Knopf, meanwhile, talked much with Roland, and congratulated him in having a man like Eric for a teacher. Roland was as inattentive as ever, asking at last only this question,—
"What is the maiden's name?"
"Lilian. And this is the miraculous part of it! You gave her in the wood a Mayflower, and the Mayflower is also called Lily of the Valley."
"What's her father?"
"A famous lawyer, a leading opponent of slavery."
Knopf would rather have given himself a slap on the mouth, than to have uttered what he did. But it couldn't be unsaid. He turned suddenly and looked sharply at Roland, and, to his satisfaction, he became convinced that no effect had been produced upon the youth.
During the whole distance they seemed to be hearing the music of the waltz, and now, as they approached the farm, that ceased, for there struck upon their ears the rushing and roaring of a mill-stream and the clattering of a mill. The stream flowed underneath a large part of the house, and turned the mill constructed there.
"You will not sleep well to-night," said Knopf to Roland.
"Why not?"
"Because you must first get used to the noise of the mill; if one is accustomed to it, he sleeps the more soundly for it. It was so with my little pupil."
Not far from the farm buildings, the different individuals, meeting again, were standing near the palings of an inclosure, where Roland was delighted with the handsome colts that were frisking about within, and which all came up to the fence when they sniffed Herr Weidmann's proximity.
He informed them that this was his "little children's school;" he had established a "coltgarten" for colts, to which all the breeders of horses in the district sent the foals. There was good pasture-land, where they could perform their gymnastic exercises, be well-sheltered and safely cared for. This helped the whole surrounding country in the rearing of horses.
Roland was highly pleased with this information, and Eric took fresh satisfaction in the thought of having brought him here. A man like Weidmann would exert an influence over Roland such as no other person could.
"Have you studied chemistry?" Weidmann asked, turning to Roland.
He said no.
Weidmann looked down, then up, and asked,—
"Have you determined yet what you mean to do?"
For the first time, Roland hesitated to give a direct answer.
Weidmann urged the matter no further. Eric could not conceive what made Roland so timid; but he saw clearly what a great influence this man had acquired over his pupil. Perhaps also what Roland had heard caused him to waver, and he was reluctant to speak, before a man of such active usefulness, of a vocation in which outward show and glory were the ends in view.
But there was another reason. The child with golden hair let go her father's hand, went up to Knopf and whispered to him, that now he must be convinced all was true she had told him; that he had never believed she had met any one in the wood, but now the witness was before his eyes.
Roland whispered to Knopf, that Eric had never been disposed to believe that such a thing had really happened to him.
Knopf, who saw himself placed in the midst of wonder-land, moved his hand repeatedly over his breast, while his eyes gleamed behind his spectacles. Yes, in the very midst of chemistry, scientific feeding, locomotive whistles, and dividend calculations—in the midst of all this there was still romance left in the world. True, this happens only to children born on Sunday, and Lilian was a Sunday-child.
He only wished that he could do something towards deepening and making lasting this gleaming romance of their wonderful meeting.
But that's just it! One can't do anything in this sphere of the romantic, it always comes of its own accord, unexpected and surprising; it won't be regulated and reasonably built up. All one can do is, to keep still and hold his breath, and make no sound; otherwise the charm is broken. He had to do something to further it, and he did the very best thing; he went off and left the children by themselves.
They looked at each other, but neither spoke. A handsome red heifer, with a bell on her neck and a garland over her horns, was led into the farm-yard. The maiden went up to her, and stroking her, said,—
"Ah, good evening, Brindy! Do you feel proud because you've taken the prize? Shall you tell your neighbors of it? Will you enjoy yourself now at home, or don't you know anything about your honors?"
The heifer was led to the barn, and the child, turning to Roland, cried,—
"Wouldn't you like to know whether the heifer has any notion of what has happened to her?"
As Roland was still silent, the child continued, very seriously,—
"Don't you want to be a husbandman, and have my uncle teach you? Then you can have my room. It's beautiful there!"
The maiden found words sooner than Roland, who still did not open his lips.
She continued,—
"Why haven't you been to see us before?"
"I did not know where you lived, nor who you were."
"Ah! That was why!"
And now they talked of their first meeting, how Lilian was carried away by her uncle, and how Roland wandered on to find Eric. Then it was spring, and now it is autumn.
"Just think! In your lilies there were some pretty little flies, which went along with us in the carriage, and didn't stir."
"Have you kept the flowers?"
"No. I don't like withered flowers, Give me something—give me something, that doesn't wither."
"I have nothing," replied Roland. "But I will send you my photograph, taken as a page—no. That's not fit for you. Oh, if I only had my rings now! I should like to give a ring, but Herr Eric has taken them all off my fingers."
"I don't want any ring. Well, give me that—give me the pebble that's now under your foot."
Roland stooped down, and giving her the pebble, begged she would also give him one.
She did so, saying,—
"Yes, this is dearer to me. I'd rather have that than anything else. Now I shall take a part of Germany with me over the ocean. Oh, Herr Knopf is right; it is all one whether you have a pebble or a diamond, if you only hold it dear; and it's very stupid for people to wear pearls and think that it's something very fine, because they must be got away down deep in the sea. Herr Knopf is right; it doesn't make a thing beautiful or good to cost a great deal."
Roland was silent; his heart beat fast.
"You are the Roland then, of whom the good Herr Knopf is always talking? You can't think how much he loves you."
"Probably he loves you as much?"
"Yes, he loves me too, and he has promised to come to America to see us."
"I am from America, too."
"Ah, yes! Welcome, my dear countryman; come with me into the garden, and help me get a nosegay to take away with me to-morrow."
"But where are you going to-morrow?"
"Very early we start for home."
The children were confronted, as it were, by a riddle. These children of the New World met each other to welcome the arrival in the Old World, and now to bid each other farewell.
"We see one another only to say a welcome and a good-bye," said Roland.
"Come into the garden with me," replied Lilian.
The children walked about the garden and gathered flowers, and they seemed to be in fairy land. They went first into the vegetable garden, where dwarf pear-trees were set out at regular intervals, and Lilian, thinking that she must explain everything to the visitor, in a matronly manner, said:—
"Yes, yes, there's no rose-bush, no little tree, which my aunt has not budded, and she hates all vermin. Now just think what aunt reckons as vermin! But you musn't laugh at her for it."
"What? Tell me."
"She considers the birds vermin, too. Oh, you laugh exactly like my brother Hermann. Laugh once more! Yes, he laughs exactly so. But my brother has been in business for three years. Come, we'll look for some flowers now."
They went into the flower garden and gathered many different kinds of flowers, but Lilian threw a large bunch of them into the brook, and pleased herself with thinking how the flowers would float down to the Rhine, and from the Rhine to the sea, and who knows but they would go straight to New York, even before she got there herself!
"I shall come to America, too, to see you," Roland all at once exclaimed.
"Give me your hand that you will."
For the first time, the children took each other by the hand.
A shot was heard behind them. Roland trembled.
"Just be quiet. Are you really frightened?" Lilian said, soothingly. "It's aunt; she's only frightening away the sparrows; she fires every time she comes into the orchard. A pistol is always lying upon the table yonder."
Roland now saw Frau Weidmann putting the discharged pistol down on the table.
"We'll be perfectly quiet, so that she won't hear us," he said to Lilian.
They sat down on the margin of the brook, and Lilian whispered:—
"The mignonettes I'll keep, they smell so sweet, even after they're wilted."
"Yes," Roland rejoined, "give me a mignonette too, and as often as we smell them, we will think of each other. The field-guard Claus, told me once—he's a real bee-father—that the mignonette yields the most honey."
Of all his knowledge, nothing else now occurred to him.
"You are very clever!" exclaimed the child. "Now tell me, do you think, too, that the bees smell the flowers as we do, and that the flowers put on such pretty colors so that the bees and the insects may come to them and be friendly with them? Just think! Herr Knopf says so. Oh, what a tiny little nose a bee must have! And I've often seen that the humble-bee isn't very smart; it flies up to a flower twice, three times, and it might know that there was no honey there. The humble-bee's stupid, but the honey-bees, they are the prettiest creatures in the world. Don't you love them more than anything else?"
"No, I love horses and hounds more."
"And only think," Lilian went on, "that the bees never hurt me nor uncle, but aunt has to take care. Have you ever caught a swarm?"
"No."
"If you're ever a great, rich gentleman, you must get some bees too. But the bees do well only in a family where there's peace; Herr Knopf told me so. And when we start to-morrow, my father's going to take a bee-hive with him. Ah, if we can only take it safe to the New World; 'twould be frightful if all the good bees had to die on the way. But 'twill be very nice when they wake up in America, and fly away, and see wholly different trees there."
"Is it really true that you're going away to-morrow?"
"Yes, my father has said so, and when he's said it, there's nothing can hinder; you may be just as sure of it as that the sun will rise. My father, uncle, and Herr Knopf have talked about you a great deal."
"About me?"
"Yes, they've wondered ever so much what you're going to do. Are you really worth so many hundred millions?"
"Yes, Lilian, all the money in the whole world is mine."
"Ah, what do you say! you must think I'm a goose; I'm not so simple as all that. But what do you mean to be?"
"A soldier."
"Oh, that's nice; then you'll come over to us, and help kill all the people dead who keep slaves. My father and uncle say 'twill be done soon. Ah, if 'twere only now as 'twas in the old times, then we'd go away together into the great forest, far off into the world, and then we'd come to a castle where there were only wee-bit, tiny dwarfs, and there'd be one hermit, a good man with a snow-white beard, whom all the animals in the wood loved—and Herr Knopf might be just such a hermit—yes he's to be our hermit, and he'll be named Emil Martin. Come, we'll call him after this brother Martin."
Thus the children amused each other, and Roland again asked,—
"Why must you go away so soon as to-morrow?"
"And why must you stay here any longer?" answered Lilian.
"I must stay with my parents."
"And I with mine. Ah, you've a beard already," cried the child, pulling suddenly the down on his lip.
"That hurts; you've pulled out a couple of hairs, and I'm proud of them."
"You're proud of them then?" And she tenderly stroked his face, pronouncing at the same time a so-called healing-spell, which she had learned of Knopf for the healing of a wound.
"Have you the dog still?" asked Lilian.
"Yes, he must have gone with Eric. Where is he, I wonder?"
He whistled, and Griffin came up. Lilian caressed the dog, and kissed him, and said all kinds of loving words to him.
"I'll give the dog to you," said Roland.
"See," cried the child, "he's looking at you; he knows he's to be handed over to another master, just as a slave is. But, Roland, I can't take the dog with me. I mustn't say anything to father about it. Only think how much trouble we should have before we reached New York; you'd better keep him."
Roland had been lost in thought; now he asked abruptly,—
"Have you ever seen any slaves?"
"No, when they come to us they aren't slaves any longer. But I've seen many who've been slaves—one is a friend of father's, and father goes through the streets with him, arm in arm."
"Come here, Griffin," she said breaking off, "here's something for you."
She gave the dog a piece of sweet biscuit she had in her pocket, which he ate, licking his lips as he stood calmly gazing at the distant landscape.
For some time the children were silent, and then Lilian again asked,—-
"Well, what are you going to do with the ever so many millions, when you're a man?"
"What makes you ask me that?"
"Oh, uncle and Herr Knopf have often talked about what you were going to do with them—and do you know what they said?"
"No. What would you do, if you had so much money?"
"I? I'd buy ever so many pretty clothes, real gold and silver clothes, and then—well then—then I'd build a splendid church, and everybody would have to be beautifully dressed, and when they came home, they'd have nice things to eat. And you'll do all this, won't you? or you'll tell me what you mean to do."
"I don't know."
"But you are to be something great. Ah, to be rich, pooh! Uncle says that's nothing."
"Have you ever seen a million?" asked the child again. "I'd like to see a million for once. The whole room, clear up to the top, would be full of rolls of gold—no, I shouldn't like that. Tell me now, have you a little sister?"
"No, she's a year older than I."
"And is she beautiful too?"
Lilian did not wait for the answer; she beckoned to Roland to keep quiet, for just then a lady-bug ran over her hand. She placed the little creature on its back, saying,—
"Look, now it's kicking, it can't help itself—there, now, its little wings are under its back, and with them it has got up again, all by itself. Hi! it's off. 'Twill have a long story to tell when it gets home. Ah, it will say. There was a great animal that had five legs on its hand—my fingers must appear to it like legs, and when it eats supper to-night it eats with-—-"
"Tell me, aren't you hungry too? I'm hungry."
"What are you doing there?" suddenly called out a woman's loud voice. "Come into the house."
Lilian's aunt had made her appearance behind the children, and they had to go with her to the house.
Lilian saw Roland's frightened expression, and with the idea that he must certainly be thinking of the wicked woman in the story, who eats the children up in the wood, she said in a low tone,—
"Aunt won't do us any harm; instead, we'll get something very nice to-night, great pancakes and leeks. Don't you see a leek in her hand, which she has just cut? That's for the pancakes."
Roland and Lilian accompanied Frau Weidmann into the house.
While the children had been dreaming and chattering together in the garden, the men had gone into the house. They stepped into the large wainscoted entrance-hall, where a great many withered wreaths were suspended. Weidmann pointed out to Eric that forty-two of these belonged to him, for that was the number of harvests he had worked in here.
The single wreath hanging by itself was the fiftieth one of his father-in-law, which had been placed upon his grave. Weidmann nodded as Eric said:—
"This is a decoration which cannot be purchased, which one can acquire only for himself."
Eric was glad to point this out to Roland.
They entered the sitting-room on the ground-floor. It was spacious and comfortable, with pleasant seats in the window-recesses, and chairs and tables scattered about here and there.
"We live on the ground-floor in the summer," said Weidmann to Eric; "every thing can be overlooked here better: After the leaves have fallen, we remove to the upper story for the winter."
The great sitting-room opened into another apartment, where the heavy damask curtain had just been drawn back. The Banker, whom Eric had become acquainted with at Carlsbad, came out of it, holding in his hand a bundle of papers, and gave him a friendly greeting, expressing his pleasure in meeting again here the man who was as intimate a friend of Clodwig's as he was himself.
A new subject was at once introduced. The Banker said that he had looked over the papers thoroughly; the public domain did not seem to be valued at too high a figure, and Weidmann must understand how it was purposed to divide it; but he believed that it would be hardly possible to extend to this new undertaking the plan of insurance which Weidmann had adopted for his laborers; that it was very questionable whether the income, for years, would be such that the life-insurance premium could be saved.
Eric learned that Weidmann paid the life-insurance premium of all his employees after they had been with him four years.
Weidmann gave a statement, in general outline, of the manner in which the so-called social question struck him as being the same as among the ancient Romans; the point of consideration was to make free and independent cultivators of their own lands. And he laid particular stress upon the remark that this social question, however, was not to be solved as if it were merely a problem in arithmetic; that there must be a moral and social enthusiasm, and he must confess, although many would shrug their shoulders at it, that he himself was of opinion that the humane principle of Freemasonry, which had too much lost its real meaning, was to look for, and to find here, a new inspiration and application.
It was soon evident that the Banker was a brother of the order.
Eric's heart swelled as he felt obliged to say to himself, while his thoughts were carried away to the grand movements of the world:—
"Everywhere, in our day, there is an active endeavor, a care for the neighbor, for those in adverse circumstances. This is our religion, which has no temples and no established days of festive celebration, but which, everywhere and at all times, struggles for the good."
He entirely forgot where he came from, and why he came, and lived wholly in the present.
Weidmann postponed, however, the subject to another time, and asked what Roland was going to do. But before Eric could reply, a man came in with Dr. Fritz, to whom Eric gave a cordial reception. It was Weidmann's son-in-law, an infantry officer of high rank. The two men requested that the conversation might not be interrupted, and Weidmann repeated his question about Roland.
Eric informed them that his pupil wanted to become a soldier; he expressed his own opposition to the plan, and his desire that Roland would devote himself to science or agriculture.
Weidmann answered, smiling, that Eric was a little too hard on this mode of life, from having been a soldier; that he himself was convinced it was of essential advantage to a man to have had a soldier's training. A man became ready, resolute and self-reliant, and at the same time he was one member of a large body. Nowhere can one be taught punctuality better, or learn better what it is to command, and what to obey, than in the military service. Roland must be made to realize, however, that this soldierly life was only transitional with him, nothing that was to occupy and fill out his whole existence.
"Then he will be no true soldier," interposed Weidmann's son-in-law. "Whoever undertakes anything which he does not consider as an active employment, requiring the full energies of his life, and whoever is continually looking to some future vocation, does not plant himself firmly in the present."
"Here you agree with my old teacher, Professor Einsiedel," Eric went on. "He used to say that the worst ruler is the provisional one. It would be, therefore, important for Roland to adopt some permanent calling, and not one merely temporary. With his peculiar characteristics, it is very hard for another to determine for him; but you, Herr Weidmann, you, with the powerful impression which you and your active usefulness have made upon Roland, you would be exceedingly well adapted to give to him the decisive impulse in one particular direction which I could not do, because I have not seen clearly what is best.
"Let us take counsel together," agreed Weidmann. "We here have had a great deal of experience."
"Do you think," Eric broke in, "that a better result would come from a consultation of many, than from the quiet meditation of a single person?"
"Aha! doubt in the efficacy of parliamentarianism," said Weidmann smiling. "I can imagine it possible. I answer your question with a simple yes. What the deliberation of many settles upon is suitable for many, and a person rich like him has in himself the power of many and for many. Let us consult together."
They sat down, and the Banker began,—
"I believe it is Jean Paul who said,—If you come into a new dwelling-place, and it does not seem homelike to you, then go to work and you will begin to feel at home. I should like to extend this further. One feels at home in the world only through labor; he who does not work is homeless."
The conversation was again interrupted by the entrance of the Russian prince, Weidmann's son, and Knopf. The subject was again stated.
"We have a good council of deliberation," said Weidmann, sitting back in his chair. "You have all seen the noble-looking youth, Herr Sonnenkamp's son, and Captain Dournay has trained him so that now, we might say, he is fitted to enter upon whatever calling he may adopt. What now shall the boy do?"
"Allow me one preliminary question," interposed Knopf. "Must a rich man produce, accomplish anything himself? Is it not his task to further the production, the doing of others, whether art, science, industry, or labor, and to make himself so far familiar with it as to give such aid?"
"You wanted to answer something." Weidmann pointed to the Banker, whose features were very expressive, and who seemed to have a remark on his lips.
"Not exactly answer," responded the Banker. "I wanted, first of all, to distinguish between vocation and business. There are active pursuits which are only a business, and again there are positions which are only a vocation. This is the chief difficulty, that a person so excessively rich must have only a vocation; there is no necessity of his pursuing any business. Rich people's children degenerate, because there is no such necessity."
"What do you understand by vocation?" asked Weidmann.
"I can't at once define it."
"Then allow me to help you," said Eric. "Vocation is a natural gift, or a necessity, which we turn into a law that acts freely. The brute has no vocation, because he follows natural instinct alone."
"Very true," nodded the Banker gratefully. "One question more," he said, turning to Eric. "Hasn't your pupil, as I am sorry to say most rich men's sons have, the desire to be a cavalier, a young nobleman?"
As Eric made no answer, he continued,—
"Our misfortune is, that the sons of the rich are satisfied with being heirs, and do not want to find a means of active development for themselves."
"As we have heard already," began Weidmann's son-in-law, "the young man wishes to become a soldier, and I believe that he ought to be encouraged in that purpose. I hope that it won't be attributed to prejudice in favor of my own calling, but I must repeat our father's view, that the military profession, more than any other, gives a certain decision of character. To have to stand ready every day with bag and baggage, scrip and scrippage, this makes one prompt and decided; this standing army becomes a fact, as it were, in each individual soldier."
"Granted," rejoined Weidmann. "But is it not to be feared that a man, who has been a soldier for the best years of his life, will be able to take up with great difficulty any other employment? He always regards himself as on furlough; and the great misfortune—I might call it the leading tendency of our time—manifests itself especially in the rich, who look upon themselves as on furlough, always on vacation."
"The best thing about it is, Roland will run through his money, and then it is scattered among the people," jokingly observed Weidmann's son, showing those impertinently white teeth that Pranken objected to so strongly.
"I would like to say one word," the Russian remarked to Knopf, who cried,—
"The Prince requests to have the floor."
Weidmann bowed to him pleasantly.
"I think that we can furnish an example in Russia. Our wealthy men are obliged to become agriculturists, whether the inheritance consists in money or goods. Why should not the young man be simply an agriculturist?"
"Agriculture has five branches," replied Weidmann, "and they ought to have their roots in five corresponding inclinations. Agriculture consists of physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, and one of these, that is, the inclination to one of these sciences, and the activity growing out of it, must have its foundation in the natural bent or genius, otherwise there is no happiness in one's calling. And do you know," he turned toward the Prince, smiling, "do you know what is the first requisite for an agriculturist?"
"Money."
"No, that's the second. The first is a sound human understanding. There are far more intellectual men than there are men of genuine common sense."
The Prince nodded to Knopf, and he gave a merry nod in return.
Weidmann opposed, with a warmth that was very different from his usually composed manner, the view generally entertained of agriculture as a sort of universal refuge, to which every one could have recourse; and yet the conclusion was finally arrived at, that it would be the most suitable thing for Roland to devote himself to agriculture, in connection with other branches of industry carried out on a large scale.
The conversation broke up into groups. Knopf said to Eric, that at the present time there was no longer an Olympus where the fate of human beings could be decided, and Weidmann added, that the worst thing of all was, that Roland had nothing to expect, nothing to wish for and to obtain, and for which he must exert his energies, happy when he succeeded in his first attempt, and then girding himself immediately for another; for this is the impelling cause of all movement and progress, that what is attained becomes the seed of a new effort.
"You were right," he closed, finally turning to Eric, "we cannot provide for another in advance, least of all here. And no one can be trained to be a giver of happiness. There must be awakened within the youth a desire to associate himself with his fellow-men; he must not merely want to confer happiness, but to create something. Out of creative activity alone proceeds happiness. He must be educated both for himself and for others; he must refer everything to others, and at the same time to himself."
Dr. Fritz had taken no part in the discussion; he sat meditatively with his brows contracted.
"Why have you had nothing to say?" said Weidmann in a low tone to him, when the conversation had become general. Dr. Fritz replied in the same low tone:—
"It is hard enough to know what to do with such an enormous inheritance righteously acquired; but how much harder, with one to which guilt adheres."
Weidmann made a significant sign to his nephew, and laid his finger upon his lips, as if begging silence. Eric had heard nothing of the conversation between the two, but as he looked at them, he had a feeling, as if something transpired there which was calculated to excite alarm. He had an involuntary dread, for which he could not assign any reason.
Frau Weidmann now came in, and invited them to the table. They got up at once and proceeded to the dining-room.
Eric sat by the side of Knopf, and said to him:—
"I have a question to ask you, Herr Colleague, which you may take until tomorrow to answer."
"What is it, pray?"
"What would you do; if you should become the possessor suddenly of many millions?"
Knopf, who had just put his glass up to his mouth, began to cough and choke so that he was forced to leave the table. He came back again after a while; but he ate and drank nothing the whole evening.
The Banker, who read a great many journals, asked Dr. Fritz if the horrible stories one reads of American life had any foundation in truth.
"Most certainly," answered Dr. Fritz—Roland looked sharply at him—"if we fix the gaze upon some individual and separate fact in the development of life in the New World, we shall often be wounded by monstrous appearances of deformity; but a very distinguished statesman once gave me a striking illustration, of which I am glad to make a wider extension. This gentleman said to me:—'I was at Munich, and there I first understood aright my fatherland. I was at the foundry where the gigantic statue of Bavaria was cast, and the different parts of the figure were lying around, here an arm, a knee, a hand, there the head and a part of the trunk, all horrible to look at in this separate condition. But when I saw the whole colossal statue set up in its place, and in all its beautiful harmony of proportions, then it occurred to me that America must be looked at in this way. The separate parts appear monstrous, but if one regards it at as a whole, it is of an unequalled beauty and grandeur.'"
At these words, Roland looked up at Eric with a bright, triumphant glance, and smiled.
They rose from the table. Lilian was soon put to bed, and when Dr. Fritz took leave previous to retiring, Roland retained his hand firmly, saying:—
"I thank you for having so beautifully extolled my fatherland. I shall never forget it."
"Shall you not consider Germany as your fatherland?"
"No," was Roland's loud and decided answer.
"Stay here; I have something yet to say to you," said Weidmann in a low tone to Eric.
Roland walked about with Knopf in the bright starry night, and Knopf had to promise him that he would wake him up to say good-bye to Dr. Fritz and his child. Roland then consented to go to bed, but was long in falling asleep, for the events of the day, the noise of the brook, and the clattering of the mill kept him awake. But at last weariness and youth gained the victory, and he slept soundly.
Roland slept; he little thought that over him and his destiny two men were keeping watch in the deepest anxiety.
Eric had followed his host into the workroom, and here Weidmann asked him: "Do you know why you are sent here?"
"Sent here?"
"Yes."
"Herr Sonnenkamp wants to establish friendly relations with you, and I myself have wished for some time-—-"
"Good. The best spy is often the one who doesn't know that he has to be a spy, who looks on innocently and reports innocently."
"I don't understand."
"Take my word for it, Herr Sonnenkamp didn't for a moment think of coming to our house, especially as he does not yet know when Dr. Fritz leaves; his pretending to you that he was called away was quite harmless. Send a messenger, and he will send you word with his regrets that he cannot come himself, but will send the carriage. Ah! my young friend, there is no pleasure in following up the trail of the beast of prey in man. But first of all, one question. Do you know how Herr Sonnenkamp comes on in his endeavors to get a title?"
"No."
"Do you know that I have hit upon means to be relied on of forming an opinion of Herr Sonnenkamp's deserts?"
Eric expressed his ignorance, and Weidmann continued:——
"I have told you that the groom who blows the trumpet was once a convict. I have still another convict that I keep on an out of the way part of the estate, for he doesn't do well, not so much from an evil disposition, as from a spirit of braggadocio when he is amongst men. You see then that I do not reject men of criminal antecedents; for pride in our own virtue is very weak-kneed. It is, at the best, only good luck if we, by teaching and example, and with the means of subsistence assured to us, do not burden ourselves with many an ill deed that we cannot blot out. Of course, a long-continued, closely-calculating occupation, revolting to every feeling of humanity—but as I said, I will put no obstacle in Herr Sonnenkamp's way, only it is incomprehensible to me that he should seek to be ennobled, and in that way voluntarily challenge inquiry into his antecedents. If, as my friend Wolfsgarten says, you have great influence over Herr Sonnenkamp, advise him to give this thing up."
Eric held his hand before his eyes; his eye was burning, he strove to speak, but could not.
Weidmann, who misapprehended this emotion, said in a mild tone:—
"I admire your power, in having been able, as Herr Knopf informed me, and as I myself see, to bring an atmosphere of noble feeling into this family, to hold your pupil in the path of innocence, and to naturalize him in all that is good. If this boy should one day learn-—-"
"Learn what? what? I beg of you," Eric was at last able to utter.
"Do you mean to say," answered Weidmann, pressing his head with both hands, "do you mean to say that you know nothing about it?"
"I know nothing more than this, that Herr Sonnenkamp owned large plantations with great numbers of slaves, that he grew tired of the life, and therefore came back to Germany."
"Herr Sonnenkamp—Herr Sonnenkamp!" said Weidmann, "a pretty name! and it is well for him that his mother bore it. So you have never heard of a Herr Banfield?"
"Nothing very definite; but the head gardener told me that Herr Sonnenkamp was very angry on his return from the Baths, when he found that name registered in the visitors' book. But tell me, what is there in that?"
"Herr Sonnenkamp, or rather, not Herr Sonnenkamp, but, as his name really is, Herr Banfield, is in so many words the most notorious slave-dealer ever known in the Southern States; nay, more. My nephew, Doctor Fritz, could tell you many a thing he has done; he even went so far as to defend slavery in the public prints, and he was so shameless as to set himself up as a proof that all Germans had not degenerated into sentimental humanity, but that he, a representative of Germany, supported slavery, maintaining it to be right. He has a ring on his thumb; if he takes the ring off, you can see the marks of the teeth of a slave whom he was throttling, and who bit him in that thumb."
A cry of horror was wrung from Eric's heart; he could only gasp out the words:—
"O Roland! O Mother! O Manna!"
"It grieves me to tell you this, but it is best that you should learn it through me. You cannot conceive that a man with such antecedents can at times appear so well, and engage in the discussions of principles. Yes, this man is a swamp encircled with flowers. The fellow has cost me many days of my life, for I cannot understand how he can live. Slave-dealing is murder in cold blood, the annihilation of free existence for one's own gain; the murderer from passion, and the murderer from rapacity, stalk over the corpses of their victims to gratify their desire of establishing their supposed rights. The world is to them a field of battle and a conflict, an annihilation of their foes, to find room for themselves. But a slave-dealer—a slave murderer! And this man is now a fruit-grower, a most excellent, careful fruit-grower, in mockery of the words: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' Oh! my head was fairly crazed with this man, until I brought myself to the point of being able to forget him!"
Weidmann spoke on uninterruptedly, as if he did not wish these sad thoughts to settle down upon him.
Soon Eric raised his head and besought him:—
"Tell me all."
"Yes, you shall know all,—ah, what is all? You have heard of the fate of Captain Brown at Harper's Ferry?"
"Certainly. Was Herr Sonnenkamp there too?"
"He was a ringleader."
Eric related how Roland at one time in his fever dreams shouted, "John Brown is hanging on the gallows!"
The more he spoke of Roland, the more feelingly his voice trembled, and at last hot tears burst from his eyes. He apologized for this weakness before Weidmann, who said:—
"Your tears consecrate you in my eyes forever; you shall find in me a friend whom you may call upon at any time and in any situation of life. Whatever is in my power is yours, your deeds shall be mine. You are not weak, you are strong, you must be; and it is a noble vocation for you to be placed as you are at the side of such a youth, with such a fatal inheritance."
Eric Stood up and drew a long deep breath; the two men held fast each other's hands, and laying his left on his heart, Eric said:—
"I hope that I shall show myself worthy of your appeal."
"I knew this, and it is better, as I said, that you have learned the thing from me. There's no doubt about the matter, depend upon it."
For a long while not a word was spoken. Eric had called out Manna's name with Roland's and his mother's. Now, for the first time, in the deepest sorrow, it broke upon him fully, that he loved Manna; and with a sense of satisfaction the thought shot through his soul that he had not yet spoken to her a word of love.
Terrified at this selfishness he started up.
How could he think of himself, and not of her hard fate? He grieved for her, above all, that she should be the daughter of such a man.
How will she bear it? And did she know it perhaps already? Was this the cause of her secluded life, of the eagerness to sacrifice herself and take the veil?
"Don't lose yourself in thoughts and anxious speculations," said Weidmann admonishingly.
Eric did not dare to speak of Manna; he merely asked Weidmann whether he thought he ought to communicate this information to his mother; for it was doubly agonizing to have involved his mother in such a connection.
Weidmann said that he well knew what a frightful thing it must be to eat this man's bread, to drink his wine, to receive services at his hand. But he impressed upon Eric the necessity of sparing his mother the recital as long as possible, since he needed her sorely as a stay for Frau Ceres and Manna. Yes, Weidmann called it a rare piece of good fortune to have at one's side, aiding and supporting, a woman so noble, and so tried in the battle of life.
It was long after midnight when Eric left his host.
He went to his room; he saw that Roland was asleep, and a silent vow rose to his lips, as he gazed upon the handsome, sleeping boy.
Eric wandered restless through the house and through the woods; meteors darted hither and thither through the sky; in the distance glistened the waves of the Rhine; a dewy atmosphere lay upon the whole earth; Eric found no rest, nay, he found hardly a moment's meditation. What should he, what could he do?
Morning began to glimmer; he returned to the courtyard.
Here everything was full of life.
He first fell in with Knopf, who said to him:—
"I haven't slept a wink the whole night on your account. Ah, that question of yours! Theoretically it cannot be solved, since all the real relations of life are made up not of whole numbers, but of fractions only, and can only be expressed in fractions. So the total also cannot be expressed in one whole number. I can't make out, and it turns my head to think of what I should do if I were possessed of many millions. To found benevolent institutions, that is hardly enough; the whole world shouldn't be a vast almshouse, a piously endowed establishment. I would have joy and beauty everywhere; men should be not only fed and clothed, they should also be happy. In the first place, I would found in every town a good salary for the teacher who leads the singing-club, and a pint of wine for every member on Sunday; and I would build a concert-hall in every town, with lofty summer-saloons, and well-heated rooms in winter, ornamented with beautiful paintings; and in them should be hung up the prizes gained by the club.
"I would also erect an institute for poor children, and make myself director of it; and then I would found a refuge for deserving tutors. I have even fixed on the name it should go by,—'The Home for Eventide.' Oh, that will be magnificent; how the old teachers will wrangle and each extol his system as the best! I have also decided to let the principal lie, and take a million from it to go travelling with. I would take with me a dozen or more companions, honest, capable men, naturalists, painters, sculptors, merchants, politicians, teachers—in a word, capable men from all callings. I would have them equipped with everything needful, and we would stop wherever and as long as we chose. In this way I would learn what are the best social arrangements in the world, and when I came home I'd establish similar ones. I do not expect to find it out all at once. Only think what a fine thing such a journey would be, with a dozen or more right clever men, with our own ship for the sea, and with mules for the mountains. In a word, it would be splendid, and useful at the same time. And when Roland comes home he must turn agriculturist; it is altogether the best life; that is to say, man has in that life the best basis to stand upon—the most natural basis. But, as I said, I am counting my chickens before they are hatched."
Eric hardly heard what Knopf was saying, and for the first time woke up out of his dreams when Knopf asked him,—
"Where is Roland? I promised to wake him in time for the departure of Doctor Fritz and his child."
"Just let him sleep."
"On your responsibility?"
"On my responsibility."
"Very well," rejoined Knopf. "Indeed, I had rather not wake him. In that way Roland will have to suffer a pretty little bit of romantic pain. I cannot tolerate this sentimental nonsense between children. Now he has taken his leave, or rather not taken his leave in the night, and while he was sleeping she disappeared; that is a bit of romantic pain. This taking leave! In the morning, shivering and shaking on the steamer-landing, or at the railroad station, you take leave; then the ship or the train moves off, then you stand there like one who has been robbed, and then you have got to go back. Ah, it is so absurd! I shiver a whole day after a farewell. But now if Roland wakes up and the child has flown away, that may leave a sweet, strong, ecstatic remembrance behind in the soul; and we too, you, Doctor, and I, are both giants in this children's story."
At this point Herr and Frau Weidmann came upon the scene, as well as their sons, the Russian, the Banker, and all the inmates of the house. All shook hands once more with Doctor Fritz and his child, and Lilian cried,—
"Herr Knopf, give my compliments to Roland, the sleeper."
Away rolled the carriage, the inmates of the house retired to bed; all but Eric and Knopf, who still roamed about in the morning twilight; and Knopf was especially happy to watch so closely once more the universal awakening of nature.
He said that one always neglected it, unless compelled to observe it; and that there were doubtless many poets who sang of the dewy twilight of the morn, who were at the same time frightfully late sleepers.
Eric listened to the good Knopf, but could not conceive how there could be a man out there in the open air alive to such contemplation; with him every thought and every act, the very idea that there was still much to do in life, seemed like a shadowy dream.
On the other hand, Knopf thought that Eric was all attention, and expressed regret that the child had gone; he still had the Russian Prince to instruct, indeed, but the child had made the whole house happy; she was like a living, speaking rose transplanted from the New World. They were evidently expressions which were to serve as ornaments to a poem already begun or in contemplation.
Eric listened to it all patiently.
At last he asked Knopf if Doctor Fritz had said much to him about Herr Sonnenkamp.
Knopf confirmed a part of Weidmann's information; but he did not seem to know everything.
"I take the holy morn to witness," exclaimed Knopf, "you are a man to be honored, Herr Dournay. If I had known at the time the antecedents of Herr Sonnenkamp, I should not have felt so secure when I was teaching Roland. I should always have felt as if there was a loaded pistol at my ear, to go off at any moment. Yes, you are a strong man; this is a new kind of greatness, for I know what it means to control and manage Roland as you do."
Knopf had seized hold of Eric's hand, and in his excessive enthusiasm he kissed it.
Eric was calm, and Knopf had a beatific look; his countenance with its smiles was like the stream, on whose bosom the wind tosses along the rippling waves. He maintained that they were both happy in being co-workers in the solution of the most difficult and most sublime problem of the century; for Eric had Roland to instruct, who would be obliged to have relations with slavery, and he himself had the Russian for a pupil, who had now the emancipated serfs to manage.
He represented that the prince wanted him to go home with him, and establish a school for the liberated serfs; Doctor Fritz, on the other hand, wanted him to go to America and manage a school for the children of freed negroes. He reproached himself with not having really a stronger inclination for the negro children, for as he wished to be honest, he must confess he would only go to America for the sake of seeing Lilian once more, and observing how she developed, and what fortune was in store for her.
As Eric was returning to the courtyard, he saw Weidmann and the Banker getting into the carriage; they were going to the capital to negotiate for the domain. Eric bade good-bye to them, and expressed his determination to return at once to Villa Eden. As he named Villa Eden, he felt a shiver creep over him. Weidmann stepped out of the carriage once more, took Eric aside, impressed upon him the necessity of being circumspect, and from the carriage exclaimed,—
"Dear Dournay, both for your mother and your aunt, my house is always yours."
Eric went away to waken Roland. As he woke up, he cried,—
"Is it morning already? Are they still here?"
"Who?"
"Lilian and her father."
"No; they have been gone this long while."
"And why didn't you wake me up?"
"Because you needed sleep. In one hour we are going home again."
Roland turned defiantly away; but while Eric was talking to him with great earnestness, he turned his face towards him at last, and on his long eyelashes stood big tears.
"What tears will those eyes one day shed?" said Eric to himself.
The carriage in which Doctor Fritz and his child had left came back. The coachman brought still another greeting from Lilian to Roland. The horses were not taken out, but fed in harness, and soon Eric and Roland were journeying homewards.