Kitabı oku: «Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine», sayfa 19

CHAPTER XII.
A CHEERFUL LITTLE TOWN

There was a genuine neighborly feeling among the inhabitants of this small town. People called out to friends who were standing at the windows and on the balconies, or walking in the streets; groups were formed, where much chatting and jesting went on, while from windows, here and there piano-playing and singing were heard.

The justice's wife and her daughter Lina joined Eric and his hostess. People were surprised that he was leaving Sonnenkamp's house, as the report had already spread that he was to remain there. And now Eric learned that Roland had really ridden through the town, passing several times before the physician's house, and letting his horse prance so that it frightened one to look at him.

Lina was burning with eagerness to speak to Eric alone for a moment, and she found her opportunity when they met the school-director and his wife, and the two elder ladies stopped to inquire about the health of the forester's wife, who lived in the director's house. Lina went on with Eric, and said abruptly: —

"Do you know that your pupil Roland has a sister?"

"Certainly. I have heard so."

"Heard so? Why, you have seen her. She was the young girl with the star on her forehead, and the wings, who met us in the twilight on the cloister steps."

"Ah, indeed!"

"Ah, indeed!" mimicked Lina. "Oh! you men are dreadful; I have always thought that you-"

She stopped and Eric asked: —

"That I – what of me?"

"Ah, mother is right, I am too heedless and clumsy, and say everything that comes into my head; I should have believed you now-"

"That you may do; it is a sin to be untrue, and a double sin to be so towards you."

"Well then," said Lina, taking off her straw hat, and shaking the curls in her neck, "well then, if you will honestly confess, that Manna made an impression on you at that time, I will tell you something; but you must be frank and sincere."

"My dear young lady, do you think I would say no? You tempt me not to be sincere."

"Well then, I'll tell you – but please keep it to yourself won't you? – Manna asked me who you were, and that's a great deal from her. Oh, Herr Captain, wealth is a dreadful thing; people offer themselves only for the sake of a girl's money – no, I didn't mean to say that – but try to manage that Manna shall not be a nun."

"Can I prevent it?"

"Did you see the wooden shoes that the nuns wore? Horrid! Manna would have to wear those shoes, and she has the prettiest little foot."

"But why shouldn't she be a nun, if she wants to?"

Lina was puzzled, she was not prepared for such an answer. She remembered, too, that she was a good Catholic.

"Ah," she said plaintively, "I fancied to myself – I am a silly child, am I not? – in old times a knight used to enter a castle disguised as a squire or something else – well, I thought now the squire must be a tutor and then – "

She could not go on with her fancy sketch, for her mother overtook them, rather anxious lest her daughter had made some of her dreadfully simple speeches in her walk with the stranger.

"May one know what you are talking about so earnestly?" asked the Justice's wife. Lina drew a long breath, and put her hat-elastic in her mouth, which her mother had often forbidden, as Eric answered with great unconcern, —

"Your daughter has been reminding me that I was not very attentive when we first met on the convent island. I must ask your pardon now, madame. It relieves my mind of a burden of self-reproach to have the opportunity of excusing myself to you, and I earnestly beg that you will carry my apologies to your husband. One meets in travelling so many people who think to make themselves of importance by being ill-tempered, that one catches the unfriendly spirit, and harms himself the most. If I had not had the good fortune to meet you again, a little misunderstanding would have remained between us. Ah! on such a beautiful evening, by your beautiful river, where people are so friendly and cheerful, one longs to do some good to every one he meets, and to say, Rejoice with me, dear fellow-mote, dancing in the sunlight, for the little time which is called life."

Eric was very animated, and the Justice's wife much pleased with his demeanor. The evening walk was most refreshing. Lina directly gave up to her mother the place next Eric, and walked on the other side of the doctor's wife. The walk lasted a long time, till the doctor's carriage was heard in the distance by his wife, who knew the sound of its wheels before the others could distinguish anything.

The doctor joined them with a fresh fund of cheerfulness, saying, —

"I was sent for to receive a confession, and now I have lost an excellent reminder."

He went on to tell them that a man had lived in the next village, the sight of whom had always given him a stab in the heart, for the man had sworn a false oath about a hundred florins which he owed him. But as time went on, he had become quite grateful to this person for serving him as a reviver of his faith, because every time he met him he felt a fresh belief in the meanness of mankind, which one easily forgets. Now, before his death, the man had confessed to him and given back the money. So here he was, a hundred florins richer, but he had lost his faith. How could he laugh now at the world, if he had no longer the meanness of men to laugh at?

"What will you do now with the hundred florins?" asked Lina.

"What would you do with them?"

"I don't know."

"What would you do, captain?" said the physician, turning suddenly to Eric; "what would you do, if you had a million to give away?"

"I?" asked Eric, somewhat taken aback. He did not understand the reason of the sudden question.

"Yes, you."

"I never thought about it, but first I would found valuable scholarships at all the German universities. The man of wealth ought to be able to reflect how he is cultivating the mind of the man of genius."

"Good," answered the doctor, "every one thinks first of his own circle. Here's my little friend Lina; if she had a million to give away, she would spend it all on blue muslin, and dress all the female world in it. Wouldn't you, Musselina?"

Lina was silent, and her mother said, "Give some smart answer; can't you think of one?" Lina apparently could not think of one, but there was a pleasant, merry tone in the intercourse between the doctor and the child.

After their friends left them, the doctor said to Eric, —

"You can become familiar with a new method of instruction here. The Justice's lady tries with all her might to make her daughter a pert, worldly chatterbox, but fortunately the child has a simple, genuine nature which can't be spoiled, and when you talk with her alone she is full of bubbling life, and rightly deserves the name of Musselina."

The doctor was more friendly than ever in his bearing towards Eric, for he saw that he had wished to interfere in his life too hastily and roughly. He expressed regret that Eric had not seen Herr Weidmann to advantage that day, as the latter had been preoccupied, or something had gone wrong with him, and he advised Eric not to adopt a wrong impression in regard to him. The doctor smiled, well pleased, when Eric replied that he should not allow himself to form an opinion of a view on the Rhine which every one admired, if he had seen it only through rain or mist. The physician had evidently been thinking much of Eric during his drive; he always addressed him to-day as Herr Captain in a very marked manner, and he explained this when he held out his hand in bidding him good-night, by saying, —

"You are the first soldier with whom I have ever been able to live quite comfortably. With all other officers, I have always had a feeling of – I can't say fear, exactly – but a certain consciousness of being unarmed in the presence of an armed man. You soldiers always have an air of preparation, of readiness for attack, in which there's much that's good. I take back my words; perhaps a soldier can be a still better educator than a physician. Well, good-night!"

When Eric was alone, everything vanished which he had seen or experienced during the day, and Roland's form alone remained before him. He tried to fancy what the boy's thoughts were in riding after him. He sought to transport himself into the boy's state of feeling; he could not entirely do so, for Roland was full of anger with Eric, for deserting one who was so truly and fondly devoted to him. The boy felt as if he had been robbed, and so he rode over to the town fancying that Eric must be coming to meet him, or must be watching for him at the window; he rode back weeping with anger.

The world, of which he was to possess so much, appeared to him worthless and strange, while it seemed to Eric, who had nothing but his own thoughts, bathed in a dew of blessing. In the stillness of the night he thought over the hospitable and homelike reception he had met from Clodwig, and now from the physician, and hospitality seemed to him the purest fruit of noble manhood. In ancient times men entertained gods and angels, and they still entertained them, for in freely offering what one has to a stranger, whose very existence was yesterday unknown, the divine is unfolded in the pure soul.

Up yonder at Wolfsgarten, Eric had met with a fatherly good-will, based upon congeniality of thought – here with the doctor, as much goodwill as difference of opinion; but here, too, that personal friendliness which is so satisfying and home-like.

There was Bella who always wished to make an impression in her own behalf, and here was the doctor's wife, who wished nothing for herself, who thanked Eric in her heart, and wished only that her husband might have the good fortune to be able to talk over learned subjects with another man. And were these many forms, were all these events, to be only the passing occurrences of a journey?

CHAPTER XIII.
AGAIN ALONE WITH THYSELF

"In the morning," the doctor often said, "I am like a washed chimney-sweeper." He rose, summer and winter, at five o'clock, studied uninterruptedly several hours, and answered only the most pressing calls from his patients. Through this practice of study he not only kept up his scientific knowledge, but as he bathed his body in fresh water, so was he also mentally invigorated; let come what would of the day, he had made sure of his portion of science. And that was the reason – we may congratulate ourselves upon knowing this secret – that was the reason why the doctor was so wide awake, so ready primed, and so vivacious. He himself designated these morning hours to an old fellow-student as his camel-hours, when he drank himself full, so that he could often refresh himself with a draught in the dry desert. And life, moreover, did not seem to him a desert, for he had something which thrived everywhere, and was all-prevailing, and that was an indestructible cheerfulness, and an equanimity, which he attributed above all to his sound digestion.

So was he sitting now; and when he heard Eric, whose room was over his study, getting up, he sent word to him to come soon to breakfast; and in this hour the freshness of the man was yet wholly unimpaired. His wife, who had to be busy, or rather, who made herself busy about household matters, in order not to oblige her husband to enter into any conversation on less learned matters, had soon gone into the garden, in which flourished many scions and seeds of various kinds out of Sonnenkamp's garden. But the doctor conversed with Eric upon no scientific topics.

In the breakfast-room there hung portraits of the parents and the grand-parents of the physician, and he took occasion to give some account of his own life. His grandfather and father had been boat-men, and the doctor had been present at the golden wedding of both, and expressed his hope to celebrate also his own. And after he had portrayed his own struggle with life, he proceeded to ask Eric about his pecuniary affairs, and those of his mother.

Eric disclosed the whole state of the case; he described how his mother had noble and rich friends; on whom she placed great expectations, but he did not believe in, and to speak honestly, he did not desire, any help of that sort. The doctor asserted in confirmation, that no one would help them substantially and handsomely; he unfolded, as he went along, wholly heretical views upon beneficence; he expatiated upon the nonsense of leaving endowments and legacies in one's will, and on scattering small donations. He thought it was much handsomer, and more permanently beneficial, to make an individual or a family entirely independent, so that they may thereby be the means of accomplishing greater good. He stated that he had often attempted to bring this about; nothing of this kind was to be effected with Herr Sonnenkamp, who would have nothing further to do with people into whose hat he had cast an alms.

The conversation, in this way, having once more turned upon Sonnenkamp, the doctor offered to take upon himself all the external financial arrangements with Sonnenkamp, insisting upon Eric's consent to his doing so.

"And do you take no farther trouble about this man," said the doctor, opening an egg. "See, it is all a fair exchange. We devour this egg with the greatest zest, while the hen got her living out of the manure-heap."

Eric was happy with this lively, practical man. He expressed his satisfaction that, here in this little town, there were so many noble persons, who could constitute a rich social environment. The doctor contested this, for he considered that the necessity of being thrown upon one another, and the not being able to make a selection, as one can do in a great city, belittled, contracted, and created gossip. One had, indeed, in a great city, no larger circle than was here formed for the direct participation in the various duties of life, but the necessity of contracting marriages within such a limited circle did not permit the existence of a free social community.

"On the whole," he said in conclusion, "we are no more to each other than a good whist-party."

It was time to think of departing. Eric left the house with a feeling of serene satisfaction. The doctor drove him to the nearest railroad station, where he got out and warmly shook Eric's hand, repeating the wish that they might be able to live together.

The train, meanwhile, stopped longer than usual at the little station, waiting the arrival of the train from the lower Rhine which was behind time. A merry crowd of men, young and old, greeted the doctor and seated themselves in the same car with Eric. The doctor told him that they were wine-testers, who were going to a sale which was to take place to-day at the wine-count's cellar. He called Eric's attention specially to a jovial-looking man, the gauger, the finest judge of wine in the district. The doctor laughed heartily when Eric said to him, that he had also gone about the whole district testing wines, that is, the spiritual wine of character.

"Strange how you make an application of everything!" laughed the physician. "Count Wolfsgarten, Pranken, Bella, Sonnenkamp, the huntsman, Sevenpiper, Musselina, Weidmann, Fräulein Perini, the Major, the priest, I, and Roland – a fine specimen-catalogue of wines. Look out that you do not stagger as you come out of the wine-cellar."

The doctor suddenly turned round, and cried: —

"You may yet induce me to put something in print. I am verily of the opinion, that though there must be some consumers who are not producers, there are no graduated German heads that don't want, at some time or other, to write a book; perhaps that helps them to study. And when you come again, you will, perhaps, bring me to the point of writing my history of sleep."

The train from the lower Rhine whistled, and the doctor, grasping Eric's hand again, said with emotion, —

"We are friends! take notice, that if either one of us is to be no longer the other's friend, he pledges himself to give a week's notice. And now farewell."

The last word was cut off, for the locomotive whistled, and Eric set out towards home.

He was sitting with downcast eyes when he heard some one in the car say, —

"There's young Sonnenkamp on horseback!"

Eric looked out, and caught one more glimpse of Roland, just as he disappeared behind a little hill.

Eric heard nothing of the lively talk, often interrupted by loud laughter, which the wine-party kept up; he had much in the past and future to think over, and he was glad when the party left the car at the next station, and he remained alone. He felt some repentance, and some doubt whether he had not acted wrongly and unwisely in not concluding an arrangement with Sonnenkamp, but he soon took courage again and cast his regret behind him.

We are rapidly rolled along by the power of steam. And in spirit? How far are we masters of our destiny?

At several stations, school-boys, with their satchels on their backs, entered Eric's car. He learned, in answer to his questions, that they lived with their parents in country-houses and distant villages, but went every day to school in the city, returning home in the evening. Eric thought long on the new race of youths which is growing up; taking their places in the noisy railway-train in the early morning, then assembling for instruction, and going home again over the railroad; these boys must and will learn to guard, in the restlessness and tumult of the new age, their own inner life, which is, indeed, quite different from ours. And then he looked farther on into a future, when the alarming growth of the great cities shall cease, and men shall again live outside of them, where the green fields, the rushing streams, and the blue sky shall be daily before their eyes, and yet it shall be granted them to make their own the elements of culture, and all which is now supplied by the union of men in large towns. Then again will country air force its way into the soul.

At the time when Eric and the doctor were setting out, the justice's wife sat with her husband and her daughter over their morning coffee. The conversation turned on the evening walk with Eric, and the lady repeated his frank apologies.

"Very good, very good," said the justice. "He is polite and clever, but it's well that he has gone; he's a dangerous man."

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I.
THE STRUGGLE IN A CHILD'S HEART

The sparrows in the alders and willows on the shore of the convent-island twittered and chattered noisily together, they had so much to say to each other about what they had experienced during the day; and who knows whether their to-day was not a much longer interval of time than ours? One puffed up by his experience – perhaps we should say her experience, for the feathers had lost their colors from age – sat quietly in the crotch of a bough, comfortably resting against the trunk; he echoed and re-echoed his delight at the splendid time he enjoyed over the river, under the closely-trimmed branches of a shady linden, in the inn-yard by the shore.

The waiter there had long delayed removing the remnants of an English breakfast, and there were cakes, the pieces, alas! too large, abundance of eggs, honey, and sugar; it was a feast without parallel. He considered that the real joy of existence had its first beginning when one wished to know nothing more of all other things, and had supreme satisfaction in eating and drinking alone. Only in mature life did one really come to that perception.

Others would listen to nothing from the swaggering fellow, and there was an irregular debate, whether lettuce-seeds or young cabbage-heads were not much better than all the cooked-up dishes of men. A young rogue, fluttering around his roguish mate, reported to her that behind the ferryman's house, there hung from the garret-window a bulging bag full 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 a profound secret, else the others would come too; and hemp-seed, it must be acknowledged, was just the most precious good which this whole round earth could furnish. The rogue was of the opinion that her delicate bill was exactly the nice thing to pick open the seam; it was the most contemptible baseness in human beings, to hang up in the open air just the most tempting dainties all fastened and tied up.

A late-comer, flying up in breathless haste, announced that the scarecrow, standing in the field, was nothing but a stick with clothes hung upon it.

"Because the stupid men believe in scarecrows, they think that we do too," laughed he, and flapped his wings in astonishment and pity at the manifest simplicity.

There was a frantic bustle in the alders and willows, and almost as frantic in the great meadow, where the girls from the convent caught hold of each other, chattered together, tittered, teased one another, and laughed.

Apart from her noisy companions, and frequently passing under the alder-trees where there was such a merry gathering of the birds, walked a girl slender in form and graceful in movement, with black hair and brilliant eyes, accompanied by a tall and majestic woman in a nun's dress, whose bearing had an expression of quiet and decisive energy. Her lips were naturally so pressed together, that the mouth seemed only a narrow streak of red. The entire brow was covered with a white kerchief, and the face, the large eyes, the small eyebrows, the sharp nose, the closely pressed lips, and the projecting but rather handsome chin, had something commanding and immovable.

"Honored mother," began the maiden, "you have read the letter from Fräulein Perini?"

The nun – it was the superior – only turned her face a little; she seemed to be waiting for the maiden – it was Hermanna Sonnenkamp – to speak further.

As Manna, however, was silent, the superior said: —

"Herr von Pranken is then to make us a visit. He is a man of good family 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 allows one hardly to hear herself speak."

They went by the churchyard, in the middle of the island, to the grove growings near a small rocky ledge, which the children called the Switzerland of the island; there they sat down, and the superior continued: —

"I am sure of you, my child, that you will decline hearing a word from Herr von Pranken that has any reference to protestations of love, or to the soliciting your hand in marriage."

"You know, honored mother," replied Manna, – her voice was always pathetic, and as if veiled with tears; – "you know, honored mother, that I have promised to take the veil."

"I know it, and I also do not know it, for what you now say or determine is for us like a word written in the sand, which the wind and the footsteps of man may efface. You must go out again into the world; you must have overcome the world, before you renounce it. Yes, my child! the whole world must appear to you like your dolls, which you tell me of, – forgotten, valueless, dead, – a child's toy, upon which it is scarcely conceivable that so much regard, so much love, should be lavished."

For some time all was still, nothing was to be heard but the song of the nightingale in the thicket, and above the river ravens were flying in flocks and singing – men call it croaking – and soaring to their nests in the mountain-cliffs.

"My child," began the superior, after a while, "to-day is the anniversary of my mother's death; I have to-day prayed for her soul in eternity, as I did at that time. At the time she died – men call it dying, but it is only the birth into another life – at that time, my vow forbade me to stand by her death-bed; it cost me hardly a struggle, for whether my parents are still out there in the world, or above there in heaven, it makes no difference to us. Look, the water is now tinged with the glow of evening, and people outside, on the hills and on the banks, are speaking in raptures of nature, that new idol which they have set up, for they are the children of nature; but we are to be the children of God, before whose sight all nature seems only a void, under whatever color it may appear, whether clothed in green, or white with snow."

"I believe, I comprehend that," Manna said assentingly.

"That is why I say it to you," continued the worthy mother. "It is a great thing to overcome the world, to thrust it from one's self, and never to long for it a single instant, and to receive in exchange the eternal blessedness, even while we dwell here in the body. Yes, my child," she laid both hands upon the head of Manna, and continued, "I would like to give you strength, my strength – no, not mine, that which God 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, to the fore-court of the Kingdom of Heaven."

Manna had closed her eyes, and in her soul was the one only wish, that now the earth might open and swallow her up, or that some supernatural power 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 of the mountains, and the river glowing in the red beams of evening, she shut her eyes again, and made a repellant movement with her hand, as if she would have said, – I will have nothing of thee; thou shalt be naught to me; thou art only a doll, a lifeless thing, on which we waste our love.

With trembling voice Manna mourned over her rent and tempest-tossed spirit; a few days before, she had sung and spoken the message of the heralding angels, while dark demons were raging within her. She had spent the whole day in prayer, that she might be worthy to announce such 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 had approached her, and the figure had followed her into her dreams. She had risen at midnight, and wept, and prayed to God that he would not suffer her to fall into sin and ruin. But she had not conquered. She scorned and hated the vision, but it would not leave her. Now she begged that some penance might be imposed upon her, that she might be allowed to fast for three days.

The superior gently consoled her, saying that she must not blame herself so bitterly, because the self-reproach increased the excitement of fancy and feeling. At the season when the elders were in bloom and the nightingales sang, a maiden of seventeen was apt to be visited by dreams; Manna must not weep over these dreams, but just scare them away and 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 returned to the house, and only the nightingale sang continually in the shrubbery. Manna turned back to the convent, the superior leading her by the hand. She went to the large dormitory, and sprinkled herself with holy water. She continued praying silently long after she had gone to bed, and fell asleep, with her hands folded.

The river swept rustling along the valley, and swept rustling by the villa where Roland slept with contemptuously curled lip; it rushed past the streets of the little town, where Eric was speculating upon this and 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.