Loe raamatut: «Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine», lehekülg 35

CHAPTER XIX.
READ BY ANOTHER'S EYES

On looking at the picture, the next day, Bella was painfully dissatisfied with her work. What she had done with so much care and diligence seemed to her false in drawing and expression. She grew positively angry over it, and would have made a fresh beginning had not Clodwig, by his gentle persuasions and judicious praise of the many excellencies of her picture, succeeded in soothing her. She could not help saying, however, with some bitterness, that it was her fate to have everything she undertook turn out otherwise than she had desired, and upon Clodwig's assuring her that such was the necessary result of every attempt to embody our conceptions, she exclaimed impatiently, "I am not what I am." The real cause of her discontent was hard to determine. It was more than the mere dissatisfaction of the artist and disappointment in her own powers.

The strict discipline which Eric had wished to maintain was now much broken in upon. Bella always carried through whatever plan she had laid out for herself, acting upon her favorite theory that it was well to allow men to think they had some authority, but that must be all.

Roland soon turned the conversation to the subject always uppermost in his mind, the life of Franklin. Bella expressed a wish to learn something about it, and Clodwig, after a little sketch had been given of what bad been already gone over, was quite ready to resume the reading where it had been dropped before. Eric and Roland, who sat upon a raised platform, listened eagerly. The reading gave rise to many an animated discussion, for Bella entered with remarkable ease and readiness into everything that was presented to her. Eric was disturbed by her speedy detection in Franklin of "a certain dry pedantry, a stinginess of nature," which her acute criticisms set forth in strong relief. He could feel the emotion her words caused in Roland, who was sitting on his knee.

In these days, it is impossible for a young man of Roland's antecedents and present position to preserve a perfect ideal. If rightly guided, and established on a solid footing, it might perhaps be useful for him to see his ideal attacked, and even distorted.

With all the eloquence at his command, Eric stated the difficulty that beset the enlightened mind of the present day, in having no authoritative voice in the place of that of the Church, to say at every point of life's journey, "Follow thou me." We moderns must recognize what is pure and lofty in noble natures, though cramped by the many limitations incident to our age and individual constitution.

Bella's pencil worked rapidly while he was speaking, and she often nodded, her head assentingly. When he ended she looked full at him, and said, —

"You are the best teacher I ever met with;" then, with beaming eyes and glowing cheeks, she turned again to her work.

"That depends upon the pupil," answered Eric, politely acknowledging the compliment.

"I want you, now," continued Bella, still blushing deeply, "I want you to lay your hand on Roland's head. Please do; it will give precisely the effect I desire. Please do as I say."

He consented, protesting at the same time that the idea did not please him, for Roland should learn to carry his head free.

Bella shook her head with vexation, and continued her work, no longer, however, on the figure of Eric, but solely on that of Roland.

"Now I have it!" she suddenly exclaimed; "that is it! You resemble Murillo's St. Anthony."

"That is just what I noticed," cried Roland. "Manna scolded me for it at the musical festival."

Clodwig also agreed with his wife.

"It is a favorite picture of mine," he said. "How plainly I can see it now before me! The figure of Anthony on his knees, with a knotted staff beside him; the landscape barely indicated; a tree in the background, and the thicket near by. Angels are playing on the ground and floating in the air; one turns over the leaves of the Saint's book, while another holds up to an angel hovering in the heavens a lily which has grown from the earth; the flower thus forming, as it were, a link between heaven and earth."

Eric was somewhat embarrassed by Roland's relating how he had fallen asleep in the chapel of the convent, and how suddenly the black nun stood beside him, and he saw the picture above him.

A request of Eric's that the reading might stop here, and the reasons on which he based his request, assumed various shapes in the minds of his hearers.

"To-day's experience convinces me," he said, "that we cannot control our thoughts or pursue them to any worthy issue, when obliged to remain in a position foreign to those thoughts, or in one at least that has no connection with them. There is a mysterious sympathy between our thoughts and the position and state of our bodies."

Eric's words worked in four different ways upon the party assembled. In his own case, they served to describe his position as tutor. Roland thought of the masons at work on the castle, and wondered what they must be thinking of while perched in mid air on their scaffoldings, or while hammering the stone. Clodwig, too, must have found the words bear in some way upon his life, for he shook his head and pressed his lips hard together, as he was wont to do when thinking. But upon Bella they produced the most striking impression; she suddenly let fall from one hand her pencils, and from the other the bread which she used for the occasional erasing of a line. Eric instantly restored them to her, and she took them from him with a vacant look and no word of thanks. He had brought before her the picture of her married life. Thus this one key-note had struck four different chords.

For a long time no word was spoken.

The presence of Clodwig and his family at Villa Eden caused great excitement in the neighborhood, and appeared to place the tutor in a very peculiar position, Pranken, however, viewed the matter quite differently, and, as acknowledged son of the house, invited to Villa Eden the Justice, with his wife and daughter, who had just returned from the Baths.

His manner towards Lina was particularly friendly and intimate; he took long walks in the garden with her, and made her tell him about her life in a convent, which she did most amusingly, giving comical descriptions of the sisters, the Superior, and her different companions. Her only object in staying at the convent had been the learning of foreign languages. Lina's perpetually gay spirits began to have a cheering effect upon the melancholy Pranken. Something of the Pranken of old times was roused within him. Why need the present be empty and barren? it said. Bella has her flirtation with the Captain, why should he not have his with Lina? Why not indulge in a little harmless jesting, perhaps even admit the excitement of some feeling? He could control himself at any moment.

The old Pranken, the Pranken of the days before, seized his rescued moustache with both hands and twirled it in the air.

It was a good idea, during this pause in his life, to amuse himself with the Justice's Lina. He could imagine himself transported back to the days before that visit to the convent, and add this to the many other experiences of his past life which Manna would have to forget.

Lina meanwhile received his attentions very unconcernedly, showing equal friendliness of manner towards both him and Eric, whom she always called her brother in music.

There was a constant stream of jesting and laughter in the Villa and park. One day Pranken induced his brother-in-law to go boating with Lina and himself, while Bella remained at home to draw. He wanted to take Roland also, wishing, with a certain recklessness, to leave the other two alone together for once. But Roland would not leave Eric; he even openly avoided Pranken's society.

Lina sang gaily as they sat together in the boat. Her love-songs were given with a sweetness, an abandonment, that Pranken had never heard from her before. Clodwig described her singing to his wife, on his return, as being as simple and beautiful as a field flower.

Bella begged the Justice and his wife to let her take Lina back with her to Wolfsgarten. The Justice's objections were overruled by his wife, and Lina was full of delight at setting off with Bella and Clodwig.

Pranken rode beside the carriage.

The quiet of this loneliness weighed heavily again upon Eric and Roland, after the animated society of the last few days. Eric, beside, was out of tune, weary and dull. He found it a burden to be obliged to devote himself from morning to night to this boy, to have to watch his undisciplined, and often capricious, fluctuations of mind. He longed for the society of Clodwig; still more, though he hardly acknowledged it to himself, for that of Bella. There had been a novelty, an animation, an excitement, an atmosphere of graceful elegance, about the rooms, which were now so desolate. Nevertheless, he resisted for several days Roland's entreaties that they should make the promised visit to Wolfsgarten. The house had been entrusted to his care, and he refused to leave it, until Pranken, at length, offered to take all the responsibility upon himself. There was a sting in his words, as he said to Eric, —

"You were present at the musical festival, and left the house then in charge of only the servants. Besides, as I say, I assume the entire responsibility."

CHAPTER XX.
ENTERING INTO THE LIVES OF OTHERS

Beautiful it is in the valley, on the river's bank, where the waters glide by so swiftly, yet so undisturbed; beautiful to see how they glisten in the daylight, reflecting every passing change in the sky, and bearing to and fro the hurrying boats; and again in the evening, to hear the quiet murmur of the stream, as it lies under the radiance of the moon. But beautiful it is also to look from the mountain-top, over the forests, the terraced vineyards, the villages, the cities, and the far-reaching river.

A fresh impulse and animation were now given to the life at Wolfsgarten. The picture of Eric and Roland was brought to completion, and Eric set in order Clodwig's cabinet, thus introducing his pupil to the curiosities of antiquity. There was singing and laughing, there were walks and rides in the neighboring forests, and many a memorable conversation.

Bella often took the parrot with her when she walked with Eric through the park and the forest. The bird took a great antipathy to Eric, and would scold at him from its place on its mistress's shoulder. Sometimes she let it loose with the injunction, "Be sure and come home at night, Koko;" and Koko would perch upon a tree, and fly this way and that, through the forest, always returning at evening. Her freed slave, Bella called him, at such times.

Now, however, Koko had been absent two days. Clodwig offered every reward to get the bird back again, never remarking how quietly his wife took her favorite's loss.

As a matter of course, Bella walked with Eric while Roland and Lina roamed about together in the forest, Lina delighted at being allowed to revel in a child's freedom. At other times, when Eric and Bella were strolling through park and forest, Roland would sit in the potter's workshop, where the clay from the neighboring hills was moulded. He had the whole process explained to him, and was amazed to see what care and labor a single vessel required. Two boys, of about his own age, trampled the clay with their naked feet in order to render it pliable, after which workmen formed it into tiles and architectural ornaments. At a potter's wheel sat a handsome, powerfully-built youth, turning it with his bare feet; then he lifted the clay with great care into the required shape, formed the rim and the nose, and almost tenderly raised the finished vessel from the wheel, and set it in its place on a shelf with the others. He always took precisely the quantity of clay required for the vessel, and never allowed his heavy hands to make on it an impression which he had not designed.

Roland watched the whole scene thoughtfully. Could these men be helped by money? No; their life might be made richer, but they must still work.

The young man who shaped the vessels was dumb. He would give Roland a friendly glance when he entered, and then quietly keep on with his work. The master praised him very highly to Roland, who, being desirous of doing something for him, presented him with his handsome pocket-knife. It contained many instruments within it, and much delighted the poor mute.

Roland told Eric what he had seen, and what thoughts had come into his mind. He had noticed that the workmen had their food brought them, from a great distance, by old women and little children, and asked whether no better arrangement could be made for them.

Eric looked at the boy with unsympathizing eyes as he spoke. How he would once have rejoiced in this proof of his pupil's interest in the welfare of his fellow-men; but now he seemed wholly absorbed in other matters.

A beautifully engraved card brought to Wolfsgarten a piece of news that proved a fertile subject of conversation, – the betrothal of the Wine-count's daughter with the son of the Court-marshal. It seemed an extraordinary step on the part of the young man, who was suffering with a mortal disease, but still more extraordinary that the lady, a fresh young girl, overflowing with life and health, should have made up her mind to such a union. Lina, who was well versed in the private history of every one in the neighborhood, accounted for it by saying that the Wine-count's daughter had always expressed a great desire to be a widowed baroness. There was a deep undertone of meaning, a something not wholly expressed, in Bella's way of speaking of this connection, particularly when addressing Eric, which seemed to take for granted that he would understand what she half concealed.

The newspaper brought another piece of intelligence, the return of the Prince's brother from America, where he had been a careful observer; and his bringing with him for the Prince a freed slave, in the person of a handsome African.

While they were still discussing the impression which a sight of the American Republic must make on a German prince, Roland came in from the forest, exclaiming, – "I have him! I have him!"

He was holding the parrot by his claws.

"There you are again, my freed slave!" cried Bella, as the bird tore himself from Roland's grasp, and, perching upon his mistress's shoulder, began a violent scolding at Eric.

Clodwig did not allow himself to be easily interrupted in a discussion he had once entered upon, and proceeded to state the results of his observations in the world. Bella took an active part in the conversation. It sometimes seemed to Eric, that there was nothing beyond a certain superficial cleverness in her ready flow of words; but he rejected the criticism as a pedantic one.

His life among books, he said to himself, had rendered him unsusceptible to this easy, graceful, brilliancy, while his profession as teacher led him to be always on the watch for an elaborate network of thoughts and impressions, where there was meant to be nothing but a simple expression of natural feeling. He now gave himself freely up to the pleasure of enjoying the close companionship of so richly endowed a nature. These butterfly movements of the mind he began to look upon as legitimately feminine characteristics, which were not to be roughly criticized. Hitherto he had been familiar, in his mother and aunt, only with that severe and business-like conscientiousness, in all intellectual and moral matters, which borders on the masculine; here was a nature that craved only to sip the foam of life. Why require anything further of it?

When Bella was one day walking with Eric in the park, Roland and Lina meanwhile sitting with Clodwig, she complained of not being able to repress the religious doubts that often beset her, while, at the same time, existence without a belief in a compensating future life was a terrible enigma. Without wishing to weaken this idea, Eric sought to give her the assured peace which can be found in the realms of pure thought. There was a strange contradiction in the hearts of these two, imagining, as they did, that they were speaking of things far above and beyond all life, while in reality they were talking of life itself, and that in a way whose significance they would not willingly have acknowledged to themselves.

Suddenly Bertram came riding towards them, his horse white with foam, and while at a distance cried out, —

"Herr Captain, you must return instantly."

"What has happened?" asked Eric.

Clodwig came up with Roland and Lina, and Pranken also appeared at the windows, all anxious to know what had happened.

"Thieves! robbers!" cried Bertram. "The villa has been broken into, and Herr Sonnenkamp's room entered."

A few moments later, Eric and Pranken were in the wagon driving back to the villa. Pranken's vexation was extreme, for he had taken the whole responsibility upon himself.

For a long time neither of the three spoke, until at last Roland broke the silence, by asking Eric what he thought Franklin would have thought and said of such a robbery.

Pranken replied with some warmth, "I should think a son's first question would be, 'What will my father say to it?'"

Roland and Eric were silent. Again they drove on for a long while without a word being spoken. Eric was tormented by accusing thoughts. He seemed to himself doubly a thief. These men had broken into the rooms of the villa by night; what had he done? He had forgotten the soul entrusted to him, and, worse still, after being received by the kindest friendship, he had, under cover of lofty thoughts and noble sentiments, in word, thought, and look been faithless to the most precious trust in the person of his friend's wife. He pressed his hand to his heart, which beat as if it would burst his bosom. Those men, for having stolen gold, would be overtaken by the justice of the law; but for himself, – what would overtake him? Conscious that Roland's eyes were fixed upon him, he cast his own on the ground in painful confusion.

Finally he controlled himself, and said in a trembling voice, that he should assume the entire responsibility; he acknowledged Pranken's friendliness, but felt that in such a case as this, no one could interpose between himself and the consequences of neglect of duty. So severely did he reproach himself, that Roland and Pranken looked at him in amazement.

CHAPTER XXI.
LEARN THE EVIL THAT IS IN MAN

Villa Eden had hitherto been surrounded by a mysterious magic. Fear and envy had given rise to the report that there was something wrong about the inmates; about Herr Sonnenkamp, whom everybody saw, and Frau Ceres, whom scarcely anybody saw. The threats of spring-guns and man-traps posted upon the walls imbued the ignorant people in the neighborhood with an almost superstitious fear. It was even said that Herr Sonnenkamp had smeared the trap with a poison for which there was no antidote. The servants of the house affected somewhat the reserve of their superiors; they had little intercourse with others, and were hardly saluted by them. But the mysterious dragon, which, no one knew how or where, kept secret watch over the villa, seemed nothing but a scarecrow after this robbery; the beautiful white house was stripped of its charm; it was as if all the bolts were thrown back. Quickly the report gained ground that the house-servants had committed the robbery.

The people on the roads and in the villages through which the carriage passed looked up and nodded to Eric, Roland, and Pranken, as they drove swiftly by. The few who raised their caps did it hesitatingly, as if they, like the rest, would say, It is all up now with your master; the officers will soon find out what has been going on among you.

The three men found everything in confusion at the villa when they arrived.

The porter at once expressed conviction that the robbery had been committed by persons belonging to the house, because all the doors had been closely fastened, and not a dog had barked; showing that the thieves must have been familiar with the house, and well known to the dogs.

The officers were already on the spot. Sonnenkamp's work-room had been entered, and treasures stolen whose value could not be estimated, among them a dagger with a jewelled handle. The thieves had even tried to force the fire-proof safe, but in vain. Great goblets of gold and silver which stood upon the sideboard in the dressing-room had disappeared, as well as Roland's gold watch, which, when he went to Wolfsgarten, he had left on the table beside his bed. His pillow had also been taken, but was afterwards found on the wall, where it had served to make a smooth and easy passage over the broken glass which had been intended to make the wall insurmountable.

Two footprints were discovered in the park and behind the hot-house. The thieves must have stumbled among the heaps of garden mould, for on one of these was plainly visible the impression of a human body; one of the thieves had evidently fallen there. Here was also found a pair of the dwarfs old boots, which, on being compared with the footprints in the garden, were found exactly to correspond. Thus a clue was gained, though a very uncertain one. The dwarf just then came by, on his way to his accustomed work, and listened in astonishment to an account of what had happened. He was allowed to work on undisturbed.

The officer who had charge of the investigation, and his assistants, the burgomaster of the village, and some of the chief men, were assembled in the balcony-room, examining the various servants. Roland stood apart, his eyes fixed upon the pillow which had been stolen and made use of by the thieves in climbing the wall. He grew very pale, as he stood there listening to the questions that were asked of one man after another, in the hope of extorting something from each.

The dwarf appeared, and said that a pair of boots had been stolen from him.

"Yes," replied the officer at once, "the theft was committed in your boots."

The dwarfs face wore a simple expression, as if he had not understood what was meant.

The officer ordered his instant arrest. He complained piteously that the innocent were always the ones to be suspected, and Roland begged that the poor creature might be allowed to go free.

"I will throttle any one who touches me," cried the dwarf, his excitement seeming to make a different being of him.

At a sign from the officer, two men quietly bound the poor creature's hands behind his back.

Eric led Roland away. Why should he see this night-side of human nature?

Happily the Major appeared at this moment, and Eric delivered Roland to him.

"Here is a lesson for you, young man," said the Major. "Everything can be stolen from you, except your heart, when in the right place, and except what you have in your head; they can never be stolen from you. Mark that."

The officer had the servants brought before him, and questioned them as to the persons who had lately visited the villa. They mentioned the names of many, but the porter said, —

"The Herr Captain took the huntsman by himself over the whole house, and when he left he said to me, 'You guard the rich man's money and treasures, when it would be better to throw the doors wide open, and to scatter it abroad in the world.'"

Eric could not deny that the huntsman had observed everything very closely, and had talked in a confused way about the distinction of rich and poor; yet he thought he could answer for the man's honesty.

The officer made no answer, but despatched two of his men to search the house of Claus.

The huntsman smiled and shrugged his shoulders, when he saw what their intention was. Nothing was found, but in a kennel was chained a dog that barked incessantly.

"Unfasten the dog's chain," said one of the men to Claus, who had followed them through all the rooms and into the court, saying nothing, but keeping his lips moving all the time.

"What for?"

"Because I bid you; if you don't do it at once, I shall shoot the dog through the head."

Upon the dog being set free, the kennel was searched, and in it, under the straw, were found Roland's watch and the jewel-hilted dagger. Claus was immediately bound and put under arrest, in spite of his earnest protestations of innocence. On the way from his house to the villa he kept raising his chains, as if to show them appealingly to the fields, the vineyards, and the heavens.

A list was made out of the stolen articles as far as they could be described, and Roland was summoned to sign his name for the first time to an official document.

"There is no calculating the effect such a thing must produce on the boy," said Eric to the Major, who was standing by.

"It will do him no harm," replied the Major; "his heart is sound, and Fräulein Milch says, 'A young heart and a young stomach are quick digesters.'"

Fräulein Milch was mistaken this time, for at sight of Clans brought in in chains, Roland uttered a cry of distress.

A new scent was presently started. The groom, who had been in Pranken's pay as a spy, and afterwards dismissed by Sonnenkamp, had, within the last few days, been seen and recognized in the neighborhood, though he had taken great pains to disguise himself. Telegrams were immediately despatched in all directions for the arrest of the supposed thief, and also to Sonnenkamp.

The priest came, lamented what had happened, using a noble charity in speaking of the disaster, and begged Eric not to lay it too much to heart, because, devoted as he had been to learning and science, he could naturally have no proper knowledge of the wickedness of his fellow-men, and had naturally allowed himself to be taken unawares by it.

Eric was more humbled in spirit than the priest thought reasonable. He remembered having once said, that the man who consecrates himself to an idea must renounce all else; and now he was humiliated by standing in the presence of one who, in his way, acted up to this sentiment, while he himself had allowed the excitement of mental dissipation to drag him down from his high standard.

The priest repeated, that is all our plans we should take into account the wickedness of mankind; and Eric, who hardly knew what answer to make, assured him that he was well aware of the necessity, having voluntarily passed some time in a House of Correction, for the sake of restoring guilty men to their better selves. Neither Eric nor the priest, who praised him, noticed the effect which this confession produced upon Roland. He was, then, in the hands of a man who had tried to counsel criminals, who had lived in a House of Correction! A fear and repugnance took possession of the boy's soul. Eric's motive was forgotten; Roland seemed to himself humiliated. He sat a long time silently buried in thought, his face covered with his hands.

The priest approached him at last, and admonished him not to let this accident dishearten him, but only let it teach him not to place his trust in the treasures of this world, particularly in his own possessions; neither to have that so-called faith in humanity, which is a deceitful faith, exposed to daily shocks; for there was but one sure and abiding faith, that in God, the supreme being, eternal and unchanging, who never deceives.

Roland remained silent and absorbed for some time after he and Eric were left alone; finally he asked: —

"Does my father know what you once were?"

"Yes."

"Why did you not tell me?"

"Why? I had no reason for concealing it from you, or for telling you."

The boy again covered his face with his hands, and Eric, feeling that the course he was here called upon to defend was one undertaken from the purest motives, while within him he was conscious of a guilt which none but himself could upbraid him with, explained to Roland how he had felt it his duty to devote himself to the most unhappy. He spoke so touchingly that the boy suddenly raised his head, and, holding out his hand to him, exclaimed in a tone of the deepest feeling: —

"Forgive me! Ah, you are better than all."

The words smote Eric to the soul.

The officers of the law had left the villa, and even Pranken had ridden away. Roland went about the house, looking fearfully behind him, as if he had seen a ghost, an evil spirit. The stairs had been trodden by wicked men, the doors had been tried by their instruments; the house and all its treasures had been desecrated; he had lost pleasure not only in the things which had been plundered, but still more in those which could not be taken, which the thieves had been obliged to leave.

He begged Eric not to leave him for a moment, so great was his fear. At night he was unwilling to go to bed; rest seemed impossible to him in a place where the hands of robbers had taken the pillows from his bed. Eric yielded to his entreaties that he would remain by him, and said, after Roland had finally gone to bed, —

"I owe you an answer to your question, – What would Franklin have said to this robbery? I think I know. He would have had no compassion on the thieves; he would have given them up to the full penalty of the law; but at the same time he would have maintained, that the wickedness of individuals should not be allowed to rob us of our faith in humanity; for if thieves could inflict that loss upon us, they would be robbing us of more than hands can touch."

Roland nodded assent. Long after he had fallen asleep, Eric stood by the bedside, thoughtfully watching the boy, who had had to learn this lesson thus early, – Of what use is all this subtle study; of what advantage any conscious training? An invisible, irresistible power, the great current of life's experience, educates a man far more than a single human teacher can do, and in a different way.

Long did Eric stand at the window, gazing out upon the river and the vine-covered hills. We all work according to the strength that is in us; the result of our labors lies not in our hands, but in the control of that invisible, all-embracing power whose origin we know not, and which we can only call God.