Villa Eden Part 41

"That you may do; it is a sin to be untrue, and a double sin to be so towards you."

"Well then," said Lina, taking off her straw hat, and shaking the curls in her neck, "well then, if you will honestly confess, that Manna made an impression on you at that time, I will tell you something; but you must be frank and sincere."

"My dear young lady, do you think I would say no? You tempt me not to be sincere."

"Well then, I'll tell you--but please keep it to yourself won't you?--Manna asked me who you were, and that's a great deal from her.

Oh, Herr Captain, wealth is a dreadful thing; people offer themselves only for the sake of a girl's money--no, I didn't mean to say that--but try to manage that Manna shall not be a nun."

"Can I prevent it?"

"Did you see the wooden shoes that the nuns wore? Horrid! Manna would have to wear those shoes, and she has the prettiest little foot."

"But why shouldn't she be a nun, if she wants to?"

Lina was puzzled, she was not prepared for such an answer. She remembered, too, that she was a good Catholic.

"Ah," she said plaintively, "I fancied to myself--I am a silly child, am I not?--in old times a knight used to enter a castle disguised as a squire or something else--well, I thought now the squire must be a tutor and then--"

She could not go on with her fancy sketch, for her mother overtook them, rather anxious lest her daughter had made some of her dreadfully simple speeches in her walk with the stranger.

"May one know what you are talking about so earnestly?" asked the Justice's wife. Lina drew a long breath, and put her hat-elastic in her mouth, which her mother had often forbidden, as Eric answered with great unconcern,--

"Your daughter has been reminding me that I was not very attentive when we first met on the convent island. I must ask your pardon now, madame.

It relieves my mind of a burden of self-reproach to have the opportunity of excusing myself to you, and I earnestly beg that you will carry my apologies to your husband. One meets in travelling so many people who think to make themselves of importance by being ill-tempered, that one catches the unfriendly spirit, and harms himself the most. If I had not had the good fortune to meet you again, a little misunderstanding would have remained between us. Ah! on such a beautiful evening, by your beautiful river, where people are so friendly and cheerful, one longs to do some good to every one he meets, and to say, Rejoice with me, dear fellow-mote, dancing in the sunlight, for the little time which is called life."

Eric was very animated, and the Justice's wife much pleased with his demeanor. The evening walk was most refreshing. Lina directly gave up to her mother the place next Eric, and walked on the other side of the doctor's wife. The walk lasted a long time, till the doctor's carriage was heard in the distance by his wife, who knew the sound of its wheels before the others could distinguish anything.

The doctor joined them with a fresh fund of cheerfulness, saying,--

"I was sent for to receive a confession, and now I have lost an excellent reminder."

He went on to tell them that a man had lived in the next village, the sight of whom had always given him a stab in the heart, for the man had sworn a false oath about a hundred florins which he owed him. But as time went on, he had become quite grateful to this person for serving him as a reviver of his faith, because every time he met him he felt a fresh belief in the meanness of mankind, which one easily forgets. Now, before his death, the man had confessed to him and given back the money. So here he was, a hundred florins richer, but he had lost his faith. How could he laugh now at the world, if he had no longer the meanness of men to laugh at?

"What will you do now with the hundred florins?" asked Lina.

"What would you do with them?"

"I don't know."

"What would _you_ do, captain?" said the physician, turning suddenly to Eric; "what would you do, if you had a million to give away?"

"I?" asked Eric, somewhat taken aback. He did not understand the reason of the sudden question.

"Yes, you."

"I never thought about it, but first I would found valuable scholarships at all the German universities. The man of wealth ought to be able to reflect how he is cultivating the mind of the man of genius."

"Good," answered the doctor, "every one thinks first of his own circle.

Here's my little friend Lina; if she had a million to give away, she would spend it all on blue muslin, and dress all the female world in it. Wouldn't you, Musselina?"

Lina was silent, and her mother said, "Give some smart answer; can't you think of one?" Lina apparently could not think of one, but there was a pleasant, merry tone in the intercourse between the doctor and the child.

After their friends left them, the doctor said to Eric,--

"You can become familiar with a new method of instruction here. The Justice's lady tries with all her might to make her daughter a pert, worldly chatterbox, but fortunately the child has a simple, genuine nature which can't be spoiled, and when you talk with her alone she is full of bubbling life, and rightly deserves the name of Musselina."

The doctor was more friendly than ever in his bearing towards Eric, for he saw that he had wished to interfere in his life too hastily and roughly. He expressed regret that Eric had not seen Herr Weidmann to advantage that day, as the latter had been preoccupied, or something had gone wrong with him, and he advised Eric not to adopt a wrong impression in regard to him. The doctor smiled, well pleased, when Eric replied that he should not allow himself to form an opinion of a view on the Rhine which every one admired, if he had seen it only through rain or mist. The physician had evidently been thinking much of Eric during his drive; he always addressed him to-day as Herr Captain in a very marked manner, and he explained this when he held out his hand in bidding him good-night, by saying,--

"You are the first soldier with whom I have ever been able to live quite comfortably. With all other officers, I have always had a feeling of--I can't say fear, exactly--but a certain consciousness of being unarmed in the presence of an armed man. You soldiers always have an air of preparation, of readiness for attack, in which there's much that's good. I take back my words; perhaps a soldier can be a still better educator than a physician. Well, good-night!"

When Eric was alone, everything vanished which he had seen or experienced during the day, and Roland's form alone remained before him. He tried to fancy what the boy's thoughts were in riding after him. He sought to transport himself into the boy's state of feeling; he could not entirely do so, for Roland was full of anger with Eric, for deserting one who was so truly and fondly devoted to him. The boy felt as if he had been robbed, and so he rode over to the town fancying that Eric must be coming to meet him, or must be watching for him at the window; he rode back weeping with anger.

The world, of which he was to possess so much, appeared to him worthless and strange, while it seemed to Eric, who had nothing but his own thoughts, bathed in a dew of blessing. In the stillness of the night he thought over the hospitable and homelike reception he had met from Clodwig, and now from the physician, and hospitality seemed to him the purest fruit of n.o.ble manhood. In ancient times men entertained G.o.ds and angels, and they still entertained them, for in freely offering what one has to a stranger, whose very existence was yesterday unknown, the divine is unfolded in the pure soul.

Up yonder at Wolfsgarten, Eric had met with a fatherly good-will, based upon congeniality of thought--here with the doctor, as much goodwill as difference of opinion; but here, too, that personal friendliness which is so satisfying and home-like.

There was Bella who always wished to make an impression in her own behalf, and here was the doctor's wife, who wished nothing for herself, who thanked Eric in her heart, and wished only that her husband might have the good fortune to be able to talk over learned subjects with another man. And were these many forms, were all these events, to be only the pa.s.sing occurrences of a journey?

CHAPTER XIII.

AGAIN ALONE WITH THYSELF.

"In the morning," the doctor often said, "I am like a washed chimney-sweeper." He rose, summer and winter, at five o'clock, studied uninterruptedly several hours, and answered only the most pressing calls from his patients. Through this practice of study he not only kept up his scientific knowledge, but as he bathed his body in fresh water, so was he also mentally invigorated; let come what would of the day, he had made sure of his portion of science. And that was the reason--we may congratulate ourselves upon knowing this secret--that was the reason why the doctor was so wide awake, so ready primed, and so vivacious. He himself designated these morning hours to an old fellow-student as his camel-hours, when he drank himself full, so that he could often refresh himself with a draught in the dry desert. And life, moreover, did not seem to him a desert, for he had something which thrived everywhere, and was all-prevailing, and _that_ was an indestructible cheerfulness, and an equanimity, which he attributed above all to his sound digestion.

So was he sitting now; and when he heard Eric, whose room was over his study, getting up, he sent word to him to come soon to breakfast; and in this hour the freshness of the man was yet wholly unimpaired. His wife, who had to be busy, or rather, who made herself busy about household matters, in order not to oblige her husband to enter into any conversation on less learned matters, had soon gone into the garden, in which flourished many scions and seeds of various kinds out of Sonnenkamp's garden. But the doctor conversed with Eric upon no scientific topics.

In the breakfast-room there hung portraits of the parents and the grand-parents of the physician, and he took occasion to give some account of his own life. His grandfather and father had been boat-men, and the doctor had been present at the golden wedding of both, and expressed his hope to celebrate also his own. And after he had portrayed his own struggle with life, he proceeded to ask Eric about his pecuniary affairs, and those of his mother.

Eric disclosed the whole state of the case; he described how his mother had n.o.ble and rich friends; on whom she placed great expectations, but he did not believe in, and to speak honestly, he did not desire, any help of that sort. The doctor a.s.serted in confirmation, that no one would help them substantially and handsomely; he unfolded, as he went along, wholly heretical views upon beneficence; he expatiated upon the nonsense of leaving endowments and legacies in one's will, and on scattering small donations. He thought it was much handsomer, and more permanently beneficial, to make an individual or a family entirely independent, so that they may thereby be the means of accomplishing greater good. He stated that he had often attempted to bring this about; nothing of this kind was to be effected with Herr Sonnenkamp, who would have nothing further to do with people into whose hat he had cast an alms.

The conversation, in this way, having once more turned upon Sonnenkamp, the doctor offered to take upon himself all the external financial arrangements with Sonnenkamp, insisting upon Eric's consent to his doing so.

"And do you take no farther trouble about this man," said the doctor, opening an egg. "See, it is all a fair exchange. We devour this egg with the greatest zest, while the hen got her living out of the manure-heap."

Eric was happy with this lively, practical man. He expressed his satisfaction that, here in this little town, there were so many n.o.ble persons, who could const.i.tute a rich social environment. The doctor contested this, for he considered that the necessity of being thrown upon one another, and the not being able to make a selection, as one can do in a great city, belittled, contracted, and created gossip. One had, indeed, in a great city, no larger circle than was here formed for the direct partic.i.p.ation in the various duties of life, but the necessity of contracting marriages within such a limited circle did not permit the existence of a free social community.

"On the whole," he said in conclusion, "we are no more to each other than a good whist-party."

It was time to think of departing. Eric left the house with a feeling of serene satisfaction. The doctor drove him to the nearest railroad station, where he got out and warmly shook Eric's hand, repeating the wish that they might be able to live together.

The train, meanwhile, stopped longer than usual at the little station, waiting the arrival of the train from the lower Rhine which was behind time. A merry crowd of men, young and old, greeted the doctor and seated themselves in the same car with Eric. The doctor told him that they were wine-testers, who were going to a sale which was to take place to-day at the wine-count's cellar. He called Eric's attention specially to a jovial-looking man, the gauger, the finest judge of wine in the district. The doctor laughed heartily when Eric said to him, that he had also gone about the whole district testing wines, that is, the spiritual wine of character.

"Strange how you make an application of everything!" laughed the physician. "Count Wolfsgarten, Pranken, Bella, Sonnenkamp, the huntsman, Sevenpiper, Musselina, Weidmann, Fraulein Perini, the Major, the priest, I, and Roland--a fine specimen-catalogue of wines. Look out that you do not stagger as you come out of the wine-cellar."