CHAPTER XVII.
THE SERPENT IN EDEN.
As Manna stood at the window, looking out into the darkness, she laid her burning bands upon the window-sill, uttering brief exclamations to herself of hope and desolation, of rejoicing and complaint. Only the stars saw her face with its changing expression of rapture and of agony, and her kisses were given to the empty air. She looked up to the well-known stars, and all their glittering host seemed but the reflection of Eric's beaming eyes.
"Why am I alone? Why should I ever be alone again for an instant?" she asked of the night.
A feeling of utter loneliness came over her. She thought of the nun whom she had seen the day before at the station, who looked neither to the right or to the left, going from convent to convent, and from one sick-bed to another, and who wanted nothing that the world could give. How would it be if a voice should now say to her; Thou art mine; turn thy gaze, put off that disfiguring disguise; look around; let others look at thee and greet thee with smiles; hope, despair, be joyous, be sad, be not forgetful of all else in subjection to one fond, painful idea!
It seemed to Manna as if she were standing upon the verge of a dizzy precipice, now about to be dashed over it, and now drawn back; she looked round, for she felt as if Eric's arm were actually about her, and lifting her up into the world. Into the world! What a world! She passed her hand over her face, and the hand seemed no longer to be hers. Turning back into the room, she threw herself on her knees.
"Woe is me! I love!" she cried. "No; I thank thee, O God, that thou hast laid this trial upon me. This trial? no, I cannot help it! Thou, Thou who art Love itself, whom a thousand lips name, and whom yet none can comprehend, forgive and help me, help him, and help us all! May I live in him and in all that is holy and great, all that is beautiful and pure! Here I lie, slay me—slay me, if it is a sin! Heimchen, thou, my sister, a part of my own soul, thou didst flutter a moment in the air, like a blossom fallen from the tree. I, I must, amidst storm and tempest, remain upon the tree of life. O, let the fruit of good deeds ripen in me, O Thou to whom I pray, and whom he reveres, though he prays not, he whose thought is prayer, whose action is prayer, and whose whole life is prayer."
She rose up and stood again at the window, gazing long, in a reverie, up at the starry sky. Out into the night flew something from Manna's window and was caught in the branches of a tree; it was the girdle which she had taken off.
As Eric was sitting alone in his room, he heard a gentle rustling, and was startled as if he had seen a ghost. What is that? He opened the door, and Manna stood before him. They silently embraced, and Manna said:—
"I come to you; I am always with you in my thoughts,—in everything. Oh, Eric! I am so happy, and so miserably wretched. My father—do you know it?"
"I know everything."
"You know, and still love me?"
She kneeled down and embraced his feet. He raised her, and seating himself by her side, they talked together of the dreadful secret.
"Tell me," she asked, "how you have borne it?"
"Ask rather, how Roland will bear it!"
"Do you think he will hear of it?"
"Certainly, who knows how soon the world-—-"
"The world! the world!" exclaimed Manna. "No, no; the world is good, the world is beautiful. Oh, thanks to the Unsearchable for giving to me my Eric, my world, my whole world!"
Calmly, clearly, and with wonderful insight. Manna apprehended everything; but in the very midst of the recital, she suddenly threw herself upon Eric's breast, and sobbed forth:—
"Oh! why must I have this knowledge so young, so early; why must I experience and overcome all this?"
After Eric had calmed and soothed her, she went away.
An eye had watched, an eye had seen. But they knew not that an eye had watched and an eye had seen.
In an eye had the morning, on awakening, Manna cried, "I am beloved! his beloved! Is he awake yet, I wonder?"
She opened the window. A young starling, that was now, even in the autumn, building its nest, found the thin hempen cord on the tree before Manna's window, snapped it up in its bill, and flew away to weave it into the nest. Eric was below in the garden, and Manna called to him:—
"I'll be down immediately." And in the early dawn they embraced and kissed each other, and spoke words of encouragement to one another, needed for what must be borne to-day, for to-day her father and Pranken were expected to return.
They went towards the green cottage hand in hand, sat down where they had sat with the Mother on the previous day, and waited for her waking. In the midst of all the joy and all the suffering of a secret love, encompassed by perils, they wanted to learn what had taken glace at the capital. They could not anticipate what had really occurred.
Eric let Manna return alone. He told her that he had been at the Major's the evening before, and he, wanted to go again, in order to request him and Fräulein Milch to keep the matter a profound secret.
As Eric was going along the road, a carriage came up; his name was called, and Bella got put.
"I am rejoiced to meet you alone. Do you know that we never see each other alone in these days? But to-day I shall not be with you. Clodwig sends his greeting, and an earnest request that you will visit him at Wolfsgarten. He is lonely and you are lonely, and it will be pleasant for you to pass with him these first days of separation, and to stay with us until you have got somewhat reconciled to the absence of your dear pupil. Clodwig has grand projects in your behalf. You can go back at once in our carriage to Wolfsgarten, and I shall be here with my sister-in-law until matters are arranged. Where is the dear child?"
Eric escorted Bella to the villa, but he could not utter a word. Fortunately, Fräulein Perini came up, and he could hand Bella over to her. He hastened to Manna and informed her in a few hasty words that Bella had arrived. She looked up, half roguishly, half pitifully, and asked:—
"Is it true that you once loved her?"
"Yes and no. Are you jealous?"
"No, for I know that you have never loved, never; you can never have loved any one but me. Come, Eric, let us now go up to her, hand in hand, and acknowledge at once what we are to each other, and also before the world. Let us have no single moment of deception or concealment. I have the courage to confess all, and I am happy to have it to confess. Regard to the world must not deprive us of a moment, of one single moment, in which we can see each other, freely take each other's hand, and appear before the world, as we are in reality, one."
Eric had great difficulty in bringing Manna to use foresight and prudence; he desired her, as the first token of their relation as husband and wife, to conform to his will.
Manna wept, and said peevishly:—
"Very well; I will obey you, but I'll see no one."
Eric tried every means to induce her to see Bella, but she refused, saying:—
"Can you, the pure, the good, allow me to be so debased for an hour? How am I to endure it, how am I to conduct myself, if she salutes me as her sister-in-law?"
Eric told her that Bella wanted him to go at once to Wolfsgarten, in order to spend with Clodwig these few days in which he was unsettled. And when he pointed out the abnormal position of a dependant, Manna tenderly stroked his face, saying:—
"You good man, you have to serve; yes, I know now what this is for you, the pure, lofty soul, whom all ought to serve. Ah, how much have you, dear heart, been obliged to bear! But it is well, for otherwise we should not have become acquainted with one another. Come, I shall be able to do it. I will make myself do it."
She went to receive Bella, and she had self-control enough to do it in an unexceptionable manner.
Eric soon went away, and Bella was amazed to see the glance with which Manna followed him. Manna was desperate, talking much and in an unusually lively way, so that Bella was puzzled afresh.
The Major was now announced; he came to congratulate Manna, and he did it in his cordial and clumsy way.
"Do favor us with congratulations this evening, Herr Major, after my brother has returned."
Manna turned away.
Bella had seen enough; it suddenly flashed across her: She loves Eric. But no, that cannot be! She offered to embrace and kiss Manna, but Manna begged her, with tears, to leave her in quiet to-day.
Bella stood up erect and looked at Manna; it was the Medusa-look, but Manna bore it quietly. Without another word Bella strode out of the house, and left the villa. What she thought, what she meditated, who can tell? She herself did not know, and no one at the villa was at all anxious about it.
After Bella had gone, the Major stepped up to Manna, who was standing motionless, and said:—
"You have done bravely, child—you've stood fire well—that's good! You shall have a backer in me, and in Fräulein Milch too; and if they bother you here in the house, you'll come to us; be easy, you're not all alone in the world. You'll ask her pardon, you'll find out—don't speak—you've a backer in me—and she told me to come here, she'd go to the Professorin; she knows where there's need. I only wish when you've been nine and forty years together you may be to one another what we are—you'll know—you'll have your eyes opened. Very well! Some people can hold out bravely, she's done so. Very well—I haven't blabbed any thing,—have I blabbed?"
Manna smiled amidst her tears at the odd, incomprehensible, and yet affectionate speech of the good Major.
Whilst Manna and the Major were standing together, Bella went through the park.
Hate, deadly hate was excited within her, and her eye seemed to be seeking something on which to vent her rage. What can I destroy here? what can I do to make people angry? Here are pyramids of flowers—if I should throw them all in a heap, if I should nip off the choice plants?—that would be childish! She looked round for something in vain.
She had forced herself to appear friendly, but the constraint was evident. She especially hated Eric and his mother; there was a different tone all through the neighborhood, and she had nothing to do with it; these people had given it. Who are they? sermonizing pedagogues,—nothing but eternal second-hand traders in sublime thoughts! And she, Bella, the brilliant, the admired, who could once confer happiness by a single word, she stood in the background! But they must be off, these parasites, and they should be made to feel who they are, and they should know who has found them out, who has demolished them!
She thought about Eric, about the Mother, about the Aunt, as if looking everywhere for some hook by which to grapple them and dash them to pieces.
She went restlessly to and fro several times between the villa and the green cottage, and at last went into the Professorin's. Here she met Fräulein Milch.
Stop! this is just the person! she shall be the hammer to hit the others.
When Bella entered, Fräulein Milch got up, bowed very politely, and was about to go.
"Do remain," urged the Professorin. "You are already acquainted with the Countess Wolfsgarten?"
"I have the honor."
Bella looked at the modest person whom she was desiring to demolish, and then said:—
"Ah, yes, I recollect. The Major's housekeeper, if I do not mistake?"
"Fräulein Milch is my friend," interposed the Professorin.
"Your friend? I was not aware of that. You are very kind."
"Fräulein Milch is my friend, and is my noble assistant in the work of charity."
"Ah, yes, you peddle out the money of Herr Sonnenkamp."
It was uncertain whether this was addressed to both the ladies present, or solely to Fräulein Milch.
Bella saw how the Professorin's face quivered, and she felt greatly encouraged. Now she had found out the point to begin at. This Professorin had inflicted a wound upon her by means of her son—no, not that, but she had wounded her personally, she had assumed a first part that did not belong to her.
And Bella continued:—
"This wasteful expenditure on the abandoned, on notorious tipplers, will shortly cease."
The Professorin now requested Fräulein Milch to leave her; she had never kissed her yet, but to-day she embraced her affectionately and gave her a kiss. She wanted to calm her wounded feelings, to make her some amends, and show the countess how highly she esteemed the person she had so rudely attacked, who appeared so defenceless, or who did not choose to defend herself. After Fräulein Milch had gone, Bella said,—
"I cannot conceive how you can be so intimate with this person; you dishonor thereby all who stand in relations of friendship with you."
"I think that any one whom I esteem, and whom I unite to myself in friendship, is placed by this fact in a position of respect, and I have a right to expect that every one will show it."
"Of course, of course, so long as you are here. But if you leave the vicinity before long-—-"
"Leave the vicinity?"
"The work here is now accomplished, and—"
The Professorin had to sit down. Bella's eyes flashed; she had attained what she wished; she had torn off all the tinsel from these people, who were forever making a parade of spirituality, and decking themselves out with sublime ideas, and now here they were naked and helpless.
In a very courteous tone she said,—
"Oh, I assure you, I should be very sorry to anticipate Herr Sonnenkamp's dismissal."
The calm bearing which the Professorin had been accustomed to maintain in all extremities, now failed her for the first time. She had had an extensive observation of life, but never had she seen this, had never regarded it as even possible that there should be such a thing as pure malice, which has no other motive than to be malicious, and derives its joy from the suffering of others. In the feeling that this additional experience must now be hers, and in the endeavour to settle this in her thought and give it lodgment as an actual and accepted truth, she lost all ability to make any resistance.
She cast up a glance at Bella that ought to have overcome her, but Bella was resolved not to give way a single hair's breadth; she must have something to rend in pieces, and as Eric could not be got at, his mother must answer instead. She continued talking for a long time, using very polite phrases, but the Professorin hardly listened, and scarcely noticed when she took her leave.
Bella rushed triumphantly back to the villa across the meadow-path, got into the carriage, which was standing ready in the yard, and returned to Wolfsgarten.
Her passion for destruction was sated, and she felt relieved, and in good spirits.