"Mother," answered Eric, "we believe in God more truly than those who would confine him within the limits of a book, of a church, or of a special form of worship."
"Ah," said his mother, "let us drop the subject. Do you see that butterfly, flitting in great circles against the window pane? The butterfly takes the glass, from its transparency, to be the open air, and thinks that he can pass through it, but dashes his head at last against the glass wall that seemed to be nothing but air. But enough, I am not strong enough for you. If your father still lived, he could help you as no one else can."
The conversation, now turning on the father's death, wandered away from the previous subject.
CHAPTER XI.
AN EXTRAORDINARY SCHOOL-COMMITTEE.
Frau Ceres was jealous because the Professorin devoted less time to her, and surprised them by suddenly expressing the desire to be present at the lessons, saying that she had more need of instruction than the rest. And Sonnenkamp also betook himself to Roland's room. He could never be idle, and so, when he did not smoke, he had the habit of whittling all sorts of figures out of a small piece of wood; and he was especially fond of cutting into grotesque shapes fragments of grape-vine roots. This was the only way he could sit and listen.
Eric saw that his instruction was interfered with by this heterogeneous assemblage. The Mother understood his disquiet, without a word being said, and staid away from the lessons. Frau Ceres and Herr Sonnenkamp soon did the same.
While Eric was enabled to banish, by a strict fulfilment of his duties, every trace of the disturbing element introduced by Bella, the Mother was full of restlessness. She had attained what had been the object of her strongest wishes, access to a large garden of plants and unlimited sway therein, and yet she was not quite content.
One morning, as she was walking early in the park with her son, she said:—
"I have discovered something new in myself: I have no talent for being a guest."