CHAPTER XIV.
A NEW SON.
Roland asked to be allowed to come in and wait, and was led into thesitting-room; the servant maid told him that Eric had gone to thecapital, but might possibly return that day. His mother had gone to thegrave of a son, of whose death this was the anniversary. The maid wentout to light the lamp, and Roland was alone in the room where thetwilight shadows gathered; he sat in the corner of a sofa, weary, andhis mind full of varied thoughts.
Wonderful! there are so many human dwellings in the world, one canenter them, and all at once one is seated in a strange house.
Outside, in accordance with an old custom, there sounded from the towera choral, played by trumpets. Roland dreamed of the outer world, nolonger conscious where he was, but remembering only that he had oncetravelled through many countries and towns, and that everywhere in thehouses lived men, who led their own lives, of which other people knewnothing.
Eric's mother entered. She stopped at the door, as Roland rose,saying,--
"Good-evening, mother."
Stretching out her arms, the mother cried,--
"In Heaven's name, Hermann--thou?"
"My name is not Hermann. I am Roland."
The mother approached him trembling; just then the aunt came in with alight, and all was explained. Roland said that he had followed Eric,because he wished never to leave him. The mother kissed him, weepingand sobbing.
Steps were heard on the stairs, and Eric entered. Roland had nostrength to rise from his seat as Eric exclaimed,--
"You--here!"
Roland could hardly utter the words to explain what he had done. Hestared wildly at Eric, who stood before him like a stranger, withouteven holding out his hand. As soon as Roland had finished speaking,Eric said sternly,--
"If you were my son, I would punish you severely for your self-will,and the anxiety you have caused your family."
"You may punish me, I will not stir. No one in the world could punishme like you; you do not punish like----"
The beating of his heart prevented his finishing what he was about tosay, and perhaps also an aversion to complaining of his fatherrestrained him. He had forgotten till now what had last incited him torun away, and only remembered the longing for Eric; now he lookedaround him, as if he saw his father's upraised hand in the air.
The mother took him again into her arms, saying,--
"Your willingness to bear punishment atones for and washes outeverything."
"Stay here with my mother," said Eric, sternly; "I will come backdirectly." He hurried out, and sent a telegram to Herr Sonnenkamp, withthe inquiry whether he would come for Roland, or wished to have himbrought home.
When Eric returned, he found Roland already asleep on the sofa. He wastired out, and it was with great difficulty that they could awaken himto be put to bed. Eric sat a long time with his mother, talking of thewonderful manner in which fate seemed playing with them.
His mother related how, as she came from the churchyard, the painfulthought had oppressed her that even she, his own mother, could notquite recall how Hermann had looked. She could bring his face to mind,because it was preserved in the photograph which hung, in its frame ofimmortelles, just over her sewing-machine in the bay-window. ButHermann's motions, his gait, his way of throwing back his head with itsthick brown hair, of laughing, jesting, and caressing; the sound of hisvoice, the low, dove-like laugh,--all these had vanished from her--hismother. So she had walked on, with downcast eyes, often stopping, asshe tried hard to call up the image of the lost one. So she had comehome, and here came to meet her a form like Hermann, and it had criedout to her,--"Good-evening, mother!" in his very tone. She could nottell why she had not fainted, and she spoke now of Roland with the samedelight which Eric had felt when he saw him for the first time.
Eric, on his side, told her of the reasons for and against undertakingthe school, and then of the Minister's offer. He would there enter aposition which his father had not reached, and which would, perhaps,have saved his life. The idea of receiving an appointment byinheritance, and through favor, without any merit of his own, oppressedhim somewhat.
His mother soothed both these scruples, which were really one, andquite uncalled for, as he had the right to collect the debt which wasdue to his father, and still more if it was over due.
Very lightly she touched upon the good fortune of the nobility, inbeing able to receive what had been stored up by past generations, andto hand it down to future descendants. With a slightly jesting tone shesaid,--
"Our professor of political economy used to say that capital wasaccumulated labor; so family standing is nothing but accumulatedhonor."
There were times, though they were rare, when the mother, from thestandpoint of her inherited opinions and habits, saw in many of thesentiments and views of the burgher class an obstinate and perverseindependence which she could not approve. In her husband this hadrarely and slightly shown itself, but in Eric it was more active; hehad that haughty self-reliance which makes a man unwilling to thank anyone but himself for his position and power.
She had never repented leaving her own class to marry her husband, shehad been too happy for that; but she saw in Eric's position somethinglike a grievous consequence of her own act. Moved by these thoughts,which she never expressed, she said,--
"I can easily understand how you feel drawn to this American; there isthe greatest honor in being a self-made man. Let us unite the two plansthen. You can bring it about, since the boy is in your hands, that theAmerican shall entrust him to you, and you can at the same timemaintain an independent position."
Eric replied that his objection to the situation did not consist simplyin his receiving it as a favor; the task of conducting foreign visitorsof princely rank through the art-collections was distasteful to him; hedid not think that he could conform himself to it.
Suddenly his mother remembered that a letter had come for him, and shegave it to him. It was from Clodwig. The noble man placed at Eric'sdisposal twice the sum that he had asked for. Eric was made happy bythis news, and his mother nodded with hearty assent when he said thatthe gift rejoiced him, but still more did the assurance that hisconfidence in men had met with so glorious a confirmation.
Midnight was past, and mother and son still sat together. Eric beggedhis mother to go to bed and leave him to wait for Sonnenkamp's reply.He sat long alone in the night, thinking over all which had passed,till sleep overcame him.
In the spirits of men, as well as in the history of nations, thoughtsand sentiments are formed which are to be brought into action fromtheir own free will, when suddenly there comes an over-mastering fact,which converts the free choice into an inevitable necessity. ThusEric's entrance into Sonnenkamp's household seemed to have been made anunavoidable necessity by Roland's rash step.
Eric went again, with scarcely audible steps, into the boy's room. Sowholly was his spirit turned toward him that the sleeping child moaned,"Eric," but soon, turning over, slept soundly again.
Eric went back to the sitting-room, and then it first occurred to himthat there was no night-watch at the telegraph office in Sonnenkamp'sneighborhood; the father could not receive the news till morning. Ericalso now went to bed.
Everything was late in the house of the professor's wife the nextmorning; Eric slept longest. When he entered the sitting-room, he foundRoland already with his mother, holding a small wooden coffee-mill inhis left hand and turning it with his right. This mill was an heir-loomwhich had belonged to Eric's grandfather, who had been a distinguishedanatomist at the university. The mother had already told Roland this,and had shown him all sorts of ancient household furniture, also relicsof the times of the Huguenots.
"Ah, how pleasant it is here with you!" cried Roland to Eric, as heentered.
Something of long-established family existence opened upon the youngspirit, and, at this morning hour, with the friendly eyes of threepeople resting upon him, Roland felt ve
ry content in the simple,old-fashioned, domestic life.