Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

She did not express this in words, but in her whole conduct; she avoided speaking with Fräulein Milch; and never gave her hand to her.

This was the effect of Fräulein Perini's teachings, who had withdrawn her from all connection with Fräulein Milch before Manna had entered the convent, as if the modest housekeeper had been a witch who could do her harm. She used to say to the child:

"The whole life and character of this person are an impropriety."

Manna took regular lessons of the Aunt in harp-playing, and Aunt Claudine was the only one who seemed to possess her confidence. She showed her copy-books to her, and particularly the astronomical ones with the alternate blue leaves and the golden pictures of the stars.

During the clear evenings, she spent several hours with the Aunt upon the flat roof of the villa, looking at the stars through a telescope. It was evident that Manna had been thoroughly taught; for the convent-school made a special point of surpassing the worldly schools in scientific instruction. Of course, all science was confined within the bounds which faith prescribes.

With all the dignified loftiness of her demeanor, there was something charmingly attractive in Aunt Claudine; she seemed to have lost or renounced something in life, and so there was a gentleness which more completely won Manna's affection.

In the Professorin, with all her friendliness, there was something commanding; she was self-contained, and gave without ever receiving.

Aunt Claudine, on the other hand, in spite of the difference of years, could be a young person's friend, and Manna felt the tranquillizing effect of this friendship.

Manna's maturity of thought often excited more surprise than even her actual knowledge. Her emotional nature had been widely developed; her religious earnestness and her settled religious convictions gave her serene composure and elevation, which might be mistaken for pride. She always felt as if she were placed on an invisible height, far above those who had no living faith. But this was not a boastful feeling of superiority; it was a sense of being supported, every moment, by all the great influences and views through whose aid so many holy men and women had won the battle of life.

Manna took especial delight in the lessons upon the harp; she said to the Aunt, that it seemed to her as if she had never heard herself before.

The Aunt explained that this was the first step of progress; that improvement really begins when one hears and sees himself.

Manna's eyes beamed softly, and she asked Aunt Claudine if this standing up alone by one's self in the world had not often been very hard for her.

"Certainly, my child. When one in youth makes a decision that affects the whole life, he does not know the real meaning of it."

Manna grasped convulsively the cross upon her bosom, and the Aunt continued: —

"Yes, my child, it requires courage and energy to be an old maid; at the time this resolution is taken, one is not fully conscious of how much it will require. Now, when I am alone, I am contented and peaceful; but in society and the world, I seem to myself often so superfluous, and as if only tolerated out of pity. Yes, my child, and one must take care not to be compassionate and sentimental towards one's self, or bitter; for the pitying of one's self often leads to bitterness and resentfulness."

"I can comprehend that," returned Manna. "Did you never have a longing to be able to enter a convent?"

"My child, I would not like to mislead and disturb you."

"No, say what you please, I can hear it all."

"Well, then, there are some institutions productive of so much harm, that they have forfeited the right of being perpetuated, at least, as we regard it. And, dear child, I could not, myself, live without art, without secular music, without the sight of what the plastic arts have produced and are still producing; herein I agree fully with my brother."

Manna looked in amazement at the Aunt; and she had the impression that a new view of life was unfolded to her, that was like the religious, and yet wholly peculiar in itself.

Towards Eric's mother. Manna was respectful but reserved. She treated her brother's teacher as a member of the family, but as a piece of property, an object, of utility, to which one could have recourse whenever there was need. There were hours and days when she had no more to do with him than if he had been a chair or a table. She often put a question to him directly and naturally, if she wanted any particular thing elucidated; and as soon as Eric began to expatiate beyond the special topic under consideration, she would say with great decision: —

"I did not want to know about that. I thank you for the information you have given."

She never received any instruction for which she did not immediately thank him, just as she would a servant for anything handed to her.

The whole family had the feeling that here was a strength adequate to attain its own end.

Manna did not visit in the neighborhood; she insisted upon it that she had come only to be with her parents and her brother, and no one else.

Sonnenkamp was alarmed at this determined and uncompliant bearing.

CHAPTER III.

EVERYTHING FLIES THAT HAS WINGS

Manna soon expressed a determined purpose to get a better insight into the method and direction of her brother's education. She wanted to be present at Eric's lessons.

Sonnenkamp endeavored to induce the Aunt to inform Eric of this request, but she declined. Manna had better ask him herself.

Sonnenkamp was deeply vexed at this refusal, but Manna's resolution was taken at once. She expressed her wish at the table, assigning no reason, for she thought that the real one might wound, and any other than the real one she could not consent to offer as a pretext.

After they had risen from the table, Eric gave her the arrangement of the hours of study, and declared himself ready to conform to her wishes, merely adding that he should continue his instruction without any reference to her presence.

Manna now sat at the window with her embroidery, whilst Eric and Roland pursued their occupations at the table. By noon Manna had laid aside her work, and was listening with closed eyes. The next day she brought no work with her, and thus she sat there day after day with the two, listening with interest even to the mathematics. The musical voice of Eric seemed to have a magical charm for the proud and cold maiden, and at many an utterance she opened wide her eyes, as if she must satisfy herself who this really was that was speaking.

One day, however, she came only to say that she should come no more.

"I could still learn a great deal from you," she said, "but it is better that I should keep by myself. I thank you," she said again; but as if recollecting that she was continually doing this, she quickly added, —

"I thank you differently from what I have before. I acknowledge the delicacy with which you have spared me the perplexity of answering the question I see you wanted to put to me, whether I was satisfied with your instruction. It is very kind not to have asked this question."

"You are good at reading countenances," answered Eric. And so they parted.

From this time Manna's haughty and even her confident bearing toward Eric was gone; there was a sort of shyness, and she seldom spoke to him. But this want of notice was something very far removed from that haughty indifference with which she had formerly disregarded him; there was defiance, angry resistance in her demeanor, as if she would say, I do not comprehend why you are of any interest to me whatever.

Manna also occasionally visited the castle, going by herself with her two dogs. She had the Architect explain to her the plans of this building as it was being restored, and as it existed formerly.

She took an interest in the work, and entered into consultation with her father in regard to the fitting up of the hall already finished, the so-called Knight's hall.

Sonnenkamp was busily employed in buying the ancient weapons to be hung upon the walls, and the armor to be placed upon the pillars. He could not refrain from saying to Manna beforehand, that he intended to dedicate the castle in the autumn, on her birthday; but she desired that this should be omitted. This continual festivity and banqueting did not suit her; and she was particularly anxious that her birthday should be marked by no external celebration, even of the simplest kind.

Since her return from the convent, if she would honestly confess it to herself, – and Manna ventured to confess all, – she had taken greater pleasure in her dogs than in anything else. She had even written a letter to the Superior, asking whether they would allow her to bring a dog with her into the convent, but had burned the letter afterwards. She represented to herself how laughable it would be for a nun to be going through the garden with a dog at her heels, and how intolerable if every nun had a dog of her own. She smiled to herself for the first time, and then again asked herself the question, Why do we have no animals in the convent? Eric found her as she was sitting down and talking to her dogs.

"Do you not think," she asked, "that a dog, this one, for instance, has an unspeakably sad expression of face?"

"Whoever looks for it can find it. The mystics say that it came from the fall of man; that since then, all creatures have a mournful expression."

Manna thanked him, but this time with a look only, and not with words. "Surprising how the man can enter into every thing! And why is he still a heretic! Why?"

A carriage was advancing toward them, and a white handkerchief was already waving in the distance. "Manna!" was called out; Eric withdrew. Manna rose and went to meet Lina, who got out and let the carriage drive on.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lina, "you are already on such good terms with one another! you need hide nothing from me. Ah, how fine! This is right splendid! I've something to tell you about my love; now kiss me. Ah, I see you haven't kissed each other yet, you don't how to kiss. Just think. Manna, how simple I've been; I made myself believe, at one time, that the Baron von Pranken was fond of me – no, that's not exactly what I meant, but I made myself believe that I liked him, and now I will tell you at once, that I love and I am loved."

"We all love God, and we are loved by him."

"Ah, yes, by God too. But Albert – Do you know Albert? you must know him, for he's building a castle for you. At that time at the musical festival – I saw you at once, and beckoned to you, but you didn't observe me – that was the very first time we ever came to an explanation. Ah, you can't begin to think how happy I am. At the beginning I couldn't take part in the singing: I was afraid all the time I should scream too loud; but after that I sang with the rest. Ah, it was so beautiful – so beautiful! we did nothing else but float away in music; and he sings splendidly too, though not so grandly as Herr Dournay. Now do tell me, Manna, how you felt when you heard him sing so? Did you know that he was the man you asked me about when you had the angel-wings on your shoulders."

Lina did not wait for an answer, but went on: —

"You must have seen me on the shore, when I met you, and I was leaning on my Albert's arm for the first time. I didn't want to speak to you there among the nuns and scholars; I shouldn't have been able to tell you all there. You don't take it amiss that I didn't appear to see you? Ah, I saw everybody, the whole world at once! Ah, and all was so splendid! And at the table there 'twas so merry! And once he asked me why I seemed all at once so sad. Then I confessed to him that I was thinking of you, how you were going back again to the convent, where 'twas so silent and so dull. I think the corridors have all got a cold. Ah, why can't you be as merry as we? Do be merry! There's nothing better in the world, and you've got all, and can have all in the world. Oh, do be merry! Ah, there flies a swallow, the first swallow. Oh, if I could only fly in that way up to him at the castle, and bid him good-morning, and keep flying to him and flying away again. Ah, Manna! Manna!"

It was very odd to her to see and hear this joyous, fluttering youthful companion; she could say nothing in response, and Lina did not seem to expect her to say anything, for she continued:

"So I was thinking as I was coming here, that if I were you, I'd issue an order or something of that sort to the whole country round, that in three days they should bring me all the birds they could catch, and I'd pay them an awful amount of money for doing it, and then I'd let all the birds fly away again up into the air. Don't you feel as if you were a bird that had been caught, and had got free again? Ah, and it's smart in you to come in the spring; there's too much dancing to be done, if you come home in the winter. Fourteen balls I went to, the first winter, and ever so many small parties. And if one then has her sweetheart – Ah, Manna, you can't think how beautiful that is! or perhaps you do know now. I beg you do tell me every thing. I am not yet betrothed to Albert, but we are as good as betrothed. You won't be a nun, will you? Believe what I say, they don't want you for a nun at all, they are only after your money. Would you like to be a baroness? I shouldn't. To be 'my lady'd' all the time when there's no need of it, and then to be laughed at behind one's back; no, I shouldn't like it at all. If a born lady does anything foolish, there's nothing to be said; but if one of us commits a folly, hi! the whole city and the whole land has to bear the blame of it. Ah, such a rich girl has a good deal to suffer for it! Here come the men and want to marry her money, and here come the nuns and want her to become a nun for her money. You may be sure, if you were one of those women yonder carrying coals out of the boat, the nuns wouldn't have you; you might be as clever, and as lovable, and as good as you are now. Yes, if you hadn't any money, and if you hadn't so much money, the nuns wouldn't want to have anything to do with you. Don't they try to make you believe that you've been called to be a saint? Don't believe it. Ah, in the convent! When I hear people telling how beautiful it was there on the convent-island, I've always thought: Yes indeed, right pretty, if one only goes there on a pleasure excursion; but to be a nun there! – Ah, Manna, if I could only make you as happy as I am! Do be jolly too! Ah, good heavens, why can't one give to another some of his enjoyment; I've so much – so much, and I should like most dearly to give some of it to you. But what do we talk so much for? Come, catch me! Do you remember our old play: 'Everything flies that has wings'? Come, catch me!"

Lina ran off with fluttering garments, and when she stopped saw that Manna had not followed her. She waited until she came up, and the two maidens walked in silence to the villa.

CHAPTER IV.

"THROUGH THE NEW DOOR."

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, —

"You wanted to make a request of me, dear child. Why do you hold back?"

"I, a request? What request?"

"You would like that Lina should come here, but you avoid acknowledging this to me and to her. If you will honestly confess to me that you would like this, I will arrange the matter."

Manna confessed that she had not had the courage to express her wish.

By the next day Lina was settled at the cottage with the Professorin, and there she was merry as a cricket, and enlivened the whole house with her cheerfulness, and her fresh bubbling gaiety alone. Wherever she was, walking, standing, or sitting, she sang to herself like a bird on the branch, and the breasts of the hearers were refreshed. The Aunt played an accompaniment for her songs, and the clear, bell-like tone of her voice was full of fresh health and bright joy. She sang without the least effort, and her love added a tone of deep feeling to her singing, which one would not have supposed she possessed.

She was perfectly undisciplined, but she was very particular about her dress, especially since she had been in love, and she liked to look at herself in the glass. But to bother herself about the inner life, – "That's not my style," was her uniform manner of speaking. She lived her own life, was a Catholic, because she was born so, and it was too much trouble to make any change. She laughed, sang and danced; yesterday is gone, and to-morrow will look out for itself. Amongst all these persons who bore a heavy burden in their souls, who were imposing some heavy task upon themselves, Lina was the only light-hearted child of nature; and she was regarded by those who looked upon her rather with envious than contemptuous eyes.

"Ah! could one but be like her!" sighed each one in his own way.

Lina, gradually, became less demonstrative and excitable through the quiet influence of the Professorin. It gave her pleasure to be able to understand a great deal of what the Professorin said; but there were many things beyond her comprehension. What does it matter? One must not take all there is in the dish, – one must leave something for others.

It was beautiful to see Manna coming in her bright summer dress through the park to the cottage. But she manifested to the Professorin only a respectful confidence; she always addressed her as Madame, and spoke to her in French, the language she had been accustomed to use at the convent. To all questions she gave direct answers.

"Had you any particular friend at the convent?" the Professorin once asked.

"No, it is not allowed. One must not show any special affection, but treat all with an equal love."

"If it would not weary you, I should like to ask another question."

"Oh, you do not weary me in the least. I like to talk of the convent better than any thing else; I think of it all the time. Ask what you please."

"Had you a particularly confidential relation with any one of the ladies?"

Manna mentioned the name of the Superior, and was greatly surprised to hear the Professorin extol the beauty of such a life as hers; that there could be nothing more blissful than to confer peace and joy upon young children, to aid them to become strong, to overcome the trials of existence. It was a life that death could not change, and in which the sorrow of parting and absence could never be known.

The Professorin repeated that she should regard it as a crime, to say a single word that should shake a soul desiring to devote itself to such a life.

"Dear child, thou hast chosen the right path according to thy light."

Manna bowed, and she seemed transfigured. It did not occur to her that the Professorin had spoken to her all at once so affectionately. But now she shrank into herself with alarm. Is this not one of the temptations? Does not this woman praise her, enter into her utmost soul, in order to win her over and seduce her from the faith? A glance of suspicion shot from those youthful eyes upon the elderly lady. And yet Manna returned, again and again, to the Professorin, as is if she were fleeing from something, and could find concealment only there.

Frau Dournay's uniform serenity of soul, her perpetual willingness to devote herself to the service of others, had a magnetic attraction for her, and before she was aware of it, she formed more intimate relations, and became more confidential with the Professorin than she had ever believed possible.

The struggle and the vacillation of the girl's young heart were revealed first of all to the Professorin. As they were sitting once in the garden, having fortunately declined to go with Lina, Roland, and Eric, on an excursion upon the Rhine, Manna said, looking timidly around, —

"Why should it be a sin to take delight in nature? Is not joy itself a sort of devotion?"

The Professorin making no reply. Manna said with pressing earnestness: —

"Do speak, I entreat you."

"A writer," replied she, "whom you do not probably revere as we do, has said: God loves better to see a heart filled with joy than with sorrow."

"What's the man's name?"

"Gotthold Lessing."

Manna requested to have the passage pointed out. The Professorin brought the book, and from that time there was a free interchange of thought between them. The Professorin continued very cautious in her remarks, and repeated that she should look upon it as a sacrilege to deprive a believing heart of its religious convictions.

Manna declared that she was strong enough to enter into the thoughts of the children of the world, as they are termed, without getting lost herself.

The Professorin repeatedly warned and advised her, but she insisted that she had returned to the world in order to perceive what it had to proffer to her, and then to renounce all freely. She expressed a firm determination not to become Pranken's wife, in fact, not to be married at all. She came very near disclosing to the Professorin, that she wanted to devote herself as an expiatory sacrifice, not from compulsion, but, through heavenly grace, freely renouncing all the delights of the world.

"To you," said Manna, with tearful eyes, "I could tell all."

It would have required only a single word, one encouraging appeal, and Manna would have told everything to the Mother. But she earnestly entreated not to be made the repository of any secret; not because she could not keep it faithfully, but it would be a burden to her, and she should never feel at peace if she should divert a being formed to live in the purest sphere from occupying her true place. She spoke very guardedly, choosing her words carefully, for Manna must not have the least suspicion that she also was hiding a secret; she simply let it be understood that she favored the maiden's resolution to take the veil.