Sonnenkamp left him standing there, and, going into the orchard, helped very carefully and tenderly to gather the fruit. He thought of the days when this fruit was growing, of the spring when Roland was convalescent, of the visit of the Prince, the journey to the springs, the days of sunshine until now, the dewy nights; and he thought silently, when will there be another crop of fruit? how will it be with you then? where? perhaps under ground; then you cannot turn over the black mould: then his head swam.
It is a shame that we must die, and a double shame to know that we must.
He stared fixedly as if he were bewildered, for it came over him that on this very spot he had said something like this to Eric, the first morning he had come there. Has this place a peculiar power to awaken thoughts of death? Are you standing over the spot of earth which shall be your grave?
He was called away; for the notary with his two assistants had arrived just at the dinner hour. He sat down with him at the table, and appeared in as good spirits as if nothing had happened. The notary occupied Pranken's usual seat. After dinner, he transacted business with the notary, being long and busily engaged in writing. The two assistants signed as witnesses: so that nobody except those under oath knew any thing of the contents of the will.
After this was done, a letter came from Bella. She wrote to Sonnenkamp that she and Clodwig would come to the jury-trial, and he must bring it about that she should be among the twelve. Sonnenkamp smiled, for he had almost forgotten about it: it was all very well. Eric requested Roland and Manna to accompany the Mother, who wanted to make a visit at Mattenheim. They consented, and so the house was now perfectly still, almost entirely deserted.
The days passed away quiet and dull. Sonnenkamp sent off many letters, and read the newspapers, without sending them to Frau Ceres, as was his former custom.
The men came who had declared themselves ready to constitute the jury.
Sonnenkamp sent word to them that he would see no one until the time came for appearing before the tribunal. But an exception was made in regard to one person. Lootz was made the confidential agent, and Bella came to Sonnenkamp's room, through the climbing mistaria and the seed-room.
"Just a few words," Sonnenkamp said. "You could not form one of the jury; but I assure you, because such a being lives with me on the earth, I will live, and will yet show what constitutes a man. Here, in this room, will I speak."
He escorted her back through the seed-room: she knew that the door would be left open.
Bella went restlessly about the Villa, and she saw Lina who had come with her father, and who wanted to keep Manna company at this terrible time; but Lina was at a loss what to do with herself, when she found how the family was scattered.
She entreated Bella to go with her to Aunt Claudine, who was the only one left at home.
Bella said that she would come by and by.
Lina went to Aunt Claudine, and afforded her some real consolation, and even pleasure.
"Oh," asked Lina, "are Africans and negroes the same thing?"
"Most certainly."
"Well, I can't tell you how much I dislike Africans and negroes. I've nothing to say against their being free, why shouldn't they be? But they might have become so before this or afterwards: why, just at this very time? Why must they deprive me of my beautiful season of betrothal? Nobody is disposed to be merry, nobody talks of any thing else, by reason of these negroes. It's the fashion even to wear chains now, calledChâines d'esclaves,—Oh, I wanted to ask you something—what was it—yes, I know now. Just tell me what they're going to do when the negroes get to be good people just like everybody else, what they're going to do then with the Devil?"
"What has the Devil to do with it?"
"Why, how are they going to paint the Devil, if he's not to be black any longer?"
Aunt Claudine had to indulge in a most hearty laugh, and she was very much rejoiced to be reminded that, in the midst of this monotonously sombre life, there was some liveliness still left in the world.
She was ready to go with Lina to the Castle, but just as they were leaving the house, Bella came. She begged that Aunt Claudine and Lina would not put off their excursion on her account, and shut herself up in the library, while the Aunt and Lina proceeded to the castle. They remained there until the afternoon, and often looked down to the Villa where "the men were all engaged in such a queer business," as Lina expressed herself.
Bella did not stay long in the library, but quickly returned to the villa, and noiselessly went up the steps overgrown with mistaria.
Sonnenkamp went to his wife, thinking that he must inform her of what was now going on. She tauntingly reminded him of his promise to return to America; she did not want the decision to be in the hands of strangers.
Sonnenkamp's practice was to let Frau Ceres speak just as long and as much as she pleased; for it was a matter of perfect indifference to him what she said.
When he had got through with this, he returned to his room, and sent word to those who arrived, that he would extend a welcome to them when he appeared before the tribunal.
Weidmann came first with the Prince Valerian and Knopf, then Clodwig with the Banker, and the Doctor with the Justice. Professor Einsiedel stopped a while at the dog-house, and talked very earnestly with the field-guard, and was highly delighted at the sound views of the man in dog-training. Once he tapped upon his forehead with the fore and middle fingers, wishing to impress upon his memory one observation of Claus, which explained to him a passage in the eighth book of Pliny, treating of land-animals.
The Major came in full uniform, wearing all his decorations; and when he saw that Clodwig had come in plain citizen's clothes, without a single decoration, he said to himself in vexation,—
"She was right here, too; but I thought as it was a tribunal of honor—well, no matter; it's no harm, anyhow."
Eric had made all the requisite arrangements in the music-saloon; but by Sonnenkamp's order, the chairs, the side-board set out with eatables and drinkables, and every thing else needful, were removed to Sonnenkamp's room. He placed his chair with a table before it near the door leading into the seed-room, to which he then withdrew.
After the men had assembled, Eric knocked at the door, according to a pre-concerted arrangement; and, as it opened, Sonnenkamp came forward. A bluish pallor rested on his countenance, as he stepped up to the little table where two sticks for whittling and a pocket-knife were placed. Resting one hand upon the table, he began,—
"Gentlemen of honor and worth!"—here pausing a moment, he continued, "I use the words worth and honor, because they are not always, and, in fact, are very seldom, united together,—you fulfil a human duty in coming here at my call, and bestowing upon me a portion of your life, these hours, your feelings, and your thoughts. I acknowledge this favor. On the Western prairies, in the lonely log-house, in order to form an opinion of a man from whom wrong has been suffered, and in order to pronounce a verdict thereupon, and to execute it, we call in the neighbors living on the solitary farms for miles around; and I have done this now, and you have come here in obedience to the call. You are to pass a judgment, you are to decide upon what penalty shall be inflicted in reference to acts that cannot be weighed in the balances of legal statutes. I shall lay open to you, without reserve, my past life. I can do this the more easily, as you know already the worst in my case. You are to see how I have grown up from childhood, and then to decide and to judge. I have never felt pity myself, and I ask no pity from you: I ask for justice."
Sonnenkamp had begun in a depressed tone, and with downcast eyes; but he soon grew more animated, his countenance became more intent, and his eye lighted up.
"I make the declaration, therefore, that I accept your finding, and submit myself to whatever expiation you may determine upon. I have only one request. Let each one of you, within a week, write out his opinion, and render in his verdict; then let the paper be given into the hands of Herr Captain Doctor Eric Dournay, who will break the seal in the presence of two other persons.
"I will now withdraw a moment, in order that you may determine whether you will undertake the service under this condition, and, if you think it expedient, may choose a foreman."
He bowed. There was something theatrical and yet gravely composed in his manner of speaking, and in the way in which he now withdrew for a moment into the adjoining apartment.
The assembled gentlemen looked at one another; but no one spoke: all eyes were turned upon Clodwig, from whom an opinion was first expected.
He said now in a quiet and low tone,—
"Herr Weidmann will be so good as to undertake the office of foreman. We need one to make, in the first place, the necessary preliminary arrangements."
Weidmann at once accepted the position, and announced that he agreed to the proposal for a written verdict. The rest were also ready; but Professor Einsiedel, beginning timidly, and gaining more and more confidence as he proceeded, said that this ought not to exclude consultation together in order to elucidate and confirm the individual opinion: otherwise, all the effect of a common tribunal would be lost, and it would be superfluous for them to sit there together.
This opinion was acceded to, and Eric was deputed to call Sonnenkamp again into the room.
As Eric opened the door, he thought he noticed a nestling like that made by a silk dress, and he was at a loss what to make of it.
He found Sonnenkamp in the seed-room, hurriedly smoking a cigar: he laid it down, and went back to the audience-room.
Weidmann informed Sonnenkamp of the conclusion they had come to, and the remarks of Professor Einsiedel. Sonnenkamp nodded assent. "Before I resume," he said, taking one of the pieces of wood with a smile, "I must beg indulgence for a habit which I am sorry to say I cannot drop. I am in the habit, when I am alone, busy in thought—and I shall address you as if I were alone—as I remarked, I am accustomed either to smoke or to whittle, oftentimes both together. I can compose myself better if my accustomed practice is now indulged in."
He seated himself, took one of the bits of wood, and, cutting a deep notch around it, began,—
"I beg that any one of you will interrupt me with questions if involuntarily I leave any thing obscure or unexplained. Now then: I am the only son of the richest man in Warsaw. If I tell you of my youth, it is not because I wish to throw the responsibility of my acts upon circumstances or upon fate. My father had the largest business in wood and grain. When I was six years old, he removed to a large German town, for in clearing a forest my older brother had been killed by a falling tree; My mother died soon after, and lies buried with him in the village near by. I was often told that I should have a step-mother; but it was not so. My father—I speak as openly of him as of myself—was one of the most popular of men, but felt no affection for any person or thing on earth. He gave both hands to every one who approached him, and was extremely complaisant, kind, cordial, and expressive; but, as soon as a man had turned his back; he spoke slightingly of him. He was a hypocrite from choice, even where there was no necessity of being so. He was so even towards the beggar. This, however, I did not perceive until at a later period. At my father's table there were present state officials, artists, and learned men: they liked good eating, and, in order to get it, were obliged to set off our table with their decorations and titles. We gave great parties, and had no social visiting. There were grand banquets in the house, and there sat down at them men decorated with stars, and women with bare shoulders: at the dessert I was brought in, passed from lap to lap, carressed and flattered, and fed with ices and confectionery. I was dressed handsomely, and in some old lumber-room there must be a portrait,—I would give a great deal to come across it again,—painted life-size, and with crisped locks, by the first court-painter, and afterwards sold with the rest of our household stuff. We had no relatives. I had a private tutor; for my father did not want to send me to a public school. I grew up the idol of my father, and he always kissed me warmly when I was carried to him by his order. My tutor indulged me in every thing, and taught me to regard myself alone as the central point of all, and never to pay any regard to my dear fellow human beings. This helped me more than he could imagine. The capital thing is to blunt the conscience, as it is termed: all men do it, but some more superficially than others. The world is nothing but a collection of egoisms hanging loosely together. When I was sixteen years old, I had already fallen into the hands of usurers; for I was the heir of a million, and that was a larger sum then than seven times as much to-day. My father's solicitor settled with them, and, as soon as that was done, I ran up new bills, delighted that my credit was so good. In short, I was a fast youth, and I continued to be so. I have already said, I believe, that I had no love, no respect even, for my father, who was—the truth must be told—one of the most exquisite hypocrites that ever wore the white cravat of respectability. My father was a very honest hypocrite. Others dissemble, and whitewash it over with a coating of ideality, persuading themselves that there is something real and actual in other things than money and pleasure. My father was also a philosopher, and used to say, My son, the world belongs to him who has strength or cunning enough to conquer it; and whoever takes a sentimental view has the pleasure of taking it, and nothing more."
Sonnenkamp scraped energetically at the bit of wood which he held in his hand, and for a moment nothing was heard but the scratching of the knife rounding off the end.
"This being said," he resumed, "I can continue with calmness. At seventeen years of age, I was a spendthrift, inducted into all kinds of respectable iniquities. I was a jolly comrade, a good-for-nothing fellow; but I was respectable, rich, and therefore very popular; for nature and destiny had been terribly lavish in securing this result. My father regularly paid my gambling debts and other debts also. He went with me to the ballet, and often handed me his more powerful opera glass, that I might get a better view of the sylph-like Cortini, who was no stranger to me, as he very well knew. Yes, we were a jovial set. My father gave me only one counsel, and that was, Don't confine yourself to one. Every Sunday I must dissemble, and say I was going to church; but my father knew well enough, and took a secret satisfaction in the knowledge, that I went elsewhere. Our carriage stood every other Sunday at the church where the most pious and celebrated preacher held forth; and on the alternate Sunday we did not drive, but walked, for then our coachmen also went, and our horses, too, had a Sunday. Our very servants must appear pious. My father was Protestant, and I was Catholic out of regard to my mother. I leave it for others to decide in which confession hypocrisy is cultivated the more successfully.
"Now the question came up what was I to do? I had no fancy for sitting at the accountant's desk, and wanted to be a soldier; but I was not of noble rank, and was not willing to be received at the Jockey Club simply on sufferance. I dropped off from my youthful companions, and from that time played the gentleman. I went to Paris. I enjoyed a superfluity of the pleasures furnished by the world. Most people plume themselves upon their virtue, and their virtue is nothing more than a feebleness of constitution; they make a virtue of necessity. When I had sowed enough wild oats, my father sent for me. I lived at home, and the specimens I saw before me of what was termed virtue were nothing but cowardice, and fear of not being respected. To be virtuous is a bore; to appear virtuous is amusing and profitable at the same time. Every thing that can be done without detection is allowable: the main thing is to belong to society. I often went from the most brilliant assemblies into the wretchedest dens; and the lowest vice seemed to me the most worthy of respect. I was a roué, and remained so. We were proud of being a rollicking and reckless crew. It had a sort of poetic tinge. Let one be a poet like Byron, be a genius, an exception to the ordinary crowd, and what in lower conditions would be crime is then regarded as a gallant feat. I saw that the whole world was vice under a mask, and I think there is no vice; the name is given, poison is written on the phial, so that the bulk of mankind may not drink out of it. I was made acquainted, whether accidentally or designedly I do not know, with a beautiful girl, fresh as a rose. It was time that I, at one and twenty, should settle down as a married man. All congratulated me on having sowed my wild oats, as it is termed, and that I was now to become a respectable husband and the head of a family. My betrothed was an enthusiastic child, and I don't understand it to this day, how she could make light of my past as she did, probably under the direction of her mother. Why I married the child I do not know. As I was going to church, and returning from it, as I was making the wedding trip, in which every thing was very modest and proper, it seemed to be somebody else, and not myself, who was the actor. We returned, and—but I will spin out the story no further than to say, that I discovered an earlier attachment of the sweet child. The only thing that vexed me was to be laughed at. I left her, and while the arrangements were being made for a separation, she died, and with her an unborn life. I was again free, free! That means that I was in Paris. I wanted to enjoy life: to drain the cup to the very dregs. Dissipation, dissipation, was my sole end: I yearned for distracting pleasure—I wanted to exhaust life, and every morning it was new born. My soul was a void, a void everywhere. I despised life, and yet did not fling it from me. What has life to offer? Reputation or riches—the former I could not strive after, the latter was open to me. My father wanted to hold me within a narrow range. I operated on the Exchange. I gained considerable sums, and lost them again, but still had enough left to keep afloat by means of gambling. I was at Marseilles, among a jolly set, when I heard of my father's death. The largest part of my inheritance was seized upon by my creditors, and, because I wanted to have no recollections of home, I wrote to the attorney to sell off every thing. A malicious saying went the rounds after his death. We had had no idea how well he was known; now it was said, 'There was one good thing about him, and that is, he was better than his son.'
"The Germans say that God and the Devil are wrestling with one another for the dominion of the world. I have hitherto only heard of these two mighty potencies, they have never yet presented themselves before me; but I was convinced that there were two things engaged in a strong tussle, and these were Work and Ennui. Men benumb themselves in work, in pleasure, in the foolery of morality, as it is termed. All is vanity, the wise king has said; but it ought to be said, All is stale, tedious, flat, a long-drawn yawn, that ends only in the death-rattle. I have run over the whole sandy desert of ennui, and there is no remedy there but opium, hashish, gambling, and adventure. I took lessons of a juggler, and acquired great skill, for which I stood in high repute among my companions; I had the most splendid apparatus. I lived in Italy at a later period, out of pure wantonness, as a juggler by profession. I was in Paris at the time of Louis Philippe; there's nothing merrier than these frequentémeutes: they are the people's games of chance."
Sonnenkamp stopped, and now, boring with his knife very delicately, he said,—
"Do you look at me in astonishment, because I impart wisdom? Well, that is also insipid like every thing else: honor, gold, music, friendship, glory, all is emptiness. The men of virtue, the men of honor, are all like those augurs who could not look into each other's faces without laughing at the idle tale which they impose upon the world. The gods of to-day, in the church as well as in the world, say, we know that you are only hypocrites; but that you must play the hypocrite is an evidence of our authority. And the so-called delight in nature, in mountain and valley, in water and forest, sunlight and moonlight and starry brightness—what does it all amount to? a mere cheat, a curtain to hide the grave you are to lie in. What is a man to do in the world? Do you know that millions have lived before him, and have looked at the stars? Is he to be proud of playing the same old tune over and over again, like the man with his hurdy-gurdy, grinding out the same melody to-day and to-morrow that he did yesterday? You see I had learned my Byron by heart. The misfortune was, that I was neither a poet nor a highly interesting pirate. I was disgusted with the world and with myself. I did not want to kill myself. I wanted to live, and to despise every thing. I had madly, as if in mockery of myself, lost every thing at play; and now came the merriest thing of all. It was a cold, wet night; but it suited me well, as I went through the streets, completely plucked as I was. Whew! How lustily the wind blew! it was cooling. Here was I traversing the ant-hill of the great city; my money I had gambled away, and my love had been unfaithful. A nice, prudent little fellow there was, who proved to me over a bottle of canary, that I possessed a capital which I didn't understand how to put at interest; that I was a born diplomatist. I knew the decoy-duck at the first whistle. I was to be a diplomatist, and so I sported that character. New horses, new servants, a new love, and a large new house, were now mine. I was an attaché; in good German, I was a spy. I cover the word with no nice little moral cloak. The life was a merry one. This time the discovery had been made: now dissembling had a definite end. The praise which the ambassador lavished upon me I deserved more than he was aware. Did you ever hear of being insured against the insurance company? I brought the ambassador most important information; but I had an after appointment with the minister of police, and gave him secret notice of the ambassador's machinations. The ambassador gave me false information; but we could extract from this what his real intention was."
A smile passed over the countenances of the hearers, and Sonnenkamp continued,—
"A day came when I must flee. I had the choice of five passports with five different names under which to travel. I wanted, first of all, concealment; and one is best concealed among so called honest people. I came to Nice, where I was a gardener. All my senses were paralyzed. I seemed to myself a corpse, and as if I with my thoughts were only the companion of this corpse. Here I and the gardener became one again; the odor of the moist earth was the first thing that, for a long time, had given me any pleasure, no, that made me feel I was alive. Chemistry can imitate every thing; but the fragrance that rises out of the fresh earth no perfume ever possessed. Herr Dournay surprised me on the first hour of his arrival, just as I was digging in the fresh mould. It gave me strength. The masquerade pleased me; I had good sleep, a good appetite. The gardener's daughter wanted to marry me. I had again a reason for flight. I had laid away a good sum of money; now I dug it up. I began a new life of pleasure at Naples. I confess I was proud of assuming all sorts of transformations: I was entirely afloat, in good health and good spirits. I had a good circulation, and social talent: the world was mine. I had friends wherever I went: how long were they my friends? Perhaps only so long as I stuck fast to my money. That was a matter of indifference to me. I desired no loyalty, for I gave none. I was always thankful to my parents for one thing; they had given me an indestructible constitution. I had a body of steel, a heart of marble, and unshakable nerves; I knew no sickness and no pity. I have experienced many provocations to pity"—
He paused. It was the only time during his whole speech that he smiled; and a peculiar smack of satisfaction proceeded from him.
Then he continued:—
"A strange trait of sentimentalism stuck fast to me, however. It was at Naples, on a wonderfully beautiful evening, we were sailing in a miscellaneous and merry party on the sea, and I was the merriest of the whole. We disembarked. Who can tell what transpires in a human being? At this time, there, under the bright Italian sky, in the midst of laughing, singing, jesting men and women, the thought darted through my mind: What hast thou in the wide world? Nothing. Yet there is one thing: yonder in Poland thy mother's grave. And out of laughing, wanton Italy, I travelled without halt through the different countries, saw nothing, journeying on and on towards dreary, dirty Poland. I came to the village that I had not seen since my sixteenth year. And such is man—no, such am I! I did not want to undergo the pain of seeing my mother's grave. I looked over the burial-ground hedge; but I did not go inside, and travelled back again without having seen the grave. Such am I, so good or so bad; I believe they are one and the same thing. I travelled through Greece and Egypt, and was in Algiers. I have led a life of utterly unbridled excess, and have done every thing to undermine my vital power, but have failed to accomplish it. I have an iron, indestructible constitution. I was in England, the land of respectability. It may be that I have a special eye to see them; but I saw everywhere nothing but masks, hypocrisy, conventionalism. I took ship for America. You will laugh when I tell you that I meant to join the Mormons, and yet such is the fact. These people have the courage and honesty to ordain polygamy by law, while in the rest of the world it exists under a lying disguise. But I was not suited to that community. I soon returned to New York, and there I found the high-school and the Olympus of gamblers. The fast livers of Paris and London are bunglers compared with the Yankees. It was the fashion to declaim against the Southern chivalry; but I have found among them truly heroic natures, of the stuff out of which conquering Rome was built up. Only he who has been in America knows what the being that calls himself man is in reality. Every thing there is reckless, untramelled. They only dissemble in the matter of religion, that's respectable."
Eric and Weidmann looked at each other. Weidmann had given expression to the same thought a few days before at Mattenheim, but in a wholly different connection.
Sonnenkamp went on.
"My five passes were still good. I went here under the name of Count Gronau: the Americans are fond of intercourse with noblemen. After a wild night, I shot a man who had insulted me on the public street. I fled, and lived for a time among the horse-thieves of Arkansas. It was a droll life, a life of craft and adventure that nowhere else has its like. Man becomes there a lurking beast of prey, and my body underwent the most monstrous experiences. I left this partnership, and became a sailor on a whaling-ship. I had shot lions and leopards in Algiers, and now I was hunting the king of the ocean. The whole world is here only to be captured and subdued. I have been through all sorts of experience. I soon gained dexterity enough to reach the position of boat-steerer, and I was appointed to this. There was one thing more; to hunt men, the merriest of all. This was adventure worth engaging in, this man-hunting: here was a new excitement, a novel attraction. We sailed for Madagascar through many perils. We caught men and bought men; boldness and cunning were called into activity, and the business pleased me. Great risk, great profits. In Louisiana, where the great sugar plantations have each three, four, and five thousand slaves, and in Charleston, South Carolina, are the chief slave-markets; for the most part, boys are carried there, and no elderly men. You will consider it contemptible; but it does appear to me a triumph of human freedom and power for one man to steal and sell another. No animal can so seize and serve his kind, always supposing, though by no means granting the fact, that negroes are men. Yes, I have been a slave-trader: they called me the sea-eagle. That bird has the sharpest scent, he flies off, and cannot be caught. It was a bold and beautiful pastime. I have even stolen the chief who was selling me his subjects. These talking black beasts are equal to their so-called fellow-men in one respect, perhaps,—I say perhaps,—they can play the hypocrite like white men. No beast can dissemble, and, if dissembling can give a title to human rights, then the blacks deserve that title. After the first burst of rage, the chief was very tractable; but one day I was pursued, with my cargo on board, by an English ship, and had to pitch the whole human dust-heap into the sea. This gave food to the sharks. Look here, this is the finger which the chief tried to bite off: you know how he has made his appearance in these days. From that time I left off going to sea, and carried on the business through others; finally I gave it up altogether. I had enough, I had large plantations, and the child of the boat-steerer, who had died in the whale-fishery, had been brought up by me, and I married her. Such a being, only half-awake, prattling like a child in every thought, or, rather, with no thought at all, was pleasing to me. I had at that time no idea that there were women with great, heroic, world-conquering souls."
Sonnenkamp spoke these last words in a very loud tone. After a short pause, he continued,—
"I was living in quiet retirement when the insane party of the North arose, whose object was to abolish slavery. And when my own countrymen entered into the front ranks as the magnanimous friends of man, I came forward in the newspapers and acknowledged myself a German, in order to say that all were not like these shriekers about humanity. I showed that it was madness to desire to free the slave. Humane men wanted to render benevolent aid; but the wretchedness of the world is not cured by benevolence, nor the poverty, nor the crime. The works of mercy, all seven together, do not help the world, they are all quack-remedies: the only real benevolence to the lower orders of men is slavery. They want to be nothing else than what they are: the best thing is for them to be taken care of by their masters—for the blacks certainly, and no less so, perhaps, for the whites. Herr Weidmann knows that his nephew has been my bitterest enemy. I was in the Southern States, and there I and my compeers were nobles. We are the privileged class. There are privileged races, and privileged persons among those races. The barons of the Southern States seemed to me the only honest men I had become acquainted with; everywhere else there was hypocrisy. I was displeased, indeed, that they wanted to get for their cause the cover of religion; but it was a rich joke that the ministers of religion volunteered their aid in this attempt.
"But I soon learned to have less regard even for this Southern chivalry. They are hypocrites, too; for they hold slaves, and yet despise him who imports the slaves. This is a remnant of the old hypocrisy of setting up a standard of virtue. Why deny the natural, open, pitiless mastership? Why not openly acknowledge that which they acknowledge in secret? Because the English worshippers of rank place slave-traders in the category of pirates? Even the freemen of the South are themselves the slaves of a vulgar notion. Now it came over me. When I had a son, a longing was awakened within me which I could not appease. I know not whether I have already told you, that, in my early days, the thought often occurred to me, had I been a noble, had I with my courage and my ability entered the military service, I should have become a steady man like the rest; I might have been for a time dissipated; but then I should have managed my estate, and been the founder of an honorable line. The fundamental cause of my adventurous, restless life always seemed to me to be the fact that I was a commoner, having every claim to a privileged station, and yet always thrust into the back-ground. I know that it is an inconsistency; I despise the world, and I strive after honor. This proceeds from a youthful impression of what was meant by the nobility. The only guaranty for the world's smile is rank and genius; without one of these you do not escape from mediocrity and sufferance. I pictured to my wife what a grand life was led at some little court in Germany, and it became a fixed idea in her mind. One can tear out the heart more easily than root out from it a thought. I see the struggle coming in the New World: courage and strength are on our side. There will be a slaughter unparalleled; but we shall be victorious. The Southern States want independence, and this is the only, the highest thing. I have labored in Europe for our cause. We lived in England, in Italy, in Switzerland. I thought, for a time, of becoming what is called a free, sober citizen of Switzerland. But I hated Switzerland: it suffers the foreigner to be free, so long as he is a foreigner; if he becomes a citizen of the State, he can no longer be a free man, but must take part in all their petty concerns. He who is not earning money, and who will not be pious—one can do both at the same time without much trouble—he who doesn't want to live frugally, will not do for Switzerland. No court, no nobility, no barracks there!—nothing but church, school, and hospital, things that are of no account to me. I didn't want to remain in Switzerland, with inaccessible heights before my eyes; it's oppressive, and for that reason, here on the Rhine it's cozy and homelike. Germany is and will be the only land for free men. Here one pays his tax, and is let alone. No one has any claim, and in his position the nobleman is liable to no interference. I returned to Germany, because I wished to acquire for myself and for my son a brilliant position in society. The regard of one's neighbors, one's fellow-men, is a fine luxury, perhaps the very finest: this, I wanted to have too. I wanted to give my son what only the German perfectly knows, dutiful service; and with this view there was perpetually ringing in my ears one melody—the only sentimentalism I can reproach myself with—a villa on the Rhine. This was the dream of my childhood, this, of my mature life, and this has been my ruin. When I looked the whole world over, and asked myself where life could be passed most happily, then I had to confess, as I said before, that it is the highest pinnacle of enjoyment to be a rich baron of some small German state. Here one may have a life fraught with enjoyment without any claim of duty, and receive all honor in a limited circle, and enjoyment besides. I have become familiar with all the different strata of existence. I have caroused and scuffled with the red-skins, and more than once have been in danger of adorning some Indian with my scalp, and I wanted now to make trial of the red-collars andtheirchief. I did not want to leave the world without knowing what court life was. I cherished still one idyllic dream—something of the German romance hangs by me yet—and, not without reason, I called my house Villa Eden. Here it was my purpose to live in enjoyment with my plants, and like my plants; but I have been dragged again into the world, more by the thought of my children than any thing else. Enough; you are well aware that I wanted to be ennobled. Let it be. I have now come to the end. But"—
He paused, and looked at what he had whittled out; it was an African's head, with the tongue lolling from his mouth. With one sharp cut, Sonnenkamp suddenly cut off tongue and mouth, so that they fell down into his lap; then, grinning like the figure in his hand, he went on:—
"I have placed myself and mine under the protection of civilization; I have taken refuge, not in the savage wilderness, but in the bosom of cultivated life, as it is termed. To be honest, I do not repent it. I am no milk-sop; my soul has been tempered in the fire of hell. I made no concealment of my past history, because I considered it bad. What in this world is bad? I concealed myself from folly and weakness. Thousands repent without becoming any better. Had I been a soldier in a successful war, perhaps I should have been a hero. I am a man without superstition: I haven't even the superstition of the so-called humanity. I live and die in the conviction that what is called equal rights is a fable; to free the negro will never do a particle of good, they will be exterminated, when it comes to the pass that a negro may sit in the White House at Washington. The world is full of hypocrisy, and my only pride is, that I am no hypocrite.
"But now, honorable and worthy gentlemen, is there any question you would like to ask? I am ready to answer it."
He made a pause.
No one made any response.
"Well, then," was his close, "gentlemen of honor and of virtue, I demand of you, not for my own sake, but for the sake of my children, to impose upon me some sort of reparation. If you demand that I should kill myself, I will do it; if you enjoin banishment, I will go away; if you require the half of my property, which is far more than I have ever acquired from the negroes, my fellow-men, as they are called, I will resign it. I thank you, and await your verdict on the appointed day."
He retired, and left the men by themselves.
Clodwig whispered to Eric,—
"Cain slew his brother: the Cain of today sells his brother."
Who could describe the various changes of expression in the features of the judges during Sonnenkamp's speech!
After he had retired, they sat together in silence.
Weidmann looked bright and unmoved: his clear blue eye was calm, and he seemed surprised by nothing he had heard.
The Major was busy with an internal struggle, passing, in review before him, his neglected youth. He often struck his breast with his clenched hand, thinking to himself,—
"Yes, who knows but that you might have become just like this!"
And he was overpowered by the emotion caused by considering his own case, and that of the man who had spoken so defiantly. He wanted to keep from shedding tears, but did not succeed. He wiped off the perspiration from his face with his handkerchief, and at the same time got rid of the tears. He longed to go to the poor rich man, embrace him, and call out to him, "Brother, brother, you have been a very bad brother; but now you are going to be a good brother: you will be?" But he did not venture to give way to the impulse of his heart. He looked round, to see whether any one would begin; but no glance was directed towards him, except the kindly one of Professor Einsiedel, to whom the Major nodded, as if he would say,—
"Yes, in all your books, you have never seen any thing like this. It is horrible, that a man can think and do all this; but I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and you pity him too: I see you do."
The Doctor was the first to speak aloud, and he said to Clodwig,—
"We have been, without meaning it, the listeners to a comic performance. A simple-minded transgressor, a transgressor from the impulse of passion, can, perhaps, be converted; a cunning and hardened one, never."
"With all my detestation," replied Clodwig, "I admire this power, which can so lay bare the hypocrisy of the world. Oh,"—
His mouth seemed parched; and he moved his tongue frequently, this side and that, appearing unable to say any thing further. He looked at the expressive countenance of the Banker, and, nodding to him, said,—
"I see you have a word to say. Pray say it."
The Banker, coloring very red, responded,—
"Certainly. I will not speak of the emotion this life-history has excited in me. It is—I know not what to call it; but I think it is a history of humiliation: and perhaps a Jew ought to be inclined to judge righteously, I will say mercifully, of all sins and transgressions which proceed from being slighted and contemned. Humiliation, placing the matter in a social point of view, awakens bitterness, hardness, recklessness; and it must be a peculiar nature, which becomes, under its influence, mild, even to faint-heartedness and weakness."
The Doctor respected the man's point of view; but he did not seem disposed to accede to it. He urged a decision, asking,—
"Have you any method of punishment or reparation to propose?"
"First of all," replied the Banker, "I don't know any thing else, except to take away from this man all parental power over his children; and we must devise some delicate way of doing this, in order not to inflict suffering upon them."
"We Germans," cried the Doctor briskly, "are for ever and ever schoolmasters. This hard, seared villain of a Sonnenkamp wants to teach that his villany is pure wisdom and logic; and he contemptuously garnishes his cynicism with ideas."
"Exile," began Professor Einsiedel,—"exile would be the only sentence we, like the ancients, could pronounce upon him who has desecrated and insulted all the blessings of civilization; but there is no land to which we could banish him, where, stripped of all the conquests won by civilization, he could atone for his past life."
Professor Einsiedel seemed not to take it amiss that he had an opportunity to put to a practical use the studies he had made of the history of slavery, and to show how the Greeks had no perception of its iniquity; but the Doctor laid his hand upon the professor's shoulder, as much as to say,—
"Some other time, I pray."
The Professor gave him a nod.
"Every punishment we suspend over him," said Prince Valerian, "is a punishment of his children: he is protected by an invulnerable shield."
There was now a longer pause. "And yet we shall and must find one," cried Weidmann. "I beg you to come together here, a week from to-day, at the opening of the sealed opinions; and then we will come to a decision. It is our duty to find some punishment that will make atonement without striking the guiltless."
In a faltering voice, the Major entreated the friends not to separate: they had, as yet, come to no proper decision; and he could not help himself out of the difficulty. He would have been very glad to ask that he might be allowed to take Fräulein Milch into counsel, for he was sure that she could help him; but in a jury one must make up an opinion for himself.
The heavy head of the Major swayed this side and that, and seemed to be almost too heavy for him to hold up.
Those assembled seemed to desire to be freed from the painful situation; and Weidmann exclaimed,—
"I pronounce the meeting adjourned."
They all rose as if they must escape from imprisonment, or from an infected atmosphere. They would have liked to go out into the fresh air; but it rained steadily, and there were puddles and small rills in the garden walks. They went into a spacious apartment, and Claus said,—
"How would it answer—allow me, gentlemen, to ask—how would it answer, if we sentenced Herr Sonnenkamp to go back home, and sell himself for a slave?"
As no one replied, he went on timidly,—
"I don't know whether that would be just the thing; but 'twould be something, anyhow."
Weidmann told him that no white man could be made a slave.
"This Herr Sonnenkamp," said Clodwig with quivering lips to Eric, "is nothing but a victim of the distracted condition of our age. The whole of humanity at the present time has a troubled conscience; it knows that it is not in harmony with, itself, and this creates a universal unrest. This individual man, driving hither and thither, prosecuting iniquity by night, and extremely respectable by day, this is the outbirth of our life. Ah! excuse me, I feel quite sick."
Clodwig requested the Doctor to accompany him to Wolfsgarten, as he felt very unwell; but, just as the Doctor was getting into the carriage with him, he was called to Frau Ceres.
Joseph came, in a short time, and informed Clodwig that the Doctor could not leave his patient.
The Doctor remained with Frau Ceres, who had strangled the parrot in a paroxysm of madness, and smashed every thing in the room.
He opened a vein, from which the blood flowed very dark; and she became more quiet.
Sonnenkamp did not leave his room when the account of his wife's illness was brought to him.
The doctor again sent word to Clodwig, that he had better remain here, especially as it was raining very hard, and the Rhine was beginning to rise; but Clodwig insisted on returning home.
Now the Doctor came himself, and begged the banker to drive with Clodwig to Wolfsgarten, and Clodwig himself entreated this favor of his old friend. The latter agreed at once, only saying that he would first drive speedily to the town to send a telegram, that they need not expect him at home until some further notice. He drove away.
Bella had gone to the green cottage to see Aunt Claudine, and behaved there very amiably towards her and Lina; but she could not help letting fall some severe expressions in reference to the Professorin and Manna, who had so selfishly taken themselves out of the way whilst such a terrible transaction was taking place in the house.
When a servant came and informed her that Clodwig wanted to set out immediately, she exclaimed, stamping with her foot,—
"I will not!"
And then she added:—
"Very well, let him take me up here."
The carriage drove up; and Bella seated herself by Clodwig's side without his getting out: he sat shivering in one corner.
"Why do you not ask how I am?" said he, in a feeble, trembling voice.
Bella made no reply. She was internally struggling; but suddenly she exclaimed,—
"Foh! You ought all to be ashamed of yourselves! What are the whole of you in comparison with this man? He alone is a man, he alone. Here is something grand and strong among this lint-scraping, humanitary set. You are all imbeciles, cowards! This Sonnenkamp is the only great man, a strong man, a real man. Oh! if such a man"—
"Well? If such a man"—
"Ask me no more questions. I will drive home with you, home,—you have the right to command,—what more do you want? Not another word, not a word, or I shall not mind the pouring rain, not the least: I shall jump out of the carriage, I shall go off, I don't know where; but I won't be imprisoned any longer; I won't be banished to your miserable, old, pot-digging, pretty-spoken, vaporing, freedom-vaunting, humanity-gouged, world!"
"Wife, what are you saying? Are good and evil then"—
"Pooh! Good and evil, these are the crutches on which you lean, because you have nothing to lean on in yourselves. A man must be strong, and have good grit: whether he is good or bad is a matter of indifference. Any thing but weak and sentimental; any thing but hiding behind your humanity with its blissful tears. A man who is not made of iron ought to be a woman—no, he ought to be a nun. You are nothing but a set of soft-hearted nuns. Yes, it must be so; it is so. A Jew to sit in judgment on such a man, and an atheist like this Herr Dournay! Yes, the atheists are the only consistent democrats. All are equal: there's no longer any higher being, no longer any God; then there's equality, and you are everybody's equal. Dastards, loafers! May you find goodly fellowship together! He is the only man. He has done you too much honor in wanting to belong to you, you are not worthy of him. You are all of you afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau, of the fool of equal rights. It is still to be seen whether the world smothers itself in this mixed mass of equality, or whether there are heights for it to climb. You ought to go across the ocean; there's the last decisive battle-field; you are nothing but a nobility in a holiday uniform. The Southern States stand erect, and if they fall, there's no more aristocracy; then you'll all be clipped by the shears of equal rights. Just call the coachman in here, your brother-man! Don't let him be out there in the rain, he ought to be sitting with us in the carriage. Or shall I call him for you?"
She seized the cord, and the coachman reined in. After letting Clodwig wait in torture for a while, she cried,—
"Drive on, it's nothing."
She turned her head restlessly, this way and that. Her eyes wildly rolling, and grinding her teeth, she exclaimed in a loud tone:
"Fie upon all the cowards! Oh! if I were only a man!"
Clodwig sat in the corner, shivering. At this moment something clinked in Bella's mouth, and she put her hand up to it. What is that? Yes, she took it out—it is so. In her angry gnashing of her teeth, she had broken a front tooth, which had been tender for a long time, and required careful treatment. Bella clinched the hand in which she held the tooth, and pressed her lips together. What has happened to her? The thought rapidly shot through her, How vexatious it was that she could no longer ridicule those who wear false teeth; but yet she can, for nobody will believe that she, Bella, has a false tooth.
They met the Banker waiting for them in the town: he said that he had sent the message to his house, and was ready.
Bella got out of the carriage, and holding a handkerchief before her mouth, and speaking in muffled tones, requested the Banker to accompany her husband, and a servant to stay with her. She hurried towards the railroad. Arrived at the station, she was perplexed; and without taking the handkerchief from her mouth, she told the servant to take tickets for the Fortress. Then she sat still in a corner of the passenger-room, with two thicknesses of veil over her face. She rode to the Fortress-City. No one was to know that she wore a false tooth, no one was to see her with a gap in her teeth.
Clodwig drove homewards, and often wiped his eyes. Above all, his pride was wounded; he, Clodwig, was scorned, and by whom? By his wife. And on whose account? On account of this hollow-hearted adventurer. She has never loved me one single instant: that was a stab to his very heart, and this stab never ceased to be felt; for what he suffered bodily was transmuted into a suffering of the soul. Who is there that can measure this action and re-action of body and soul?
The rain had ceased; but a mist seemed before Clodwig's eyes, and a heavy gloom. He reached Wolfsgarten; but all the apartments seemed full of smoke, full of haze. He seated himself in his chair.
"I am lonely, lonely," he said to himself continually.
The Banker spoke to him in gentle words; but Clodwig shook his head; he knew that Bella had never loved him, that she hated him. He felt himself humiliated, scourged. Bella's words had wounded him to the heart's core, wounded him to the death.
They drew off his coat: he looked for a long time at the coat, and nodded with a sad smile.
Did he forebode that he would never put it on again?
When Bella returned home early the next morning, he looked at her with a ghostlike countenance: he perceived the coldness and hardness of her face.
"Medusa, Medusa!" shrieked Clodwig.
Without knowing he had uttered the words, he fell back on the pillows.
They restored him to consciousness. Hours of the severest pain elapsed before the Doctor came. Clodwig had also desired Eric to be sent for.
The Doctor came, and declared Clodwig to be dangerously sick; the jury trial had excited him too violently, and the drive home through the rain—"and perhaps something else," he added to Bella, who gazed at him without changing a muscle of her face.
Bella sent for her brother; but no one knew precisely where he was.
"I am lonely," said she, too.
She was terrified when she said this; for she felt that she would soon be really alone.