"Give me your hand, Roland," said Eric. The boy gave it, looking up trustingly and joyfully.
"My young friend," Eric added, "I thank you for that testimony of respect waving yonder; but now leave us, for your father wishes to speak with me."
Father and son looked in amazement at the man who was giving his orders in such a free and easy manner. The boy departed, Eric nodding to him again.
After the two men were left by themselves, for a while no word was spoken. Herr Sonnenkamp, who always carried his cigars loose in his pocket, offered Eric a large, black, broken one, which he accepted and lighted from the match Sonnenkamp held out to him, without taking it into his own hand.
After drawing a few whiffs, he said,—"You will certainly agree with me, that it is an impolite politeness for any one to insist on taking the lighted match into his own hand; between this giving and taking, one generally burns his fingers."
However insignificant this remark, it served for a beginning. Herr Sonnenkamp leaned back in his chair, held the cigar-smoke for a long time in his mouth, and then blew it out in perfect rings, which, as they floated in the air, grew larger and larger until they vanished.
"You have great influence over the boy," he said, after a while.
"I think that the attraction is mutual, and this makes me hope that I might succeed as the boy's tutor. Only love can educate, as love only can create and form. An artist who does not love his calling can never truly create. There are, indeed, many who love a child because they give him instruction; but I can instruct only one whom I love."
"Fine, very fine,—noble. But Roland needs a strict hand."
"Love does not exclude but rather includes strictness; he who loves requires perfection in himself, as well as in the object of his love, and makes the highest demands."
Sonnenkamp nodded in a very friendly, even kindly manner; but there was a sort of sneer upon his countenance, as looking down to the ground and placing both hands upon his knees, he said:—
"We will speak now about personal matters; for things of that sort we will find time by and by. You are a ——?"
"Philologist by profession; but I have devoted myself, by preference, to practical education."
"I know that,—I know that," Sonnenkamp said, still looking down as he spoke.
"I should like to know something about your personal history."
He did not look up, and Eric was deeply pained at the thought of being obliged again to become his own biographer. He felt like a man who speaks to a sober and cool listener after drinking with a set of boon companions. He had unfolded himself freely and spontaneously to Clodwig, the day before; and to-day he must do it in order to recommend himself to a purchaser. And so it is! The seller must always say more, and expatiate more upon his goods, than the buyer. Wealth was a tyrannical power exhibiting itself under an entirely new form.
Eric, looking at the back of the man's head, and at his broad neck,—for not a glance was vouchsafed him,—very soon lost all sensitiveness as to his position of being a seeker after employment. He was not the receiver, but the giver. A tone of self-respect breathed in the words which he now uttered:—
"I offer you my free labor."
On hearing this, Sonnenkamp threw up his head quickly without changing his position, cast a rapid glance upon the speaker, and let his head immediately drop again.
"I mean," continued Eric, "that I offer to you and to your son all that I am, and all the knowledge and science that I have made my own hitherto. I look for no other reward than the free unfolding of my own activity; and I have the feeling of freedom in doing this, since whatever I may accomplish I accomplish also for myself, in bringing that actually to pass which I have striven after, and which I have laid down as a theoretical demand."
"I know what free labor is," Sonnenkamp said, looking towards the ground. Then sitting upright, he added with a smiling countenance:—
"You are not dealing with a man of learning. I think we shall come sooner to terms, if you will regard me as a common-sense man who only wants to know the plain matter-of-fact."
"I had hoped," Eric replied, "that the introduction of Count von Wolfsgarten—"
"I esteem highly the Count von Wolfsgarten, more highly than I do any one else; but—"
"You are right; I will give you a personal explanation," Eric interrupted.
Was it the cigar, or was it the painful position in which he felt himself placed, that caused the sweat to start out upon Eric's forehead? At any rate, he laid the cigar down, and perceiving with a sort of surprise that he was wearing his uniform, began to explain again that he had put it on, for that day, because Count Wolfsgarten had advised him to do so.
Sonnenkamp again sat up wholly erect, feeling himself completely fortified against this man, who, an entire stranger, had taken possession of his house, his wife, his son, and thought even to domineer over him, and make him a stranger in his own home. He would let the applicant talk till he was tired.
"Go on, captain," he exclaimed, laying his right hand with the fingers crooked upon the table, and then drawing it back again, as if he had deposited a stake at play.
Eric had now become master of all his powers, and in a tone of cheerful good humor, began in a wholly different style:—
"Excuse a scholar for not throwing off his scholastic method. In the old poems, before the hero enters upon his career, the parents are described; and although I am no hero, and what I have to unfold is no record of personal prowess, yet allow me to give a preliminary account of my father and mother."
Eric once more gave a brief and concise sketch of his life. Mindful of Clodwig's advice not to say anything about his fancied mission to educate convicts, an incident occurred to him, which he had, in an incomprehensible way, wholly passed over before. He gave an account of his once having had charge of a powder-mill. "I was driven away by a revolting expression of my employer. From some cause never yet explained, the mill blew up, and four men were killed. But what said my employer when he reached the spot? Not one word of pity for the lost men, but 'that it was a shame for so much good powder to be lost.'"
"What was the man's name?" asked Sonnenkamp.
Eric gave one of the most distinguished names of the principality, and was not a little surprised to hear Sonnenkamp say, "A wonderful man,—influential and powerful."
Eric found it difficult to continue his narrative with composure after this incident, and ended by saying,—
"I beg that you will not regard me as a weak, restless person, for having so often changed my calling."
"On the contrary," Sonnenkamp declared, "I have had experience enough both in the old and new world, to teach me that the most capable people are just those who determine for themselves upon their employment. Whoever changes his calling must do so either from some external necessity, or from real fitness for something else. Allow me to ask one question. Do you believe it possible for a man who undertakes, compelled by want or because he can find nothing better to do, some employment, I do not like to call it a service, but a dependent position—you know what I mean, but I am not familiar with the German—is it possible for him to devote himself heartily to that occupation? Will he not always feel himself bound, under obligation to serve, and often ill at ease?"
"Your frank objection," Eric replied, "does me great honor. I know well that the calling of an educator requires to be made supreme, from morning until night. Nothing can be more desirable to me than to perceive that you are as deeply interested in the matter as I could wish."
Again a peculiar expression darted across Sonnenkamp's countenance; but Eric, without appearing to perceive it, continued, in a voice full of emotion, "It is not because I can find nothing better to do that I apply for the position of tutor in your family. I agree with you, that he who takes such a place merely from necessity can never fulfil its duties, although I do not mean to assert, and unconditionally, that inclination may not be developed, or as we say, that one may not make a virtue out of necessity. My knowledge is not great, but I have learned what one must do in order to learn, and therefore I think that I am able also to instruct. As far as earnest sincerity of purpose is concerned, I will yield to no one; and so far as I can judge, I venture to say, that were I placed in the most favorable circumstances, I would enter upon the calling of an educator in a spirit of freedom, with joyful zeal."
"Right honorable, right honorable! go on!" Sonnenkamp interposed in such a tone that Eric was somewhat confounded, hearing as he yet did, in a measure, the echo of his own earnest utterance, now so strangely interrupted. In a sort of triumphant tone, Sonnenkamp continued:—
"An amateur is all very well; but I prefer a man with a profession."
"I am entirely of the same opinion," Eric answered; "and I am amazed at the good results practically secured in the new world, by adopting a different course."
With constrained calmness he continued,—
"In regard to this matter, I have only one desire, and only one request to make."
"And that is?"
Sonnenkamp again placed his hand upon the table as if he were laying down a stake at play.
"I should like that you would not find it disagreeable to consider me at first, for some days, a guest in your house."
Eric said nothing more, hoping that Sonnenkamp would answer at once in the affirmative; but he cracked in two, abruptly, a cigar which he had just lighted, and which did not seem to draw freely, and threw it away into the shrubbery. His face became red again, and a mocking smile played upon his lips, as he thought: "Very confident indeed! This young man imagines that if he can only get a lodgment for a few days, he can so bewitch every one that he will be deemed indispensable. We shall see!"
As he maintained a persistent silence, Eric said:—
"It would be desirable as well for you as for me, before making a permanent agreement, to know more of each other; and I especially desire this on Roland's account."
Sonnenkamp smiled, and watched two butterflies chasing each other, hardly giving any attention to Eric as he went on to state, that the boy seemed to him in one respect too mature, and in another not mature enough to be made acquainted with the selection of a tutor, and perhaps to have a voice in it; therefore he must first know him as a guest in the house, and afterwards as his tutor; also it was his own desire that Roland should not know that his tutor received pay in money, or at least, should not know the amount.
At the word money, Sonnenkamp seemed to come out of his butterfly-gazing.
"What sum would you demand?" asked he, putting into his mouth a fresh cigar that he had held for some time in his hand. Eric replied that it was not for him, but for the father, to determine that.
Sonnenkamp brought his cigar to a glow with a few violent whiffs, and with great unction declared how well he knew that no sum was large enough to compensate adequately the painstaking duties of education and instruction.
Then leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs, and holding on to his left leg with the right hand, manifestly well satisfied with this declaration of his noble sentiments, he said,—
"Would you be willing to give me an exposition in a few words of the principles and method you must employ in the training of my son?"
"The method to be marked out in any particular case, the course I should adopt in actual instruction, I myself do not as yet know."
"What! you yourself not even know that?"
"I must take my method from Roland himself, for it must be adapted to the pupil's natural characteristics. Let me take an illustration from your own surroundings. You see here the river. The boatmen have sounded the bottom, and knowing where the shoal-banks are, keep well clear of them. So must I, first of all, fathom, in the peculiar sense of that word, the depths of Roland's nature."
Eric looking up continued:—
"Or let me take a yet more pertinent illustration. If you see that your servants, in going from the house to the servants' quarters, take by preference a short cut over a grass-plot artistically measured and laid out, you will, if it is possible, give in to this beaten track, and not obstinately adhere to your artificial plan, however correct it may be, and however much in conformity with the principles of landscape-gardening. You will adopt this natural foot-path as a part of your plan. This is the method adapted to circumstances. Such thoroughfares are found also in human beings."
Sonnenkamp smiled; he had, in fact, tried very hard, by means of stringent prohibitions, to keep a bed of shrubbery in the middle of the court-yard free from foot-passengers, and finally had laid out a pathway through it.
"Agreed as to the method, but how about the principles?" He smiled with self-satisfaction, for he perceived how nice a distinction he had drawn. The man had made him conscious that, in an intellectual struggle, he had here no mean antagonist.
"Here I must take a wider range," resumed Eric. "The great contest, which runs through the history of humanity and the whole of human life, shows itself in the most direct way in the training of one human being by another; for here the two elementary forces confront each other as living personalities. I may briefly designate them as individuality and authority, or historic civilization and nature."
"I understand—I understand, go on!" was thrown in encouragingly by Sonnenkamp, when Eric paused for a moment, anxious not to get lost in generalities.
"The educator is necessarily the representative of authority, and the pupil is a personality by the very endowment of nature," resumed Eric. "There is continually then a balance to be adjusted between the two, a treaty of peace to be made between the contending forces, which shall at last become a real reconciliation. To train one merely as an individual is to place a child of humanity outside of actual existence, and for the sake of freedom to isolate him from the common life, and make it burdensome to him; to subject him merely to prescribed laws is to rob him of his inborn rights. The human being is a law to himself, but he is also born into a system of laws. It was the great mistake of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the French Revolution, that in their indignation at the traditions contradictory to reason, they thought that an individual and an age could develop everything from themselves. A child of humanity neither contains all within himself, nor can he receive all from without. I think then that there is a mingling of the two elements, and there must be an hourly and an imperceptible influence exerted both from within and from without equally, inasmuch as man is a product of nature and a product of history. It is through the last, only, that man is distinguished from the beasts, and becomes an heir of all the labors and all the strength of the past generations."
Sonnenkamp nodded acquiescingly. His whole mien said, This man lays down very aptly what he heard yesterday from the lecturer's desk; and Eric continued,—
"Man alone comes into an inheritance, and an inheritance is the heaviest human responsibility."
"That is something new to me. I should like to ask for a fuller explanation."
"Permit me to illustrate: the beast receives from nature, from birth, nothing except its individual strength and its stationary instinctive capacity, while the human being receives from his progenitors and from humanity a superadded strength which he has not in himself, but of which he becomes possessor, and so he is the only inheritor. And let me say further, that it is difficult to decide whether it is harder to turn to good advantage that which a man is in himself, or that which he may receive, as for example your son will, as an inheritance. Most persons are of account only through what they possess. I consider this last of no trifling importance, but—"
"Wealth is no sin, and poverty is no virtue," Sonnenkamp interrupted. "I admit the depth and fineness of your perception in all this. I confess it is new to me, and I think that you have taken the right view. But whether, in the education of one individual boy, you shall find occasion for such great fundamental principles—"
"While engaged in the work of instruction," Eric quietly replied, "I shall not be likely to have directly before my eyes universal principles, as everything must be developed from its own basis. While one is loading, aiming, and firing off a musket, he does not define to himself the various physical laws that come into play, but he must know them in order to proceed in the right way."
Sonnenkamp was rather tired of this discussion; it was somewhat out of his line, and he had the unpleasant consciousness, that while trying to make an impression upon the stranger, he had himself been made to appear infinitely small.
"Pardon, gracious sir," a groom interposed, as Eric was beginning to expatiate anew. Sonnenkamp stood up hastily, and remarking that it was time for his ride, with affable condescension he waived with his hand the discussion to some other time.
He went quickly away. Roland came along the path, and called out,—
"I may ride out with Herr Dournay, may I not, papa?"
Sonnenkamp nodded, and departed with a hurried step. He mounted on horseback, and was soon to be seen riding a spirited black horse along the white high-road by the river. He made an imposing appearance as he sat on horse-back; the groom followed him.
By Roland's direction his own pony had been saddled, and also a horse for Eric. They mounted, and rode slowly through a part of the village which joined the estate. At the very end of it stood a small vine-covered house, with all the window-shutters closed. Eric asked who owned it, and why it was shut up. Roland told him that it belonged to his father, and that the architect, who built the villa, had lived there, and sometimes his father also, when he came from Switzerland or Italy during the building of the house, or the laying out of the park and garden.
"Now for a good trot," said Eric; "take your bridle more firmly in your left hand. Now!"
They started briskly, keeping side by side, but suddenly Eric's horse shied and began to rear. Roland uttered a cry, but Eric reassured him, saying, "I'll conquer him;" he drew his feet from the stirrups, and rode off at such a pace that the horse was soon covered with foam and quite submissive; then he rode back to Roland, who was waiting for him in anxiety.
"Why did you throw off the stirrups?" he asked.
"Because I didn't want to hang by them if the horse fell backwards."
They rode on quietly near each other. Eric asked:—
"Which do you like best, to have some fixed object for your ride, or simply to go over a certain distance, and then turn back?"
Roland looked puzzled.
"Didn't you understand my question?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"And what do you think?"
"I like to have some object, a visit to pay, at the end of my ride."
"I thought you would say so."
"Only think," said Roland, "they say I must have another tutor."
"Indeed."
"But I won't."
"What do you want?"
"I want to get away from home and go to a military school! Why should Manna go to the convent? They always say that my mother can't eat unless I am with her, but she'll have to eat when I'm an officer."
"Then you want to be an officer?"
"Yes, what else should I be?"
Eric was silent.
"Are you a nobleman?" asked the boy, after a pause.
"No."
"Shouldn't you like to become one?"
"We cannot make ourselves noblemen."
The boy played with his horse's long mane; glancing back, he saw that the flag had been lowered from the tower. He pointed it out to Eric, saying haughtily that he should hoist it again. His fine, delicately cut, but pale face gained strength and color as it lost its weary look, and assumed a daring expression.
Without noticing his domineering manner, Eric said how much he liked Roland's pride in being an American.
"You are the first person in Germany who has commended it," cried the boy joyfully. "Herr von Pranken and Fräulein Perini are always ridiculing America; you are the only man,—but I beg your pardon, I ought not to be talking so familiarly to you."
"Put away that notion; we want to be good friends."
The boy held out his hand, and Eric pressed it warmly.
"See, our horses are good friends too," said Roland. "Have you many horses at home?"
"No, not any; I am poor."
"Wouldn't you like to be rich?"
"Certainly, wealth is a great power."
Roland looked at him in surprise; none of his tutors had said that to him; they had all represented wealth as a temptation and a vanity, or had extolled it for the sake of flattering him.
After some time, in which the boy was evidently thinking about Eric, he said, "Are you French, like your name?"
"No, I am a German, but my ancestors were French emigrants. How old were you when you came to Europe?"
"Four."
"Have you any recollection of America?"
"No, but Manna has. I can only remember a song which a negro used to hum, but I can't quite recall it, and nobody can sing it to me."
As they rode up the mountain, the little man, whom they had seen at work in the garden, stood aside to let them pass, and greeted them respectfully. They drew up, and Roland asked Nicholas, as the dwarf was called, why he was going home so early.
The little man replied that he was going home now at noon, and then into the wood to get some of the new earth which Herr Sonnenkamp had found. Up in the wood was a spring which contained iron, and Herr Sonnenkamp had dug down and found the earth also impregnated with iron. In this earth he had planted hydrangeas, and the flesh-colored flowers had changed to sky-blue.
The little man could not express all his wonder at Herr Sonnenkamp, who knew everything, and how to turn everything to account; it was no wonder that he had grown so rich, while stupid men might go all over the world, where millions were to be had, without ever knowing it.
But the little man took especial delight in telling them of a simple device of his master, who always mixed juniper leaves with the earth where he planted seeds of fruit-trees, and in that way kept away worms and mice.
As they rode on, Eric expressed his admiration for a man, who, like a second Columbus, was still making new discoveries in a world which seemed already explored and parcelled out. His readiness to appreciate, from a single example, Herr Sonnenkamp's greatness in this direction made Roland draw himself up in his stirrups, struck with surprise as he thought of the subject. He had never before heard his father so praised.
"Is there no one in the neighborhood whom you would like to call upon?" "No—or—yes, the major—but he is now at the castle. But up there in the village the huntsman Claus lives, he has our dogs-—-will you go with me to see him? I must let him know how Nora's puppies are; he was with me an hour before you came."
Eric readily assented, and they trotted up the gentle ascent, turned into a side path, and dismounted before a small cottage. Dogs of various kinds came round them and jumped upon Roland; Puck also seemed to have friends; he played with a brown badger-dog. An old man came out of the house and touched his cap with a military salute. He wore the short, light-gray cotton jacket which is the easy and comfortable everyday dress of the country people along the Rhine, and he was smoking a clay pipe, on which a sort of Ascension of Napoleon was painted in glaring colors.
The tone and manner with which Roland presented his new friend to the huntsman, showed that he knew how to take an imperious tone toward his inferiors.
"Off with your cap," said he to the screamer; "only think, the captain knew by their whimper how old and of what breed Nora's puppies were, before he had seen them."
"Yes, one can do that," replied the screamer in a very loud voice, "one can do that. Dogs have their own peculiar whine and bark, according as they belong to a knowing or a stupid race; and stupid people, too, cry and complain quite differently from smart ones."
He cast a pleased glance upon Eric, and held his pipe in his hand for some time.
"You are right," said Eric. "I see you have had much experience and reflection."
"May be so," answered the huntsman.
He led the way into his house, and when Eric asked what saint it was whose picture hung on the wall, he replied, laughing,—
"That is my only saint, it is Saint Rochus of the mountain yonder, and I like him because he has a dog with him."
There were many bird-cages in the room, and such a twittering and confused singing, that one could hardly hear himself speak. The old man was very happy in explaining to Eric how he taught birds that lived on beetles and caterpillars to eat seeds, and how he got maggots and weevils also, and he complained of Roland's want of interest in the feathered tribe.
"No, I don't like birds," the boy declared.
"And I know why," said Eric.
"Do you? why then?"
"You have no pleasure in the free-flying creatures which you cannot make your own, and you don't like them imprisoned either. You like dogs because they are free and yet cling to us."
The dog-trainer nodded to Eric, as if to say, "You've struck the nail on the head."
"Yes, I do like you!" cried Roland, who had two young spaniels in his lap, while the mother stood by and rubbed her head against his side, and the other dogs crowded round.
"Envy and jealousy," said Eric, "are striking characteristics of dogs. As soon as a man caresses one, all the rest want to share the favor."
"There's one that doesn't trouble himself about it," said the trainer, laughing.
In the corner lay a small brown dog, that only blinked at them occasionally. Eric remarked that it must be a fox-hound, to judge from its appearance.
"Right, he understands dogs!" cried the screamer, turning to Roland. "You are right! I got that fellow out of a fox-hole, and he is and always will be an unfaithful and ungrateful beast, who is not to be trusted; do what you will for him, he is never thankful nor affectionate."
The dog in the corner just opened his eyes and shut them again, as if he didn't disturb himself about the talk of men.
Roland showed Eric his ferrets, which seemed to know him as he took them out of the cage. He pointed out a bright yellow one, as an especially cunning, tough rascal; he had given him the name of Buchanan. The name of the other he would not tell; it was really Knopf, but now he only said that he called him Master of Arts, because he always considered so long before he went into a hole, and moved his lips as if he were delivering a lecture.
They went into the garden, and the huntsman showed Eric his bee-hives. Turning to Roland, he said,—
"Yes, Roland, your father's flowers are good for my bees, if the poor little creatures didn't have to fly so far down to reach your garden. I let my cattle feed in other men's pastures, and the world hasn't yet got so far that rich men can forbid poor men's bees to suck honey from their flowers."
A sharp glance shot from his eyes as he said this, which expressed the whole rankling hostility of the poor towards the rich. The keeper complained that Sonnenkamp cherished so many nightingales, which certainly sang beautifully, but robbed the bees of their honey, and even ate the bees with the honey. The nightingale, which men prize so highly, is a cruel murderer of bees.
"Yes," answered Eric, "the nightingales do not know that the bees give honey, and we cannot blame the birds for considering them as plagues for whose destruction men will be grateful. However, they do not eat them altogether for our sakes but their own."
The screamer looked first at Eric, then at Roland, and nodded as if saying, "Yes, yes, that's quite another thing."
Roland now asked how far Griffin had been broken in. The reply was, that he would now run at the man, but he was still too wild, and his leap not quite regular, but he was beginning to seize hold. Roland desired to see him do it; but the day-laborer, who allowed himself to be experimented upon in that way, was not at home. Roland said that the dwarf was at home, and he would be ready to do it. He himself went after the dwarf.
After Roland had gone, the huntsman, Claus, hastily grasped Eric's hand, saying, "I will help you to catch him, and I can give the fellow slick into your hand."
Eric gazed in utter astonishment at the old man, who proceeded to inform him that he understood very well what he had come for, and whoever knew how could make out of Roland a proper man. He signified by a very sly wink that Eric would some day be exceedingly grateful to him, if he should help him out.
Before Eric could make any reply, Roland came back with the dwarf, who allowed a pillow to be fastened over his shoulders, and stationed himself at the garden-fence, holding fast by the palings with both hands. A large Newfoundland dog was let out of a kennel, and sprang about awkwardly in all directions, but at a whistle from the keeper stationed himself behind him.
The keeper now called out, "Griffin! catch him! At him!"
With a bound the dog-leaped through the garden at the dwarf standing by the fence, jumped upon him, bit into the pillow, tugged at him until he fell over, and then placed his right fore-foot upon his breast, looking back at his master.
"Bravo! bravo! You see he is a real devil!"
"You are right!" exclaimed Roland. "Devil! that's just the name—Devil he shall be called. Now they will be afraid of me all over the neighborhood."
Eric was shocked at this insolent bravado as well as at the off-hand application of the idea. He appealed to the trainer whether a dog's name ought to be changed who had already cut all his teeth.
"Certainly not," asserted the man; "a dog whose name is changed don't know when he is called."
"And besides," added Eric, "it is wholly wrong to give a dog such a name. A dog's name ought to have anain it, and have only one syllable; the letteracan be called aloud very easily."
"You are a great scholar; I never heard of the like before; you know everything;" the screamer went on in high commendation, winking at the same time merrily, and with half-sidelong glances.
Devil—for Roland persisted in giving the dog this name—would not come away from the dwarf, prostrate on the ground, although both Roland and the trainer called to him repeatedly. That was not a part of his lesson. He held on until the trainer showed his whip.
Roland gave the dwarf a piece of money, for which he was very abjectly grateful, and only wished that he might be thrown down in that way three times every day by the dog. Eric looked on meditatively. How was this rich youth to be made to learn to love, labor for, and influence the world which so laid itself at his feet?
When the two left the cottage, the trainer escorted them a part of the way, followed by a whole pack of dogs. They led their horses by the bridle, and the trainer, keeping exclusively by the side of Eric, made an ostentatious display of his whole stock of wisdom concerning the training of dogs. The huntsman considered himself infinitely clever, and all learned men stupid.
He seemed also to wish, in a sly way, to instruct Eric, when he said to him that as soon as a dog can stand without stumbling over his own legs, a beginning could be made. And it was an all-important thing not to say much to a dog, but to use short, simple words, such as "go!" "come!" "here!" but never any long speeches; and one must not make much of him, but leave him to himself for whole days; and if he wished to make friends, not to mind it, for if one gives too much attention to a dog he becomes troublesome; and any one whom a dog is to respect must not be found wanting at the hunt, especially when the dog is taken out for the first time; if one has shot any game that the dog can fetch, he will be faithful and true, but if one misses, he acquires no respect, and never gains over the dog.
"Do you know Herr Knopf?" the screamer asked abruptly. Eric answered in the negative.
"Yes; Herr Knopf," said the screamer, "has told me a hundred times, that all the school-masters ought to be under my tuition. Dogs and human beings are just alike. But the dogs are the more faithful beasts, and let themselves be broken in, and bite only when the master orders them to."
Eric looked at the man in astonishment; there was in him an inexplicable bitterness, and this man was the boy's friend. He returned to their former topic, and the screamer chuckled when he said that beasts acquire something of the understanding of the men they are with.
The huntsman was very merry, and when they were about to separate, on reaching the level ground, he took Roland aside, and said to him:—
"Thou blustering fellow! all thy ramrod priests and school-masters have been of no account. That would be the man! Thy father ought to buy such a man as that, and then something might be made of thee. But all your money can't get him!"
The screamer said this ostensibly to Roland alone, but Eric was also to hear it, for he must know that he ought to be grateful to him.
Just as they mounted, the huntsman said further,—
"Do you know that your father is buying up the whole mountain? Cursed accumulation! Your father is buying the whole Pfaffen-street." At the same time, pointing to the far extending wide-spread Rhineland, he said,—
"In a hundred years, not one handbreadth of all those vineyards will belong to those who rake and dig there. Must that be? Can that be allowed?"
A brisk trot carried them back to the villa; Eric had made up his mind; at the very moment when Eric had said to himself, "It is your duty not to abandon the boy," he saw in the garden, near the small vine-embowered house, a female form which vanished round the corner.
Had he really seen his mother, or had she been only present to his imagination?
Quicker than one can compute, the idea was formed in his mind, that here his mother and his aunt were to dwell; this house with its little garden, its dwarf-trees, and its beautiful prospect was made ready for her.
"Did you see a woman there in the garden?" he asked Roland.
"Yes, it was Fräulein Milch.
"Who is Fräulein Milch?"
"The Major's housekeeper."
When Eric and Roland returned from their ride, they learned that Herr von Pranken had arrived. Eric's portmanteau had also been carried to his room. The valet, Joseph, introduced himself as the son of the Professor of Anatomy's servant, and he mentioned, with perceptible emotions of gratitude, that Eric's father had given him a French Grammar, out of which he had learned by heart French phrases, in his spare moments at the Academic billiard-saloon, where he had been an attendant. He had there laid the foundation of his present prosperity, and he expressed his satisfaction at being able to thank the son of his benefactor.
Joseph helped Eric in his arrangements, and gave him information concerning the habits of the household; according to these, the next thing to be done was, that each one, before dinner, which was regarded as a sort of festive occasion, should repair in full dress to the pleasure-ground in summer, and in spring to Nice,—as that part of the covered walk on the terrace was called which had the best exposure to the sun.
Eric laid aside his uniform; he entered the covered walk, and there found Pranken and Fräulein Perini promenading up and down together. Pranken approached Eric with a bland smile that flickered upon his face, disappearing as quickly as it came. In the consciousness of his rank and his social position, he could afford a perfect courteousness of demeanor, in which even a certain degree of geniality might be observed. With a bow he again took a position by the side of Fräulein Perini, and continued his previous promenade and conversation with her.
Eric stood apart, and the admonition that he, as one in service, must not be sensitive, struggled with his pride. But it might be regarded as very considerate in Pranken, that he did not ask how it fared with his application for the position of tutor.
Roland now entered in full dress, and the boy was amazed to see Eric in citizen's clothes. Eric asked him, "Is your sister's name Manna?
"Yes; Hermanna, in fact, but she is always called Manna. Have you ever heard of her?"
Eric had not time to reply that he had heard that name frequently mentioned by Pranken and Fräulein Perini, for Sonnenkamp entered in a black dress-coat, white neck-tie, and irreproachable yellow gloves. He was very gracious to everybody, one might sayappetizingin his manner, as if he would say, "I hope you will all enjoy your dinner." Never was Sonnenkamp in a more cheerful mood, never more buoyant, than during the quarter of an hour before dinner.
They went into the dining-saloon, a cool, square, vaulted room, lighted from the roof.
The carved oak furniture here was very massive. A large side-board, set out with beautiful antique vessels and Venetian glasses, displayed the rich silver plate. The whole neighborhood said that Herr Sonnenkamp ate out of golden plates; but this was a gossiping story.
They waited a few minutes in the dining-room until the folding-doors opened, when two servants in the coffee-colored livery of the house stood like guards, one on each side, and Frau Ceres, like a princess, stepped between them. At the threshold she courtesied somewhat stiffly; and Pranken, coming forward, conducted her to the table. A servant was stationed near each person, and drew back the chair whilst he took his seat; Fräulein Perini stood up behind her chair and leaned her arms upon the back, held the mother-of-pearl cross in her folded hands, said a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and sat down.
Frau Ceres, during the dinner, retained her yellow gloves, scarcely tasting any food, and appearing as if she had come to the table merely not to derange the order of things. She declined every dish, until Herr Sonnenkamp said:—
"Do take something, dear child, do, I pray you."
In his manner, in making this request, there was a double tone, hard to be distinguished separately. Sometimes it sounded like the call and signal of a tamer of wild beasts, who allowed some subdued animal to take the food lying before him; but again it sounded as when a father, fondly and coaxingly, beseeches his peevish child to eat something for his own good. Frau Ceres ate only a part of a bird, and some sweetmeats.
Pranken's demeanour at table was that of an honored guest, to whom was conceded the duty of paying particular attention to the hostess and conversing with her. He gave a humorous account of the horse-market at Mannheim, from which he had returned to-day at an early hour, with his companion; he had bought for the fall-races a gray mare, which he would be happy to transfer to Herr Sonnenkamp. And he soon took care to gain the good will of Frau Ceres. She had a special aversion to the family of the Wine-chevalier, who were very reserved towards the Sonnenkamp household. He proceeded to relate some ridiculous swaggerings of the Wine-chevalier, although he had been his own chosen companion.
He had also great skill in imitating the peculiar manner of speaking of different persons, and in introducing; facetious anecdotes, which produced a movement of the muscles in the weary face of Frau Ceres, and frequently even a smile.
The conversation was carried on in Italian, which Pranken spoke pretty well, but in which Eric was not fluent. For the first time in his life, Eric sat at a table where he was obliged to keep as silent as the servants who were in waiting.
Frau Ceres considered it her place not to leave the stranger wholly neglected, and therefore she asked him in English if his parents were still living.
Assuming a patronising tone, Pranken went into an account of Eric's father and mother; he did it with marked friendliness of manner, and dwelt with special emphasis upon the fact that Eric's mother belonged to the nobility.
"Are you a Frenchman, as your name indicates?" Fräulein Perini inquired.
Eric once more repeated that his ancestors had immigrated into Germany two hundred years before; that he felt himself to be purely a German, and rejoiced to be descended from the Huguenots.
"Huguenots?—ah, yes! they sing that," Frau Ceres said, taking a childish delight in this knowledge.
Every one at the table was obliged to restrain himself from laughing aloud.
"Why was the name Huguenots given to them?" asked Roland, and Eric replied,
"Some people think that the name originated in the circumstance of their holding their secret religious assemblies at Tours, only by night, when the ghost of King Hugo appeared; but I am of the opinion of those who consider it a German word, originally Eidgenosse, meaning associates, and changed by the French into Huguenot."
Pranken nodded to Eric in a very friendly manner, as if he would give him a testimonial of his excellent qualifications as a tutor.
"You take pride, then, in your descent from the Huguenots?" asked Sonnenkamp.
"Pride is not precisely the word I should prefer," Eric answered.
"But you know that the Puritans, who were exiled to the New World on account of their religious belief, were the parent-stock of that substantial, conscientious, and courageous middle class; and that they carried with them and transplanted into their new homes, as the Greeks of old times into Sicily and Italy, a complete civilization."
The manner in which Eric uttered this, touching upon a great historical series of events, suddenly gave to the conversation at table a wholly new direction. They were at once taken out of the light, brief witticisms, and piquant personalities, into an entirely different atmosphere. Roland felt this to some extent, looked proudly at Eric, and was glad that his voice and his thoughts so overmastered all.
Sonnenkamp himself recognised here the serene presence of a higher nature, which always breathed in an elevated region; he could not help feeling a certain respect for the man, and at last put the question, "How do you associate the Pilgrim Fathers in America with the Huguenots?"
"Let me briefly explain," answered Eric. "The new age has broken through the stringent lines of demarcation between different nationalities, as, for example, the Jews have become actual and constituent parts of the various peoples among whom they have been scattered. A haughty and tyrannical king drove the Huguenots out of France, and they became Germans. The emigrating Englishmen imprinted their culture upon America; the emigrating Huguenots, established among a people already civilized, were obliged to adopt the social cultus of their new fatherland. Permit me, Herr Sonnenkamp, to take you as an example."
"Me? what do you mean?"
"You emigrated to America as a German, and the German emigrants in the New World become assimilated to their adopted home, and their children are completely American."
Roland's eye glistened, but whether it was that Pranken felt himself cast in the shade by Eric, or that he endeavored to embarrass him as much as possible, he exclaimed, with an odd mingling of humor and pity,—
"It is very modest in you to place the Huguenots, who almost all belonged to the gentry, in the same category with the Jews."
"I regard it as a matter of no consequence," Eric replied, "whether my ancestors belonged to the gentry or not; they were engaged in the common occupations of business and trade, and my immediate ancestors were goldsmiths. The resemblance of the Jews with the Huguenots, however, I must maintain. Every community exiled on account of its religion, and scattered abroad, incurs thereby a double obligation: first, to keep in view, over and above all nationality, the oneness of humanity; and second, to contend against all fanaticism and all exclusiveness. There is no one religion in which alone salvation is to be found, and no one nationality comprising in itself all excellence."
Pranken and Fräulein Perini looked at each other in astonishment. Frau Ceres was at a loss to comprehend what all this meant, and Sonnenkamp shook his head over this sermon-like style of his guest, who intermingled his world-wide historical views with the light table-talk; and yet he could not get rid of the impression that there was before him a nature that had its permanent abode in the region of pure thought.
"You must unfold that to me yet more definitely at some other time," he said, seeking to divert the conversation.
And Roland said:—
"Louis the fourteenth, who exiled your ancestors, is he the one who destroyed the castles here on the Rhine?"
"The same."
It seemed difficult to draw the conversation away from a subject which made it drag heavily, but it was suddenly diverted, for just then a highly seasoned dish was brought in, of which Roland desired to eat. His father would not permit it. His mother, perceiving it, cried out in a shrill voice, "Do let him eat what he likes."
A glance from Eric met Roland's eye, and the boy laid down the morsel that he was about putting into his mouth, saying, "I would rather not eat it."
Sonnenkamp made a sign to the servant to re-fill Eric's glass with Rauenthaler. This appeared to be his way of expressing his gratitude for the glance of Eric.
No new topics for light conversation came up. Pranken was silent, and it was uncertain whether he had exhausted his material, or whether he wished to make Eric conscious by this reticence how pedantically, and at the same time ostentatiously, he had disturbed the cordial good feeling of the table.
The cloth was removed. Fräulein Perini again repeated a prayer in a low tone, all stood motionless, and the servants having quickly drawn back the chairs, they repaired to the veranda, where coffee was served in very small cups.
Frau Ceres gave a biscuit to a snow-white parrot, and the parrot called out, "God bless you, massa." Then she sank down into an easy-chair, and Pranken placed himself near her on a low tabouret, sitting almost at her feet.
Fräulein Perini selected a seat sufficiently near, if she wished to take part in the conversation, and yet far enough off to allow Pranken to speak with Frau Ceres alone.
Sonnenkamp beckoned to Eric to go with him into the garden. Roland accompanied them without being asked.
The servant came to inform them that the huntsman Claus was with the puppies, and begged that the young gentleman would come to him.
"I give you permission to go," the father said.
"But I would prefer to remain with you here," Roland replied.
There was an expression of childlike fondness in the tone and gesture, as he grasped Eric's hand.
"If your father says that you may go, you should go," Eric quietly answered.
Roland departed with lingering steps, halting at intervals, but still he went.