Читать книгу Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine - Auerbach Berthold - Страница 5

Seated in an open carriage, the two young men were soon winding along a road which led up the mountain. The air was full of dewy freshness, and high above the vineyards the nightingales in the leafy woods poured forth a constant flood of melody. The two men sat silent. Each knew that the other had come within the circle of his destiny, but could not anticipate what would be the consequence.

Eric took off his hat, and as Pranken looked at his handsome face with its commanding, self-reliant expression, it seemed to him that he had never really seen it before; a thrill of alarm passed through him, as he began to realize that he was forming ties whose results could not be foreseen. His face now darkened with anger and scorn, now brightened with benevolence and good-humored smiles; he murmured to himself some unintelligible words, and burst forth at intervals into an inexplicable fit of laughter.

"It is truly astonishing, most astonishing!" he said to himself. "I could hardly have believed it of you, my good Otto, that you could be so generous and self-forgetful, so wholly and completely a friend. People have always told you, and you have had the conceit yourself, that through all your whims you were better than you would own to yourself. Shame on you, that you would not recognize your innocence and virtue! Here you are showing yourself a friend, a brother, a most noble minister of destiny to another, who is a bit of humanity, nothing but pure humanity, in a full beard. All his thoughts are elevated and manly, but a good salary pleases even his noble manliness."

Pranken laid his head back on the cushions of the carriage, and looked smiling up to the sky. He resolved to take good care that this specimen of noble manhood, who was sitting by him in the carriage, should not thwart his plans, and that what he could not bring about himself, his sister Bella should accomplish. Pranken's whole bearing was forced and unnatural. His uniform, worn ever since childhood, had given him not only a feeling of exclusiveness, but also a definite, undisputed, and exceptional position, which separated him from the ordinary mass of men. Among his fellow-soldiers ha was lively, and high-spirited; not specially remarkable for anything, but a good officer, knowing how to take care of and to drill his horses and his men. Now that he had laid aside his uniform, he felt in citizen's dress as if he were falling to pieces; but he held himself all the more proudly erect, in order to show by every movement that he did not belong to the common herd. In the regiment there were always strict rules to be followed; now he was under the command of duty and wearisome free-will. Left to himself, he became painfully aware that he was nothing without his comrades. Life appeared bare and dreary, and he had worked himself into a bitter and satirical mood, which gave him in his own eyes, a certain superiority to that blank, monotonous existence, without parade, or play, or ballet. He looked with a sort of envy at Eric, who, poorer and without advantages of social position, gazed around him so serenely and composedly, feasting on the beauty of the landscape. Eric was certainly the better off. Having become a soldier at a more mature age, he had never lost his own individuality in the 'esprit de corps' of army life; and now that he was a civilian again, his whole appearance changed, and his nature developed itself under a new and interesting aspect.

"I envy you," said Pranken, after they had driven for sometime in silence.

"You envy me?"

"Yes! at first it vexed me and roused my pity, that a man like you should enter the service of a private individual, and in such a position! But perhaps it is fortunate for a man to be obliged to determine on some career in order to make a living."

"Just for that reason," replied Eric, "will the task of educating the young millionaire be a hard one. Two things only excite the powers of men to activity: an idea, and worldly gain."

"I don't quite understand you."

"Let me make my meaning clearer. He who uses his power for the sake of an idea enters the region of genius, however small and inconspicuous may be the sphere of his activity. He who works for the sake of profit, to supply the necessities, or the luxuries of life, is nothing but a common laborer. The common need is the compelling power which plants the vine on the steep mountain side, clears the forest, steers the ship, and drives the plough. Where this common need unites itself with the ideal, and this may be in every sphere of life, there is noble human activity. A nobleman, who busies himself in the world, has the good fortune to be the inheritor of an idea, – the idea of honor."

Pranken nodded approvingly, but with a slightly scornful expression, as much as to say, "This man to have the audacity to seek justification for the nobility! Nobility and faith need not be proved; they are facts of history not to be questioned!"

Again they were silent, and each asked himself what was to come of this unexpected blending of their paths in life. As fellow-soldiers they had been only remotely connected; it might be very different for the future.

The valleys already lay in shadow, though the sun shone brightly on the mountain-tops. They drove through a village where all was in joyous and tumultuous movement, – in the streets, maidens walking arm in arm; young men standing singly or in groups, exchanging merry greetings and jokes and laughing jests; the old people sitting at the doors; the fountain splashing, and along the high-road by the river, gay voices singing together.

"O how full of refreshment is our German life!" cried Eric; "the active, industrious people enjoy themselves in the evening, which brings coolness and shade to the treeless vineyards."

They continued their journey in silence, when suddenly Pranken started convulsively, for there came before him, as if in a dream, a vision of himself, pistol in hand, confronting in a duel the man now seated by his side. Whence came the vision? He could not tell. And yet, was it meant to be a prophetic warning?

He forced himself to talk. A prominent trait of his character, which belonged to him by nature and education was a social disposition, a desire to please all with whom he came in contact. To drive away the vision, and in obedience to this social impulse, he began to tell Eric where he had been. By the advice of his brother-in-law, Count Clodwig von Wolfsgarten, he had just paid a visit to a much respected landed proprietor in the neighborhood, in order to enter upon a course of instruction, if the arrangement should prove mutually agreeable.

The land-holder Weidmann, – who was often called the March-minister, because as a pioneer to help stem the revolutionary current in 1848 he was made minister for three days, – was considered, in all the surrounding region, as an authority upon agricultural as well as political matters.

Pranken talked on, and the more he talked the more he enjoyed his own witty sallies; and the more he indulged in them, the more pungent they became. He began: "I should like to know how this man will strike you; he has, like" – here he hesitated a little, but quickly added – "like all great reformers, a vast train of fine dogmas, enough to supply a whole Capuchin monastery."

Eric laughed, and Pranken, laughing also, continued: "Ah! the world is made up of nothing but humbug! The much-talked-of poetry of a landed proprietor's life is nothing but a constant desire for lucre, tricked out with paint from the glow of the morning and evening sky. This Herr Weidmann and his sons think of nothing but the everlasting dollar. He has six sons, five of whom I know, and all look impertinently well, with pretentiously white, faultless teeth, and full beards. These mountains, which travellers admire, are compelled to yield them wine from the surface, and slate, manganese, ore, and chemicals from the mines beneath. They have five different factories; one son is a miner, another a machinist, a third a chemist, and so they work into each others' hands and for their common interest. I have been told that they extract forty different substances from beechwood, and then send the exhausted residuum as charcoal to the Paris restaurants. Isn't that a pretty love of nature? Then, as to Father Weidmann, – you enjoy the song of the nightingales, I know. Well, Father Weidmann obtained from the government an edict of protection for them, because they eat insects and are very useful to the fields and woods. Father Weidmann lives in a restored castle, but if a minstrel came there to-day he would get no hearing, unless he sang the noble love by which Nitrogen and Hydrogen are bound to Ammonia. I am almost crazed with super-phosphates and alkalies. Do you think, it is a destiny worth striving after, to be able to increase the food of mankind by a few sacks of potatoes?"

Before Eric could answer, Pranken added: "Ah, there is just nothing that one would like to turn to. The army is the one profession."

As they were ascending a steep hill overlooking the river with its islands, Pranken, pointing up the stream to a white house upon the bank, said, "Yonder is the Sonnenkamp villa, which bears the name of Eden. That great glass dome on which the evening sun is shining is the palm-house. Herr Sonnenkamp is an enthusiastic gardener; his conservatories and hot-houses excel those of princes."

Eric, standing upright in the carriage, looked back upon the landscape, and the house where was to be, probably, the turning-point of his life. As he sat down Pranken offered him a cigar. Eric declined, for he had given up smoking.

"He who does not smoke will not do for Herr Sonnenkamp;" and he emphasized the word Herr. "Next to his plants, he prides himself upon his great variety of genuine cigars; and he was specially grateful to me, when I once said to him that he possessed a seraglio of cigars. I don't know how he who refuses a cigar can get along with him."

"I can smoke, but I am no slave to the habit," replied Eric, taking the cigar.

"You seem to me not only a Doctor of Philosophy," said Pranken, "but also a real philosopher."

The two travellers drove on in silence. Eric looked down, his mind occupied with many and various thoughts.

O wonderful world! Invincible potencies hover in the air; a human soul is journeying there and does not imagine that another is pressing towards him, and that they both have one destiny. This is the greatness of the human spirit, that there is a preparation for taking up into itself, as if they had one life, some person whose name is not even known, whose countenance has not been seen, and of whose existence there has been no anticipation. He who has not lived for himself alone, he who has dreamed, thought, labored, striven for the common good, he is ready, each hour, to enter into the universal life, and utters the creative word. Be soul of my soul, and speaks the word of salvation, "Thou art thy brother's keeper."