Villa Eden Part 52

The lighter the morning became, the more confident did Sonnenkamp feel that Roland was floating there a corpse in the river, which was now of a reddish purple, a stream of blood; the far-extending water was nothing but blood! He uttered a deep groan, and stretched out his hand, as if he must grasp and throttle something. He seized hold of a tree and shook it, and shook it again and again, so that there was scarcely a blossom left upon it; he stood there covered all over with the petals. And now he broke out into a scornful laugh.

"Life shall not vanquish me! Nothing! Not even thou! Roland, where art thou?"

At this instant he saw a white form, with a strange head-covering, glide through the orchard, and vanish behind the trees. What is that?

He rubbed his eyes. Was that a mere fancy, or was it a reality?

He went after the apparition.

"Stop," he cried, "there are steel-traps there, there's a spring-gun there!" A woman's voice uttered a lamentable, shriek. Sonnenkamp went up to her, and Fraulein Milch stood before him. "What do you want here?

What's the matter?"

"I wanted the Herr Major."

"He is still asleep."

"I may also tell you," Fraulein Milch began, composing herself, "it leaves me no rest."

"Out with it,--no preliminaries!"

Fraulein Milch drew herself up haughtily and said,--

"If you are in that humor, I can go away as I came."

"Excuse me, what then do you want?" he asked gently.

"I had a suggestion for you."

Sonnenkamp composed himself to listen patiently, and nodded to her to go on. She now said that she could not rest, she did not know whether the Major had suggested it. Sonnenkamp broke off impatiently a blossoming twig, and Fraulein Milch continued,--she thought that the Herr Captain Dournay might perhaps know where Roland was; they ought to telegraph to him.

Sonnenkamp thanked the old dame with a very obliging smile, and said, exercising great self-command, that he would wake up the Major, and send him into the garden; but Fraulein Milch begged that he might be allowed to take his sleep quietly. She turned back to her house, and Sonnenkamp walked on through the park.

The roses had bloomed out during the night, and from hundreds of stems and bushes sent their fragrance to their owner, but he was not refreshed by it. Here is the park, here are the trees, here is the house, all this can be acquired, can be won. But one thing cannot be won: a life, a child's life, a child's heart, a union of soul with soul, which can never be sundered, and can never come to an end.

And again came to him that cutting sentence,--You have killed the n.o.blest impulses in your fellow-men, the feeling of father, and mother, and child. Now it is you who suffer!

Why does the word of that opponent in the New World hover around him to-day, today, as it did yesterday? Is that terrible man, perchance, on board that boat which is now steaming up the stream in the first morning light?

He could not imagine that, at this very moment, the child of this man was speaking to his own child.

CHAPTER XII.

WHAT IS STIRRING BY NIGHT.

The roses in the garden, and in the youth's soul, all opened during the night.

To Eric! Roland's open mouth would have said, but no sound was uttered, he said it only to himself. It was a clear starlight-night, the waning moon, in its third quarter, hung in the heavens, giving a soft light, and Roland was penetrated with such a feeling of gladness, that he often threw out his arms, as if they were wings with which he could easily fly. He went at a quick pace, as if he were pursued; he heard steps behind him, and stopped; it was only the echo of his own footsteps.

At a distance a group of men, standing still, were waiting for him. He came nearer; they were wooden posts, painted black, intended to fence in a vineyard. He moderated his pace, and would have sung, but he feared to betray himself by any sound. He stood still upon an elevation, and heard far below upon the river the wheezy puffing of a tow-boat; he saw the lights upon the masts of the boats in tow, and they moved along so wonderfully! He counted them, and there were seven.

"They are also awake," he said to himself, and it occurred to him, for the first time, that people were obliged to be awake, and to labor at night to earn their living, as the engineers there on the tow-boat, the helmsmen, and the boatmen on the boats in tow.

Why is this? What forces men to this? The boy angrily shook his head.

Why did this trouble him? He walked on over the high level plain, and then ascended a hill behind it. He took a childlike pleasure that his shadow accompanied him. He kept always the middle of the road; the ditches by the wayside looked dismal and haunted. He was startled at the shadows which the trees cast in the light of the moon, and was glad when he came where it was clear and bright. When he drew near to a village, he felt secure, for although everybody was asleep, yet he was in the midst of human beings. The boy had been told that, by night, thieves and murderers go about on all the roads to rob and to murder.

What did he have about him for them to rob? His watch and chain. He took out his watch, wanting to conceal it.

"For shame!" he suddenly cried. He became conscious how afraid he was in the depth of his soul; he would not be afraid. He boldly summoned up the dangers which he wanted to encounter, rejoiced over them, and cried aloud,--

"Come on! Here am I, and here is Devil too! Isn't it so, Devil? Just let them come on!" he said to the dog caressingly. The dog leaped up to him.

He pa.s.sed through a village. All were asleep, except that here and there a dog barked, scenting Devil's proximity. Roland ordered him to be quiet, and he obeyed. The boy recognized the village as the one where he had been with the doctor and Eric on Sunday: here was the house where the man had died; here on the opposite side was the gymnastic ground, where he had exercised with Eric. At last he came to the house of Sevenpiper, where the entire orchestra were now asleep. He stood awhile, considering whether he should not wake up some one in the house, either to go with him, or to be sent to his father. He rejected both suggestions and went on.

The night was perfectly still; the only sound was the occasional barking of a dog at a distance, as if disturbed in his sleep. A brook rippled by the wayside, and he was glad to hear its strange sound; it went as if chatting with him for a while, and then disappeared, and all was silent. He pa.s.sed through a ravine, where it was so dark from the high trees on both sides that he could not see the path; quietly composing himself, he went forward, thinking how beautiful it must be there in the clear daylight. He emerged from the ravine, and was rejoiced to be in the highway again. Over the ridge of a mountain shone a star, so large, so brilliant, always, going up higher, and gleaming so brightly! Does Manna know what star this is?

There was a light in the first house of a village; he stopped. He heard voices. The woman inside was mourning and lamenting, that, on the morrow, her only cow was to be sold. Taking his resolution quickly, Roland placed several gold pieces upon the window-sill of the lower room, and knocked on the window-pane, crying,--

"You people! there is, some money for the cow upon the sill."

He ran breathlessly away, a sort of trouble coming over him, as if he were a thief; he did not stop until he had gone some distance, crouching down in a ditch. He could not tell why he had run from there.

As he now lay there and hearkened whether the people followed him, he laughed merrily to himself, to think that it must seem to them to have been some spirit that goes about healing men's sorrows, and making them grateful. No one came. He went on vigorously, happy in the thought of what he had done, and thinking that when he had a great deal of money--as he would have at some time--he would go about secretly in the world, and thus make everybody happy wherever his footsteps went.

When he fixed his gaze again upon the path, he saw a strange-looking man in the field by the wayside, who was aiming a gun directly at him.

Roland, trembling, stood still, and asked the man what he wanted; the man did not move. Roland set the dog upon him, and the dog came back, shaking his head. Roland went up to the form, and laughed and trembled at the same time, to find that it was nothing but a scarecrow.

A wagon, groaning under its heavy load, came nearer and nearer. It was a strange creaking and clattering, as the wagon swayed upon its axle, and the wheels grated upon and crushed the stones. Roland came to the conclusion that the wagon had only two wheels, and was drawn by one horse. He kept still, in order to determine this, and then he heard the sound of several hoofs. He awaited the approach of the wagon, and saw that there were two horses harnessed tandem to a wagon with only two wheels. Roland went on one side, and waited for the wagon to go by; the driver walked near it, whistling and cracking his whip. Roland walked on, keeping at a little distance behind the wagon. A fearfulness had taken possession of the youthful wanderer by night, and now he felt himself near a human being who was awake; if any danger threatened he could call upon him. "Yes," he said inwardly to himself, "this is how I would call out,--

"'Help! help!'"

But no danger presented itself. And he said to his dog, as if in derision,--

"Shame that n.o.body a.s.sails us, to give us both a chance to show how courageous we are."

But he was terrified when all at once he heard nothing more of the wagon; it had stopped at the toll-gate. When it again creaked he was in good spirits once more. The wagon halted at the first house of the next village. The hostler, who seemed to have been expecting the driver, was not a little amazed to see, by the light of the lantern which he had with him, a handsome boy with sparkling eyes. "Hi! who may this be?"

the servant cried, leaving his mouth wide open with astonishment and terror, for the great dog sniffed about his legs, then placed himself in front of the terrified fellow, showing all his teeth, and blinking back to his master, as if waiting for the watchword, "Seize him!"

Roland ordered the dog to come away. There must have been something in his voice that produced a feeling of respect in the driver and in the servant.

They asked him whether he would not also take a drink. Roland said yes.

And he sat now at table, touching gla.s.ses with the teamster by the light of a solitary oil lamp. The servant was inquisitive, and said with a smirk, pointing to Roland's delicate hand,--

"That's a splendid finger-ring; how that stone does shine! That is worth ever so much, isn't it? You! make me a present of that."

The landlord, in the sleeping-room adjoining, hearing this, came in, ghostlike, in his shirt and drawers. Roland was now asked who he was, whence he came, and where he was going. He gave an evasive answer.

The teamster left, and Roland, keeping by his side, listened to the narration of his way of life. He learned that the wagon was loaded with new stone bottles, which were carried to a neighboring mineral-spring, and thence were sent into all the world, even as far as Holland. Roland was astonished to find how many kinds of occupation were requisite, before the mineral-water was drunk at his father's table. For the teamster, Holland was the end of the world; he was amazed when Roland told him that there were many countries, even whole divisions of the earth, much farther off than Holland. The teamster was surprised at Roland's extensive knowledge, and inquired if he had ever been so far away.