CHAPTER II.
ONE'S OWN PART IN THE WORLD.
Manna walked dreamily along, but became roused to full consciousness when the dogs Rose and Thistle sprang up to her, rejoiced to have their mistress with them again.
"So our wild doe has got home?" cried a voice from a distance; it was that of the field-guard, Claus, who had the dogs with him. "I mustn't speak to you now as I used to," he exclaimed. "Hi! how tall you are! But what are you so sad for? Cheer up! Just see, Fräulein, all round, as far down as the rocks there, your father has bought it all."
"Can one buy the earth?" asked Manna, as if waking from a dream.
Claus replied:—
"What do you say? I don't understand you."
"It was of no consequence," answered Manna. Can one buy then the immovable ground? From whom? Who has a right to it? This question presented itself to Manna as an enigma; she gazed intently into the empty air, and hardly heard the huntsman's narrative of his recent experiences. When he said:—"Yes, Fräulein, I've been a simpleton, and am very sorry for it," she asked him:—
"What have you been doing?"
"Zounds! I repeat that I've been doing nothing; that all my life I've been a simple, honest fellow, and not a bad one at all. The bigger rascal one is, so much the better off. What now does the world give me? People can make you bad, but good—who can make you that? The only comfort grows there on the hillside—there's where the drop of comfort comes from, but I can get only a beggar's sup. I should just like to know whether Herr Dournay is a true man; I think there's no true men going now except Herr Weidmann. You've been in the convent, and is't a fact that you want to be a nun?"
Manna had not time to answer, for Claus continued, laughing:—
"I've many a time thought that I'd like to go into a convent, too. Everybody ought to be able to go into a convent when he's sixty years old; nothing to do there but drink and drink, until death claps his warrant upon you. But I don't want to make death's acquaintance yet awhile; I say, like the constable of Mattenheim: Lord, take your own time, I'm in no hurry."
Although so early in the morning, the field-guard was a little excited and talked a little thick. Manna was afraid of him, but now gave him her hand and went off with the dogs.
"I'd like to ask one favor of you!" he called after her.
She stopped.
He came up, and stated to her that the gauger had given him a ticket in the Cathedral lottery, and he had sold it to Sevenpiper, and if the number drew the first prize, he should tear all the hair out of his head, and never have a minute's comfort with his children the rest of his life. If Manna would give him a dollar, he could buy the ticket back again.
As Manna hesitated, he added:—
"It's a pious matter, and just suits you."
Manna did not comprehend what he meant, and she learned now, for the first time, that a lottery had been set up to raise money for the completion of the Cathedral. She gave the dollar, and walked quickly away.
She went along the Rhine. The smooth surface was broken only by the circling ripples, and the fishes could be seen sporting beneath; the willows on the banks quivered in the morning breeze, and were mirrored in the stream. Manna entered the park. The fragrance of flowers was wafted on the fresh, sparkling air, and a divine peace was diffused everywhere around. The flowers glistened with a lustrous brightness, and each color was heightened and glorified by the other; the white added to the splendor of the blue, and the red was softened in its burning glow, making a holy, peaceful harmony.
Each flower, each tree in blossom, helps to make fragrant the air which the daughter of the house inhales; and around her is a human atmosphere whose elements are hard to analyze. The father, harsh, and violent, wanted to force his will upon his child either by kindness or severity; the mother, wrapped up in her own feelings, wholly taken up with herself and her ardent longings for worldly show.
The Professorin thought much of Manna, and would willingly have given her rest; would have helped her over the first days and imparted what she could, but she knew very well that it was not best to offer anything before it was asked for.
The Aunt's look and manner seemed always to be saying: I am all ready, if there is anything you want of me. There was no particular thing that she desired to proffer Manna, but she would have held back nothing.
Eric was very deeply interested; he smiled to himself as the comparison occurred to him: This child out of the convent must feel as you did, when you left the regiment and doffed your uniform; formerly kept under strict discipline, she must now be under self-discipline altogether, and must feel the want of commands, of comrades.
Manna took the single seat under the weeping ash, that had been put in order for her again, and now she wondered why she had been so rude yesterday to Eric.
She wanted to say the first time she saw him: Do not believe that I presumed in this way because you are dependent and in service.
And at this same moment Eric was walking alone in the park, and proposing to say when he should meet with Manna: I would not have our intercourse begin with ill-humor or a misunderstanding.
Manna, hearing approaching footsteps, now looked up and saw Eric coming along the path. She remained seated. As he came nearer, he greeted her, but neither of them uttered the contemplated speech.
Eric began:—
"I should like to give you a proof that I hold sacred the interior sanctuary of your thought—and if yesterday I—it was a day of great excitement. I beg you would also remember that my employment tends to make me interest myself even in the thoughts of those with whom I have no concern."
His tone was subdued. Manna was at a loss what to reply. Both were silent, and there was nothing heard but the singing of the birds. At last Manna said:—
"Tell me about Roland. What is his character?"
"My father used to say, dear Fräulein, that no one could describe to another the characteristics of his fellow; that each one sees the traits in an entirely different light."
"You are evading my question."
"No. I wanted to say to you that I do not consider it feasible to characterize any person justly. If I praise Roland, it seems to me as if I were praising a portion of myself; and if I point out his deficiencies, then perhaps I am too severe, because I feel as if they were my own. One thing, however, a human being may be allowed to say in his own commendation; and so I may be allowed to say of Roland, that he has industry, perseverance, and truthfulness; this is the solid rock on which the moral superstructure can be erected."
Manna involuntarily held up her prayer-book with both hands, as if it were a shield.
Eric, thinking he understood the meaning of this motion, said:—
"It has been, and is, a leading object with me, that Roland should gain an eye of his own, and trust to his own eye."
"An eye of his own?" Manna asked in wonderment.
"Yes, you will readily perceive what I mean by that. And now I have one favor to ask for myself."
"For yourself?"
"Yes Simply believe that I hold in high respect your ideal of life, because I regard it as sincere in you; and the favor I have to ask is, that you will do the same with me."
"I was not aware—" Manna answered, blushing deeply.
A sort of pain darted through her soul; on her face there was an expression of perplexity and conflict, for she was haunted by what Pranken had said. Is this demand of Eric's what Pranken had called setting up as a pattern of honesty, and did Eric, who might know of that view, exhort her to judge impartially, whilst he laid a special emphasis on having an eye of one's own? She could not complete her sentence, for Roland came up, saying,—
"Indeed! Have you found each other out so soon?"
Manna rose hastily, and went to the villa, holding Roland by the hand.
Pranken came out with Sonnenkamp to meet them, and immediately said that he had been to church too; but he considered it a duty not to distract Manna by speaking to her in the morning.
Manna expressed her thanks.
At breakfast, Pranken had many anecdotes to relate, and he did it well, of the royal hunting-lodge, and particularly of events at Court. And he succeeded in giving a new and humorous setting out to many worn-out garrison stories, that were fresh to this circle.
"Dear child," Sonnenkamp broke in, "you have not congratulated Herr von Pranken on his appointment as chamberlain."
Manna bowed in congratulation, and Pranken referred in a cheerful way to the contrast there would be between his summer life as a husbandman, and his winter as chamberlain. He said, further, that the happiest day of his life had been the one he had spent on the island ploughing; and a single rose was the only thing that he envied, upon which glances fell that he would have liked to turn towards himself.
Manna blushed.
Pranken went on to say that the Prince would drink the waters, this summer, at Carlsbad.
Sonnenkamp immediately added, that Doctor Richard some time ago had prescribed these waters to him as better suited to his case than those of Vichy.
All the links seemed supplied for a complete chain when Pranken narrated, in continuation, that his brother-in-law Clodwig, and his sister Bella, would visit Carlsbad this summer.
"And you must accompany us," Sonnenkamp said, nodding to Pranken.
Before she was fairly settled at home. Manna saw herself withdrawn from thence into the whirlpool of a watering-place life. Mention was made of Lina's non-acceptance of the invitation, and Pranken spoke very cleverly of the pleasant impression that her half-childlike, half-matronly appearance made upon him. He wanted to obviate any ill effects from Manna's hearing that he had for a while paid court to her friend. He then declared that he would take the snow-white pony to Wolfsgarten with him, in order to have it perfectly trained for Manna. Her remark, that she now took no pleasure on horseback, was set aside in an almost authoritative way by her father, who said the physician had directed only the day before, that Manna should keep as much as possible in the open air, and take a great deal of exercise.
Manna must now give a name to the snow-white little horse. Pranken wanted to have this done in due form, but Manna declined. When they rose from breakfast, she went to the stable, and gave to the snow-white pony three lumps of sugar.
"Now for the name—the name!" cried Sonnenkamp.
"She has given him his name," replied Pranken laughing; "she has given it to him bodily. Sugar is the pony's name, is it not?"
A smile passed over Manna's countenance for the first time, as she replied,—
"No, we will call him 'Snowdrop.'"
Pranken bade her good-bye with much feeling, and rode away in a smart trot down the road, making the sparks fly under his horse's hoofs. Manna saw the groom leading behind him the snow-white pony by the halter; she would not be perverse, but be moderate in all things. It seemed to her emblematic, to ride on horseback again, before she renounced all worldly trifles, and lived wholly in herself and for eternal realities.
Manna accompanied her father through the park and garden, and through the conservatories, and thanked him heartily for promising to send to the convent beautiful flowers, which could thrive well there in the enclosed courtyard. Sonnenkamp had it in his mind to confide to her the expected elevation to the rank of the nobility, but he wanted to wait for a suitable opportunity. The child must not be too suddenly introduced into the distracting whirl. He observed with satisfaction the large southern trees and plants, which were soon to be brought out into the open air. At first they only opened the doors in order to let in the outside air, and then the plants were brought out into sheltered situations out-of-doors. So would he do with his child.
Manna had soon made a fixed arrangement for the day's occupations, which she adhered to as an established rule; and this methodical strictness soon exerted an influence over the whole family. She found it difficult to deal with her mother, and chiefly in the matter of dress; for Frau Ceres, who changed her dress several times a day, wished Manna to do the same. But she was in the habit of putting on in the morning the dress which she was to wear all day, and was even reluctant to accept any service from her own dressing-maid. She kept on the morning dress, and it seemed to her as the only suitable thing, and alone worthy of the higher human life, that the nuns never varied their dress. By this means all distraction and waste of thought on outward appearance were saved.
She took no part in the beneficent activity of the Professorin. She had briefly given as a reason, that she had still too much to do for herself, and was not prepared to do for others.
She had, moreover, a decided antipathy to the assistant, Fräulein Milch.
She did not express this in words, but in her whole conduct; she avoided speaking with Fräulein Milch; and never gave her hand to her.
This was the effect of Fräulein Perini's teachings, who had withdrawn her from all connection with Fräulein Milch before Manna had entered the convent, as if the modest housekeeper had been a witch who could do her harm. She used to say to the child:
"The whole life and character of this person are an impropriety."
Manna took regular lessons of the Aunt in harp-playing, and Aunt Claudine was the only one who seemed to possess her confidence. She showed her copy-books to her, and particularly the astronomical ones with the alternate blue leaves and the golden pictures of the stars.
During the clear evenings, she spent several hours with the Aunt upon the flat roof of the villa, looking at the stars through a telescope. It was evident that Manna had been thoroughly taught; for the convent-school made a special point of surpassing the worldly schools in scientific instruction. Of course, all science was confined within the bounds which faith prescribes.
With all the dignified loftiness of her demeanor, there was something charmingly attractive in Aunt Claudine; she seemed to have lost or renounced something in life, and so there was a gentleness which more completely won Manna's affection.
In the Professorin, with all her friendliness, there was something commanding; she was self-contained, and gave without ever receiving.
Aunt Claudine, on the other hand, in spite of the difference of years, could be a young person's friend, and Manna felt the tranquillizing effect of this friendship.
Manna's maturity of thought often excited more surprise than even her actual knowledge. Her emotional nature had been widely developed; her religious earnestness and her settled religious convictions gave her serene composure and elevation, which might be mistaken for pride. She always felt as if she were placed on an invisible height, far above those who had no living faith. But this was not a boastful feeling of superiority; it was a sense of being supported, every moment, by all the great influences and views through whose aid so many holy men and women had won the battle of life.
Manna took especial delight in the lessons upon the harp; she said to the Aunt, that it seemed to her as if she had never heard herself before.
The Aunt explained that this was the first step of progress; that improvement really begins when one hears and sees himself.
Manna's eyes beamed softly, and she asked Aunt Claudine if this standing up alone by one's self in the world had not often been very hard for her.
"Certainly, my child. When one in youth makes a decision that affects the whole life, he does not know the real meaning of it."
Manna grasped convulsively the cross upon her bosom, and the Aunt continued:—
"Yes, my child, it requires courage and energy to be an old maid; at the time this resolution is taken, one is not fully conscious of how much it will require. Now, when I am alone, I am contented and peaceful; but in society and the world, I seem to myself often so superfluous, and as if only tolerated out of pity. Yes, my child, and one must take care not to be compassionate and sentimental towards one's self, or bitter; for the pitying of one's self often leads to bitterness and resentfulness."
"I can comprehend that," returned Manna. "Did you never have a longing to be able to enter a convent?"
"My child, I would not like to mislead and disturb you."
"No, say what you please, I can hear it all."
"Well, then, there are some institutions productive of so much harm, that they have forfeited the right of being perpetuated, at least, as we regard it. And, dear child, I could not, myself, live without art, without secular music, without the sight of what the plastic arts have produced and are still producing; herein I agree fully with my brother."
Manna looked in amazement at the Aunt; and she had the impression that a new view of life was unfolded to her, that was like the religious, and yet wholly peculiar in itself.
Towards Eric's mother. Manna was respectful but reserved. She treated her brother's teacher as a member of the family, but as a piece of property, an object, of utility, to which one could have recourse whenever there was need. There were hours and days when she had no more to do with him than if he had been a chair or a table. She often put a question to him directly and naturally, if she wanted any particular thing elucidated; and as soon as Eric began to expatiate beyond the special topic under consideration, she would say with great decision:—
"I did not want to know about that. I thank you for the information you have given."
She never received any instruction for which she did not immediately thank him, just as she would a servant for anything handed to her.
The whole family had the feeling that here was a strength adequate to attain its own end.
Manna did not visit in the neighborhood; she insisted upon it that she had come only to be with her parents and her brother, and no one else.
Sonnenkamp was alarmed at this determined and uncompliant bearing.