She knew not what she desired here, but she was happy, or rather soothed, when she saw them sitting so confidentially together. Yes, she thought, every one who gives an ear to him, and returns a stimulating reply occasionally, is as much to him as I.
She rose and went into the park; she walked about restlessly, knowing that Eric must get released from Roland, in order to keep the appointment with her. But she had no idea how hard it was for him to effect this; not so much because Roland was not obedient, and mindful every hour of the task set him, but because Eric was inwardly disturbed that he was obliged to assign to his pupil as a duty and a theme some noble thought, some lesson, some subject of study, merely to become temporarily freed from his presence. The book he gave him, the place he selected for him to read until his return, appeared to him perverted to a wrong use, dishonored and profaned; yet nothing else could be done. It was a bitter experience, but it was the last time; he would come out from this final interview pure and strong; and have a plain and straight path before him.
He became composed with this thought, and entered the park. He found Bella on the seat upon the height; she had evidently been weeping freely.
Hearing his step, she removed the handkerchief from her eyes. "You have been weeping?"
"Yes, for your mother, for myself, for us all! O, how often have I heard your mother ridiculed, blamed, pitied, and despised, for following the impulse of her heart and the man of her choice. For some time the saying was, To live on love and eight hundred thalers. She is now more highly favored than any of us. With blessed satisfaction she surveys now the past, and looks forward to the future in her son, and what are her deriders? Puppets, dolls,—gossipping, music-making, dancing, chattering, scandal-making dolls! They turn up their noses at the man who has become so rich on the labor of slaves, and our aristocratic fathers sell their children, and the children sell themselves, for a high rank in society, for horses and carriages, for finery and villas. The nobility, the poor nobility, is the inherited curse from ancestral pride, from slavery to the ancestral idea! A peasant woman, who gleans barefooted in the stubble-field, is happier and freer than the lady who is driven through the streets in her carriage, leaning back and cooling herself with her fan."
"I have one request," began Eric in a constrained voice; "will you bestow upon me one hour of your life?"
"One hour?"
"Yes. Will you listen to me?"
"I am attentive." As she gazed at him, her eye-brows seemed to grow larger and larger, the corners of her mouth to be drawn slowly down, and her lips to open as if parched with a feverish heat; nothing was wanting but the wings upon her head, and the snaky heads knotted under her chin, to give the perfect Medusa-look.
Eric was for an instant petrified; then collecting himself, he continued:—