Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

The day was bright and clear; hardly a breath of wind blew upon the swiftly-moving boat. Roland frequently overheard: some one whispering half aloud to some passenger, newly come on board, "There is the rich American, who is worth ten millions."

A special table was laid on deck for Sonnenkamp's party, and Joseph had it ornamented with flowers and brightly-polished wine-coolers. Sonnenkamp's servants, in their coffee-colored livery, waited on them.

At table Roland asked, —

"Father, is it true, that you are worth ten millions?"

"People have not yet counted my money," replied Sonnenkamp, smiling; "at all events you will have enough to allow you to order such a dinner as we have to-day."

The boy did not seem satisfied with this answer, and Sonnenkamp added, —

"My son, one is rich only by comparison."

"Mark the words, rich only by comparison," repeated Pranken; "that's a fine expression; it includes a whole balance-sheet."

Sonnenkamp smiled; he was always pleased when any one dwelt on an expression of his with special emphasis.

"Ah, travelling is so pleasant, so jolly, if we only had Eric with us!" cried Roland.

No one answered. The boy seemed unusually talkative, for as the champagne was opened, and Bella proposed Manna's health, he said to Pranken, —

"You ought to marry Manna."

The ladies gave an odd look at the two men; Roland had given utterance to the wish of all. He became more and more the central object of the conversation and the jesting, and more and more talkative and extravagant; he uttered the wildest nonsense, and at last complied with Pranken's request that he would imitate the candidate Knopf. He smoothed his hair back, took snuff from his left hand, which he held like a snuff-box, and constantly tapped; he suddenly assumed a perfectly strange voice and expression, as, in a stiff, wooden manner, he declaimed the fourth conjugation, and the precepts of Pythagoras, with a mixture of all sorts of other things.

"Now can you mimic Herr Dournay?" asked Pranken.

Roland was struck dumb. A stony look came into his face, as if he had seen some monster; then he grew suddenly calm, and looked at Pranken as if he would annihilate him, saying, —

"I will never again imitate Candidate Knopf, that I vow from this day forth."

The boy, who was excited by wine and by talking, became suddenly quiet, and disappeared, so that the servants had to be sent in search of him. He was found on the forward deck with his dog, great tears in his eyes; he allowed himself to be led back to his friends without opposition, but he continued silent.

The steamboat glided on and on; the vineyards glowed in the midday sunshine, and soon it was said, —

"Only two more stops, then comes the convent."

Roland went back to his dog, and said, —

"Griffin, now we are going to Manna; aren't you glad?" It was still high noon when they landed by the weeping-willows on the shore, and entered the refreshing shade of the park which surrounded the convent. The servants were left in a large inn on the other bank of the river.

No one was on the shore awaiting the travellers, although their coming had been announced beforehand.

"Manna not here?" asked Sonnenkamp as he sprang ashore, and the fierce look, which he generally knew how to conceal, came into his face.

Frau Ceres only turned her head towards him, and he became gentle and mild.

"I only hope the good child is not sick," he added, in a tone which would have suited a hermit doing penance.

They went to the convent, whose doors were closed; the church alone was open, and a nun, with veiled face, was prostrate in prayer, while the bright sunshine sparkled out of doors. The visitors, who had crossed the threshold, drew quietly back; they rang at the convent door, and the portress opened it. Herr Sonnenkamp inquired whether Fräulein Hermanna Sonnenkamp were well; the portress answered in the affirmative, and added, that if they were her parents, the Superior begged them to come to her in the parlor. Sonnenkamp asked Bella, Pranken, and Fräulein Perini to wait in the garden; he wished Roland to stay with them, but the boy said, —

"No, I'm going with you."

His mother took his hand and spoke for the first time.

"Very well, you can stay with me."

Griffin remained outside. Roland and his parents were shown into the presence of the Superior, who received them with a very friendly and dignified bearing. She asked a sister who was with her to leave them alone, and then requested the visitors to be seated. It was cool and pleasant in the large room, where hung pictures of saints painted on a gold background.

"What is the matter with our daughter?" asked Sonnenkamp at last, breathing deeply.

"Your child, whom we may call our child also, – for we love her no less than you do, – is quite well; she is generally yielding and patient too, but sometimes she shows an incomprehensible self-will, amounting almost to stubbornness."

A rapid flash from Sonnenkamp's eyes fell upon his wife, who looked at him and moved her upper lip very slightly. The Superior did not notice this, for while she spoke she either closed her eyes or kept them cast down; she quietly continued, —

"Our dear Manna refuses to see her parents, unless they will promise beforehand that she may remain with us at the convent through the winter; she says that she does not yet feel herself strong enough to enter the world."

"And you have granted her this condition?" asked Sonnenkamp, as he ran his hand through his white neck-handkerchief, and loosened it.

"We have nothing to grant to her; you are her parents, and have unconditional power over your child."

"Of course," burst out Sonnenkamp, "of course, if her thoughts are influenced – but I beg your pardon, I interrupted you."

"By no means, I have finished; you have to decide whether you will agree to the condition beforehand; you have full parental power. I will call one of the sisters to conduct you to Manna's cell; it is not locked. I have only performed the child's commission, now act according to your own judgment."

"Yes, that I will do, and she shall not stay here an hour longer!"

"If her mother has any voice in the matter," began Frau Ceres.

Sonnenkamp looked at her as if some speechless piece of furniture had spoken, and Frau Ceres continued, not to him, but to the Superior, —

"I declare as her mother that we will lay no compulsion upon her; I grant her this condition."

Sonnenkamp started up and clutched the back of a chair; there was a violent struggle within him, but suddenly he said, in a most gentle tone, —

"Roland, go now to Herr von Pranken."

Roland was forced to leave the convent, his heart beating fast. There was his sister in a room above; what was to happen to her? Why could he not go to her, embrace and kiss her, and play with her long dark hair as he used to do? He went out of doors, but not to Pranken; he entered the open church, and there he knelt and prayed with deep fervor. He could not have said for what he prayed, but he asked for peace and beauty, and suddenly, as he looked up, he started back; there was the great picture of St. Anthony of Padua, and, wonderful to say, this picture resembled Eric, – the noble, beautiful face was Eric's.

The boy gazed long at it; at last he laid his head on his hands, and – blessed power of youth! – he fell asleep.

CHAPTER V.

SECRET, SILENT LOVE

The parents entered Manna's cell. Manna calmly met them, and said, —

"Welcome, and may God's blessing be with you!" She extended her hand to her father; her hand thrilled as she felt the ring on her father's thumb. Then she threw herself upon her mother's breast and kissed her.

"Forgive me," she cried, "forgive me! Do not think me heartless; I must do so – no, I will to do so. I thank you, that you have granted my request."

"Yes, indeed, we put no constraint upon you," said the mother; and Sonnenkamp, who had not yet assented, was obliged to comply with her wishes.

Manna's countenance became suddenly lighted up; she said that she was glad to see her parents looking so well, and that she prayed for them daily, and that heaven would hearken to her prayer. Manna had a tone of voice in which one seemed to feel the repressed tears; this voice appeared to affect Sonnenkamp, so that he placed his hand upon his heart, and his posture and look were as if he were making a silent vow.

When Manna asked after Roland, he said, with the mien of one speaking to a person who has been ill and is just convalescent, that Roland was in the park, and Manna must go with them, and greet the ladies and Herr von Pranken.

When her father mentioned this name, a slight shudder went over Manna, but she said with immediate composure, —

"I will see no one but you and Roland."

A lay-sister was sent for Roland. Meanwhile, Manna explained, that, according to the regulations, she must return for a year to the world, and then – she hesitated a moment, and ended with the words – if her present resolution continued, she would take the veil.

"And will you never tell me, why and how this thought has sprung up in you?" asked Sonnenkamp in a supplicating tone.

"Indeed I will, father, when it is all over."

"I don't comprehend! I don't comprehend it!" cried Sonnenkamp aloud. Manna hushed the loud tone of her father with her hand, signifying to him that here in the convent no one spoke so loud.

Roland, after whom they had been looking for a long time, was terrified and shrank back, when, awakened suddenly by a form clothed in black, he found himself in the church. He was conducted to Manna. He embraced his sister heartily, crying out, – ? "You good, bad sister!"

He could say no more, from the impetuosity of his feelings.

"Not so violent," said the maiden, soothingly. "Indeed! what a strong lad you have got to be!"

"And you so tall! And you look like him, but Eric, is handsomer than you are. Yes, laugh if you will! Isn't it so, mother? Isn't it, father? Ah, how glad he will be when you return home, and how much you will like him too!"

Roland talked sometimes of St. Anthony, sometimes of Eric, mingling them together, and telling what an excellent man he had for a teacher and friend: and when Manna said that she should not go home until spring, Roland ended by saying, —

"You can very well imagine how Herr Eric looks; when you go into the chapel, look at St. Anthony, he looks exactly like him, exactly as good. But he can also be strict; he has been an artillery-officer."

Again the father made the request, and the mother joined in it, that Manna would accompany them in their journey to the baths, after which she would be allowed to come back to the convent.

Manna informed them that she could not interrupt her studies and her retreat.

The strange, thrilling tone of her voice had something saddening in it, and when she now stated how earnestly she hoped to become clear and resolute in her determination to be constant to the religious life, tears came into her mother's eyes. But her father gazed fixedly at her; he hardly saw his child, hardly knew where he was. He heard a voice, which once – it seemed incredible that he was the same person – he had heard many, many years ago; and as he thus gazed, he saw not his child, not the scenes around him, he saw nothing but a neglected little mound of earth in the churchyard of a Polish village. He passed his broad hand over his whole face, and, as if waking up, he looked now at his child, and heard her saying, —

"I shall be constant to the life."

He had heard all that had here transpired, and yet his thought and his internal eye had been fixed upon a far distant scene, scarcely comprehensible. Now he repeated his request that Manna would just go with them into the park, and salute the friends; that she ought not to slight them; but Manna firmly persisted that she could not go.

Manna had requested a sister to send for Heimchen; the child came, and looked wonderingly at the strangers. Manna pointed out to the child her parents and her brother. The child, scarcely glancing at the parents, nestled up to Roland, when Manna said, —

"This is my brother I have told you of."

"I like you," said the child, "I like you."

She was as confiding with Roland as if she had always played with him. "And will you be my brother?" asked the child.

Manna declared how happy it made her, to be able to do so much for the child.

Sonnenkamp hummed to himself, —

"Yes, yes, that's the way. I know what you are, a child who takes to a stranger child. But enough!"

He rose hastily.

The parents and Roland left the cell. Manna remained there with Heimchen.

Upon the steps, Sonnenkamp said to his wife, —

"This is your doing! The child is estranged from me; you have turned her heart from me, you have said to her-"

A strange laugh, a laugh sounding as if it came from some other person, was uttered by Frau Ceres. Roland stared at her; here is something incomprehensible to him.

The parents and the boy rejoined the visitors in the park, and Sonnenkamp informed them very calmly that he had given permission to his daughter, in order not to interrupt and disturb her education by outside impressions, to remain at the convent until Easter. Pranken darted a strange glance at Sonnenkamp, and then expressed his admiration of the imperturbable composure with which Sonnenkamp accomplished everything.

Bella and Fräulein Perini had walked over the island. They did not return for a long time; at last they came from the room of the Superior.

Evening was approaching, and as they embarked on the boat, Roland cried, looking towards the convent, —

"Good-night, Manna."

Manna had heard the good-bye, she had slipped into the park, taken a farewell look at the departing visitors, and then went quietly into the chapel.

As they reached the shore, they heard the choir of girls' voices singing with clear tone at the convent.

"This may sound very fine to him who has no child joining in it," said Sonnenkamp to himself.

In the large inn there was hurrying and commotion, as if a prince had arrived with his suite, for Sonnenkamp was fond of making a display of his wealth. The large garden was festively illuminated, this party of travellers was served with special consideration, and every other arrival, on this evening, hardly received any attention. When all was still, a boat, in which Pranken sat, rowed over to the convent. He landed on the island, and heard the music of a harp from an open window. That came from Manna, he was sure. Soon a light was visible in a cell, here and there, windows were opened, the heads of girls appeared and looked out once more into the night; then the windows were closed, the lights extinguished, and the harp-playing ceased.

Pranken saw the church open, and entering, he knelt down and prayed silently. Then he heard a light step, and a sound, as if some one knelt down before the altar; a thrill passed over him, and yet he did not look up, and if he had, he could not have recognized any thing in the darkness lighted only by the solitary, ever-burning lamp. The form arose, and went towards the open church door. The moon cast a broad beam as far as the middle aisle of the church; now, as the form stood in the doorway, Pranken approached and said, —

"Fräulein Manna, a friend. Fear not, a man, who through you has known salvation, stands before you. I have not come to shake your holy resolve, I have only come to tell you what I have become by your instrumentality. No, I cannot tell you – but you ought to know this, – if you take the veil, then I also will renounce the world; apart from each other, so long as we live on this earth, we will live for heaven. Farewell, a thousand times farewell, thou pure, thou blessed one! farewell!"

The young man and the maiden looked upon each other as if they were no longer living creatures of human passions, as if they were transported above the world. Manna could not utter a single word; she simply dipped her hand into the vessel of holy water, and sprinkled Pranken's face three times.

With hasty step, Pranken went to the shore. Manna stood and laid her hand upon her brow.

Has all this been only a vision of her own fancy?

Then she heard the stroke of oars in the river, and a voice again cried: —

"Thou pure, thou blessed one!"

Then all was still.

On the other side a chain rattled, the boat was drawn up to the shore, and no sound was heard; only the waves of the river, which are not heard by day, rippled and plashed and murmured in the still night. Manna thought that she could hear the blood as it flowed through her heart, so full, so oppressed, and yet so blissful.

CHAPTER VI.

A DAY WITHOUT PEN OR TYPE

Eric stood on the shore gazing after the boat, from which Roland was waving at a distance his white handkerchief. To see a person so attached to us flitting away from us in a vessel, seems as if one should love a bird which soars freely up into the air where it cannot be reached; and yet it is different. Human love connects by invisible ties, and this signalizing from afar is a sign of a thought in common, of communication of feeling and participation of interest, notwithstanding all separation by space.

When the boat had disappeared, and only a light streak of vapor floated along the vine-covered slopes, Eric remained standing upon the hill, and as the faint mists hovered in the air, so hovered in his soul the last words of Roland's farewell, – "You and the house do not move from your place."

What a commotion, what an upheaving and swelling, there is in the soul of youth, until it comes to some expression, like an opening blossom!

But that which is closed and wrapped up in the bud has an equal beauty and depth of sentiment, but it is not manifest to us, and does not breathe upon us with such a fragrant and charming loveliness.

So thought Eric as he looked at an acacia-tree, whose buds were yet unopened, and which had put forth not even a green leaf.

Eric was now alone at the villa. He inhaled the quiet, the peace, and the stillness in full draughts, as if, after long days and nights of travel upon the noisy steam-cars, he should suddenly come into the silent woods; yes, as if he were lying deep down at the bottom of the river, and over him were gently rippling the cooling waves. He did not read, he did not write, he enjoyed only an unfathomable rest.

He did not mean to comply with Clodwig's invitation to visit him, until the next day. Eric was certainly removed from all selfishness, but the freedom of living for a whole day without being called upon to talk, and of being entirely by himself, had a charm for him as if he had now, for the first time, escaped out of the captivity of servitude, and acquired the disposal of himself. The thought came over him at one time, that Clodwig was expecting him but he said almost aloud, —

"I cannot! – I must not!" He wished to pass a single day without speaking or being spoken to, to be by himself, alone, speechless, solitary, referring to no one, and no one referring to him.

He thought, for one moment, of writing to his mother, but he dismissed the idea. No one was to have anything of him, he would have all of himself. This perpetual obligation to think for others, this striving for them and love to them, seemed to him a painful and keen suffering; there was now, in the depths of his soul, a call for solitude. For a single day only would he be an egoist, live in absolute rest, and let no book, no relation of life, no longing, no endeavor, deprive him of aught of this entire loneliness.

This villa was called Eden, and he would, for one day, be the first man alone in Eden. He looked at a tree and nodded to it. Fixed thus, abiding in himself, like this tree, would he live for just a single day.

He lay down in the park under a spreading beech-tree, and dreamed away the day. There is a low, gladsome rippling of being and of feeling, without definite thought or volition, which is the inmost desire of those harassed with restless thought and anxious care. Eric lay thus, happy in himself, contemplating and breathing alone, so that the step of a gardener upon the grating gravel aroused him as from a dream. The gardener began to rake the path; it was a strangely harsh sound. Eric would have liked to bid him keep still, but he forbore, and said to himself, smiling, —

"Thou art just such a raker of the paths."

He looked into the branches of the trees, and as the gentle breeze moved them to and fro, so he allowed his thoughts to be swayed hither and thither, with no desire, no conscious endeavor, – simply living. All was peaceful and silent within him. How long, ever since its first shooting forth, has such a leaf been moved by the wind the whole summer long, until it drops, and then – well, then?

A smile passed over his countenance. We are no longer alone, because there is a second self, and one is conscious of his own unconsciousness. And the thought proceeded farther. Yes, solitude, this is the rest upon the mother-earth, this is the story of Antæus, who is inspired with fresh strength from the ever-present energies of mother-earth, as soon as he touches her. We are raised from the ground by our constant thinking, and so are rendered powerless. And farther yet went his dreaming and meditation. This is one trouble of wealth, this is its curse, that it does not enter into the heavens, cannot again be immersed in the primitive might of earthly being, for wealth possesses everything except this, a deliverance from the world, a being alone with one's self. Ballast! ballast! too much ballast!

The doctor's word came into his mind, and the word ballast again and again recurred to his thoughts, just as the finch in the tree over his head continually repeated the same notes.

In the midst of this dreaming and unlimited contemplation, he fell asleep, and when he waked up, he was invigorated and full of a fresh life; for the first time, since a long period, he felt at home within himself. He smiled, for a new thought occurred to him, and, as it were, shone through him. Adam slept in Paradise, and when he waked, he saw his wife by his side; a world is his, and also another who is to become one with him.

It was one of those days and hours in which all the past and the present, all that humanity has ever dreamed and ever obtained for itself by toil, bright with a reflected glory, and gleaming in its own splendor, stands before the eyes. All riddles seem solved. All is peaceful, harmonious, and divine.

So must it be to the thoughtful man when he awakens from the sleep of death, and the eternal life opens to his view.

But the struggle must be entered upon anew, in order to maintain the battle of life.

Eric went into the park and around the house, and took in all with newly opened eyes; he had forgotten how all looked, it had been put far away, and now he surveyed everything like a man newly awakened and endowed with fresh strength.

It is well that the world abides, and is always ready in its place when we return to it again from the sphere of unconscious forgetfulness.

A whole day passed, in which Eric read nothing and wrote nothing.

The next morning, ordering his horse to be saddled, he mounted and rode towards Clodwig's house.

He had scarcely been riding fifteen minutes, when a boy called to him, and brought him a letter. He read it, nodded, and rode in good spirits to the village.

CHAPTER VII.

OUR FRIEND KNOPF

On the bright summer days people sail joyously up and down the river, everything sparkles and glitters in the sunlight, and is full of gladness. Who there thinks how much sorrow, how much weariness, anguish, and care, dwell within the houses they pass by? Look yonder at the high-perched village, that seems to rise so prettily out of the river, and sends to us now the sound of bells; there goes a poor village schoolmaster, with depressed countenance, from the church to the school-house. But to-day his face is lighted up, for a faithful friend stands in front of the schoolhouse, and extends to him his hand.

"Hey! you here, Herr Knopf?" cried the schoolmaster.

"The free Republic of the United States gives me a day's freedom. You see before you an independent man. Ah, dear Fassbender, I am specially born to be a teacher of girls; I tell you that previous to the deluge of their first ball, girls are the choicest blossoms of our planet."