The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 49

"We owe him this attention; he is sensible, modest, and very intelligent. We find at present in the cities and first families few young men of so little a.s.sumption and so much goodness and manliness."

Angela p.r.i.c.ked her finger. She had incautiously wandered into the thicket, as if she did not know that roses have thorns.

"Many things tell of his kind-heartedness," she replied, with averted face. "He sends five dollars every week to the old blind woman in Salingen; he often takes the money himself, and comforts the unfortunate creature. The blind woman is full of enthusiasm about him.

He bought the cooper a full set of tools, that he might be able to support his mother and seven little sisters."

"Very praiseworthy," said the father.

As Siegwart came home in the evening, Angela met him in the yard. She carried a basket and was about to go into the garden.

"Herr Frank is not unwell," said he; "I saw him in the field and went through the vineyard to meet him; but when he discovered my intention, he turned about and hastened toward the house. That surprises me."

Angela went into the garden. She stood on the bed and gazed at the lettuce. The empty basket awaited its contents, and in it lay the knife whose bright blade glistened before the idle dreamer. She stood thus meditating, lost in thought for a long time, which was certainly not her custom.

Herr Frank had returned from the city, and was roughly received by the doctor.

"Have you spoken to your son?" said he sharply.

"No! I have just alighted from the carriage," answered Frank in astonishment.

The doctor walked up and down the room, and Frank saw his face growing darker.

"You disturb me, good friend. How is Richard?"

"Bad, very bad! And it is all your fault. You gave Richard those materialistic books which I threw out of the window. He has read the trash--not read, but studied it; and now we have the consequences."

"Pardon me, doctor. I did not give my son those books. He was pa.s.sing the window when you threw them out, and took them to his room."

"You knew that! Why did you leave him the miserable trash?"

"I had no idea of the danger of these writings. Explain yourself further, I entreat."

"You must first see your son. But I bind it on your conscience to use the greatest precaution. Do not show the least surprise. We have to deal with a dangerous disorder. Do not say a word about his changed appearance. Then come back to me again."

Greatly disturbed, the father pa.s.sed to the room of his son. Richard sat on the sofa gazing at the floor. His cheeks had lost their bloom, his face was emaciated, and his eyes deeply sunken. Vogt's _Physiological Letters_ lay open near him. He did not rise quickly and joyfully to kiss his father, as was his custom. He remained sitting, and smiled languidly at him. Herr Frank, grieved and perplexed, sat down near him, and took occasion to pick up the book:

"How are you, Richard?"

"Very well, as you see."

"You are industrious. What book is this?"

"A rare book, father--a remarkable book. One learns there to know what man is and what he is not. Until now, I did not know that cats, dogs, monkeys, and all animals were of our race. Now I know; for it is clearly demonstrated in that book."

"You certainly do not believe such absurdities?"

"Believe? I believe nothing at all. Faith ends where proof begins."

Herr Frank read the open page.

"All this sounds very silly," said he. "Vogt a.s.serts that man has no soul, and proves it from the fact that men become idiotic. If the functions of the brain are disturbed, the soul ceases, says Vogt. He therefore concludes that the spirit consists in the brain. The man must have been crazy when he wrote that. I am no scholar; but I see at the first glance how false and groundless are Vogt's inferences. Every reasonable man knows that the brain is the instrument of the mind, which enables it to partic.i.p.ate in the world of sense; now, when the instrument is destroyed, the partic.i.p.ation of the mind with the outward world must cease. Although a man may be an expert on the violin, he cannot play if the strings are broken or out of tune. But the player, his ideas, the art, still remain. In like manner the spirit remains, although it can no longer play on the injured or discordant fibres of the brain."

"You must read the whole book, father, and then those others there."

"But, Richard, you must not read books that rob man of all dignity."

"Of course not. I should do as the ostrich. When he is in danger, he sticks his head into the bushes not to see the danger. A prudent plan.

But I cannot close my eyes to the light, even if that light should destroy my human respect."

Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank returned to the doctor.

"Great G.o.d! in what a condition is my poor Richard!" said the oppressed father.

"He will, I hope, be rescued. My stay at Frankenhohe was to end with the month of May; but I cannot forsake a young man whom I love, in this helpless state of mental delirium."

"I do not understand the condition of my son; and your words give me great anxiety. Have the goodness to tell me what is the matter with Richard, and how it came about."

"It would be very difficult to make your son's condition clear to you.

In you there is only business, lucrative undertakings, speculative combinations. The bustle of the money market is your world. You have no idea of the power of an intellectual struggle. You know the thoughtful, intellectual nature of your son; and here I begin. In the first place, I will remind you that Richard wishes to be governed by the power of deduction. With him fantasies and pa.s.sions retreat before this force, although usually in men of his years, and even in men with gray hair, clearness of mind and keen penetration are often swept away by the current of stormy pa.s.sions. Richard's aversion to women is the result of cool reflection and inevitable inference, and therefore on this question I do not dispute his views. I know it would be useless, and I know that the study of a pure feminine nature would overcome this prejudice. The same force of logical inferences places Richard in this unhappy condition. He read the writings of the materialist. There he found the physiological proofs that man is a beast. From these proofs Richard drew all the terrible consequences contained in those destructive doctrines. As the intellectual life predominates in him, and as he has a strong repugnance to materialistic madness, his nature must be stirred in its profoundest depths. If Richard succ.u.mbs, he will act in his habitual consistent manner. All moral basis lost, morality would be foolishness to him, since it is useless for beasts to curb the pa.s.sions by moral laws. As with immortality disappears man's eternal destiny, it would be foolish to 'fight the giant fight of duty.' If he is convinced that man is a beast, he will live like a beast--although he might cloak his conduct with the varnish of decency--and thus suddenly would the sensible Richard stand before his astonished father a ruined man. This is one view; there is still another," said the doctor hesitatingly. "I remember in the course of my practice a suicide who wrote on a slip of paper, 'What do I here? Eat, drink, sleep, worry, and fret; much suffering, little joy; therefore--' and the man sent a bullet through his head. This suicide thought logically. This earthly life is insupportable; it is foolishness to a man who thinks and is at the same time a materialist."

"What prospects--horrible!" cried Herr Frank, wringing his hands.

"Accursed be those books; and I am the cause of this misfortune!"

"The involuntary cause," said Klingenberg consolingly. "You now have a firm conviction of the devastating effects of those bad books. But how many are there who consider every warning in this connection an exhibition of prejudice or narrow-mindedness! How few readers are so modest as to admit that they want the scientific culture to refute a bad book, to separate the poison from the honey of sweet phrases and winning style! How few can see that they cannot read those bad books without detriment! No one would sit on a cask of powder and touch it off for amus.e.m.e.nt; and yet those h.e.l.lish books are more dangerous than a cask full of powder. To me this is incomprehensible. Poisonous food is always injurious; yet thousands and millions drink greedily from this poisonous stream of bad reading which deluges all grades of society."

"I will do immediately what must be done," said Herr Frank as he hastily rose.

"What will you do?"

"Take from my son those execrable books."

"By no means," said Klingenberg. "This would be a psychological mistake. Richard would buy the same books again at the book-shop, and read them secretly. A man who has the resolution of your son must be won by honorable combat. Authority would here be badly applied.

Therefore I forbid you to interfere. You know nothing of the matter.

Treat him kindly, and have forbearance with his sensitiveness. That is what I must require of you."

Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank left the doctor. Overwhelming himself with reproaches, he wandered restlessly about the house and garden. He saw Richard standing at the open window with folded arms, dreamy and pale, his hair in disorder like a storm-beaten wheat-field--truly a painful sight for the father. He went up to his room, where the small library stood in its beautiful binding. A servant stood near him with a basket. The works of Eugene Sue, Gutzkow, and like spirits fell into the basket.

"All to the fire!" commanded Herr Frank.

The doctor had compared bad literature to poisonous food. The comparison was not inapt; at least, it gave Richard the appearance of a man in whose body destructive poison was working. He was listless and exhausted; in walking, his hands hung heavily by his side. His eyes were directed to the ground, as if he were seeking something. If he saw a snail, he stopped to examine the crawling creature. He sought to know why the snail crawls about, and, to his astonishment, found that the snail always followed an object; which is not always the case with man, animal of the moment, who goes about without an object. If a caterpillar accidentally got under his foot, he pushed it carefully aside and examined if it had been hurt. It seemed to him logical that creeping and flying things had the same claims to forbearance and proper treatment as man, since according to Vogt and Buchner's striking proofs, all creeping and flying things are not essentially different from man.

He paid particular attention to the spiders. If he came to a place where their web was stretched, he examined attentively the artistic texture; he saw the firmly fastened knot on the twig which held the web apart, the circular meshes, the cunning arrangement to catch the wandering fly. He was convinced that such a spider would be a thousand times more intelligent than Herr Vogt and Herr Buchner, with half as big a head as those wise naturalists. The enterprising spirit of the ants excited not less his admiration. He always found them busy and in a bustle, to which a market-day could not be compared. Even London and Paris were solitary in comparison to the throng in an ant-hill. They dragged about large pieces of wood, as also leaves and fibres, to construct their house, which was laid out with design and finished with much care. If he pushed his cane into the hill, there forthwith arose a great revolution. The inhabitants rushed out upon him, nipped him with their pincers, and showed the greatest rage against the invader of their kingdom, while others with great celerity placed the eggs in safety. He observed that the ants gave no quarter, and considered every one a mortal enemy who disturbed their state.

The young man sat on a stone and examined a snail that crawled slowly from the wet gra.s.s. It carried a gray house on its back, and beslimed the way as it went, and stretched out its horns to discover the best direction. Its delicate touch astonished Frank. When obstacles came in its way which it did not see nor touch, it would perceive them by means of a wonderful sensibility.

How stupid did Richard appear to himself, beside a horned, blind snail.

How many men only discover obstacles in their way when they have run their heads against them, and how many wish to run their heads through walls without any reason! He arose and looked toward Angela's home. He was dejected, and heaved a sigh.