Villa Eden Part 70

The whole region had made use of the castle as a stone-quarry, and the corners had especially suffered, because they contained the best stones. The whole was grown over with shrubbery, the castle-dwelling had wholly disappeared, and the castle itself, originally Roman, had probably been rebuilt in the style of the tenth century. From a drawing found in the archives only a few additional characteristics could be made out; but from single stones and angles much of the general structure could be copied, and the architect showed how he had planned the whole, and he was particularly glad to have discovered the spring, out of which they had taken, to use his own expression, "a great deal of rubbish and dirt."

The insight into the inner mystery of a man's active calling produced a deep impression upon the youth, and he followed out the whole plan of construction with great diligence; and he and Eric always placed before them, as a reward for actual work accomplished, this instructive conversation with the architect, and even frequently a permission to be actively employed. It was a favorite thought of Roland's to live here at some future time alone at the castle, and he wanted to have had some hand in the building.

Roland and Eric were regularly but not accidently, at the castle when the masons and the laborers engaged in excavation were paid off on Sat.u.r.day, evening. The time for leaving off work being an hour earlier than usual, the barber came from the town and shaved the masons, and then they, washed themselves at the fountain; a baker-woman with bread also came out from the town, and the workmen placed themselves, one after another, under the porch of a small house that had been temporarily erected. Roland frequently stood inside the room, with the foremen, and heard only the brief words,--

"You receive so much, and you, so much."

He saw the hard hands which received the pay. Frequently he stood outside among the workmen themselves, or by their side, observing them; and the boys of his own age received his particular notice, and he thanked all heartily, when they saluted him. Most of them had a loaf of bread wrapped up in a cloth under their arm, and they went off to the villages where they lived, often singing until they were out of hearing.

Eric knew that it was not in accordance with Sonnenkamp's ideas for Roland thus to become familiar with different modes of life, for he had once heard him say,--

"He who wishes to build a castle need not know all the carters and quarrymen in the stone-pits around."

But Eric considered it his duty to let Roland have an unprejudiced, acquaintance with a mode of life different from his own. He saw the expression of Roland's large eyes while they were sitting upon a projecting point of the castle; where the thyme sent up its sweet odor around them, and they looked out over mountain and valley; with the bells sending out their peal for the Sunday-eve; and he felt happy, for he knew that an eye which so looked upon the hard-working hands, and a thought which so followed the laborers returning to their homes, was forming, an internal state that could not be hardheartedly unmindful of one's fellow-men. Thus was a moral and intellectual foundation laid in the soul of the youth. Eric took good heed not to disturb the germinating seed by exposing it to the light.

One evening, when they were sitting upon the castle, the sun had already gone down, and the tops of the mountains only were tinged with the glowing sunset, while the village, with its blue slate-roofs and the evening smoke rising straight in the air, seemed like a dream--Roland said,--

"I should like to know, how it is that no castles are to be found in America."

Eric repeated with pleasure Goethe's verses,--

"America, to thee is given A better fate than here is found!

No mouldering castle-towers hast thou, No monumental columns fallen; No gloomy shadows of the past, No vain and useless strife Becloud thy heavens serene.

To-day suffices with its good; And, sing your children in poetic strains, Be it on higher themes Than robbers, knights, and haunting ghosts."

Roland learned them by heart, and wanted to know more of Goethe.

In their quiet walks Eric repeated to him many of Goethe's poems, in which not man, but nature herself seems to have produced the expression. The towering spirit of Goethe, with Hiawatha and Cra.s.sus, was now added to the sedate and unexciting study of Benjamin Franklin.

Roland felt deeply the influence of the various moral and spiritual elements in whose circle he lived: Eric was able to quote apt pa.s.sages from the cla.s.sic poets of antiquity, as well as of his own country to his pupil. This revealed to Roland's perception the double manifestation of all life, and made him long for the real and true.

One day, when Eric and Roland were sitting on the boundary of a field, they saw a hare which ate a little, ran off, and then ate again. Roland said,--

"Timid hare! yes, why shouldn't he be timid? he has no weapons of attack or of defence; he can only run away."

Eric nodded, and the boy went on.

"Why are dogs the enemies of hares?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can understand how the dog and the fox are enemies; they can both bite: but why a dog should hate and pursue a hare, that can do nothing but run, I can't understand." In spite of all his knowledge, Eric often found himself in a position where nothing but conjecture could help him; he said,--

"I think that the dog in a wild state found his chief food in the defenceless animals, as the fox does. The dog is really a tame cousin of the fox; education has changed him only so far that he now bites hares to death, but does not eat them. Animals that feed on plants live in the open air, but beasts of prey, in caves."

For a short time the boy sat silent, then he suddenly said,--

"How strange!"

"What is it?"

"You will laugh at me, but I have been thinking,"--as he spoke a bright smile broke over the boy's face, showing the dimples in his cheeks and chin,--"the wild animals have no regular hours for their meals, they eat all day long; dogs have only been trained by us men to take their food at certain times."

"Certainly," replied Eric; "the regulation of our lives by fixed hours only begins with education."

And without tedious or unnecessary diffuseness, Eric succeeded in bringing before his pupil what a great thing it is to measure time, and to set our daily life to the rhythm of the universe, of the whole starry world.

Improbable as it may seem, it was really the fact, that from the time of this conversation, which began with so small and insignificant a matter, but took so wide a range, the hours of study of the pair were strictly fixed: Roland wished to have no more unoccupied time. This was a great step in his life; what had before seemed like tyranny was now a self-imposed law.

A few weeks later, Roland himself gave up his favorite companions for Eric's sake. On their walks through fields and over mountains, and their visits to the castle, the dogs had been taken as a matter of course. Eric was ready to reply to every question of his pupil, but a disturbing companion was always with them so long as Roland never went out without one of his dogs, and there could be no connected thought while the eye rested on the animal, however involuntarily. The dog constantly looked up at his master and wanted his presence acknowledged, and wandering thoughts followed him as he ran. It was difficult for Eric to bring Roland to leave them at home; he did not directly order him to do it, but he several times replied to his questions, by saying that he could not answer when their attention was given to calling the dogs and watching their gambols. When this had been repeated several times, Roland left the dogs at home, and saw that Eric meant to reward him for his sacrifice by his ready answers to all his questions. Eric led Roland into departments of knowledge, but took care not to impart too much at once; on many points he put him off till a later period, drawing him constantly to follow out the suggestions of his own observations. Yonder lies the field, and there is the vineyard where the grapes grow, collecting and transmitting within themselves all the elements which float in the air, or repose in the earth; and more than all, the rolling river sends forth into the fruit an immeasurable strength and a mysterious fragrance. The growth goes on by day and night, through sunshine and dewy shade; rain and lightning and hail do their work, and the plants live on to their maturity. Each separate plant is at first hardly to be noticed, but it grows to meet its nature-appointed destiny.

Who can name all the elements which mould and build up a human soul?

Who can say how much of what Eric cherished in Roland has grown and thriven up to this very hour? And yet this unbroken growth brings the mysterious result which forms our life.

Roland and Eric were present every morning and evening when the lawns were sprinkled, and when the shrubs and flowers in tubs and pots were watered; they helped in the work, and this endeavor to promote growth seemed to satisfy a thirst in themselves. There was a sense of beneficence in doing something to help the plants which gave beauty and freshness to day and night.

"Tell me," Roland once asked timidly, "why are there thorns on a rose-bush."

"Why?" answered Eric. "Certainly not that we may wound ourselves with them. The b.u.t.terfly and the bee do not hurt themselves with the thorns of the rose nor with the spines of the thistle; they only draw honey and pollen from the flower-cups. Nature has not adapted herself to the muscular conformation of man, nor indeed to man at all. Everything exists for itself, and for us only so far as we know how to use and enjoy it. But, Roland," he added, as he saw that the boy did not well understand him, "your question is wrongly put. For what purpose? and why? these are questions for ourselves, not for the rosebush."

The park and garden blossomed and grew, and everything in its place waited quietly for the return of its master; in Roland, too, a garden was planted and carefully tended. And the thought comes, Will the master of this garden, and will his flowers and fruits, bring comfort and refreshment to those who live with him on the earth?

The nightingales in the park had grown silent, the intoxicating sweetness of the blossoms had fled, there was a quiet growth everywhere.

And while the days, were full of mental activity, in the quiet nights Roland and Eric walked along the mountain paths, and feasted their eyes on the moonlit landscape, where on one side the mountains threw their shadows, and in sharp contrast the moonlight rested on the vineyards, and the stars shone above and sparkled in the river. An air of blessed peace lay over the landscape, and the wanderers drank it in as they walked on, breaking the silence only by an occasional word. These hours brought the truest benediction; in them the soul wished only to breathe, to gaze, to dream with open eyes, and to be conscious of the inner fulness, and of the on-flowing, quiet, prosperous growth of nature. The vine draws nourishment from earth and air, and in such hours all that is developed in the soul by nameless forces ripens there, with all that streams into it from without.

CHAPTER XII.

A HUNTER'S PLEASURE AND A HUNTER'S PAIN.

Eric took great care not to change Roland's bold and determined character into one of morbid enthusiasm. He interposed between the studies an equal measure of physical exercise, fencing, leaping, riding, swimming, and rowing. He was glad that he had to call in no other teacher, and he gained new strength, and maintained his constant intercourse with his pupil, by taking the lead in these recreations.

With Fa.s.sbender's help, he also taught Roland to take measurements out of doors. Fa.s.sbender was extremely skilful in such work, but he constantly showed a humble submissiveness towards Roland, which caused Eric much vexation; and when he said one day that he should tell his friend Knopf how industrious and clever Roland was, the boy tossed his head in displeasure. He evidently wished to hear nothing more of Knopf; perhaps, too, he had something in his memory of which he would not speak to Eric.

Eric laid out a shooting-ground for Roland also, not wishing to withdraw him from his accustomed life out of doors, where he had roved at pleasure; only it was distinctly understood that exercise in the open air was to come after mental work, never before it.

One great difficulty lay in moderating Roland's pa.s.sion for hunting.

Eric did not wish to repress it altogether, but only to keep it within due limits. Now, in midsummer, there was only rabbit-hunting, and Claus came to take Roland out with him. Former teachers had left Roland to go alone with the huntsman, but Eric accompanied them, and Roland drew in new life as they went through the vineyards.

Eric's attention was roused at hearing Claus say that Manna had been an extremely bold rider, even as a little child, and afterwards as a growing girl, and that her father had always taken her with him on a hunt, where she showed the wildest spirit. Rose and Thistle were the dogs which had belonged to her, and now whenever they heard her name, they noticed it directly, and looked sharply round as if expecting her.

Eric would have liked to ask how it happened that a bold and spirited girl, who delighted in hunting, could now be living like a penitent in a convent. It was hard to bring this picture of her, hunting with her gun and with her dogs, into harmony with the picture of the winged apparition. But he took care to ask Roland no questions, and behaved to the huntsman as if he had known it all before.

His father had left Roland his favorite dogs, Rose and Thistle; they were small, but powerfully built, with broad chest and strong back, and they appeared to understand when Roland praised them. The smaller, the female, with red chops and many scars on her head, always licked his hand while he extolled her wonderful courage, and hung her head when he said he was sorry that she was not so obedient as the somewhat larger male, Thistle. With sparkling eyes, which seemed to glance with modest pleasure, Thistle looked at Roland when he explained to Eric that the dog would obey only English words, but by their use could be managed perfectly; if he called out to him "_zuruck_!" Thistle looked at him as if deaf; but the moment he said "Come back!" he fell back a foot behind him.