Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

by Berthold Auerbach

CHAPTER XIII.

A WHIRL OF BODY AND MIND.

Beautifully dressed, with flowers in her hair, Manna walked to and fro in the great drawing-room. The sight of her uncovered neck and shoulders in the long mirror seemed to shock her, and she drew more closely about her the encircling cloud of tulle. Roland and Eric entered. Eric stood motionless.

"How late you are!" said Manna.

Eric explained that he had been introducing his teacher to the routine of watering-place life, and expressed the hope that Manna would enjoy the society of the delicate-minded old man.

"Your teacher?" said Manna, and again Eric noticed the tears in her voice. "Introduce me to him to-morrow. But now make haste, or you will be late to the assembly."

"I am not invited," replied Eric.

"No! he is not invited, and so I am not going either," cried Roland.

The father and mother appeared, but their persuasions had no effect upon the boy. He would not even yield to Eric's urgent entreaty, but persisted in remaining behind. After the family had actually driven off to the Hall, Roland appeared to regret not having gone with them, and insisted on Eric's taking him to the gallery, whence they could see the dancing.

Pranken was manager of the assembly, and Manna shared the distinction with him. Her cheeks glowed, and she seemed in great spirits, but to Roland's vexation, she did not once look up to the gallery. Manna, in fact, hardly knew herself. In the midst of the gaiety, she said to Pranken:—

"Did you know that Captain Dournay's teacher had arrived?"

Pranken knit his brows. So she was thinking of him in the midst of this gaiety! He was silent for awhile, not knowing what to reply; at last he said in a light tone:—

"Ah, teacher! Don't you get tired of this whole pack of teachers? Here we have pleasing music, dancing,—come!"

He whirled her swiftly among the circle of dancers, and she felt as if she were no longer upon the ground, but were floating in the air.

"Let us go!" said Roland to Eric in the gallery. They left the hall, and took by moonlight the same beautiful walk through the forest that they had enjoyed in the morning.

"Is there no way in which I may relieve myself of a secret that has been confided to me?" asked Roland. "I should so like to talk it over with you! May I not tell it you?"

"No, you must not under any circumstances break your word. If you did, you would lose all hold upon yourself."

Roland sighed; he sorely wanted to tell Eric that his family was to receive a title.

When they came out upon the clearing, and saw the town and the whole valley lying in the moonlight, and heard a few broken strains of music from the ball-room rising through the night air, Roland returned to the subject:—

"I have an idea that this evening Manna is to be openly acknowledged as Pranken's bride. My mother thinks that that will help forward the accomplishment of the other secret. Can you not guess what it is?"

Eric replied with great self-control, that it was not honorable of Roland to speak of any family matters that had been confided to him.

He spoke with a trembling voice. This thing, which had been so long decided, suddenly came upon him as something new, unheard of, improbable. With rapture and yet with fear, he perceived that he had allowed Manna to become dearer to him than he ought. He buried the point of his cane deep in the ground, and pressed upon it so violently that it broke to pieces in his hand. He told Roland it was time they went home.

The carriage drove up to the door just as they reached the house, and out of it came Sonnenkamp, followed by Frau Ceres and Manna.

"Are you betrothed to Pranken?" asked Roland.

"You silly child!" returned Manna, as she ran quickly up the steps.

Sonnenkamp sent Roland to bed, and asked Eric to go with him into his room.

"Here is a mild brand of cigar," he said, throwing himself back in his arm-chair, "light one. Captain Dournay, I look upon you as one of the family; you are ours, and must ever remain so."

Eric trembled. Had the father's suspicions been roused by Roland's awkward question, and was he about to tell him that he must give up all thought of Manna? Or was he about to offer him his daughter's hand? He had time enough to entertain these opposing thoughts, for Sonnenkamp made a long pause, in the evident expectation of receiving some answer to his friendly address. But as his companion remained silent, he got up, and after taking several turns up and down the room, suddenly stopped before Eric and said:—

"I give you to-day the most indubitable proof that I consider you one of ourselves. Give me your hand."

Eric did so, and shuddered as he touched the iron ring on the man's thumb.

Sonnenkamp continued:—

"I recognize and honor your reserve."

Eric's eyes wandered uneasily. What did all this mean?

After several hasty puffs at his cigar, Sonnenkamp continued:—

"You have never, in any way, alluded to what has been going on among us, though you cannot have failed to be aware of it."

Eric still trembled. Sonnenkamp kept making such unusual pauses.

At last, bringing the words out with an effort, he said:—

"You know that I am about to receive a title?"

"No, I did not know it."

"You did not? Is it possible? Did Roland give you no hint?"

"A hint indeed of some secret, but I strictly forbade him to relate, even by a breath, any confidence that had been reposed in him."

"Good. You're a good teacher. I am grateful to you, sincerely grateful. I will be yet more so. You shall have proof of it. To be open with you, Captain Dournay—you can give me substantial help by furthering this plan of mine."

"I?"

"Yes, you. You are the friend of our noble Count Wolfsgarten. He is already one of our family, but he always declines to discuss this matter, when I, or any of my friends, address him upon the subject. You know me, my dear Captain; you have watched my life, and your eye is keen; I have a right to expect that, with all my faults, of which, unhappily, I have my share, you will judge of me justly and charitably. You are a man who will act as he thinks. You understand me?"

"Not entirely, I confess."

"Plainly, then, in a few days I shall give a rural fête at Heilingthal. I will take the Jew with me, and you can go with your friend Wolfsgarten, and can easily discover what sort of opinion he will give of me, or has already given."

"Would not Herr von Pranken, or the Countess, or the Cabinetsräthin, be better suited for such an office?"

"No; in that case I should not trouble you with it. Count Wolfsgarten has declined expressing any opinion, saying always in his pedantic—I mean in his strictly honorable manner, that a judgment which is to be expressed in confidence, to the Prince should be made known to no one else. In a few days the Prince will depart; he is favorably disposed. You will therefore discover this for me, dear Dournay, will you not? It will be so easy for you!"

"Herr Sonnenkamp," replied Eric, "you had the kindness to say a few moments ago that I did right in forbidding Roland to betray a secret. How shall I-—-"

"Ah, my dear Dournay," interrupted Sonnenkamp, "we may reasonably allow ourselves many things that we should forbid a young person to do. I respect, I honor your truthfulness. I acknowledge the great sacrifice you would make in rendering me this service fully, thoroughly, but you will make the sacrifice, will you not?"

Eric tried to decline the task. Sonnenkamp threw his head back, and whistled softly to himself, while Eric maintained with great earnestness that he was not good at sounding others' opinions, and that he should consider it a betrayal of friendship to repeat anything which was said to him confidentially. "Besides," he concluded, "I do not think that Count Wolfsgarten would express his opinion any more fully to me."

Sonnenkamp was inwardly angry, but summoned all his powers of self-control to his aid. He praised Eric's conscientiousness; spoke with enthusiasm of his delicate tact, his moral purity, and the loftiness of his ideal; he went so far as to apologize for having fancied, even for a moment, that Eric was more than a friend to Bella; his unhappy experience among men, he said, must serve as his excuse for the injustice; he considered it as the greatest of privileges to have been once allowed the acquaintance of a thoroughly pure and noble man.

Eric had never supposed that this man knew him so well; this Sonnenkamp must have a nobler mind than he had given him credit for, to be able to read so well the noble struggles of others.

The impression he had made was not lost upon Sonnenkamp. He laid his hand on Eric's shoulder, and said with a trembling, almost a tearful voice,—

"My dear young friend! Yes, my friend—I call you so, for you are such—even if I have not myself the right to claim so close an intimacy with you as I should like, consider what a great, what a necessary influence indeed you may exert—not for me; of what consequence am I?—but for our Roland. For our Roland!" he repeated significantly. The mention of Roland's name suddenly roused Eric as from a dream. He answered by asking why Herr Sonnenkamp desired a title for Roland.

"Oh, my friend!" Sonnenkamp continued with increasing affection, "that is the last, the only object of all my efforts in the Old World and in the New. Oh, my friend! Who is able to tell how soon I may die? You will remain the friend, the support of my son. Give me your hand upon it. Promise me you will so continue. I shall die without a fear, knowing he is under your protection. Alas, no one suspects how ill, how shaken I am. I force myself to appear firm and erect, but I am inwardly broken. The labors and struggles of life have sapped my strength. Any moment may end my life, and I would gladly leave my son in an assured position. You, my friend, love our beautiful, glorious Germany; you will be glad to secure to her a strong and faithful son. Should Roland continue as he is, should he preserve his present name, he will always consider himself a citizen of the world across the ocean, not a true son of our noble Germany, where alone a man of mind and of means can find a sphere for his usefulness. Forgive me if I do not express myself as warmly as I feel, and as I ought, to a friend like you. I only ask you to add to your other benefits to Roland that of making him a son of Germany; if not for our sakes, yet for the sake of our dear country."

Sonnenkamp well knew what a responsive strain he touched in Eric, by those tender words from the anxious heart of a father, and by this broad, reverent outlook, not only beyond his own death, but beyond all thought of self. Eric was touched, and said:

"I would give my life for Roland-—-"

Sonnenkamp would have embraced him, but Eric begged him to listen further.

"My life I can give up, but not my principles. I am willing to adopt your views of the matter in a moment, if you can convince me I am mistaken. Do you really believe that it would add to Roland's happiness to have a title?"

"It would make his happiness; without that he would have no happiness. I am sure you will not misunderstand me, my very dear, noble friend. I frankly confess to you that I prize money highly; I have worked hard for it, and should like to keep it; I should like to convert my personal property into real estate, at least in a great measure: I want my son freely to enjoy what I have toiled with unremitting industry to obtain. Oh, my friend, you do not know—it is better you should not know what blows my life has borne, because I—but no more of that; it would agitate me too much to-day. I had a tutor—a shrewd man, but unhappily not of such moral purity as yourself—who, I remember, often said to me: He only is free who is not bound to the same level with others, but is entitled to be judged by a loftier standard. A genius, a man like yourself, my dear friend, is by nature so entitled; but all are not geniuses. Genius is unattainable, therefore do men seek a title of nobility that posterity may judge them by that higher standard. I express myself clumsily, do I not?"

"No! the thought is subtilely developed."

"Ah, let us leave all subtleties. But I have after all omitted the chief point; it is well I remember it. It was you who first directed my thoughts and my efforts towards this aim."

"I? How so?"

"Let me remind you. On the first day of your coming among us you told me, and you have often repeated it since, that Roland had no special talent that would lead him to the choice of a profession. The remark offended me at the time, but I see now that it was perfectly true. For the very reason that Roland is not gifted with genius, he must take rank among the nobility, have a title, which of itself gives position and dignity to persons of average capacity, who are not able to carve out their own career. A nobleman is not sensitive; that is his great advantage. A baron or an earl is somebody at the start, and is not obliged to make himself somebody; if, besides that, he has any gifts, they are all clear gain, and the world is grateful for them. We commoners must begin by making ourselves something; we are nothing at the start except sensitive, thin-skinned. Ah, my dear friend, I speak very confusedly."

"By no means."

"I will say but one thing more. Roland will at some time, and it may be soon, enter on the possession of millions; if he is a noble, he will not only stand in the circle of the select, but he will have all the obligations of honor, of benevolence, of usefulness, and will have them in a higher degree, because he will be one newly raised to rank. I open my whole heart to you, my friend—I conceal nothing. Almost the whole inhabited world is known to me, and shall I tell you what I have found in it?"

"I should be glad to know."

"Know, then," here Sonnenkamp laid both hands upon Eric's shoulder, "you are a philosopher, a deep thinker—learn something from me."

"Willingly."

"Let me tell you then, my friend, there are three classes among mankind, each bound so closely together that no member stands alone. A man must belong to one of these in this degenerate world."

He paused awhile, and then, in answer to Eric's questioning glance, continued:—

"Yes, my friend, in this world a man must be either a Jew, a Jesuit, or a noble. You smile? The idea surprises you? Let me explain. If you survey the whole world you will find that each one of these three classes, and only these, forms a firm, lasting, indissoluble union among its members. My son cannot be a Jew, a Jesuit he shall not be, therefore he must be a noble."

Eric was fairly bewildered by Sonnenkamp's arguments. He strove to exercise his own freedom of thought, but he saw how immovably Sonnenkamp's mind was made up, and looking over the past, he perceived how everything had been tending towards this one aim. And after all, might it not be an advantage for Roland to enter the ranks of the nobility? Might not this be the only means of establishing a home for him in Germany?

The interview lasted till far into the night, Sonnenkamp constantly endeavoring to prove the necessity of making Roland a noble, and Eric at last, almost from sheer weariness, promised to use his influence with Clodwig. He got no rest as he lay in bed; he seemed to himself a traitor, but the voice of the tempter said:—

"After all, it is not you who can bring it about, nor he, but the Prince. Whether you lend your aid or not, the thing is sure to be done. Why should you be disobliging and ungrateful?"