Villa Eden Part 187

"It is I, the Countess Bella."

Sonnenkamp s.h.i.+vered.

Is it a trick? It is some one who insists on speaking to him, a.s.suming that name and that voice.

Well! At any rate, the person who puts on that mask is very cunning.

Let us see who it is that is so shrewd!

He opened the door and stood transfixed; it was indeed Bella.

"Give me your hand!" she cried. "Your hand! You are a hero, I have never before seen a hero. And what are all these puppets around you?

Stuffing for uniforms, nothing more; cowardly professors and newspaper hacks! There is still a bugbear which they call humanity, of which they are all in fear; before which they creep away, like children from the wolf. You alone are a man!"

"Sit down," at last said Sonnenkamp in astonishment; he did, not in the least understand what all this could mean. Bella kept up the same strain, saying:--

"I knew that you were a conqueror, but I did not know that you were such a mighty one."

Still Sonnenkamp was not able to understand. What does this woman want?

Is this a kind of mockery? But he was disposed to think otherwise, when she exclaimed:--

"They are weaklings--cowards, all of them, the world of rank particularly! They ought to have created you a count, an ordinary baron is altogether too small a thing for you. You have done what they all would have liked to do--no, not all, but only certain ones who have the mettle within them. But they are ashamed before the man who accomplishes what they had not the energy, or the courage, or the daring to accomplish. They have swords, they carry fancy daggers, and are frightened at the rattan of the school-master, who raps them on the fingers with it and says to them: 'Know ye not that we are living in the epoch--or do they call it the century, the age--of humanity?' By good right, all the n.o.bles of the land should leave their cards for you, and congratulate you. How many of these puppets would be in possession of n.o.bility, if they had to win it by heroism like yours?

Look at me; were I young, had you come in my youth, I would have gone out with you into the wide world; you have in you a Napoleonic vein.

Give me your hand!"

She reached out both her hands and pressed his pa.s.sionately.

"You do not recollect, but I have kept it in mind," said she in a haughty tone, "when you and Prince Valerian dined with us, you said: 'There is a priestcraft of Humanity.' You were right. Before the flimsy humanity of Jean Jacques Rousseau, they all bow down in fear, strong free men; they are dreaming of a paradise of equality, where black and white, n.o.ble and mean, the genius and the blockhead, shall be brewed into a ma.s.s together; they have a new faith in a book, the 'Contrat Social' is their Bible. I am not afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau----"

With a joyful look, Sonnenkamp interrupted her:--

"A cause is not lost, no, it is victorious, if highminded women are enthusiastic over it."

"Thanks--thanks," continued Bella.

She seized his hand and stroked his thumb with her delicate fingers.

"So one of the pets of the school-masters has sunk his teeth in here?

Be proud of it; it is a mark of honor, more so than if it had been won in battle. Now let nothing in the world subdue you; enjoy yourself; you have nothing more to conceal; now stand your ground and show that you are the only one that is not afraid of the school-masters. The dauntless man acknowledges and conforms to the inevitable."

Bella had risen; her eye was blazing, her cheeks were glowing, and her countenance wore a look of mysterious and terrible fascination.

So must Medusa have appeared, so must she have breathed, so must she have trembled.

And in the midst of this deep emotion, Bella felt that it was a fine scene: here are the sublime tones of voice at her command, here is majesty, here is pa.s.sion. She suddenly stood still like a living picture, as soon as she became conscious of this conception, and her eye sought for a mirror in which to behold herself.

She shook her head, and turned back as if she were coming upon the stage out of one of the side scenes.

"Will you tell me how you have become so great and daring, so free--the only free man?"

Sonnenkamp, the strong man, trembled within himself. He had an avowal upon his lips, but he dared not utter it; he had a demoniacal smile upon his face, as Bella said to him:--

"There is one thing only you must not do; speak not to me of love: anything but the 'fable convenue;' that is nothing--for you nothing and to me nothing. Still another thing. You will learn it now too, if you do not know it already,--the greatest tyranny in the world is the family. Grieve not for your family; a hero has no family, and besides, it is only a sentimental tradition that the heroes used to play with their children on the floor. You must be alone, think of yourself alone; then you are strong, you are like a man born of Byron's fancy, and such a man actually stands before me. You have made only one mistake; a man like you, such a hero, should have no family, should not want to have any. Be firm, do not suffer yourself to be cleft in twain and crushed to atoms through this mistake."

Sonnenkamp was still too much shaken not to feel a shudder creep over him at the sight of this apparition, that seemed to have sprung out from the world of fable; he said that he had had an idea, of the mere existence of which he had only been conscious in a shadowy way, but now it was clear; he was resolved to continue the struggle, to wage open war, that is, covert but decisive war; he would bring the virtuous people hereabouts to a different way of thinking, this next would be his task. He had a plan that was not yet clear to him, but it would become clear.

Bella said that she did not wish to speak to any one in the house beside himself; she was going back at once, but she trusted that he would be firm and stand his ground, for otherwise she would have to despise all men, and among them the only one who had ever won her respect by real power.

Sonnenkamp opened the seed-room, accompanied Bella through it, and opened the door that led to the private stair overrun with climbing plants. Here he kissed her hand at parting. But while still on the steps, Bella called after him:--

"And one thing more! The first thing for you to do is to free yourself from slavery; you must send away this teacher's family."

She made a repellant gesture, and added:--

"This teacher's family should establish their transcendental distillery in the little University town once more."

When Sonnenkamp returned to his room after Bella's departure, it seemed to him as if everything had been only a dream; but he still breathed the odor of the delicate perfumery which Bella's garments had left behind in his room; he still saw the chair on which she had been sitting; she had actually been there.

But Bella did not reach home unseen. In the park she met her brother.

She confessed to him frankly that she had been to see Sonnenkamp, to cheer him up; she praised Otto for his constancy, and for despising the miserable, weak world.

"I could love this man!" she exclaimed; "he is a conqueror, he has won for himself a bit of the world. Pshaw! Let them grub for remains from the Roman world, which was so powerful and despised every one that spoke of justice for the slaves--and what are they themselves?"

"Sister," said Pranken playfully, "you are still too young and handsome to dress yourself up with those ingenious whims; you do not need such cosmetic contrivances."

Bella drew back a step from him, and then said:--

"No, I wanted to say a word to you; but no. Only persevere, and bring your designs with Manna to a point soon. How does the little cloister-plant do?"

"I beg of you, Bella----"

"Well, well, I'm going directly, I can do none of you any good."

She turned away quickly, and went back to Wolfsgarten.

Pranken looked after her with astonishment. He composed himself, for the Priest came up. He reached out his hand to him humbly, and spoke very gratefully of his having come voluntarily to build up anew the house of sorrow.

CHAPTER XIII.

COUNTER-POISON.

Prince Valerian, who had met with such a rough rebuff from Sonnenkamp, had himself announced to Eric. Roland, who was in the next room, heard him say, the first thing as he entered:--

"Where is Roland?"

"He desires to be left alone," answered Eric; and then the Prince declared that Eric was best able to form an opinion as to what might be good for Roland; but for his part, he could not help thinking that intercourse with men in whose eyes he could behold the love they bore him, would be of greater a.s.sistance than anything else in this unspeakable sorrow.