Das landhaus am Rhein. English

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE HAND-WRITING ON THE WALL.

  Sonnenkamp had seated himself in his room, and the letter-bag laybefore him, but he did not open it. What matters it what the outsideworld desired! One thought was uppermost, that he must do something,something startling, something that would shatter the whole world topieces. What? He did not yet know. He sat speechless in the midst ofthe fairest landscape, with the windows darkened, as in a cellar.

  No, not harm thyself, that wouldn't do! anything but weakness, cried heto himself. Why be afraid of this old sentimental spinster, Europe,with her fine modes of speech! What hast thou done? Thou hast actedwith due reflection, and thou standest by what thou hast done. It iswell that there's nothing more to conceal, that everything is known.

  He rose and went into the park. From a lofty acacia-tree one of themain branches was hanging down, which had been broken, so that the treewas like a bird that had lost one of its wings. The head-gardener toldSonnenkamp that a gust of wind had swept over the park the nightbefore. Sonnenkamp nodded several times as he looked at the tree, andthen indulged in his inaudible whistle.

  A gust of wind may break down a tree like this, but a man like himstands firm.

  He went farther on, and coming to the fruit-garden, saw the splendidshow of fruit upon the trees; glass bell-shaped vessels, filled withwater, were hung by wires underneath the different fruits, so that theymight be continually supplied with moisture, and be made to grow. Allthis you can effect; you can direct nature, why not man? why notdestiny? He gazed at the huge fruits as if they could give him ananswer, but they remained dumb. He stood for a long time before onetree, that had been trained to the shape of a coronet, and stared atthe branches.

  In a spider's-web stretched between two twigs a fly wasstruggling--whew! how convulsively it struggled! perhaps it moanedalso, but we couldn't hear it. Yes, high and noble fly, you have a fateno different from that of the human fly. Everywhere spiders--yes,spiders! And you are better off, you will be speedily eaten.

  Sonnenkamp struck his forehead with his clenched fist: he was angrywith his brain, that led him into such subtile speculations.

  He turned away and went back to his room. The best thing you can do, hesaid to himself, is to make a speedy exit; then are your children free,and you are free too. He took a revolver from the wall just as some oneknocked at the door.

  "What's the matter? what do you want?" A groom gave his name, andSonnenkamp opened the door. The groom informed him that his black horserattled in the throat and foamed at the mouth; that he was sick, andthey could not tell what ailed him.

  "Indeed?" cried Sonnenkamp. "Have you not walked the horse out forexercise? Has any one ridden him?"

  "Yes; the Herr Captain ordered the horse to be saddled the nightbefore, and was a long time gone with him."

  "So! Come, I'll cure him speedily." He went down to the stable, lookedgrimly at the horse, and then shot him through the head. The horse gaveone hoarse rattle, and fell headlong.

  "So! it's all over now!" cried Sonnenkamp. "Now you are free!"

  As he was leaving the stable, Pranken came up.

  "What have you done?"

  "Pooh! I've shot a horse, and every one who doesn't mind," he said ina loud tone, so that all the servants might hear, "knows what toexpect."

  He ordered the groom to saddle another horse.

  Joseph came with the inquiry from Frau Ceres as to what had happened.

  Sonnenkamp sent word to Frau Ceres that he had shot the black horse. Hesmiled when he heard Pranken's report of his wife's state of feeling;he avoided going to her, and he experienced a sort of grateful joytowards destiny, that the large house rendered it possible for each ofthe inmates to live by himself.

  He went to see the Professorin; it was hard for him to meet her eye andthat of Eric, but it must be done; he must arm himself to look all menboldly in the face. Was he a coward? had he not bid defiance to theworld, and was he now to be afraid of this tutor's family?

  He entered the green cottage. He extended his hand neither to Eric norhis mother, and only asked where the children were. He received theanswer that they had locked themselves in the library.

  He said in a light way to Eric and his mother that he had beenespecially desirous for them to know the whole; it would now be seenwho was faithful. Turning to Eric, he said:--

  "I have shot the black horse, which you rode last night. What is mineis mine."

  He went quietly away; he stood some time near the library door, andheard Roland and Manna talking, but without distinguishing a word.

  He knocked twice, but there was no answer, and he turned away.Returning to the villa, and mounting a horse, he rode to theCabinetsrath's villa, for he wished to give these people a piece of hismind. And as he was riding along, it seemed to him as if the groombehind him suddenly reined up, and then as if there were two followinghim. Who is this unknown companion? He forced himself not to lookround. The horse trembled under the pressure of his legs. He reachedthe country-house of the Cabinetsrath, stopped at the gate, and askedafter the minister's wife.

  The gardener said that she was not there, and that she would not bethere any more.

  What does this mean? He laughed aloud when he was informed that thevilla, with all its appurtenances, had been sold the day before to theAmerican consul at the capital. He is outwitted; these people are hisneighbors no longer, and there can nothing be said about demanding backthe property bought at a merely nominal sum. And after the first flushof anger, Sonnenkamp experienced a peculiar satisfaction in the thoughtthat there were so many sagacious people in the world; it is a pleasantthing that there are so many foxes and lynxes to be found everywhere,and under their own particular masks.

  A court-lackey rode up. Sonnenkamp reined in. Could it be possible thatthey repented and were sending a courier after him?

  "Where are you going?" he asked of the court-lackey as he stopped.

  "To Villa Eden."

  "To whom?"

  "To the Professorin Dournay."

  "Might I ask who sends you, and what your errand is?"

  "Why not?"

  "Well, what's the errand?"

  "The Professorin was formerly a lady in waiting on the gracious motherof the Prince, and the gracious Princess was very fond of her."

  "Very well, very well. And now?"

  "Well, now, the Professorin is living there with a horrible man who hasdeceived the whole world, and is a slave-trader, and one's life isn'tsafe there a single minute, and now the gracious Princess sends methere, and I am to say to the Professorin--and if she will, to take heralong with me at once--that she can be delivered from this monster."

  The lackey was astonished to see the man who had questioned him rideaway without speaking another word.

  Sonnenkamp boiled with rage; but he shortly laughed out loud again.

  "That's all right! afraid,--the whole world is afraid of him. Thisconfers strength; this is far better than the silly honor, with whichone must behave himself."

  He felt a profound contempt for those in high station. Now they take upthe neglected widow, now,--why not before?

  He rode to the castle. Here were the laborers who were erecting a wingof the building; they saluted their employer with evident reluctance.Sonnenkamp smiled; at any rate, they had to salute him. He would haveliked to get the whole world together, in order to look it, once forall, defiantly in the face.

  He rode to the Major's. Fraeulein Milch was standing at the window, andbefore he said anything, she called down:--

  "The Herr Major is not at home." And now he turned homeward.

  When he came to the garden-wall, he noticed some large letters, andriding nearer, he saw written in many different ways: Slave-trader!Slave-murderer! An artist, with no very practised hand, had drawn thepicture of a gallows on which a figure was hanging with protrudingtongue, and on the tongue was the word Slave-trader! He ordered theporter to keep better watch,
and to shoot down the insolent fellows whoshould do any such thing.

  The porter said:--

  "I'll not shoot; I shall leave the service on St. Martin's day,anyhow."

  Sonnenkamp rode back toward the green cottage; he wanted to take awayhis children, and he wanted to tell the Professorin not to give anymore charity to the rabble that dared to write such words on the whitewall of his garden. But he turned about again. The best way would be totake no notice of it.

  Panting with rage he returned to his room, and he wondered at thethought which came over him, that this house was his own no longer;every one in the neighborhood was thronging in, scoffing, pitying, andhe was living, as it were, in the street, for every one was speakingabout him, and he could not help himself. He stamped his foot on thefloor.

  "Here 'tis! You wanted honor,--you wanted to be talked about, and nowthey do talk,--but how? I despise the whole of you!" he exclaimed.

  He turned over all manner of plans in his mind, how he should get thebetter of the world. But what was there that he could do? He could nothit upon anything.