Villa Eden Part 127

She rose, and with a loud cry, brother and sister fell into one another's arms.

"Sit down by me," said Manna at last. They sat together upon the bench beneath the pine-tree, and Manna, pointing to the smaller bench, told of Heimchen, and of her often wanting to hear stories about Roland, and when she came to tell how the child had died of homesickness, she suddenly exclaimed:--

"Our whole life, Roland, is nothing but homesickness for our heavenly home; of that we die, and happy is he who dies of it."

Roland perceived that his sister was in a state of overwrought excitement, amounting almost to ecstasy; and speaking in a tone of quiet and manly decision, he told her that she must first come back to her earthly home. He told her of his having acted in a play, and having been photographed in his page's silk dress; of the order his father had received; and, finally, of a secret his father had confided to him, and which he could not tell.

"Our father told you a secret?" asked Manna, her face growing rigid.

"Yes, and a beautiful, n.o.ble one; you will rejoice with me when you hear it."

Manna's features relaxed.

Roland told her how he had fancied himself with her all through his delirium, and that she ought to feel only happy at his being still alive.

"Yes, you are still alive," cried Manna, "you shall live. All is yours."

He reminded her that to-morrow was his birthday, and that his own wish was that she would let him take her to their parents on that day.

"Yes, I will go with you," cried Manna, "and it is better we should go directly."

Hand in hand, the brother and sister went to the convent, where Manna told the Superior of her intention to go home with Roland. In a state of feverish excitement, she then hurried to bid good-bye to all her fellow pupils, and all the nuns, went into the church and prayed, and finally made Roland go with her to Heimchen's grave.

Roland observed a long, straight row of gravestones without inscriptions, and, on asking Manna about them, was told they marked the graves of the nuns.

"That is hard," said Roland, "to have to be nameless after death."

"It is but natural," returned Manna; "whoever takes the veil lays aside her family name and a.s.sumes a sacred one, which is hers until her death, and then another bears it."

"I understand." said Roland. "That is giving up a great deal. The name of the nun cannot be written on the gravestone, nor the family name either; yet there must be a great many of n.o.ble family buried here."

"Yes, indeed; almost all were n.o.ble."

"What should you say if we should be n.o.ble too?"

"Roland, what do you mean?" cried Manna, seizing him violently by the arm. "Can you speak of such a thing here and now? Come away; such thoughts are a desecration to the graves."

She led him out of the little burial-place and as far as the gravel path, when, suddenly leaving him, she turned once more to the cemetery and knelt down by the grave; then she rejoined her brother.

Lootz was standing with the luggage ready; Manna stepped into the boat with Roland, and the brother and sister were borne up the stream toward their home. All in the boat gazed with a pleased curiosity at the pair, who, however, sat quietly hand in hand, looking out upon the broad landscape.

"Tell me," urged Roland, "why you said, when you were going to that convent, that you, too, were an Iphigenia?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Oh yes, you can; I know all about her. I have read the Iphigenia of Euripides, and of Goethe, too, by myself and with Eric, and you are like neither of them."

"It was only---- ah, let us forget all about it."

"Do you know," cried Roland, "that Iphigenia became the wife of the great hero Achilles and lived with him, on the island of Leuce, in eternal blessedness?"

Manna confessed her ignorance, and Roland described the copy of the Pompeian fresco that Eric's mother had showed him, where Calchas, the priest, is holding the knife, Diomedes and Odysseus are bearing Iphigenia to the altar, and, her father, Agamennon, hides his face, while, at the command of Artemis, one of the nymphs leads in the stag that is to be sacrificed in Iphigenia's place.

"How many things you have learned," smiled Manna.

"And Eric told me," continued Roland, "that the sacrifice of Iphigenia was just like that of Isaac, and all the other sacrifices we read about."

Manna's face darkened; that was the foundation of a fatal heresy.

"Stop, now I have it," cried Roland. "Ah, that is good! There are still oracles in the world. Orestes had to fetch his sister from the temple of Tauris, where she was priestess. That is it! You divined it! That will delight Eric; ah! how it will delight him! But stay! When Iphigenia and her brother were on board s.h.i.+p I am sure he must have played off all sorts of silly tricks to amuse her, and I am sure she laughed. Have you quite forgotten how to laugh? You used to laugh so merrily, just like a wood-pigeon. Do laugh just once."

He laughed with his whole heart, but Manna remained unmoved, and, during the way, sat buried in her own thoughts. Only once, when the boat came to a sudden stop in the middle of the stream, she asked:--

"What is that?"

"That is the very question I asked Eric when we were going up the river together, and he showed me up there a heavily-laden freight vessel, which would be overturned and sunk by the commotion of the water, if our steamer did not moderate its speed. Oh, there is nothing he does not know, and then he said: Remember. Roland, that we should do the same thing in life; we must not rush on our own way, but must think of the heavily-laden voyagers on the stream of life with us, and take care that the waves we raise do not overwhelm them."

Manna stared at her brother. She could trace the influence of a man who used the actual as a symbol of the ideal, and she became herself, in a measure, conscious of that power which in every outward aspect of life seeks and finds the underlying thought. She shook her head, and opening her breviary, began diligently to read it.

"See the sunlight on the gla.s.s cupola," cried Roland, as it grew late in the afternoon. "That is home. Perhaps they have guessed at home that you are coming back with me."

"Home, home," breathed Manna softly to herself; the word sounded strange to her on her own lips, as it had done from Roland's. She closed her eyes, as if dazzled by the reflection on the gla.s.s cupola.

CHAPTER XIII.

NOTHING BUT EYES.

Two carriages were waiting at the landing. Manna received the embraces and kisses of her father without returning them, and watched, in apparent terror, the receding steamer, which, after quickly landing its pa.s.sengers, went swiftly on its way.

"Your mother is in the carriage," said Sonnenkamp, offering Manna his arm. She laid her hand timidly upon it, allowed herself to be led to the gla.s.s carriage, in which sat Frau Ceres and Fraulein Perini, and, taking her seat beside her mother, embraced her pa.s.sionately.

Sonnenkamp and Roland entered the other carriage, and all drove toward the villa. The father muttered something to himself about not having heard the sound of his daughter's voice.

"Where is Eric?" asked Roland.

"In the green cottage with his mother. It was considerate on the part of a stranger to retire to his own relations at such a time, and leave the family alone."

Roland was struck by the words. Were Eric and his family strangers?

On arriving at the villa, Fraulein Perini also withdrew hastily, and went to the Priest's house, whence a messenger was soon despatched to the telegraph station.

The parents were alone with their children, but there seemed a chill in the room which banished all feeling of quiet and comfort.

Sonnenkamp and Roland took Manna to her room, where she was pleased to find everything in its old place, and, at sight of the open fire-place filled with beautiful growing plants, turned to her father and thanked him, offering him her hand for the first time, and kissing his; but she could not repress a shudder at touching the ring on his thumb.