CHAPTER XI.
MEDUSA AND VICTORIA.
Clodwig looked down for some time after Bella had gone. He nodded toEric as if he would greet him anew. But Bella soon returned, bearingthe parrot on her hand, and stroking it. She walked up and down theroom, lingering when Eric related how he had to-day, tearing himself byforce away from the view of the river, gone back into the country, andhad conversed with many persons.
Clodwig dwelt at length upon his pet theory, that traces of the RomanColonists were still preserved in the physiognomy and character of thepeople.
Bella, apparently unwilling to be obliged to hear this again,interrupted, with good-humored impertinence,--"When one turns himselfaway from the Rhine, he has the feeling, or at least I have, that someone, it may be Father Rhine himself, looks after me and calls out, 'Doturn round!'"
"We men do not always feel that we are looked at," replied Clodwig, andrequested Eric to give his opinion about the earthen vase, a presentthe day before from the Justice, which was standing on a side-table inthe breakfast-room. Eric readily complied, and they went into theadjoining room, filled with a great variety of articles found buried inthe ground. Eric, fresh from the study of antiquities, showed himselfso familiar with all the related topics, that Bella could not refrainfrom expressing her astonishment.
"You are a good teacher, and it must be a pleasure to be instructedby you." Eric thanked her, and Bella continued with friendlyaffability,--"Yes, indeed! many people give instruction in order tomake a brilliant appearance, and many deal forth their knowledgereluctantly; but you, Doctor, teach like a beneficent friend whodelights in being able to impart, but takes a yet greater pleasure inbestowing a benefit upon the recipient; and you impart in such a waythat one is not only convinced you understand the matter, but believesthat he himself does."
Clodwig looked up in amazement, for he had said the evening beforeprecisely the same thing of Eric's father, while making mention of thefact that the only little treatise ever published by him had receivedthe disinterested help of Professor Dournay.
Bella withdrew after having thus shown her friendliness and heradmiring surprise. The two men sat together for a long time after this,and then went to Eric's room, where Eric handed to the count a copy ofhis Doctor's thesis; and it then first occurred to him how strangely ithad happened that he had there discussed the apocryphal treatise ofPlato, "Concerning Riches," and now he was to be called upon to educateone under conditions of wealth. Eric and Clodwig were greatly struck bythis coincidence.
Clodwig requested Eric to translate the manuscript from Latin intoGerman. He did so, and it was to them a time of real enjoyment.
When they arose, Clodwig observed to Eric how strange it must appear tohim to find the Medusa and Victoria opposite each other; but heconfessed to a heresy which met with his own approval, though not inaccordance with the received scientific explanation. The Medusa was tohim the expression of all-consuming passion, which stiffens with horrorthe sinning beholder who sees therein the image of himself; and it wasvery significant that the ancients represented this entire abandonmentof all the higher spiritual nature through a womanly form, theunrestrained indulgence of passion being opposite to the trulyfeminine, and so the more unseemly. The Victoria of Rauch, on the otherhand, appeared to him to be the embodiment of an eminently modernspiritual conception.
"This countenance is wonderfully like"--he did not finish the sentence,but, stammeringly beginning another, continued: "This is not thatGoddess of Victory who wears proudly and loftily the crown upon hergleaming forehead; this is the representation of victory which isinwardly sad that there is a foe to be conquered. Yes, still further,this Victoria is to me the goddess of victory over self, which isalways the grandest victory."
After Clodwig had made this remark, he said, "Now I leave you toyourself; you have already talked too much to-day and yesterday." Ericremained alone, and while he was writing to his mother, Clodwig satwith Bella and said to her:--
"This young man is a genius, and ought not to live in a dependentsituation, bound to routine service; he ought to be free like a bird,singing, flying, as he will, without any fixed and unalterable limitsof time and occupation, and especially he ought to be by himself. It isa joy to meet with such originality and depth."
"Is he not too well aware of his own worth?" asked Bella, a flash ofdispleasure gleaming in her eyes.
"Not at all. He does not wish to shine, and yet he is genuine light. Ifeel as if I stood in the clear sunshine of the spirit; he is a man ofpure character, and I am at home with him in the inmost realities, as Iam with myself." Bella said nothing, and Clodwig continued:--"I likeespecially in him, that he lets one who is talking with him completehis sentence; he does not interrupt by any movement or any change offeature; and in such an active and richly endowed mind this is doublyvaluable, and something more than mere civility."
Bella still kept silence, bent over her embroidery, on which she wasdiligently intent. At last she looked up, and with a beamingcountenance, said, "I rejoice in your joy."
"And I should like to perpetuate this joy," Clodwig replied.
"He is a handsome man," added Bella.
Clodwig answered, smiling, "Now, since you have called my attention toit, I am reminded how handsome he is. But he does not plume himselfupon his good looks, and I think _that_ to be genuine beauty, which,when present has nothing strikingly prominent, all being in harmoniouscombination, but which, when thought of afterwards, reveals new andbeautiful attributes and forms. Most handsome men are forever lookinginto a mirror visible only to themselves. But why should I give up thisman to somebody else, and above all to this Sonnenkamp? I am situatedso that I can offer him a home with me for years! Why not do it?
"Why not?" said Bella, putting away her embroidery. "I need not assureyou that I have no other joy in life than yours. So it is now with thisbrief happiness of yours, this childlike confidence you place in thisnoble-looking man. I see also that he has something elevated in hisnature; he imparts much and gladly, is stimulating and quickening."
"Why not then?"
"Because we want to be alone! Clodwig, let us be by ourselves! It is mydesire that even my brother should soon leave us; every third person,whether related by blood or by the most intimate spiritual ties, causesa separation, so that we do not have exclusive possession of eachother."
While she was speaking, she had placed her hand on Clodwig's arm, andnow she grasped his hand and stroked it. As Clodwig went away, Bellalooked after him, shaking her head.
Bella came to the dinner-table handsomely dressed, and with a singlerose in her hair. The men appeared weary, but she was extremelyanimated. She spoke a great deal of the happiness she had always had inbeing at the house of Eric's parents, where no ignoble word was everuttered, for the mother cherished every high thought, like a priestesstending and feeding the smallest flame of the ideal on the householdaltar. Eric, who thought that he was proof against any furtherexcitement, experienced a new and elevated emotion.
They drove out at noon, and Bella was silent during the ride. Theyvisited a former Roman encampment. Bella sat alone under a tree, upon acovering spread upon the ground, and the men walked about.
When they came together around the evening lamp, Bella seemed like anentirely different person, having for the third time, that day, changedher dress. She was now very lively.
Bella had never been, during her whole life, dissatisfied with herself;she had never repented anything she had done, always saying. You werefully justified, at the moment when you acted. She did not wish at thistime to appear in a false light to her husband's favorite, or as a meretrifling appendage; Eric should know who she was, that she was not onlyClodwig's wife, but over and above all, Bella von Pranken.
She was ready to play as soon as Clodwig expressed the wish to hearher. The quick and eager haste with which she took off her ringing andrattling bracelets, which Eric at once with marked attentivenessrec
eived from her hand and placed upon the marble table under themirror,--the manner in which she poised her hands like two flutteringpinions, and then brought them down upon the keys, like a swimmer whois in his element,--all served to show how resolved she was to occupyno second place. And never, since she had been Clodwig's wife, hadBella played as she now did in the presence of a third person,reserving hitherto her masterly performance on the piano for Clodwigalone. To-day her execution displayed such zest and skill that Clodwighimself, who knew every peculiar excellence in her method of playing,received a new surprise and delight.
During a pause, Eric seemed to strike the right key by remarking, that,after such elevated enjoyment in the intercourse with noble persons andin the wide survey of unbounded nature, there is nothing for the soulbut to let the feelings dissolve and die away in the unlimited andshoreless ethereal atmosphere of music. A realm of waking dreams isthen opened to us, a feeling of the infinite is awakened, that createsa something beyond what any word or look can express, and which isnever unfolded by any sight or sound of nature from the unfathomed andmysterious depths of the human soul. As in answer to the inquiry, whatinfluence predominated in him before composing, Mozart said, 'nothingbut music which _would_ come out,'--the pure musical impulse withoutany definite conception, without any limiting idea, only a rhythmic,billowy undulation of tones,--so it is that we, after the tension ofthought and observation, through music are admitted into that pure,undefined, yet all-encompassing realm, which is a chaos, but a chaosthat is no longer formless and void.
Bella, who sat reclining far back in a large arm-chair, gazed at Ericin such rapt wonder, that he dropt his eyes, unconsciously fixed uponher. To the surprise of both the men she suddenly rose, and bade themgood night. She first gave her hand to Clodwig, then to Eric, and thento Clodwig again, and quickly went out.
Clodwig remained only a short time with his guest, and then he alsotook his leave. Eric went, in a sort of ecstacy, to his chamber. Howrich was the world! what a day this had been from the dawn in the dewywood even until this moment! and human happiness was a reality! Herewere two who had attained rest and blessedness, such as could hardly bebelieved to exist in the actual world.
While he was standing still upon the carpeted stairs, from unconsciousthoughts of the rich house he was about to enter, and consciousthoughts of the full and rounded existence of his host and hostess, thequestion suddenly occurred to him, Is this beautiful life, thisperfecting of the soul in an extended view of nature, and itssaturation in all that is beautiful in science and art, possible towealth only, to freedom from care and want, to emancipation from alllabor and from common needs?
As, holding the light in his hand, he entered the balcony chamber, heremained standing terrified, as if a ghost had appeared to him, beforethe bust of the Medusa, which with open mouth fixed upon him itsoverpowering and paralyzing gaze.
How is this? how has this image so suddenly assumed this likeness? DidClodwig have any suspicion of it? It was indeed terrible.
Eric turned about, and now, as if it were some trick played upon him byan evil spirit, the contrasted image also, the Victoria, has a likenessto Bella when, silent and quiet, she modestly and humbly bent down herhead.
Had Clodwig any suspicion of this wonderful play of opposites, and didhe not acknowledge this, this morning when he avowed his heresy to thereceived opinion?
The pulse in Eric's temples beat violently. He put out the light,looked for a long time out into the dark night, and sought to recallafresh to his recollection the bright plenitude of the day'sexperience.