CHAPTER VIII.
EYES OPENED
While Eric was in the garden with Herr Sonnenkamp, Roland sat with Claus near the young dogs. The huntsman asked him whether all was settled with the captain, and seeing that he did not understand his meaning, he laughed to himself as he thought he might win a double reward.
"What will you give me," he asked, "if I manage to have the captain stay with you as a companion and teacher? Whew!" he interrupted himself suddenly, "you look like a dog whose eyes are opened for the first time. Come, tell me – what will you give me?"
Roland could not answer; everything was giddy and confused in his thoughts, and the young dogs seemed to be whirling round and round.
Joseph came into the stable, and after representing Eric's parents as veritable saints, he concluded, —
"You ought to be proud, Master Roland; the father educated the prince, and now the son is to educate you."
"Open the shutters, quick!" cried Claus suddenly. Joseph did so, and the trainer took up one of the puppies, drew up its eyelids, and exclaimed, "There, that's enough to show me that this one's eyes are just opening. Now don't let any more light in, or they will be spoiled."
In his interest in the animals, Claus forgot his shrewd two-fold plan; he went with Roland and Joseph into the court, where Roland immediately left them. He saw his father and Eric sitting together, and felt angry with Eric for not telling him directly who he was. Soon overcoming this feeling, however, he would gladly have hastened to him and embraced him, but he restrained himself, and only approached when he heard the whole party laughing.
He pressed close to Eric confidingly, and his eyes said, "I thank you; I know who you are."
Eric did not understand his glance, until Roland said, —
"The others have had you long enough, now come with me."
He accompanied Eric to his room, and seemed to be waiting to talk with him, but Eric begged to be left alone; he was inexpressibly weary, and, like a heavy burden, there lay upon his spirit the consciousness that he who enters the service of others cannot live his own life; especially if he attaches to himself a faithful soul which he is to mould, sustain, and guide, he must never be weary, never say, "Now leave me to myself," but must be always ready, always expectant, always at the beck and call of others.
Roland was much troubled at Eric's look of fatigue; he could not suspect that he was extremely dissatisfied with himself. It was not merely the weariness after imparting extensive and various knowledge which often brings a sense of exhaustion, it was pure chagrin that he had allowed himself to be beguiled into drawing a plan of vast extent, and for what object? The education of a single boy.
Eric's chief vexation was, however, that he was obliged to acknowledge himself still so undisciplined; he must become more self-restrained before he could give stability and right training to another. In this state of discontent he hardly heard the boy, who talked on about the wonderful opening of the dog's eyes, and kept asking him questions, and looking inquiringly in his face.
A servant entered, and announced that the carriages were ready for a drive.
Eric was startled. What sort of a life was this? To promenade in the garden, ride, drive, eat, amuse one's self. How could he guard and preserve his own inner life? How would it be possible to hold a young spirit to a definite course of constant self-development?
Eric's pride rose; he had not worked all his life for this, – exercised himself in earnest and strict renunciation for the sake of filling the intervals between driving and banqueting. The plan would be unbearable; he would have an arrangement which he could control and to which he could give the tone of his own mind.
He went into the court with Roland, and politely asked to be excused from the drive, as he felt the necessity of being alone for a few hours.
This announcement was received by glances of various expression. Herr Sonnenkamp said quickly, that he laid no sort of constraint upon his guests: Pranken and Fräulein Perini exchanged looks in which there seemed to be a malicious pleasure in the harm that Eric had done himself by the wilfulness which led to a want of tact.
Roland said at once that he would like to stay at home with Eric, but Pranken rejoined in an exultant tone:
"Herr Dournay just wishes to be alone; if you stay with him, my dear Roland, the gentleman will just not be alone."
He uttered the word "gentleman" in a peculiarly disagreeable tone.
The second carriage was sent away. Fräulein Perini, Pranken, and Roland entered the other; Sonnenkamp seated himself on the box; he was fond of managing four horses from the box-seat; four-in-hand was a great delight to him. This driving four-in-hand was generally taken for ostentation, but it was only a personal gratification.
Frau Ceres also remained behind; she had already exerted herself to be social quite enough for that day.
Eric watched the party drive off, then returned to his room.
He sat there alone in perfect quiet, more weary than it would have seemed possible to become in so short a time, but the day Lad been one of excitement, and full of a violent effort to make himself master over novel circumstances. How much he had been through! It seemed years since he looked over the Roman antiquities with Clodwig. During the day he had been obliged to turn over and over, and to unfold his own character and environment; he had tasted for the first time the humble bread of servitude, and the feeling, half of friendliness, half of ingratitude, the enigmatic in Sonnenkamp, in Roland, in Fräulein Perini, and Frau Ceres, seemed to him like the dim memory of a dream, like a far-off life, as his thoughts went home to his mother.
A profound home-sickness threatened to overcome him, but he shook it off resolutely. It must not be! His military training helped him; his orders were to stand at his post, keep a close watch, and never to tire.
"Never to tire!" he said half aloud to himself, and the consciousness of youthful vigor supported him. He felt that on the next day he could meet the problems before him full of fresh courage; and one thought above all others strengthened him, and lightened his heart: he had remained faithful to the truth, and so should it always be. Truth is that firm standpoint of mother-earth where the wrestling spirit is not to be conquered and thrown.
In the distance, from the railway station across the river, he now heard an idle locomotive blowing off steam. It snorted, shrieked, and panted like a fabulous monster; and Eric thought. This engine has all day been drawing trains of cars in which hundreds of human beings had, for the time, been seated, and now it is resting and letting off its hot steam. He smiled as he thought that he himself was almost such a locomotive, and was now cooling himself, to be fired up anew on the morrow.
Suddenly he was waked from sleep; for he had slept without intending to do so. A servant announced that Frau Sonnenkamp wished to speak to him.
CHAPTER IX.
A TWILIGHT RIDDLE
The sun had set, but a golden haze enveloped valley, mountain and river, when Eric went with the servant, and from the corridor looked out over the distant prospect. He was conducted through several rooms. In the last, where a ground-glass hanging-lamp was lighted, he heard the words, "I thank you, – be seated."
He saw Frau Ceres reclining on a divan, a large rocking-chair standing before her. Eric sat down.
"I have remained at home on your account," Frau Ceres began; she had a feeble, timid voice, and it was evidently, difficult for her to speak.
Eric was at a loss what to reply.
Suddenly she sat upright, and asked, —
"Are you acquainted with my daughter?"
"No."
"But you've been to the convent on the island?"
"Yes; I had a greeting to deliver from my mother to the Lady Superior – nothing farther."
"I believe you. I am not the cause of her becoming a nun – no, not I – do not think it," and reclining again on the pillow, Frau Ceres continued, —
"I warn you, captain, not to remain here with us. I have been informed of nothing – he has let me be informed of nothing – but do not stay with us, if you can find any other employment in the world. What is your purpose in coming into this house?"
"Because I thought – until an hour ago I believed – that I could be a fitting guide to your son."
And now Eric gave utterance to his inmost feeling of unfitness for being another's guide, and yet he must confess that no other person could have a stronger inclination to be, only some other might perhaps take it more easily. He unfolded from the very depths of his soul the newly awakened longing to plunge into solitary meditation, and lamented that one builds up an ideal of life and of work only to have it shattered in pieces upon the rock of actual existence; but it was only unvanquished self-seeking, for which his own thought, and not, the world, was to blame.
"I am not learned – I don't understand you," Frau Ceres replied. "But you speak so beautifully – you have such good expressions – I should like always to hear you speak, even if I do not understand what you are saying. But you will not let him know anything about my having sent for you?"
"Him? Whom?" Eric wished to ask, but Frau Ceres raised herself up hastily, and said, —
"He can be terrible – he is a dangerous man – no one knows it, no one would imagine it. He is a dangerous man! Do you like me too?"
Eric trembled. What did that mean?
"Ah! I do not know what I am saying," continued Frau Ceres.
"He is right – I am only half-witted. Why did I send for you? Yes, now I know. Tell me about your mother. Is she really a learned and noble lady? I was also a noble lady – yes, I was one indeed."
A fresh shiver passed over Eric. Is this half lethargic, half raving person really insane, and kept within bounds in society only by the greatest care?
He had wished this very morning to write to his mother that he had come into fairyland, – the fairy land was yet more marvellous than he had himself fancied.
Eric depicted with extreme precision, as far as a son could, the character of his mother; how she was always so very happy, because she was contriving how to make others happy. He described the death of his father, the death of his brother, and the greatness of soul with which his mother endured all this.
Frau Ceres sobbed; then she said suddenly, —
"I thank you – I thank you!"
She extended her white hand to Eric, and kept saying, —
"I thank you! With all his money he has not been able to make me know that I could weep once more. O, how much good it does me! Stay with us – stay with Roland. He cannot weep – say nothing to him – I also should like to have a mother. Stay with us. I shall never forget it of you – I thank you – now go – go – before he returns – go – good-night!"
Eric went back to his chamber. What he had experienced seemed to him like a dream; the hidden element of mystery which seemed at Wolfsgarten to envelop the family of Sonnenkamp was more and, more evident. Here were the strangest sorts of riddles. Roland, full of life and spirits, came to him; the brief separation had given both a new and joyful pleasure in meeting again; it was as great as if they had been separated for years.
Roland asked Eric to tell him about the Huguenots; there had evidently been much talk about them during the drive. Eric put him off, saying that it was not necessary, at least not now, to dwell upon the horrible tortures which human beings inflicted upon one another on account of their religious belief.
Roland informed Eric that Herr von Pranken was going the next day to visit Manna at the convent.
Eric was doubtful what he ought to do. If he were to forbid the boy's informing him of what he heard, he would scare away his confidingness, his perfect confidence; and yet it was disagreeable to himself to be informed of things which might not be intended for him to hear. He proposed to himself for the future, to request Sonnenkamp to say nothing in the hearing of the boy which he ought not to know, Eric was summoned once more to tea; Frau, Ceres did not make her appearance.
Eric was this evening perplexed, and lost the feeling of untroubled security.
Should he tell Sonnenkamp that his wife had sent for him? But then he must inform him of what she had revealed to him, though it was only half uttered, – it was a warning, a speech wholly disjointed and incoherent.
Eric also saw Roland looking at him as if beseeching. The boy felt that some painful experience was going on in his new friend, which he would gladly remove. And to Eric's affection there was superadded the feeling of pity. Here was a manifestly distressing family relation under which the boy must have suffered, and it was a fortunate thing that his light, youthful spirits were untouched.
Eric was reminded continually of an experience of his in the house of correction, The most hardened criminals had avowed always, with the most triumphant mien, that it conferred the greatest satisfaction to them to be able to conceal their deeds from the world; but the least hardened disclosed, on the other hand, how glad they felt to be punished; for the fear of discovery, and the constant endeavour to conceal the crime, were the severest punishment.
Eric had now a secret; was he to let it be possible for a servant to betray him, and himself appear untrustworthy?
When Eric was about to go to rest, Roland came to him and asked whether he had anything to impart to him.
Eric replied in the negative, and the boy appeared sad when he said good-night.
CHAPTER X.
A NEW DAY AND DARK QUESTIONS
The morning dew glistened on grass, flower, and shrub, and the birds sang merrily, as Eric walked through the park. There was evidence everywhere of an ordering, busy, and watchful mind.
Eric heard, on the bank of the river, two women talking with each other, as they carried on shore the garden-earth out of a boat.
"God be praised," said one, "who has sent the man to us; no one in the place who is willing to work need suffer poverty any more."
"Yes," spoke the other, "and yet there are people here who are so bad as to say all sorts of things about the man."
"What do they say?"
"That he has been a tailor."
Eric could hardly restrain himself from laughing aloud. But a third woman, with a rather thick voice, said, —
"A tailor indeed! He has been a pirate, and in Africa stole a gold-ship."
"And supposing he did," said the other, "those man-eaters have heaps of gold, and are heathens beside, and Herr Sonnenkamp does nothing but good with his gold."
Eric could not help smiling at these strange tales and implications; and it was also painful to him that great wealth always stirred up new and calumnious reports.
He went on farther. He saw from a height, with satisfaction, how the main building and all its dependencies, with park and garden, were combined in a beautiful harmony. Near the main building there were only trees of a dark foliage, lindens, elms, and maples, which brought out, by contrast, so much the more brightly the brilliant architecture of the house built in a good Renaissance style. The arbored walks converged gradually, as if conducting to the solidly-built mansion, which seemed not to be built upon the ground, but as if it had sprung up from the soil with the scenery that surrounded it; the stone colonnades, the lawns, the trees, the elevations, all were an introduction to the house; all was in harmony. The verandas appeared to be only bearers of the climbing plants, and the whole was a masterpiece of rural architecture, a work of natural poetry according to the laws of pure art, so that all that was man's handiwork seemed as fresh as if it had just come out of the builder's hand, and in such perfect preservation, that one perceived that each tree, each leaf, each lattice, was owned and carefully cherished by a wealthy man.
Eric, however, was not to be long alone; the valet, Joseph, joined him, and with a pleasing deference offered to inform Eric concerning everything in the household.
As Eric was silent, Joseph related once more that he had been a billiard-boy at the University, Henry the thirty-second, for all the boys must be called Henry. Then he had been a waiter in the Berne Hotel at Berne, where Sonnenkamp had boarded for almost two summers long, occupying the whole first floor – the best rooms in the world, as Joseph called them – and had learned to know him, and taken him into his service. Joseph gave rather a humorous account of the corps of servants in the household, that it was a sort of menagerie gathered from all countries. As in a poultry yard there are all sorts of fowls, and even the peacock is not wanting, which shrieks so horribly and looks so beautifully, so it was with the people here, for Herr Sonnenkamp had travelled all over the world. The coachman was an Englishman, the first groom a Pole, the cook a Frenchman, the first chamber-maid a thoroughgoing Bohemian, and Fräulein Perini an Italian Frenchwoman of Nice. The master was, however, very strict; the gardeners must not smoke in the park, nor the grooms whistle in the stable, for all the horses were accustomed to the whistle of the master, and must not be disturbed. And moreover, Herr Sonnenkamp would rather not have his servants look like servants, or have any peculiar dress of servants, and it was only a short time ago that he had given in to his wife, and dressed a few of them in livery. The servants were allowed to speak only a few words, and there were particular words which Herr Sonnenkamp used to each of them, and which each used in answering, and so all were kept in good order.
Joseph related in conclusion, not without self-satisfaction, that he had spread abroad in the servants' room the fame of Eric's parents; it was a good thing for people to know where a man came from, for then they had a much greater respect. But that Madame Perini was the special mistress in the household, and would continue to be; she was really a Fräulein, but the gracious Frau called her always Madame.
"The keeper is right," added Joseph. "Fräulein Perini is a woman with the strength of seven cats, and a marten into the bargain."
Eric wished to hinder this revelation, but Joseph begged him to allow everything to be spoken out, and to pardon him as being a University acquaintance. He only added the information that Pranken was to marry the daughter of the house.
"Ah! that is a beauty! not exactly a beauty, but lovely and charming; formerly she was so frolicsome, no horse was too wild for her, no storm on the Rhine too violent; she hunted like a poacher, but now she is only sad – always sad – vilely sad."
Eric was glad when the gossiping youth suddenly drew out his watch, and said: —
"In one minute the master gets up, and then I must be near him. He is a man always up to time," he added as he went away.
Like confused echoes which gradually mingle into one sound, Eric thought upon all that he had now heard about the daughter of the house. And was not this the girl with wings, who had met him the day before yesterday in the convent? Involuntarily standing still, and staring at a hedge, a whole life-picture presented itself to his mind. Here is a child sent to the convent, removed from all the world, from all intercourse with people; she is taken out of the convent, and they say to her: "Thou art the Baroness Pranken!" and she is happy with the handsome and brilliant man, and all the dazzling splendor of the world is showered upon her through him. It seems as if he had called it all into being, and this without knowing what kind of a man her husband is, – it will be indeed a good thing for her not to know.
He shook his head. What was the little cloister-plant to him?
Eric saw nothing more of the gorgeous beauty of the garden; he hastened out of it with his eyes fixed upon the ground, wandered through the park, and just as he came out of a copse of trees by the pond, Sonnenkamp met him. He had a foreign look in his short gray plush-jacket fastened with cord, and was especially glad to find Eric already up, proposing to himself to show him the house and grounds.
He directed his attention first to a large tuft of prairie-grass; he smiled as Eric imagined a stampede of buffaloes, and he made a peculiar motion of throwing, in describing how he had caught many a one with the lasso.
Then he led Eric to an elevation set out with beautiful, plane-trees, which he pointed out as the very crown of the whole place. He prided himself very much upon these fair and flourishing trees, adding that in such a tract as the wine-district, destitute of shade, a thickly shaded place was a thing to be taken into consideration against a hot day of summer.
"You will perceive that I have gone beyond my own territory, in order to add to its beauty; above there upon the height is a group of trees, which I have kept in order and thinned out, laying out paths, and making new plantations, in order to get a picturesque view. I have built my house not to please the eyes of others, but where I could have the best prospect from it. The peasant's house yonder was built after a plan of my own, and I was very properly obliged to contribute a part of the cost. That plantation beyond is a screen to hide the glaring stone-quarry; and that pretty church spire above there in the mountain-village, – that was built by me. I was very highly praised for doing it, and a great deal of flattering, pious incense was burned for me, but I can assure you that my sole motive in doing it was to gain a fine view. I am obliged to change the whole character of the region – a very difficult job – and here comes in the covetousness of people. Just see, a basket-maker builds him a house yonder, with a horribly steep roof covered with red tiles, that is a perpetual eye-sore to me; and I cannot reach the fellow. He wishes to sell the house to me for an extravagant price, but what can I do with it? He may just keep it, and accommodate himself to my arrangements."
There was a violent energy in Sonnenkamp's manner of speaking, reminding Eric of an expression of Bella's, that the man was a conqueror; such an one has always something tyrannical in him, and desires to arrange and dispose everything in the world according to his own individual taste, or his own personal whims. The villages, the churches, the mountains, and the woods, were to him only points in the landscape, and they must all come into one favorite angle of vision.
And now Herr Sonnenkamp conducted his guest through the park, and explained to him how he had arranged the grounds, and how through the disposition of elevations and depressions he had broken up the uniformity; but that in many cases he had only to bring out the natural advantages, and give them their right effect: he pointed out the careful disposition of light and shadow, and how he oftentimes set out a clump of trees, a little group of the same species; which he mingled together not in sharp and distinct contrast, but in regular gradation of colors, such as we see in nature.
Sonnenkamp smiled in a very friendly way, when Eric, in order to show that he comprehended, replied, that a park must appear to be nature brought into a state of cultivation; and that the more one knows how to conceal the shaping hand and the disposing human genius, and allows all to appear as a spontaneous growth, so much the more is it in accordance with the pure laws of art.
A little brook, which came down from the mountain and emptied into the river, was made to wind about with such skill, that it kept disappearing and appearing again at unexpected points, saying by its murmur, "Here I am."
In the disposition of resting-places, particularly good judgment was exhibited. Under a solitary weeping-ash that cast a perfectly circular shadow, a pretty seat was placed for a single person, and it seemed to say invitingly, "Here thou canst be alone!" The seat, however, was turned over, and leaned up against the tree.
"This is my daughter's favorite spot," Sonnenkamp said.
"And have you turned over the seat, so that no one may occupy it before your child returns?"
"No," Sonnenkamp replied, "that is entirely by chance, but you are right, so it shall be."
The two went on farther, but Eric hardly saw the beautiful, comfortable benches, and hardly listened while Sonnenkamp declared to him that he did not place these on the open path, but behind shrubbery, so that here was a solitude all ready made.
A table was placed under a beautiful maple, with two seats opposite one another. Sonnenkamp announced that this place was named the school; for here Roland at intervals received instruction. Eric rejoined that he never should teach sitting in the open air; it was natural to give instruction while walking, but regular, definite teaching, which demanded concentration of the mind, demanded also an enclosed space in which the voice would not be utterly lost.
Sonnenkamp had now a good opportunity to tell Eric what conclusion he had arrived at in regard to the matter in hand, but he was silent. As an artist takes delight in the criticisms of an intelligent observer, who unfolds to him concealed beauties which he was hardly aware of himself, so he took delight in perceiving how understandingly, and with how much gratification, Eric took note of the various improvements, and of the grouping of trees and shrubs.
They stood a long time before a group where the gloomy cedar was placed near the hardy fir, and the gentle morning breeze whispered in the foliage of the silver poplar, and caused the white leaves to glisten like little rippling waves upon the surface of a lake.
Near a little pond with a fountain was a bower of roses, upon a gentle elevation, patterned according to a dream of Frau Ceres; and here Sonnenkamp remained stationary, saying:
"That was at the time when I was still very happy here in our settlement, and when everything was still in a sound and healthy condition."
Eric stopped, questioning whether he ought to tell Herr Sonnenkamp of yesterday's strange occurrence. Sonnenkamp said, accompanying his words with peculiar little puffs, as if he were lightly and carefully blowing a fire, —
"My wife often has strange whims; but if she is not contradicted she soon forgets them."
He appeared suddenly to remember that it was not necessary to say this, and added with unusual haste, —
"Now come, and I will show you my special vanity. But let me ask you one thing; does it not seem dreadful to you, who are a philosopher, that we must leave all this, that we know we must die; and while everything around continues to grow green and bloom, he who planted and acquired the means to plant is here no more, but moulders in the dust?"
"I should not have believed that you indulged in such thoughts."
"You are right to answer so. You must not ask such questions, for no one knows their answer," said Sonnenkamp sharply and bitterly; "but one thing more. I wish Roland to understand rightly this creation of mine and to carry it on, for such a garden is not like a piece of sculpture, or any finished work of an artist; it is growing, and must be constantly renewed. And why should there not be granted us the certainty of transmitting to our posterity what we have conquered, created, or fashioned, without fear that strangers will at some time enter into possession and let all go to waste?"
"You believe," answered Eric, "that I know no answer to the first of your questions, and I must confess, that I do not quite understand the second."
"Well, well, perhaps we will talk of it again – perhaps not," Sonnenkamp broke off. "But come now and let me show you my special pride."