Villa Eden Part 80

Herr Sonnenkamp returned to his villa like a ruler to his castle where a mutiny has lately broken out. Every step in his house, every glance at a servant, said, I am here again, and with me authority and order.

Eric did not lay upon Pranken the blame of what had happened, but confessed that he himself had been guilty of neglect of duty.

Sonnenkamp seemed to take pleasure in seeing Eric humbled. He was one of those who love to rule others. With enough humanity in him to make him prefer a willing obedience, he yet had no rest, when that proved impossible, till his man was subdued and brought to his feet; then, and not till then, was he willing to raise him up, for not till then was he sure of the mastery. This self-reliant Captain-doctor had a.s.sumed a demeanor that was unbecoming in him; now he was humbled, and would have to be grateful for every act of kindness and friendliness done him.

Sonnenkamp had no suspicion of the satisfaction Eric took in his humiliation, or of his motives for it; he regarded this humble submission as a triumph of his authority, while to Eric himself it was a confession of weakness in having been tempted by the magic of Bella's charms to forget the strict watchfulness which was his duty.

Sonnenkamp soon perceived that the amount of the robbery was insignificant. He said, with a certain malicious pleasure:--

"The knaves stole my jewelled dagger; it has a poisoned point, which is death to whomsoever it scratches."

Eric had hardly power left to tell that the dagger was already in possession of the officers of justice, so great a horror thrilled him.

Why should this man keep a poisoned dagger?

Pranken and the Major soon appeared, and Pranken was honest enough to take the whole responsibility upon himself. He could not refrain from saying, however, that Eric had previously left the villa to go to a musical festival, and had won a surprising reputation there. Sonnenkamp said, with a smile:--

"You kept Roland at home instead of letting him go to the Baths, in order to keep him free from excitement; have you preserved him from it?"

Eric was prevented from answering by the arrival of the priest, to whom Sonnenkamp, who had never made any gift to the church, announced his intention of presenting to it the gold and silver vessels which had been taken from the sideboard. As if involuntarily, he added:--

"I don't want them any more in my house. You, reverend sir, will give them a fresh consecration."

Eric expressed in a whisper to the Major, who stood by him, his pleasure at this arrangement, and his belief that it would exert a salutary influence on Roland, whose peace of mind had been in a great measure destroyed by the robbery. Sonnenkamp heard his words, though spoken in so low a tone, and said:--

"My highly honored Herr Captain, let me tell you honestly that I have nothing to do with sentimentalities, and that I desire Roland should early acquire a knowledge of these so-called well-disposed lower cla.s.ses, and learn that they are nothing but a ma.s.s of conspiracy against the holders of property, awaiting the first favorable opportunity to break out, or rather to break in."

Sonnenkamp was in the highest degree animated and cheerful. His only cause of regret was, that there should have been so much talk made about the affair in the neighborhood, and that so much valuable time had to be lost in the processes of law. Frau Ceres said not a word about the robbery; it almost seemed as if she had not heard of it. She only rejoiced that Roland had grown so much during her absence. She told Eric that she had met at the Baths a most aristocratic and amiable lady, a relation of his mother, who had spoken of her with great enthusiasm.

The very first evening after the return of Sonnenkamp and his family, a carriage drove up in which were Bella and Clodwig. Eric was delighted to greet his friends, but was somewhat shy of Bella.

"We have come to protect you from this savage," she whispered to him behind her fan; "we will show him that you belong to us. And now you will leave everything and come to us, will you not?"

The words thrilled Eric; he could only bow his thanks.

Bella observed her husband's embarra.s.sment as he stood with Sonnenkamp.

His fine and sensitive nature could never overcome a feeling of timidity, of terror, whenever he found himself confronted with this herculean shape. Bella helped him out of the difficulty by saying jestingly, "Herr Sonnenkamp, you must have seen many strange things in your life; did you ever happen to fall in with thieves who openly confessed they had stolen, or were proposing to steal?"

Sonnenkamp looked at her in amazement.

"We are such thieves, in broad daylight," she cried, laughing, and turning to her husband she continued:--

"Now do you speak, dear Clodwig."

Clodwig hesitatingly expressed his wish to have Eric live with him.

Sonnenkamp's sharp glance fell upon Bella. The forefinger of his left hand was already raised in playful menace against her, and he was on the point of saying, "I understand you," when he checked himself, and, laying his finger on his lips, said:--

"I am glad to see that our Herr Eric"--with a peculiar emphasis on the word "our"--"that our Herr Eric stands so high in your good graces."

Eric was struck by the peculiar stress laid upon the word "our." He seemed to have become a piece of property. Still more surprised was he at Sonnenkamp's offering him his hand the next moment and saying:--

"You remain ours, do you not?"

Eric bowed.

Bella dwelt, with intentional emphasis, upon the particulars of her visit to Eric's mother in the University-town. She evidently desired to let Herr Sonnenkamp know that a man of Eric's rank and position was not to be crushed on account of a trifling act of neglect. Sonnenkamp whistled to himself inaudibly, as if some plan were ripening in him.

Bella contrived again to be alone with Eric, and expressed to him her satisfaction at the success of her little plot. She knew, she said, that Sonnenkamp would not let him go, but she also knew that he would humble him on account of the neglect he had been guilty of, and therefore persuaded Clodwig to drive over at once. Eric was full of grat.i.tude.

"Did you notice," she asked in a low voice, "what a look Herr Sonnenkamp gave me, and how he raised his finger at me? This man imagines that our friendship is something more than friendship; to the impure nothing is pure. I think you will not misunderstand me, if I sometimes intentionally slight you in the presence of this spying knave."

She gave Eric her hand, and held his long and tightly pressed. Neither suspected that from behind a bush two eyes were fixed upon them, and a sharp ear heard their every word. When they had pa.s.sed on, Sonnenkamp drew a deep breath as a relief from the long constraint he had put upon himself.

CHAPTER II.

AN INALIENABLE POSSESSION.

The next morning came the tidings that the groom whom Sonnenkamp had dismissed shortly before his journey, suspecting him of being a spy of Pranken's, had been arrested in the capital in the very act of offering for sale a large silver goblet. Roland brought the news to Eric, and this was only one of the many interruptions liable at any moment to break in upon the hours of study and thought, in consequence of this robbery. Of what use were lessons when the mind was thus excited? What lasting impression could be made? At one time Eric thought of going hunting more frequently with Roland, in order to amuse him and let him gain fresh elasticity and powers of observation by the pursuit of new objects. But he finally decided on the opposite course, that of helping his pupil not by amus.e.m.e.nt, but by closer application to his studies.

Great was his satisfaction, therefore, at having Roland say to him,--

"Let us forget all else and quietly go on with our work."

The boy's love of study had received an impulse which made every interruption distasteful to him, and led him to look for his best pleasures in his books.

Roland soon became conscious of a fresh energy in Eric, without being able to conjecture its cause; it was the exaltation that follows a danger escaped, escaped by one's own effort. Whenever Eric thought of the days at Wolfsgarten, and his trifling with those feelings which should be the finest of the human heart, he seemed to himself a thief.

He had recklessly staked the entire capital which he had so laboriously won; he had allowed himself, under a pretended interchange of n.o.ble thoughts, to toy with Bella: to flirt, as he called it in plain language, with Clodwig's wife. To his mind, he had violated a sanctuary; how small, how infinitely small in comparison, seemed the offence of these poor people! He felt deeply humbled in his own eyes.

How gladly would he have made a pilgrimage with Roland to some temple where he could purify himself, and where Roland could gain new strength! Whither should he turn?

It is easier for one wearied in the exciting race of life, and burdened in conscience, to enter into the invisible temple built with hands than into the visible temple of science; yet Eric succeeded in doing this.

What he would with difficulty have accomplished for himself, perhaps would have failed to accomplish, he did from duty to another. He lost himself in the love of knowledge, and everything became clearer and more intelligible. As an experienced swimmer delights in the onward rush of the waves, dives below the surface to rise again to the light, and with vigorous arms divides the waters; so Eric plunged into science, and felt his heart swell with joy when the mighty waves roared towards him. Gone were all petty fears and anxieties, all self-contest.

In Roland, too, deep currents were stirred. He often went about as in a dream. The ground beneath him, which he now knew to be in constant motion, swam before his eyes: the heavens were no longer there; the old world was dissolved and a new one revealed; while mingling with all this new life within him was the thought that all private property would be abolished, and poverty and riches divided equally among men.

Eric observed this excitement in the mind of his pupil. Roland said to him one day timidly,--

"Tell me, Eric, if there will ever come to be no more private property in the world, and consequently no more thieves."

Eric was startled to see how this strange idea had taken hold of the boy. He explained that he had only brought that up as an ill.u.s.tration; the thing itself was an impossibility; he had only meant to show what a radical change might be worked in the minds and lives of men.

Fresh evidences of this unaccountable tendency of the boy's thoughts were constantly appearing. One day he asked Eric to go with him to the huntsman's, to see how his wife and children were faring. He said he had met the man's son, a cooper in the service of the Wine-count, a little while ago, and had offered to shake hands with him, telling him the son was not to blame for what the father had done, even if he had done anything wrong, which he certainly had not; but that the cooper had stared at him, and instead of taking his offered hand, had drawn his hammer from his leather ap.r.o.n, swung it back and forth for a while, and finally walked off.

When Eric and Roland approached the huntsman's house, the birds in the cages were singing, busiest among them the blackbird, with his incessant chirp of thanksgiving, and the dogs were bounding merrily.

The wife looked ill and slatternly, and was full of complaints. She told how she had wanted to let all the birds out after her husband was taken to prison, but her son, the cooper, insisted on everything being left as it was till his father came back, which was sure to be very soon; Sevenpiper had in the mean while undertaken to do part of her husband's work, and the cooper attended to the night duties, though he had to work so hard through the day. Everything should be done properly, that the place might be kept open for her husband.

Eric offered her a sum of money, which she refused, saying that her son, the cooper, had forbidden her to accept anything from Sonnenkamp's family.

"If this man is innocent, as I believe he is," said Roland, when they were in the villa again, "what can make up to him for all the anxiety and distress he has had to suffer?"

Eric had no satisfactory answer to give; he could only say that this was another proof of the fact that the best things in life could not be supplied by money.