CHAPTER I.
THE STRUGGLE IN A CHILD'S HEART.
The sparrows in the alders and willows on the shore of theconvent-island twittered and chattered noisily together, they had somuch to say to each other about what they had experienced during theday; and who knows whether their to-day was not a much longer intervalof time than ours? One puffed up by his experience--perhaps we shouldsay _her_ experience, for the feathers had lost their colors fromage--sat quietly in the crotch of a bough, comfortably resting againstthe trunk; he echoed and re-echoed his delight at the splendid time heenjoyed over the river, under the closely-trimmed branches of a shadylinden, in the inn-yard by the shore.
The waiter there had long delayed removing the remnants of an Englishbreakfast, and there were cakes, the pieces, alas! too large, abundanceof eggs, honey, and sugar; it was a feast without parallel. Heconsidered that the real joy of existence had its first beginning whenone wished to know nothing more of all other things, and had supremesatisfaction in eating and drinking alone. Only in mature life did onereally come to that perception.
Others would listen to nothing from the swaggering fellow, and therewas an irregular debate, whether lettuce-seeds or young cabbage-headswere not much better than all the cooked-up dishes of men. A youngrogue, fluttering around his roguish mate, reported to her that behindthe ferryman's house, there hung from the garret-window a bulging bagfull of flax-seed; if one only knew how to rip open the seam a little,one could gradually eat up all the tidbits, but it must be kept aprofound secret, else the others would come too; and hemp-seed, it mustbe acknowledged, was just the most precious good which this whole roundearth could furnish. The rogue was of the opinion that her delicatebill was exactly the nice thing to pick open the seam; it was the mostcontemptible baseness in human beings, to hang up in the open air justthe most tempting dainties all fastened and tied up.
A late-comer, flying up in breathless haste, announced that thescarecrow, standing in the field, was nothing but a stick with clotheshung upon it.
"Because the stupid men believe in scarecrows, they think that we dotoo," laughed he, and flapped his wings in astonishment and pity at themanifest simplicity.
There was a frantic bustle in the alders and willows, and almost asfrantic in the great meadow, where the girls from the convent caughthold of each other, chattered together, tittered, teased one another,and laughed.
Apart from her noisy companions, and frequently passing under thealder-trees where there was such a merry gathering of the birds, walkeda girl slender in form and graceful in movement, with black hair andbrilliant eyes, accompanied by a tall and majestic woman in a nun'sdress, whose bearing had an expression of quiet and decisive energy.Her lips were naturally so pressed together, that the mouth seemed onlya narrow streak of red. The entire brow was covered with a whitekerchief, and the face, the large eyes, the small eyebrows, the sharpnose, the closely pressed lips, and the projecting but rather handsomechin, had something commanding and immovable.
"Honored mother," began the maiden, "you have read the letter fromFraeulein Perini?"
The nun--it was the superior--only turned her face a little; she seemedto be waiting for the maiden--it was Hermanna Sonnenkamp--to speakfurther.
As Manna, however, was silent, the superior said:--
"Herr von Pranken is then to make us a visit. He is a man of goodfamily and good morals, he seems a wordling, but he is not one exactly.He has, indeed, the impatience of the outside world; I trust, however,that he will not press his wooing as long as you are here our child,that is to say, the child of the Lord."
She spoke in a very deliberate tone, and now stopped.
"Let us go away from here; the noise of the birds above there allowsone hardly to hear herself speak."
They went by the churchyard, in the middle of the island, to the grovegrowings near a small rocky ledge, which the children called theSwitzerland of the island; there they sat down, and the superiorcontinued:--
"I am sure of you, my child, that you will decline hearing a word fromHerr von Pranken that has any reference to protestations of love, or tothe soliciting your hand in marriage."
"You know, honored mother," replied Manna,--her voice was alwayspathetic, and as if veiled with tears;--"you know, honored mother, thatI have promised to take the veil."
"I know it, and I also do not know it, for what you now say ordetermine is for us like a word written in the sand, which the wind andthe footsteps of man may efface. You must go out again into the world;you must have overcome the world, before you renounce it. Yes, mychild! the whole world must appear to you like your dolls, which youtell me of,--forgotten, valueless, dead,--a child's toy, upon which itis scarcely conceivable that so much regard, so much love, should belavished."
For some time all was still, nothing was to be heard but the song ofthe nightingale in the thicket, and above the river ravens were flyingin flocks and singing--men call it croaking--and soaring to their nestsin the mountain-cliffs.
"My child," began the superior, after a while, "to-day is theanniversary of my mother's death; I have to-day prayed for her soul ineternity, as I did at that time. At the time she died--men call itdying, but it is only the birth into another life--at that time, my vowforbade me to stand by her death-bed; it cost me hardly a struggle, forwhether my parents are still out there in the world, or above there inheaven, it makes no difference to us. Look, the water is now tingedwith the glow of evening, and people outside, on the hills and on thebanks, are speaking in raptures of nature, that new idol which theyhave set up, for they are the children of nature; but we are to be thechildren of God, before whose sight all nature seems only a void, underwhatever color it may appear, whether clothed in green, or white withsnow."
"I believe, I comprehend that," Manna said assentingly.
"That is why I say it to you," continued the worthy mother. "It is agreat thing to overcome the world, to thrust it from one's self, andnever to long for it a single instant, and to receive in exchange theeternal blessedness, even while we dwell here in the body. Yes, mychild," she laid both hands upon the head of Manna, and continued, "Iwould like to give you strength, my strength--no, not mine, that whichGod has lent me Thou art to struggle hard and bravely with the world,thou art to be tried and sifted, before thou comest to us forever, tothe fore-court of the Kingdom of Heaven."
Manna had closed her eyes, and in her soul was the one only wish, thatnow the earth might open and swallow her up, or that some supernaturalpower would come and lift her up over all. When she opened her eyes,and saw the marvellous splendor of the sunset sky, the violet haze ofthe mountains, and the river glowing in the red beams of evening, sheshut her eyes again, and made a repellant movement with her hand, as ifshe would have said,--I will have nothing of thee; thou shalt be naughtto me; thou art only a doll, a lifeless thing, on which we waste ourlove.
With trembling voice Manna mourned over her rent and tempest-tossedspirit; a few days before, she had sung and spoken the message of theheralding angels, while dark demons were raging within her. She hadspent the whole day in prayer, that she might be worthy to announcesuch a message, and then in the twilight a man had appeared before her,and her eye had rested on him with pleasure; it was the tempter who hadapproached her, and the figure had followed her into her dreams. Shehad risen at midnight, and wept, and prayed to God that he would notsuffer her to fall into sin and ruin. But she had not conquered. Shescorned and hated the vision, but it would not leave her. Now shebegged that some penance might be imposed upon her, that she might beallowed to fast for three days.
The superior gently consoled her, saying that she must not blameherself so bitterly, because the self-reproach increased the excitementof fancy and feeling. At the season when the elders were in bloom andthe nightingales sang, a maiden of seventeen was apt to be visited bydreams; Manna must not weep over these dreams, but just scare them awayand mock at them; they were only to be driven off by ridicule.
Manna kissed the hands of the superior.
It became dark. The sparrows were silent, the noisy children returnedto the house, and only the nightingale sang continually in theshrubbery. Manna turned back to the convent, the superior leading herby the hand. She went to the large dormitory, and sprinkled herselfwith holy water. She continued praying silently long after she had goneto bed, and fell asleep, with her hands folded.
The river swept rustling along the valley, and swept rustling by thevilla where Roland slept with contemptuously curled lip; it rushed pastthe streets of the little town, where Eric was speculating upon thisand that in the doctor's house; it rushed by the inn where Pranken,leaning against the window, stared over at the convent.
The moon shone on the river, and the nightingales sang on the shore,and in the houses thousands of people slept, forgetting joy and sorrow,until the day again dawned.
Das landhaus am Rhein. English Page 40