Why had she been so thoughtless as to connect herself with such a mysterious and disintegrated family?
Joy and grief affected her by turns, like one suffering under the delirium of fever.
Eric's happiness in loving Manna and being so deeply loved, which before had excited within her such a blissful pleasure, she now listened to and looked upon with an almost forced interest; and when Bella had so deeply mortified her, she could scarcely make any resistance, for it seemed to her as if it concerned someone else, and had no relation to herself. Thus she lived estranged from herself, but made no complaint, hoping that everything would right itself. She had no idea that there was an inward disturbance and distraction which would show itself on the first favorable opportunity. Now, when the needy declined charity at her hands, that inexpressible sadness, so long hidden and repressed, broke forth. It seemed to her inexplicable that her only son, her all in this world, was to be engrafted into this family.
The Doctor had found the Mother in a state of febrile excitement; he gave her a composing draught; but the opinion which he expressed before Eric, Manna, and Roland, had a still more quieting effect. The Mother complained that she had never known how much people could be at variance with themselves and with others. The Doctor replied, with a smile, that people were not generally so nice in their housekeeping as she was, and, referring to Sonnenkamp, said that there is such a thing as a zone of mind, or whatever else you may choose to call it, which furnishes organizations entirely exotic, but which nevertheless have their natural conditions, as our customary, everyday ones have. The constant solitary speculation and refining of thought, the recurring to her life with her husband, there thoroughly deep-seated melancholy of the noble woman showed itself in an increased sensitiveness and irritability; and it had reached such a point that fears were entertained for her life; something might occur which would be the occasion of suddenly extinguishing this flickering flame of life.
Eric, Manna, and Roland, trembling and apprehensive, surrounded the Mother with constant care, and in this anxiety for another, there was a great deliverance for themselves. The Doctor once said in the library to Eric:—
"If your mother had become sick on purpose, it would have been one of the wisest things she could have done; for it helps you all to get possession of yourselves."
Sonnenkamp also expressed profound sympathy, but he felt provoked; it is not now the time for sickness, every one must now stand erect so as to bear up under the storm. After some days, however, he found the Professorin's illness very opportune; it took some time to get accustomed to the new order of things; he even admitted to himself directly, that he would not regret it much if the Professorin should die; that would produce a change of feeling, and in the mean while everything was getting better very fast.
Fräulein Milch did not suffer Manna to devote herself entirely to the Professorin as she wished to do, and she herself was the best of nurses.
The Major went about in utter desolation. More than any one else, not even excepting the children, he was the most deeply affected, perhaps, by the disclosure of Sonnenkamp's past life.
"The world is right; that is, Fräulein Milch is right," he was all the time saying. "She has told me all along that I don't know men, and she's right."