Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

Something of Sonnenkamp's nature seemed awakened in Manna's soul. Was this woman encouraging her only in order to gain a firmer hold upon her? But then, as she looked up into the quiet, calm face of the Mother, she felt impelled to fall upon her neck and beg her forgiveness for having had such unjust thoughts of her. The Professorin saw the conflict in the child, but gave it a different interpretation; she had no suspicion that distrust of the worst kind was felt by Manna.

As Manna passed through the new door on her way home through the meadows, she suddenly stood still. Here she had stood on the first morning, here had the thought darted through her soul that she must often pass through this gateway, over this path, engaged in deep struggles, and contending for victory. This foreboding had now been realized.

CHAPTER V.

BE LED INTO TEMPTATION

Manna went regularly to church, and prayed with constant and unchanging fervor, but a peculiar shyness held her back from the parsonage. She said constantly to herself that the Priest himself had told her that it would be well to avoid seeing him for a time, till she had become familiar with her new life.

Often, in the midst of conversation with the Professorin, a fear came over her that she was binding herself too closely to the life of another, and she felt that she must regain her power of looking beyond all the varying phenomena of the world. She at last came to the determination to go to the Priest, to whom she began to explain and excuse her long absence; but he interrupted her mildly, saying that she need tell him nothing, he had read her soul, and believed that he understood her feelings; she must appear to herself, like a person who, returning to earth after his departure from it, watches the actions of men, their restless days and nights of painful dreams, their attempts to satisfy or to benumb the conscience.

He impressed it upon her that she ought to judge people gently; the worst sinners indeed were those who believed they knew what they were doing, and it was most difficult to pardon them; but if we take the highest views, these were the ones who most needed forgiveness, because, in spite of what they say, they really do not know what they do, and we can always say of them. Lord, forgive them. There is nothing left for us, but silently to pray for their salvation, imploring the merciful Father to grant them redemption.

Without mentioning any name, he then went on to represent to her that there are some people, who, with outward piety and self-complacency, perform so-called good works, and borrow holy words for the expression of thoughts far removed from what is really divine.

He thus described the Professorin without naming her.

Then he delineated others, who, full of knowledge, swerve constantly from the central truth, and who, without having any fixed goal of their own, imagine that they are able to lead others.

Thus he delineated Eric.

With the greatest caution he painted the men of the world, who wish to force the Lord of heaven and earth to show them favor, and who with their scoffs banish all humility. He openly named as examples Doctor Richard and the Weidmann circle, but at the same time he had Sonnenkamp in view, but the daughter must make this application for herself.

Manna listened eagerly. As she looked out of the window, her eyes rested on her father's house, with the park and garden, and it seemed to her as if they must all be overwhelmed, the waters surge up from the Rhine, the everlasting floods submerge the earth, and only here in this room is the ark of safety.

Timidly, hardly breathing the words aloud, she mournfully asked why the task of returning into life was laid upon her.

The Priest gently consoled her, telling her that, as an eye which must soon close, to open again in eternity, watched from this window over all which passed below in the valley, so an unchanging eye was watching over her; she must enter the tumult without fear, having within her thoughts which looked down upon it all from a lofty height of their own. This was the real trial specially laid upon her.

He went farther, and charged Manna not to come to him again for a long time; she was to remain away for weeks and months, that she might gain strength within herself; she was to be fettered by no external bond, not even that of making stated visits to him, but all was to depend on her own free, steadfast, independent will; leaning upon herself, with no outward support, she was to conquer all temptations.

Manna asked hesitatingly, why the Priest had not taken upon himself the wide-extending benevolent work, which the Professorin was now commissioned by her father to carry on.

"Why?" exclaimed the Priest, with a flash in his usually quiet eye. "We cannot take what is not given to us; they must learn that this so-called benevolence, without the blessing of the Church, becomes absolutely null, and I command you to have nothing to do with it, for you cannot enter into such a fellowship."

Manna was much startled when the Priest told her that he did not consider her fitted to take the veil, that it would be better for her to be Pranken's wife.

The color mounted to Manna's face, and she moved her hands as if warding off a blow; she opened her mouth, but could not utter a word.

"It is well," said the Priest, soothingly, "it is well if you can conquer this too, but we do not call you, we do not beguile you; you must come at your own call, and follow your own leading. People will whisper to you. The parsons, for so they call us, have misled you with most cunning wiles. You must remember, the sun shining down upon us bears witness that I have urged you not to renounce the world entirely. If you cannot do otherwise, if you feel an imperative call, then you will be welcome to us; not otherwise, not even with all your wealth."

The Priest had arisen, and was walking up and down the room with hasty strides, A long pause ensued; he stood at the window, looking out, while Manna sat trembling on the sofa. The Priest turned towards her, saying, —

"You see what esteem we feel for you, when we leave all to your own strength, the strength of faith and of renunciation within you; hold firmly to that, and let us speak freely and calmly to each other. Do you not think this Herr Dournay a most attractive man? Speak to me as openly and sincerely as you would to yourself."

"I don't yet know what to think. I am inclined to believe that there is something in him which might make him a noble instrument of the Holy Spirit."

"Ah! is that your feeling? Thank you for being so honest and unreserved. That is the wonderful art of the tempter, that he can assume the purest form; with a pretence of duty and the hope of conversion he can so tempt the poor child of humanity, that it does not notice that it has already fallen into evil. This then is the shape he takes for you? I advise you, yes, I require it of you, I command you, to attempt to change this false coin into true metal. Try it, it is your duty; and if you succeed, you are greater than I thought, and if you fail, you are cured for ever. The ways of Providence are wise, which have brought this man to you, and planted the thought of his conversion in your heart; you are bound, for the sake of his salvation and your own, to make the attempt and to persevere in it. Look out of doors! it is springtime, everything seems thriving and blooming in security; but the day will come when the tempest will burst forth, rending the branches and tearing up the roots, and so it must be. What is planted in you must be tried by the storm of temptation, with all its fine and cunning wiles; it must be tossed hither and, thither till it is all but uprooted – not till then will you be strong."

Again the Priest strode up and down with heavy steps. Manna knew not what to say, nor how she was to leave this room, and go back again into the sight of men who were to be to her as shadows, as forms assumed by the tempter.

The Priest turned towards her, and said gently, —

"Now go, go, my daughter. And God be with thee."

He gave her his blessing, and Manna went. With a conflict in her heart, straining her powers to look at life as a spectacle, as a temptation which she must not avoid, she devoted herself to those around her, and no one suspected why she was so cheerful and ready to be induced to take part in every kind of merriment.

CHAPTER VI.

ANOTHER SPIRE BUILT

The Mother was the only one who suspected that any change was going on in Eric; he became peculiarly reserved, even shy. Instead of his former communicativeness, he was now very careful of what he said, especially in Manna's presence, as if he felt himself near one whose serenity must not be troubled.

But this change in Eric's demeanor soon attracted the notice of another observer who kept a keener watch. Bella came to call upon her future sister-in-law. She was very confidential towards Manna; she had the habit of putting her arm round the waist of girls whom she liked, and towards whom she desired to be gracious, and promenading with them in this affectionate way; but whenever she attempted this with Manna, the latter always made a movement as if she would shake her off, and finally told her, in so many words, that she disliked it. Bella smiled, but she was inwardly vexed. In this house, in this garden, she must encounter such rebuffs as she had never believed possible. But outwardly there was no trace that her feelings were hurt, although it required her utmost exertion to remain composed.

With an easy turn of the conversation, she asked Eric if he now had another pupil.

Eric answered her in the same light tone, that Manna had already completed her education.

Bella nodded pleasantly.

The formal visit to Manna was now over; and when she excused herself for not returning it, saying that it was her purpose to visit nowhere, Bella made a friendly call upon the Mother and the Aunt. She went back to Wolfsgarten with the resolution to give, hereafter, the go-by to this house and all its inmates. Otto wanted to marry a wife from it, and that was his affair; but she believed that she ought to call his attention to the fact, that in the mutual reserve of Manna and Eric there was the germ of a deeper feeling. Pranken replied with a spice of maliciousness, that the family tutor was not half so dangerous as he appeared to his sister, especially not to one whose character was grounded in religious conviction.

Pranken made frequent visits to Villa Eden, and always enlivened its inmates. But it did not escape Manna's penetrating observation, that he was an artisan, but not an artist; he displayed much clever ingenuity, but had no productive genius, and was unstable and impulsive. This was especially noticeable when Eric was present.

Pranken was never at a loss in uttering some pointed remark, but he could not carry on a discussion; novel propositions bewildered him, and he had no pertinent observations to bring forward, whilst Eric became more inspirited and more original by the presentation of opposing thoughts and new statements.

Eric was always the same from morning to night, while Pranken was a different being in the evening from what he was in the morning. In the morning he was obliged to rouse himself; he was tired, heavy, low-spirited; at evening he was lively, dashing, and full of energy. He often seemed languid and spiritless; and being aware of this, he was stimulated to exertion. There was always an element of disquiet in intercourse with him, and under an appearance of friendliness there was almost always a latent bitter hostility. He thought now, too, that he could discover an understanding between Eric and Manna.

Both Manna and Eric thought more of the universal, of the purely ideal, than they did of the personal; in her, this proceeded from the religious, and in him, from the philosophical element. In the beginning, Manna had held herself aloof from him with a sort of defiance, even with a positive antagonism; but gradually she came to perceive the inviolable truthfulness of his whole being. When Pranken was engaged in argument, he asserted what he had to say as if it were incontrovertible; while Eric, on the other hand, often replied: —

"I should like to be allowed first to state the question; for the best thing we can do in order to arrive at some actual result, is, to state the question sharply and definitely." "And," he added, laughing, "the old philosopher, Epictetus, has designated 'asking the right questions and exercising forbearance' as the very essence of philosophy."

"Who is Epictetus?" Manna would ask; and while Eric briefly gave an account of the life of this stoic, a slave, who had become a philosopher and taught after the manner of Socrates, adding some reflections of his own. Manna was alarmed to see how fully she agreed with him; her gods were different, but their devotional spirit was the same.

Pranken was jealous when he saw Manna deeply interested in Eric's expositions, and often tried to make him expose his heretical sentiments, so that he might become abhorrent to Manna.

There was frequently a sort of tournament in which they took part, and Manna sat, as it were, upon a dais to crown the victor. In such a state of feeling, if easily happens that insignificant circumstances become the starting point of a life and death contest. And this was the case one day, when Pranken related in a merry way that to-day was a bonâ fide pilgrimage of the whole country to the railroad station, for they were expecting, by the evening train, the list of those who had drawn prizes in the Cathedral lottery; and all the poor people, the servants, male and female, the vine-dressers, the quarrymen, and the boatmen, were each one of them hoping to get the first prize. Manna had it on her lips to say that she had given money to Claus in order to redeem his ticket, but, before she could do it, Eric, unable to restrain himself, cried out: —

"This lottery is an atrocity, a disgrace to our age."

"What's that? What do you say?"

"I beg your pardon, I was hasty," said Eric, trying to divert the subject.

But Manna asked: —

"May we not know what your objection is?"

"I would rather not state it."

Manna's face flushed. This man, she thought, is also a heretic in regard to social institutions! But she quickly composed herself, and continued quietly: —

"It ought not to be a matter of indifference to you to be regarded as open to the charge of being unjust."

"Herr Captain," Pranken said, coming to her help, "would you favor us so far as to give us your view? It would be very kind of you if you would instruct us, and give us at length your objections." Then turning to Manna, he said in a low tone: —

"Take notice, this will be the order of his discourse. First, he declines to speak, like a singer who is urged to sing in company; then he asks pardon for his novel views; next comes a condescending definition; after that a citation from Professor Hamlet, to be succeeded by a moral burst of indignation, and every one who thinks otherwise is an idiot or a knave; and finally, when you think now is the grand finale, he adds something else, and winds up with a trill."

Eric perceived that he was to be irritated and goaded on, but he had self-control enough to say to himself: I will not be driven over the barriers. With quiet deliberation he proceeded to say: —

"First of all, I beg you would remember that Catholic as well as Protestant cathedrals are to be completed by this horrible and no longer unusual means."

"And why so horrible?" asked Manna.

"Yes, go on, go on!" urged Pranken, as if he were flourishing his horse-whip.

"Allow me to take more time," answered Eric; "I must take a longer spring."

"Proceed! proceed!" said Pranken sharply, twirling the ends of his moustache.

"The largest cathedrals," Eric began by saying, "are unfinished; quiet in the lap of earth rest thousands and tens of thousand hands which devotion once moved to dig the stone, to raise, and lay, and chisel them. Careless and thoughtless enough, undoubtedly, were the workmen, but they were set in motion by devout feeling, the feeling of those who poured out the money, and those who superintended the work, desiring to build a house of God. But listen to the cry now: You servant-man, you servant-girl, you journeyman, come here! here's a lottery ticket – only one dollar to pay – you can make so much by it, and help build a church besides! How can the holy Word be devoutly proclaimed in a building erected by an appeal to the covetousness of men? You smile. You think, perhaps, that it does no harm to the servant-man and servant-girl to lose the dollar; but I ask if it's no harm to their souls to be hoping for prizes in the lottery? And suppose a schedule of the lottery were laid in the corner-stone of the new building. Future generations would have harder work to decipher these figures, than we with the remains of the lake-dwellers. What sort of a race was this, they would say, which built a church with the profits of a lottery? Tetzel's hawking of indulgences was far less objectionable, for then they paid money for the pardon of their sins; the motive was a moral one, however much they may have been in error. But here-"

"I had thought," Sonnenkamp interrupted, "that you considered beauty, the completion of the beautiful structure, as a sufficiently moral motive, just as any pagan would."

"I thank you for this suggestion, for it brings me to the point, to state it briefly, that it is a contradiction to make use of unholy means for a holy end, and nothing incongruous is truly beautiful."

Sonnenkamp was exceedingly charmed with this exposition, but Pranken, who saw that his prophecy in regard to the way in which Eric would proceed was altogether falsified, held his moustache thoughtfully between his fingers, and contracted his brows. He was stirred up, and doubly so, when he saw that Manna looked very attentive and serious. He would have been beside himself if he could have imagined what were her thoughts.

This heretic, Eric, would not have been able to reach a single dogma of her belief, with all his philosophy, for this was no lever with which to move the solid rock; but in this assault upon an apparently incidental matter, her confidence was shaken in the perfect moral beauty of the measures of those who were the representatives of the Spirit in the world. Everything which concerned religion was in her view fixed and unalterable, and just this thing troubled Manna, this insignificant trifle, that their object was money. She despised money, she regarded it as a dangerous enemy, and "money – money!" echoed and re-echoed within her. "Is gold the temptation?"

Pranken hastily summoned up his energies to say: —

"It strikes me as inconsiderate or immodest – excuse me if I do not use just the right word – I mean, he who is an unbeliever should not attack another's belief."

"Should we not?" replied Eric. "And still we are attacked. Humility is a virtue. Very true; and it is the virtue of a state of siege. We still stammer at the word of salvation. But is the child who cannot yet speak, on that account not to make known his wishes by cries? Lofty and noble to us is the religion of love, but love cannot be commanded, love is the genius of the heart; on the other hand, kindness, regard, active help can be commanded and guided; love, never. The great command, Love thy neighbor as thyself, has become hypocrisy; it is said, I love my neighbor, but I have nothing to do for him. Our doctrine says, Help thy neighbor as thyself. Love is a sort of musical susceptibility which can be counterfeited, but help cannot be. Therefore we apply more broadly the command, and say, Help thy neighbor as thyself. And you must do it yourself; for we stand upon the fundamental principle that there is no substitution in the realm of moral activity, and here it is the primal law that every one shall do guard-duty for himself."

"You've said that once before," Pranken interposed.

"True, and I shall often repeat it. I think that we have as good a right as our opponents, who are not always uttering some new truth. The sunlight of to-day is like that of yesterday-"

Here Roland burst in breathless, crying: "Eric, you must come at once, the field-guard is here; he is like a crazy man, and he says that you only can decide, and you alone shall decide."

"What has happened?"

"Sevenpiper has drawn the grand prize, and Claus says that the money belongs to him. Come, he's like one raving mad."

Eric went down to the courtyard.

There sat Claus upon a dog-kennel, and looked dolefully up at Eric and Roland. He spoke so thick and confusedly, that they could not make out distinctly what he meant; this only was plain, that Sevenpiper had drawn the prize, and Claus asserted that it belonged to him.

Sonnenkamp, Pranken, and Manna also made their appearance on the steps, and now Claus screamed out that Manna must bear testimony to having given him the money for the ticket, and he had simply forgotten to redeem it.

Eric quieted Claus, and promised to go with him to Sevenpiper. He asked permission of Sonnenkamp to have the horses harnessed. Roland was urgent to accompany him. Claus took a seat with the coachman on the box, and so they drove to the village to Sevenpiper's house.

They met the cooper in front of the house, and he told Eric that Sevenpiper had just turned him out of it. He said that he was in love with Sevenpiper's oldest daughter, and that this attachment had met the approval of the parents on both sides; but now Sevenpiper had shown him the door, saying that he could obtain a better match for his daughter, and that most assuredly he would not marry her to the son of Claus, who wanted to claim his property before the world.

"Is't true, father, that the prize belonged to you?"

"Yes, indeed; and it belongs to me still."

"So! Now I understand all about it," said the cooper, taking his departure.

In the house of Sevenpiper the newcomers found everything in confusion; the oldest daughter was weeping, and the other children were running over one another.

They became quieted at last, and Sevenpiper said that he was not going to allow himself to be driven out of his wits; anyhow he would no longer be a day-laborer in the vineyard; he would just do nothing for a year, and then he would see what he would take hold of. The children screamed and shouted in all sorts of ways, and Sevenpiper tried to make them sing, but not one of them was willing; all that was past and gone forever.

Eric had induced Claus to wait outside the house; he now told them what the field-guard wanted.

As soon as he made known this desire, Sevenpiper raised the window and cried out to his former comrade standing in the road: —

"If you don't clear out from here, and if you claim a single red cent from me, I'll break every bone in your carcass. Now you know what to expect! Off with you!"

No appeal was of any use; Sevenpiper insisted upon it, that he would not give Claus as much as he could put into his eye.

Roland and Eric went away exceedingly cast down. They came to the house of Claus, who was asleep on the bench. His wife lamented that he had come home very drunk, and that the cooper was half-crazed.

Neither could Eric and Roland be of any assistance here.

On the way home, Roland seized Eric's hand and said: —

"Money! money! How speedily it can ruin people!" Eric made no reply, and Roland continued: – "I never heard that there were any lotteries in America. You see, Eric, this is something that we have wholly to ourselves."

In silence, inwardly disturbed, they reached the villa. There seemed to be some ghost stalking abroad, for they could not shake off the remembrance that the demon of sudden riches had ruined two families; and immediately on waking the next morning, Roland said: —

"I should like to know how Claus and Sevenpiper will feel this morning, when they wake up."

A messenger was sent to the village, and they were gratified to hear that the two families were getting along comfortably again; but the eldest daughter of Sevenpiper had left her parents' house, and had gone to the field-guard's.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FIRST RIDE

Manna was extremely gracious towards everybody, and no one would have suspected that this graciousness had pride for its basis. Every one appeared to her so poor, so forlorn, so trammelled! Whenever she was spoken to, her thought of the speaker was, "You, who say this, are but a child of the world;" and whenever she took part in any pleasure excursion, there was the perpetually recurring suggestion, "You yourself are not here, you only seem to be here, you are in a wholly different world, yonder, far above."