Villa Eden Part 208

She gave Eric her hand, and it was cold as ice. The three were speechless for some time, until Eric asked,--

"Is there no hope?"

"No. The Doctor says that he has probably only a few hours to live. Do you hear any thing? The Doctor has promised to come,--to return immediately. Oh, if I could only induce Clodwig to call in another physician! Do urge him to do it: I have no confidence in Doctor Richard."

Eric made no reply.

"Ah, my G.o.d!" lamented Bella, "how forsaken we are in our need. You will remain with us, will you not? You will not abandon us?"

Eric promised to remain.

It had a strange sound, a reminiscence out of the past, with its forms of courtesy, as Bella now asked pardon for not having inquired after Eric's mother, Frau Ceres, and Manna; and, with a peculiar jerking out of the words, she asked,--

"How is Herr Sonnenkamp?"

A servant came, and announced that the Herr Count had waked up, and had asked immediately, if Herr Captain Dournay had not yet come.

"Go to him," said Bella, laying her hand upon Eric's shoulder. "Go to him, I beg you; but let it come as if from you, and not from me, that another physician should be called in."

Eric went; and, as soon as he had gone, "Bella said hurriedly to Pranken,--

"Otto, get rid of the Jew as politely as you can. What does he want here?"

Pranken went to the Banker.

Bella was alone, and could not control her feeling of unrest. She had already arranged in thought the announcement of the decease, and had even written the words,--

"To relatives and friends I make the painful announcement, that my beloved husband, Count von Wolfsgarten of Wolfsgarten, formerly amba.s.sador of his royal Highness at Rome, Knight of the first rank, has died after a short illness, at the age of sixty-five. I beg their silent sympathy.

"BELLA COUNTESS VON WOLFSGARTEN (_nee_, Von Pranken)."

A demon continually whispered to her this announcement: she saw it before her eyes with a black border, even while Clodwig was still living. Why is this? What suggests these words, and brings them so clearly before her eyes? She could not get away from them. She took up the sheet of paper, tore it up, and threw the pieces out of the window into the rain.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LAST BLUE FLOWER.

Eric, meanwhile, had entered the sick-chamber.

"Are you here at last?" cried Clodwig. His voice was faint; and the small childlike hand which the sick man extended toward him appeared more delicate than ever.

"Sit down," said he; "don't be so broken down: you are young and strong, and have a good conscience. Let me take your hand. It is a happiness to die in the full possession of my senses: I have often desired to die a sudden death. Better as it is. Tell me, how is your mother? Are you really betrothed to the daughter of that terrible man."

Eric could not yet utter a word: he only nodded without speaking, and Clodwig continued,--

"That is fine, an instance of the grand truth of compensation in the world. Once, you were to become my son--my son! It is better as it is.

I am to have no son. But tell me, how is Roland? Did he not want to come with you? I see him, the splendid youth! he is present all the time. You have done well, Eric, entirely well. You will stay with the young man. If we could only know what will become of the father!"

Before Eric could answer, the invalid lay back upon the pillow. He seemed to have fallen asleep. Nothing was heard but the ticking of the clock; and now a carriage drove into the court-yard, the wheels cutting into the gravel.

Clodwig awoke.

"That is the Doctor," he said aloud. He requested the attendant to say to the physician that he would like to be left with Eric alone for a time. The nurse gave the commission to the servant, and remained in the anteroom. Sitting upright, Clodwig said,--

"Shut the door: I want to speak to you in private."

Eric sat by the bedside, and Clodwig began,--

"This Sonnenkamp, so audacious, and yet--hypocrisy, it is everywhere; a jumble of grimaces, of masks who do not know one another. A sentence upon Sonnenkamp? I have let him off entirely. His path is zigzag, his goal horrible. Who shall judge? I say it here to you, my brain received a fatal lesion when the fearful thought entered into it. When I look over my own life, what is it? I have filled out a uniform: we are walking, empty sentry-boxes, painted with the national color. If a discharge comes, we think it something very mysterious; we whisper--all a farce. The life of most persons is hypocrisy, and so is mine, so long, so honorable! We have no courage, we do not confess what we are.

We are enc.u.mbered with forms, compliances, courtesies, conformities; and all is false inside. We never tell each other what we are as we acknowledge it to ourselves. Don't be afraid. I have no crime, no transgression, now, to acknowledge and to feel remorse for. I have been all my life pure as thousands, as millions, by my side; but I have not been the person that I really am. Do you know that grand word which G.o.d spake when he revealed himself in the desert to the holy Shepherd? It is this. This is G.o.d. 'I am that I am.' This is the truth, truthfulness, the divine in every man; and men deny it. Who can say I am that I am? I never could, and millions by my side could not. We are all glossed over outside, all and everywhere over-refined--no, not all, but most of us: were all so, the sun would never again rise upon the earth. But the time will come, and you are one of those awaiting its coming, you will share in its life,--the time will come, when men shall dissemble no more, shall lie no more, shall pa.s.s themselves off for no more than they are, and shall be what they profess to be. Do you comprehend me?"

"Perfectly, perfectly."

"Know, then, I tell you that I have not done what I ought to have done.

I have not gone from hour to hour into the presence of those in power, and said, 'Thus am I, and thus must you be.' I have lulled myself with a false philosophy; I have persuaded myself that all would be spontaneously unfolded of itself; that we are in the direct line of the developing tendencies, and we have nothing to do in furtherance thereof. Ha, ha! unfold of itself! Yes, death comes of itself, death comes, and takes away the life that was no real life, no candid revealment, no genuine self. I once knew a great actor. To an actor, death will always be the hardest, not only because he has so often counterfeited death, but because he knows that he leaves behind him his parts, his masks, his paints, his wilted wreaths, his rounds of applause, and he can never be called out again. My son, we diplomatists, we die the death of the actor. I have led an unprofitable life. I had no fatherland to give me other than diplomatic farces to perform. My life has been a busy inactivity: I have spent the greatest part of my life in the livery and the defence of a cause which I did not respect, scarcely had any regard for. Here is this slave-trader.

Fie! the whole world calls out in horror: and yet, in circles held in high estimation, there are far worse than slave-traders. Others, again, are not in the house of correction, because they were under no necessity of stealing, and because they were bought off by money from being positively immoral. There, give me now, I beg, a cooling draught, my mouth is parched."

Eric gave Clodwig a draught; but they were both so awkward, that it was almost all spilled.

"No matter, no matter," said Clodwig, smiling, "that's the way in this world: only the smaller part is really drunk, the larger part gets spilled, wasted. There, now go, and let the Doctor come, but come back again afterwards."

Eric went and called the physician. Bella asked what Clodwig had been talking about. He could only answer in general terms, and begged to be allowed to go into the open air for refreshment.

Eric went into the garden. The November wind was raging, and the rain driving fiercely. Eric wrapped himself in his cloak, and went into the wood: it did him good to walk in the midst of the uproar of the elements. He went through the park and the wood, by the game path which he had followed on the morning after telling the story of his life to his newly-won friend Clodwig. Now he could not stride on in exultant mood, as if borne onward by an external force; now he must battle with the storm which roared over him through the tree-tops. Now, as then, he stood under the covered pavilion; but in the wide landscape he could see nothing but clouds of driving rain. Close to the wall of the building there was still one beautiful blue-bell: unconsciously he broke it off, and, as he returned to the house, it occurred to him to carry the flower to the invalid. He entered the sick-chamber, and Clodwig cried,--

"Ah, the blue flower! You gather it and bring it to me. We have dreamed of them often in my youth. Youth, youth!" repeated the sick man often.

He seized the flower, then leaned far out of bed, and smelled of Eric's clothes, saying,--

"Ah I my son, why do the Bible pictures come up before me now? The patriarch Isaac said to his son as he came to his sickbed, 'The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.' Yes, Eric, you bring all the free air of the fields into my sick-room. When I am no more, remember that you have done me good."

Eric wept.

"Yes, weep, it is well, it will do you no harm that I make your heart heavy. You will be happy and active on the earth whose clods will soon rest on me. Only, I pray you, stay by me when I die; and when I am dead, and they prepare me for the grave, take something from my heart which must stay there till it has stopped beating. Stay with me, Eric, I will not think of petty, individual interests. I will not leave the world in hatred and anger--no, not in hatred and anger against any man.

Help me to attain to the universal, the grand: in those I will live and die."

He lay back on his pillows; and, as Eric leaned over him, his breath came quietly, and on his face was a gentle smile. What thoughts might now be stirring this soul?

Eric wanted to send a messenger to Villa Eden, to say that he must remain where he was. Lootz, who had been sent by Herr Sonnenkamp to inquire for the Count, carried the message back.

CHAPTER XIV.