So must Medusa have appeared, so must she have breathed, so must she have trembled.
And in the midst of this deep emotion, Bella felt that it was a fine scene: here are the sublime tones of voice at her command, here is majesty, here is passion. She suddenly stood still like a living picture, as soon as she became conscious of this conception, and her eye sought for a mirror in which to behold herself.
She shook her head, and turned back as if she were coming upon the stage out of one of the side scenes.
"Will you tell me how you have become so great and daring, so free—the only free man?"
Sonnenkamp, the strong man, trembled within himself. He had an avowal upon his lips, but he dared not utter it; he had a demoniacal smile upon his face, as Bella said to him:—
"There is one thing only you must not do; speak not to me of love: anything but the 'fable convenue;' that is nothing—for you nothing and to me nothing. Still another thing. You will learn it now too, if you do not know it already,—the greatest tyranny in the world is the family. Grieve not for your family; a hero has no family, and besides, it is only a sentimental tradition that the heroes used to play with their children on the floor. You must be alone, think of yourself alone; then you are strong, you are like a man born of Byron's fancy, and such a man actually stands before me. You have made only one mistake; a man like you, such a hero, should have no family, should not want to have any. Be firm, do not suffer yourself to be cleft in twain and crushed to atoms through this mistake."
Sonnenkamp was still too much shaken not to feel a shudder creep over him at the sight of this apparition, that seemed to have sprung out from the world of fable; he said that he had had an idea, of the mere existence of which he had only been conscious in a shadowy way, but now it was clear; he was resolved to continue the struggle, to wage open war, that is, covert but decisive war; he would bring the virtuous people hereabouts to a different way of thinking, this next would be his task. He had a plan that was not yet clear to him, but it would become clear.
Bella said that she did not wish to speak to any one in the house beside himself; she was going back at once, but she trusted that he would be firm and stand his ground, for otherwise she would have to despise all men, and among them the only one who had ever won her respect by real power.
Sonnenkamp opened the seed-room, accompanied Bella through it, and opened the door that led to the private stair overrun with climbing plants. Here he kissed her hand at parting. But while still on the steps, Bella called after him:—
"And one thing more! The first thing for you to do is to free yourself from slavery; you must send away this teacher's family."