CHAPTER XX.
ENTERING INTO THE LIVES OF OTHERS.
Beautiful it is in the valley, on the river's bank, where the watersglide by so swiftly, yet so undisturbed; beautiful to see how theyglisten in the daylight, reflecting every passing change in the sky,and bearing to and fro the hurrying boats; and again in the evening, tohear the quiet murmur of the stream, as it lies under the radiance ofthe moon. But beautiful it is also to look from the mountain-top, overthe forests, the terraced vineyards, the villages, the cities, and thefar-reaching river.
A fresh impulse and animation were now given to the life atWolfsgarten. The picture of Eric and Roland was brought to completion,and Eric set in order Clodwig's cabinet, thus introducing his pupil tothe curiosities of antiquity. There was singing and laughing, therewere walks and rides in the neighboring forests, and many a memorableconversation.
Bella often took the parrot with her when she walked with Eric throughthe park and the forest. The bird took a great antipathy to Eric, andwould scold at him from its place on its mistress's shoulder. Sometimesshe let it loose with the injunction, "Be sure and come home at night,Koko;" and Koko would perch upon a tree, and fly this way and that,through the forest, always returning at evening. Her freed slave, Bellacalled him, at such times.
Now, however, Koko had been absent two days. Clodwig offered everyreward to get the bird back again, never remarking how quietly his wifetook her favorite's loss.
As a matter of course, Bella walked with Eric while Roland and Linaroamed about together in the forest, Lina delighted at being allowed torevel in a child's freedom. At other times, when Eric and Bella werestrolling through park and forest, Roland would sit in the potter'sworkshop, where the clay from the neighboring hills was moulded. He hadthe whole process explained to him, and was amazed to see what care andlabor a single vessel required. Two boys, of about his own age,trampled the clay with their naked feet in order to render it pliable,after which workmen formed it into tiles and architectural ornaments.At a potter's wheel sat a handsome, powerfully-built youth, turning itwith his bare feet; then he lifted the clay with great care into therequired shape, formed the rim and the nose, and almost tenderly raisedthe finished vessel from the wheel, and set it in its place on a shelfwith the others. He always took precisely the quantity of clay requiredfor the vessel, and never allowed his heavy hands to make on it animpression which he had not designed.
Roland watched the whole scene thoughtfully. Could these men be helpedby money? No; their life might be made richer, but they must stillwork.
The young man who shaped the vessels was dumb. He would give Roland afriendly glance when he entered, and then quietly keep on withhis work. The master praised him very highly to Roland, who, beingdesirous of doing something for him, presented him with his handsomepocket-knife. It contained many instruments within it, and muchdelighted the poor mute.
Roland told Eric what he had seen, and what thoughts had come into hismind. He had noticed that the workmen had their food brought them, froma great distance, by old women and little children, and asked whetherno better arrangement could be made for them.
Eric looked at the boy with unsympathizing eyes as he spoke. How hewould once have rejoiced in this proof of his pupil's interest in thewelfare of his fellow-men; but now he seemed wholly absorbed in othermatters.
A beautifully engraved card brought to Wolfsgarten a piece of newsthat proved a fertile subject of conversation,--the betrothal of theWine-count's daughter with the son of the Court-marshal. It seemed anextraordinary step on the part of the young man, who was suffering witha mortal disease, but still more extraordinary that the lady, a freshyoung girl, overflowing with life and health, should have made up hermind to such a union. Lina, who was well versed in the private historyof every one in the neighborhood, accounted for it by saying that theWine-count's daughter had always expressed a great desire to be awidowed baroness. There was a deep undertone of meaning, a somethingnot wholly expressed, in Bella's way of speaking of this connection,particularly when addressing Eric, which seemed to take for grantedthat he would understand what she half concealed.
The newspaper brought another piece of intelligence, the return of thePrince's brother from America, where he had been a careful observer;and his bringing with him for the Prince a freed slave, in the personof a handsome African.
While they were still discussing the impression which a sight of theAmerican Republic must make on a German prince, Roland came in from theforest, exclaiming,--"I have him! I have him!"
He was holding the parrot by his claws.
"There you are again, my freed slave!" cried Bella, as the bird torehimself from Roland's grasp, and, perching upon his mistress'sshoulder, began a violent scolding at Eric.
Clodwig did not allow himself to be easily interrupted in a discussionhe had once entered upon, and proceeded to state the results of hisobservations in the world. Bella took an active part in theconversation. It sometimes seemed to Eric, that there was nothingbeyond a certain superficial cleverness in her ready flow of words; buthe rejected the criticism as a pedantic one.
His life among books, he said to himself, had rendered himunsusceptible to this easy, graceful, brilliancy, while his professionas teacher led him to be always on the watch for an elaborate networkof thoughts and impressions, where there was meant to be nothing but asimple expression of natural feeling. He now gave himself freely up tothe pleasure of enjoying the close companionship of so richly endowed anature. These butterfly movements of the mind he began to look upon aslegitimately feminine characteristics, which were not to be roughlycriticized. Hitherto he had been familiar, in his mother and aunt, onlywith that severe and business-like conscientiousness, in allintellectual and moral matters, which borders on the masculine; herewas a nature that craved only to sip the foam of life. Why requireanything further of it?
When Bella was one day walking with Eric in the park, Roland and Linameanwhile sitting with Clodwig, she complained of not being able torepress the religious doubts that often beset her, while, at the sametime, existence without a belief in a compensating future life was aterrible enigma. Without wishing to weaken this idea, Eric sought togive her the assured peace which can be found in the realms of purethought. There was a strange contradiction in the hearts of these two,imagining, as they did, that they were speaking of things far above andbeyond all life, while in reality they were talking of life itself, andthat in a way whose significance they would not willingly haveacknowledged to themselves.
Suddenly Bertram came riding towards them, his horse white with foam,and while at a distance cried out,--
"Herr Captain, you must return instantly."
"What has happened?" asked Eric.
Clodwig came up with Roland and Lina, and Pranken also appeared at thewindows, all anxious to know what had happened.
"Thieves! robbers!" cried Bertram. "The villa has been broken into, andHerr Sonnenkamp's room entered."
A few moments later, Eric and Pranken were in the wagon driving back tothe villa. Pranken's vexation was extreme, for he had taken the wholeresponsibility upon himself.
For a long time neither of the three spoke, until at last Roland brokethe silence, by asking Eric what he thought Franklin would have thoughtand said of such a robbery.
Pranken replied with some warmth, "I should think a son's firstquestion would be, 'What will my father say to it?'"
Roland and Eric were silent. Again they drove on for a long whilewithout a word being spoken. Eric was tormented by accusing thoughts.He seemed to himself doubly a thief. These men had broken into therooms of the villa by night; what had he done? He had forgotten thesoul entrusted to him, and, worse still, after being received by thekindest friendship, he had, under cover of lofty thoughts and noblesentiments, in word, thought, and look been faithless to the mostprecious trust in the person of his friend's wife. He pressed his handto his heart, which beat as if it would burst his bosom. Thos
e men, forhaving stolen gold, would be overtaken by the justice of the law; butfor himself,--what would overtake him? Conscious that Roland's eyeswere fixed upon him, he cast his own on the ground in painfulconfusion.
Finally he controlled himself, and said in a trembling voice, that heshould assume the entire responsibility; he acknowledged Pranken'sfriendliness, but felt that in such a case as this, no one couldinterpose between himself and the consequences of neglect of duty. Soseverely did he reproach himself, that Roland and Pranken looked at himin amazement.