Villa Eden Part 197

"Poor man! Poor man!" he repeated, over and over again, "He was not open with me; but then, neither was she. I do not take it ill of him.

She was not so either: it was the first time in her life. She"--this was of course, Fraulein Milch--"knew that I could not endure it. I can do much, comrade: you would not believe how much I can do. But there is one thing of which I am incapable; and that is hypocrisy. I cannot have friendly intercourse with a man whom I neither love nor esteem. I knew that the man had been a slaveholder; and I have always said that no one who a.s.sociates with poodles can keep off the fleas: and who would believe that the man could utter so many kindly words? And with you, comrade, he talked like a sage, like a saint. I, with my dull brains, cannot make out, and even Herr Weidmann could not help me, why the good children must suffer all this. But now I will explain it to you. Now I know the reason. It came into my head on the road. This is how it is. I have not learned much. I used to be a drummer: I'll tell you my story some time."

"Yes; but what have you discovered?"

"Just so she always reminds me when I wander off from what I was saying. This is it. You see, man, as it says in Scripture, is born in pain, trouble; and the human soul is also born in pain, want, and misery. We poor fellows know that; and that is why rich and distinguished people are not fairly in the world. I mean--you know--and now our Roland is born anew, into true n.o.bility, for the first time.

The Prince can enn.o.ble the name, but not the soul, you understand; so it is. And our Roland is now the real n.o.bleman. To endure evil and do good, that is the motto which he has now received; and that is a device which has yet been engraved upon no knightly s.h.i.+eld: but you see it stands written within, and there it will remain."

The Major pointed to his heart with a trembling hand. Eric listened in astonishment, as this timid man, so slow of speech, uttered all this, with many interruptions, it is true, but with great fervor; and now the Major reminded him how they had tormented themselves with the problem of what Roland should do with so much money, and said that it was now decided, once for all, he must do nothing but good with it.

When, at last, Eric was about to separate from the Major, the latter held him fast once again, saying,--

"Listen only to this one thing more. I was a drummer: I'll tell you the story some day. I became an officer; and my comrades did not dream how they honored me, when they used secretly, thinking I did not hear it, to call me Capt. Drumsticks, or, for shortness, even Sticks. Yes: they did honor to the Capt. Sticks; for, from that time forward, it became clear to me. I was unable to explain it so to myself, but she made me understand: she knows every thing. Yes: so it is. He is only half alive whom Fortune has made into something. Misfortune is the Holy Spirit, saying to mankind, 'Arise and walk.' You understand me?"

"Yes," said Eric earnestly, pressing the old man's valiant hand and riding on.

Looking back, he saw the veteran still standing on the same spot. He nodded to the horseman, as though he would have said to him, in the distance. Yes: to you I have given good baggage,--my best. You will not lose it; and now, if I die, it is in the possession of one who will keep it, and not give it away. He thanked the Builder of all the worlds, that he had caused him to pa.s.s through so much that was hard, and yet always to come out of it unharmed.

Meanwhile, Eric was riding cheerfully towards Mattenheim. On the way, however, he turned round. It seemed to him that he was bound in honor to summon Clodwig first. That in forming this resolution he was also influenced by an impulse of curiosity as to how Bella was now behaving, he frankly acknowledged to himself: nevertheless, he rode first to Wolfsgarten.

The parrot shrieked from the open window, as though wis.h.i.+ng to inform all the inhabitants of the arrival of so unusual a guest; for it was long since Eric had been there. He thought he had discerned the form of Bella in the room adjoining that at whose open window the parrot hung; but she did not show herself again.

Entering Clodwig's room, he found him, for the first time, in a state of despondency. He must also have had some bodily ailment; since he did not rise, as had always been his wont, greeting his young friend with as much formality as heartiness.

"I knew that you would come to me," said Clodwig, breathing hard, but speaking in a mild voice.

"If one spirit can influence another at a distance, you and your mother must have felt most clearly that I was with you at this time. And now, if you please, let us talk very quietly, as I am somewhat indisposed.

Let us forget, first of all, that we are starved by intercourse with that man. I think we ought, in this case, to think of him, and not of ourselves. See,"--taking up a phial,--"look at this. I take a childish delight in this new chemical stuff, which looks exactly like clear water, and yet serves to efface a written word without scratching the paper at all; and now I am thinking, ought we not to be able to find some moral agency similar to this?"

Eric, seeing the matter which he had in hand immediately referred to, laid the plan of the jury before Clodwig, and called upon him to bear his part in it. Clodwig declined, with the remark that Herr Sonnenkamp, or whatever his name was, must have a court of his peers,--men of similar rank, or, rather, of a similar profession with himself. He, for his part, was no peer of Herr Sonnenkamp, or whatever he called himself.

Eric reminded his friend, with great caution, of his having dwelt on the equality of privileges at Heilingthal; but Clodwig seemed to give no heed to these words.

There must have been a great weight on the soul of this man, usually so attentive; for, without noticing Eric's reminder, he related how much he had exerted himself in these latter days for the American, some hot heads at court having wished to summon him before a tribunal on a charge of high treason. This idea had been very repulsive to the Prince, who had written Clodwig a letter with his own hand, thanking him for having given his counsel against any elevation to the ranks of the n.o.bility. Clodwig had thereupon advised the Prince to desist from any further proceedings against the man, who, he said, had been allured and seduced into things with which he should have nothing to do.

Again Eric expressed his wish that Clodwig would a.s.sist at the trial.

He merely replied,--

"I will inform the Court that the man summons a tribunal of his own accord. It will have a good effect there; and to oblige you"--here he sat upright, and his expression of languor changed to one of resolution. He pa.s.sed his hand over his whole face, as though feeling that he must wipe away its look of distress--"yes, on your account, in the belief that your connection with that house may be, by this means, severed, or that light may be thrown upon it, I do not shrink from the appeal."

It was hard to Eric that this consent should be given for his sake, and not with a view to serving the cause. He was on the point of announcing his intention of becoming the man's son, when approaching footsteps were heard. Clodwig rose hastily, and, seizing Eric's hand, said, in a low but decided voice,--

"Well, I yield. The man wishes a court of honor: he shall have one."

Clodwig had uttered these words quickly and precipitately, for at that moment Bella entered.

She greeted Eric with Latin words; and it was with a strange confusion of sensations that he perceived in her a sudden defiance, utterly out of keeping with the present state of things, and, above all, with Clodwig's dejected mood.

"Pray tell me," she asked, "did you ever pa.s.s through a phase in which you admired men of force, like Ezzelin von Romano? There is, after all, something great in such violent natures, especially when contrasted with men of petty interests and weak dilettanteism"--,

Eric could not understand what this meant. It did not occur to him that Bella, screened by the presence of a stranger, was discharging arrows, none of which missed their mark.

Clodwig gently closed his eyes, nodded, and then opened them again.

"Oh, yes," she continued, more calmly, "I am glad that I remember a question which I wished to put to you. Tell me, what would Cicero or Socrates have said, on reading Lord Byron's 'Cain'?" Eric looked at her with a puzzled air. This question was so extravagantly odd, that he did not know whether it was intended as a sneer, or whether she was insane.

Bella, however, went on:--

"Has Roland ever yet read Byron's 'Cain'?"

"I believe not."

"Give him the book now. It must have an effect upon him. He, too, is a son, who has a right to revolt at his father's banishment from Eden. It is wonderful, the correspondence between the two stories,--is it not?

Do you know that we are all, strictly speaking, children of Cain? Abel was childless; yes, the pious Abel had no children: we are all descended from Cain. A grand pedigree! One more question, dear Herr Doctor, Have you never got out of the _savants_ the form and color of the mark branded on Cain's brow by G.o.d the Father?"

"I do not understand you," Eric answered,

"Neither do I understand myself," laughed Bella, It was a dismal laugh.

She then continued:--

"I began to read Cicero, 'De Summo Bono,' with the help of a translation, of course; but I did not get far, and took up Byron's 'Cain,' instead: that is the finest thing the modern world has produced."

Eric still know not what to reply, and only gazed into the faces of Bella and Clodwig. "What is going on here?" he said to himself.

Bella began again,--

"Were not the female slaves who served the Roman ladies obliged to puff out their cheeks, when a n.o.ble matron wished to strike them in the face? _A propos_, how is Fraulein Sonnenkamp?"

"She has gone to the convent," replied Eric with downcast eyes.

It oppressed him to be obliged to answer Bella's questions with regard to Manna.

"That seems to me very sensible," was the rejoinder.

"Such a cloister is a shelter where the sensitive child will best find repose until the storm is past. What will Roland now do? What are your intentions, and those of your mother?"

These questions were put in a manner so superficial, so distant, and so conventional, that Eric was able to reply with a certain degree of cheerfulness,--

"In the interim, we have recourse to the great deed which is so universal."

"The great deed?"

"Yes: in the mean time, we are doing nothing."

In the midst of this conversation, Eric's thoughts were in the convent with Manna. There she, too, was now confronting people who had once been such near friends to her. How did they now appear in their new character of enemies and antagonists? Surely they had not a.s.sumed this cold, indifferent tone. He felt as though he must stretch out his hand protectingly over Manna, who was now bearing crus.h.i.+ng reproaches, and, perhaps, even allowing a penance to be laid upon herself. He grieved that he had let her travel alone with Roland and Fraulein Perini. He felt that he ought not to have left her.

Such was his absorbing thought; and so he absently took leave, saying that he must go on to Weidmann's. Again he rode through the wood which he had traversed on Clodwig's horse the first time that he went to Villa Eden. How utterly different was the Villa to-day! And here at Wolfsgarten,--here he felt that there was some mystery which he could not unravel. How extremely happy had Bella and Clodwig then seemed to him! and now, what were they? Bella's strange, wandering talk, jumbling together Cicero and Byron's 'Cain,' showed that she must have pa.s.sed hours in dragging herself restlessly through all sorts of things. Then Clodwig seemed overwhelmed by melancholy from which even his universal kindness could only temporarily rouse him.

Eric felt that he must forget all this, since he had in view an end which he must pursue for others and himself,--more than for himself, for Manna. Only he who is personally free from care can devote himself fully and freely to the service of others.