Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

CHAPTER III.

DRINKING NEW WINE

"Before people have fairly done shaking hands, they say, 'Let us drink.' It must be the river there that makes you long so to quench your thirst."

So spoke Eric to the tall, fair youth of his own age, sitting opposite, who had placed his nicely gloved hand upon a brown spaniel whose head lay in his lap. The dog frequently looked up to Eric, whose deep, musical voice perhaps produced an impression upon the creature.

"Here is the list of wines. What year and what vintage do you prefer? Shall we take new wine, still lively and fermenting?" "Yes, new wine, and from the mountain here upon which the sun lies so cheerily, and where the cuckoo calls from the wood; – wine native to the soil, and blood-relation of this beautiful region."

Pranken in sharp, military accent gave the order to the waiter, – "A bottle of Anslese." The wine came, and was poured out golden into the sparkling glasses; the two men touched glasses and drank. They sat among the vines by the shore, where the refreshing landscape stretched itself out over green islands in the river, over gleaming habitations, over vineyards and mountains.

The boats by the shore were still, for the swell made by the steamboat had subsided; here and there the distant rumbling of a railway train was heard; on the smooth stream, in which the white clouds of heaven mirrored themselves, beams of the noonday sun sparkled, and in the foliage of the blossoming elder the nightingale sang.

"This is life!" said Eric, extending his arms. "After a day of loneliness amidst the confused whirl of thoughts and of people, to meet thus unexpectedly an old acquaintance is indeed like home; and let me tell you, moreover, that I look upon this meeting as a good omen."

Otto von Pranken nodded acquiescingly. In the first surprise, he had, perhaps, given Eric a warmer welcome than their acquaintance warranted; but now that Eric made no assumption of intimacy he nodded, well pleased. Eric has the tact to know his place; it's well. Pranken immediately drew off his glove, and reaching out his hand to Eric, asked, "Are you taking a pleasure-tour?"

"No, I am not in the situation, nor would this be the fitting time to do so. You probably do not know that my father died two months ago." "Indeed, indeed! and I shall be forever grateful to our good Professor; the little that I learned at the military school – and it is little enough – I owe altogether to him. Ah! what patience and what unremitting zeal your good father had! Let us pledge his memory." Their glasses clinked. "When I am dead,'" said Eric, and his voice had a tone of deep emotion, "I should like that my son should thus with a companion pledge my memory in the bright noonday."

"Ah! to die!" Pranken wished to turn the subject. "If I must die, that's enough, without knowing what is said of me afterwards. It is in a high degree offensive to me, that they have placed their burying ground in the midst of the vineyard yonder."

Eric made no reply, looking with fixed gaze before him, and listening to the cuckoo's voice calling at that moment from the churchyard. "Are you an agriculturist?" he asked, as if summoning together his scattered thoughts. "A sort of one; I have taken off, I don't know for how long it will be, my lieutenant's uniform, and mounted the high jack-boots; but I am bored by the one as much as by the other." He took his nail-cleaner out of his pocket, and worked away industriously at his nails; then with his pocket-brush he smoothed down again his carefully parted but thin hair, occasionally looking up to his companion opposite.

The two, sitting there for a little while without speaking, sharply inspected each other. Two awkward people, who are placed in a position of helpless antagonism, become mutually embarrassed; two clever people, who know each other's cleverness, are like two fencers, who, familiar with each other's ward and pass, will not risk a stroke or thrust. Pranken bent over his glass, inhaled the bouquet of the wine, and said, at length, half smiling, "Perhaps you will now abandon your late Communistic views."

"Communistic! I had no idea that you, like so many others, cover up everything unpleasant with that convenient formula of excommunication, 'Communism.' I should like to be a Communist. I mean that I should like to see in Communism a form of organization adapted to the wants of society, which it is not, and never can be. We must take some other method than this, to get rid of the existing barbarism which compels our fellow human beings to be without the most common necessities of life. It is a bitter drop in my glass, that, while I can here at leisure drink this mountain-wine, yonder are poor hard-driven laborers who can never taste of it."

"To-day is a holiday, and no one labors then," said Pranken, with a laugh. Already, in this first meeting, the contrast of these two young men was plainly to be seen. Eric also laughed at this unexpected turn from his comrade; but he was mature enough not to make a personal matter out of a difference of theory. He therefore came back to neutral ground, and the conversation flowed on quietly in recollections of the past, and thoughts of the future.

In their carriage and gait, the military training of the two young men was plainly to be seen; but in Eric the stiffness was tempered by a sort of artistic grace. Pranken was elegant, Eric noble and refined; every tone and movement of Pranken bespoke attention; but his demeanor had that cool insolence, or – if that is too harsh a word – impertinence, which regards every one outside of one's circle as non-existent, or at least as having no right to exist.

Eric had an equally good figure, but he was more easy and dignified. Eric's voice was a fine, deep baritone, while Pranken's was a tenor. Their different characters could be seen also in their way of speaking. Eric pronounced every word and letter distinctly; Pranken, on the other hand, spoke with a lazy drawl, as if the vowels and consonants were too much for him, and as if he must avoid all straining of the organs of speech; the words dropped, as it were, out of his lips, and yet he liked to talk, and made excellent points. Pranken's remarks were forcible, and came out in jets, like the short canter peculiar to the Royal bodyguard. When talking upon the most ordinary occurrence, his manner was somewhat rattling and noisy, like one handling his shoulder-belt, and joining or leaving a convivial company. Eric had thought more than he had talked. A secluded student in the almost cloister-like retirement of home, this bearing was wholly novel and strange to him.

"Herr Baron," said the waiter, as he brought in a bottle of native, sparkling wine, "your coachman wishes to know if he shall unharness the horses."

"No," he replied; and while he was turning the bottle in the wine-cooler he added to Eric: "I dislike to interrupt the brief joy of this meeting with you. Ah! you have no idea what a terrible bore this extolled poetry of rural life is!" Pouring out a glass from the uncorked bottle, he said laughing, "Compost, and again compost, is the word. The compost-heap is an Olympus, and the God enthroned upon it is called Jupiter Ammonia." Pranken laughed aloud at his own witty outburst, then drank off his glass, and complacently twirled with both hands the ends of his moustache.

Eric led the conversation back to the beauty of the Rhine-life, but Pranken interrupted by saying, "If now somebody would only take off the paint from this lying Lorelei, with her song about the beauty of life on the Rhine! So the poets always speak of the dewy morning, and we had to-day a blast from the mountains, as if the angels in heaven had spilt all their milk into the fire."

Eric could not help laughing; sipping at his glass, he said, "But the joy of the wine!" "O, yes," replied Pranken, "the old topers drink as a matter of business, but without any poetry. They sit together by the hour, always the same set, and the same half-dozen anecdotes on hand; or they interchange a superannuated jest, and then go home with red face, and staggering feet, bellowing forth a song; and that they call Rhine joyousness! The one really merry thing in this whole Rhine-delusion is the landlord's garland." "What's that?" "When the respectable godfather tailor or shoemaker has laid in a cask of choice vintage, more than he can or wishes to drink, he hangs upon his house a green garland; and the old German family room, with its hospitable Dutch stove covered with green branches, and its gray cat under the bench, is turned into a bar-room. They first finish up Smith street, then Hare street, Church street, Salt street, and Capuchin street. They drink the health of their own wine; this is the only mistress."

"Let us, too, rejoice in our wine," said Eric. "See how the sun still glows in the noble juice which it has so joyfully smiled upon, and so diligently ripened. I drink to thee, O Sun, past and present." With a rapidity that seemed foreign from his ordinarily quiet mood, he emptied the glass.

"I have always thought," replied Pranken, "that you were a poet. Ah, I envy you; I should like to have the ability to write a satirical poem, so peppered that the whole world would burn its tongue with it." Eric smiled, saying that he had himself once thought that his vocation was to be a poet; but that he had perceived his mistake, and was now resolved to devote himself to some practical calling. "Yes," he said, taking the newspaper out of his pocket, "you can perhaps render me a service that will determine my whole life." "Gladly, if it is not against – "

"Don't be alarmed, for it has nothing to do with theories of right, or political matters at all. You can perhaps help me to an introduction."

"In love then? The handsome Eric Dournay, the Adonis of the garrison, wants some one to do his wooing?"

"Nothing of that kind. I only want a situation as private tutor. Look at this advertisement: 'I desire for my son, fifteen years of age, a tutor of scientific education and high-breeding, who will undertake to give him such training as shall fit him for a high station. Salary to be fixed by mutual agreement. A pension for life after the conclusion of the engagement. Address and references to be left at the railroad station at – , on the Rhine.'"

"I know about this advertisement, and even had a hand in writing it. I must confess that we hit upon something rather unusual in the choice of the expression 'high-breeding.'"

"Is a man of rank to be understood?"

"Certainly. I have no need of defending myself against the charge of what the newspaper hacks call feudalism. In this case the point insisted on is, that a tutor in a middle-class family, and especially for a self-willed boy, must be a man of unimpeachable position."

"Certainly, that is all right and proper. Perhaps, although I'm not a Baron, I have an unimpeachable position. I received the title of doctor a few days ago."

Pranken gave him a condescending nod of congratulation, then added quickly, – "And do you leave entirely out of sight that you quit the army with the rank of Captain? I should lay special stress on the military training. But no, you are not fit for a bear-trainer! The boy is as untameable and crafty as an American redskin, and he knows just where to lay hold upon the scalp-lock in every character, as he has already proved on half a dozen tutors." "That would only give an additional charm to the attempt." "And do you know that Massa Sonnenkamp is a millionaire, and the heir knows it?"

"That doesn't alarm me, but rather tempts me on." "Well; I will take you myself to the mysterious man. I have the good luck to stand high in his favor. But no. Still better, you shall go with me first to my brother-in-law's estate. You must remember my sister Bella." "Perfectly, and I accept your hospitality. But I would rather you should announce my visit to Herr Sonnenkamp – it seems to me I have heard that name before, but no matter – and let me go to him alone." Pranken threw a questioning glance upon Eric, who continued: "I know how to appreciate your ready friendliness; but a stranger can never quite do himself justice in presence of a third person."

Pranken smiled at Eric's quickness, feeling a sort of pride in having so cultivated a man under his patronage. He took out his pocket-book, and sat for a while with his silver pencil-case pressed against his lips; the doubt arose whether he were doing wisely to recommend Eric to the position; would it not be better to put him off, and bring forward a man who would be quite under his own influence? but as Eric would make the application for himself, and would, most probably, receive the appointment, it would be better to establish a claim to his gratitude. And in the midst of his hesitation a certain kindly feeling made itself felt; it was pleasant to be able to be a benefactor, and he was for a moment happy in the thought.

He wrote directly on a card to Herr Sonnenkamp, begging him to make no engagement, as a highly educated gentleman, formerly an artillery officer, was about to apply in person for the situation. He carefully avoided speaking as a personal friend of the applicant, as he wished to take no decided step without his sister's approval.

The card was sent off immediately, and Pranken played for some minutes with the india-rubber strap of his pocket-book, before putting it back into his pocket.

CHAPTER IV.

COMRADES WITHOUT COMRADESHIP

Seated in an open carriage, the two young men were soon winding along a road which led up the mountain. The air was full of dewy freshness, and high above the vineyards the nightingales in the leafy woods poured forth a constant flood of melody. The two men sat silent. Each knew that the other had come within the circle of his destiny, but could not anticipate what would be the consequence.

Eric took off his hat, and as Pranken looked at his handsome face with its commanding, self-reliant expression, it seemed to him that he had never really seen it before; a thrill of alarm passed through him, as he began to realize that he was forming ties whose results could not be foreseen. His face now darkened with anger and scorn, now brightened with benevolence and good-humored smiles; he murmured to himself some unintelligible words, and burst forth at intervals into an inexplicable fit of laughter.

"It is truly astonishing, most astonishing!" he said to himself. "I could hardly have believed it of you, my good Otto, that you could be so generous and self-forgetful, so wholly and completely a friend. People have always told you, and you have had the conceit yourself, that through all your whims you were better than you would own to yourself. Shame on you, that you would not recognize your innocence and virtue! Here you are showing yourself a friend, a brother, a most noble minister of destiny to another, who is a bit of humanity, nothing but pure humanity, in a full beard. All his thoughts are elevated and manly, but a good salary pleases even his noble manliness."

Pranken laid his head back on the cushions of the carriage, and looked smiling up to the sky. He resolved to take good care that this specimen of noble manhood, who was sitting by him in the carriage, should not thwart his plans, and that what he could not bring about himself, his sister Bella should accomplish. Pranken's whole bearing was forced and unnatural. His uniform, worn ever since childhood, had given him not only a feeling of exclusiveness, but also a definite, undisputed, and exceptional position, which separated him from the ordinary mass of men. Among his fellow-soldiers ha was lively, and high-spirited; not specially remarkable for anything, but a good officer, knowing how to take care of and to drill his horses and his men. Now that he had laid aside his uniform, he felt in citizen's dress as if he were falling to pieces; but he held himself all the more proudly erect, in order to show by every movement that he did not belong to the common herd. In the regiment there were always strict rules to be followed; now he was under the command of duty and wearisome free-will. Left to himself, he became painfully aware that he was nothing without his comrades. Life appeared bare and dreary, and he had worked himself into a bitter and satirical mood, which gave him in his own eyes, a certain superiority to that blank, monotonous existence, without parade, or play, or ballet. He looked with a sort of envy at Eric, who, poorer and without advantages of social position, gazed around him so serenely and composedly, feasting on the beauty of the landscape. Eric was certainly the better off. Having become a soldier at a more mature age, he had never lost his own individuality in the 'esprit de corps' of army life; and now that he was a civilian again, his whole appearance changed, and his nature developed itself under a new and interesting aspect.

"I envy you," said Pranken, after they had driven for sometime in silence.

"You envy me?"

"Yes! at first it vexed me and roused my pity, that a man like you should enter the service of a private individual, and in such a position! But perhaps it is fortunate for a man to be obliged to determine on some career in order to make a living."

"Just for that reason," replied Eric, "will the task of educating the young millionaire be a hard one. Two things only excite the powers of men to activity: an idea, and worldly gain."

"I don't quite understand you."

"Let me make my meaning clearer. He who uses his power for the sake of an idea enters the region of genius, however small and inconspicuous may be the sphere of his activity. He who works for the sake of profit, to supply the necessities, or the luxuries of life, is nothing but a common laborer. The common need is the compelling power which plants the vine on the steep mountain side, clears the forest, steers the ship, and drives the plough. Where this common need unites itself with the ideal, and this may be in every sphere of life, there is noble human activity. A nobleman, who busies himself in the world, has the good fortune to be the inheritor of an idea, – the idea of honor."

Pranken nodded approvingly, but with a slightly scornful expression, as much as to say, "This man to have the audacity to seek justification for the nobility! Nobility and faith need not be proved; they are facts of history not to be questioned!"

Again they were silent, and each asked himself what was to come of this unexpected blending of their paths in life. As fellow-soldiers they had been only remotely connected; it might be very different for the future.

The valleys already lay in shadow, though the sun shone brightly on the mountain-tops. They drove through a village where all was in joyous and tumultuous movement, – in the streets, maidens walking arm in arm; young men standing singly or in groups, exchanging merry greetings and jokes and laughing jests; the old people sitting at the doors; the fountain splashing, and along the high-road by the river, gay voices singing together.

"O how full of refreshment is our German life!" cried Eric; "the active, industrious people enjoy themselves in the evening, which brings coolness and shade to the treeless vineyards."

They continued their journey in silence, when suddenly Pranken started convulsively, for there came before him, as if in a dream, a vision of himself, pistol in hand, confronting in a duel the man now seated by his side. Whence came the vision? He could not tell. And yet, was it meant to be a prophetic warning?

He forced himself to talk. A prominent trait of his character, which belonged to him by nature and education was a social disposition, a desire to please all with whom he came in contact. To drive away the vision, and in obedience to this social impulse, he began to tell Eric where he had been. By the advice of his brother-in-law, Count Clodwig von Wolfsgarten, he had just paid a visit to a much respected landed proprietor in the neighborhood, in order to enter upon a course of instruction, if the arrangement should prove mutually agreeable.

The land-holder Weidmann, – who was often called the March-minister, because as a pioneer to help stem the revolutionary current in 1848 he was made minister for three days, – was considered, in all the surrounding region, as an authority upon agricultural as well as political matters.

Pranken talked on, and the more he talked the more he enjoyed his own witty sallies; and the more he indulged in them, the more pungent they became. He began: "I should like to know how this man will strike you; he has, like" – here he hesitated a little, but quickly added – "like all great reformers, a vast train of fine dogmas, enough to supply a whole Capuchin monastery."

Eric laughed, and Pranken, laughing also, continued: "Ah! the world is made up of nothing but humbug! The much-talked-of poetry of a landed proprietor's life is nothing but a constant desire for lucre, tricked out with paint from the glow of the morning and evening sky. This Herr Weidmann and his sons think of nothing but the everlasting dollar. He has six sons, five of whom I know, and all look impertinently well, with pretentiously white, faultless teeth, and full beards. These mountains, which travellers admire, are compelled to yield them wine from the surface, and slate, manganese, ore, and chemicals from the mines beneath. They have five different factories; one son is a miner, another a machinist, a third a chemist, and so they work into each others' hands and for their common interest. I have been told that they extract forty different substances from beechwood, and then send the exhausted residuum as charcoal to the Paris restaurants. Isn't that a pretty love of nature? Then, as to Father Weidmann, – you enjoy the song of the nightingales, I know. Well, Father Weidmann obtained from the government an edict of protection for them, because they eat insects and are very useful to the fields and woods. Father Weidmann lives in a restored castle, but if a minstrel came there to-day he would get no hearing, unless he sang the noble love by which Nitrogen and Hydrogen are bound to Ammonia. I am almost crazed with super-phosphates and alkalies. Do you think, it is a destiny worth striving after, to be able to increase the food of mankind by a few sacks of potatoes?"

Before Eric could answer, Pranken added: "Ah, there is just nothing that one would like to turn to. The army is the one profession."

As they were ascending a steep hill overlooking the river with its islands, Pranken, pointing up the stream to a white house upon the bank, said, "Yonder is the Sonnenkamp villa, which bears the name of Eden. That great glass dome on which the evening sun is shining is the palm-house. Herr Sonnenkamp is an enthusiastic gardener; his conservatories and hot-houses excel those of princes."

Eric, standing upright in the carriage, looked back upon the landscape, and the house where was to be, probably, the turning-point of his life. As he sat down Pranken offered him a cigar. Eric declined, for he had given up smoking.

"He who does not smoke will not do for Herr Sonnenkamp;" and he emphasized the word Herr. "Next to his plants, he prides himself upon his great variety of genuine cigars; and he was specially grateful to me, when I once said to him that he possessed a seraglio of cigars. I don't know how he who refuses a cigar can get along with him."