Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

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 assented, and had many wonderful stories to tell. When Eric went with Roland into the passenger'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 noble 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 Constitution, 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 Crassus 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 passed 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 constituted a knotty point of investigation.

"Do you think the Niggers 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.

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 Saturday, 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 givenA 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 strifeBecloud thy heavens serene.To-day suffices with its good;And, sing your children in poetic strains,Be it on higher themesThan 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 Crassus, 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 passages from the classic 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 butterfly 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 Fassbender's help, he also taught Roland to take measurements out of doors. Fassbender 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 passion 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.

They passed a low oak-tree; Roland seized a branch, and shook it, crying "Hang!" and Thistle sprang up, caught the branch with his sharp teeth, and remained hanging to it till Roland told him to let go. Rose performed the same trick, and even outdid herself, for she whirled round several times as she hung, and then, with a sudden jerk, broke off the branch and brought it to Roland. The boy and the dogs were very happy together, and seemed to understand equally well where they were going.

They went by the huntsman's house, where the two ferrets were put into a basket. On the edge of the wood, Roland took out the pretty little yellow creatures, which moved in a sort of snake-like way, and put muzzles on them, caressing them as he did it. They then went into the thicket, where fresh burrows were soon found; over some of the outlets, nets were spread, and Roland was delighted at the skilful way in which Eric fastened them down with pegs, which he made from twigs cut from the trees. The ferrets were let loose, and very soon a rustling was heard, and some rabbits came into the nets, and were soon bitten and shaken to death by the dogs. The ferrets were sent in again, and the hunters stood before the holes to shoot the rabbits as they came out; Roland missed, but Eric hit his mark.