Villa Eden Part 182

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE OPPRESSED.

Roland entered the cottage, and found the Professorin, Eric, and Manna in grave conversation together; they had imparted the dreadful secret to each other, and what weighed the most heavily upon them was the thought how Roland would bear it when he should learn of it. He now came in and said:--

"Manna, we are disgraced children!"

The three hastened to him, and affectionately embraced and kissed him.

"Be strong, brother!" said Eric, throwing his arms around him. "I can blow you strong, my brother."

Hiawatha's saying echoed in Roland's soul, and he looked around on all sides, as if bewildered. He sat down speechless on a chair, and the three dear to him sat in silence near him.

Sonnenkamp, meanwhile, had got out at the entrance of the park, and walked towards the villa; it seemed to him as if the ground would give way under his feet, and the house and trees vanish. Are you sick? he asked himself. You are not to be sick! He whistled softly to himself; his gigantic strength still held out.

Here everything is as it was, and you yourself are here, too, he said, exerting a powerful control over himself, as he stood upon his property and grounds. He seemed to be wrestling with a hostile world enlisted against him, and he repelled the encompa.s.sing foes with heroic strength; they should not cut off the sources of his confidence and power. He felt himself well armed and equipped. Pranken is right; one must not let himself be cowed, one must bid defiance to the world, and then it will bow itself in humility, and in a year--no, much sooner, all will come and flatter him.

He remained standing on the steps, holding on by the railing, for all his strength seemed exhausted; but drawing a deep breath, and plucking up his courage, as it were, he soon recovered his self-possession. He looked about without constraint, he had become so accustomed to feigning, that he was determined no one should see in him any trace of disturbance.

He went up the steps with a firm and steady stride. He took Pranken's arm, and told him in a candid tone how highly he esteemed him and admired his strength, of which he already felt the effect in himself.

He went with Pranken to his room, nodding to everything, which still held its place here, and should hold it firmly for the time to come. He requested his son--so he called Pranken--his son, of whom he was proud, to impart what had happened to Frau Ceres, the very first thing, in his quiet and self-possessed, his easy, his all-subduing manner that he so much admired.

"Make no reply if she storms. This stormy outburst is no longer formidable."

In this declaration there was a sort of tranquillizing influence which Sonnenkamp himself felt. It is better that the whole world should stand up in arms against him, than to be forever and forever under the dominion of this crafty, threatening, and annoying woman. Now her weapon was gone, and the dagger which she had always kept hidden was now unsheathed in the eyes of all the world, and was in every hand.

Pranken went to Frau Ceres; he had to wait a long time in the ante-room, but at last Fraulein Perini came out.

Pranken briefly told her that the secret she had confided to him, and which he had kept so faithfully, was now made public.

"So soon?" said Fraulein Perini; and when Pranken inquired how Frau Ceres would be likely to receive the annihilation of her hopes of being enn.o.bled, and the whole detestable uproar in the world, she replied, smiling, that she could not tell, for Frau Ceres was now suffering under a terrible trial of a wholly different kind.

She could hardly go on, she was so choked with laughter, but finally it came out.

Yesterday morning, Frau Ceres in some incomprehensible way had broken off her most beautiful nail, a real prodigy of most careful cheris.h.i.+ng, and she was utterly inconsolable.

Pranken could not help joining in the laugh. He accompanied Fraulein Perini into the room.

Frau Ceres gave him her left hand to kiss, holding the right carefully concealed. She asked whether Pranken had brought with him the armorial device, and pointed to an embroidery frame on which she wanted at once to work the coat-of-arms, and also to an altar-cloth, whose border was already completed.

Pranken now broke the news to her in a very careful manner.

"And he always said I was stupid! I am cleverer than he," Frau Ceres burst out; "I always told him that Europe was no place for us, and that we ought to have remained where we were. Hasn't he caught it now? He's ashamed to come himself, and so he has sent you. He's ashamed, because I, the simpleton, who had never learned anything, knew the affair so much better than he did."

In this first moment, a mischievous joy seemed to be Frau Ceres'

predominant feeling; the man who had always treated her as a feeble plaything must now see that her ideas were more correct than his.

She sat long in silence, moving her lips, and with a scornful, exultant expression, as if she were uttering to her husband all her present thoughts. Pranken thought it inc.u.mbent on him to add, that in a short time the family would be as much respected as before.

"Do you believe that we shall be enn.o.bled then?"

Pranken was perplexed what reply to make, for it seemed as if the woman did not yet comprehend what had happened. He evaded a direct answer, and only said that he remained true to the family, and regarded himself as a son of the house.

"Yes, to-morrow ought to be the wedding. Here in Europe, you have so many formalities. I'll drive to church with you. But where's Manna? She has horribly neglected me."

"But, my dear Baron, it is well, this connection with the tutor's family will now come to an end. Don't let it continue any longer, dear Baron."

She requested Fraulein Perini to tell Manna to come to her.

Pranken could not comprehend how this woman, half childish, half cunning, sometimes malicious, sometimes peevish, could be also sometimes so affectionate; but there was no time now to try to solve the riddle. He besought the Mother--such was the appellation he now gave to Frau Ceres--to leave Manna alone for a few days; he would first see her alone, and then they would come together to the mother and ask her blessing.

"I give you my blessing now," said Frau Ceres, forgetting herself so far as to give him both hands.

She told him that Bella had been there, and had hardly shown herself to her; that she had come, and then had driven away again in a manner that she couldn't comprehend at all.

Here a shot was heard.

"He has shot himself; he has done it now!" cried Frau Ceres, in a singular tone; it was not lamentation, nor laughter, but something peculiar, utterly inexplicable.

Pranken hurried away.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HAND-WRITING ON THE WALL.

Sonnenkamp had seated himself in his room, and the letter-bag lay before him, but he did not open it. What matters it what the outside world desired! One thought was uppermost, that he must do something, something startling, something that would shatter the whole world to pieces. What? He did not yet know. He sat speechless in the midst of the fairest landscape, with the windows darkened, as in a cellar.

No, not harm thyself, that wouldn't do! anything but weakness, cried he to himself. Why be afraid of this old sentimental spinster, Europe, with her fine modes of speech! What hast thou done? Thou hast acted with due reflection, and thou standest by what thou hast done. It is well that there's nothing more to conceal, that everything is known.

He rose and went into the park. From a lofty acacia-tree one of the main branches was hanging down, which had been broken, so that the tree was like a bird that had lost one of its wings. The head-gardener told Sonnenkamp that a gust of wind had swept over the park the night before. Sonnenkamp nodded several times as he looked at the tree, and then indulged in his inaudible whistle.

A gust of wind may break down a tree like this, but a man like him stands firm.

He went farther on, and coming to the fruit-garden, saw the splendid show of fruit upon the trees; gla.s.s bell-shaped vessels, filled with water, were hung by wires underneath the different fruits, so that they might be continually supplied with moisture, and be made to grow. All this you can effect; you can direct nature, why not man? why not destiny? He gazed at the huge fruits as if they could give him an answer, but they remained dumb. He stood for a long time before one tree, that had been trained to the shape of a coronet, and stared at the branches.

In a spider's-web stretched between two twigs a fly was struggling--whew! how convulsively it struggled! perhaps it moaned also, but we couldn't hear it. Yes, high and n.o.ble fly, you have a fate no different from that of the human fly. Everywhere spiders--yes, spiders! And you are better off, you will be speedily eaten.

Sonnenkamp struck his forehead with his clenched fist: he was angry with his brain, that led him into such subtile speculations.

He turned away and went back to his room. The best thing you can do, he said to himself, is to make a speedy exit; then are your children free, and you are free too. He took a revolver from the wall just as some one knocked at the door.

"What's the matter? what do you want?" A groom gave his name, and Sonnenkamp opened the door. The groom informed him that his black horse rattled in the throat and foamed at the mouth; that he was sick, and they could not tell what ailed him.