Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine
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."
CHAPTER XI.
SONNENKAMP'S PRIDE
They stepped immediately out of the shady, well-wooded park, whose margin was planted with noble white-pines, into a wonderful and complicated arrangement of orchard-trees, in a level field several acres in extent, that had a truly magical effect.
The plats were bordered with dwarf-apple and pear-trees that looked very much like small yews; their stems were hardly two feet in height, and the branches on each side so disposed on wires, that they extended to the width of thirty feet. These were now in full bloom the whole length, and the arrangement exhibited man's energetic and shaping volition, where nature was compelled to become a free work of art, and even warped into a dwarfish over-refinement. Trees of all imaginable geometrical forms were placed, sometimes in circles and sometimes in rows. Here was a tree that, from the bottom to the top which shot up into a sharp point, had only four branches at an even distance from each other, and directed to the four cardinal points. On the walls, trees were trained exactly in the shape of a candelabrum with two branches; others had stems and branches adjusted obliquely, like basaltic strata. All was according to artistic rules, and also in the most thriving condition.
Eric listened attentively while Sonnenkamp was informing him that the limbs must be cut in, so that the sap might all perfect the fruit, and not go too much to the formation of wood.
"Perhaps you have a feeling of pity for these clipped branches?" Sonnenkamp asked in a sharp tone.
"Not at all; but the old, natural form of the fruit-trees so well known to us – "
"Yes, indeed,"' Sonnenkamp broke in, "people are horrible creatures of prejudice! Is there any one who sees anything ugly, anything coercive, in pruning the vine three times every season? No one. No one looks for beauty, but for beautiful fruit, from the vine; so also from the fruit-tree. As soon as they began to bud and to graft, the way was indicated, and I am only following it consistently. The ornamental tree is to be ornamental, and the fruit-tree a fruit-tree, each after its kind. This apple-tree, must have its limbs just so, and have just so many of them, as will make it bear the largest apples and the greatest possible number. I want from a fruit-tree not wood, but fruit."
"But nature-"
"Nature! Nature!" Sonnenkamp exclaimed, in a contemptuous tone. "Nine-tenths of what they call nature is, nothing but an artificial sham, and a whimsical conceit. The spirit of nature and the spirit of the age are a pair of idols which you philosophers have manufactured for yourselves. There is no such thing as nature, and there is no such thing as an age; and even if there were both, you cannot predicate spirit of either of them."
Eric was deeply struck by this apparently combative and violently aggressive manner of speaking; and yet more so, when Sonnenkamp now leaned over suddenly, and said: —
"The real man to educate would be he who was able to train men as these trees are trained: for some immediate end, with no superfluous trash and no roundabout methods. What they call nature is a fable. There is no nature, or at least only an infinitesimal particle. With us human beings everything is habit, education, tradition. There's no such thing as nature."
"That is something new to me," Eric said, when he was at last able to put in a word. "The gentlemen of tradition call us men of science deniers of God, but a denier of nature I have never until now become acquainted with, and never have even heard him mentioned. You are joking."
"Well, yes, I am joking," said Sonnenkamp, bitterly.
And Eric, who seemed to himself to be utterly bewildered, added in a low tone: —
"Perhaps it may be said that those who derive the laws of our life from revelation deny nature, or rather they do not deny her, but disregard her."
"I am not a learned man, and, above all, I am no theologian," Sonnenkamp abruptly broke in. "All is fate. Damage is done by worms in the forest; there stands near us an oak-tree clean eaten up by them, and there stands another all untouched. Why is this? No one knows. And look here at these trees. I have watched what they call the economy of nature, and here a thousand life-germs perish in order that one may thrive; and it is just the same in human life."
"I understand," Eric said. "All the things that survive have an aristocratic element wholly different from those things that perish; the blossom that unfolds itself to the perfect fruit is rich, the blighted one is poor. Do I rightly apprehend your meaning?"
"In part," Sonnenkamp replied, somewhat weary. "I would only say to you that I have done looking for the man, for I despair of finding him, who could train my son, so that he would be fitted in the most direct way for his position in life."
For some time the two walked together through the marvellously-blooming garden, where the bees were humming; and Eric thought that these, probably, were the bees of Claus, the huntsman.
World passing strange, in which all is so unaccountably associated together!
The sky was blue, and the blossoms so deliciously fragrant, and yet Eric, deeply troubled in spirit, seemed to himself to be insnared when he fixed his eyes upon a notice stuck up over the garden wall, which ran thus: —
"Warning. Spring-guns and steel-traps in this garden."
He looked around to Sonnenkamp, who said, smiling, —
"Your look asks me if that notice yonder is true; it is just as that says. People think that no one dares to do that now. Keep always in the path near me."
Sonnenkamp appeared to enjoy Eric's perplexity and annoyance. And yet it was a lie, for there were no spring-guns nor steel-traps in the garden.
On this part of the wall, stars, circles, and squares, were shaped out of the tree-twigs; and Sonnenkamp laid his hand upon the shoulder of Eric, as the latter asserted that number and geometric form were given only to man. Geometric form, indeed, was the basis of all manifestation, and the straight line was never actually seen, but must be wholly the product of man's conception. This was also the characteristic mystery in the doctrine of Pythagoras.
"I have thought for a long time," Sonnenkamp said with a laugh, "that I was a Pythagorean. I thank you for nominating me as one of the sect. We must christen our new art of gardening the Pythagorean."
This outburst was in a bantering tone of contempt and satisfaction.
They came to the place called Nice, by the colonnade constructed in the Pompeian style, which extended very far on the second terrace of the orchard.
"Now I will show you my house," Sonnenkamp said, pressing against a little door which opened upon a subterranean passage, and conducting his guest into the habitation.
CHAPTER XII.
A LOOK INTO THE HOUSE AND INTO THE HEART
Men-servants and maid-servants in the under-ground rooms were amazed to see Sonnenkamp and Eric make their entrance. Sonnenkamp, without noticing them, said to Eric in English: —
"The two things to be first considered by a man consulting for repose, as I am, are the kitchen and the stable."
He showed him the kitchen. There were dozens of different fire-places for the different dishes, and each kind of meat and vegetables; each viand had its special dish and pan, fire on the side and behind. The whole science of the preparation of extracts was here transported into the art of cookery. Eric was delighted with it as with a work of art.
Sonnenkamp pointed out to his guest for special notice the fact that every fire-place and every stove in the house had its own chimney; he considered that as of great importance, as he had by that means made himself independent of the direction in which the wind might blow. The architect had resisted him on that point, and he had undergone great trouble and expense to have the requisite flues constructed, but by this means new beauties had been developed.
Sonnenkamp now showed him the greater part of the house, through which electromagnetic bell-wires ran in every direction. The stairs were richly carpeted, everywhere were costly candelabra, and in the chambers broad double-beds.
Everything was arranged with elegance and taste, a truly chaste elegance and refined taste, where gold, marble, and silk contributed to the artistic decoration, with no overloading of ornament, and with a preservation of the appearance of home-like comfort. The furniture was not standing about like things looking for some fitting place, but every piece was adapted to the building itself, and seemed fixed, and at home; and yet the arrangement had this peculiar feature, that all the furniture appeared waiting for the inmates to come and occupy it, and not placed there to be gazed at by them in passing to and fro.
The heavy silk curtains, hanging in thick folds, were matched with the carpets; the large clocks in all the saloons were ticking, and the delicate works of art on the mantles and brackets were tastefully arranged. But it was plainly to be seen that this arrangement gave no physiognomical indication of the character of the owner, but was only the tasteful skill which every good upholsterer supplies to order; and, above all, one felt the absence of anything like an heir-loom. Eric could not rid himself of the impression that the persons here lived in their own house as if it were a hired one, and it seemed to him that Roland was following him, and that he must enter into the soul of the boy, who was already aware that some day he would call all this his own.
Sonnenkamp declared that he thought it contemptible for people to embellish their houses with mediæval furniture, or the imitation of that, while it answered the purpose neither of ornament nor of comfort. When Eric replied to him, that Goethe had expressed the same thing, Sonnenkamp answered: "That is very pleasant to me. I think that Goethe understood life."
He uttered this in a very condescending tone, as much as to say, that any one must esteem himself fortunate to have Herr Sonnenkamp recognise his worth.
On the north side of the house in the large saloon, covered with a red Persian carpet, was a half-octagon recess, in the middle of which stood a handsome malachite table surrounded by fixed chairs.
Four large windows, or rather four single panes of glass six feet in height, gave a free outlook; and in the spaces between the windows tablets of marble were inserted, half way up, on which were sculptured the four parts of the "Day" of Rietschel. The ceiling was ornamented with fine stucco-work, from which a silver lamp seemed to fly forth, rather than to hang down, for it took the form of a flying Cupid of bronze, holding a torch in his hand, and this torch, as Sonnenkamp immediately illustrated, could be lighted as a gas-burner.
"Only here," he said smiling, "do I have works of art, insomuch as I would neither deceive myself nor others – I have no taste for creative art. You, as the son of a Professor of Æsthetics, perhaps consider this very barbarous?"
"Not at all, only honest; and I think you are so far entitled to do as you think best."
"It is a duty for every one to be honest, and there is no choice in the matter."
"Pardon me if I have expressed myself badly. I mean, that even the realm of art is not free from rival claims; and he who has such a manifest gift for landscape-gardening, ought to be content with that, and can refrain from expressing himself in any other art."
Sonnenkamp smiled. This man, he thought, knows always how to come down on his feet.
He led his guest into the music-saloon. It had no gilding nor satin, only a centre-piece on the ceiling, and sea-green hangings on the walls. In the niches made by two small chimneys were brown, stuffed damask seats and sofas. This saloon seemed to be continually waiting for a social company, either moving about, or quietly seated.
Sonnenkamp smiled when Eric said that he was pleased to see the music-saloon so unadorned. The plain white had a sunshiny appearance, as if the sun lingered on the walls, and the eye was not attracted to any particular object, so that one could listen all the more attentively, only one sense being called into activity.
Sonnenkamp was yet more and more delighted; and when Eric inquired, "Which one of your family is musical?" he answered, —
"This saloon is intended for my daughter."
"Wonderful," said Eric; "yonder in the garden the upturned seat, and here the music-saloon, is expecting her."
Sonnenkamp, as he often did, took his under-lip between his fore-finger and thumb; he appeared to be either intending to say something, or wishing to keep something back.
"As we are talking about my daughter, I will just show you her room," he said suddenly, opening a side-door.
They entered a little apartment, in which the Venetian blinds were down. Sonnenkamp at once drew them entirely up. The prospect extended over the long vine-arbor and beyond the Rhine. The room was plain, but all was extremely pretty. A number of photographs, wreathed with blue ribbon into a circle, in the centre of which was a large picture of the pope, hung upon the wall. The white curtains of the white bed, now drawn back, allowed a beautifully carved ivory crucifix on the wall to be seen, while below it hung a neatly framed colored engraving, a sort of diploma, admitting Hermanna, styled Manna Sonnenkamp, into the band of good children.
A writing-table, a small book-shelf, tasteful chairs, everything showed that here was the abode of a maiden who quietly lived within herself, occupied chiefly with religious meditations. In the chamber itself there seemed to be the hovering spirit of prayer, and one involuntarily looked round to see the maiden herself come in, with those large childlike eyes immediately cast down at beholding her sanctuary intruded upon.
Eric's glance became fixed upon a handsome chimney-piece of green marble, whose semi-circular edge was bordered with living ivy, while the entire chimney-place was filled with flowers and growing plants. No flower-pots were to be seen, for they were skilfully concealed; it was all a mysterious growth of leaves and flowers.
"Does that please you?" Sonnenkamp asked. "Yes, my daughter always has the chimney-place filled with flowers in summer, and I think that Fräulein Perini has continued the practice in memory of her."
Eric continued to stare at the plants; and he fancied that he could read something of the character of the maiden who in summer kept the fire-place covered with flowers. Here Sonnenkamp laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, and said: —
"Are you entirely honest? You have not come here on my son's account, but on my daughter's."
"I do not comprehend," Eric replied.
"Were you not at the convent? Have you not seen my daughter?"
"Yes, both; but I had not the most remote knowledge of you, or your daughter, or your son."
"I believe it. But have you not conceived the idle fancy, that by taking up your abode in my house, you may perhaps win the affections of my daughter?"
"I thank you for this directness," Eric responded, "and I will use equal directness in my reply. I should consider it the misfortune of my life, if I should have the feeling of love towards your daughter."
"Towards my daughter? Why so?"
"Because I should esteem it a misfortune to love a maiden of such great wealth, without taking into view her Catholic opinions. I would never marry so rich a girl, and I would let my heart break before I would do it. I now beseech you – it is not entirely impossible that mistrust, by and by, may be awakened from this source – I beseech you, openly and directly, not to give me this situation in your family. It is better; I have been this short time your guest, and I thank you for your great kindness."
"Young man, you remain. I believe you, and I trust you. I thank you for teaching me to have confidence again in a human being, and to believe in a human being. You remain! Give me your hand – you remain! We will settle all quietly. Moreover, my daughter is – and I give you here the best testimony of my confidence – my daughter is as good as betrothed to the Baron von Pranken. Now come into my own work-room."
They entered it. Everything here was arranged with a special attention to convenience. For every frame of mind, and every season of the year, for solitude and for society, chairs, tables, and sofas were disposed everywhere for comfort, as much as one room could contain. There was a vast space, and yet a homelike seclusion; and this south side was admirably situated for a view of the landscape. Here could be seen, outside, the smooth beeches and plane-trees, which hid from view the bare-looking vineyards, and suffered the eye to rest upon the summits of the wooded heights; and directly in front of the balcony window there was a full view of the ruins of the castle, which, as Eric had already heard, was being rebuilt by the order of Herr Sonnenkamp, and under the special supervision of the major.
A single, beautiful painting hung here; it was a life-sized portrait of Roland, in his seventh year. The boy sat upon an overturned antique column, his hand upon the head of a splendid Newfoundland dog, and gazing into the distance.
A large arm-chest stood here with weapons of all sorts.
While Eric was looking about, Sonnenkamp shoved back two doors which were let into the walls, and he led the way into what he called his library. No books were to be seen, nothing but great boxes, vessels of porcelain and clay, as in a well-arranged apothecary's shop; and Sonnenkamp explained that these contained seeds from all the different parts of the earth.
From the seed-room a special stair-case led into the garden, and this stair-case was entirely grown over with the Chinese honeysuckle, which was now in full bloom with its clusters of blue papilionaceous flowers. Sonnenkamp conducted his guest back into the large work-room, and there said that it had, formerly, been his desire that Roland should have an inclination to enter upon the active life which he himself had now retired from. He spoke of trade. Eric was amazed at the vast, comprehensive glance which Sonnenkamp took of the business of the world: for him there was no isolated activity, no isolated product; one part of the world subsisted only through another; and the whole earth was for him one great market-place, where iron, wool, tobacco, and grain received his attention at the same time, and whether in Sweden, Scotland, the East Indies, or Havana, were brought to one common warehouse.
Sonnenkamp seemed to be desirous, today, to compensate Eric for his unreserved communication, and Eric was astonished at the broad and strong grasp of the man's view, so that all his schemes were well calculated and sure of success; this vast power of insight was visible in all his talk. He had seen the wide world with that keen-sightedness characteristic of the English and Americans, who, of all nations, consume the smallest number of spectacles. He seized hold of the main features, without burdening himself with the incidental, and without being hindered by any afterthought; he described with great objectivity what he had seen in foreign lands, as well as what he had done in his own.
Sonnenkamp was well aware of the impression he had made upon Eric, and nodded, smiling, when the latter expressed his opinion how grand it must be not only to possess, but also to acquire and to be.
"Reflect seriously upon this," Sonnenkamp said, – "what would you make, and what am I to make, of Roland? You have seen so much," he added with a look of elation, "that you would not seek to change me and my family, if you should undertake the education of my son."
This last remark dissipated, to a certain extent, the deep impression which Sonnenkamp had made upon Eric. The whole appeared a premeditated affair.