Villa Eden Part 171

Fraulein Milch, who saw very plainly that Eric had something to communicate, was about to leave the room, but he called out,--

"You are to hear it too, you and my friend here. I entrust it to your true hearts. I am betrothed."

"To Manna?" said Fraulein Milch.

Eric looked amazed, and the Major cried:--

"G.o.d be thanked that she lives in our days; in the past dark ages they would have burnt her for a witch. She knows everything, and sees into the future; n.o.body could ever believe it. But here you have it. As we were sitting together, she said: This very evening Eric and Manna have been betrothed. And when I laughed, she said: Don't laugh, I'll go for a bottle of wine. Look, comrade, there it stands; and she said: They will come here this very evening together. Well, she isn't yet an infallible prophetess, for you've come alone, comrade. Come here, let me kiss you, my heart's brother."

He gave him a hearty kiss, and went on:--

"You have no father, and I,--I'll go with you to the altar when you're married. Give me your hand. And people say, there are no miracles in these days! Every single day there's a miracle wrought, just exactly as much as in the good old times; only we know how to explain it to-day, and in old times they didn't understand it."

Fraulein Milch had uncorked the bottle and filled the gla.s.ses.

"Drink with me, my son!" cried the Major. "Drink! real Johannisberg."

They touched gla.s.ses, and the Major, emptying his, kissed Eric again, and then said,--

"Whew! You've learned to kiss. Give one to Fraulein Milch, too,--you've my permission. Fraulein Milch, no flinching! Come here--there--give her a kiss. She's a friend,--you've not a better in the world except your mother,--and you'll find out she's more than the whole world knows; you deserve to."

"I beg, Herr Major," Fraulein Milch interrupted with trepidation.

"Very well," said the Major, in a soothing tone, "I'll say nothing more. But now a kiss."

Eric and Fraulein Milch kissed each other, the Fraulein's face turning red as fire.

They now engaged in a friendly talk together, the Major taking special delight that Pranken would not get the magnificent girl and her millions; but his chief satisfaction arose from the convent's being circ.u.mvented.

As Eric returned home, late at night, he heard the blackbird still singing: Rejoice in your life!

There was no light in Manna's chamber, but Manna was standing at the window.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SERPENT IN EDEN.

As Manna stood at the window, looking out into the darkness, she laid her burning bands upon the window-sill, uttering brief exclamations to herself of hope and desolation, of rejoicing and complaint. Only the stars saw her face with its changing expression of rapture and of agony, and her kisses were given to the empty air. She looked up to the well-known stars, and all their glittering host seemed but the reflection of Eric's beaming eyes.

"Why am I alone? Why should I ever be alone again for an instant?" she asked of the night.

A feeling of utter loneliness came over her. She thought of the nun whom she had seen the day before at the station, who looked neither to the right or to the left, going from convent to convent, and from one sick-bed to another, and who wanted nothing that the world could give.

How would it be if a voice should now say to her; Thou art mine; turn thy gaze, put off that disfiguring disguise; look around; let others look at thee and greet thee with smiles; hope, despair, be joyous, be sad, be not forgetful of all else in subjection to one fond, painful idea!

It seemed to Manna as if she were standing upon the verge of a dizzy precipice, now about to be dashed over it, and now drawn back; she looked round, for she felt as if Eric's arm were actually about her, and lifting her up into the world. Into the world! What a world! She pa.s.sed her hand over her face, and the hand seemed no longer to be hers. Turning back into the room, she threw herself on her knees.

"Woe is me! I love!" she cried. "No; I thank thee, O G.o.d, that thou hast laid this trial upon me. This trial? no, I cannot help it! Thou, Thou who art Love itself, whom a thousand lips name, and whom yet none can comprehend, forgive and help me, help him, and help us all! May I live in him and in all that is holy and great, all that is beautiful and pure! Here I lie, slay me--slay me, if it is a sin! Heimchen, thou, my sister, a part of my own soul, thou didst flutter a moment in the air, like a blossom fallen from the tree. I, I must, amidst storm and tempest, remain upon the tree of life. O, let the fruit of good deeds ripen in me, O Thou to whom I pray, and whom he reveres, though he prays not, he whose thought is prayer, whose action is prayer, and whose whole life is prayer."

She rose up and stood again at the window, gazing long, in a reverie, up at the starry sky. Out into the night flew something from Manna's window and was caught in the branches of a tree; it was the girdle which she had taken off.

As Eric was sitting alone in his room, he heard a gentle rustling, and was startled as if he had seen a ghost. What is that? He opened the door, and Manna stood before him. They silently embraced, and Manna said:--

"I come to you; I am always with you in my thoughts,--in everything.

Oh, Eric! I am so happy, and so miserably wretched. My father--do you know it?"

"I know everything."

"You know, and still love me?"

She kneeled down and embraced his feet. He raised her, and seating himself by her side, they talked together of the dreadful secret.

"Tell me," she asked, "how you have borne it?"

"Ask rather, how Roland will bear it!"

"Do you think he will hear of it?"

"Certainly, who knows how soon the world----"

"The world! the world!" exclaimed Manna. "No, no; the world is good, the world is beautiful. Oh, thanks to the Unsearchable for giving to me my Eric, my world, my whole world!"

Calmly, clearly, and with wonderful insight. Manna apprehended everything; but in the very midst of the recital, she suddenly threw herself upon Eric's breast, and sobbed forth:--

"Oh! why must I have this knowledge so young, so early; why must I experience and overcome all this?"

After Eric had calmed and soothed her, she went away.

An eye had watched, an eye had seen. But they knew not that an eye had watched and an eye had seen.

In an eye had the morning, on awakening, Manna cried, "I am beloved!

his beloved! Is he awake yet, I wonder?"

She opened the window. A young starling, that was now, even in the autumn, building its nest, found the thin hempen cord on the tree before Manna's window, snapped it up in its bill, and flew away to weave it into the nest. Eric was below in the garden, and Manna called to him:--

"I'll be down immediately." And in the early dawn they embraced and kissed each other, and spoke words of encouragement to one another, needed for what must be borne to-day, for to-day her father and Pranken were expected to return.

They went towards the green cottage hand in hand, sat down where they had sat with the Mother on the previous day, and waited for her waking.

In the midst of all the joy and all the suffering of a secret love, encompa.s.sed by perils, they wanted to learn what had taken glace at the capital. They could not antic.i.p.ate what had really occurred.

Eric let Manna return alone. He told her that he had been at the Major's the evening before, and he, wanted to go again, in order to request him and Fraulein Milch to keep the matter a profound secret.

As Eric was going along the road, a carriage came up; his name was called, and Bella got put.

"I am rejoiced to meet you alone. Do you know that we never see each other alone in these days? But to-day I shall not be with you. Clodwig sends his greeting, and an earnest request that you will visit him at Wolfsgarten. He is lonely and you are lonely, and it will be pleasant for you to pa.s.s with him these first days of separation, and to stay with us until you have got somewhat reconciled to the absence of your dear pupil. Clodwig has grand projects in your behalf. You can go back at once in our carriage to Wolfsgarten, and I shall be here with my sister-in-law until matters are arranged. Where is the dear child?"