CHAPTER VIII.
A STRUGGLE BETWEEN DUTY AND PASSION
"I must speak with you this evening in the park, under the weeping ash," Eric had said to Bella as they were getting out of the boat.
"This evening?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And in the park, under the weeping ash?"
"Yes."
She had of her own accord placed her arm in his, and they walked together in silence to the villa; then she relinquished his arm, and went straight to Clodwig and the Mother.
She knew not what she desired here, but she was happy, or rather soothed, when she saw them sitting so confidentially together. Yes, she thought, every one who gives an ear to him, and returns a stimulating reply occasionally, is as much to him as I.
She rose and went into the park; she walked about restlessly, knowing that Eric must get released from Roland, in order to keep the appointment with her. But she had no idea how hard it was for him to effect this; not so much because Roland was not obedient, and mindful every hour of the task set him, but because Eric was inwardly disturbed that he was obliged to assign to his pupil as a duty and a theme some noble thought, some lesson, some subject of study, merely to become temporarily freed from his presence. The book he gave him, the place he selected for him to read until his return, appeared to him perverted to a wrong use, dishonored and profaned; yet nothing else could be done. It was a bitter experience, but it was the last time; he would come out from this final interview pure and strong; and have a plain and straight path before him.
He became composed with this thought, and entered the park. He found Bella on the seat upon the height; she had evidently been weeping freely.
Hearing his step, she removed the handkerchief from her eyes. "You have been weeping?"
"Yes, for your mother, for myself, for us all! O, how often have I heard your mother ridiculed, blamed, pitied, and despised, for following the impulse of her heart and the man of her choice. For some time the saying was, To live on love and eight hundred thalers. She is now more highly favored than any of us. With blessed satisfaction she surveys now the past, and looks forward to the future in her son, and what are her deriders? Puppets, dolls, – gossipping, music-making, dancing, chattering, scandal-making dolls! They turn up their noses at the man who has become so rich on the labor of slaves, and our aristocratic fathers sell their children, and the children sell themselves, for a high rank in society, for horses and carriages, for finery and villas. The nobility, the poor nobility, is the inherited curse from ancestral pride, from slavery to the ancestral idea! A peasant woman, who gleans barefooted in the stubble-field, is happier and freer than the lady who is driven through the streets in her carriage, leaning back and cooling herself with her fan."
"I have one request," began Eric in a constrained voice; "will you bestow upon me one hour of your life?"
"One hour?"
"Yes. Will you listen to me?"
"I am attentive." As she gazed at him, her eye-brows seemed to grow larger and larger, the corners of her mouth to be drawn slowly down, and her lips to open as if parched with a feverish heat; nothing was wanting but the wings upon her head, and the snaky heads knotted under her chin, to give the perfect Medusa-look.
Eric was for an instant petrified; then collecting himself, he continued: —
"Two questions now rend my heart; one is, Has the violence of love taken from me life, study, and the power of abstract thought? The other is, Must a child of humanity, because destiny has once decided for him, become a lifelong victim to this determination? And these two questions resolve themselves into one, just as those snaky heads form one knot under the chin of the Medusa."
"Go on!" urged Bella.
"Well, then, there was one hour when I would like to have said to the beautiful wife sitting before me, 'I love thee!' and I would have embraced and kissed her, but then," – Eric pressed his hand upon his heart, and gnashed his teeth, – "but that hour over, I should have put a bullet through my brain!"
Bella let her eyes fall, and Eric went on: "One hour, and then my peace was gone; I had nothing left. I could not sleep. I could not think. This could not last. I lost myself, and what did I gain? I saw all that this love devastated, and could it be love? No. Could I take it lightly like others, it would be light. But why is this the only thing to be made light of? Why is not the ideal of life also to be made light of, and why is not all feeling only a plausible lie?"
In a hoarse voice he added: —
"But I do not believe that love has the right to lay everything in ruins; but then perhaps it may be said, it is not real love. Pluck up heart, look at the world for yourself, see how pleasantly, respectably, and shrewdly it lies, the women tricked out with artificial beauty, and the men with superficial knowledge. Do you see the abyss on whose brink I stood? And here I said to myself. We are placed in the world in order to live, and knowledge and culture have been given us that we may get from them life and not death. And how could I look a noble man in the face, how could I look up to the sun in heaven, how was I to educate a human being, to stand erect in the world, to abhor crime, to discern the holy; how was I to take the word mother upon my lips, with the consciousness that I was myself the vilest of all, and that there was no moment in which I, and another also, must not tremble, and be filled with cowardly fear and despair."
Eric paused and placed his hand on his forehead; his voice choked, tears stood in his eyes.
"Go on!" cried Bella, "I am listening."
"It is well. This once do I speak thus to you, and only this once. You have courage to hear the truth. Our relation is not love, must not be love; for love cannot thrive on murder, hypocrisy, and treachery. I clasp your hand – no, I clasp it not, for I know I could not let it go, if I did. Here I stand – I speak to you, you listen to me – I speak to you, as if I were miles away, as if I were dead; there must be distance, there must be death, before there is any life."
"What do you mean?" interposed Bella.
She looked at Eric's hand as if he were about to draw a weapon from his bosom.
Breathing deep, he went on: "It must be possible for human beings who have been made conscious of where they are, to find again the right path from which they have wandered. My friend! you are happy if you understand the happiness, and you can and must learn to appreciate it; and I am happy. Howsoever my heart may be shattered, I know I shall come to understand my duty and my happiness. I have been, heretofore, so proud, I thought I had mastered the world and brought it under my feet, and so did you; and that we have met, is to be not for our destruction, but rather for our awakening into a new life.
"I foresee that the days will come when we shall coldly extend to each other our hands, and say, or even not say, though we feel and know it, that there was one pure hour, an hour won by a severe struggle, when we were exalted in our own souls, and because we held each other so highly, we did not debase nor degrade ourselves. This hour is hard, is overwhelming; but what is hard and overwhelming now, will be, in the future, tender and full of restoring strength.
"We would hold each other high, that we may not destroy the laws of righteous living. And here is life's duty. My friend, it was a saying of my father, The man of understanding must be able to obey the command of duty, with the same glow of zeal that others obey the command of passion. So must it be. The stars shine over our heads, I look upon you as upon a star that shines in its purity and in its ordained orbit. Ah! I do not know what I am saying. Enough! Let me now bid you farewell; when we meet again – "
"No, stay here!" Bella cried, grasping his arm, which she let go immediately, as if she had touched a snake.
She withdrew two steps, and threw back her head, saying: —
"I thank you."
Eric wanted to reply, but it was better that he should say nothing; he was about to go away in silence, when Bella cried: —
"One question! Is it true that you saw Manna Sonnenkamp, before you came here?"
"Yes."
"And you love her, and are here on her account?"
"No."
"I believe you, and I thank you."
There seemed to be in this utterance something consolatory to her, that she had not been sacrificed to love for another. She looked wildly around, moved her head right and left, and when she had become calm again, she said:
"You are right. It is well."
She seemed to be looking for something to give to Eric, without being able to find it; and now, as if she were giving utterance to a thought that had long lain upon her mind, and which anxiety for his welfare forced from her, she cried, —
"Be warned! Be on your guard against my brother; he can be terrible."
Eric went away; it was a hard matter to return to Roland, but he must.
He sat still by Roland's side for a short time, with his hands over his eyes; the light pained them, and he did not venture to look at Roland.
Then a servant, came with the message that the Count and the Countess were going to take their departure at once; Eric and Roland could bid them good-bye in the court-yard.
They went down, and heard that, contrary to the original plan, they were to set out immediately, and send the next day a carriage for Aunt Claudine.
Bella extended her gloved right hand to Eric, saying in a low tone: —
"Good-night, Herr Captain."
The carriage drove off.
CHAPTER IX.
THOUGHTS OF THE RELEASED
Bella sat quietly as she rode homewards with her husband. After a long silence. Count Clodwig said, —
"My heart is full of happiness and joy; it is a real blessedness to see a woman who is sixty years old, and who has never had a thought that she needed to repent of."
Bella looked up quickly. "What does this mean? Has he any idea of what has transpired?
"That cannot be; he would not, in that case, have referred to it. But perhaps it is his lofty manner of giving a hint towards a life of purity."
She was fearful of betraying herself if she made no answer, and yet she was at a loss what to say. Making a violent effort of self-restraint, she said at last, —
"This lady is very happy in her poverty; she has a noble, highly-cultivated son."
Clodwig now looked round as if some one had pulled upon him. Could Bella have had any notion that the thought had crossed his mind, – What if this wife – and then Eric be thy son?
He was better off than Bella, for there was no necessity of his making any reply; but he inwardly reproached himself for having had the faintest impression of such a thought.
They drove along in silence; there was oneness of feeling, and yet each had saddening thoughts; for the rest of the way not a word was spoken. It seemed to Bella as if some mighty force must come and bear her away into chaos, into annihilation. The carriage rattled so strangely, the wheels grated, and the maid and the coachman looked to her like goblins, and the flitting shadows of the moon like pictures in a dream, and the carriage with its inmates like a monster; anger, shame, pride, humiliation, were stormily coursing through her heart, that had not yet been calmed.
She was enraged with herself that she, who was mature in worldly experience, had allowed herself to be carried away by such a girlish infatuation, for that was the name she still gave it. And had not her self-love been wounded? Was not this the first time that she had ever stretched out her hand without its being grasped?
It came across her that Eric might have overstated his love to her, in order to lessen the feeling of shame on her part. As she thought it over, it seemed to her that she detected something unnatural in his tone, something forced and constrained.
She thought again of Eric. Where is he now? Is he talking with any one? He certainly suffers deeply; he has saved himself and thee. Her thoughts were like a whirlwind. Now she scornfully exulted. It was only a trifling jest, an experiment, a bold play! She, Bella, the strong, had only tried to bring a young man to his knees before her, and she would have thrust him away with contempt if she had succeeded. She can say this – who can contradict her? Her whole past life was good evidence in her favor, and yet she felt ashamed of this lie.
But what is now to be done? she asked again. She is simply to be quiet; she will meet the man with indifference; her last word to him was to warn him against any attachment to Manna. There was the whole! That was the pivot on which, turned the whole bold game. She promised herself to root out of her soul every passionate feeling, every violent emotion. She was now grateful to the destiny that had aroused within her the strong forces of nature – her virtue had now been tried in the fire.
She took the veil from her face, and looked up at the stars. They should be witnesses that all immoderate, all childish allurements, that were unworthy of her, should be put far away. Now she silently thought of what Eric had said, "For this end are culture and knowledge bestowed upon us, that we should rule over ourselves."
As they were going up the hill on which Wolfsgarten was situated, there came over her a feeling of imprisonment; she thought her hands were tied, and she put them outside of her mantle. Clodwig thought she was seeking his hand; he took hers and held it with a gentle pressure.
They reached Wolfsgarten in silence, and Clodwig said, as they stood in the brightly lighted garden-saloon, —
"We can be silent in each other's company; and this is the fairest comradeship, when each one abides in himself and yet is with another."
Bella nodded, looking at the whole surroundings with a wondering glance. What is all this? To whom does all this belong? What power has brought her here? Where has she been? How would it be now, here alone with her husband, if-
It seemed to her that she must fall on her knees, grasp his hand, and beg for forgiveness.
But it is better, she thought, not for herself – she believed that she was ready to humble herself to the utmost, – but better for him not to know anything of what had transpired. It ought to be concealed from him. She bowed her head, and Clodwig kissed her brow, saying: —
"Your brow is hot."
Each retired to rest.
Bella sent her maid away and undressed without her aid to-night.
After Clodwig and Bella had driven off, the Mother went to the vine-embowered house with Eric. She led him by the hand like a little child; she felt his hand tremble, but she said nothing; when they had reached the steps, she said, —
"Eric, kiss me!"
Eric understood her meaning; she wanted to see if he could kiss her with pure lips. He kissed her. Mother and son uttered no word.
Every pain was removed from Eric's whirling brain. And truth requires it to be said, that the most painful thought was, that a feeling of regret had come over Eric, a short time previously. The tempter suggested that he had been too scrupulous, too conscientious. He had thrust from him a beautiful woman, who was ready to clasp him with loving arms. When he surprised himself in these thoughts, he was profoundly wretched. All pride, all self-congratulation, and all exalted feelings of purity, were extinguished; he was a sinner without the sin. He had believed himself raised upon a lofty eminence; he had even represented his love to Bella in stronger colors than the facts warranted. Now there was a recoil, and the whole power of the rejected and disdained love avenged itself upon his doubly sinful head.
For a long time he wandered about in the quiet night.
The soul has its feverish condition from wounds as well as the body, and equally requires a soothing treatment.
Eric had amputated a part of his soul in order to save the rest, and he suffered from the pain. But as the dew fell upon tree and grass, and upon the face of Eric, so fell a dew upon his spirit.
The self-exaltation of virtue was now taken out of him, washed away by his double repentance, and he was now again a child.
As he looked back to the vine-embowered house, he thought: I will, as a man, preserve within me the child; and still further he thought: Thou hast withdrawn thyself from temptation through the consciousness of duty; be tender towards the rich and great, to whom everything is offered, to whom so much is allowed; the consciousness of duty does not restrain them so absolutely as it does him who is in the world, him who must help and be helped by others, and who has lost everything when he has lost himself.
He returned home late in the evening; and at night he dreamed that he was struggling in the midst of the floods of the Rhine, and he, the strong swimmer, was not able to contend against the waves.
He shrieked, but a steam-tug drowned his cry, and the helmswoman of a boat looked down upon him with contempt – and all at once it was not the helmswoman, but a maiden form with wings and two brightly-gleaming eyes.
CHAPTER X.
THE GUARDIAN AND HELPER
Early in the morning, a carriage from Wolfsgarten came for Aunt Claudine and the parrot.
For the thirty years since her marriage with the Professor, Frau Dournay had not passed a day without her sister-in-law; now, for the first time, she was letting her go from her. It seemed to both of them hardly conceivable that they could live apart from each other, but it had been decided upon, and must be.
Sonnenkamp was most politely attentive; he charged the Aunt to consider his house her home, and not to remain more than a few days as a guest at Wolfsgarten. He gave a basket full of carefully-covered grapes and bananas into the coachman's charge; the parrot's cage was on the seat near Aunt Claudine.
The parrot screamed and scolded as they drove off, and kept it up all the way, not liking, apparently, to leave Villa Sonnenkamp.
Herr Sonnenkamp proposed a drive to the Professorin, to help her forget the parting, but she answered, that not by diversion but by quiet reflection, can we compose and reconcile ourselves to the inevitable. Roland looked at her in surprise; these wore Eric's thoughts, almost his very words.
Several days passed quietly at the villa, which was hardly quitted even for visits to the vine-covered cottage. Bella's visit had brought a disquiet to the house, which still hung over them all, and they realized it afresh as they constantly missed the Aunt; Bella had taken something which seemed an essential part of their life. And besides, the house was again without any sound of music.
Eric and Roland were more industrious than ever, for the Mother had asked if she might not be with them in the study-hours, saying that she had never heard any of Eric's teaching. Eric knew that she wished to help him to keep a strict guard over himself; for though not a word had been said, she felt that something must have passed between him and Bella. And she not only wanted to watch over her son at every hour, but to inspire him by her presence to keep true to his duty to Roland.
So she sat with them from early morning through much of the day, breathing low, and not even allowing herself any needlework; and Eric and Roland felt a peculiar of a calm mind, of deep insight, and wide incitement in the presence of a third person, views. At first Roland often looked up at her, but she always shook her head, to remind him that he must give his whole mind to what he was about, and take no notice of her. Eric was completely free from the first hour, when he had caught himself giving such a turn to the lesson that his mother might learn something new, and had met her gaze, which said, – That's not the thing to be considered. He returned to his simple plan, without regard to his mother's presence. She was pleased with the methodical way in which Eric gave his instruction, and knew how to keep his pupil's attention. She listened with pleasure, one day, when he said that Indolence liked to say: – Nothing depends on me, a single individual; but, a nation and humanity consist of individuals; a scholar learns through single hours and days; a fruit ripens by single sunbeams; everything is individual, but the collected individuals make up the great whole. Eric had prepared himself, and read apposite passages from Cicero, and from Xenophon's Memorabilia. Roland must feel that he had the fellowship of the noblest spirits. But when they were alone, his mother said, – "I think that in illustrating everything and trying to give your pupil knowledge, you weaken and loosen his firm hold on fundamental principles."
Eric felt a shock of disappointment; he had hoped that his mother would express entire pleasure, and she was finding fault instead; but he controlled himself, and she continued, smiling: —
"I cannot help laughing, because my two points of criticism are really one and the same, looked at on two sides. The one view is this, that it seems to me dangerous to give your pupil, as you do, just what he desires: you follow the devious path of a young discursive mind, and just there lies the danger of private instruction. I mean, in this way it pampers the youthful mind by giving it only what it wishes for, not what it ought to have. The discipline of a definite course of study lies in the necessity of taking up and carrying forward what the connected plan requires, and not what may suit the fancy; this fits one for life too, for life does not always bring what we long for, but what we need and must have."
"And what is your second point?" asked Eric, as his mother paused.
"My second point is only a repetition of the first. I remember your father's saying once, that the first and only true support, or rather the very foundation of education, must be: – 'Thou shalt, and thou shalt not; straight forward without comment, without explanation, without illustration.' Now ask yourself whether you are not weakening his character. When our Roland is brought into a conflict, I don't know whether knowledge will help him, rather than the ancient command: 'Thou shalt and thou shalt not.' I only say this to you that you may think it over; others may praise you, I must warn you. I can say, though, that you have attained one important point; the boy has a holy reverence for the spirit of the Past."
Eric grasped his mother's hand, and walked on sometime in silence. Then he explained to her how he wished to give Roland not only knowledge, but a firm foundation of self-reliance, on which his life might rest.
"My son," replied his mother, "you have set yourself a difficult task; you want to accomplish a three-fold work at once; that is not possible. Listen to me patiently. You want to complete and perfect a neglected education; you want to lead to higher aims, gaining at the same time a moral foothold and moral elevation, without using the means handed down to you; and, finally, you want to train a youth, who knows his own wealth, to be a useful, unselfish, even self-sacrificing man. Now why do you laugh, pray? I will stop, though I might add, that you want to make a boy without a family affectionate, and a boy without a country patriotic. Now tell me why you laugh."
"Forgive me, mother; there's reason in your being called Professorin; you have discoursed like a Professor from his desk. But let me tell you that the two-fold or the five-fold task is only a simple one in the end. I confess I have often said to myself that I might make it easier, but then I would ask myself whether this was not an attempt to excuse my own desire of comfort. I must make the experiment of placing a youth upon the platform of acting freely from-"
"Reason?" responded the mother. "Reason may give composure, but not happiness nor blessedness; reason may not be the nourishment which suits the young spirit. Remember, my son, that meat is good food, but we do not feed a new-born child on meat instead of milk. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes; you mean that religion is the mother's milk of the spirit."
"Exactly," said the Mother, in triumph. "Your father always said that no man had ever produced any great work, or accomplished any great deed, who did not believe in God; God is the highest object of imaginative thought. So long as philosophy cannot show a moral law which can be written, concisely and with perfect clearness, upon two tables of stone, education must make its progress through religion."
"Mother," answered Eric, "we believe in God more truly than those who would confine him within the limits of a book, of a church, or of a special form of worship."
"Ah," said his mother, "let us drop the subject. Do you see that butterfly, flitting in great circles against the window pane? The butterfly takes the glass, from its transparency, to be the open air, and thinks that he can pass through it, but dashes his head at last against the glass wall that seemed to be nothing but air. But enough, I am not strong enough for you. If your father still lived, he could help you as no one else can."
The conversation, now turning on the father's death, wandered away from the previous subject.