Whenever she came from a company where she had been amiable, this mood continued awhile, and she would look smilingly into the air, then smilingly upon the furniture around; it was so now. There was in her the dying echo of a pleasant and cheerful frame of mind, but her brother came out of an entirely remote world, having spoken to-day with no one,—who would have thought it of him?—but his own soul, or more properly, Manna's soul.
"Ah! don't speak to me of the world," he said; "I wish to forget it, and that it should also forget me. I know it well, all hollow, waste, wilted, mere puppet-show. If you have been helping the puppets dance there awhile, you can lay them away again in the closet of forgetfulness."
"You seem rather low-spirited," said Bella, placing her hand upon her brother's shoulder.
"Low-spirited! that's another catchword! How often have I heard it used, and used it myself! What is meant by low-spirited? nothing. I have been knocked in pieces, and newly put together again. Ah, sister, a miracle has been wrought in me, and all miracles are now clear to me. Ah! I may come back to the words of the world, but I do not see how."
"Excellent! I congratulate you; you seem to have really fallen in love."
"Fallen in love! For God's sake, don't say that; I am consecrated, sanctified. I am yet such a poor, timorous, wretched child of the world, that I am ashamed to make my confession even to you, my only sister. Ah! I could never have believed that I should feel such emotion—I don't know what to call it—exaltation, such rapture thrilling every nerve. O sister, what a maiden!"
"It is not true," said Bella, leaning her head back against the soft lining of the carriage, "it not true that we women are the enigma of the world; you men are far more so. Over you, over Otto von Pranken, the ballet connoisseur, has come such a romantic feeling as this! But beautiful, excellent, the mightiest power, is the power of illusion."
Pranken was silent; he heard Bella's words as if they were uttered in a past state of existence. When, where, did they speak and think of the ballet? And yet, at these words there came dancing before his memory merry, aerial, short-dressed, roguish, smiling forms. His heart thumped like a hammer against the book, the book placed there in his breast-pocket. He was about to tell his sister that for several days he had no longer known who he was; that he was obliged often to recall to mind his own name, what he had wished, and what he still wished; that he went like one intoxicated through the world, which was only a flitting by of passing shadows; here were swiftly darting railway-trains, there towns and castles reflected in the river: all were fleeting shadows which would soon be gone, while only the soul had real being, the soul alone.
Such had been the influence of Thomas à Kempis, so had he read the words on which Manna's dark-brown eye had rested. All this passed through his mind; he could not make his sister comprehend the transformation, he could hardly comprehend it himself. He came to the conclusion to keep it all to himself; and changing his tone, with great self-command, he said smiling:—
"Yes, Bella, love has a sort of sanctifying power, if the word is allowable."