CHAPTER III.
"OUT OF THE WORLD, AND OUT IN THE WORLD."
The first feeling was surprise, the second, quiet confidence, as the eyes of the Professorin and Manna met; each found the other different from the preconceived image.
Manna remembered Eric's tall figure, and his resemblance to the picture of St. Anthony, and before her stood a short, fair, gray-haired woman. Frau Dournay had pictured to herself Roland's handsome sister as like him, and now she saw a slender, delicate creature, who, at first sight, gave no impression of beauty. A mole on her left cheek, and one on the right side of her upper lip, were quite conspicuous; her complexion was rather dark, and her wonderful brown eyes glowed with deep and quiet warmth upon every one who looked into them.
Manna bowed ceremoniously to the Professorin, who rose and held out her hand with maternal kindness, saying that she was very glad to become acquainted with the daughter of her host, while paying a visit to her friend, the Superior; and she added, with special emphasis, that she had been so fortunate as to become quite intimate with Manna's mother.
"Is my mother well?" asked Manna, with a sweet tone of warmth in her low and quiet voice. The Professorin told her of her mother's health, and added that the doctor said he had never known her so constantly cheerful as now.
"Now, I have a request to make," she continued in an animated tone; "since I have had the good fortune to be your parents' guest, I have insisted that the daily course of your brother's studies should not be in the least interfered with, and now let me beg you, my dear young lady, to go on with your usual occupations. I shall have the pleasure of dining with you, and after dinner, I shall be very glad if you will spare me a quarter of an hour."
"If you have any private message for Manna," said the Superior, "I will leave you together."
"I have not any private message."
Manna gave the Professorin her hand, and left the room. She did not know what to make of it all; why had she been summoned when there was so little to be said to her? It offended her a little to be so pushed about by a stranger—for the lady was a stranger. But as she walked through the long passage, she still saw before her the sincere and gentle countenance of the stranger, smiling at her as if saying, You are a strange child!
Manna returned thoughtfully to her cell; she looked out of the window and saw Pranken just entering a boat with his horse, and he was soon on the opposite shore.
"Ah, Herr von Pranken!" cried a loud voice, and the echo repeated the sound.
What voice was that?
Pranken hurried up the bank and vanished behind the willows.
Manna longed for the time when the world would be shut out from her, and no more unrest could come over her, for now she was deeply disturbed. There was Pranken; here, the tutor's mother—what did it all mean? She took her book of devotions, but could not succeed in drawing her thoughts from the subjects which occupied them.
In the mean time, the Professorin was listening to the Superior's account of Manna's strange nature, which seemed really to hold two natures within it, one, humble and submissive, almost without a will of its own; the other, struggling, defiant, and self-willed. She had a true, earnest character, too serious, perhaps, for a girl of seventeen; she was often unable to, hold her feelings under control, but who could always do that at her age? A weight lay on her spirits which was uncontrollable; it plainly had its source in the child's keen sense of the discord between her parents and its influence upon herself. The Superior asked Frau Dournay to tell her more of the characteristic peculiarities of the parents, but she evaded the subject.
The appearance, as well as the bearing, of the two ladies offered a sharp contrast. The Professorin's figure was full, and in her face there was a constant expression of wide-awake animation; her hands were round and plump; the Superior was tall and thin, her expression severe and earnest, as if just a moment before she had given some positive order, or was on the point of giving one; her hands were long and perfectly shaped. Both women had experienced hard trials: the Professorin had won a gentle, smiling content; the Superior, a complete preparation to meet all events with firm and stoical endurance.
The first greeting between these early friends, after nearly thirty years of separation, had been a strange one, the Superior not hearing, or seeming not to hear, that Frau Dournay addressed her just as she had in the old days.
"I did not think I should ever see you again in this world," she had said directly, and when the Professorin tried to recall reminiscences of their youth, she had replied that she knew the past no longer; she had destroyed all its mementoes, and recognized only a future, the sole object that ought to occupy our thoughts.
The Superior noticed that this distant manner of speaking startled her old friend, and she said, with the same composure, that she made no distinction among the relations and acquaintances of her early life; no one was nearer to her or farther from her, and that any one who could not attain this state ought not to devote herself to a spiritual life.
The Professorin felt as if she had been turned off and shown out of the house, but she was calm enough to say:—
"Yes, you always had a strength of mind which used to frighten me, but now I admire it."
The Superior smiled; then, as if angry at having been betrayed into any self-satisfaction by this civil speech, she said,—
"Dear Clara, I beg you not to tempt me into vanity. I stand at my post, and have a strict watch to keep, until the Lord of Hosts shall call me to himself. Formerly, I must confess, I did not realize that you and I lived in different worlds; in mine, it is one's duty not to rely on one's own strength."
With all this self-denial, it seemed to the Professorin that the Superior spoke of the power and the greatness of the sphere in which she moved, with that pride, or at least with that lofty self-confidence, shown by all who belong to a great and powerful community. To the Superior, on the other hand, she seemed like an isolated, detached atom, floating it knew not whither.
They soon found, however, a point on which they could sympathize, in speaking of the difficult task of educating the young.
The Superior was rich in experience, while the Professorin depended almost entirely on the precepts and opinions of her departed husband; and now that she took the attitude of a scholar, and listened gratefully, gentler thoughts rose within the Superior, who had felt that she had been somewhat harsh towards the excellent woman; and in this mood, she imparted some things that she really meant to hold back. She told Frau Dournay that, at first, Manna's position in the convent had been a very hard one, for a strange thing had happened. Her entrance into the convent seemed to bring about a revolution. Two Americans from the best families were then there, and they were not willing to sit at the same table with the Creole, for such Manna seemed; they told their fellow-pupils that, in their native country, such half-bloods always travelled in separate cars on the railroads, and, even in church, had places set apart for them. And as most of the children were from noble German families, they united in a protest against Manna's presence, without her knowing anything of it herself. While she slept, three of the pupils had examined her nails, in the presence of a nun, and as no black spots were found on them, it was proved that both parents were of pure blood. Manna was tolerated, and soon succeeded in winning the blue ribbon by her quick mind and great industry.
The Professorin held back the words which rose to her lips, for she was resolved to keep quiet and arouse no discussion; but her lips trembled as she longed to tell the Superior that it was her duty to have shown the children, by precept and example, that there can be no distinction of blood before God, and that such exclusiveness was impious and barbarous.
Frau Dournay had to exercise still more self-control when the Superior asked her to be kind enough to fold her hands when grace was said at dinner. The color flushed into her face, as she listened, and answered,—
"My husband is gone to his eternal home, and I know that when he stands before the judgment-seat the Holy Spirit will say to him: Thou hast lived according to the purest convictions of thy soul; thou hast honestly examined thyself, and hast attempted and done only what thou couldst do in all sincerity. At our table, we had no formal prayer, but before we sat down to eat and drink, each of us spent a minute in silent self-communion, and in the thought of what it really is to renew our existence from the Fountain of life; and our meal was consecrated by pure and good thoughts."
"Well, well, I did not mean to wound you," said the Superior. "I heard with sympathy that you had lost your husband, for whose sake you sacrificed yourself so nobly and gladly."
"I was happy with my husband," replied the Professorin; "our love grew stronger every day. But love for a lover or a husband is always dwelt on; there is another kind of love, which, though very different, is wonderfully fresh and noble, and I think I know it. Forgive me for saying it, but I mean that it seems as if love only rightly begins when one has a high-minded, excellent son."
"I am glad that you are so happy; but tell me sincerely whether you have not found that of ten married women, nine, at least, are unhappy."
The Professorin was silent, and the Superior continued,—
"Your silence is assent, and now look at the great difference; among a hundred nuns you find scarcely one unhappy one."
Frau Dournay was still silent; she did not wish to debate this assertion: she was a guest, and would not try to convert or correct; but the Superior seemed to try to draw her out as she asked,—
"Do you know a more unhappy position than that of a girl who knows herself, and whom others know, to be the heiress of millions? Is she to believe in the love of frail human creatures? Is she to believe that she is wooed for her own sake? There is nothing for her, but to give herself and her wealth into the hands of the Eternal. This I say to you—I know not what commission you have, and even if you have none, you can report it. We do not try to gain Manna and her future wealth, we insist that she shall go back into the world, and return to us only on her own free decision. There is neither compulsion nor intimidation on our part, but it is our duty to protect those who prefer the imperishable to the perishable, wherever they may be. Now you know all, and we will say no more on the subject."
The Superior left her, and Frau Dournay walked out alone upon the island. It seemed to her that it would be a bold act, one of unjustifiable rashness indeed, to take this child by force, even the force of affection, from this sphere where she lived at peace and wished to end her life. She stood on the shore, and almost without knowing why, allowed herself to be taken across to the main-land, where she was not a little astonished to find Herr Sonnenkamp and Herr von Pranken, taking wine together, under the shady lindens of the inn.
Pranken was dressed so strangely that she thought she was mistaken, and she was about to turn back; but she heard her name called, and approached the two men in the garden.
Sonnenkamp was in high spirits, declaring himself very fortunate to have met his friend Pranken here; he considered it a fine thing that the Baron had changed himself into a husbandman, hinting that he himself had once been something of the kind; then he said,—
"We have no secrets from our friend, will Manna go home with us, Frau Professorin?"
The Professorin replied that not a word had been said on the subject, and that it seemed hardly to be wished; it would be well to let Manna complete her time at the convent, and certainly to refrain from all compulsion.
Pranken agreed very emphatically, but Sonnenkamp was much put out; it seemed to him dreadful that his daughter should be living here in the midst of a crowd of other girls, when a free and happy life was waiting for her.
The noon-day bell rang from the Convent, and Frau Dournay said she must go back. Sonnenkamp accompanied her to the shore, and there said in a low voice:—
"Do not trouble yourself about Pranken. We will leave my daughter free in every respect."
The Professorin returned to the island; the children were already at table when she entered the dining-room; she stood with folded hands behind her chair for a few moments before seating herself. When dinner was over, and thanks had been returned, the Superior said to Manna,—
"Now go with the friend of your family."
Frau Dournay and Manna walked towards the shady grove on the upper end of the island; and Heimchen, who was quite confiding towards the Professorin, went with them; but she was quite willing to sit down with a book, under a tree, and wait till they came back for her.
"But you must not take Manna away with you," cried the child from her low seat; they both started, for the child had given utterance, from an instinctive feeling, to the fear of one and the hope of the other.