Lina staid with Manna, so that she was unable to shake off her school-friend. When they went together to church, if Manna said, going and returning, that she would rather not talk in the morning, then Lina insisted that Manna need not say anything, she would do all the talking herself. She chatted about everything that came into her mind, things past and things to come.
As soon as she woke up she ran through the gamut, then ran trilling through the house, and almost every hour of the day, when there was no caller and they were within doors, she sat at the piano in the music saloon, singing and playing incessantly, mixing up serious and melancholy, classic and modern music, no matter what, so that it made sound enough. She would follow up one of Pergolese's mournful dirges with a merry Tyrolese carol.
The whole house was entirely changed by Lina's presence, and at the table there was a great deal of laughter. In cherry time the hot-houses at Villa Eden already supplied early apples; and Lina had the habit of never peeling an apple, but biting into it whole, congratulating herself that she could do it without being reprimanded by her mother. She paid no regard to Sonnenkamp's reproving look; she was an independent girl, doing recklessly whatever she fancied, and so accustomed to being scolded, that she had become hardened to it.
Lina ate heartily, like a good healthy peasant girl, while Manna ate as if it were a matter of compulsion. Lina took pleasure in eating, and was hungry all the time. She could always take something, she said of herself, and if anything at the table had a particularly good relish, she would say:—
"Aren't you glad, Manna, that you've got rid of that convent food. Ah, my first meal at home was a new experience to me, and here you have very nice things."
She also liked a glass of wine, and was rallied on that account. She begged Eric to defend her, and he replied:—
"That's easily done. It's a romantic absurdity to look upon it as a fine thing for a girl not to take pleasure in eating and drinking; and drinking wine is assuredly not an unfeminine act. Isn't drinking wine a much pleasanter thing to see than eating meat, nourishing one's self with animal food?"
Everybody laughed except Manna, who looked at Eric with an unmoved face. Strange how this man gives a surprising turn to every thought, and induces surprising turns of thought in other people!
Manna felt as if she were driven out of the house by Lina's presence.
Only at Frau Dournay's, for whom Lina entertained a holy awe, could Manna get any time for being alone; she felt herself in concealment when she fled to the green cottage, and by this means she came nearer to the Professorin, almost in spite of herself. Her uniform serenity of soul, her never-failing willingness to devote herself to others, were perceived by Manna, and she was startled at hearing her say,—