Villa Eden Part 30

"I am now free. Count Clodwig has told me about you, but he has given me a wrong impression of you. Never mind! Every one sees, standing in the centre of his own horizon, his own rainbow. I wished only to say to you, that what one--pardon me--what one does for you, is hardly the payment of interest, for no human being has done more for others than your grandfather and your father. Now allow yourself for once to undergo a regular examination. I saw you years ago, when you were coupled with the prince."

The doctor receded a step from Eric, and continued,--

"The crossing of races is a good one. Father, Huguenot,--Mother, pure German, real blond, delicate organization,--proper mixture of nationalities. Come with me into the arbor. Will you allow me a brief and concise diagnosis?"

Eric smiled; the physician's method of pa.s.sing him under review and p.r.o.nouncing verdict upon him seemed extremely odd, but yet he felt attracted.

Striking off on a twig the ashes from his cigar, the doctor asked,--

"Can you have intercourse with any one day by day, and not like him, or at least have some regard for him?"

"I have never tried it, but I think not; and such an intercourse a.s.suredly hurts the soul."

"I expected this answer. For my part, I say with Lessing, It is better to live among bad people, than to live apart from everybody. May I ask still another question?"

But without waiting for a reply, he continued,--

"Have you ever experienced ingrat.i.tude?"

"I think that I have, as yet, done nothing which deserves grat.i.tude.

Especially may we ask, Ought we to lay claim to any thanks, inasmuch as what we do in behalf of others, we do, first of all, to secure our own self-approval."

"Good, good. Wise already. Yet one thing more. Do you believe in natural depravity, and if you do, since when?"

"If by depravity you mean the conscious delight in injuring others, then I am no believer in it, for I am convinced that all evil doing is only a stepping over the limits of a justifiable self-preservation; it is only an excess caused by sophistry or pa.s.sion. Perhaps the belief in depravity is also merely pa.s.sion."

The doctor nodded several times, and then said,--

"Only one question more. Are you sensitive--vulnerable?"

"I might perhaps urge your friendly testing as a proof that I am not."

The doctor threw away the cigar, which he had not wholly smoked up, and said,--

"Excuse me, I was in an error; my final question has another at the end of it. Now to conclude: Are you surprised, when you find simply stupid some little man or some little woman in fas.h.i.+onable clothes, and with polished address, and are you willing to take them as simply stupid, without attributing to them principles of action, and a comprehension of the principles of others?"

In spite of the evidently friendly intention, Eric's patience was exhausted; he replied to this, not without some irritation, that he had been through a great many surprising examinations here, but the present was the most surprising of all.

"You will perhaps have some light upon it, by and by," the physician said in a low tone, stealthily pressing Eric's hand, for he saw Fraulein Perini coming along the path, and he went to join her.

The company at table met again at the fountain, chatted awhile, and then separated. The priest and the Major invited Eric to call upon them; the physician asked Sonnenkamp if Eric and Roland might not be allowed to drive with him upon his round of visits. Sonnenkamp appeared struck that Roland and Eric were linked together in this way, but he nodded his a.s.sent. Eric and the doctor seated themselves in the open carriage, and Roland took his seat with the coachman, who gave him the reins.

The day was bright and full of the fragrance of flowers, bells were ringing, and larks were carolling.

They drove to a village lying at a distance from the river. From, a garden where the elder was in bloom came the beautiful music of a quartette song, and under a linden in an enclosed place, boys and youths were engaged in gymnastic sports.

"O this magnificent German land of ours!" Eric could not refrain from exclaiming. "This is life! This is our life! To cheer the soul with inspiring song, and the body with brisk motion,--this makes a people strong and n.o.ble, and honor and freedom must be theirs! All that is great belongs to us, as well as to the cla.s.sic world."

The doctor, laying his hand quietly upon Eric's knee, looked him full in the eye, and then begged him, if he remained here, to make himself thoroughly acquainted through him with the Rhine life, and not allow himself to be misled, if he should find much that was repulsive both inside and outside of the house. "And if you can--I believe you alone can, if you can't, I give it up--confer upon the boy there, not merely joy in what he has, but joy in the great life of the nation and of the community, which now he has not, then you will have accomplished something that is worth living for. But the main point is, while you are doing this, to have no thought of self, and then the blessing will not fail. This is what I understand by the direction, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d--that is, the life of truth and of love--and all things shall be added unto you.' Roland," he interrupted himself by calling, "stop here."

The doctor got out, and went into a small but neat-looking house; Eric and Roland went to the gymnastic-grounds. They were regarded at first with great shyness; but when Eric readily showed a fine-looking youth, who went through some exercise clumsily, how to do it better, and when, stripping off his coat, he swung with agility on the horizontal bar, every one became more familiar. Roland also attempted some of the exercises, without much success, and Eric said that they would practise them diligently, but it was unfavorable that they would be obliged to engage in them by themselves, for there was much greater animation and exertion of all the powers, when there was a common emulation.

A messenger came to call Eric and Roland back to the house where the doctor had stopped. Just as the physician came out of the house, the church-bell tolled; all the bystanders took off their hats, even the doctor, and he said,--

"A human being is dead; the man has lived out the term of existence; he was seventy-two years old, and yet yesterday, on his death-bed, he gained comfort in the recollection of a little deed of beneficence.

In the year of the famine, 1817, he was travelling as a journeyman cooper over the Lunenburg heath--he continually called it the Hamburg heath--where there was no road; and after several hours he came across a wretched hovel, in which were several children crying from hunger.

The cooper had some dried eels, and some bread in a tin box. He gave all to feed the children, and they were happy. 'Mark;' he said to me only yesterday,--'mark how it does me good, and always rejoices me, that I could at that time feed the children, and perhaps they never have forgotten it, that once a stranger appeased their hunger.' Is it not beautiful that a man can gain solace from a single good deed? He has suffered much, and death is a release to him. Yes, my young friend, such is the world! There outside all is in bloom, people are singing, exercising, sporting, and in the meanwhile, a human being is dying--pooh!" he cried, recovering himself, "I have not brought you with me to make you troubled, Roland; drive the whole length of the village to the last house." And turning to Eric, he said,--

"We are going to see cheerful poverty; you are now to look upon the bright side. The man is a poor vine-dresser; has seven children, four sons and three daughters, and in their poverty they are the merriest people to be found anywhere, and the merriest of all is the old father.

His real name is Piper; but because he sings with his children and practises them finely as often as he can get a chance, he is called Sevenpiper."

They drove to the house; the daughters were sitting before the door, the sons were at the gymnastic-ground. Sevenpiper immediately made his appearance, and said that his sons should be sent for. The doctor then asked how things were going with him.

"Ah, Herr doctor," he replied, in a loud tone, "it is always so; my youngest always has the best voice." And turning to Roland, he added,--

"Yes, dear sir, I make my children rich too; each one receives from one to two hundred songs as an outfit, and if they can't make their way through the world with that, then they are good for nothing."

The sons came, and now a cheerful song was struck up, so that the doctor and Roland were put into excellent spirits, and Eric, who quickly caught the tune, sang with them.

The old man nodded to him, and when the song was ended, said,--

"Herr, you can sing too, that's a fact."

The doctor always carried a bottle-case in his carriage, and drawing upon it now, every one became exceedingly merry; and Sevenpiper informed them, and more particularly Roland, that the best thing in the world was to be in good health, and make music for one's self.

The physician took leave, and at evening, Roland and Eric, in a joyous mood, left the house. Sevenpiper's two oldest sons went with them to the bank of the river, where they unfastened the boat, and rowed to the villa.

The water was now very still and clear, and reflected the red glow of the sunset-sky. Eric sat by himself in silence, during one of those blissful hours when one thinks of nothing, and yet enjoys all. Roland kept time in rowing with the sons of Sevenpiper; then, without stroke of the oar, they let the boat float, and it glided noiselessly along in the middle of the stream.

The stars were glittering in the sky when they arrived at the villa.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GOSPEL OF THE RICH YOUNG MAN.

The architect came in the morning for Roland, who was to make, under his direction, some drawings of the castle-ruins.

Herr Sonnenkamp reminded Eric that he was to visit the priest, and he set out soon after he had seen Fraulein Perini return from ma.s.s. The priest's house had a garden in front, and was in silent seclusion in the village itself silent. If the bell had not rung so loudly, and if the two white Pomeranian dogs had not barked so loudly, one would have believed that there could be no loud noise in such a well-arranged establishment as this appeared to be at the very entrance-hall. The dogs were silenced, and the housekeeper told Eric, who seemed to be expected, to go up stairs.

Eric found the ecclesiastic in his sunny, unadorned room, sitting at the table, and holding in his left hand a book, while his right lay upon a terrestrial globe supported upon a low pedestal.

"You catch me in the wide world," said the ecclesiastic, giving Eric a cordial welcome, and biding him take a seat upon the sofa, over which hung a colored print, of St. Borromeo, which was well-meaning enough, but not very beautiful.

A home-like peacefulness was in this room; everything seemed to express an absence of all pretension and all a.s.sumption, and a simple desire to pa.s.s the hours and the days in quiet meditation. Two canary birds, here, however, in two cages, appeared to entertain a lively desire, as did the dogs below, to give vent to their feelings. The ecclesiastic called to them to be quiet, and they became dumb, as if by magic, and only looked inquisitively at Eric.