Villa Eden Part 112

Eric commenced reading. The fulness and flexibility of his voice gave the requisite expression to each character, and he preserved the proper distinction between reading and theatrical presentation. He brought out no strong colors; it was an artistic embodiment that allowed the outlines of form to appear, but gave no coloring; it was not an imitation of life, but a simple outline drawing of the general features, softened but sufficiently defined.

The Doctor nodded to the Mother, as much as to say that Eric's interpretation was very pleasant.

For the first time, Frau Ceres listened with eager attention, without leaning back once during the whole evening; she continued bent forward, and her countenance wore an unusual expression.

Eric read on continuously, and when he was giving the close of Oth.e.l.lo's sorrowful confession of guilt, in a voice struggling with tears, like one resisting the inclination to weep, great tears ran down over the pale face of Frau Ceres.

The piece was ended.

Frau Ceres rose quickly, and requested the Mother to accompany her to her chamber.

Fraulein Perini and the rest of the ladies went away at the same time.

The men were standing up, and only Roland remained sitting, as if spell-bound to the chair.

Glancing towards the Doctor, the Major said,--

"Isn't this a really wonderful man?"

The Doctor nodded.

The Priest had his hands folded together; Sonnenkamp surveyed his whittlings, placing them in a little pile together, just as if they had been gold-shavings, and even bending down to pick up some that had fallen upon the floor. Now he straightened himself up and asked Eric,--

"What do you think of Desdemona's guilt?"

"Guilt and innocence," replied Eric, "are not positive natural conceptions; they are the result of the social and moral laws of humanity. Nature deals only with the free play of forces, and Shakespeare's plays exhibit to us only this free play of natural impulses in men and women."

"That's true," interrupted the priest. "In this work there's nothing said about religion, for religion would necessarily soften, ameliorate, and rule over the savage natures, conducting themselves just like natural forces, or rather would bring them into subjection to the higher revealed laws."

"Fine, very fine," said Sonnenkamp, who was quite pale; "but permit me to ask the Captain to give me an answer to my question."

"I can answer your first question," Eric rejoined, "only in the words of our greatest writer on aesthetics: The poet would characterize a lion, and, in order to do it, he must represent him as tearing in pieces a lamb. The guilt of the lamb does not come into question at all. The lion must act in accordance with his nature. But I think that the deep tragedy of this drama lies hidden."

"And what do you think it is?"

"This maiden, Desdemona, without mother, brother, or sister, grown up from childhood among men, might love a hero, whose lyric, childlike nature, craving love and clinging fast to her, would make him crouch like a tamed lion at her feet. This submissive strength, renouncing no element of its wild energy, but, as it were, purified and exalted, opens the well-spring of that love which covers everything else with oblivion, overcomes the difference of race, and washes clean out the black color of the skin.

"When Oth.e.l.lo kissed her for the first time, she closed her eyes, and he kissed her on the eyes; and her eyes are closed not for one instant merely, but for a long period. But an unparallelled horror, a wild insanity, would be the result of this shutting of the eyes when Desdemona should hold in her arms a child, who should appear, in its whole exterior, strange, abhorrent to her, like some creature that did not belong to the human race. Out from her heart, crushed and trampled under foot, there must have come a shriek of agony. A child upon her breast, a creature so unlike herself! That look, which Hegel describes as the highest of all that the eye can express, the first look of the mother upon the child, that first mother's look must have killed Desdemona, or made her raving mad."

Sonnenkamp, who had all the time been rapidly shifting the whittlings about with his fingers, now threw them all upon the floor in a heap, and went up to Eric, holding both hands stretched out at length. His huge frame trembled with emotion, as he cried out:--

"You are a free man, a freethinker; you are not to be humbugged. You are the first one that ever gave me a reasonable explanation of this antipathy. Yes, it's so. The instinct of the poet is wonderfully prophetic. 'Against all rules of nature!' This is the expression of Desdemona's father, and this is the whole solution of the problem. On this expression the whole turns, and every part is in harmony with it.

The result must be, as it is, a product of nature. It's against nature!"

The men who were present had never before heard Sonnenkamp speak in this way, and Roland, who had been staring fixedly before him, looked up as if he must convince himself that it was really his father who was speaking. In an exultant tone, for he observed the effect produced upon them all, he continued:--

"Marriage--marriage! The Romans understood what was meant by that.

Where marriage is in violation of nature's laws, there can be no talk of rights of humanity, equality of rights. Apes, with all their boasted reason, nothing but apes, are these silly preachers of humanity, who build up their theories and universal crotchets, without looking at the facts, and know really nothing of these brutes endowed with speech, who are not human beings, but everlastingly apish and malicious! Ho, ho!

thou n.o.ble friend of humanity!" he exclaimed, striding up and down the room, "Marry thy daughter to a n.i.g.g.e.r, do that! do that! Be in terror, every moment, that he will tear her limb from joint. Hug a black grandchild! do that, n.o.ble friend of humanity! then come to me and harangue about the equality of the black and the white race!"

Sonnenkamp had clenched his fists, as if he were clutching an antagonist by the throat; his eyes flashed, his lips opened, and his jaws snapped together like a tiger leaping upon his prey. He now suddenly placed his hand upon his breast, as if making a powerful effort to hold himself in control.

"You, Herr Captain, and the poet, have taken me somewhat by surprise,"

he said, with a constrained smile; and then he again repeated that Eric had gone to the root of the matter. That a white girl could not become the wife of a n.i.g.g.e.r was no prejudice, but a law of nature.

"I thank you," he said in conclusion, turning once more towards Eric; "you have given me a great deal to think about."

The men looked at each other in astonishment, and the Doctor added, in a timid way very foreign from his usual manner, that he must give his a.s.sent to this on physiological grounds, for it was a well-known fact that mixed races, in the third generation, became sterile. A separation of the races, however, does not exclude human rights, any more than it excluded human duties; and religion laid them upon all alike.

While saying this he turned towards the Priest, who felt himself called upon to state that the negroes were susceptible of religious conviction, and capable of receiving religious instruction, and that this secured to them the full rights of men.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Sonnenkamp. "Is that the fact? Why then did not the Church ordain the removal of slavery?"

"Because the Church," replied the Priest quietly, "has nothing to do with ordaining anything of the kind. The Church directs itself to the human soul, and prepares it for the heavenly kingdom. In what social condition the body of man, the outside covering of this soul, may be, we have nothing to do with ordaining or determining. Neither slavery nor freedom is a hindrance to the divine life. Our Lord and Master called the souls of the Jews to enter into the kingdom of heaven whilst they were Roman citizens, and under subjection. He called all nations through his apostles, and did not stop to ask about their political condition and const.i.tution. Our kingdom is the kingdom of souls, which are one and the same, whether they live in a republic or under a tyranny, whether their bodies are white or black. We are glad to have the body free, but it is not our work to make it so."

"Theodore Parker takes a different view," Roland suddenly exclaimed.

As if a bullet bad whistled close to his ears, Sonnenkamp cried,--

"What? Where did you find out about that man? Who told you about him?

How's this?"

Roland trembled all over, for his father seized him by his shoulders and shook him.

"Father!" he cried out in a manly voice, "I have a free soul too! I am your son, but my soul is free!"

All were amazed. Nothing more would be said about his voice changing.

Sonnenkamp let go his hold, his breast heaving up and down as he panted violently for breath. Suddenly he exclaimed,--

"I am very glad, my son; that's n.o.ble, that's grand. You are real young America It's right! fine! splendid!"

They were struck with fresh amazement. This sudden change of mood in Sonnenkamp took all present by surprise. But he went on in a mild tone,--

"I am glad that you were not to be frightened. You have good pluck--it's all right. Now tell me where you found out about Parker?"

Roland gave a true account of matters, except that he said nothing about Parker's name having been mentioned by the Professorin when they were making their calls in the town.

"Why didn't you speak of it to me?" asked his father.

"I can keep a secret," replied Roland. "You've tested me yourself on that score."

"That's true, my son; you have justified my confidence."

"We ought to have gone home a long time ago," said the Major, and this was the signal for the company to break up.

The Major had never felt his heart beat so violently, never when stationed on some exposed outpost, never even in battle, as during the reading; and yet it beat worse, after the conversation had taken so threatening a turn.

He kept shaking his big head, and stretching out with his hands in the air deprecatingly and beseechingly, as if he would say,--