Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

CHAPTER XI.

MEDUSA AND VICTORIA

Clodwig looked down for some time after Bella had gone. He nodded to Eric as if he would greet him anew. But Bella soon returned, bearing the parrot on her hand, and stroking it. She walked up and down the room, lingering when Eric related how he had to-day, tearing himself by force away from the view of the river, gone back into the country, and had conversed with many persons.

Clodwig dwelt at length upon his pet theory, that traces of the Roman Colonists were still preserved in the physiognomy and character of the people.

Bella, apparently unwilling to be obliged to hear this again, interrupted, with good-humored impertinence, – "When one turns himself away from the Rhine, he has the feeling, or at least I have, that some one, it may be Father Rhine himself, looks after me and calls out, 'Do turn round!'"

"We men do not always feel that we are looked at," replied Clodwig, and requested Eric to give his opinion about the earthen vase, a present the day before from the Justice, which was standing on a side-table in the breakfast-room. Eric readily complied, and they went into the adjoining room, filled with a great variety of articles found buried in the ground. Eric, fresh from the study of antiquities, showed himself so familiar with all the related topics, that Bella could not refrain from expressing her astonishment.

"You are a good teacher, and it must be a pleasure to be instructed by you." Eric thanked her, and Bella continued with friendly affability, – "Yes, indeed! many people give instruction in order to make a brilliant appearance, and many deal forth their knowledge reluctantly; but you, Doctor, teach like a beneficent friend who delights in being able to impart, but takes a yet greater pleasure in bestowing a benefit upon the recipient; and you impart in such a way that one is not only convinced you understand the matter, but believes that he himself does."

Clodwig looked up in amazement, for he had said the evening before precisely the same thing of Eric's father, while making mention of the fact that the only little treatise ever published by him had received the disinterested help of Professor Dournay.

Bella withdrew after having thus shown her friendliness and her admiring surprise. The two men sat together for a long time after this, and then went to Eric's room, where Eric handed to the count a copy of his Doctor's thesis; and it then first occurred to him how strangely it had happened that he had there discussed the apocryphal treatise of Plato, "Concerning Riches," and now he was to be called upon to educate one under conditions of wealth. Eric and Clodwig were greatly struck by this coincidence.

Clodwig requested Eric to translate the manuscript from Latin into German. He did so, and it was to them a time of real enjoyment.

When they arose, Clodwig observed to Eric how strange it must appear to him to find the Medusa and Victoria opposite each other; but he confessed to a heresy which met with his own approval, though not in accordance with the received scientific explanation. The Medusa was to him the expression of all-consuming passion, which stiffens with horror the sinning beholder who sees therein the image of himself; and it was very significant that the ancients represented this entire abandonment of all the higher spiritual nature through a womanly form, the unrestrained indulgence of passion being opposite to the truly feminine, and so the more unseemly. The Victoria of Rauch, on the other hand, appeared to him to be the embodiment of an eminently modern spiritual conception.

"This countenance is wonderfully like" – he did not finish the sentence, but, stammeringly beginning another, continued: "This is not that Goddess of Victory who wears proudly and loftily the crown upon her gleaming forehead; this is the representation of victory which is inwardly sad that there is a foe to be conquered. Yes, still further, this Victoria is to me the goddess of victory over self, which is always the grandest victory."

After Clodwig had made this remark, he said, "Now I leave you to yourself; you have already talked too much to-day and yesterday." Eric remained alone, and while he was writing to his mother, Clodwig sat with Bella and said to her: —

"This young man is a genius, and ought not to live in a dependent situation, bound to routine service; he ought to be free like a bird, singing, flying, as he will, without any fixed and unalterable limits of time and occupation, and especially he ought to be by himself. It is a joy to meet with such originality and depth."

"Is he not too well aware of his own worth?" asked Bella, a flash of displeasure gleaming in her eyes.

"Not at all. He does not wish to shine, and yet he is genuine light. I feel as if I stood in the clear sunshine of the spirit; he is a man of pure character, and I am at home with him in the inmost realities, as I am with myself." Bella said nothing, and Clodwig continued: – "I like especially in him, that he lets one who is talking with him complete his sentence; he does not interrupt by any movement or any change of feature; and in such an active and richly endowed mind this is doubly valuable, and something more than mere civility."

Bella still kept silence, bent over her embroidery, on which she was diligently intent. At last she looked up, and with a beaming countenance, said, "I rejoice in your joy."

"And I should like to perpetuate this joy," Clodwig replied.

"He is a handsome man," added Bella.

Clodwig answered, smiling, "Now, since you have called my attention to it, I am reminded how handsome he is. But he does not plume himself upon his good looks, and I think that to be genuine beauty, which, when present has nothing strikingly prominent, all being in harmonious combination, but which, when thought of afterwards, reveals new and beautiful attributes and forms. Most handsome men are forever looking into a mirror visible only to themselves. But why should I give up this man to somebody else, and above all to this Sonnencamp? I am situated so that I can offer him a home with me for years! Why not do it?

"Why not?" said Bella, putting away her embroidery. "I need not assure you that I have no other joy in life than yours. So it is now with this brief happiness of yours, this childlike confidence you place in this noble-looking man. I see also that he has something elevated in his nature; he imparts much and gladly, is stimulating and quickening."

"Why not then?"

"Because we want to be alone! Clodwig, let us be by ourselves! It is my desire that even my brother should soon leave us; every third person, whether related by blood or by the most intimate spiritual ties, causes a separation, so that we do not have exclusive possession of each other."

While she was speaking, she had placed her hand on Clodwig's arm, and now she grasped his hand and stroked it. As Clodwig went away, Bella looked after him, shaking her head.

Bella came to the dinner-table handsomely dressed, and with a single rose in her hair. The men appeared weary, but she was extremely animated. She spoke a great deal of the happiness she had always had in being at the house of Eric's parents, where no ignoble word was ever uttered, for the mother cherished every high thought, like a priestess tending and feeding the smallest flame of the ideal on the household altar. Eric, who thought that he was proof against any further excitement, experienced a new and elevated emotion.

They drove out at noon, and Bella was silent during the ride. They visited a former Roman encampment. Bella sat alone under a tree, upon a covering spread upon the ground, and the men walked about.

When they came together around the evening lamp, Bella seemed like an entirely different person, having for the third time, that day, changed her dress. She was now very lively.

Bella had never been, during her whole life, dissatisfied with herself; she had never repented anything she had done, always saying. You were fully justified, at the moment when you acted. She did not wish at this time to appear in a false light to her husband's favorite, or as a mere trifling appendage; Eric should know who she was, that she was not only Clodwig's wife, but over and above all, Bella von Pranken.

She was ready to play as soon as Clodwig expressed the wish to hear her. The quick and eager haste with which she took off her ringing and rattling bracelets, which Eric at once with marked attentiveness received from her hand and placed upon the marble table under the mirror, – the manner in which she poised her hands like two fluttering pinions, and then brought them down upon the keys, like a swimmer who is in his element, – all served to show how resolved she was to occupy no second place. And never, since she had been Clodwig's wife, had Bella played as she now did in the presence of a third person, reserving hitherto her masterly performance on the piano for Clodwig alone. To-day her execution displayed such zest and skill that Clodwig himself, who knew every peculiar excellence in her method of playing, received a new surprise and delight.

During a pause, Eric seemed to strike the right key by remarking, that, after such elevated enjoyment in the intercourse with noble persons and in the wide survey of unbounded nature, there is nothing for the soul but to let the feelings dissolve and die away in the unlimited and shoreless ethereal atmosphere of music. A realm of waking dreams is then opened to us, a feeling of the infinite is awakened, that creates a something beyond what any word or look can express, and which is never unfolded by any sight or sound of nature from the unfathomed and mysterious depths of the human soul. As in answer to the inquiry, what influence predominated in him before composing, Mozart said, 'nothing but music which would come out,' – the pure musical impulse without any definite conception, without any limiting idea, only a rhythmic, billowy undulation of tones, – so it is that we, after the tension of thought and observation, through music are admitted into that pure, undefined, yet all-encompassing realm, which is a chaos, but a chaos that is no longer formless and void.

Bella, who sat reclining far back in a large arm-chair, gazed at Eric in such rapt wonder, that he dropt his eyes, unconsciously fixed upon her. To the surprise of both the men she suddenly rose, and bade them good night. She first gave her hand to Clodwig, then to Eric, and then to Clodwig again, and quickly went out.

Clodwig remained only a short time with his guest, and then he also took his leave. Eric went, in a sort of ecstacy, to his chamber. How rich was the world! what a day this had been from the dawn in the dewy wood even until this moment! and human happiness was a reality! Here were two who had attained rest and blessedness, such as could hardly be believed to exist in the actual world.

While he was standing still upon the carpeted stairs, from unconscious thoughts of the rich house he was about to enter, and conscious thoughts of the full and rounded existence of his host and hostess, the question suddenly occurred to him, Is this beautiful life, this perfecting of the soul in an extended view of nature, and its saturation in all that is beautiful in science and art, possible to wealth only, to freedom from care and want, to emancipation from all labor and from common needs?

As, holding the light in his hand, he entered the balcony chamber, he remained standing terrified, as if a ghost had appeared to him, before the bust of the Medusa, which with open mouth fixed upon him its overpowering and paralyzing gaze.

How is this? how has this image so suddenly assumed this likeness? Did Clodwig have any suspicion of it? It was indeed terrible.

Eric turned about, and now, as if it were some trick played upon him by an evil spirit, the contrasted image also, the Victoria, has a likeness to Bella when, silent and quiet, she modestly and humbly bent down her head.

Had Clodwig any suspicion of this wonderful play of opposites, and did he not acknowledge this, this morning when he avowed his heresy to the received opinion?

The pulse in Eric's temples beat violently. He put out the light, looked for a long time out into the dark night, and sought to recall afresh to his recollection the bright plenitude of the day's experience.

CHAPTER XII.

FRAU ADVENTURE

In the morning Eric put on his uniform, for so Clodwig had advised with cautious reference to a former experience. A horse had been placed at his disposal, and his portmanteau was to be sent after him.

Clodwig's contracted brow grew smooth as the handsome, noble-looking young man entered the parlor in his becoming uniform. After greeting him, he pointed to Eric's arm, saying: —

"Take off the crape before you go."

Eric looked at him surprised, and Clodwig explained himself.

"You are not to be sentimental, and you must agree with me that it is not well to enter, for the first time, a stranger's house, wearing a badge of mourning. People often desire a sympathy which they cannot expect to receive. You will be less disturbed in the end, if you impress it upon yourself at first that you are entering service, and moreover are to serve an extremely rich man, who would like to keep everything unpleasant out of sight. The more you keep to yourself your own personal feelings, the more free will you be."

Clodwig smiling quoted from Lucian's "Sale of the Philosophic Sects," where the Stoic as a slave cries out, "Even if I am sold, I am still free within myself!"

Eric good-humoredly took the crape from his sleeve.

Bella had excused herself from appearing at breakfast, and sent Eric a message of farewell till their next meeting.

The two men were now alone. Clodwig gave Eric a letter for Herr Sonnenkamp, but begged him not to make any positive engagement until he had seen him again, adding almost inaudibly, "Perhaps I shall keep you for myself."

As a mother crams all the pockets of her son going away from home, so Clodwig sought to give his young friend all sorts of instructions.

"I have but slight acquaintance with the boy," said he; "I only know that he is very handsome. Do you not agree with me that it is a great mistake to give a young soul the foundation principles which are to determine his life-course, before this young soul has collected the material of life or knows his own tendencies?"

"Certainly," replied Eric; "it is like building railroads in uncultivated or half-civilized countries, before roads have made possible the interchange of agricultural and manufactured products. The root of the disease of modern humanity, as my father often said, lies in the habit of teaching children dogmatically the laws which govern the universe; it is a superfluous labor based on ostentation, which is unfruitful, because it leaps over the first steps."

Clodwig nodded several times. This man might be trusted to sail out into the open sea; he would always have a compass with him.

The time of departure came; Clodwig said, —

"I will go a little way with you."

Eric took his horse by the bridle, and they walked on side by side. The old man often fixed an anxious, affectionate look upon his young friend. He repeated that he considered it a highly honorable task to train the young American for a useful life; then he advised him again to keep this one object in view, and to turn resolutely from all gossip concerning Herr Sonnenkamp, who had certainly left many rumors uncontradicted, either because he was too upright to trouble himself about them, or because he preferred to have some facts of his history hidden by false reports. It was undoubtedly singular, that though he was a German by birth, not a single relative had ever been seen at his house; probably, however, he was of low origin, and helped his relatives on condition that they should have no intercourse with him; Major Grassler had hinted at something of that kind.

"One thing more," said Clodwig, standing still, "say nothing to Herr Sonnenkamp of your having for a short time devoted yourself to the supervision of criminals. I would cast no slur upon him, but many men have an aversion to persons of such a calling."

Eric thanked him, seeing clearly his earnest desire to smooth the path before him. They went on in silence until Clodwig said, "Here I will turn back, and let me give you one warning."

"A warning?"

"Perhaps that isn't the right word; I only want to say to you, make up your mind to pass in the world for an enthusiast. A man who seeks anything in life except profit, pleasure, and honor, appears an enthusiast to many people who have no sympathy with such a predilection; the world cannot be just to such men, it must condemn them, because it sees its own strivings condemned by them. You will have to bear a martyrdom all your life long, if you remain true, – and I believe you will; bear it with a proud self-respect, and remember that a new, old friend understands you, and lives your life with you."

Suddenly the old man laid his hands on Eric's shoulders, kissed him, and walked hastily away, without once turning.

Eric mounted and rode on; as he turned the corner of the wood, he looked back and saw Clodwig standing still. Bella had watched the pair from the balcony, which commanded a view of their whole course; now she went to meet her husband, and was not a little surprised to observe in his face an emotion which she had never seen there before; he seemed to have been weeping.

"You were right," said Clodwig hastily, "it is better for us to remain by ourselves. But I rejoice in this new generation which differs from ours; it wavers no longer between the two poles of enthusiasm and despair; it has, if I may so express it, a sort of intellectual inspiration, and I believe it will bring more to pass than we have. I am glad that I am not too old to understand these young people born into an age of railroads. I admire and love this present age; never before has every man in every calling known so definitely what he wishes and ought to do, both in science and practical life."

Bella thought she must make some, reply, and said that young Sonnenkamp would be fortunate to have such a guide.

"It pains me that he must enter that house."

"Yet you have recommended him."

"Yes, that's it exactly. One is punished sooner or later for undertaking anything with half-sincerity or against his real convictions. I have brought myself into closer relations with this Herr Sonnenkamp, without really wishing it. In his house I always have a feeling as if I were in a family where horse-flesh is eaten. But, good heavens! it may be prejudice, custom; horse-flesh is also one kind of meat. But now I am free from, anxiety for the excellent young man."

Clodwig seemed unable to cease talking of Eric; and as he recalled what had passed, he was astonished at all that he had learned from him in so short a time; pointing to an apple-tree in blossom, he exclaimed: "Look at that tree in bloom, which when shaken covers every one with blossoms, and yet its richness is unimpaired. Such is this Dournay."

Bella replied, that it must be a hard task for a man who was so spoken and thought of to live up to the standard expected of him.

"May not such pleasure in imparting," she asked doubtfully, "be an exaggerated self-esteem or pure vanity?"

"O no! this young man does not wish to make a show; he only wishes that no moment of existence may be utterly wasted. He lets his active spirit work, and he must take satisfaction in the notice and sympathy of others; without this satisfaction, the pleasure of imparting would be impossible. That is the faith which removes mountains of prejudice."

"Faith?" said Bella, smiling beforehand at her own nice distinction, "it seems to me rather like the permanent embalming of a want of faith." He very zealously endeavored to show how this was, rather, the difficult and painful transmission of one's life.

He spoke long and eagerly. Bella appeared to listen, but hardly heard what he said; she smiled to herself at the old diplomatist, who had something incomprehensibly child-like, almost childish, about him. She threw her head back proudly, conscious of her inflexible virtue, which was strongly armed even against her husband, who wished to bring her into constant intercourse with a young man so richly endowed.

In the mean time Eric had ridden on through the wood, filled with fresh animation by the happy chance which had befallen him. He took a firm hold of his horse's bridle, full of that confident spirit to which every undertaking seems sure of success, or, at least, of only short and temporary failure. He congratulated himself on the good fortune that had helped him to win so easily and entirely a man of refined character, who was evidently somewhat cautiously reserved towards most men.

He had left his past life on the mountain behind him, and a new one was beginning. Smiling, he thought, The heroes of old must have felt in my mood, when they knew that they were under the protection of one of the gods of Olympus.

At a turn in the wood he stopped, and, taking Clodwig's unsealed letter from his pocket, read as follows:

"A neighbor's greeting to Herr Sonnenkamp, at Villa Eden.

"Had Fate granted me a son, I should consider it as a completion of the great blessing, to be able to give him this man as a tutor.

"CLODWIG, COUNT VON WOLFSGARTEN. WOLFSGARTEN CASTLE, May 4, 186-."

Eric set spurs to his horse, and rode gaily on through the wood, where birds were singing amid the fresh young leaves. As he passed through the village, he saw at the window of the Rath-haus, behind blooming wall-flowers, a rosy, fair-haired maiden, who drew back quickly as he bowed to her. He would have liked to turn his head to see whether she was looking after him, but he did not venture to do so.

After a little while, it occurred to him that he was very vain to believe that this lingering behind the flowers concerned him at all; Lina had undoubtedly expected to see Baron von Pranken, when she heard his horse approaching.

Eric was now riding along the river-bank in the valley. He was so full of cheerfulness, that songs rose to his lips as they had not done for a long time; he did not give them voice, but sang them in his soul. The whole fulness and variety of thought, perception, and feeling were stirring in his heart. As he saw the sun shining on the glass dome of Villa Eden, it struck him like a lightning flash, —