Villa Eden Part 157

Roland and Lilian accompanied Frau Weidmann into the house.

CHAPTER IV.

VOCATION AND FATHER-LAND.

While the children had been dreaming and chattering together in the garden, the men had gone into the house. They stepped into the large wainscoted entrance-hall, where a great many withered wreaths were suspended. Weidmann pointed out to Eric that forty-two of these belonged to him, for that was the number of harvests he had worked in here.

The single wreath hanging by itself was the fiftieth one of his father-in-law, which had been placed upon his grave. Weidmann nodded as Eric said:--

"This is a decoration which cannot be purchased, which one can acquire only for himself."

Eric was glad to point this out to Roland.

They entered the sitting-room on the ground-floor. It was s.p.a.cious and comfortable, with pleasant seats in the window-recesses, and chairs and tables scattered about here and there.

"We live on the ground-floor in the summer," said Weidmann to Eric; "every thing can be overlooked here better: After the leaves have fallen, we remove to the upper story for the winter."

The great sitting-room opened into another apartment, where the heavy damask curtain had just been drawn back. The Banker, whom Eric had become acquainted with at Carlsbad, came out of it, holding in his hand a bundle of papers, and gave him a friendly greeting, expressing his pleasure in meeting again here the man who was as intimate a friend of Clodwig's as he was himself.

A new subject was at once introduced. The Banker said that he had looked over the papers thoroughly; the public domain did not seem to be valued at too high a figure, and Weidmann must understand how it was purposed to divide it; but he believed that it would be hardly possible to extend to this new undertaking the plan of insurance which Weidmann had adopted for his laborers; that it was very questionable whether the income, for years, would be such that the life-insurance premium could be saved.

Eric learned that Weidmann paid the life-insurance premium of all his employees after they had been with him four years.

Weidmann gave a statement, in general outline, of the manner in which the so-called social question struck him as being the same as among the ancient Romans; the point of consideration was to make free and independent cultivators of their own lands. And he laid particular stress upon the remark that this social question, however, was not to be solved as if it were merely a problem in arithmetic; that there must be a moral and social enthusiasm, and he must confess, although many would shrug their shoulders at it, that he himself was of opinion that the humane principle of Freemasonry, which had too much lost its real meaning, was to look for, and to find here, a new inspiration and application.

It was soon evident that the Banker was a brother of the order.

Eric's heart swelled as he felt obliged to say to himself, while his thoughts were carried away to the grand movements of the world:--

"Everywhere, in our day, there is an active endeavor, a care for the neighbor, for those in adverse circ.u.mstances. This is our religion, which has no temples and no established days of festive celebration, but which, everywhere and at all times, struggles for the good."

He entirely forgot where he came from, and why he came, and lived wholly in the present.

Weidmann postponed, however, the subject to another time, and asked what Roland was going to do. But before Eric could reply, a man came in with Dr. Fritz, to whom Eric gave a cordial reception. It was Weidmann's son-in-law, an infantry officer of high rank. The two men requested that the conversation might not be interrupted, and Weidmann repeated his question about Roland.

Eric informed them that his pupil wanted to become a soldier; he expressed his own opposition to the plan, and his desire that Roland would devote himself to science or agriculture.

Weidmann answered, smiling, that Eric was a little too hard on this mode of life, from having been a soldier; that he himself was convinced it was of essential advantage to a man to have had a soldier's training. A man became ready, resolute and self-reliant, and at the same time he was one member of a large body. Nowhere can one be taught punctuality better, or learn better what it is to command, and what to obey, than in the military service. Roland must be made to realize, however, that this soldierly life was only transitional with him, nothing that was to occupy and fill out his whole existence.

"Then he will be no true soldier," interposed Weidmann's son-in-law.

"Whoever undertakes anything which he does not consider as an active employment, requiring the full energies of his life, and whoever is continually looking to some future vocation, does not plant himself firmly in the present."

"Here you agree with my old teacher, Professor Einsiedel," Eric went on. "He used to say that the worst ruler is the provisional one. It would be, therefore, important for Roland to adopt some permanent calling, and not one merely temporary. With his peculiar characteristics, it is very hard for another to determine for him; but you, Herr Weidmann, you, with the powerful impression which you and your active usefulness have made upon Roland, you would be exceedingly well adapted to give to him the decisive impulse in one particular direction which I could not do, because I have not seen clearly what is best.

"Let us take counsel together," agreed Weidmann. "We here have had a great deal of experience."

"Do you think," Eric broke in, "that a better result would come from a consultation of many, than from the quiet meditation of a single person?"

"Aha! doubt in the efficacy of parliamentarianism," said Weidmann smiling. "I can imagine it possible. I answer your question with a simple yes. What the deliberation of many settles upon is suitable for many, and a person rich like him has in himself the power of many and for many. Let us consult together."

They sat down, and the Banker began,--

"I believe it is Jean Paul who said,--If you come into a new dwelling-place, and it does not seem homelike to you, then go to work and you will begin to feel at home. I should like to extend this further. One feels at home in the world only through labor; he who does not work is homeless."

The conversation was again interrupted by the entrance of the Russian prince, Weidmann's son, and Knopf. The subject was again stated.

"We have a good council of deliberation," said Weidmann, sitting back in his chair. "You have all seen the n.o.ble-looking youth, Herr Sonnenkamp's son, and Captain Dournay has trained him so that now, we might say, he is fitted to enter upon whatever calling he may adopt.

What now shall the boy do?"

"Allow me one preliminary question," interposed Knopf. "Must a rich man produce, accomplish anything himself? Is it not his task to further the production, the doing of others, whether art, science, industry, or labor, and to make himself so far familiar with it as to give such aid?"

"You wanted to answer something." Weidmann pointed to the Banker, whose features were very expressive, and who seemed to have a remark on his lips.

"Not exactly answer," responded the Banker. "I wanted, first of all, to distinguish between vocation and business. There are active pursuits which are only a business, and again there are positions which are only a vocation. This is the chief difficulty, that a person so excessively rich must have only a vocation; there is no necessity of his pursuing any business. Rich people's children degenerate, because there is no such necessity."

"What do you understand by vocation?" asked Weidmann.

"I can't at once define it."

"Then allow me to help you," said Eric. "Vocation is a natural gift, or a necessity, which we turn into a law that acts freely. The brute has no vocation, because he follows natural instinct alone."

"Very true," nodded the Banker gratefully. "One question more," he said, turning to Eric. "Hasn't your pupil, as I am sorry to say most rich men's sons have, the desire to be a cavalier, a young n.o.bleman?"

As Eric made no answer, he continued,--

"Our misfortune is, that the sons of the rich are satisfied with being heirs, and do not want to find a means of active development for themselves."

"As we have heard already," began Weidmann's son-in-law, "the young man wishes to become a soldier, and I believe that he ought to be encouraged in that purpose. I hope that it won't be attributed to prejudice in favor of my own calling, but I must repeat our father's view, that the military profession, more than any other, gives a certain decision of character. To have to stand ready every day with bag and baggage, scrip and scrippage, this makes one prompt and decided; this standing army becomes a fact, as it were, in each individual soldier."

"Granted," rejoined Weidmann. "But is it not to be feared that a man, who has been a soldier for the best years of his life, will be able to take up with great difficulty any other employment? He always regards himself as on furlough; and the great misfortune--I might call it the leading tendency of our time--manifests itself especially in the rich, who look upon themselves as on furlough, always on vacation."

"The best thing about it is, Roland will run through his money, and then it is scattered among the people," jokingly observed Weidmann's son, showing those impertinently white teeth that Pranken objected to so strongly.

"I would like to say one word," the Russian remarked to Knopf, who cried,--

"The Prince requests to have the floor."

Weidmann bowed to him pleasantly.

"I think that we can furnish an example in Russia. Our wealthy men are obliged to become agriculturists, whether the inheritance consists in money or goods. Why should not the young man be simply an agriculturist?"

"Agriculture has five branches," replied Weidmann, "and they ought to have their roots in five corresponding inclinations. Agriculture consists of physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, and one of these, that is, the inclination to one of these sciences, and the activity growing out of it, must have its foundation in the natural bent or genius, otherwise there is no happiness in one's calling. And do you know," he turned toward the Prince, smiling, "do you know what is the first requisite for an agriculturist?"

"Money."