CHAPTER XIX.
READ BY ANOTHER'S EYES.
On looking at the picture, the next day, Bella was painfullydissatisfied with her work. What she had done with so much care anddiligence seemed to her false in drawing and expression. She grewpositively angry over it, and would have made a fresh beginning had notClodwig, by his gentle persuasions and judicious praise of the manyexcellencies of her picture, succeeded in soothing her. She could nothelp saying, however, with some bitterness, that it was her fate tohave everything she undertook turn out otherwise than she had desired,and upon Clodwig's assuring her that such was the necessary result ofevery attempt to embody our conceptions, she exclaimed impatiently, "Iam not what I am." The real cause of her discontent was hard todetermine. It was more than the mere dissatisfaction of the artist anddisappointment in her own powers.
The strict discipline which Eric had wished to maintain was now muchbroken in upon. Bella always carried through whatever plan she had laidout for herself, acting upon her favorite theory that it was well toallow men to think they had some authority, but that must be all.
Roland soon turned the conversation to the subject always uppermost inhis mind, the life of Franklin. Bella expressed a wish to learnsomething about it, and Clodwig, after a little sketch had been givenof what bad been already gone over, was quite ready to resume thereading where it had been dropped before. Eric and Roland, who sat upona raised platform, listened eagerly. The reading gave rise to many ananimated discussion, for Bella entered with remarkable ease andreadiness into everything that was presented to her. Eric was disturbedby her speedy detection in Franklin of "a certain dry pedantry, astinginess of nature," which her acute criticisms set forth in strongrelief. He could feel the emotion her words caused in Roland, who wassitting on his knee.
In these days, it is impossible for a young man of Roland's antecedentsand present position to preserve a perfect ideal. If rightly guided,and established on a solid footing, it might perhaps be useful for himto see his ideal attacked, and even distorted.
With all the eloquence at his command, Eric stated the difficulty thatbeset the enlightened mind of the present day, in having noauthoritative voice in the place of that of the Church, to say at everypoint of life's journey, "Follow thou me." We moderns must recognizewhat is pure and lofty in noble natures, though cramped by the manylimitations incident to our age and individual constitution.
Bella's pencil worked rapidly while he was speaking, and she oftennodded, her head assentingly. When he ended she looked full at him, andsaid,--
"You are the best teacher I ever met with;" then, with beaming eyes andglowing cheeks, she turned again to her work.
"That depends upon the pupil," answered Eric, politely acknowledgingthe compliment.
"I want you, now," continued Bella, still blushing deeply, "I want youto lay your hand on Roland's head. Please do; it will give preciselythe effect I desire. Please do as I say."
He consented, protesting at the same time that the idea did not pleasehim, for Roland should learn to carry his head free.
Bella shook her head with vexation, and continued her work, no longer,however, on the figure of Eric, but solely on that of Roland.
"Now I have it!" she suddenly exclaimed; "that is it! You resembleMurillo's St. Anthony."
"That is just what I noticed," cried Roland. "Manna scolded me for itat the musical festival."
Clodwig also agreed with his wife.
"It is a favorite picture of mine," he said. "How plainly I can see itnow before me! The figure of Anthony on his knees, with a knotted staffbeside him; the landscape barely indicated; a tree in the background,and the thicket near by. Angels are playing on the ground and floatingin the air; one turns over the leaves of the Saint's book, whileanother holds up to an angel hovering in the heavens a lily which hasgrown from the earth; the flower thus forming, as it were, a linkbetween heaven and earth."
Eric was somewhat embarrassed by Roland's relating how he had fallenasleep in the chapel of the convent, and how suddenly the black nunstood beside him, and he saw the picture above him.
A request of Eric's that the reading might stop here, and the reasonson which he based his request, assumed various shapes in the minds ofhis hearers.
"To-day's experience convinces me," he said, "that we cannot controlour thoughts or pursue them to any worthy issue, when obliged to remainin a position foreign to those thoughts, or in one at least that has noconnection with them. There is a mysterious sympathy between ourthoughts and the position and state of our bodies."
Eric's words worked in four different ways upon the party assembled. Inhis own case, they served to describe his position as tutor. Rolandthought of the masons at work on the castle, and wondered what theymust be thinking of while perched in mid air on their scaffoldings, orwhile hammering the stone. Clodwig, too, must have found the words bearin some way upon his life, for he shook his head and pressed his lipshard together, as he was wont to do when thinking. But upon Bella theyproduced the most striking impression; she suddenly let fall from onehand her pencils, and from the other the bread which she used for theoccasional erasing of a line. Eric instantly restored them to her, andshe took them from him with a vacant look and no word of thanks. Hehad brought before her the picture of her married life. Thus this onekey-note had struck four different chords.
For a long time no word was spoken.
The presence of Clodwig and his family at Villa Eden caused greatexcitement in the neighborhood, and appeared to place the tutor in avery peculiar position, Pranken, however, viewed the matter quitedifferently, and, as acknowledged son of the house, invited to VillaEden the Justice, with his wife and daughter, who had just returnedfrom the Baths.
His manner towards Lina was particularly friendly and intimate; he tooklong walks in the garden with her, and made her tell him about her lifein a convent, which she did most amusingly, giving comical descriptionsof the sisters, the Superior, and her different companions. Her onlyobject in staying at the convent had been the learning of foreignlanguages. Lina's perpetually gay spirits began to have a cheeringeffect upon the melancholy Pranken. Something of the Pranken of oldtimes was roused within him. Why need the present be empty and barren?it said. Bella has her flirtation with the Captain, why should he nothave his with Lina? Why not indulge in a little harmless jesting,perhaps even admit the excitement of some feeling? He could controlhimself at any moment.
The old Pranken, the Pranken of the days before, seized his rescuedmoustache with both hands and twirled it in the air.
It was a good idea, during this pause in his life, to amuse himselfwith the Justice's Lina. He could imagine himself transported back tothe days before that visit to the convent, and add this to the manyother experiences of his past life which Manna would have to forget.
Lina meanwhile received his attentions very unconcernedly, showingequal friendliness of manner towards both him and Eric, whom she alwayscalled her brother in music.
There was a constant stream of jesting and laughter in the Villa andpark. One day Pranken induced his brother-in-law to go boating withLina and himself, while Bella remained at home to draw. He wanted totake Roland also, wishing, with a certain recklessness, to leave theother two alone together for once. But Roland would not leave Eric; heeven openly avoided Pranken's society.
Lina sang gaily as they sat together in the boat. Her love-songs weregiven with a sweetness, an abandonment, that Pranken had never heardfrom her before. Clodwig described her singing to his wife, on hisreturn, as being as simple and beautiful as a field flower.
Bella begged the Justice and his wife to let her take Lina back withher to Wolfsgarten. The Justice's objections were overruled by hiswife, and Lina was full of delight at setting off with Bella andClodwig.
Pranken rode beside the carriage.
The quiet of this loneliness weighed heavily again upon Eric andRoland, after the animated society of the last few days. Eric,
beside,was out of tune, weary and dull. He found it a burden to be obliged todevote himself from morning to night to this boy, to have to watch hisundisciplined, and often capricious, fluctuations of mind. He longedfor the society of Clodwig; still more, though he hardly acknowledgedit to himself, for that of Bella. There had been a novelty, ananimation, an excitement, an atmosphere of graceful elegance, about therooms, which were now so desolate. Nevertheless, he resisted forseveral days Roland's entreaties that they should make the promisedvisit to Wolfsgarten. The house had been entrusted to his care, and herefused to leave it, until Pranken, at length, offered to take all theresponsibility upon himself. There was a sting in his words, as he saidto Eric,--
"You were present at the musical festival, and left the house then incharge of only the servants. Besides, as I say, I assume the entireresponsibility."