Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine
Eric had much to say in reply, but he smiled to himself, for he thought how easy it is to theorize. The doctor had justly found fault with him for enlarging upon so many topics, and now he was to perceive that he could be silent. He said nothing, and the doctor continued: —
"As to the rest, I can tender you effectual aid, if you conclude to accept the position. Pity that you are not a medical man; as I look at it, no one but a physician should be an educator. Have you taken notice that the young fellow has a poor digestion? a young man in these times ought to be able to digest pebble-stones! I cannot bring it about that only simple kinds of food should be given him. The noble and the rich eat without hunger, and drink without thirst. This young man can have everything but one real, substantial enjoyment. It is a small matter, but take it just for an example: Roland receives no enjoyment from new clothes. Now strike this joy out of your childhood, out of your youth. I must confess, that I can take pleasure for weeks in a well-fitting garment, as often as I put it on. What are you smiling at?" the physician interrupted himself.
"I am thinking of a theological friend," answered Eric. "How he would be astonished, if any one should say to him, that the fall, which brought with it the consciousness of nakedness, has become the very foundation of all the enjoyment that comes from weaving, making, and sewing clothes."
The doctor smiled too, but he stuck to his subject, and went on, —
"Food and clothes are of the greatest importance, but the third most important thing is sleep; it is the regulator of life. Air, nourishment, and sleep are the three fundamental conditions of vegetative life. I believe, captain, that I know something about you already, but I cannot pronounce a full verdict upon you, until I have seen you sleep. Our nineteenth century sleeps poorly; our education, our labor, and our politics ought to be so arranged that people can once more get better sleep. I should like to be able to write a history of sleep, showing how different nations and different ages have slept; that would lay bare to us the deepest roots of all the manifestations of civilization. As far as regards Roland, there is in him a strange blending of temperaments from the father's and the mother's constitution."
The doctor pictured out the muscular organization of Sonnenkamp, and the struggle he was obliged to make every moment with his violent natural tendencies. "A certain indomitable energy in him always enters a disclaimer against his mildness, which is at once seen to be a result of self-compulsion and of voluntary effort. He is a suppressed pugilist, and he has in fact, as he once himself boasted in an unguarded moment, an iron fist. The old Germans must have possessed this stalwart force, who, with their naked arms, overthrew and crushed the mail-clad Romans."
The physician laughed, and he could hardly succeed in narrating how, when he first saw Sonnenkamp, he always looked for the club which seemed to belong to such a man's hand. When he behaved in a friendly way, then it seemed always as if he said. Be quiet, I won't hurt you. And moreover, Sonnenkamp had a heart-disease, according to all pathologic signs, and he was obliged, therefore, to guard against every agitating emotion.
He cautioned Eric, particularly, not to make easy terms with Sonnenkamp when he came to a definite understanding, for if he did he would lose all hold upon him.
"You see," he said, "the priests, and we physicians, always give our masses and receipts in Latin; for who would gulp down for us sulphuric acid, if that were written on the paper in good German? So you will see that you can make an impression upon Herr Sonnenkamp only by a certain mysterious loftiness; otherwise he fancies that he can make quick work with you."
The doctor then gave a very humorous description of the sleepy existence of Frau Ceres, to whom the sharp-tongued, but still more envious Countess Wolfsgarten had given the epithet "crocodile," because she really had some of the traits of that monster as he basks in the sun. For Herr Sonnenkamp, there was no mode of activity in which he could let out his energies; and for Frau Ceres, there was no exertion that was not an effort. She was not really to be blamed for having her dress changed three times a day, without sticking in a single pin herself; that she walked about her chamber for hours together, looked at herself from every point of view, fed her parrot, played "patience," and cherished her nails. The poor creature ought always to live simply and naturally, but even those more highly endowed cannot do that. She was indeed weak and dependent, but she was also artful and capricious.
Eric was on the point of confiding to the doctor his interview with Frau Ceres, but before he could open his lips, the doctor began to narrate: —
"It may be now almost a year since an occurrence took place which I could not have believed possible. I was sent for to the villa. The daughter of the house was in a condition of muscular rigidity, and at the same time delirium, which I could not comprehend. Fräulein Perini told me that the girl had clasped her hands together so tightly, that they had been drawn apart only by the aid of two servants, although the girl herself opposed no resistance, and when I came the fingers were still clenched. I could never find out what extreme mental excitement could have produced such a condition of the body; I could only learn this much, that Herr Sonnenkamp had refused his wife something or other which she strongly desired. She revenged herself by confiding to her daughter, who had hitherto reverenced her father as a higher being, something which put the poor girl into this state of excitement. But when she recovered, she continued melancholy, until they sent her to the convent, where she gained new animation."
Eric turned the conversation to the reasons why Sonnenkamp was so much hated and calumniated. The physician readily took up the subject, and explained that the poor nobility looked out for every blemish as a natural defence against a man of such immeasurable wealth, who almost personally insulted them by his outlays. Herr von Pranken was the only one favorably disposed towards him, and he was so, not merely because he wanted to marry his daughter, but there was also a natural attraction to each other, for Herr Sonnenkamp was deeply interested in himself, and Herr von Pranken deluded his neighbor as himself. "And now, my friend," concluded the physician, "now see to it, how you come into this house with the right understanding."
"I have one request," Eric at last began. "Let me hear what you would say to a friend concerning me, if I were absent. Will you do that?"
"Certainly; this is what I intended to do. You are an idealist. Ah! how hard a time people have with their ideal! You idealists, you who are always thinking, toiling, and feeling for others, you seem to me like a landlord who has an inn on the road, or in some beautiful situation. He must get everything in readiness, and pray to God all the time: Send good weather and many guests! He himself cannot control either weather or guests. So the counsel is very simple. Don't be a landlord of the inn of ideality, but eat and drink, yourself, with a good zest, and don't think of others; they will themselves call for their own portion, or bring it with them in their knapsack; if not, they can go hungry and thirsty. I have found that there are only two ways of coming to terms with life: either to be wholly out with the world, or wholly out with one's self. The youth of to-day have yet a third way: it is to be at the same time out with the world and with themselves.
"That is, I am sorry to say, my case."
"And just for that reason," continued the doctor, taking off his huge glove, and laying his hand on Eric's shoulder, "just for that reason, I should desire for you some different lot – I don't know what – I cannot think of any."
A long row of wagons loaded with stripped beech-boughs came along the road. The physician gave the information that they had already extracted from these branches various chemical substances, and now they were carrying them to a powder-mill. Eric said that he knew it, that he had been ordered to a powder-mill in the mountains for a long time, and was employed there.
The doctor was silent, and looking up, he saw that some one was greeting him. An open carriage drawn by two dapple-gray horses came towards them, and a handsome young man, sitting in it and driving himself, was already bowing from a distance.
The doctor ordered his carriage to be stopped.
"Welcome!" he cried to the young man. They shook hands from their vehicles, and the doctor asked, —
"How are Louise and the children?"
"All well."
"Have you been to your mother's?"
"Yes."
"How are your parents?"
"They are well too."
The doctor introduced the young man as Herr Henry Weidmann, his daughter's husband.
"Are you the son of the Herr Weidmann whom I have so often heard of?"
"Most certainly."
"Where is your father now?" asked the doctor.
"Yonder there in the village; they are considering about establishing a powder-mill."
Something seemed to come into the doctor's mind like a flash; he turned quickly round to Eric, but did not utter a word. The young man asked excuse for his haste, as he was obliged to be at the station at a particular hour, and soon took leave.
The young Weidmann said hurriedly to Eric, that he hoped this would not be their last meeting, and that next time he hoped they would not pass each other in this way, and that his father would be glad to see him.
The two carriages drove on, each in its own direction.
The doctor informed Eric that his son-in-law was a practical chemist, and he murmured to himself, —
"Trump called for, trump shown." Eric did not understand him; he thought, smiling, how Pranken had spoken of Weidmann's sons, with the impertinently white teeth.
The carriage drove on. Just as they were entering the next village, the steamboat from the upper Rhine came along; the doctor ordered the coachman to drive as rapidly as possible, in order to reach the landing in time. They went at a tearing gallop. The doctor cried, —
"I have it now! I have it now!" He struck Eric's arm at the same time, as if he were giving a blow upon the table that would make the glasses jingle, and he held it with no gentle grasp.
The carriage reached the landing just as the plank was thrown from it to the steamboat. The doctor got out quickly, and told the coachman to say to his wife that he would not be home until evening; then he took Eric by the arm, and went with him on board the boat. Only after it had got under way, could Eric ask him if he were going to visit a patient. The doctor nodded; he thought that he was safe in saying so, for he had a patient with him whom he was curing constitutionally.
The physician was immediately greeted by acquaintances on board, and a company around a punch-bowl invited him and his friend to join them; he touched glasses, but did not drink, for he said that he never took mixed drinks. The company was merry; a deformed passenger played upon an accordion, and accompanied the singing.
On the deck, at a little table upon which stood a bottle of champagne in a wine-cooler, the Wine-cavalier was seated, and opposite him was a handsome woman, with a great deal of false hair, and also peculiarly attractive charms of her own. They were smoking cigarettes, and chatting very fast in French. The Wine-cavalier avoided meeting the physician's eye, and the physician nodded to himself, as much as to say, "Good, a little shame yet left."
When they came in sight of the village which his son-in-law had mentioned, the doctor told Eric that he would now inform him directly that he was going with him to Weidmann's; he was the man who understood how to help him, and his advice was to be unconditionally followed. For a time Eric was perplexed, but then it appeared to him again as a strangely interesting thing, that now perhaps he was to pass through an entirely new and unanticipated examination. He and the doctor entered the boat which landed the passengers from the steamboat, and those on board, with glass in hand, bade them farewell; the steamboat was soon out of sight. Even the boatman knew the doctor, and said to him, greeting him in a familiar way, —
"You will find Herr Weidmann yonder in the garden."
They landed at the quiet village. Eric was introduced to Weidmann. He was a lean man, and, at first sight, seemed uninteresting; his features had an expression of quiet self-possession and intelligence, but in his gleaming eye lay a burning enthusiasm. Weidmann sat with several persons at a table, on which were papers, bottles, and glasses.
He nodded in a friendly way, and then turned to the persons with whom he had been conversing.
CHAPTER XI.
STRIVE TO MAKE MONEY
It is not well to hear a man so much spoken of and praised, before seeing him face to face. It seemed incomprehensible to Eric how this man exerted such a wide influence, and impossible for himself to enter into his life. The doctor was immediately called away, for the landlord's father being sick, his arrival was regarded as very fortunate. Eric walked up and down the shore; he seemed to himself to be thrown into a strange world, and to be borne along by strange potencies. How long it was since he had left Roland, how long since he went by this village, which was then to him only a name! Now, perhaps, some eventful occurrence was to take place here, and the name of this village to be stamped indelibly upon his life.
"Herr Captain! Herr Weidmann wishes me to ask you to come into the garden," the boatman cried to him.
Eric went back into the garden, where Weidmann came to him, with an entirely different mien, saying that he would now, for the first time, bid him welcome; previously he had been very busy. A short time afterwards the doctor also came.
The three now seated themselves at the table in a corner of the garden, where there was an extensive prospect, and Weidmann began in a humorous way to depict "the heroic treatment" of the doctor's, practice, who liked to deal in drastic remedies. A suitable point of agreement was established between Eric and Weidmann, while they united in a facetious, but entirely respectful assault upon the doctor.
Eric learned that the doctor had already proposed that he should undertake the superintendence of the powder-mill. Weidmann, in the meanwhile, explained that the difficulties were too great, and that the government threw in the way all sorts of obstacles, although they wanted principally to open a market in the New World, and with this view, his nephew, Doctor Fritz, had sent over from America, and had well recommended, one of the men with whom he had just been conversing. And his nephew desired that they would find some experienced German artillery officer, who would emigrate to America, and there take charge of a manufactory of gunpowder and matches, with the sure prospect of soon making a fortune.
The doctor looked towards Eric, but he smiled and shook his head in the negative.
Weidmann informed them further, that a discovery had been lately made of a deposit of manganese, and that they were desirous of forming a company to work the mine; that a man who knew how to regulate matters might easily make himself acquainted with the business.
He also looked inquiringly at Eric, and then made him the direct offer of a considerable salary, and an increasing share of the profits.
Eric declined, courteously and gratefully, as he had not entirely decided whether he would engage at all in any new pursuit. The doctor entered warmly into the matter, and extolled the superiority of our age, in which men of ripe scientific attainments devoted themselves to active employments, and, through their independent property; created a commonalty such as no period of history had ever before known.
"'This is ours, this is ours,' we commoners can say. Don't you think so?"
"Most certainly."
"Now then, go thou and do likewise."
And he added to this, how glad the Weidmann family would be to receive him into their circle.
Eric smilingly replied, that he felt obliged to decline this very friendly offer; that he valued very highly the independence which property gives, but was not adapted to a life of acquisition.
"Indeed?" cried the doctor, and there was something of contempt in his tone. "Do you know how the question of our age is put? It is, To use, or to be used? Why are you willing to be used by this Herr Sonnenkamp?"
"You surely would not want me to use other people, and appropriate to myself the product of their labor?"
"It is not well," interposed Weidmann, "to generalize in this way upon a wholly personal question. I see – I expected that the utter separation of the rich and the poor would vitally interest you; but here we have our doctor, and he will agree with me, that it is with the so-called social maladies as with those of the body. We know to-day, better than any period has ever known, the scientific diagnosis of disease, but we are ignorant of the specific remedy, and a disease must be known a long time, and known very thoroughly, before its method of cure is discovered; yet we must put up with it, in the meantime, and let it pass."
"Have you had no craving to be rich?" the doctor cried, apparently excited.
"It would be unwise to have a craving for what I cannot obtain through my own capabilities."
Weidmann's eye was quietly fixed upon Eric's countenance; the latter was aware of it, and whilst he thought, at this moment, that he could with a motion of his hand quietly relinquish all the offered riches of the world, the temptation came over his soul. What it would be for one to be free from all the cares of life, and to be able to devote himself to life itself; and he saw also how he could gratify every wish of his mother and his aunt.
But no; the first wish of his mother will be that he should remain true to himself. And the more Clodwig there, and here the physician, wanted to turn him aside from his vocation, so much the clearer was it to him, that he not only must abide by that vocation, but that he also had incurred a moral obligation to Roland.
Weidmann related that he had received a letter from New York, from his nephew. Doctor Fritz, who was going to send immediately his young daughter to be educated in Germany. The conversation now turned upon persons and things with which Eric was unacquainted.
The boatman came to inform them that the last steamboat was now coming up the river.
The doctor and Eric took hasty leave of Weidmann, who warmly shook Eric's hand, and requested him to claim his help in any situation in life where he could be of service.
The physician and Eric got into the boat and were rowed to the steamboat. Hardly a word was spoken by them during the passage to the town, where they were to disembark.
When they reached it, men and women were walking under the newly-planted lindens, for it is always a significant event of the day when the steamboat arrives, which remains here over night. The wife of the doctor was also at the landing, and she went homeward with Eric and her husband. She was very friendly to Eric, whom she had already met at Wolfsgarten; Eric, indeed, had no recollection of her, for at that time he had scarcely noticed, in fact, the modest, silent woman.
Many persons were waiting at the house for the physician. Eric was shown into his chamber, and then into the library; he was glad to see that the physician kept abreast with all the new investigations of his science, and he hoped through his help to fill up many a gap in his own knowledge.
The twilight came on; as Eric was sitting quietly in a large chair, he heard a horse trotting by the house. He involuntarily stood up, and looked out; he thought that the rider who had just passed was Roland, or had only his own imagination, and his continual thinking about the boy, deluded him?
There was an air of comfort in the physician's house, and everything gave evidence of solid prosperity; but the physician was obliged to go from the tea-table to a neighboring village.
Eric walked with the doctor's wife along the pretty road on the bank of the river, and there was a double satisfaction in her words, as she said that she greatly desired that her husband could have constant intercourse with such a mentally active friend as Eric, for he often felt himself lonely here in the town, and he was often obliged to depend wholly upon himself.
Eric was happy, for he perceived in this not only a friendly appreciation of himself, but also the deep and intelligent esteem of the wife, who would like to bestow upon her husband a permanent blessing.
CHAPTER XII.
A CHEERFUL LITTLE TOWN
There was a genuine neighborly feeling among the inhabitants of this small town. People called out to friends who were standing at the windows and on the balconies, or walking in the streets; groups were formed, where much chatting and jesting went on, while from windows, here and there piano-playing and singing were heard.
The justice's wife and her daughter Lina joined Eric and his hostess. People were surprised that he was leaving Sonnenkamp's house, as the report had already spread that he was to remain there. And now Eric learned that Roland had really ridden through the town, passing several times before the physician's house, and letting his horse prance so that it frightened one to look at him.
Lina was burning with eagerness to speak to Eric alone for a moment, and she found her opportunity when they met the school-director and his wife, and the two elder ladies stopped to inquire about the health of the forester's wife, who lived in the director's house. Lina went on with Eric, and said abruptly: —
"Do you know that your pupil Roland has a sister?"
"Certainly. I have heard so."
"Heard so? Why, you have seen her. She was the young girl with the star on her forehead, and the wings, who met us in the twilight on the cloister steps."
"Ah, indeed!"
"Ah, indeed!" mimicked Lina. "Oh! you men are dreadful; I have always thought that you-"
She stopped and Eric asked: —
"That I – what of me?"
"Ah, mother is right, I am too heedless and clumsy, and say everything that comes into my head; I should have believed you now-"
"That you may do; it is a sin to be untrue, and a double sin to be so towards you."
"Well then," said Lina, taking off her straw hat, and shaking the curls in her neck, "well then, if you will honestly confess, that Manna made an impression on you at that time, I will tell you something; but you must be frank and sincere."
"My dear young lady, do you think I would say no? You tempt me not to be sincere."
"Well then, I'll tell you – but please keep it to yourself won't you? – Manna asked me who you were, and that's a great deal from her. Oh, Herr Captain, wealth is a dreadful thing; people offer themselves only for the sake of a girl's money – no, I didn't mean to say that – but try to manage that Manna shall not be a nun."
"Can I prevent it?"
"Did you see the wooden shoes that the nuns wore? Horrid! Manna would have to wear those shoes, and she has the prettiest little foot."
"But why shouldn't she be a nun, if she wants to?"
Lina was puzzled, she was not prepared for such an answer. She remembered, too, that she was a good Catholic.
"Ah," she said plaintively, "I fancied to myself – I am a silly child, am I not? – in old times a knight used to enter a castle disguised as a squire or something else – well, I thought now the squire must be a tutor and then – "
She could not go on with her fancy sketch, for her mother overtook them, rather anxious lest her daughter had made some of her dreadfully simple speeches in her walk with the stranger.
"May one know what you are talking about so earnestly?" asked the Justice's wife. Lina drew a long breath, and put her hat-elastic in her mouth, which her mother had often forbidden, as Eric answered with great unconcern, —
"Your daughter has been reminding me that I was not very attentive when we first met on the convent island. I must ask your pardon now, madame. It relieves my mind of a burden of self-reproach to have the opportunity of excusing myself to you, and I earnestly beg that you will carry my apologies to your husband. One meets in travelling so many people who think to make themselves of importance by being ill-tempered, that one catches the unfriendly spirit, and harms himself the most. If I had not had the good fortune to meet you again, a little misunderstanding would have remained between us. Ah! on such a beautiful evening, by your beautiful river, where people are so friendly and cheerful, one longs to do some good to every one he meets, and to say, Rejoice with me, dear fellow-mote, dancing in the sunlight, for the little time which is called life."