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Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he had actually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among the mourners.

The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: he would have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed the solemnity of the occasion.

Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knew that, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror, and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which he pretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in the public room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, a cattle-dealer, who said, —

"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Very fine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulated of us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"

The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spoke of the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which was true, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red mark about the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which he always wore the picture of his first wife.

A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this charge against Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to a decision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must be favorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will be to get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she is won."

Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligence of every thing that was going on.

CHAPTER XVI.
AWAY UNDER FIERY RAIN!

A damp, autumnal fog penetrated Clodwig's sick-room through the open windows, and lay in drops on the brow of the statue of Victory.

Still and desolate it was at Wolfsgarten: even Pranken had gone.

Bella sat in her room enveloped in her mourning weeds. She had black bracelets on her wrists, and had just been trying on her black gloves. She drew them off now, laid her hands together, and gazed with that terrible Medusa look into vacancy, into the future, into the great blank. "You are alone," said a voice within her; "you were always alone in yourself, in the world, – a solitary nature; lonely as wife, always alone."

Once more her cheeks flamed with sudden rage to think that any one, the veriest fool, could for an instant imagine that she had murdered her husband. Was it for this that she had so long crushed every impulse of her heart? Was the world after all not believe in her happiness? She went in imagination from house to house of the capital, and heard her name on all tongues.

The ticking of the clock reminded her of what Clodwig had once said, "The pendulum of our life vibrates between recollections of the past, and desires for the future." – "That was true of him, but not of me: I do not stand between recollection and desire: I want the present. I crave life, ardent life."

She rose, and was vexed that she could not resist going to her mirror; but once there she staid, and was still more vexed to see that her figure was not as slender as it used to be; and yet black makes one look slender. She seemed to have lost all her charms! Her thoughts went further: since he had to die before you, why could he not have died years ago, while you were still beautiful? She shuddered at the thought, but the next moment commended her own sincerity. Further spoke the voice within her, and, proudly raising her head, she said almost aloud to herself, —

"I care nothing for conventionality. What I may think a year hence, I will think now, to-day. What to me is the world's division of time? Thoughts that others would have a year hence, I permit myself to-day. Yes; you are a widow, who will be visited only from compassion, – a widow, with none to stand by her. And then this degrading suspicion! I can go to the capital; I can take a house. Oh, what a god-like destiny! I am myself a house, and shall be made lady president of a soup establishment, and shall have a select dozen of orphans in blue aprons come to my funeral. I have had enough of that sort of thing already. No! I cannot live alone. Shall I travel again, seek forgetfulness and fancied pleasure in landscapes, crowds, works of art, and then talk, laugh, play in society? I have proved it all vanity, emptiness. Prince Valerian could be won. Hut could I play the hypocrite again in a strange world, and charitably rejoice that the Russian peasants are, figuratively, to have their hair curled? The Wine-cavalier would be very complaisant, always making his bows, and paying his devotions: it is only manner to be seen, but then the manner is good, agreeable, and – false, the whole of it!

"No, no! I must away into conflict, into war, danger, distress; but life, mighty, all-absorbing life, I must have. I scorn the whole world; I hurl back in its face its honors, its caprices of philanthropy."

A horseman gallops into the court-yard, a tall figure in black. Is it not Sonnenkamp? What can he want?

Sonnenkamp was announced.

"He is welcome," was her answer.

Sonnenkamp entered.

"Countess," he said, "I bring back to you what once I received from you, – the courage of a hero."

"Ah, courage! I am in humiliation; deserted, broken, weak."

"You humiliated deserted, weak? You kindled in me a strength great enough to defy the world: I am young again, fresh again. Countess, in this bitter and critical hour I come to you, only to you. You alone are now the world to me; you alone make the world of value to me; I would gladly give you something, be to you something, that shall make the world seem precious to you again."

Bella stood motionless, and he continued:

"Raise yourself above this hour, above this year, above this country, above all conventionalities. If it be possible for any human being to do this, you are that one.

"Bella, I might tell you that I would escape into the wide world; would sacrifice, destroy every thing ruthlessly; put from me wife, children, all, only on condition that you would follow me, that you would dare to turn your back upon every thing, and be a free, independent nature: I might tell you that, and it would be true. But it is not that which should decide you. It is not for me you should live, but for yourself. Bella, we read in old histories of men and women who bound themselves together by a crime: such unions seldom last. I see your soul open before me – no, I have it within me, and speak from it. You say as I do, 'Here I am in conflict with the world. The world requires concern for others, and I have the spirit of egoism; I am no philanthropist, I am no charitable institution.' You desire, as I do, to assert self; I desire a thing for you, only because I desire it for myself. Others would decoy you, persuade you with honeyed phrases; I honor you too highly: you have courage to be yourself."

"I do not understand you. What do you mean? What do you desire for yourself; what do you desire for me?"

"For myself, what have I left to desire? A bullet through my head. But there is one thing which can save me."

"What is that?"

"It is yourself. To show you what greatness is, to see you great – for that I would still gladly live and fight. If there is such a thing as admiration, as bowing before what is noble, before a world-subduing genius, I" —

He made a motion, a step forward. Bella regained composure, and said quietly, —

"Be seated."

A singular expression passed over his face at the words; but he seated himself, and continued, —

"Countess, I know not what plans you may have – yet no: I think I do know your present plans. Do not interrupt me; let me speak. If I have been mistaken in you, then is my whole life, then are all my thoughts, my efforts, my conflicts, nothing but madness, and the pathetic declaimers of lofty phrases are in the right. Countess Bella, you once said a noble thing to me: 'A resolute nature knows no family, must have no family.' That is my guiding star. I have no longer a family; I am nothing in the world but myself; and you – you should be nothing but yourself. You have never been yourself till now; but now you ought, you can, you must be."

"I will. You are a wonderful man; you clear away all the rubbish that clogs my being. Speak further; what do you bring?"

"I bring nothing but myself, Countess; I have put away from me all the ties of this world; I say this to you, to none but you. This very day I depart for the New World. Yes, there is a new world yonder!"

Sonnenkamp suddenly rose, and seized her hand.

"Countess, you are a great woman: yours is a nature born to rule. Come with me, you have the courage for it. There is a throne to be established in the New World; and upon this throne will I set you as queen. Come!"

There was a tone of authority, of command, in Sonnenkamp's voice, as he grasped her by the hand. She rose; her lips trembled, her eyes sparkled.

"I thank you," she said. "You are great, and you fancy greatness in me. That is it. I thank you. O my friend, we are weak, pitiful creatures. Too late, too late! Why does such a call come too late? Ten years ago, I should have had the strength for it; then it would have tempted me; I would have risked every thing then, and taken the chance of shame and death; any thing had been better than this maimed, idle, good-for-nothing, musty, relic-hunting, sickly, sanctimonious – no, I did not mean to say that – and yet – I thank you. You pay me a higher honor than was ever paid me before: you recognize what I might have been; but I cannot be it now. Too late!"

"Too late!" cried Sonnenkamp, seizing both her hands. "Bella, you say, that, if I had come in your youth, you would have gone with me into the wide world. Bella, Countess, we are young so long as we will to be. You are young, and I will be young. When you came to me that time in the spring, I gave you a rose, a centifolium, and said to you, you are not like this flower. And you are not like it; for your bloom is ever fresh; your will, your strength, blossoms. Be courageous; be yourself; be your own. What are seventy maimed, idle years? One year full of life is more than they all."

Bella sank back in her chair, and covered her face with her handkerchief.

"Why did you appeal to the Court," she said at length, "if you meant to leave before sentence was pronounced?"

"Why? I thank you for the question. I am free: henceforth I can speak the honest truth, and to you above all others. For a while, I really believed that this would offer me a way of escape. But I soon abandoned that idea, and now" —

He paused.

"And now?" repeated Bella.

"I wanted to show these puppets, these children who are always giving themselves up to leading-strings which they call religion or morality or politics, – I wanted to show them what a free human being was, an undisguised egoist. That tempted me. When the time came for putting my plan into execution, it was only for your sake that I carried out what I had proposed; for you only I laid bare my whole life. I was resolved you should know who I am. I hardly spoke to the men who were before me; I spoke to you; behind myself, above myself, I spoke to you, Bella."

"Were you then already decided not to wait for the sentence?"

Sonnenkamp nodded with a smile of triumph. There was a long pause. He held her hand firmly. At last she asked hesitatingly, —

"Would not my flight confirm the injurious suspicion, the suspicion that Clodwig was" —

"Fie!" interrupted Sonnenkamp; "as if it would not have been easier to desert a living husband than to murder him first!"

Bella shuddered at the words, and Sonnenkamp exclaimed, —

"O Bella! noble soul, alone great among women, cast away all these European casuistries; with a single step put this whole, old-maidish Europe behind you!"

A still longer pause followed: there was no sound but the screaming of the parrot.

"When do you start?" asked Bella.

"To-night, by the railway."

"No, by boat. Is no boat going?"

"Certainly; one this very night."

"I will go with you. But leave me now, leave me. Here is my hand, I go with you."

She sat motionless, her hands folded, her eyes closed. Sonnenkamp took her hand firmly in his, touched her wedding-ring, and drew it gently from her finger.

"What are you doing?" exclaimed Bella in sudden passion. Her eyes were fixed on Sonnenkamp; she saw the ring in his hand.

"Let me keep it as a pledge," he urged.

"What do you mean? We are not people to make a scene. Give it to me."

He gave back the ring; but she did not return it to her finger.

That night, a steamer stopped at the little town; there was a storm of wind and rain, and the engine screeched and hissed. On the wharf stood a man wrapped in his cloak, and presently a tall veiled figure passed him.

"Leave me to myself!" the woman said as she hurried by.

A plank was laid across from the steamer: the woman crossed it, followed by the man.

The plank was drawn up, the boat turned, and steamed away into the darkness and the storm. No one was on deck except those two figures: the sailors made haste into the cabin. The pilot, wrapped in his suit of India-rubber, whistled softly to himself as he turned the wheel.

The tall figure of the woman, muffled in black, stood upon the deck of the steamer as it shot down the stream. Long she stood, abstractedly gazing at the water and the towns and villages on the shore, with here and there a light flashing from the windowpanes, and casting a swiftly-vanishing gleam upon the river. A fiery shower, a stream, of bright sparks from the chimney, swept over the figure. A hand appeared from under the folds of the cloak; it held a ring between its fingers for a while, then dropped it into the stream below.

BOOK XIV

CHAPTER I.
MANY KINDS OF LOVE

The modest little dwelling of the Major became once more the place where all sought rest and found it.

As Eric had first gone to the Major to tell him of his happiness, so the Cooper also, and his betrothed, first sought the Major and Fräulein Milch, to tell their new-found joy.

Here they met Knopf, who was an especial favorite with Fräulein Milch, because he had a faculty for being taken care of; and besides he had brought her a great many books in former days, and instructed her in many things. He must always be the young ladies' school-teacher, even with Fräulein Milch.

When Knopf heard of Eric's betrothal with Manna, he said, —

"That is the way! If is the old story over again, – the story of the maiden freed from enchantment, which is a great favorite here on the Rhine. This is a new version of it. Only a youth as pure as Dournay could have set the pure virgin free."

He spoke in a kind of low, dreamy mysterious tone, which so touched the Major's heart, that he fell upon the speaker's neck, embraced and kissed him, and cried, —

"You must enter our society. You must speak so there. That is the place for you."

Knopf had come to fulfil Weidmann's commission, and to make some inquiries of Eric about the black man Adams. When the Cooper and his betrothed entered, and the Major gave them his blessing, and Fräulein Milch brought in a bottle of wine, Knopf was the merriest of the company. He could not fully say what was in his heart; but he laid his hand on the tablets in his breast-pocket, which meant, "Here is another beautiful romance for me to write down. Ah, how beautiful the world is!"

Into the midst of this joyful company came the tidings of Sonnenkamp's flight.

"And we have not yet passed sentence upon him!" cried the Major.

Fräulein Milch smiled knowingly at the Major, as much as to say, "Did I not tell you he was making fools of you?"

Without waiting to finish their wine, the Major and Knopf hurried to the Villa.

Eric was busy with the notary, and they had to wait some time before they could speak with him.

The notary had brought Eric a paper in Sonnenkamp's handwriting, which declared that he had taken with him all the property made in slave-traffic; he appointed Weidmann and Eric guardians of his children, and arranged for Roland's being declared of age in the spring.

Another messenger came from Weidmann bringing the good news, that, according to a letter just received from Doctor Fritz, Abraham Lincoln had been elected President.

The thought passed through Eric's mind, that there might be some connection between this event and Sonnenkamp's flight.

He had no time to dwell upon the idea, for immediately after Weidmann's messenger had been admitted, the Major and Knopf entered.

News followed hard upon news. A telegram arrived, desiring Eric to go to the city and wait at the telegraph-office, as some one wished to communicate with him. The despatch was signed, "The Man from Eden."

Eric requested the Major to stay with his mother and send for Fräulein Milch to join him; at the same time he begged Knopf to bring Roland home, and prepare him as gently as he could for what had happened.

From every side, fresh difficulties poured in upon Eric. How every thing had come together! Clodwig's death, Sonnenkamp's flight, the fate of Roland, the fate of Manna – all weighed upon his heart.

As he was mounting his horse, he fortunately descried Professor Einsiedel, to whom he told in a few words what had happened, and begged him to stay with Manna.

He rode to the city. A despatch awaited him, telling that in an hour he should receive some definite tidings.

This suspense was most trying to Eric: he knew not what steps he should take next.

He walked through the city: everywhere were men and women safe in the privacy of their homes, while he and his seemed cast out into the street. He lingered long before the Justice's house. Lina was singing her favorite song from "Figaro;" and the words, "that I with roses may garland thy head," were given so feelingly, with so much suppressed emotion, that Eric's breath came hard as he listened. He knew just how it looked up there in the sitting-room. The Architect was leaning back in the red armchair, while his betrothed sang to him; flowers were blooming in the window; and the whole atmosphere was rich with music and perfume.

Unwilling to disturb their comfort by his heavy thoughts, he returned to the telegraph-station, and left word that he should be sent for at the hotel if any despatch came for him.

He sat alone in a dark corner and waited. The guests were gathered about the long table with their glasses of beer before them. Their talk was dry, and seemed to make the liquor the more refreshing. Eric forced himself to listen to their chat. They talked of Paris, of London, of America; one man was going to one place, another to another, a third was coming back: the free, mobile character of the Rhineland people was spread out before him; they live as if always floating on their native stream.

Suddenly the cry was raised, —

"Hurrah! here comes the story-teller."

Eric recognized the man who had been a great favorite with all ever since he had spent his first night in the city, at the Doctor's house. He had one of those faces, red with constant drinking, whose color makes it impossible to distinguish any age short of forty, and his countenance was as mobile as if made of gutta-percha.

The new-comer winked to the bar-maid, who knew what kind of liquor he drank; then he established himself comfortably in a chair, threw open his wraps, and drew some cigar-ends out of his pocket.

"What's the news?" asked the guests.

The man gave the usual answer: "Fair weather, and nothing beside."

"Where have you been for these three days, that we have seen nothing of you?"

"Where a man can prolong his life."

"What sort of a place is that?"

"I have been in the dullnesses of the capital: and there you can prolong your life; for every day is as long as two."

"Old, old!" cried the drinkers. "Give us something new!"

"Something new! I tell you many lies have no truth in them, and those often the best. But go out among the boats yonder; there's a jolly life going on in the cabin. Each one brings his own cook-book to the wedding, and then they marry the messes together."

The speaker was ridiculed on all sides for having nothing but such nonsense, such dry husks, to give them.

"If you will keep quiet, I will tell you a story; but first, one of you must go out to the Rhine, that he may be able to bear me witness afterwards that my story is true, as the old forester says."

A cooper was sent out to the boat that lay at anchor in the Rhine, and, after letting him know what he was to inquire about, the man began, —

"I do have the luck of falling in with the best stories! they come without my looking for them."

"Let us hear! let us hear! Is it about that big Sonnenkamp, or about the handsome Countess?"

"Ah, bah! that would be stale: this is one fresh from the oven. It is called the loves of the 'Lorelei' and the 'Beethoven,' or a sucking pig as matchmaker. Oh, yes! you may laugh, but you will see that it is all true. To begin, then. You know the steward of the 'Lorelei?' – the great Multiplication-table they call him. A man of standing he is, and an honest one, too; for he honestly confesses, that, by a skilful adding up of accounts, he has added together a pretty little property for himself. Now, he is single, frightfully so. He can eat and drink, but" —

"Yes, yes; we know him. What next?"

"Don't interrupt me. I must not anticipate my story: it is enough for me if I know it myself. So, then, the state of the case is this: the captain of the 'Lorelei,' you know him, that tall Baumlange, he was steersman on board the 'Adolph' for some years; he managed to make his cook's mouth water for the stewardess of the 'Beethoven,' a round, dainty little body, and two years a widow. Greetings were exchanged between the paper cap and the muslin; but they never spoke together except for a few minutes a fortnight ago at Cologne, when the 'Lorelei' and the 'Beethoven' lay side by side. Since that time, the great Multiplication-table smiled graciously upon the 'Lorelei,' but would not hear of marriage. His great delight is to get up a nice little dish that no one should know any thing about; and so one day he prepared a neat little sucking-pig, that was to be roasted on the morrow. Now, his captain knew, that the next day, and that is to-day, the two boats would anchor here together for the night: so he steals the pig, and hands it to a fellow-captain, who, in turn, delivers it to the widow of the 'Beethoven,' with directions to serve it up nicely, and something else with it, which order she obeys with a good will. Then the Captain invites his steward to supper on board the 'Beethoven;' and, since the stewardess has furnished the meat, it was but fair that the 'Lorelei' Multiplication-table should add the wine. They sit down to supper on board the 'Beethoven,' the stewardess of course, with them, and all goes on merrily. The Multiplication-table said a pig could not be better served, and that it was almost as fine a one as his. Then the trick came out; but they took it in good part, and the upshot of it all was, that the two were betrothed over the little pig."

The story-teller had got thus far in his tale, when the cooper returned with the Captain of the 'Lorelei,' who confirmed the whole history. The merriment became noisy and riotous; and the Captain told how the newly-betrothed couple were sitting together, and how the same tastes were in both of them. They collected all the gold they could in the summer, and now they were sitting and laughing together as they polished it up with soap-suds.

Eric listened to it all as if he were in another world. There are still those, then, who can take life lightly: a change for the better must come in time.

Now the pilot entered, who, as custom required, had been taken on board the steamer for a little while, to steer it through the part of the stream he was familiar with. He amazed the company by telling them that, the night before, in the storm, the Countess von Wolfsgarten and Herr Sonnenkamp had gone down the river: he had recognized them both distinctly.

Eric had risen from his seat to question the man further, when he was summoned to the telegraph station. The despatch, which was signed, like the first, "the man from Eden," was to the effect that the writer was to sail the next morning for the New World, and that if, in the course of a year, no further tidings were received from him, he might be considered dead. It almost seemed as if the last part of the telegram could not have been correctly written; for the question was asked, whether Frau Ceres was living, and in what condition. In case of wishing to send any news of her to the New World, the name of a Southern paper was given, in which a paragraph should be inserted over the initials S. B.

While Eric was still holding the despatch in his hand, Pranken entered, and signed to him to come into an adjoining room. "I was in search of you," he said. He looked pale and agitated, and Eric was fully prepared to receive a challenge. His first question, however, was, whether Eric knew whither Sonnenkamp had fled, and how he could be addressed. Eric replied that he was not at liberty to answer that question.

"Ask him then whether" – he could hardly bring his lips to utter what he had to say, – "ask him whether there is anyone with him. No, better still, give me his address."

Eric repeated that he was not at liberty to do so. Pranken gnashed his teeth with rage.

"Very well: ask him yourself, then, whether any one is with him about whom I have a right to inquire."

As the two stood side by side, looking out upon the landscape, it suddenly flashed through Eric's mind, that in this very room, at a table before this window, they had sat together that day over their new wine. Prompted by the feeling of gratitude that overpowered him, he said, —

"I regret sincerely that there should be such ill feeling between us."

"This is no time to speak of that – of that presently. If you will – no, I will ask no favors. You are to blame for all this wretched complication: you have made every one go wrong. This would never have happened but for you."

A cold shudder passed through Eric's frame. Was he in truth to blame for Bella's fall? There was an expression of humility in his face as he answered, —

"I am at your service; I am only waiting for a despatch."

"Good: I will wait with you."

Pranken left the room, and walked restlessly up and down the embankment without, until the despatch arrived, and Eric summoned him.

"Very well: now put my question."

"Will you repeat your question to me once more exactly?"

"How long since you became so slow of comprehension? This then. Tell Herr Sonnenkamp, or Banfield, that if, before twelve hours are over, he does not let me know where he is, I shall take his silence as a proof that – No! ask – outright – whether my sister is with him."

Pranken's lips trembled: he had grown sadly old in these few days. Here he was obliged to stand and beg for information from Sonnenkamp; information on what a subject, and at whose hands!

"Will you have the goodness," he added, "to send the answer to me at the parsonage?"

He left the room, mounted his horse, and rode away.

"Medusa sends greeting to Europe," was the answer Eric received.

As he was about to start for home, the Doctor came up: he also had heard of Bella's flight.

"That is a master-piece!" he cried. "Herr Sonnenkamp, with the most skilful diplomacy, could have done nothing better than that. Bella's flight and fall will eclipse every thing that he himself has done. This will divert tongues from him: all is eclipsed by this new development. His children, too, will be freed from the old scandal; for the fact of Bella Pranken's eloping with him will count for more than years of selling slaves. From this time we shall hear of nothing but that: all else is obliterated."

Eric did not believe that the fugitives had yet started for America.

Immediately on his return to the Villa, he was summoned to Manna.

"Have you news of him?" she said. "Is he living?"

"Yes."

"Is he alone?"

"No."

"That, too, must we have to bear!"

"Does your mother know?"

"She only knows that father has fled; and she keeps crying, 'Henry, Henry, come back!' For hours, she has kept saying those words over and over. It is incredible how her strength holds out. O Eric! when we were in your father's library, Roland said, 'In all these books is there a fate to compare with ours?'"

All Eric's attempts to soothe her were fruitless.