childishly simple and--why should I not say it?--shiftless. He read the sacred books from morning till night.

"My mother sprang from a wealthy house, had once been blessed in early childhood by the hands of Moses Mendelssohn; from this it was predicted that she would one day marry a man of great knowledge. This proved true. According to the will of her parents she became the wife of my father, on account of his piety and learning.

"Such was the way in which the opulent Israelites formerly exhibited their grat.i.tude and respect for a learned man of their faith, as the Christians bestowed gifts upon the convents. The Jews could found no establishments. They had no protection; all their goods were movable, and thus they devoted a portion of their wealth to the support of our scientific men.

"My mother's whole being was absorbed in her adoration of my father.

The quiet and uniformity of life; the calm content which reigned in my parental abode; how the poor were fed; how our entire existence was nought save the pause between one pious deed and another, between one festival and another, no one present can know but you (turning towards the Banker), you alone can conceive of it. I myself often recall it as a dream. In winter, when my father was unable to go out, the community came to my father, to unite together in prayer in his study, and, while a little child, I used to hear much discourse on worldly events.

"What did we know of the world?

"The world belonged to the officials outside, to the soldiers. They were, in our eyes, beings moving in a fabulous realm, into which we could never enter.

"My brother, who was a handsome man--he resembled Herr Dournay--formed a friendship with a young drummer named Gra.s.sler, who was billetted in our house. We were all made perfectly happy by the reverence which this youth showed towards my father, whom he regarded as a saint, and by his gentleness and timidity when in his presence. I yet remember, as though it were but yesterday, how I stood on the steps, turning round and round with my hand one of the k.n.o.bs of the bal.u.s.trade, when the drummer said to me:--

"'Yes, Rosalie, when you are grown up, and I have become an officer, I will come back and take you away with me.'

"He went away drumming; but I kept hearing those strange words in the sound of the drum, and still stood on the steps, twirling the k.n.o.b, while the whole world seemed to whirl with me. But I beg pardon, I am growing too prolix."

"No, go into details as much as you like."

"But I cannot," replied Fraulein Milch. "Well, then, they went to the war. My brother fell. Conrad came back. He had become an ensign, and he brought back to my father my brother's little prayer-book, its cover and leaves pierced by a ball. My father and my mother and I sat on the ground, mourning for seven days. Conrad came and sat with us: he honored our foreign observances.

"Father seated himself again among his sacred books; but, whereas he used formerly to read with a low, humming sound, he now spoke the words aloud and with violence. He seemed obliged to put a constraint upon his thoughts, which would go out after his son.

"Time gradually healed our wounds. My brother had long been at rest in his grave,--who can say where? Conrad had returned to his home. I was seventeen. It was on Easter eve; we had solemnized the Pa.s.sover, and my father discoursed much on the liberation from servitude, in commemoration of which we keep Easter, and lamented the oppression beneath which we were sighing still. He loved Jesus heartily and warmly, and only bewailed unceasingly the misuse of his name as an authority for the misery into which we, members of his race, were plunged. That night I heard him say that our great and wise Rabbi, Moses ben Maimon, had taught that Jesus had overthrown heathen idolatry; that he was not Messias, but his fore-runner!

"It was late at night ere we went to rest. I slept in a room adjoining that of my parents. Thus I heard my father say to my mother:--

"'How wretched we Jews are! there is that splendid man, so loyal, so good-hearted, Conrad Gra.s.sler, returned. He has worked his way up to a captaincy, and retired on a major's pension, and now here he comes and asks for our Rosalie. If the good man were only of our faith, if he were a Jew, how gladly would I give him my child! I could not desire a better husband for her; but, as it is, it cannot be, and G.o.d forgive my sin in thinking of it!'

"I heard this from my chamber, and that night, though I was still under my parents' roof, my spirit was already far away, out into the wide world, where the officers lived, and the soldiers, and those who owned it.

"Father had nothing against Conrad if it had not been for that one thing. A voice within me repeated this all night long. And in the morning, while my father and mother were in the synagogue, I sat alone with my prayer-book. See this little prayer-book. It is a devotional manual for women, composed by my father--but my thoughts were not upon it. How still it was! I was alone in the house. No one was to be seen in the streets, for the whole community was at the synagogue. I seated myself in the middle of the room; I did not wish to look out of the window; Conrad would surely be pa.s.sing by.

"But how did he look? How wonderful that he had kept that promise made to me in my childhood! What had he become? How would I seem to him?

"Then, I cannot tell how it was, but as I was standing at the window, looking out, I saw Conrad, grown into a n.o.ble-looking man. I withdrew from the window, but then, came footsteps on the stairway, and my heart throbbed as though it would burst. Conrad stood alone in the world; he is a military orphan."

A smile pa.s.sed round the circle of listeners, and Fraulein Milch went on:--

"I told Conrad what my father had said to my mother, the night before.

I could give him up for my parents' sake; but he was not in duty bound to renounce me, and I had not the right to relinquish for him, and it was settled that I should elope with him.

"My father returned from the synagogue, and I have never felt a heavier sorrow than when he laid his hand in blessing on my head, as is the custom with us. I would not disturb the joy of the feast, and not until it was ended--oh! I ruined the joy of his whole life! There were no more feasts for him--did I flee with Conrad. I persuaded myself that my father would give us his blessing, when he should see that it could not be otherwise. We wrote to him, but he did not answer. He sent us word, through a friend, that he had had two children, who were dead, and for whom he earnestly prayed that it might be well with them in the other world. And one word more he sent me,--'Thou seekest honor before the world, and for honor hast thou forsaken thy father.' I wrote back protesting with a solemn oath that I had wished to obtain no earthly honor through Conrad, promising to clothe myself with humiliation and shame in the eyes of the world, and that oath I have kept until the present day.

"Conrad soon received tidings of my mother's death, and my father followed her in a few months. I inherited a small fortune, and we went to the Rhine. Down below, yonder, we lived twelve years in a little lower Rhenish village, hidden from all the world, happy in each other.

We needed nothing from the world but ourselves. Conrad wished constantly to marry me; but I had vowed to robe myself in ignominy during the whole period of my existence. We might have been united here by civil contract. That, too, I refused. I used to attend church, impelled by the desire to pray in common with my fellow human beings. I had my quiet corner, and while the organ was pealing, and a divine service different from my own was being solemnized, I would sit alone and pray out of the prayer-book which my father had composed, and from the other, which my brother had had on the field of battle, and which had rested on his heart till it beat no more. I was in the church and was no stranger, for there were people beside me, praying after another fashion, but to the same Spirit which I also invoke, and this Spirit will know and explain why men turn themselves to him in such different ways. Now I believe I may revoke my sentence of self-excommunication."

"You may, you must," said the Banker, speaking first, and rising as he spoke. The Professorin rose and embraced the narrator.

"Well, then, will you hear the close, too?" resumed Fraulein Milch. All were still, and she proceeded:--

"We came hither. How I have lived here, you know. At our change of residence, Conrad expressed his wish for a formal union, but I preferred not to be called Frau Majorin; it was to me a constant penance and chastis.e.m.e.nt for my faithlessness to my parents and my desertion of all my people. Now we lived in faithfulness, in oneness, without any formal tie. Thus we have lived, and now it is fulfilled."

"I shall go with you to the wedding," cried the Professor and Weidmann.

But the latter now took Manna's hand, saying:--

"Do you know for whom is the third bridal wreath which shall be woven from this myrtle-tree?"

Manna trembled, and he went on:--

"It is for you. You have struggled and waited. Help me, Frau Dournay."

The Mother, too, took Manna's hand. The Major, hastening out, came back bringing Eric, to whom, on their way, he said a great many things mixed up in strange confusion.

The following day saw the three couples united, and no one can say who were the happiest. Manna and Eric, the Major and Fraulein Milch, or Lina and the Architect.

Rooms were fitted up in the castle, and there Manna and Eric were to pa.s.s the first days of their marriage.

They were sitting at the wedding-feast, which had been tastefully arranged under the direction of Joseph, who was himself betrothed.

Manna and Eric had helped him to buy an inn at the capital, and he had plighted his troth to the daughter of mine host of the Victoria. Now, however, he had returned of his own accord, and was the servant of the house as formerly.

Very modestly did Knopf bring forward three different poems which he had composed for the triple wedding; into these he had skilfully interwoven all sorts of little occurrences, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of all.

Eric whispered to Manna, as he sat by her side: "I am glad that I have already danced with you. I feel as though I must now whirl round with you in the dance, and forget everything. But I must hush: our good teacher is about to speak."

Einsiedel arose, with a smile upon his face, saying with sparkling eyes: "Come hither, you children of the Rhine, and I will teach you something. My pupil, here, Dr. Dournay, knows it, I shall only remind him of it; but to you I must say it:--

"All my theologies tell us of immortal G.o.ds; but they are not immortal by nature, they are only so by the divine drink, by means of nectar, wine, and mead: these are the potions which give eternal life; and, floating in the clouds, and drinking from the clouds, the deities become immortal, and with them the inspired breath of arisen souls.

Yes, it is by drinking! Look here, see how the sun shines in this gla.s.s, and here the lightning is embosomed, the primitive life-fire. We drink, and are immortal, like the G.o.ds. And this is my desire! Drink always a drop of this divine draught from the ocean of ether, the spirit-sea, which undulates and floats over the world. Then you will be forever happy and immortal."

Evening came, and Manna and Eric went hand in hand to the castle.