CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE OPPRESSED.
Roland entered the cottage, and found the Professorin, Eric, and Manna in grave conversation together; they had imparted the dreadful secret to each other, and what weighed the most heavily upon them was the thought how Roland would bear it when he should learn of it. He now came in and said:—
"Manna, we are disgraced children!"
The three hastened to him, and affectionately embraced and kissed him.
"Be strong, brother!" said Eric, throwing his arms around him. "I can blow you strong, my brother."
Hiawatha's saying echoed in Roland's soul, and he looked around on all sides, as if bewildered. He sat down speechless on a chair, and the three dear to him sat in silence near him.
Sonnenkamp, meanwhile, had got out at the entrance of the park, and walked towards the villa; it seemed to him as if the ground would give way under his feet, and the house and trees vanish. Are you sick? he asked himself. You are not to be sick! He whistled softly to himself; his gigantic strength still held out.
Here everything is as it was, and you yourself are here, too, he said, exerting a powerful control over himself, as he stood upon his property and grounds. He seemed to be wrestling with a hostile world enlisted against him, and he repelled the encompassing foes with heroic strength; they should not cut off the sources of his confidence and power. He felt himself well armed and equipped. Pranken is right; one must not let himself be cowed, one must bid defiance to the world, and then it will bow itself in humility, and in a year—no, much sooner, all will come and flatter him.
He remained standing on the steps, holding on by the railing, for all his strength seemed exhausted; but drawing a deep breath, and plucking up his courage, as it were, he soon recovered his self-possession. He looked about without constraint, he had become so accustomed to feigning, that he was determined no one should see in him any trace of disturbance.
He went up the steps with a firm and steady stride. He took Pranken's arm, and told him in a candid tone how highly he esteemed him and admired his strength, of which he already felt the effect in himself.
He went with Pranken to his room, nodding to everything, which still held its place here, and should hold it firmly for the time to come. He requested his son—so he called Pranken—his son, of whom he was proud, to impart what had happened to Frau Ceres, the very first thing, in his quiet and self-possessed, his easy, his all-subduing manner that he so much admired.
"Make no reply if she storms. This stormy outburst is no longer formidable."
In this declaration there was a sort of tranquillizing influence which Sonnenkamp himself felt. It is better that the whole world should stand up in arms against him, than to be forever and forever under the dominion of this crafty, threatening, and annoying woman. Now her weapon was gone, and the dagger which she had always kept hidden was now unsheathed in the eyes of all the world, and was in every hand.
Pranken went to Frau Ceres; he had to wait a long time in the ante-room, but at last Fräulein Perini came out.
Pranken briefly told her that the secret she had confided to him, and which he had kept so faithfully, was now made public.
"So soon?" said Fräulein Perini; and when Pranken inquired how Frau Ceres would be likely to receive the annihilation of her hopes of being ennobled, and the whole detestable uproar in the world, she replied, smiling, that she could not tell, for Frau Ceres was now suffering under a terrible trial of a wholly different kind.
She could hardly go on, she was so choked with laughter, but finally it came out.
Yesterday morning, Frau Ceres in some incomprehensible way had broken off her most beautiful nail, a real prodigy of most careful cherishing, and she was utterly inconsolable.
Pranken could not help joining in the laugh. He accompanied Fräulein Perini into the room.
Frau Ceres gave him her left hand to kiss, holding the right carefully concealed. She asked whether Pranken had brought with him the armorial device, and pointed to an embroidery frame on which she wanted at once to work the coat-of-arms, and also to an altar-cloth, whose border was already completed.
Pranken now broke the news to her in a very careful manner.
"And he always said I was stupid! I am cleverer than he," Frau Ceres burst out; "I always told him that Europe was no place for us, and that we ought to have remained where we were. Hasn't he caught it now? He's ashamed to come himself, and so he has sent you. He's ashamed, because I, the simpleton, who had never learned anything, knew the affair so much better than he did."
In this first moment, a mischievous joy seemed to be Frau Ceres' predominant feeling; the man who had always treated her as a feeble plaything must now see that her ideas were more correct than his.
She sat long in silence, moving her lips, and with a scornful, exultant expression, as if she were uttering to her husband all her present thoughts. Pranken thought it incumbent on him to add, that in a short time the family would be as much respected as before.
"Do you believe that we shall be ennobled then?"
Pranken was perplexed what reply to make, for it seemed as if the woman did not yet comprehend what had happened. He evaded a direct answer, and only said that he remained true to the family, and regarded himself as a son of the house.
"Yes, to-morrow ought to be the wedding. Here in Europe, you have so many formalities. I'll drive to church with you. But where's Manna? She has horribly neglected me."
"But, my dear Baron, it is well, this connection with the tutor's family will now come to an end. Don't let it continue any longer, dear Baron."
She requested Fräulein Perini to tell Manna to come to her.
Pranken could not comprehend how this woman, half childish, half cunning, sometimes malicious, sometimes peevish, could be also sometimes so affectionate; but there was no time now to try to solve the riddle. He besought the Mother—such was the appellation he now gave to Frau Ceres—to leave Manna alone for a few days; he would first see her alone, and then they would come together to the mother and ask her blessing.
"I give you my blessing now," said Frau Ceres, forgetting herself so far as to give him both hands.
She told him that Bella had been there, and had hardly shown herself to her; that she had come, and then had driven away again in a manner that she couldn't comprehend at all.
Here a shot was heard.
"He has shot himself; he has done it now!" cried Frau Ceres, in a singular tone; it was not lamentation, nor laughter, but something peculiar, utterly inexplicable.
Pranken hurried away.