Villa Eden Part 183

"Indeed?" cried Sonnenkamp. "Have you not walked the horse out for exercise? Has any one ridden him?"

"Yes; the Herr Captain ordered the horse to be saddled the night before, and was a long time gone with him."

"So! Come, I'll cure him speedily." He went down to the stable, looked grimly at the horse, and then shot him through the head. The horse gave one hoa.r.s.e rattle, and fell headlong.

"So! it's all over now!" cried Sonnenkamp. "Now you are free!"

As he was leaving the stable, Pranken came up.

"What have you done?"

"Pooh! I've shot a horse, and every one who doesn't mind," he said in a loud tone, so that all the servants might hear, "knows what to expect."

He ordered the groom to saddle another horse.

Joseph came with the inquiry from Frau Ceres as to what had happened.

Sonnenkamp sent word to Frau Ceres that he had shot the black horse. He smiled when he heard Pranken's report of his wife's state of feeling; he avoided going to her, and he experienced a sort of grateful joy towards destiny, that the large house rendered it possible for each of the inmates to live by himself.

He went to see the Professorin; it was hard for him to meet her eye and that of Eric, but it must be done; he must arm himself to look all men boldly in the face. Was he a coward? had he not bid defiance to the world, and was he now to be afraid of this tutor's family?

He entered the green cottage. He extended his hand neither to Eric nor his mother, and only asked where the children were. He received the answer that they had locked themselves in the library.

He said in a light way to Eric and his mother that he had been especially desirous for them to know the whole; it would now be seen who was faithful. Turning to Eric, he said:--

"I have shot the black horse, which you rode last night. What is mine is mine."

He went quietly away; he stood some time near the library door, and heard Roland and Manna talking, but without distinguishing a word.

He knocked twice, but there was no answer, and he turned away.

Returning to the villa, and mounting a horse, he rode to the Cabinetsrath's villa, for he wished to give these people a piece of his mind. And as he was riding along, it seemed to him as if the groom behind him suddenly reined up, and then as if there were two following him. Who is this unknown companion? He forced himself not to look round. The horse trembled under the pressure of his legs. He reached the country-house of the Cabinetsrath, stopped at the gate, and asked after the minister's wife.

The gardener said that she was not there, and that she would not be there any more.

What does this mean? He laughed aloud when he was informed that the villa, with all its appurtenances, had been sold the day before to the American consul at the capital. He is outwitted; these people are his neighbors no longer, and there can nothing be said about demanding back the property bought at a merely nominal sum. And after the first flush of anger, Sonnenkamp experienced a peculiar satisfaction in the thought that there were so many sagacious people in the world; it is a pleasant thing that there are so many foxes and lynxes to be found everywhere, and under their own particular masks.

A court-lackey rode up. Sonnenkamp reined in. Could it be possible that they repented and were sending a courier after him?

"Where are you going?" he asked of the court-lackey as he stopped.

"To Villa Eden."

"To whom?"

"To the Professorin Dournay."

"Might I ask who sends you, and what your errand is?"

"Why not?"

"Well, what's the errand?"

"The Professorin was formerly a lady in waiting on the gracious mother of the Prince, and the gracious Princess was very fond of her."

"Very well, very well. And now?"

"Well, now, the Professorin is living there with a horrible man who has deceived the whole world, and is a slave-trader, and one's life isn't safe there a single minute, and now the gracious Princess sends me there, and I am to say to the Professorin--and if she will, to take her along with me at once--that she can be delivered from this monster."

The lackey was astonished to see the man who had questioned him ride away without speaking another word.

Sonnenkamp boiled with rage; but he shortly laughed out loud again.

"That's all right! afraid,--the whole world is afraid of him. This confers strength; this is far better than the silly honor, with which one must behave himself."

He felt a profound contempt for those in high station. Now they take up the neglected widow, now,--why not before?

He rode to the castle. Here were the laborers who were erecting a wing of the building; they saluted their employer with evident reluctance.

Sonnenkamp smiled; at any rate, they had to salute him. He would have liked to get the whole world together, in order to look it, once for all, defiantly in the face.

He rode to the Major's. Fraulein Milch was standing at the window, and before he said anything, she called down:--

"The Herr Major is not at home." And now he turned homeward.

When he came to the garden-wall, he noticed some large letters, and riding nearer, he saw written in many different ways: Slave-trader!

Slave-murderer! An artist, with no very practised hand, had drawn the picture of a gallows on which a figure was hanging with protruding tongue, and on the tongue was the word Slave-trader! He ordered the porter to keep better watch, and to shoot down the insolent fellows who should do any such thing.

The porter said:--

"I'll not shoot; I shall leave the service on St. Martin's day, anyhow."

Sonnenkamp rode back toward the green cottage; he wanted to take away his children, and he wanted to tell the Professorin not to give any more charity to the rabble that dared to write such words on the white wall of his garden. But he turned about again. The best way would be to take no notice of it.

Panting with rage he returned to his room, and he wondered at the thought which came over him, that this house was his own no longer; every one in the neighborhood was thronging in, scoffing, pitying, and he was living, as it were, in the street, for every one was speaking about him, and he could not help himself. He stamped his foot on the floor.

"Here 'tis! You wanted honor,--you wanted to be talked about, and now they do talk,--but how? I despise the whole of you!" he exclaimed.

He turned over all manner of plans in his mind, how he should get the better of the world. But what was there that he could do? He could not hit upon anything.

CHAPTER X.

ROLAND'S MOAN.

Roland and Manna sat in the library, holding each other's hand; they were like two children who had taken refuge from the storm in a strange hut. For a long time they were unable to speak. Manna was the first to gain composure, and in a tone of forced cheerfulness, pa.s.sing her hand over her brother's face, she said:--