Villa Eden Part 21

He had wished this very morning to write to his mother that he had come into fairyland,--the fairy land was yet more marvellous than he had himself fancied.

Eric depicted with extreme precision, as far as a son could, the character of his mother; how she was always so very happy, because she was contriving how to make others happy. He described the death of his father, the death of his brother, and the greatness of soul with which his mother endured all this.

Frau Ceres sobbed; then she said suddenly,--

"I thank you--I thank you!"

She extended her white hand to Eric, and kept saying,--

"I thank you! With all his money he has not been able to make me know that I could weep once more. O, how much good it does me! Stay with us--stay with Roland. He cannot weep--say nothing to him--I also should like to have a mother. Stay with us. I shall never forget it of you--I thank you--now go--go--before he returns--go--good-night!"

Eric went back to his chamber. What he had experienced seemed to him like a dream; the hidden element of mystery which seemed at Wolfsgarten to envelop the family of Sonnenkamp was more and, more evident. Here were the strangest sorts of riddles. Roland, full of life and spirits, came to him; the brief separation had given both a new and joyful pleasure in meeting again; it was as great as if they had been separated for years.

Roland asked Eric to tell him about the Huguenots; there had evidently been much talk about them during the drive. Eric put him off, saying that it was not necessary, at least not now, to dwell upon the horrible tortures which human beings inflicted upon one another on account of their religious belief.

Roland informed Eric that Herr von Pranken was going the next day to visit Manna at the convent.

Eric was doubtful what he ought to do. If he were to forbid the boy's informing him of what he heard, he would scare away his confidingness, his perfect confidence; and yet it was disagreeable to himself to be informed of things which might not be intended for him to hear. He proposed to himself for the future, to request Sonnenkamp to say nothing in the hearing of the boy which he ought not to know, Eric was summoned once more to tea; Frau, Ceres did not make her appearance.

Eric was this evening perplexed, and lost the feeling of untroubled security.

Should he tell Sonnenkamp that his wife had sent for him? But then he must inform him of what she had revealed to him, though it was only half uttered,--it was a warning, a speech wholly disjointed and incoherent.

Eric also saw Roland looking at him as if beseeching. The boy felt that some painful experience was going on in his new friend, which he would gladly remove. And to Eric's affection there was superadded the feeling of pity. Here was a manifestly distressing family relation under which the boy must have suffered, and it was a fortunate thing that his light, youthful spirits were untouched.

Eric was reminded continually of an experience of his in the house of correction, The most hardened criminals had avowed always, with the most triumphant mien, that it conferred the greatest satisfaction to them to be able to conceal their deeds from the world; but the least hardened disclosed, on the other hand, how glad they felt to be punished; for the fear of discovery, and the constant endeavour to conceal the crime, were the severest punishment.

Eric had now a secret; was he to let it be possible for a servant to betray him, and himself appear untrustworthy?

When Eric was about to go to rest, Roland came to him and asked whether he had anything to impart to him.

Eric replied in the negative, and the boy appeared sad when he said good-night.

CHAPTER X.

A NEW DAY AND DARK QUESTIONS.

The morning dew glistened on gra.s.s, flower, and shrub, and the birds sang merrily, as Eric walked through the park. There was evidence everywhere of an ordering, busy, and watchful mind.

Eric heard, on the bank of the river, two women talking with each other, as they carried on sh.o.r.e the garden-earth out of a boat.

"G.o.d be praised," said one, "who has sent the man to us; no one in the place who is willing to work need suffer poverty any more."

"Yes," spoke the other, "and yet there are people here who are so bad as to say all sorts of things about the man."

"What do they say?"

"That he has been a tailor."

Eric could hardly restrain himself from laughing aloud. But a third woman, with a rather thick voice, said,--

"A tailor indeed! He has been a pirate, and in Africa stole a gold-s.h.i.+p."

"And supposing he did," said the other, "those man-eaters have heaps of gold, and are heathens beside, and Herr Sonnenkamp does nothing but good with his gold."

Eric could not help smiling at these strange tales and implications; and it was also painful to him that great wealth always stirred up new and calumnious reports.

He went on farther. He saw from a height, with satisfaction, how the main building and all its dependencies, with park and garden, were combined in a beautiful harmony. Near the main building there were only trees of a dark foliage, lindens, elms, and maples, which brought out, by contrast, so much the more brightly the brilliant architecture of the house built in a good Renaissance style. The arbored walks converged gradually, as if conducting to the solidly-built mansion, which seemed not to be built upon the ground, but as if it had sprung up from the soil with the scenery that surrounded it; the stone colonnades, the lawns, the trees, the elevations, all were an introduction to the house; all was in harmony. The verandas appeared to be only bearers of the climbing plants, and the whole was a masterpiece of rural architecture, a work of natural poetry according to the laws of pure art, so that all that was man's handiwork seemed as fresh as if it had just come out of the builder's hand, and in such perfect preservation, that one perceived that each tree, each leaf, each lattice, was owned and carefully cherished by a wealthy man.

Eric, however, was not to be long alone; the valet, Joseph, joined him, and with a pleasing deference offered to inform Eric concerning everything in the household.

As Eric was silent, Joseph related once more that he had been a billiard-boy at the University, Henry the thirty-second, for all the boys must be called Henry. Then he had been a waiter in the Berne Hotel at Berne, where Sonnenkamp had boarded for almost two summers long, occupying the whole first floor--the best rooms in the world, as Joseph called them--and had learned to know him, and taken him into his service. Joseph gave rather a humorous account of the corps of servants in the household, that it was a sort of menagerie gathered from all countries. As in a poultry yard there are all sorts of fowls, and even the peac.o.c.k is not wanting, which shrieks so horribly and looks so beautifully, so it was with the people here, for Herr Sonnenkamp had travelled all over the world. The coachman was an Englishman, the first groom a Pole, the cook a Frenchman, the first chamber-maid a thoroughgoing Bohemian, and Fraulein Perini an Italian Frenchwoman of Nice. The master was, however, very strict; the gardeners must not smoke in the park, nor the grooms whistle in the stable, for all the horses were accustomed to the whistle of the master, and must not be disturbed. And moreover, Herr Sonnenkamp would rather not have his servants look like servants, or have any peculiar dress of servants, and it was only a short time ago that he had given in to his wife, and dressed a few of them in livery. The servants were allowed to speak only a few words, and there were particular words which Herr Sonnenkamp used to each of them, and which each used in answering, and so all were kept in good order.

Joseph related in conclusion, not without self-satisfaction, that he had spread abroad in the servants' room the fame of Eric's parents; it was a good thing for people to know where a man came from, for then they had a much greater respect. But that Madame Perini was the special mistress in the household, and would continue to be; she was really a Fraulein, but the gracious Frau called her always Madame.

"The keeper is right," added Joseph. "Fraulein Perini is a woman with the strength of seven cats, and a marten into the bargain."

Eric wished to hinder this revelation, but Joseph begged him to allow everything to be spoken out, and to pardon him as being a University acquaintance. He only added the information that Pranken was to marry the daughter of the house.

"Ah! that is a beauty! not exactly a beauty, but lovely and charming; formerly she was so frolicsome, no horse was too wild for her, no storm on the Rhine too violent; she hunted like a poacher, but now she is only sad--always sad--vilely sad."

Eric was glad when the gossiping youth suddenly drew out his watch, and said:--

"In one minute the master gets up, and then I must be near him. He is a man always up to time," he added as he went away.

Like confused echoes which gradually mingle into one sound, Eric thought upon all that he had now heard about the daughter of the house.

And was not this the girl with wings, who had met him the day before yesterday in the convent? Involuntarily standing still, and staring at a hedge, a whole life-picture presented itself to his mind. Here is a child sent to the convent, removed from all the world, from all intercourse with people; she is taken out of the convent, and they say to her: "Thou art the Baroness Pranken!" and she is happy with the handsome and brilliant man, and all the dazzling splendor of the world is showered upon her through him. It seems as if he had called it all into being, and this without knowing what kind of a man her husband is,--it will be indeed a good thing for her not to know.

He shook his head. What was the little cloister-plant to him?

Eric saw nothing more of the gorgeous beauty of the garden; he hastened out of it with his eyes fixed upon the ground, wandered through the park, and just as he came out of a copse of trees by the pond, Sonnenkamp met him. He had a foreign look in his short gray plush-jacket fastened with cord, and was especially glad to find Eric already up, proposing to himself to show him the house and grounds.

He directed his attention first to a large tuft of prairie-gra.s.s; he smiled as Eric imagined a stampede of buffaloes, and he made a peculiar motion of throwing, in describing how he had caught many a one with the la.s.so.

Then he led Eric to an elevation set out with beautiful, plane-trees, which he pointed out as the very crown of the whole place. He prided himself very much upon these fair and flouris.h.i.+ng trees, adding that in such a tract as the wine-district, dest.i.tute of shade, a thickly shaded place was a thing to be taken into consideration against a hot day of summer.

"You will perceive that I have gone beyond my own territory, in order to add to its beauty; above there upon the height is a group of trees, which I have kept in order and thinned out, laying out paths, and making new plantations, in order to get a picturesque view. I have built my house not to please the eyes of others, but where I could have the best prospect from it. The peasant's house yonder was built after a plan of my own, and I was very properly obliged to contribute a part of the cost. That plantation beyond is a screen to hide the glaring stone-quarry; and that pretty church spire above there in the mountain-village,--that was built by me. I was very highly praised for doing it, and a great deal of flattering, pious incense was burned for me, but I can a.s.sure you that my sole motive in doing it was to gain a fine view. I am obliged to change the whole character of the region--a very difficult job--and here comes in the covetousness of people. Just see, a basket-maker builds him a house yonder, with a horribly steep roof covered with red tiles, that is a perpetual eye-sore to me; and I cannot reach the fellow. He wishes to sell the house to me for an extravagant price, but what can I do with it? He may just keep it, and accommodate himself to my arrangements."

There was a violent energy in Sonnenkamp's manner of speaking, reminding Eric of an expression of Bella's, that the man was a conqueror; such an one has always something tyrannical in him, and desires to arrange and dispose everything in the world according to his own individual taste, or his own personal whims. The villages, the churches, the mountains, and the woods, were to him only points in the landscape, and they must all come into one favorite angle of vision.

And now Herr Sonnenkamp conducted his guest through the park, and explained to him how he had arranged the grounds, and how through the disposition of elevations and depressions he had broken up the uniformity; but that in many cases he had only to bring out the natural advantages, and give them their right effect: he pointed out the careful disposition of light and shadow, and how he oftentimes set out a clump of trees, a little group of the same species; which he mingled together not in sharp and distinct contrast, but in regular gradation of colors, such as we see in nature.

Sonnenkamp smiled in a very friendly way, when Eric, in order to show that he comprehended, replied, that a park must appear to be nature brought into a state of cultivation; and that the more one knows how to conceal the shaping hand and the disposing human genius, and allows all to appear as a spontaneous growth, so much the more is it in accordance with the pure laws of art.