Villa Eden Part 84

Sonnenkamp smiled; he was pleased to see, that this proud virtue knew so well how to hide his deviations from the straight path.

Roland was evidently inclined to break through the strict discipline which Eric had introduced, and which he himself had re-established; whenever he stayed through a lesson he looked sullen, the instigations of his father beginning to show their effect. A glance at Eric frequently would show the latter, that Roland almost looked upon him as his jailor. Hitherto Roland had only seen things with Eric's eyes, and regarded whatever happened to him as if he were expected to accept it for Eric's sake, all this was now at an end. In the dim distance still resounded, the notes of martial music and the laughter of military officers conversing gaily.

Eric could not but notice this change in his pupil; it made him feel sad. He could devote all his energy to Roland. Roland received it much against his will; and since he no longer hesitated to manifest his displeasure, his ill-humor of old returned and revived. Again and again the hardship of a tutor's profession presented itself to Eric's mind.

He lived the past over again. In his garrison, when off duty, he had lived quietly by himself; at the parental home he was allowed to indulge in his own fancies, his mother having been habituated by his father to the belief that she ought to wait quietly to be spoken to, inasmuch as learned men ought not to be disturbed in their reflections; and Eric had been treated in the same way: he was never disturbed, and was left entirely to his own thoughts. Now, however, at table, or while out driving, he had to answer the numerous queries of both pupil and father, who were fond of asking questions, and having intricate ones solved for them. For a long, long time, he had been accustomed to an independent life, devoted to his own mental improvement; now, however, it seemed to him as if, together with his state of servitude, he were losing himself, as if he were but the shadow of his former past, and nothing new nor fresh was stirring in him, while all his former thoughts and feelings appeared to require a forcible awakening. Eric mourned over his mental decline. Formerly he had hardly dared to confess to himself, that he had derived new animation and pleasure from being near Bella--and that was to cease henceforth. What then remained for him?

He stood aghast at perceiving, that the whole sanct.i.ty of his inner self had been staked on another being, and a new revelation came to him, which made Sonnenkamp's dissatisfaction, as well as that of his pupil, appear as a just penalty. He redoubled his zeal, but in vain.

An event, seemingly trifling, and of a surprising nature, brought the disturbing elements to a crisis. Sonnenkamp paid Eric the first instalment of his salary in Roland's presence, looking all the while triumphantly at his son. Eric trembled, but quickly recovered his self-control. He took the gold and advanced a step or two towards the window at which Roland was standing. Sonnenkamp supposed, for a moment, that he was going to throw the gold out of the window, but Eric said, in a tone of forced composure:--

"Roland, take my pay and carry the money to my room. There you may wait for me."

Roland took the gold, looking confusedly at his father and Eric.

"Do me the favor of carrying that gold to my room," repeated Eric. "And now go." Roland went. He carried the money as if it were a heavy burden, and repaired to Eric's room, where he deposited it on the table. He then turned to go, when the thought suddenly occurred to him, that he ought also to watch it; he was on the point of locking the room, when he remembered, that Eric had ordered him to wait for his coming. He stood there, while everything seemed to be whirling around.

What had happened?

Suddenly Pranken came in to bid him good-bye. He congratulated Roland upon his speedy deliverance from Eric. Then only did he realize what had happened, and what was to follow. Pranken referred slightingly to Eric, as to a man to whom he might make certain concessions from sheer pity. Merrily he bade Roland farewell. After he had gone. Roland felt that he could no longer have any love for Pranken, and realized a sense of loss; he quietly remained standing at the table, looking down upon the money before him. In a childlike way he began to count the sum Eric had received. For what length of time had he received it? He could not make it out, and turned angrily aside to look out of the window.

Behind him on the table lay the money; he felt as if somebody near him were whispering all the time: Forget me not!

Meanwhile Eric was still in the room with Sonnenkamp, who, with an air of great astonishment, said,--

"You are wantonly destroying all attachment between us."

Eric replied, that he might perhaps have chosen a more appropriate time, and that nothing but the manner in which he had been paid had compelled him to act as he had done.

"Have I hurt your feelings?"

"I am not very sensitive. I appreciate money as far as it deserves to appreciated and am always pleased at receiving my honest wages. I am inclined to think that I love your son more than--no matter! there is no standard to measure love by,--it can only be measured by itself."

"I am obliged to you."

"I beg your pardon, sir; allow me to finish my sentence. Just because I love your son, I prefer to have the blame fall upon me rather than upon his father."

"Upon me?"

"Yes, sir. I might have paid you back for the way in which you paid me off in my pupil's presence; I might have told you that free labor--I abstain from using the word love, and simply confine myself to refer to such work as one man will do freely for another--can never be paid. I suppressed my feelings, because I wished that your son should love and respect you more than he does other people, than even myself."

Sonnenkamp clenched his fists. He stared at Eric for awhile, but soon looked down; he had to exert great self-control in order not to betray that he trembled.

At last he said,--

"I don't know what you mean by some expressions you have used, and I don't want to know. But I am the man to put a bullet through the forehead of him who attempts----"

"I very readily comprehend your excitement," said Eric, quietly straightening himself up and looking Sonnenkamp coolly in the face.

"Who are you? Who am I?" asked Sonnenkamp, while his features were strangely distorted.

"I am your son's tutor, and I know the accountableness of my position; I am in your service; this is your house, you can turn me out of it at once."

"I will not do that--not that! Have I said that I would? I must only explain myself to you, and you must explain yourself to me. Have you not said to Roland that the time will come, or has already come, when there would no longer be any private property?"

Eric a.s.sured him that he had not the remotest purpose of doing anything of the kind; he was sorry that he made use of the ill.u.s.tration, and regretted Roland's misconception.

"Let us sit down," said Sonnenkamp, his knees trembling. "Let us talk calmly, like reasonable men, like friends, if I may be allowed to say so."

He whistled to himself, and then said, in a wholly different tone,--

"I must tell you, that irrespective of this mistake, your whole tone of thought seems to me dangerous to my son. You seem to me, in fact, a philanthropist, and I honor that; you are one of those persons who would like to thank every common laborer in the road for his toil, and pay him also as much as possible. You see I believe your philanthropy is genuine, and not taken up merely for the sake of popularity. But this philanthropy--I speak without any disguise--is not the thing for my son. My son will have, at some time, a princely income; and if a rich man must go through life in this way, always looking around to see where there is poverty, where there is not adequate compensation, he would be condemned to greater wretchedness than the beggar in the ditch. The worst thing that could be done to my son would be to make him sentimental, or even pitiful and compa.s.sionate. I am not one of those men, and I would not have my son to be one, who are eternally longing after the ineffable, and, as I believe, unattainable; I want for myself and for my son a practical enjoyment of existence. Believe me, a contraband-trade will be driven in feelings, if one persuades himself that men in lower conditions have the same susceptibilities that we have."

"I thank you," replied Eric, "for this straightforward plainness of speech, and I am glad that you have given me the opportunity to tell you that I have endeavored to make Roland good-hearted, but not weak-hearted. He is to comprehend the goodly advantages of his life, so that he may receive and make his own the n.o.blest and the highest; he is to be a n.o.ble administrator of the grand power that is to be put into his hands."

Eric unfolded this more in detail, and Sonnenkamp, extending his hand to him, said,--

"You are--you are--a n.o.ble man, you have also to be my educator. Forget what has happened. I trust you now, unconditionally. I confide in you, that you will not alienate from me the heart of my child, that you will not make him a soft-hearted helper of everybody, and everything."

Sonnenkamp jerked these words out forcibly, for he inwardly chafed, that this man, whom he wanted to humble, had humbled him, so that he was compelled to stand before him like a beggar, entreating a stranger not to alienate from him the heart of his child.

"Why,"--he at last began again, "I pray you, I only ask for information, for I am convinced that you have good grounds for every such step,"--a spiteful glance, notwithstanding all his guarded discretion, gleamed forth at this question--"I only ask for information, why you have restrained Roland from making a free use of his purse, as, since my return, I have been informed is the case."

"I cannot give definite reasons for all my doings, but I have a valid one for this. Roland lavishes and squanders money, and he does it ignorantly and wantonly, while I consider the control of money a part of self-control."

And now Eric informed Sonnenkamp what an impression the robbery had made upon Roland. Exultantly Sonnenkamp cried out:--

"I am rejoiced that he has found out so early how completely one is surrounded in the world by knaves; he will be cautious whenever he comes to manage his own affairs. Yes, Herr Philosopher, write down in your books: The one trait in which man surpa.s.ses the brutes is, that man is the only animal who can dissemble and can lie. And the sooner and the more perfectly my son can know that fact, so much the better am I pleased. I should be very glad if Roland had been through the second grade of schools."

"The second grade?"

"Yes; the first is, to bestow benefits upon people, and then to get an insight into their rascality; the second is, to play games of chance, believing that one can make any gain thereby. Debts of beneficence and debts of the gaming-table are not very willingly paid."

There was a certain fatherly tone in Sonnenkamp's voice, as he praised Eric's transcendental benevolent intents, at the same time warning him of the baseness of the whole brood of human creatures. His fundamental maxim was, that man is a wolf to his fellow-man.

When Eric came to Roland, the latter stretched out both his hands to him.

"I thank you," cried the boy, "for treating me as my father treated you; yes, I will have nothing more to do with money. I beseech you, forgive my father for paying you like a servant."

Eric had great difficulty in making an explanation to the boy, so as not to disturb and bewilder his natural feelings and perceptions. The son must preserve love and respect for his father.

"Put away the gold," Roland entreated. Eric immediately put it away out of sight, for he saw how it annoyed the youth.

"Give me something," he then besought,

"I have nothing to give," answered Eric. "But you will know henceforth, that one human being can give something to another which is of more value than all the gold in the world; we will both hold fast the proverb: A friend who can desert you was never your friend."

Roland kissed the hand which had received the gold. Eric was opposed to all sentimentality, but here he had witnessed the opening of a flower, and had inhaled its earliest fragrance, and this flower was a youth's heart.

"We will go and see the Major," said Roland at last; it was evident that he wanted to be with some person who had nothing to do with all this perplexity, and simply lived his own quiet life.

They went to the Major's, but did not find him in. They walked for a long time together, until after dark, without speaking a word.