Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

by Berthold Auerbach

Greek and Roman mythology was his strong point, and it is extremely important that a maiden in cultivated society should make no mistake in that. His favorite pursuit was, however, the interpretation of the poets, especially the romantic. Of course, he was himself a poet, but modestly, only to himself. There, were probably in the capital few albums, begun by very young girls and afterwards abandoned, which did not contain a sonnet, or oftener a triolet, beautifully written by Emil Knopf for his dear pupil. He had also a musical knowledge sufficient to direct the private practising of pupils, and he was particularly strict, yes, even unmerciful, in keeping time. He could also draw sufficiently well to give assistance in that respect, especially in drawing flowers. He was also handy and popular in wedding-games, whenever one of his pupils was married. He not only knew how to make the maidens speak, in the language of flowers, as "I am the rose," "I am the violet," but he could bring out jokes and sportive allusions; and while the players in their fine dresses were declaiming; and forming charming tableaux, he sat in the prompter's box, and breathed to them the words. How happy he was, too, at some public dinner, and how assentingly he nodded, when this or the other speaker recited by heart, or read from a manuscript, the toast he had himself composed!

Emil Knopf was one of the most serviceable of men; he was proud of never having advertised in the newspapers; he was recommended from mouth to mouth, and for the most part from one fair mouth to another, one mother speaking in his commendation to another, and the fathers smiling and saying, "Yes, Herr Knopf is a very conscientious teacher."

If he were in a house where smoking was disagreeable, he chewed roasted coffee-berries, and he was just as contented with that. Knopf liked to take snuff, but he did it only when he was alone, and very quietly; he carried a colored and a white pocket-handkerchief, so that the gentleman and the lady of the house might not notice that he took snuff. One very peculiar habit he could not break himself of, that of hitching up the trousers on both legs, as if they were going suddenly to drop down from his body.

But this is no sufficient reason for his appearing destined to be only a temporary teacher, nothing but a pedagogical nurse for a few weeks. Knopf is taken into some family until the stress of sickness or need of some kind is over, and then he is dismissed with very courteous, very friendly words; but still always dismissed. Fourteen half-yearly terms—Knopf always reckoned by the semester, and we must do the same by him—Knopf lived at the capital; and, during this period, he always intended to procure a wholesale quantity of a brand of cigars which should taste right, but he never made up his mind. Fourteen semesters he smoked, from week's end to week's end, different kinds of cigars on trial, and was perpetually asking what was the price by the thousand, but he never succeeded in getting the thousand at one time.

Knopf was, naturally, one of the clumsiest of mortals, but he trained himself to be one of the best swimmers and gymnastic performers, so that he was, for a time, assistant teacher of gymnastics. Having been employed twice in the country, where it is so difficult to procure piano-tuners, he had been led to learn how to tune pianos himself; but he would never do it except in the house where he happened to be temporarily living. Several persons asserted that he could also knit and do plain sewing, but this was unmitigated slander. He could darn stockings in a most masterly style, but no one had ever seen him do it, he always did it secretly by himself.

Knopf had come to Herr Sonnenkamp likewise as a temporary candidate and temporary teacher; here a longer tarrying seemed to be allotted to him, and a future free from anxiety. Knopf had an enthusiastic love for Roland, and although the boy learned nothing thoroughly with him, Knopf used to say to his crony, the teacher Fassbender,—

"The Gods never learned anything, they had it all in themselves. Who can tell us the name of Apollo's teacher of music, or with what chief-butler Ganymede served his apprenticeship? Fine natures have all in themselves, and do not require instruction. We are only cripples with all our learning; we are tyrannized over by the four Faculties, but life is no four-sided figure."

This, then, is our friend Knopf; and he was called "our friend Knopf" in the best families of the land.

Knopf had just left off playing the flute, and was now sitting with his writing-tablets upon his knee, looking sometimes, round upon the landscape, sometimes writing rapidly a few words; then he would put his pencil in his mouth, and seemed ruminating for some new turn of expression. One could see the road for a great distance, leading from the village, by the villa, to the neighboring hamlet. Now Knopf saw a man on horseback coming towards him. He transformed speedily his flute into a walking-stick again, concealed his tablets, and then hastened across the vineyard down to the highway.

"Yes, he who sits a horse so well, he is just the right teacher for him," said Knopf. He took off his hat; while still at a distance, the rider nodded to him.