CHAPTER XI.
THE BOND OF HONOR
It was evening. Roland was going through the village. In the streets floated an odor of the May wine; everybody was merry and bustling; the wine-presses were creaking and dripping in the streets, men were moving along slowly with full heavy tubs on their backs.
Roland gazed at everybody with questioning look; he would have liked to cry out, —
See, here is a beggar, he begs of you something of love, of kindness, of pity for him and his father. Ah, only a little charity!
He saw the houses to which on his births day he had carried joy-bringing gifts; the people returned his greetings, but they were not, as formerly, gladdened and honored by them; he left the village.
Outside of it, on the river-bank, he sat behind a hedge, as he did before he ran away to Eric. Now he was sitting in unspeakable sadness, that bade fair to wither his life-strength. A water-ousel flew up near him. With childish self-forgetfulness, he bent the boughs away from each other, and saw a nest with five young ones stretching out their bills. How happy he would have been in by-gone days to have made such a discovery! Now, he stood there, and said to himself sadly, —
Ah! you are at home.
He heard a carriage come rattling towards him on the road, and he thought of that poor servant in the night, who would rather hunger and beg than possess property unjustly acquired.
Not far from him on the bank a boat was loosened from its chain; he heard the chain rattle, and at the same moment he felt in his heart as if he heard the slaves, who, bound in one long chain, were coming towards him; and this again transformed itself in his imagination, and he saw the dwarf, fettered as he had once seen him, and the groom; they were walking along the road, and behind them the constable, with his loaded gun gleaming in the sun.
He looked, up.
There, indeed, was a constable walking along. What if he were coming to arrest his father?
O no, there was no fear of that!
What was the matter, then?
And while his eye was still fastened on the bush behind which the constable disappeared, he became, as it were, clairvoyant, his sight reaching out to all things instinctively. His thought stretched away to Clodwig, to the Doctor, to the Major, to the Huntsman. What are they all saying? Profoundly it came upon him: Man does not live for himself alone. There is an invisible and inseparable community, whose bond is respect and honor. He could bear no longer to sit alone with his confused thoughts; he said to himself almost aloud; —
"To the Huntsman's."
With nimble foot and beating heart, as if he expected to find something there, he knew not what, he ascended the mountain. Before reaching the town he was met by the second son of the Huntsman; he too was slowly plodding: he was carrying a heavy tub of young wine. The lad was of the same age with Roland, and while still at some distance, he cried out: —
"Father said that you would come. Just go right in, he is expecting you."
Roland thanked him and went on. As he entered the Huntsman's house, the latter cried out to him: —
"Knew you were coming. Have a salve for you. Needn't tell me anything, know everything this long while. Can give you something."
"What?"
"Boy, there are two things in the world that help; praying and drinking. If you can't pray, drink till you have enough. Come, that's the best thing."
"Shame on you," rejoined Roland, "shame on you, there is another thing."
"What now? What?"
"Why, thinking. I cannot yet do it well at all, and I know not what will come of it, but still help must come of it."
"Huzza!" cried the Huntsman, "you're a splendid lad! Say, have you decided yet what you'll do with the big pile of money, when you've once got it in your hand?"
"No."
"Very well. No doubt you'll learn. Now, I tell you, don't fret your young life away. Have pity on your father; he is a poor man, with all his millions. Show that you're a lad who deserves to have the sun shine on him.
"Listen! mind!" he said, interrupting himself suddenly.
The black-bird was singing the melody: "Rejoice in your life." Roland and the Huntsman looked at each other, and Roland smiled.
"Just so!" cried the Huntsman. "Learn that by heart, too. Rejoice In your life, all else is silly stuff. The bird is sensible. You've done your part well." He nodded to the black-bird, which was regarding the man and the boy with a wise look, as if it knew what it had done, and was sure of applause; and turning to Roland, he continued merrily; —
"So – just so! – just so! Hold up your head, and if you need any one, call on me. You got me out of prison; that I'll never forget. Now come and be merry, as your dogs are."
He took out a loaf of bread, which Roland was to give to the dogs to eat; but Roland ate first with great zest.
"Hurrah! victory!" shouted Claus, "you're hungry. The battle's won! Now let the water run down the Rhine, there's another day to-morrow."
Eric had had a presentiment that Roland would be at the field-guard's; he went after him, and was rejoiced to find him calm once more. They went home together, and Roland said: —
"Over there at the Huntsman's it came into my head all at once: What would Benjamin Franklin say to me now? Do you know, Eric, what he would say?"
"Not entirely, but I think he would say that a man who does nothing but grieve stands on a level with the brute, which in a mishap cannot help itself. The power of man has its beginning in this, that he can grasp, comprehend, and direct his misfortune in such a way as to make something out of it for his own good. If you suffer yourself to fall asleep in affliction, you are responsible for your own injury. Rouse yourself. As long as there is anything which you can esteem in yourself, you have aright to the esteem of others."
"Thanks," exclaimed Roland. "For my part, I have been thinking what Benjamin Franklin would say. I saw him before me with his genial countenance, his long snow-white hair, and he said: – Mark you, the worst thing is not what shames us in the eyes of the world, but to allow the shame so to pervert your mind that you look upon all men as base."
What he had listened to on the way he had shaped into a strong pillar of thought for himself.
Eric could not tell how it gladdened his heart to feel that he had fashioned this youth for such things; he wanted to cry out to him, You are a man; but he repressed it. It would not do to say it aloud. With a tranquillity wrung from the most profound grief, they both returned to the villa.
They reached the garden wall, from the face of which the porter was scraping something.
"There it is! there it is!" exclaimed Roland. "I have read it!"
The porter was scraping the mortar with a sharp iron, and this scraping went through Roland's soul as if the work were done on his own heart. All the coolness and composure that he had gained disappeared.
"There it is!" he exclaimed. "It will have to be scraped off again to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, and forever. Ah, Eric, why are men so wicked! What good does it do them to insult us?"
Eric consoled him by saying that men are not so wicked, they merely liked to irritate and mock one another.
He accompanied Roland to his room, and there the youth sat still, his hand clenched and pressed against his lip, till his teeth left their mark on his fingers. For a long while he spoke not a word. He looked at the stuffed bird, and said softly to himself once more, "Hiawatha!"
He stood at the window, and looked down into the park, up into the sky, where the swallows were gathering in great flocks, getting ready to cross the sea into warmer lands. Everything, everything has its home, something was saying in the heart of this youth; the plant that cannot stir is carried to a secure shelter, and the swallow draws to a place where it can still be happy. O, if some one could only tell us now where we might be happy!
All at once he shrank back from the window, for he saw the Russian prince entering the courtyard; behind the Prince came the Doctor in his carriage. Roland begged Eric to leave him alone, and not bring any one to see him.
Eric went away, and Roland locked himself up in his room.
CHAPTER XII.
SONNENKAMP FINDS A CONGENIAL SPIRIT
Sonnenkamp was sitting alone in his large room; he looked up towards the castle, which was nearly completed. Who will dwell in it? He turned his eye away. He stood for a long time in front of Roland's picture.
"One should have no children, know nothing of them," he exclaimed. He was terrified at the sound of his own voice.
He opened the money-safe; he contemplated the neatly-arranged papers, and the drawers that contained the coined and uncoined gold.
"What help are you to me? and still-"
There was a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
Joseph answered: —
"His Highness the Prince is here, and wishes-"
The Prince? Could it be possible? Was it all only a dream? Is the Prince coming to ask his pardon? Does he feel-?
Sonnenkamp went to the door; he opened it; there stood the Russian Prince Valerian. He said, with friendly words, that he had come to see if he could, in any way, be of assistance, and Herr Weidmann also-
"I need no assistance! I need no one," broke in Sonnenkamp, shutting the door and locking it once more.
"I have no pity, and want no pity," said he to himself, holding both his clenched hands on his breast. There was another knock.
"What is it? Why don't they leave me in peace?"
Through the key-hole came the sound of a gentle voice: —
"It is I, the Countess Bella."
Sonnenkamp shivered.
Is it a trick? It is some one who insists on speaking to him, assuming that name and that voice.
Well! At any rate, the person who puts on that mask is very cunning. Let us see who it is that is so shrewd!
He opened the door and stood transfixed; it was indeed Bella.
"Give me your hand!" she cried. "Your hand! You are a hero, I have never before seen a hero. And what are all these puppets around you? Stuffing for uniforms, nothing more; cowardly professors and newspaper hacks! There is still a bugbear which they call humanity, of which they are all in fear; before which they creep away, like children from the wolf. You alone are a man!"
"Sit down," at last said Sonnenkamp in astonishment; he did, not in the least understand what all this could mean. Bella kept up the same strain, saying: —
"I knew that you were a conqueror, but I did not know that you were such a mighty one."
Still Sonnenkamp was not able to understand. What does this woman want? Is this a kind of mockery? But he was disposed to think otherwise, when she exclaimed: —
"They are weaklings – cowards, all of them, the world of rank particularly! They ought to have created you a count, an ordinary baron is altogether too small a thing for you. You have done what they all would have liked to do – no, not all, but only certain ones who have the mettle within them. But they are ashamed before the man who accomplishes what they had not the energy, or the courage, or the daring to accomplish. They have swords, they carry fancy daggers, and are frightened at the rattan of the school-master, who raps them on the fingers with it and says to them: 'Know ye not that we are living in the epoch – or do they call it the century, the age – of humanity?' By good right, all the nobles of the land should leave their cards for you, and congratulate you. How many of these puppets would be in possession of nobility, if they had to win it by heroism like yours? Look at me; were I young, had you come in my youth, I would have gone out with you into the wide world; you have in you a Napoleonic vein. Give me your hand!"
She reached out both her hands and pressed his passionately.
"You do not recollect, but I have kept it in mind," said she in a haughty tone, "when you and Prince Valerian dined with us, you said: 'There is a priestcraft of Humanity.' You were right. Before the flimsy humanity of Jean Jacques Rousseau, they all bow down in fear, strong free men; they are dreaming of a paradise of equality, where black and white, noble and mean, the genius and the blockhead, shall be brewed into a mass together; they have a new faith in a book, the 'Contrat Social' is their Bible. I am not afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau-"
With a joyful look, Sonnenkamp interrupted her: —
"A cause is not lost, no, it is victorious, if highminded women are enthusiastic over it."
"Thanks – thanks," continued Bella.
She seized his hand and stroked his thumb with her delicate fingers.
"So one of the pets of the school-masters has sunk his teeth in here? Be proud of it; it is a mark of honor, more so than if it had been won in battle. Now let nothing in the world subdue you; enjoy yourself; you have nothing more to conceal; now stand your ground and show that you are the only one that is not afraid of the school-masters. The dauntless man acknowledges and conforms to the inevitable."
Bella had risen; her eye was blazing, her cheeks were glowing, and her countenance wore a look of mysterious and terrible fascination.
So must Medusa have appeared, so must she have breathed, so must she have trembled.
And in the midst of this deep emotion, Bella felt that it was a fine scene: here are the sublime tones of voice at her command, here is majesty, here is passion. She suddenly stood still like a living picture, as soon as she became conscious of this conception, and her eye sought for a mirror in which to behold herself.
She shook her head, and turned back as if she were coming upon the stage out of one of the side scenes.
"Will you tell me how you have become so great and daring, so free – the only free man?"
Sonnenkamp, the strong man, trembled within himself. He had an avowal upon his lips, but he dared not utter it; he had a demoniacal smile upon his face, as Bella said to him: —
"There is one thing only you must not do; speak not to me of love: anything but the 'fable convenue;' that is nothing – for you nothing and to me nothing. Still another thing. You will learn it now too, if you do not know it already, – the greatest tyranny in the world is the family. Grieve not for your family; a hero has no family, and besides, it is only a sentimental tradition that the heroes used to play with their children on the floor. You must be alone, think of yourself alone; then you are strong, you are like a man born of Byron's fancy, and such a man actually stands before me. You have made only one mistake; a man like you, such a hero, should have no family, should not want to have any. Be firm, do not suffer yourself to be cleft in twain and crushed to atoms through this mistake."
Sonnenkamp was still too much shaken not to feel a shudder creep over him at the sight of this apparition, that seemed to have sprung out from the world of fable; he said that he had had an idea, of the mere existence of which he had only been conscious in a shadowy way, but now it was clear; he was resolved to continue the struggle, to wage open war, that is, covert but decisive war; he would bring the virtuous people hereabouts to a different way of thinking, this next would be his task. He had a plan that was not yet clear to him, but it would become clear.
Bella said that she did not wish to speak to any one in the house beside himself; she was going back at once, but she trusted that he would be firm and stand his ground, for otherwise she would have to despise all men, and among them the only one who had ever won her respect by real power.
Sonnenkamp opened the seed-room, accompanied Bella through it, and opened the door that led to the private stair overrun with climbing plants. Here he kissed her hand at parting. But while still on the steps, Bella called after him: —
"And one thing more! The first thing for you to do is to free yourself from slavery; you must send away this teacher's family."
She made a repellant gesture, and added: —
"This teacher's family should establish their transcendental distillery in the little University town once more."
When Sonnenkamp returned to his room after Bella's departure, it seemed to him as if everything had been only a dream; but he still breathed the odor of the delicate perfumery which Bella's garments had left behind in his room; he still saw the chair on which she had been sitting; she had actually been there.
But Bella did not reach home unseen. In the park she met her brother. She confessed to him frankly that she had been to see Sonnenkamp, to cheer him up; she praised Otto for his constancy, and for despising the miserable, weak world.
"I could love this man!" she exclaimed; "he is a conqueror, he has won for himself a bit of the world. Pshaw! Let them grub for remains from the Roman world, which was so powerful and despised every one that spoke of justice for the slaves – and what are they themselves?"
"Sister," said Pranken playfully, "you are still too young and handsome to dress yourself up with those ingenious whims; you do not need such cosmetic contrivances."
Bella drew back a step from him, and then said: —
"No, I wanted to say a word to you; but no. Only persevere, and bring your designs with Manna to a point soon. How does the little cloister-plant do?"
"I beg of you, Bella-"
"Well, well, I'm going directly, I can do none of you any good."
She turned away quickly, and went back to Wolfsgarten.
Pranken looked after her with astonishment. He composed himself, for the Priest came up. He reached out his hand to him humbly, and spoke very gratefully of his having come voluntarily to build up anew the house of sorrow.
CHAPTER XIII.
COUNTER-POISON
Prince Valerian, who had met with such a rough rebuff from Sonnenkamp, had himself announced to Eric. Roland, who was in the next room, heard him say, the first thing as he entered: —
"Where is Roland?"
"He desires to be left alone," answered Eric; and then the Prince declared that Eric was best able to form an opinion as to what might be good for Roland; but for his part, he could not help thinking that intercourse with men in whose eyes he could behold the love they bore him, would be of greater assistance than anything else in this unspeakable sorrow.
Roland rose to his feet in the next room. Would this really be better than musing by one's self? He kept quiet, and heard the Prince ask how the daughter and how the wife had received the exposure of the dreadful secret.
The Prince spoke in a loud, Eric in a low tone, and Roland did not understand Eric's answer.
The Prince continued in the same loud tone. Herr Weidmann was indignant at the manner in which Professor Crutius had brought this matter before the public, and the statement that Doctor Fritz might have had a share in this malicious publication, was, without doubt, a falsehood. Doctor Fritz had said again and again, when he came to take away his child, that he hoped the whole affair would remain concealed, on account of Sonnenkamp's children.
Roland trembled.
Does Lilian know it over the sea? Or when will she hear of it? How will she bear it? And will she cry about him? And she told him, that time in the garden, that he must come home and help to deliver the world from wrong.
He stretched his arms upwards, as if he must hasten from that spot, and do something at that very moment.
The Prince, in the neighboring room, went on to say that Herr Weidmann had seriously considered whether he himself ought not to go over to Villa Eden, then and there to offer his assistance, but he had, after thinking the matter over, perceived that this would be of no practical benefit, and therefore he had counselled the Prince to carry out his own purpose.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "for the first time in a long while has the high social position I am permitted to occupy brought me joy, or, rather joy is not the right word. I thought to myself that, on this account, I should be able to effect here more than any one else, and particularly for your pupil Roland, whom I love so dearly, and whose afflictions give me not a moment's peace."
In the next room, Roland folded his outstretched hands, and the thought passed through his mind: —
Oh; the world is good; no, it is not so bad as you on the journey wished to make me believe. Here is one man who feels for me.
The Prince continued: —
"Ah, Captain, what are we, who are set in high places? Our way of living is just the same as yours is here, only it is historically superannuated, overgrown with moss. On the way here, I have seen everything anew. Our serfs were sold with the land and soil. It is the same thing, or rather, worse, for they were men of the same race. And, Captain, on my way here I became a terrible heretic. I asked myself what have those done who were sent into the world to preach, and never to stop preaching, love and brotherhood. They have looked quietly upon the fact that there are thousands and thousands of slaves, thousands and thousands of serfs. And then the thought struck me. Who is freeing the serfs and the slaves? Pure humanity is unloosing their chains."
Again the thought flashed through Roland's mind: Is not that the same thing that he himself had already thought of – and Manna too? The youth's eyes opened wide, as Eric now answered: —
"I am far away from what is called the church, but the doctrine of Christ is still a root of that humanity which is now fast ripening into maturity."
"You are like Herr Weidmann, who also-" exclaimed the Prince. He could not finish the sentence, for the Doctor entered.
"Where is Roland?" he also inquired, after the greeting was over.
He too got the answer that Roland wished to be alone, and the Doctor said, —
"I approve of that. Is he very much agitated? Mind, days will come when he will fall into dulness and apathy; let it have its course with him, and at the same time have the greatest patience with him. The noblest gift of nature is stupor; it is part of the soul's sleep; the simpleton and the brute have it constantly; they consequently never reach that pitch of intense excitement that endangers all existence; and nature, too, takes pity on the sensitive man, and gives him stupor. In the first place, when he begins to give way under his grief, then, I beg of you, give Roland to understand then the affair is not so terrible as it seems; there is a good deal of depravity right under, our very eyes; and where is it that this depravity does not exist! Do you remember my asking you when you came here first, how long since you had been a believer in depravity?"
Eric said he did.
The Doctor continued in a cheerful tone: —
"Now that evil is here, don't lose heart; you have done nobly so long as you have put faith in human purity; I hope, now that you have become a convert to the new faith, you will still remain equally strong. Yes, Captain, we think we are teachers when we are only pupils. Do you know what vexed me most in the publication of this story?"
"How could I?"
"I was indignant that the sated, self-sufficient portion of the community, pluming itself upon its external white-wash of decency, should now give itself a treat. Each person looks at himself: Ah, I am a magnificent being, compared with this monster. And still the vileness of the slave trade is only more notorious than that of a thousand other occupations. In the Jockey Club the 'Jeunesse dorée' are railing at the monster Sonnenkamp, and what are they themselves? Hundreds of occupations are constantly hanging on the verge of crime. Yes, the old theology teaches me that as Sodom might in old times have stood, if only just so many righteous men were to be found in it, so it is to-day. The sun shines only for the few just men; and in every human being there is a complete Sodom; but there is also in him something of righteousness, and because of that he continues to live."
Eric and the Prince looked in surprise at the Doctor, who in they had never before really known. Within, in the next room, Roland had seized hold of his forehead, as if questioning whether he comprehended all this, and in what it would all end.
The Doctor seemed to enjoy his triumph, or rather the perplexity he had caused, and he exclaimed in a loud voice, louder even than before, —
"For all that, I have for this Herr Sonnenkamp great respect."
He paused, and then continued: —
"This Herr Sonnenkamp, or, for aught I care, Banfield, has kept pretty stiff, he has not bowed down before the priesthood; if he had, this would have been covered up. That he has not done so, shows power; and, besides, I think I have kept myself free from the sentimental epidemic. These niggers are not my fellow creatures; human beings of a black complexion have no high destiny; from their whole physical conformation, they belong out in the heat of the sun, at hard work. Slavery is not such a bad thing, after all; we would not find it ill, if we, too, had slaves for servants. When serving people know that their place is to serve and that they can not play the master, they are more faithful in their work, and one can take better care of them. And I have many a time thought to myself how it would be, if my men-servants and maid-servants were all at once transformed into Africans; it would be a surprise, but one would have to get reconciled to it. I am loth to accept these darkies as my brothers. And can you think of a negro as a painter? A nigger cannot even see himself in the looking-glass. And can you picture to yourself a nigger statesman, a nigger professor?"
Eric was full of indignation at all this, but he had to listen to it; there was no chance for him to say anything, as the Doctor cried out in a still louder voice, —
"Don't let Roland fall into sentimentality. You, as philologist, must know the story of that – wasn't it a Roman emperor? – who had made a great deal of money by the slave-trade, and whose son took up a piece of the gold acquired by this means, held it to his nose, and asked: 'num olet?' Roland should not continue to carry on the slave-trade; it isn't just the thing; it's always unpleasant and dirty; but he mustn't let what has happened ruin him; he should know that he's the legitimate owner of the property, and needn't ask how the money was obtained – the legitimate owner," he repeated once again in a loud voice.
Eric now noticed for the first time that the Doctor was speaking neither to him nor to the Prince.
The Doctor was aware that Roland was listening to everything, in the next room, and everything was directed to him. Should he by a protest interfere with the healing skill of the Doctor, who sought to cure the effect of the poison by a counter poison?
"Ah! you come in good time," cried the Doctor to the Priest, as he entered. "I have been fore-stalling you a little in your office, and now you can give me some assistance."
He repeated hurriedly to the Priest what he had been saying, and he was surprised when the Priest rejoined: —
"I do not agree with you. Yes, you gentlemen of philosophy and the self-government of mankind – remember Captain, I told you so the first time we met – you have nothing but arrogance or dejection; you know no such thing as equanimity, because the firmly fixed rock of the Positive is lacking in you."
Eric, who had been holding his breath while the Doctor was holding forth, was on the point of replying sharply to the Priest, when the door was thrown open and Roland entered.
"No Doctor," exclaimed he, "you have not converted me. I still know – I still know – and you, Herr Priest, it does not become me to dispute with you, but I will not suffer my friend, my brother, my Eric, to be assailed here. He has given me the Positive, the belief in our duty, in our activity, in our never-ceasing self-devotion. I will show for his sake, and for my sake, what I can yet do in life."
The Prince embraced Roland; the Doctor took the Priest outside, and said to him in a low tone: —
"Don't trouble the young man, a favorable crisis has set in. Come with me, I beg of you."
He drew the Priest away almost by force.
Eric, Roland, and the Prince still sat a long while together; then they had the horses saddled, Eric and Roland accompanying the Prince a part of the way.
After they had ridden a short distance, they saw a strange shape on the road; Roland cried out suddenly: —
"There's something walking, I think – I think – no, I am not mistaken, it's our friend Knopf!"
It was no other than Knopf. He was going along quietly in the dark, quizzing himself sorely why it was he did not understand the world; it really ought to explain itself to him, for he held the world so dear. Why is it so reserved and full of secresy? What would now become of Roland? And amongst the rest entered a lighter and more trifling sorrow, that the Major had utterly forgotten him. Knopf did not think ill of him for it, not in the least; for Heaven knows that in such confusion one had his head full enough; who can think of everything? He confessed modestly to himself that he, of course, could not have been of any assistance whatever, he was so awkward; there was Herr Dournay, and Pranken – he knew nothing at all about Prince Valerian. Thus he was trudging along in the dark, and questioning himself in every way, and then looking up at the stars.
"Herr Knopf! Herr Knopf! Herr Magister!" was shouted out by different voices. Knopf stopped. Roland sprang quickly off his horse, embraced the old teacher, and exclaimed: —
"Ah, forgive me for what I have done to you; I've been wanting to say it to you – long ago-" At the words, "long ago," Roland's voice trembled violently.
"You have already, and it has been forgiven for a long time; but how does it happen that you are here?"
Everything was soon explained. Knopf rested his hand on Roland's shoulder all the while, as if he could lend him some of his strength; and he pressed back the spectacles very close to his eyes, when he heard and saw how the youth was beginning to bear up manfully under the terrible event. He pressed Eric's hand as if he would say: —
You can be happy, you have imparted to the boy genuine strength.
When at last they were bidding good-bye, Roland begged Knopf to ride home on the pony. Knopf assured him repeatedly that it was a pleasure to him to roam about in the dark on foot; Roland asserted that Puck was a right gentle beast, so tractable, so easy and intelligent; and he said to the little horse: —