Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

"I have never reflected upon the matter," she replied with an embarrassed smile, "but if I should now express an opinion upon it, I should say, that the rich man clings to his property, and is obliged to think of himself; he can't do otherwise. He is not permitted to survey the lot of others; his soul, his eye, if I may use the expression, does not have, the beseeching glance of him who sits forlorn by the wayside. But the poor man is hoping, waiting; he has nothing but a bundle in his hands, or probably nothing but his empty hands; he is independent of others, and dependent on them too."

Sonnenkamp was very eloquent in praise of this considerate, indulgent view, as he termed it; and the Professorin was delighted with the polite manner and the delicacy of this man, apparently so bad and selfish.

"Perhaps," she continued, blushing deeply, "perhaps we might take an illustration from the animal world."

"In what way?"

She was silent, and only replied after Sonnenkamp had repeated the question: —

"I will give you my thought, crude as it is. I was thinking of the beasts of prey who live singly; and wolves only herd together when there is some common booty to be got, the rest of the time, each living by himself. The herbivorous animals, on the contrary, live together in herds, and afford a common protection."

She interrupted herself smiling, and then continued: —

"My wisdom is of yesterday, and it is not worth very much. The field-guard, Claus, told me that, in autumn, the birds which feed upon grain assemble in flocks, but those which live upon insects do not."

Sonnenkamp was very amiable. The Professorin added in continuation: —

"But yet the granivorous birds are no more virtuous than the insectivorous; each kind lives in accordance with its own law."

Sonnenkamp became more and more charmed with the Professorin; she spread his table with viands which could not be imported from abroad, and which the garden did not supply.

The journals, day after day, now published Herr Sonnenkamp's praiseworthy endeavors to ameliorate the condition of the people. The Cabinetsräthin came, and congratulated him upon the excellent result, adding that, according to a report from her husband, this noble deed of Herr Sonnenkamp had been noticed in the highest quarter.

Sonnenkamp was now exceedingly zealous. He was anxious that there should be no intermission in the public notices, and that something should be said about him every day. Pranken, however, who had returned from his farming escapade, showed that it would be better to hold up a little, and then to come down upon the public with a fresh sensation. He had evidently heard of the good impression which the Professorin had made at the convent, and of the earnest exhortation to Manna; and when Sonnenkamp unfolded to him his plan of having the Professorin reside there permanently, he immediately assented to it.

A path was laid out from the villa to the vine-covered house, through the beautiful meadows and along the river-bank. Sonnenkamp invited the Professorin, on a certain day, to accompany him into the garden, and all the family must go with them.

A new gateway had been made in the wall which surrounded the park. Sonnenkamp said that the Professorin should be the first one to pass through it. He gave her the key, and she opened the gate. She went through it and along the pathway, followed by the whole family, and Pranken among them.

They proceeded to the vine-covered cottage, and the Professorin was amazed to find here all her household furniture, and the library of her husband arranged in good order.

Aunt Claudine was here too; for Sonnenkamp had contrived that she should be released from Clodwig.

Sonnenkamp introduced, with a sort of pride, his valet Joseph, who had made all these arrangements, as a native son of the university.

The Professorin expressed her thanks to Joseph, and shook hands with him.

Pretty soon the Major came; and when the Professorin inquired after Fräulein Milch, he stammeringly made an apology in her behalf. It was plainly wrong in his view, that Fräulein Milch should so persistently refuse to go into society.

The Professorin had not recovered from her amazement and satisfaction when Clodwig and Bella arrived. Provision had been made for a cheerful repast in the garden, and Roland gave expression to the general feeling, when he said: —

"Now I have a grandmother and an aunt, safe in their nest."

In the evening, Eric received a large package of books and a letter from Professor Einsiedel, and also a large sheet of memoranda. He commended Eric's intention of writing a treatise upon the idea and nature of slavery, as it would prove a very fertile theme.

Eric put away the books, for he regarded it as a fortunate thing that Roland's thoughts were occupied neither upon slavery nor free labor, nor any kindred topic, but with something entirely different.

The son of the Cabinetsräthin, the cadet, was now at the newly acquired country-seat, on furlough, and he exhorted Roland to be diligent, so as to be able before long to enter the military school.

Roland was now wholly bent upon entering the highest class, at the earliest possible moment. He spoke of it daily to his father and Pranken. The father one day took him aside and said: —

"My child, it is well, and I am glad that you are so diligent in getting fitted, but you will not enter – take notice, I show my respect for you by this communication; I look upon you as a grown-up and mature man."

He stopped, and Roland asked, —

"When is it that I am to enter?"

"Come nearer, and I will whisper it to you; you are to enter when you are a noble."

"I a noble? and you too?"

"Yes, all of us; and for your sake I must become ennobled, as you will see by and by. Do you feel glad at being made a noble?"

"Do you know, father, when I first began to respect nobility?"

Sonnenkamp looked at him inquiringly, and Roland continued: —

"At the railroad station, where I saw a crazy, drunken man. Everybody showed respect for him, because he was a nobleman, a baron. It is a great thing to be a nobleman."

Roland now gave an account of the meeting on the morning after his flight, and Sonnenkamp was surprised at the astonishing effect produced upon him, and at the lasting impression everything made. He now said: —

"Give me your hand, as a pledge that you will say nothing about this to your master, Eric, until I shall tell him myself. On the word of an officer."

After some delay and deliberation, Roland gave his hand.

His father now proceeded to explain to him how disagreeable it would be to enter the military school under a citizen's name, and while there to be ennobled.

Roland inquired why he was not to say anything about it to Eric.

His father refused to tell him why, demanding unconditional obedience.

And so Roland had now a two-fold secret to keep, one from his father, and the other from Eric. The youth's soul was distressed, and it found an odd expression in the question he once put to Eric: —

"Do the negroes in their native land have nobles too?"

"There are no nobles in their own right," replied Eric; "individual men belong to the nobility only when, and only so long, as others regard them as such."

Eric had thought that Roland's zeal for the military school had excluded all his former notions and speculations; but he now saw that they were still active, and had become connected with odd associations, which he could not explain to himself satisfactorily. But he took heed to make no further inquiry.

During his furlough, the son of the Cabinetsräthin was very constant in attendance upon the lessons given to Roland, and Sonnenkamp, having her sanction, proposed that the young cadet should leave the school for a time, and be instructed in company with Roland.

Roland was highly pleased with this plan, but Eric objected; and when Sonnenkamp stated to him that he had formerly desired that Roland should have a comrade who should receive instruction with him, Eric found great difficulty in explaining to him that it was now inexpedient; that the course of instruction he had undertaken with Roland was adapted exclusively to him, and that now any comradeship, and any reference to another's condition and progress, would be only a disturbing element.

Eric, by this means, alienated not only Herr Sonnenkamp and the Cabinetsräthin, but also for a time his pupil himself, who was out of humor and refractory, after the cadet had returned to the capital.

CHAPTER VIII.

STEEL-TRAPS IN THE POETS' GARDEN

Sonnenkamp prided himself in growing the best wines; but the traditional account of the joyous celebration of the harvest-home is a mere fable. In the morning the mists were hanging far and wide over the valleys, and in the early evening they shut out the whole landscape. The leaves had fallen from the trees, and the hoar frost glistened on the bare twigs, when at last the grapes were gathered and pressed.

The Major would not allow it to be thought of for a moment, that they should omit firing their salute; he took extreme satisfaction in his two comrades, Eric and Roland, who fired at his word of command, so that the three reports sounded as one. But this was the whole celebration of the merry harvest-home.

Fires had been already made at the villa, and Sonnenkamp's pride in each stove having its own chimney was shown to be well founded. But it was a truly festive occasion when the Professorin had a fire kindled for the first time in her sitting-room. She had invited Eric and Roland to be present, and Fräulein Milch happened to be there. And as they sat together before the open fire-place, in serene and homelike content, it would be hard to say precisely what it was that made them so cheery and peaceful.

The Mother exhorted Eric to resume his habit of reading aloud, in the cosy winter evenings, some great poems, and he promised to do so. He felt that he must make some extra effort to dispel the coldness produced by his refusal to receive as a pupil the son of the Cabinetsräthin.

Sonnenkamp, who had an extensive hunting-park, sent out cards inviting some persons of the best society to a hunting-party. Invitations also came from the neighbors, and Eric was able to be present with Roland at a great hunting-party as often as once a week.

Roland was proud of his father's skill in the chase; he was regarded by all as the leader, and the whole company listened with pleasure to his accounts of grand hunts in America. He had even made a short excursion to Algiers, and there shot a lion, whose skin was now under his writing-table; it was meant for a sleigh-robe, but here in the country, a merry sleigh-ride was a rare thing.

The supper after the chase, in a large apartment fitted up for the purpose, was always of the merriest sort. The Major was here in his element, and officiated as lord of the castle; he spoke of the evenings which Eric enlivened at Villa Eden by reading the ancient and modern dramas; he never knew before that there were so many fine things in the world, and that one individual man could make everything so plain merely by his voice.

Eric had read aloud almost without exception one evening every week. The impression made upon the hearers was various. The Major always sat with his hands devoutly folded; Frau Ceres reclined in her easy-chair, occasionally opening her eyes, to show that she was not asleep; Fräulein Perini was employed with some hand-work, which she prosecuted steadily, exhibiting no emotion; the Mother and the Aunt sat there quietly; Sonnenkamp had a standing request that they would excuse his rudeness. Turning to Roland, he said good-humoredly, —

"Don't get this bad habit – don't get in the way of having a stick in your hand to whittle."

And so he sat and whittled away, occasionally looking up with a fixed stare, holding the knife in his right hand and the piece of wood in his left; then he would resume his whittling.

Roland always seated himself opposite the reader, so that Eric must look him in the face. Often, until it was very late, Roland would talk with Eric about the wonderful things he had been listening to.

Eric had been reading Macbeth, and he was glad to hear Roland say, —

"This Lady Macbeth could easily be transformed into a witch, like one of those who came in at the beginning."

Another time, when Eric had been reading Hamlet, he was not a little surprised at hearing Roland say to him in the evening, before going to bed, —

"Strange! Hamlet, in that soliloquy, speaks of no one returning from the other world, when, only a short time before, the spirit of his father had appeared, and he appears again afterwards."

One evening, after Eric had read Goethe's Iphigenia, Roland said, —

"I can't make out at all why Manna said once that she was Iphigenia. If she were Iphigenia, I should be Orestes. I, Orestes? I? Why was it? Do you understand Manna's meaning?"

Eric said no.

One evening when the Physician and the Priest were present, Sonnenkamp requested Eric to read aloud Shakespeare's Othello. Eric looked at Roland. Will not Roland be stirred up to fresh questioning concerning the negroes? He had no reason he could assign for declining, and he could contrive no excuse for sending Roland away.

Eric commenced reading. The fulness and flexibility of his voice gave the requisite expression to each character, and he preserved the proper distinction between reading and theatrical presentation. He brought out no strong colors; it was an artistic embodiment that allowed the outlines of form to appear, but gave no coloring; it was not an imitation of life, but a simple outline drawing of the general features, softened but sufficiently defined.

The Doctor nodded to the Mother, as much as to say that Eric's interpretation was very pleasant.

For the first time, Frau Ceres listened with eager attention, without leaning back once during the whole evening; she continued bent forward, and her countenance wore an unusual expression.

Eric read on continuously, and when he was giving the close of Othello's sorrowful confession of guilt, in a voice struggling with tears, like one resisting the inclination to weep, great tears ran down over the pale face of Frau Ceres.

The piece was ended.

Frau Ceres rose quickly, and requested the Mother to accompany her to her chamber.

Fräulein Perini and the rest of the ladies went away at the same time. The men were standing up, and only Roland remained sitting, as if spell-bound to the chair.

Glancing towards the Doctor, the Major said, —

"Isn't this a really wonderful man?"

The Doctor nodded.

The Priest had his hands folded together; Sonnenkamp surveyed his whittlings, placing them in a little pile together, just as if they had been gold-shavings, and even bending down to pick up some that had fallen upon the floor. Now he straightened himself up and asked Eric, —

"What do you think of Desdemona's guilt?"

"Guilt and innocence," replied Eric, "are not positive natural conceptions; they are the result of the social and moral laws of humanity. Nature deals only with the free play of forces, and Shakespeare's plays exhibit to us only this free play of natural impulses in men and women."

"That's true," interrupted the priest. "In this work there's nothing said about religion, for religion would necessarily soften, ameliorate, and rule over the savage natures, conducting themselves just like natural forces, or rather would bring them into subjection to the higher revealed laws."

"Fine, very fine," said Sonnenkamp, who was quite pale; "but permit me to ask the Captain to give me an answer to my question."

"I can answer your first question," Eric rejoined, "only in the words of our greatest writer on æsthetics: The poet would characterize a lion, and, in order to do it, he must represent him as tearing in pieces a lamb. The guilt of the lamb does not come into question at all. The lion must act in accordance with his nature. But I think that the deep tragedy of this drama lies hidden."

"And what do you think it is?"

"This maiden, Desdemona, without mother, brother, or sister, grown up from childhood among men, might love a hero, whose lyric, childlike nature, craving love and clinging fast to her, would make him crouch like a tamed lion at her feet. This submissive strength, renouncing no element of its wild energy, but, as it were, purified and exalted, opens the well-spring of that love which covers everything else with oblivion, overcomes the difference of race, and washes clean out the black color of the skin.

"When Othello kissed her for the first time, she closed her eyes, and he kissed her on the eyes; and her eyes are closed not for one instant merely, but for a long period. But an unparallelled horror, a wild insanity, would be the result of this shutting of the eyes when Desdemona should hold in her arms a child, who should appear, in its whole exterior, strange, abhorrent to her, like some creature that did not belong to the human race. Out from her heart, crushed and trampled under foot, there must have come a shriek of agony. A child upon her breast, a creature so unlike herself! That look, which Hegel describes as the highest of all that the eye can express, the first look of the mother upon the child, that first mother's look must have killed Desdemona, or made her raving mad."

Sonnenkamp, who had all the time been rapidly shifting the whittlings about with his fingers, now threw them all upon the floor in a heap, and went up to Eric, holding both hands stretched out at length. His huge frame trembled with emotion, as he cried out: —

"You are a free man, a freethinker; you are not to be humbugged. You are the first one that ever gave me a reasonable explanation of this antipathy. Yes, it's so. The instinct of the poet is wonderfully prophetic. 'Against all rules of nature!' This is the expression of Desdemona's father, and this is the whole solution of the problem. On this expression the whole turns, and every part is in harmony with it. The result must be, as it is, a product of nature. It's against nature!"

The men who were present had never before heard Sonnenkamp speak in this way, and Roland, who had been staring fixedly before him, looked up as if he must convince himself that it was really his father who was speaking. In an exultant tone, for he observed the effect produced upon them all, he continued: —

"Marriage – marriage! The Romans understood what was meant by that. Where marriage is in violation of nature's laws, there can be no talk of rights of humanity, equality of rights. Apes, with all their boasted reason, nothing but apes, are these silly preachers of humanity, who build up their theories and universal crotchets, without looking at the facts, and know really nothing of these brutes endowed with speech, who are not human beings, but everlastingly apish and malicious! Ho, ho! thou noble friend of humanity!" he exclaimed, striding up and down the room, "Marry thy daughter to a nigger, do that! do that! Be in terror, every moment, that he will tear her limb from joint. Hug a black grandchild! do that, noble friend of humanity! then come to me and harangue about the equality of the black and the white race!"

Sonnenkamp had clenched his fists, as if he were clutching an antagonist by the throat; his eyes flashed, his lips opened, and his jaws snapped together like a tiger leaping upon his prey. He now suddenly placed his hand upon his breast, as if making a powerful effort to hold himself in control.

"You, Herr Captain, and the poet, have taken me somewhat by surprise," he said, with a constrained smile; and then he again repeated that Eric had gone to the root of the matter. That a white girl could not become the wife of a nigger was no prejudice, but a law of nature.

"I thank you," he said in conclusion, turning once more towards Eric; "you have given me a great deal to think about."

The men looked at each other in astonishment, and the Doctor added, in a timid way very foreign from his usual manner, that he must give his assent to this on physiological grounds, for it was a well-known fact that mixed races, in the third generation, became sterile. A separation of the races, however, does not exclude human rights, any more than it excluded human duties; and religion laid them upon all alike.

While saying this he turned towards the Priest, who felt himself called upon to state that the negroes were susceptible of religious conviction, and capable of receiving religious instruction, and that this secured to them the full rights of men.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Sonnenkamp. "Is that the fact? Why then did not the Church ordain the removal of slavery?"

"Because the Church," replied the Priest quietly, "has nothing to do with ordaining anything of the kind. The Church directs itself to the human soul, and prepares it for the heavenly kingdom. In what social condition the body of man, the outside covering of this soul, may be, we have nothing to do with ordaining or determining. Neither slavery nor freedom is a hindrance to the divine life. Our Lord and Master called the souls of the Jews to enter into the kingdom of heaven whilst they were Roman citizens, and under subjection. He called all nations through his apostles, and did not stop to ask about their political condition and constitution. Our kingdom is the kingdom of souls, which are one and the same, whether they live in a republic or under a tyranny, whether their bodies are white or black. We are glad to have the body free, but it is not our work to make it so."

"Theodore Parker takes a different view," Roland suddenly exclaimed.

As if a bullet bad whistled close to his ears, Sonnenkamp cried, —

"What? Where did you find out about that man? Who told you about him? How's this?"

Roland trembled all over, for his father seized him by his shoulders and shook him.

"Father!" he cried out in a manly voice, "I have a free soul too! I am your son, but my soul is free!"

All were amazed. Nothing more would be said about his voice changing.

Sonnenkamp let go his hold, his breast heaving up and down as he panted violently for breath. Suddenly he exclaimed, —

"I am very glad, my son; that's noble, that's grand. You are real young America It's right! fine! splendid!"

They were struck with fresh amazement. This sudden change of mood in Sonnenkamp took all present by surprise. But he went on in a mild tone, —

"I am glad that you were not to be frightened. You have good pluck – it's all right. Now tell me where you found out about Parker?"

Roland gave a true account of matters, except that he said nothing about Parker's name having been mentioned by the Professorin when they were making their calls in the town.

"Why didn't you speak of it to me?" asked his father.

"I can keep a secret," replied Roland. "You've tested me yourself on that score."

"That's true, my son; you have justified my confidence."

"We ought to have gone home a long time ago," said the Major, and this was the signal for the company to break up.

The Major had never felt his heart beat so violently, never when stationed on some exposed outpost, never even in battle, as during the reading; and yet it beat worse, after the conversation had taken so threatening a turn.

He kept shaking his big head, and stretching out with his hands in the air deprecatingly and beseechingly, as if he would say, —

"For heaven's sake, drop this talk! It's not good, 'twill only do harm!"

Then he took another look at Sonnenkamp, shrugging up his shoulders. "What does the man mean," he thought, "by talking to us in this style! We wouldn't put a hair in his path; what's the use of stirring us up in this matter! Oh, Fräulein Milch had the right of it, when she urged him to stay at home to-day.

"How comfortable it would be to be sitting in the arm-chair, in which Laadi is now lying! And one might have been asleep two hours ago, and now it will be midnight before one gets home! And there's Fräulein Milch sitting up, and sitting up, till he comes in. It was like being saved, when he took out his watch, and could say how late it was."

The Professorin came back at this moment, and told Roland that his mother wished to see him. Roland went to her.

Eric accompanied his mother and the rest, as they set out for home through the snowy night.