CHAPTER XV.
EVERYTHING IN FLAMES.
With lingering step they walked by each other's side, Manna oftenlooking aside to survey the landscape, and yet conscious all the timethat Eric was observing her. And then Eric would turn away, stillfeeling that her eye rested upon him.
"You are happy in possessing the thoughts of such a father," saidManna, feelingly.
Eric could make no reply, for the feeling oppressed him, how the poorrich child would be overwhelmed, if she knew what he did concerning herown father; he had no conception that Manna's words were wrung out bythis very tribulation.
"I cannot become the heir of my father's thoughts," he said, after aninterval. "Each child must live out his own life."
They continued to walk side by side, and it seemed to them, at everystep, that they must stop and hold each other in a loving embrace.
"Roland and my father are now on their way home," said Manna.
"And Herr von Pranken also," Eric was about to add, but refrained fromdoing it.
Manna perhaps felt that he might think strangely of her omitting tomention Pranken's name, and she asked:--
"Were not you and Baron von Pranken formerly intimate friends?"
"We were comrades, never friends."
They were silent again; there were so many things to be spoken of,crowding upon both of them, that they did not seem to know where tobegin.
The evening bell tolled, and Manna saw that Eric did not remove hishat. She trembled. Every thing stood as an obstacle between them; eventhe Church separated them from each other.
Manna wore around her waist, beneath her clothes, a small hempen cordthat a nun had given her as a perpetual reminder of her promise toassume in public the hempen girdle. It seemed to her now as if thehidden cord were suddenly tightened, and then it appeared to havebecome loosened. With her left hand she grasped tightly a tree by theroad-side, and breathed heavily.
"What is the matter?" asked Eric.
"Oh, nothing, and every thing. I thank you for remaining with us. Lookthere--there above--high over the castle-tower, two falcons are flying.Ah, if one could thus mount aloft, and leave behind and forget all thatis beneath! What was life to me? A labor, a labor upon our shroud. Iwanted to live above the world and do penance, to implore heaven'sgrace in another's behalf--in behalf of another! Ah, I can do it nolonger--no longer."
She passed her hand over her forehead, and what she said she knew not.She continued walking, and yet she felt as if she would like to remainin the same spot.
A woman, who was mowing the third crop of grass in the meadow, calledout to Manna, saying that her father had got well, and would help takein the hay to-morrow.
"I wish I was yonder mower," Manna exclaimed.
"Forgive me," answered Eric, "if I cannot help expressing my surpriseat your uttering a wish like that."
"I, like that? Why should I not?"
"You have to-day shown such clearness of thought, that I cannotcomprehend your giving utterance to an expression so common on the lipsof thousands. What does it mean, when one says, 'I would like to besomebody else'? If you were some one else, you would still not be adifferent person; and if you retain the consciousness you had before,you would not be some one else. To speak in this way is not onlyunreasonable, but, as I view it, irreligious."
Manna stopped, and Eric continued,--
"We are what we are, not through our own instrumentality, but throughan eternal ordination for which we have no other name but God. We musttry to reconcile ourselves to what we are, and to be happy in ourcondition, whether poorer rich, beautiful or ugly."
"Well, I will never again indulge or utter so irrational a thought,"replied Manna, extending her hand to Eric. She trembled.
They walked along in silence. It began to be dusk in the shaded paths;neither of them spoke.
"I see my mother yonder," said Manna, sighing deeply as she stopped.
Did she not want to meet her mother while walking with Eric? She hadoften walked with him, and he seemed like a brother; there was no harmin being alone with him.
"I bid you farewell here," Manna added in a low tone. "What a day thishas been! Has it been only a day?"
"And as this sun now going down," interposed Eric, "will again return,and be the same in good days and in evil days, so you have a truefriend in me, one whose eye watches over you, and will watch over youuntil it shall be closed by death."
"I know it! I know it!" cried Manna. "O God, I'm sure of it!"
She trembled violently.
"I entreat you, go now," she added.
Eric turned away, but looking back, he saw that Manna was kneeling atthe foot of a large fir-tree, while the descending sun shone upon hercountenance, as she stretched her folded hands up towards heaven. Thenshe rose up; he hastened to meet her as she came towards him, and theywere enfolded in each other's arms.
"Heaven and earth, do what ye will!" she cried. "Now come what will!"
They held each other in a close embrace, as if they had but one breath,and were eternally joined in one kiss.
"You are mine! mine! my father, my hope, my world! Oh, Eric, leave menot again,--never again!"
"I leave you?"
"No, you cannot. Heaven will forgive,--no, will bless. See, Eric!Everything is on fire, the trees, the grass, the Rhine, the mountains,the sky, everything is on fire! Ah, Eric, if the whole earth were inflames, I would hold thee in my arms, and in thine arms would I gladlydie. Take me, kill me, do with me what you will, I can't do otherwise."
"Come, look up. Is it indeed you?" replied Eric. "You know not how Ihave struggled. Now you are here, now you are mine! You are, mine, youcall me thine. Oh, call me so once more."
In trembling accents, now beginning and now breaking off again, theyrelated to each other their struggles with themselves and with theworld around them, and they recognized each other's purity andtruthfulness of soul; and in proportion as Manna had hitherto closedher heart to Eric, the whole fountain of her love now welled up andoverflowed.
As they stood with hands clasped, Eric said,--
"O Manna, how I wish you could be so happy as to see your own look."
"And you yours. Everyone who sees and knows you must love you. How thencan I help it, who see and know you as nobody else can?"
They kissed each other with closed eyes, and over them the treesrustled in the gentle breeze of evening.
On that bench where he had once sat with Bella, Eric now sat by Manna'sside, and a thrill passed through him as he thought of that time. Heshrank from the recollection. With love's penetrating glance Mannanoticed the passing emotion, and asked:--
"Have you too had to wrestle and struggle so sorely, before you saw andacknowledged that it must be?"
"Ah, let us not recall it; care and trouble, conflict and struggle,will be sure to come. Now is the marriage of our spirits; there must beno other thought, no discordant tone. We are blessed, twice blessed. Iknow that you are mine as I am yours. It must be so."
They embraced; and as she cried, "O, Eric, I. could bear you in my armsover all the mountains!" He saw subdued in her a wild, lawless,passionate strength of nature, such as a daughter of Sonnenkamp mustinherit.
No one who had seen the modest, humble, gentle child of the morningcould have believed that she could become so impassioned. Eric felthimself taken possession of by a stronger power.
"Ah, yes," she exclaimed, as if she read his soul. "You think I am apassionate child, do you not? You've no idea how untamed I am; but youshall never see it again, never, rely upon that." She sat by his side,stroking his hand, and with an arch glance she said:--
"Ah, dear Eric, you don't know what a foolish child I am, and you areso learned and wise. Now tell me truly without any reserve--you cantell me what you please, for I am yours now--tell me truly, do youhonestly believe that I am worthy of you? I am so ignorant andinsignificant compared with you!"
"Ignorant and insignific
ant? You can freely, fearlessly, and withoutany qualification, match yourself with any one else in sincereaspiration, in pure self-devotion, and in disinterested affection. Noone can surpass you here; everything else is of no account. Knowledge,beauty, wealthy--these do not bring love."
"And I will learn a great deal from you," said Manna, gently caressingand kissing his hands. "Ah, keep on talking; say what you will; it ismusic to me, you cannot think how like music it is to hear you. And doyou know that I have heard you sing too? Twice. Once in the greatfestival, and once here on the Rhine."
"And do you know," he replied, "that I saw you in the twilight at theconvent?"
"Yes. You looked at me in this way." She tried to imitate his look.
"And at that time, when we returned from the festival, a dozen of thepupils were in love with you; but I was afraid of you, and yet I cannotnow imagine it. What will they say in the convent? They will look uponme as a hypocrite in regard to you, and--oh, Eric, how much I renounce,but I renounce it willingly. And oh, how rejoiced Roland will be!"
"But your parents?"
"Yes, my parents!" said she. "My parents!" Her voice became fainter,her countenance turned suddenly pale, and she drew closer to Eric, asif she were cold. He put his hand upon her head, and played with hertresses, while she held his other hand closely pressed to her lips. Nowords were needed, they could not speak, for each wanted to say to theother: Do you know what I would say?
"Why do you tremble so, all at once?" asked Manna.
"Ah, I wish you were not rich."
"I wish so too," said she, in a drowsy tone. "Let us be quiet. So--letme sleep here only half a minute. Oh, how like music is the beating ofyour heart!" She reclined her head for a few moments against hisbreast, and then said:--
"A hundred years have passed over me, a blissful hundred years. Now Iam strong and fresh and wide-awake; now forget all I have done andsaid, all except one thing, that I am yours, and I love you so long asI breathe, and you are mine."
"You wanted to become a nun, and I--I wanted also to renounce theworld."
"But are you not a Huguenot."
"I did not mean that, my Manna. I wanted to renounce what is called theworld, and be wholly devoted to a life of thought."
"And can you not do that if I am yours?"
"No. But why speak of this now? I am no longer alone, I am myself andyou too!"
"And I too am you as well as myself," repeated Manna. "Now I must go tomy mother," she said, raising herself up; "no one is to know about us,neither your mother nor mine, no one."
"Shall I see you this evening in the garden?"
"No, it will be better not to see each other until to-morrow; Icannot--I must first compose myself. Ah, I deny myself. Early to-morrowmorning."
She now untied a blue silk scarf that she wore around her neck, andplaced it about his.
Another kiss, and still another, and they parted.