Villa Eden Part 69

Eric ordered the horses to be put again to the carriage, and entered it with Roland, who asked,--

"Where are we going?"

Eric quieted him with the a.s.surance that he was about to show him a miracle. They drove down the road, where the wind was dashing about the branches of the nut-trees, while the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead.

"Where are we driving?" Roland asked again.

"We are now going to school to Franklin. I can now show you how the lightning is tamed." And they drove on to the railroad station.

The telegraphist gave Eric a very friendly reception. Eric showed his pupil, in the office of the telegraph, the electrical current in a pretty little gla.s.s box, where a blue spark darted rapidly hither and thither, and then vanished over the connecting wires. At every flash a sharp click came from the connecting rods, and, at the same instant, the little blue flame appeared and then vanished.

Eric was glad to be able to exhibit this to his pupil, and the telegraphist added many important and interesting details. He related how they were inexpressibly troubled in their communications during a thunderstorm, for incomprehensible words came over the wires, and he was once hurled by a shock of electricity against the stove yonder. He showed the metal plates to draw off the lightning, which often struck and cut off the conducting rods as nicely as if done with a sharp file.

They had removed the lights, and saw only the little blue flame, which Roland watched with childish delight. It was easy to explain the operation of the electro-magnetic telegraph, and Roland said,--

"Even if Franklin was not acquainted with this, he yet first caught the lightning."

"Do you think that he could know what would be the results?"

Eric endeavored to explain to Roland, that in all discovery, invention, creation and action, there is a great bond of unity, a continual process of development. And here in this dark room, while the little blue flame was dancing, and the three persons hardly venturing to speak aloud soon became utterly speechless, the soul of the youth was touched with a feeling of devotion, and raised far above the range of ordinary experience. The separation from his parents, the pleasure that had allured him, all had vanished, had sunk out of sight, as if he were living on some star remote from the earth.

The storm had ceased, and a copious rain was falling; when the window was re-opened, Roland said, gently taking Eric's hand, and looking out into the night,--

"Can one not imagine, that the soul in the bodies of human beings moves like the electrical spark on the wire?"

Eric made no reply. He saw that the boy was beginning to see something of the enigma of life; he must work it out for himself, and could not and must not be helped at present. And this trifling question gave a.s.surance that the higher life could be preserved in the youth; he had overcome the desire of dissipation, and had given himself up to what could not be made slavishly subject to his will.

The telegraphist gave an account of Sonnenkamp's frightful appearance and conduct on the night that Roland was missing. He said in a low tone to Eric, that he himself was afraid of the man, and that notwithstanding the considerable sum of money which he offered him to remain there through the night, he had pleaded as an excuse the want of official orders, because he would not remain alone with Sonnenkamp for all the gold in the world.

Eric perceived that Roland had heard the last remark notwithstanding the low tone, and said in a jesting way, that a man who has to deal with the nervous filaments extended over the earth might very readily become nervous himself.

The telegraphist a.s.sented, and had many wonderful stories to tell. When Eric went with Roland into the pa.s.senger's room, he was surprised to see Roland's quick eye for the laughable characteristics of people. He had observed very shrewdly the peculiarities of the telegraphist, and imitated him very exactly. Without a direct rebuff, Eric endeavored to explain to his pupil, that those persons who are partly engaged in work, and partly in science, in that middle region of the vocations of life, such as apothecaries, surgical operators, lithographists, photographists, and telegraphists, are easily carried from one extreme to the other. Telegraphy created a certain excitability, and susceptibility, on account of the direct arousing of the faculties and the operation at great distances, which give to the soul a certain tension and excitation.

Eric sought to explain all this to his pupil; he would have liked to give him the just views which are embraced in the knowledge of psychological principles, but he led him back to the wonderful in what they had seen, and he succeeded in his purpose of deeply impressing this upon the soul.

The stars were glittering in the heavens, when they returned home from their glance into the mysterious primitive force of earth's being.

Eric could not restrain the impulse to picture to his scholar what had been probably the feelings of that people of the desert, on the evening of that day when Jehovah had revealed himself to them in thunder and lightning upon Mount Sinai; how it must have been with them when they went to rest, and how it must have seemed to the souls of thousands, as if the world were created anew.

Eric hardly knew what he was saying, as he drove through the refreshed and glistening starry night. But the feelings of the boy and the man were devotional. And after they reached home neither wished to speak one word, and they quietly bade each other good-night. But Eric could not go to sleep for a long time. Is the light in the soul of a human being an incomprehensible electric spark that cannot be laid hold of, and which flashes up in resolve and act? So long as there is no storm in the sky we send at will the spark over the extended wire; but when the great, eternally unsubdued, primitive forces of nature manifest themselves, the human message is no longer transmitted, and the sparks spontaneously play upon the conducting wires. Chaos sends forth an unintelligible message.

A time will come when thou shalt no longer be master of the living soul of thy pupil, in which, with all thy heedful precaution, rude, uncontrolled elements are at work. What then?

There is no security given for the whole future, and in the meantime, what concerns us is to fulfil quietly and faithfully the duty of the day.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FRUIT IS SET ON THE GRAPE-VINE.

There is stillness in the vineyards on the mountain-side, and no persons are among the green rows, for the vines, which until now were allowed free growth, have been tied up so that the blossoms may not flutter about. The hidden blossom makes no show, but a sweet fragrance, just faintly perceptible, is diffused through the air. Now, the vine needs the quiet sunshine by day, and the warm breeze by night; the bloom must be set as fruit, but the flavour, the aroma, and the strength are not brought out until the autumn. After the fruit has become set, storm and tempest may come; the fruit is vigorous, and sure of attaining its future n.o.ble destiny.

Roland and Eric went hand in hand over the country, with no definite object in view; the town was quiet, and the scattered country-houses were deserted.

Bella, Clodwig, and Pranken had set out on a journey to Gastein, the Major to Teplitz, the Justice with his wife and daughter to Kissingen.

Only the doctor remained at his post, and he is now alone, for his wife has gone to visit her daughter and grandchildren. Eric had determined at the very first, before he knew of the journey to the Baths and of being alone, to decline every distraction and every connection with a wide circle of acquaintance, wishing to devote himself exclusively and entirely, with all his energies, to Roland. And so they were now inseparably together, from early in the morning until bedtime.

He only who lives with nature, day in and day out knows all the changes of light, so various and fleeting, and only he who lives exclusively with one person knows thoroughly the sudden upspringings of thought, when all is illuminated and stands out in prominent relief. Eric was well aware that Roland frequently dwelt upon the pleasures and dissipations of a life at the Baths, and that the youth had often to force himself to a uniform round of duty, struggling and inwardly protesting to some extent against it; but Eric looked upon it as the prancing of an untamed horse, who resists bit and bridle, but soon is proud of his trappings. Numberless elements influence, move, form, and expand whatever is in process of growth; man can bend and direct that which is taking form and shape, but to affect the changes beyond this stage is not in his power.

Eric brought three different influences to bear upon his pupil. They continued to read Franklin's life; Roland was to see a whole man on every side. The political career, which Franklin gradually entered upon, was as yet not within the range of the youth's comprehension; but he was to form some idea of such varied activity, and Eric knew, too, that no one can estimate what may abide as a permanent possession in a young soul, even from what is but partially understood. The White House at Washington took rank in Roland's fancy with the Acropolis at Athens and the Capitol at Rome; he often spoke of his ardent desire to go on a pilgrimage thither.

It was hard to fix the youth's attention upon the establishment of the American Republic and the formation of the Const.i.tution, but he was kept persistently to it.

Eric chose, for its deep insight, Bancroft's History of the United States.

They read, at the same time, the life of Cra.s.sus by Plutarch, and also Longfellow's Hiawatha. The impression of this poem was great, almost overlaying all the rest; here the New World has its mythical and its romantic age in the Indian legend, and it seems to be the work not of one man, but of the spirit of a whole people. The planting of corn is represented under a mythological form, as full of life as any which the myth-creating power of antiquity can exhibit.

Hiawatha invents the sail, makes streams navigable, and banishes disease; but Hiawatha's Fast, and the mood of exaltation and self-forgetfulness consequent thereon, made upon Roland the deepest impression.

"Man only is capable of that!" cried Roland.

"Capable of what?" asked Eric.

"Man only can fast, can voluntarily renounce food."

From this mythical world of the past, which must necessarily retire before the bright day in the progress of civilization, they pa.s.sed again to the study of the first founding of the great American Republic. Franklin again appeared here, and seemed to become the central point for Roland, taking precedence even of Jefferson, who not only proclaimed first the eternal and inalienable rights of man, but made them the very foundation of a nation's life. Roland and Eric saw together how this Crusoe-settlement on a large scale, as Frederic Kapp calls it, unfolded into a high state of culture; and that sad weakness and compromise, which did not immediately abolish slavery, also const.i.tuted a knotty point of investigation.

"Do you think the n.i.g.g.e.rs are human beings like us?" asked Roland.

"Undoubtedly; they have language and the power of thought, just as we have."

"I once heard it said, that they could not learn mathematics,"

interposed Roland.

"I never heard that before, and probably it is a mistake."

Eric did not go any farther in this exposition; he wished to cast no imputation upon the father, who had owned large plantations tilled by slaves. It was sufficient that questions were coming up in the boy's mind.

Nothing better could have been contrived for Eric and Roland; than for them to learn something together. The architect, a man skilled in his business, and happy to have so early in life such an excellent commission entrusted to him, was communicative and full of information.

The castle had been destroyed, as so many others were, by the barbarous soldiers of Louis XIV. encamped in Germany, exactly a hundred years before the French Revolution. An old main-tower, the so-called Keep, had still some remains of Roman walls, concrete walls, as the architect called them.

"What is concrete?" asked Roland. The architect explained that the inside and outside layers consisted of quarry stone laid in regular masonry, and between, stones of all sizes were thrown in, and then the whole was evidently cemented together with a sort of heated mortar.

Only one-third of the tower had apertures for light; the rest was solid stone wall.