Villa Eden Part 98

"I?" the priest asked.

"And I?" asked the Professorin.

"Yes, you. Our century has entered upon a wholly new investigation of the laws of the world; and things, circ.u.mstances, sentiments, which one would not believe could ever be caught, are now bagged in the statistical net, and must be shown to be conformable to laws. Nothing has been esteemed freer and more incalculable, even incomprehensible, than love and matrimony, and yet there are now exact statistical tables of these; there is an iron law, by which the number of divorces in a year is determined. My friend now goes a step farther, and from facts of his own observation has deduced the conclusion, that marriages in which the man is considerably older than the wife, present a greater average of happy unions than so-called love-matches; now, Herr Priest, and you also, Frau Professorin, think over the list of persons you are acquainted with, and ask yourselves whether you find any confirmation of this law."

The Professorin was silent, but the Priest said that religion alone consecrated marriage; religion alone gave humility, which was the only sure basis of all beautiful intercourse between men themselves, and also between man and G.o.d.

The Priest succeeded, continuing the conversation, in diverting it entirely from the subject so flippantly introduced.

Sonnenkamp stated that the Major wished to have a grand masonic celebration in the s.p.a.cious knight's hall of the castle, when it was completed; he asked in what relation the reigning Prince stood towards Masonry.

Clodwig replied that he himself had formerly belonged to the order, and that the Prince was at present a protector of the brotherhood, without being a member.

The conversation was carried on in groups, and they left the table in a cheerful mood. The Doctor took leave.

It was now settled that the Aunt should go to Wolfsgarten; and, in order to give her time to make preparation for leaving, Clodwig and Bella were to remain over night and take her in the carriage with them on the morrow.

Bella was in very good spirits, and, on Sonnenkamp's offering to present her with a parrot, requested that it might be the wildest one, which she promised to tame.

In the evening Roland urged them to take a sail with him on the Rhine.

The Aunt and Bella went together; Fraulein Perini withdrew with Frau Ceres; the Professorin remained with Clodwig, and Sonnenkamp excused himself to forward some unfinished letters.

On the boat there were laughter and merriment, in which Bella joined, dipping her hand into the water and playing with her wedding-ring, which she moved up and down on the finger, repeatedly immersing her hand in the Rhine.

"Do you understand what the Doctor was aiming at?" she asked Eric.

"If I had been willing to understand, I should have been obliged to feel offended," he replied.

"Now we are speaking of the Doctor," resumed Bella, "there is one thing I must tell you that I have forgotten to mention before. The Doctor is doughty, unadulterated virtue; but this rough virtue once wanted to pay court to me, and I showed him how ridiculous he made himself. It may very well be, that the man doesn't speak well of me. You ought to know the reason."

Eric was moved in his inmost soul. What does this mean? May this be a wily move to neutralize the physician's opinion? He could not determine.

After a while, Bella asked,--

"Can you tell me why I am now so often low-spirited?"

"The more highly-endowed natures, Aristotle says, are always melancholy," replied Eric.

Bella caught her breath; that was altogether too pedantic an answer to suit her.

They did not succeed in keeping up any continued conversation, but Bella said at one time abruptly to Eric,--

"The visit here of your mother vexes me."

"What! vexes you?"

"Yes, it wounds me that this man with his gold should be able to change the position of people, as he does."

Eric had abundant matter of thought in this casual remark.

"You have the happiness to be greatly beloved," said Bella suddenly.

Eric looked up alarmed, glancing towards Roland, and Bella continued aloud,--

"Your mother loves you deeply." After a time, she said in a low tone to herself, but Eric heard it,--

"Me no one loves; I know why,--no, I don't know why."

Eric looked her full in the face, then seized an oar and made the water fly with his rowing.

Meanwhile, the mother and Clodwig sat together, and the former expressed her joy that Eric had been thrown into the society of men of such well-tried experience; in former times, a man could have completed his culture by intercourse with women; but now, that end could be attained only by intercourse with n.o.ble men.

They soon pa.s.sed into those mutual unfoldings of views which are like a perpetual greeting, when two persons have pursued the same spiritual ends apart from each other, in wholly different relations of life, and yet with the same essential tendencies.

The Professorin had known Clodwig's first wife, and recalled her to remembrance in affectionate words. Clodwig looked round to see if Bella was near, for he had never spoken before her of his former wife. It was pure calumny, when it was said that he had promised Bella never to speak of the deceased, for Clodwig was not so weak, nor Bella so hard, as this; it was only out of consideration for her, that he never did it.

In low, half-whispered tones, the conversation flowed on; and finding in each other the same fundamental trait, they agreed that it was happy for human beings here below to pa.s.s lightly over what was untoward in their lot, and retain in lively remembrance only what was felicitous.

"Yes," said the Professorin in confirmation, "my husband used often to say, that a Lethe stream flows through the soul buoyant with life, so that the past is forgotten."

It was a season of purest, interchange of thought, and of true spiritual communion, for Clodwig and the mother. They were like two beings in the spirit-world, surveying calmly and clearly what had pa.s.sed in this state of existence. There was nothing painful in the mutual awakening of their recollections, but rather an internal perception of the inexhaustible fulness of life; on this elevated height the sound of desire and plaint was no longer heard, and the individual life with all its personal relations was dissolved into the one element of universal being.

But now there was a diversion, and Clodwig expressed regret at having lived so much a mere spectator, and that he had without throwing himself into the great current of influence, waited pa.s.sively in the confident expectation that the idea which was stirring in the world would accomplish, of itself, its own grand fulfilment. He expressed his satisfaction that the young men of to-day were of a different stamp, and that Eric was to him an inspiring representative of youth as thoughtful as it was bold, as moderate as it was active.

Bella entered just as they happened to refer again to the statistics of love. She was pale, but Clodwig did not perceive it; sitting down near them in silence, she requested them to continue their conversation; but neither the Professorin nor Clodwig resumed the interrupted theme.

Clodwig spoke of Aunt Claudine, asked after her favorite pursuits, and was glad to own a fine telescope, which she could use at Wolfsgarten.

After a brief rest, Bella left them and went into the park.

CHAPTER VIII.

A STRUGGLE BETWEEN DUTY AND Pa.s.sION.

"I must speak with you this evening in the park, under the weeping ash," Eric had said to Bella as they were getting out of the boat.

"This evening?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And in the park, under the weeping ash?"

"Yes."

She had of her own accord placed her arm in his, and they walked together in silence to the villa; then she relinquished his arm, and went straight to Clodwig and the Mother.