CHAPTER V.
THE BLACK HORROR.
"Henry, come! Henry, come back! these are your trees, and your house. Come back! I will dance with you. Henry, Henry!"
Such was Frau Ceres' incessant cry.
She refused all nourishment; she insisted on waiting till her husband said "Dear child, do take something." Only after the most urgent entreaties of Fräulein Perini, did she at last consent to eat something. She wanted to embroider, and took up her work; but the next moment she laid it down again.
Weeping and lamenting, she went through the gardens and greenhouses.
Fräulein Perini had the greatest difficulty in soothing her.
Then Frau Ceres reprimanded the gardener for raking over the paths. The marks of her husband's feet were in the gravel, and they must not be removed, or he would die.
At other times, she would sit at the window for hours together, looking out upon the hills and the clouds, and the river where the boats were sailing up and down; and all the while she would be grieving in a low voice to herself,—
"Henry, I grieved you sorely, I wounded you; you may whip me as you would your slaves; only let me be with you, forgive me. Do you remember that day when you came out to me, and Cæsar played the harp, and I danced in my blue frock and my gold-colored shoes? Do you remember?"—"Manna," she suddenly cried; "Manna, bring your harp and play for me. I want to dance; I am still pretty. Come, Henry!"
Suddenly she turned to Fräulein Perini, and asked, "He is coming back, is he not?" Her tone was so quiet and natural as for the moment to re-assure them.
"Tell him he shall marry Frau Bella when I die," she suddenly began again, her great eyes gazing vacantly before her. "Frau Bella is a handsome widow, very handsome; and he shall give her my ornaments, they will look so well on her."
"Pray, do not speak so."
"Come, we must see that his heaths are well taken care of. He taught me all about them. We will have some good bog-earth dried and pounded and sifted. Then, when he comes home, he will say, 'That was very clever of you, Ceres: you did that well.'"
She went with Fräulein Perini to the hot-house, and gave intelligent directions to the head gardener that he should be careful to keep the heaths very moist, and not in too high a temperature.
Fräulein Perini sent one of the boys who was working in the garden to fetch Eric. Her anxiety was so great, she could not bear to be left longer alone with Frau Ceres.
Frau Ceres appeared very composed. After examining all the heaths, and lifting each one up to see that the saucers were kept properly damp, she left the hot-house, saying as she went,—
"It is quite time that Captain Dournay should learn the care of plants. These scholars fancy there is nothing they can learn from us: I can assure them they can learn a great deal from my husband. There are more than two hundred heaths at the Cape. Yes, you may take my word for it; he told me so. Now let us go back into the house."
On their way, they came to an open space, where was a pond, and a little fountain playing.
Suddenly Frau Ceres uttered a piercing cry. Down the broad path towards them came the black man Adams, with Roland on one arm, and Manna on the other.
"You are changed into a negro! Who did that to you? Henry! Fie, Henry! Take off the black skin!" With piercing cries, she threw herself upon Adams, and tore the clothes from his body; then sank lifeless on the ground before him. They were just bearing her into the house, when Doctor Richard and the Professorin arrived.
Frau Ceres never woke.
Her body was laid in the great music room; and the flowers that Sonnenkamp had so tenderly cared for were set about his wife's corpse. Here in the music room, where the young people had so often sung and danced—would there ever be dancing and music here again?
The friends came, and kissed and embraced Roland; Lina also appeared, and embraced Manna in silence. By a pressure of the hand, a silent embrace, each one expressed to the mourners his sympathy, his desire to help them.
Pranken appeared also among the mourners, and, with Fräulein Perini, knelt beside the body.
After a blessing had been pronounced in the church, the funeral-train moved towards the burial-ground.
The members of the music-club had been gathered together by Knopf and Fassbender, and sang at the open grave. Roland stood leaning on Eric, while the Mother and aunt Claudine supported Manna.
Eric's thoughts reverted to that day in spring when he had sat over his wine with Pranken, and had looked out at the churchyard where the nightingale was singing. Who could have foretold then that he would be standing here a mourner at the grave of the mother of his betrothed, and of his pupil?
The music ceased, and the Priest advanced to the edge of the grave. There was a hush for a while over the whole assembly. The chattering of the magpies, and the screaming of the nut-peckers, was heard in the trees.
After repeating a prayer in a low tone, the Priest raised his voice, and cried,—
"Thou poor rich child from the New World! Now thou art in the new world indeed. Thou hast gone hence with thy sins unforgiven, in delusion, in frenzy. Thou hast left thy children behind to atone, to suffer, to sacrifice, for thee. They will do it: they must do it. Children, God is your father; the church is your mother. Hearken unto me. Here we stand beside an open grave. Ye can live without us, without the church; but, when ye come to die, ye must call upon us: and, though ye have scorned us, we shall come full of grace and compassion; for God so commandeth us. O thou departed one! now thou art ennobled; for death gives nobility: thou art decked with ornaments fairer than thy diamonds; for, with all thy worldliness, thou didst have a believing spirit. Grief set her crown of thorns upon thee: thou hast suffered much, and thou wilt be forgiven. But I call upon ye who stand here this day alive: Ye can build country houses, and furnish them sumptuously; but the prince of all life, which is death, shall come and mow you down, and ye shall moulder in the ground. A house of boards, that is the country house which is decreed to every one, deep in the bosom of the earth. But woe to those men whose holy ark is the fire-proof safe! The men of so-called philosophy and natural science come and flatter the believers in the fire-proof safe, and when the bolt from heaven falls, they say, 'There is a lightening-rod on our house, we have nothing to fear.' And if death comes, what say ye then? Ye have no answer. O ye poor, rich children! Turn unto us! The arms of mercy are open to receive you; they alone can defend you. To that rich young man the answer was:—I speak not of how the wealth was won from which the young soul will not part; I only call—no, it is not I who call—my passing breath but bears the eternal word. Leave all that thou hast and follow me. Wilt thou too, go hence weeping, because thou canst not give up the riches of the world? Oh! I call thee—no, He who has brought this day upon us, who looks down from the height of heaven into this grave—He calls to thee: Rend asunder the bonds of slavery! Thou art thyself a slave: be free! And thou, noble maiden, who hast the highest in thyself, look down into this grave, and forward to the time when such a grave shall open for thee. Save thyself! Despise not the hand that will save thee. Days of sorrow, nights of desolation will come upon thee. In the day thou wilt ask, 'Where am I?' and for what is my life on the earth? And thou wilt send forth thy voice weeping into the night, and wilt shudder at the night of death? Thou knowest what is salvation; thou bearest it in thyself. And now? Faithless—thrice faithless! Faithless to thyself, to thy friends, to thy God!" Beating himself upon the breast, he cried in a voice broken by tears,—
"How willingly, how joyfully would I die, I who am speaking to ye now, if I could say, I have saved them. And yet, not I, but the Spirit through the breath of my mouth. Come, leave all that holds ye back, all on which ye lean—come to me, ye children of sorrow; to me, ye children of misery, of pain, of riches, and of helpless poverty!"
There was a pause in which no one stirred, and the Priest resumed,—
"I have spoken, I have warned, I have called as I was forced to, and because I was forced. I appeal to thee whose mortal frame we are here consigning to the earth, speak to thy children, 'Children, the three handfuls of earth which you were to throw upon my grave, ye shall throw them when this hand resigns what is called the riches of this world, but which is nothing but the ransom of a lost soul.' If ye do it not, we shall still pray for ye who are dead in the living body, as we do for thee whose dead body we are sinking into the grave, but whose soul is risen into eternity. Grant that thy, children may receive eternal life, only the life eternal!"—
The Priest's whole body trembled, and Roland trembled as he stood by Eric. Weidmann approached the boy on the other side, and, laying his hand on his shoulder, said in a low voice, "Be calm."
The grave was filled up with earth; the Priest hurried from the church-yard and Pranken with him: the mourners took their way back to the Villa.
"Who would have believed that the Priest would dare to speak so at the grave? But it is well. What more can come? Is not all accomplished now? It is best that she should have died when she did. The poor rich children!"
"What will the children do now?" Such were the words that might have been heard on all sides, as the people dispersed after the burial of Frau Ceres.
The children returned from their mother's grave to the Villa.
Roland was the first to recover his self-command.
"I will not let myself be broken down," he cried. "The black horror shall not frighten me. Give me something to do, Eric. Herr Weidmann, now for the first time, I am yours: I will work, and not let myself give way."
Manna, too, began to be herself again.
Their mother's death, and the painful scene at her grave, had given added firmness to the character of both.
The day after the funeral, Roland was first applied to upon a question of money: Fräulein Perini asked for her discharge. With the approval of Eric and Weidmann, she was abundantly provided for, besides receiving Frau Ceres' entire wardrobe. She packed the clothes in great trunks, and had them taken to the parsonage; but she herself soon departed for Italy, where she joined the young widow, the daughter of Herr von Endlich.
Villa Eden stood now entirely at the disposal of Eric and Roland.
Once more, the Professorin became the one point of attraction; and all assembled in her cottage. She had now a good helper in Professor Einsiedel, who had obtained leave of absence, and promised to spend the winter at the Villa.
After the shocks that Roland and Manna had experienced, their mourning for their mother was almost a relief. That her death should have been caused as it was by terror at the sight of Adams, by a diseased imagination, and that the Priest at the grave had made his last, desperate attempt upon them,—these things were almost a comfort to them. Roland gratefully clasped his sister's hand as she said,—
"Let us not have any feeling of hatred or bitterness towards the negro for having been the innocent cause of our mother's death."
"If there were only something else in prospect for you, if you could only find such an active interest as I have at Mattenheim," said Roland, in whose mind the idea became uppermost, that he must return to Mattenheim. But with a sad smile, like a sunbeam breaking through heavy clouds, he soon added,—
"I forgot: there is something else for you, and something so beautiful! You will be Eric's wife."
Manna was silent.
"What are you reading so earnestly?" she asked Roland one day, after he had been sitting for hours without looking up from his book. He showed her what it was, a book treating of forests. That subject was the only one which now fascinated him, he told her; and, as she spoke, it seemed almost as if it must be Eric talking, so entirely had the boy entered into the spirit of his teacher.
He felt refreshed by the study of this perpetual and permanent growth, and the voluntary protection of it by men. With a real enthusiasm he added,—
"I could not be interested in raising flowers, as my father was; but I get from him the love with which I can devote myself to the trees and woods."