Villa Eden Part 33

"Really have the position? There's no doubt about it, I tell you--Pooh, pooh; I'll wager something on that. But, I ask your pardon, I won't talk any more--what were you going to say, comrade?"

"I think we ought not to train him for any special calling; Roland must be a cultivated, wise, and good man, whatever his profession may prove to be--"

"Just so, just so--excellently said--that's right--the fellow has given me much anxiety! How foolish people are, to hanker after millions. When they get them, all they can do is to eat their fill and sleep eight hours, that's all any one can do. The chief point is--" here the Major lowered his voice, and raised his hand--"the chief point is, he must return to nature; that is all the world needs--to return to nature."

Eric luckily abstained from asking the Major what he precisely meant by this mysterious proposition, for the Major would, unfortunately, not have been able to tell him; but he was fond of the phrase, and always used it, leaving every one to find out the meaning for himself.

"To return to nature, everything is included in that," he repeated.

After a while he began:--

"Yes, what was I going to ask?--Tell me, did not you have a great deal to bear as a soldier, because you were a commoner and not a n.o.ble?"

Eric answered in the negative, and the Major stammered out,--

"Indeed, indeed--you--a liberally educated man, felt less of it. I asked for my discharge. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Eric mentioned that he had been at the priest's, and the Major said,--

"He is an excellent man, but I call for no aid of the ecclesiastics.

You know I am a Freemason."

Eric a.s.sented, and the Major continued: "Whatever is good in me has its home in that; we will talk farther of it--I will be your G.o.d-father.

Ah, how glad Herr Weidmann will be to know you."

And again, at the mention of Weidmann's name, it seemed as if a beautiful view of the highest mountains of the landscape was brought before the mind. The Major resumed:--

"But now as to the ecclesiastics. Look"--he drew his chair a little nearer--"look at my drum, it's all there in that--look you, I was a drummer--yes, smile away, if you like--look you, everybody says such a drum makes nothing but racket, and I tell them there's music in it, as beautiful as--I won't disparage any one--as beautiful as any other--look you, then, I say,--mark my words--then I say, 'I will not quarrel with you if you hear nothing but noise, but don't quarrel with me, if I hear something else.' Look you, I have thought it all over, everything else will be made by machinery, men are very clever, but drum and trumpet-signals can not be made by machinery, human hands and mouths are needed for that; I was a drummer, for example, I'll tell you about it. Look you, I know by the sound what sort of a heart a man has, when he beats a drum; where you, my brother, hear nothing but noise and confusion, I hear music and deep meaning. Therefore, for G.o.d's sake, no strife about religions; one is worth as much or as little as another, they only lead the march; but the main thing is, how every man marches for himself, how he has drilled himself, and what sort of a heart he has in his body."

Eric was amused by the eccentricity of this man, who had a deep earnestness and moral freedom peculiar to himself.

Standing his pipe near him, the Major asked,--

"Is there any human being in the world whom you hate, at the sight of whom the heart in your body gives a twist?"

Eric answered in the negative, and said that his father had always impressed it upon him, that nothing injured one's own soul like hatred; and that for his own sake, a man ought not to let such a feeling take root within him.

"That's the man for me! that's the man for me!" cried the Major. "Now we shall get on together. Whoever has had such a father is the man for me!"

He then told Eric that there was a man in the village whom he hated: he was the tax-collector, who wore the St. Helena medal given by the present Napoleon to the veterans, for the heroic deeds in which they had taken part in the subjugation of their fatherland. "And would you believe it!" exclaimed the Major, "the man has had himself painted with the St. Helena medal; the portrait hangs framed in his room of state, and under it, in a separate frame, the diploma signed by the French minister. I don't bow to the man, nor return his bow, nor sit down at the same table with him; he has a different principle of honor from, mine. And tell me, ought there not to be some way of punishing such men? I can only do it by showing my contempt; it is painful to me, but must I not do it?"

The old man looked much astonished when Eric represented to him that the man ought to be judged mildly, since vanity had great powers to mislead, and besides, many governments had been well pleased to have their subjects win the St. Helena medal, and the man, who was in the service of the State, was not to be sentenced without hearing.

"That's good! that's good!" cried the old Major, nodding frequently, according to his habit; "you are the right kind of teacher! I am seventy years old, that is, I am seventy-three now, and I've known many men, and let people say what they will, I have never known a bad man, one really bad. In pa.s.sion, and stupidity, and pride, men do much that's wrong; but, good G.o.d! one ought to thank his heavenly Father that he isn't such as he might very often have become. Thank you; thank you: you have lifted the enemy from my neck;--yes, from my neck; he has sat there, heavy and--look, here comes the man himself!"

The collector was walking by the garden; the Major went to the hedge with many nods and gestures of his hand; he hoped, perhaps, that the man would utter the first greeting; but as this did not happen, he suddenly called out, with a voice like the explosion of a bomb,--

"Good-morning, Herr Collector!"

The man returned his salutation and went on. The old Major was entirely happy, and pa.s.sed his hand several times over his heart, as if a stone or burden were removed from it. Fraulein Milch looked out of the window, and the Major asked her to come out, as he had something very good to tell her. She came, looking still neater than before, having put on a white ap.r.o.n, in which the ironed folds were still fresh. The Major told her that the collector was not to blame, for he had received the St. Helena medal only in obedience to the government.

They went together to the house, and the Major showed his guest the rooms where simple neatness reigned; then he looked at the barometer, and nodded, saying to himself, "Set fair."

Then he looked at the thermometer screwed up by the window, and wiped his forehead, as if he had not felt till then how hot it was.

A shot was heard in the distance, and the Major pointed out to Eric the direction whence the sound came, saying,--

"I can hear the gun-practice from the fortress. I find that the rifle-cannon have just the same sound as the smooth-bore. Ah, comrade, you must instruct me in the new art of war. I don't know anything about it, but when I hear them firing down there, all the soldier in me wakes up."

He asked Fraulein Milch to bring a bottle of wine, one of the very best. Fraulein Milch seemed to have it all ready; she brought bottle and gla.s.ses directly, but gave the Major a significant look, which he understood, and answered:--

"Don't be afraid; I know very well that I can't drink in the morning.

Pray, captain, give me your cork-screw. I take you to be the right sort of man, and the right sort of man always has a cork-screw in his pocket."

Smiling, Eric handed him his knife, which was fitted with a cork-screw.

While the Major was opening the bottle, he said,--

"And another mark of a genuine man is, that he can whistle. Comrade, be so kind as to whistle once for me."

Laughter prevented Eric from drawing up his lips. The bottle was uncorked, and they drank to good comradeship. The Major said,--

"Perhaps we are in better spirits here, than our friend Sonnenkamp in his grand villa. But Herr captain, I say again, an elephant is happy, and a fly is happy too; only the elephant has a larger proboscis than the fly."

The Major laughed till he shook with delight at his comparison, and Eric found the laughter contagious, and as often as they looked at each other, the laughter began afresh.

"You show me the meaning of the proverb," cried Eric, "'a gnat may be taken for an elephant,' and in fact it is correct; not the size, not the ma.s.s, but the organism is the life."

"Just so, just so!" exclaimed the Major. "Fraulein Milch, come in again a moment."

Fraulein Milch, who had left the room, re-entered, and the Major continued,--

"Pray, captain, say that once more about the organism. That is the sort of thing for Fraulein Milch, for, look you, she studies much more than she chooses to let any one know. If you please, comrade, the organism once more. I can't tell it half so well."

What was Eric to do? He explained his figure again, and the laughter broke out anew.

Fraulein Milch recommended to Eric the school-master of the village, as a remarkably fine writer, and the Major cried, laughing,--

"Yes, comrade, Fraulein Milch is a living roll of honor for the whole region; if you want information about anyone, ask her. And for Heaven's sake, don't let the Countess Wolfsgarten give you any medicine.

Fraulein Milch knows much more about it--and no one can apply leeches so well as she can."

Eric saw the good old woman's embarra.s.sment, and began to praise her beautiful flowers, and thriving plants, which stood in the window. The Major a.s.serted that she understood gardening perhaps even better than Herr Sonnenkamp, and if it were only known with what small means she raised her plants, she would get the first prize at the exhibition, instead of the gentlemen with their great forcing-houses.

Turning the conversation, Fraulein Milch said to Eric that it was the chief misfortune of Roland, the poor rich boy, that he had no real satisfaction.

"No real satisfaction?" laughed the Major; "just listen to that!"

"Yes," a.s.serted Fraulein Milch, the ribbons and bows on her cap nodding a.s.sentingly as she spoke, "he has merely pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nts that money can buy, but they are not genuine; and any one who only drives through the world for pleasure, with nothing to do in it, seeks satisfaction in vain."