Читать книгу Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine - Auerbach Berthold - Страница 28

A fragrant strawberry glistens on the ground, beautiful to the eye, and luscious to the taste. If there were some method of seeing, or even of hearing, what was going on at the root of the plant, we might perhaps be able to discern how the ammonia, homely, and of very pungent odor, turned up conceitedly its nose, as much as to say, What indeed would all this be without me?

The potash, on the other hand, brightly glistening and sweet-smelling, is under no necessity of saying anything, for its very appearance says already, All the scientific men of the upper world speak on my behalf.

And the hard, silicious earth, in its comfortable repose, might be understood to say, I am an aboriginal inhabitant, and what do these transient fellows want? To-day here, and to-morrow gone; I have already lived through a great deal, – everything goes by fashion.

The maggot-worm grubs at the root, blinking with its cunning eyes, and thinks, The rest are happy in rendering service, but I – I fatten myself. The earth-worm rolls itself along in a proud feeling of triumph that it can go through the streets and water-courses, whereon everything is moving hither and thither. A mole, that has nestled in the neighborhood, lies in wait for the moment when the maggot-worm is taking a little nap, after its surfeit, and gobbles it up.

Such are the manifold operations of life and movement down there at the roots, and such also are those in the servants' room of Villa Eden above.

Herr Sonnenkamp has a wise rule, although many consider it hard-hearted, that all his servants must be unmarried. They receive good wages, are in want of nothing, but make no pretension to family life. A beggar never comes into the well-kept garden, for he would disturb its comfortable serenity. He receives alms, at the entrance, from the keeper of the lodge, and the old cook oftentimes complains that the remnants of food, which might nourish many a hungry one, go so utterly to waste.

It is noon. They take their meals here, long before the table of their master above is set. Two grooms and a third coachman, who keep watch in the stables, eat by themselves in silence, for they must relieve the others.

The superintendent here below is the head-cook, dressed in light clothes, and called for shortness, "the chief;" of a burly and portly figure, with a beardless face, and a large hawk-nose, he plays here the marquis. His German is a sort of jargon, but he rules over the subordinate cook and kitchen-maids, with absolute sway.

The watchmen have dined. A long table is laid for more than a dozen persons, and they come in one after another.

The first who makes his appearance, or, rather, the one to whom the first entrance is conceded, is the head-coachman, Bertram, with a powerful, gigantic form. He has a great red beard, parted in two waving masses coming to a peak, with an embroidered waistcoat covering his hips, and over it a striped blue and white jacket, with just a slight badge of distinction from that of the other coachmen.

With a greeting to the whole corps of servants, Bertram seats himself at the head of the table with Joseph on his right, and the head-gardener on his left. Next to this one, a little man, with seamed face and rapidly glancing eyes, takes a seat; this is Lutz, the courier. Then the rest seat themselves according to their rank, the stable-boys and the men working in the garden being placed at the lower end of the table.

The first female cook, a special favorite of Fräulein Perini, insisted strenuously upon grace being said before dinner. Bertram, the travelled coachman, a decided free-thinker, always busied himself during the blessing with his great embroidered waistcoat, which he drew proudly down over his hips. Joseph folded his hands, but did not move his lips; the rest prayed silently.

No sooner was the soup removed, and a little wine sipped, – for the servants had their wine every day, – than Bertram started the talk, and upon a very definite topic.

"I was just waiting to see whether Lieutenant Dournay would recognise me; I belonged to his battery."

"Indeed!" Joseph delightedly chimed in. "He was right popular, I'm certain?"

Bertram did not consider it incumbent upon him to give a direct reply. He only said that he could never have believed that Herr Dournay would ever become a servant.

"Servant?"

"Yes, a servant like us; and because he knows something of books, a tutor."

Joseph smiled in a melancholy way, and took great pains to bring the table over to a correct view. First he praised the celebrated father of Eric, who had received at least twenty decorations; and his mother, who belonged to the nobility; and he was very happy to say that Captain Dournay understood all about the sciences, and, to throw at their heads the very hardest names which he could get hold of, – Anthropology, Osteology, Archæology, and Petrifactology – all these the captain was master of; he was a complete university in himself. But he did not succeed in convincing the company that Eric was anything else than a servant.

The head-gardener said, in a high-Prussian dialect: —

"Anyhow, he is a handsome man, and sits his horse well; but he don't know a thing about gardening."

Lootz, the courier, praised Eric for speaking good French and English, but of course, when it came to Russian, and Turkish, and Polish, the learned gentleman didn't understand them; for Lutz himself, as a journeyman tailor, having made the tour of all countries, understood all languages. He had attended formerly Fräulein von Pranken, the present Countess Wolfsgarten, and two English ladies, on their travels; now he acted as courier for Herr Sonnenkamp on his journeys, and was idle the rest of the time, unless one calls work the carrying of the letter-bag to and from the railroad station, and the playing of the guitar, which the little man practised a good deal, with the accompaniment of his own whistling. He had also a secret service.

There appeared to be a tacit agreement at the table, that they should make no reply to anything that Lutz said; he only received a smile from the second female cook, with whom he had a tender but not acknowledged relation.

A man with Sarmatian features and a Polish accent claimed for Herr von Pranken the credit of having brought the man into the house. Bertram gave Joseph a slight nudge, and proceeded to praise Herr von Pranken in the most eulogistic terms, while Joseph winked slyly, as if he would say. Just so; this shows again that the Pole is in the secret service of Herr von Pranken.

Now they speculated whether Herr von Pranken would take up his abode in the house after his marriage with Manna, for this event was regarded as a settled thing.

A gardener, who stammered a little, remarked that it was said at the village inn, that Herr Sonnenkamp had been a tailor. All laughed, and the stuttering gardener, who was the special butt of the circle, was more and more spurred on to talk, and bantered till he became blue in the face. Bertram, taking both waves of his long beard in his hands, exclaimed: —

"If any one should tell me that, I'd show him how his teeth taste."

"Just let people talk," said soothingly the head-gardener, with a smile in advance at his own wisdom, as he added, "As soon as a man gets on in the world he must make up his mind to be slandered."

One of the hostlers gave an account of a scuffle which had taken place between them and the servants of the so-called Wine-count, who reproached them with being the servants of a man whom nobody knew anything about, – who he was, or where he came from; and that one of them had gone so far as to say that Frau Sonnenkamp was a purchased slave.

The secret, and, in fact, not very edifying history of several families was now related, until the stout female cook cried out at last: —

"Do stop that talk! My mother used to say, that

The second gardener, a lean, thin man, with a peaked face, called the squirrel, who often had prayers with the pious people of the neighborhood, began a very evangelical discourse about evil speaking. He had, originally, been a gardener, then a policeman in a northern capital, where Sonnenkamp became acquainted with him, and placed him back again in his first occupation, employing him frequently in commissions that called for special circumspection.

An ancient kitchen-maid, who sat apart, holding in her lap the plate from, which she was eating, cried suddenly: —

"You may say what you please, the gentleman who has just come marries the daughter of the family. Just bear that in mind. Mark my words. He hasn't come for the young gentleman, but for the young lady. There was once on a time a prince and a princess in the castle, and the prince put on a servant's dress – yes, laugh away, but it is just so."

Joseph and Bertram exchanged glances full of meaning.

Now there was a general joking. Every one wished to have his fortune told by old Kate. The courier made fun of superstitious people, but assumed a very forced smile when Bertram called out: —

"Yes, indeed, the tailors are all enlightened, they don't believe in hell."

There was no end to the laughing now. Suddenly a voice sounded from the ceiling: —

"Bertram is to put the horses to the glass-carriage, and Joseph to come up."

The company at the table broke up; the hostlers went to the stables, where they smoked their pipes, the gardeners to the park and the green-houses. Joseph told two servants to set the dinner-table, and there was stillness under ground. Only the kettles bubbled and hissed, and the chief surveyed with lofty mien the progress of his work.

An hour later, Lootz received the letters which he was to carry to the station, and, in a very casual and innocent way, related that the new tutor had as adherents in the house, Bertram, who was formerly stationed in his battery, and Joseph, who considered himself committed to him as coming from the University. It had never been said in so many words that Lutz was to be a spy over the servants, but it was understood, as a matter of course, between him and his master.