"Me no one loves; I know why,—no, I don't know why."
Eric looked her full in the face, then seized an oar and made the water fly with his rowing.
Meanwhile, the mother and Clodwig sat together, and the former expressed her joy that Eric had been thrown into the society of men of such well-tried experience; in former times, a man could have completed his culture by intercourse with women; but now, that end could be attained only by intercourse with noble men.
They soon passed into those mutual unfoldings of views which are like a perpetual greeting, when two persons have pursued the same spiritual ends apart from each other, in wholly different relations of life, and yet with the same essential tendencies.
The Professorin had known Clodwig's first wife, and recalled her to remembrance in affectionate words. Clodwig looked round to see if Bella was near, for he had never spoken before her of his former wife. It was pure calumny, when it was said that he had promised Bella never to speak of the deceased, for Clodwig was not so weak, nor Bella so hard, as this; it was only out of consideration for her, that he never did it.
In low, half-whispered tones, the conversation flowed on; and finding in each other the same fundamental trait, they agreed that it was happy for human beings here below to pass lightly over what was untoward in their lot, and retain in lively remembrance only what was felicitous.
"Yes," said the Professorin in confirmation, "my husband used often to say, that a Lethe stream flows through the soul buoyant with life, so that the past is forgotten."
It was a season of purest, interchange of thought, and of true spiritual communion, for Clodwig and the mother. They were like two beings in the spirit-world, surveying calmly and clearly what had passed in this state of existence. There was nothing painful in the mutual awakening of their recollections, but rather an internal perception of the inexhaustible fulness of life; on this elevated height the sound of desire and plaint was no longer heard, and the individual life with all its personal relations was dissolved into the one element of universal being.
But now there was a diversion, and Clodwig expressed regret at having lived so much a mere spectator, and that he had without throwing himself into the great current of influence, waited passively in the confident expectation that the idea which was stirring in the world would accomplish, of itself, its own grand fulfilment. He expressed his satisfaction that the young men of to-day were of a different stamp, and that Eric was to him an inspiring representative of youth as thoughtful as it was bold, as moderate as it was active.
Bella entered just as they happened to refer again to the statistics of love. She was pale, but Clodwig did not perceive it; sitting down near them in silence, she requested them to continue their conversation; but neither the Professorin nor Clodwig resumed the interrupted theme.