Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

She proffered herself as companion of an invalid princess, who was ordered to reside for a year at Madeira; on returning, after the death of the princess at the island, Bella smiled when she was told of the Adjutant General's marriage. She could not complain that suitors gradually grew fewer in number, but still she was vexed at it.

She took now a journey with two English ladies to Italy and Greece, with Lootz for her courier. She spent a whole winter at Constantinople, and the malicious tongues at the capital said, that she was after a man of exalted position, and that everything else was a matter of indifference to her; that she would marry a gray-bearded Pacha. On her return Bella generally appeared dressed in satin.

Then came Clodwig's suit; and, to the great surprise of the whole capital, the betrothal and the wedding took place within four weeks of each other. Bella retired with her husband to Wolfsgarten, not essentially changed by marriage, and without gaining that full development of the nature it gives to woman. What was there still to be developed? She was accomplished, and she was specially happy, so far as happiness was possible to her, in perceiving – what she had not looked for, although she hoped to find it – Clodwig's nobility of soul.

For the first time, she felt humble and modest; her life was peaceful and retired, and the days flowed on in uniform round. Clodwig was as attentive, as sympathizing, and as full of devotion as at first; a composure and a steadfastness, such as is assigned only to the gods, was the prevailing characteristic of his spirit. He was personally considerate and tender, to an extreme degree; and he exhibited his vehement nature, which found vent in the strongest expressions, only when dwelling upon matters of universal interest. Bella recognized in this only a justifiable excitement, for Clodwig's active life had been passed in a petty, crippled period, and wasted in the trifling affairs of a lilliputian Principality, while he himself was fitted for grander and more universal affairs.

Clodwig often reproached himself for the firm confidence that he had entertained during his whole life, that the Idea would, of itself, become realized; and he now saw, when it was too late, that one must plunge headlong into the current of cooperating influences. As soon as he went again among men, and especially when he entered the court-circle, he was always gentle and indulgent. He was full of admiration of his wife's talents, and if at any time he moderately criticized and set forth her superficial and external mode of looking at things, she was for an instant inwardly disturbed; but when she looked upon the noble, refined form of the old man, all frowardness vanished. She was happy to see herself, and to make the world see, how she could cherish a great and good man. She knew that she would be watched; and the world should never have occasion to remark invidiously upon her conduct.

All at once there had now entered this peaceful circle a man who disposed of her, her husband, and the whole house, without effort and with irresistible power; and she had been opposed to him at first, had expressed that opposition to Clodwig, and had zealously labored against his becoming established in the neighborhood. But as Clodwig had brought into prominent notice, with an enthusiastic kindness of heart, the sterling traits of this man's character, had even drawn him towards herself against her will, she resigned herself to the pleasure of this enlivening intercourse.

Thus stood Bella before the portrait to which she still delayed to put the finishing touch, inwardly chafing, and thoroughly vexed with herself. She, the mature in experience, to be the subject of such a girlish infatuation! "girlish infatuation," she called it, and yet she could not free herself from it. Was it because her self-love was wounded; was it because, for the first time, she had stretched out her hand and it was not taken?

Her large eyes sparkled, and whoever had beheld her now would have seen the Medusa-look.

She left the studio with all speed, and went to her dressing-room. She stood there before the large mirror, and let down her luxuriant hair, staring into the mirror, while upon her closely pressed lips lay the question. Art thou then so old? She opened her lips, like one ill with fever, like one parched with thirst, panting to drink. Her eyes beamed with a joyous brightness, as she said to herself: Thou art beautiful. Thou art able to judge of thyself as impartially as thou wouldest a stranger. But what means this silly infatuation?

She took the long tresses of her hair in both hands, and held them crossed under her chin; she was terrified as she now perceived, for the first time, how strong a likeness she bore to the bust of Medusa in the guest-chamber above.

"Yes, I will be Medusa! He shall be shattered, turned into stone, annihilated! He shall kneel to me, and then I will trample him under my feet!" She raised her foot, but immediately covered her face with both hands, while tears flowed from her eyes.

"Forgive, forgive my pride, my madness!" was the cry uttered within her. Fierce irritation and passionate emotion, pride and humility, contended together within her breast, and it seemed as if the chill of that morning serenade had been all at once removed, and the heart had unfolded itself, as some long-closed calyx unfolds its petals. A longing sprang up within her – a longing for home, as in some wayward child who has run away from its parents into the woods – a longing for some place of shelter and rest, – a home: where is it? where?

She yearned for a soul to which she could lay open all her own soul.

"Forgive me! forgive!" was echoed and re-echoed within her. At first it was directed to Clodwig, and now to Eric.

"Forgive! forgive my pride! But thou canst not know how proud I have been: and I sacrificed to thee more than a thousand others, more than the whole world, can even conceive and comprehend."

She shuddered at being alone, rang for her dressing-maid, and made an elaborate toilet.

"Tell me how old I am. Do you not know?" she suddenly asked.

The dressing-maid was startled at the question, and not returning an immediate answer, Bella continued: —

"I have never been young."

"O my gracious lady, you are still young, and you never looked better than you do now."

"Do you think so?" said Bella, throwing back her head, for a voice within her said: Why shouldest thou not be also young for once? Thou art! Thou art what thou canst not help being; and let the world be what it must be too.

Leaving the house, she went around the garden, seeming to herself to be a captive. Unconsciously she went into the room on the ground-floor, and as she stood near the unearthed antiquities, a voice within her said: —

"What are all these? What are these vessels? Lava-ashes! all ashes! What is all this antiquarian rummaging? What is the use of this picking up of old buried trash, this perpetual thinking and talking about humanity and progress? all foreign, dead, a conversation over a death-bed; nothing but distraction, forgetfulness; no life, no hope, no future; never towards the day, always towards the night, – the night of the past, and the ideal of humanity. But I am not the past, I am not an ideal of humanity. I am the to-day, I will be the today. Ah me, where am I!" She went into the garden, and watched two butterflies hovering hither and thither in the air, now alighting upon the flowers, now coming together, separating again, and again uniting.

"This is life!" was the cry within her. "This is life! they grub up no ancient relics, they live with no antiquities."

Then came a swallow darting down, seized one of the butterflies, and vanished.

What is thy life to thee now, thou poor butterfly?

Below, over the Rhine, clouds of smoke from the steamboats were floating in the air, and Bella thought: —

"If one could only thus fly away! What do we here? We heat with our blood this dead earth, so that it may have some little life. Our life-breath is nothing but a puff of vapor that mingles with thousands of other vaporous films; this we call life, and it vanishes like the thousands-"

The children of the laborers upon the estate, coming out of school, saluted the gracious lady.

Bella stared at them. What becomes of these children? What is the use of this fatuous renewing of humanity?

As if to conceal herself from herself, she buried her face in a flowering shrub. She left the park; she saw in the court outside the dove cooing about his mate. The beautiful mate was so coy, picked up its food so quietly, hardly paying any attention to the tender gurgling, and then flew away to the house-top, where she trimmed her feathers. The dove flew after his mate, but she shook her head again and took flight.

Then as Bella was gazing with a fixed look, she saw a servant yoking some oxen. He first placed a pad upon the head of the beast, and over that a wooden yoke.

"This is the world! This is the world," said a voice within her. "A pad between yoke and head, a pad of thoughts, of got-up feelings."

The servant was astounded to see the gracious lady staring so fixedly, and now she asked him: —

"Does it not hurt them?" He did not understand what she meant, and she was obliged to repeat the question; he now replied: —

"The ox don't know anything different, he's made for just this. Since the gracious Herr has let the double yoke be taken off, and each ox has now his own yoke to himself, they're harder to manage, but they draw a deal easier than when they were double-yoked."

Bella shivered.

"Double yoke – single yoke," was sounding in her ears, and suddenly it seemed to her as if it were night, and she herself only a ghost wandering around. This house, these gardens, this world, all is but a realm of shadows that vanishes away.

It was terribly sultry, and Bella felt as if she should suffocate. Then a fresh current of air streamed over the height, a thunderstorm unexpectedly came up, and Bella had hardly reached the house before there came thunder, lightning, and a driving rain.

Bella stood at the window and stared out into the distance, and then up at an old ash-tree, whose branches were dashing about in every direction, and whose trunk was bending from the gale. The tree inclined itself towards the house, as if it must there get help. Bella thought to herself, – For years and years this tree has been rooting itself here and thriving, and no tempest can wrench it away and lop off its boughs. Does it know that this storm will pass over, and serve only to give it new strength? I am such a tree also, and I stand firm. Come tempest, come lightning and thunder, come beating rain, neither shall you uproot me, nor lop off my boughs!

"Eric!" she suddenly exclaimed aloud to herself. Clodwig now entered, saying, —

"Dear wife, I have been looking for you."

Bella's soul was deeply moved when she heard him call her "dear wife." Clodwig showed her a letter that he had been writing to the Professor's widow, inviting her, according to Bella's expressed desire, to make a visit of several weeks at Wolfsgarten.

"Don't send the letter," said she abruptly, "let us again be quietly by ourselves; I would rather not be disturbed now by the Dournay family."

Clodwig expressed his opinion that the noble lady, so far from interfering with their quiet, would be an additional element of beautiful companionship, and would be the means of their seeing Eric in a pleasant way.

The storm had ceased, and when Bella opened the window, a refreshing breeze drew in. She held the letter in her hand; it had been tempest, lightning, rain, and thunder that raged to-day in her soul, and now there was refreshing life. She agreed with her husband; she said to herself, that intercourse with the noble woman would restore her to herself; and for a moment the thought occurred to her that she would confess all to the mother, and be governed by her. Then came the thought that this was not necessary; it would be very natural for Eric to come to Wolfsgarten, and her intercourse with him would fall back into the old peaceful channels.

Bella wrote a short postscript to the letter of her husband; and the Doctor also, who came in just as they were closing the letter, added a few words.

CHAPTER XII.

AN OPEN COURT AND AN OPEN INVENTORY

The fireworks were still crackling and snapping in their ears, the dazzling lights still gleaming in their eyes, and the music of the band still sounding in their recollection, when they were obliged to make ready for appearance at court, as witnesses in the affair of the burglary.

Pranken remained with the guests at the Villa, having undertaken to show them the recently purchased country-house.

Sonnenkamp, Roland, and Eric, and also the porter, the coachman, Bertram, the head-gardener, the little "Squirrel," and two gardeners repaired to the county town to attend the trial. They went by the house of the Wine-count, now styled Baron von Endlich, where the remnants of fireworks were still visible, scattered here and there; the house was yet shut up, the family still sleeping their first sleep as members of the nobility.

Eric spoke of the beautiful and genuinely pious conduct of the priest towards the prisoners. He was a living example of the grand doctrine that religion required one to interest himself in the stumbling and the unfortunate, whether they were guilty or innocent. The Doctor, on the other hand, maintained in a very droll fashion that it was an extremely beneficial thing for the Ranger to pass, once in his life, several weeks within walls and under a roof.

There was little else said; they reached the county town in good season.

Sonnenkamp went to the telegraph office, in order to send some messages, one of which was directed to the University-town for the widow of the Professor.

"At that time – does it not seem to you as if it were ten years ago? – at that time it was very different from to-day. Don't you think that there were villains also among the singers, perhaps worse ones than those in prison yonder?"

It pained Eric grievously that Roland must be initiated so early into the bitterness and the dissensions of life. They went together to the court-house.

The president and the judges occupied a raised platform; on the right sat the jury, and on the left, the accused and their counsel; the room was full of spectators, for there was a general curiosity to hear the mysterious Herr Sonnenkamp speak in public, and no one knew what might be picked up in the way of information.

The dwarf, the groom, and the huntsman sat on the criminals' seat. The dwarf took snuff very zealously, the groom looked around imploringly, and Claus held his hands before his eyes.

The dwarf looked as if he had had good keeping, and thriven under it; he gazed around the ball with an almost satisfied bearing, as if he felt flattered that so many people concerned themselves about him. The groom, whose hair had been very nicely dressed, regarded the crowd with a contemptuous glance.

Claus seemed to have pined away considerably, and when the dwarf wanted to whisper something to him, as he sat there at a little distance from his fellow defendants, he turned away displeased. He looked up to the space occupied by the spectators, and saw among them his wife, two of his sons, and his daughter; but the cooper was not present. The children appeared to have grown since he had last seen them, and they were dressed in their Sunday-clothes, in order to witness the disgrace – no, it must simply be the honor of their father.

The huntsman moved restlessly on the seat, and spoke to his wife with his lips, uttering no sound. He meant to tell her to be undisturbed, as in a couple of hours they would go home together.

Sonnenkamp, Eric, and Roland were in the witnesses' seat.

Roland sat between his father and Eric, to whom he clung as if he were afraid. Knopf sat next to Eric, and nodded to Roland.

"Before the law the testimony of all men is equal," said Roland in a low voice to Eric, who knew what was passing in Roland's mind.

His pride was a little touched that the testimony of the porter would be of as much account as that of his father, but he had quickly overcome the feeling.

The indictments were read. It had been found, on further investigation, that one compartment of the closet built into the wall, separate from the great safe, had been opened with a key and then closed again; a considerable sum of money had been taken from it, the greater part of which was found in the groom's possession.

At his own request, Sonnenkamp was summoned first, to identify the stolen property.

Roland straightened himself up, when he heard his father give his testimony in so plain and gentle a manner.

Sonnenkamp expressed regret that people should meet with misfortune, but justice must have its course.

He was dismissed. He had already made his bow, and was about to leave the courtroom, when the counsel of the accused groom asked the President whether he intended to let Herr Sonnenkamp off from testifying as to the amount of gold and valuable papers in the closet; if Herr Sonnenkamp did not know this, he could not tell exactly how much had been stolen from him in the part that had been broken into.

The whole assembly was breathless. Now it would be seen what was the amount of Sonnenkamp's wealth, reputed so immeasurable. A perfect silence prevailed for a time; it was broken by Sonnenkamp's asking whether the court could oblige him to testify on his conscience as to the sum, or whether he could reply, or not, as he saw fit. The President said, that he must express the opinion, that the amount of what was stolen was certainly of great importance in reference to the sentence to be imposed upon the accused.

Again there was a pause. Sonnenkamp unbuttoned his coat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and taking out a little memorandum-book, he approached the judge's seat, and offered it to him, saying: —

"Here is an exact inventory of the notes payable to bearer, of those payable to my order, and of the sum in specie."

When half way up the steps of the platform where the president and the judges sat, Sonnenkamp stopped, for the defendant's counsel now cried: —

"We have an open court, entirely open, and there is nothing which the Herr President is to know, and we to be ignorant of."

"Well then," said Sonnenkamp, turning round, "it shall be told openly: Twelve millions of paper payable to the bearer, three millions to my order, and only two hundred thousand in gold coin. Is that satisfactory?"

A bravo was uttered by the spectators, and the President was obliged to threaten them with clearing the hall, if it were repeated.

Sonnenkamp descended; he had desired to leave the court-room at once, but now he seemed otherwise determined, for he took a seat again on the witnesses' bench. Roland cast down his eyes, and tremblingly seized hold of Eric's hand, which he held firmly. There was a low talking among the crowd, a movement this way and that, so that the President was obliged to command quiet by violently ringing his bell; and Sonnenkamp left the hall.

The head-gardener gave his testimony, which was scarcely listened to. When Eric was summoned, there was again silent attention.

Eric narrated the whole story, and the huntsman's uniform expressions of bitterness at the difference between the rich and the poor, but protested that he regarded the man as incapable of committing any crime against society.

A strange whispering pervaded the whole assembly when Eric narrated the inquiry of Claus: What would you do, if you were the possessor of millions? The question had now, in a manner, gone forth to the whole world.

Knopf was summoned. He offered first a written testimony of the old Herr Weidmann, with whom the huntsman had lived several years as a servant, who testified to his uprightness, his incapability of any deceit, much less any positive crime. Then Knopf added from his own knowledge, how the huntsman was always racking his brains over many matters which he could not master.

Roland was summoned, and advanced with an erect attitude to the witness-stand; Claus nodded to him.

Roland could not be sworn, as he was a minor; but it made a good impression when he said in an unembarrassed voice, that he considered his word as good as an oath.

He identified the articles that had been stolen from him; he asserted that his father's rooms had been locked, but he should not be willing to swear to that, as he had not been near those rooms for several days before the burglary. And now, without being asked, he expressed his conviction that Claus could have had no participation in the crime.

The huntsman got up at these words, and the forester, who sat behind him, obliged him to sit down again, putting his hand upon his shoulder.

The evidence against Claus seemed to be only as the receiver of stolen goods. The two others could make no defence, and each sought to lay upon the other the guilt of the burglary.

Eric was recalled, in order to testify more in detail concerning the huntsman's request to be shown all over the house, a few days before the robbery. When Eric had sat down, Roland got up and asked: —

"Herr President, may I be permitted to say one word more?"

"Speak," replied the President encouragingly; "say all that you wish to."

Roland stepped forward quickly, with head erect, and said, in a voice that had now a full, manly tone, —

"I here raise my hand in testimony, that my poor brother here is as innocent as he is poor. It is true he has often complained that one man should starve while another gormandizes; but before God and man I declare that he has often said to me: The hand must wither that grasps unjust possessions. Can a man do that, and then go away by night and break into another's house, and rob? I beseech you, I conjure you earnestly, to declare that this man is as innocent as all of you are; as innocent as I am!" He ceased, standing as if he were rooted to the spot, and for a while there was a breathless stillness in the assembly.

"Have you any thing more to say?" asked the President. Roland seemed now to wake up, and said, —

"No, nothing more. I thank you." He returned to Eric, who grasped his hand; it was cold as ice, and he warmed it in his own. On the other side, Knopf also tried to grasp the hand of his former pupil, but he could not, for he was obliged to take off his spectacles, which had become wet from the great tears rolling from his eyes.

The proceedings were brief. The Headmaster was one of the jury, who now withdrew into their room for consultation. After a short absence they returned, and the head-master, who had been chosen foreman, laying his hand upon his heart, announced the unanimous verdict: —

The dwarf and the groom, guilty; the huntsman, not guilty.

Outside, in front of the court-house, as his wife and children, – the cooper among them now, – crowded round Claus, Roland pressed up to him and seized his hand.

The huntsman turned from them all, saying that he must speak to young Weidmann, who had been one of the jury; the young man came up just then, and Claus cried out to him, with a great flow of words, that he must tell his father that all his troubles were wiped out, since every one had heard what Herr Weidmann thought of him.

Young Weidmann went to Eric and congratulated him on having formed such a pupil; others came also to offer congratulations and shake hands. Eric begged young Weidmann to remember him to his father, and say that he should soon pay the promised visit to Mattenheim.

Knopf stood in the midst of a group of people, begging them not to spoil the boy with their praises; and, in his effort to keep others back, he refrained from going himself to shake hands with Roland.

Sonnenkamp appeared, and all took off their hats to him respectfully. Here was the man possessed of such incredible wealth, and he wore a coat like other people, and had to stand on his own feet. Sonnenkamp seemed a prodigy to them all. How was it possible for a man to possess such wealth? But there were some knowing scoffers who declared that Herr Sonnenkamp had overstated his property, and others, still more knowing, who were willing to swear that he was even richer than he had said, but they were hardly noticed. Sonnenkamp, greeting all around in a most friendly manner, went to Claus to congratulate him, and then called Roland aside. Roland stood before his father for the first since he had learned his great wealth; his eyes fell; looking up to him seemed like looking up to a high mountain, but Sonnenkamp laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, and told him that he might drive home alone with Eric, as he was himself obliged to remain in town to wait for a telegram.