Das landhaus am Rhein. English

by Berthold Auerbach

  CHAPTER IV.

  COMRADES WITHOUT COMRADESHIP.

  Seated in an open carriage, the two young men were soon winding along aroad which led up the mountain. The air was full of dewy freshness, andhigh above the vineyards the nightingales in the leafy woods pouredforth a constant flood of melody. The two men sat silent. Each knewthat the other had come within the circle of his destiny, but could notanticipate what would be the consequence.

  Eric took off his hat, and as Pranken looked at his handsome face withits commanding, self-reliant expression, it seemed to him that he hadnever really seen it before; a thrill of alarm passed through him, ashe began to realize that he was forming ties whose results could not beforeseen. His face now darkened with anger and scorn, now brightenedwith benevolence and good-humored smiles; he murmured to himself someunintelligible words, and burst forth at intervals into an inexplicablefit of laughter.

  "It is truly astonishing, most astonishing!" he said to himself. "Icould hardly have believed it of you, my good Otto, that you could beso generous and self-forgetful, so wholly and completely a friend.People have always told you, and you have had the conceit yourself,that through all your whims you were better than you would own toyourself. Shame on you, that you would not recognize your innocence andvirtue! Here you are showing yourself a friend, a brother, a most nobleminister of destiny to another, who is a bit of humanity, nothing butpure humanity, in a full beard. All his thoughts are elevated andmanly, but a good salary pleases even his noble manliness."

  Pranken laid his head back on the cushions of the carriage, and lookedsmiling up to the sky. He resolved to take good care that this specimenof noble manhood, who was sitting by him in the carriage, should notthwart his plans, and that what he could not bring about himself, hissister Bella should accomplish. Pranken's whole bearing was forced andunnatural. His uniform, worn ever since childhood, had given him notonly a feeling of exclusiveness, but also a definite, undisputed, andexceptional position, which separated him from the ordinary mass ofmen. Among his fellow-soldiers ha was lively, and high-spirited; notspecially remarkable for anything, but a good officer, knowing how totake care of and to drill his horses and his men. Now that he had laidaside his uniform, he felt in citizen's dress as if he were falling topieces; but he held himself all the more proudly erect, in order toshow by every movement that he did not belong to the common herd. Inthe regiment there were always strict rules to be followed; now he wasunder the command of duty and wearisome free-will. Left to himself, hebecame painfully aware that he was nothing without his comrades. Lifeappeared bare and dreary, and he had worked himself into a bitter andsatirical mood, which gave him in his own eyes, a certain superiorityto that blank, monotonous existence, without parade, or play, orballet. He looked with a sort of envy at Eric, who, poorer and withoutadvantages of social position, gazed around him so serenely andcomposedly, feasting on the beauty of the landscape. Eric was certainlythe better off. Having become a soldier at a more mature age, he hadnever lost his own individuality in the '_esprit de corps_' of armylife; and now that he was a civilian again, his whole appearancechanged, and his nature developed itself under a new and interestingaspect.

  "I envy you," said Pranken, after they had driven for sometime insilence.

  "_You_ envy _me_?"

  "Yes! at first it vexed me and roused my pity, that a man like youshould enter the service of a private individual, and in such aposition! But perhaps it is fortunate for a man to be obliged todetermine on some career in order to make a living."

  "Just for that reason," replied Eric, "will the task of educating theyoung millionaire be a hard one. Two things only excite the powers ofmen to activity: an idea, and worldly gain."

  "I don't quite understand you."

  "Let me make my meaning clearer. He who uses his power for the sake ofan idea enters the region of genius, however small and inconspicuousmay be the sphere of his activity. He who works for the sake of profit,to supply the necessities, or the luxuries of life, is nothing but acommon laborer. The common need is the compelling power which plantsthe vine on the steep mountain side, clears the forest, steers theship, and drives the plough. Where this common need unites itself withthe ideal, and this may be in every sphere of life, _there_ is noblehuman activity. A nobleman, who busies himself in the world, has thegood fortune to be the inheritor of an idea,--the idea of honor."

  Pranken nodded approvingly, but with a slightly scornful expression, asmuch as to say, "This man to have the audacity to seek justificationfor the nobility! Nobility and faith need not be proved; they are factsof history not to be questioned!"

  Again they were silent, and each asked himself what was to come of thisunexpected blending of their paths in life. As fellow-soldiers they hadbeen only remotely connected; it might be very different for thefuture.

  The valleys already lay in shadow, though the sun shone brightly on themountain-tops. They drove through a village where all was in joyous andtumultuous movement,--in the streets, maidens walking arm in arm; youngmen standing singly or in groups, exchanging merry greetings and jokesand laughing jests; the old people sitting at the doors; the fountainsplashing, and along the high-road by the river, gay voices singingtogether.

  "O how full of refreshment is our German life!" cried Eric; "theactive, industrious people enjoy themselves in the evening, whichbrings coolness and shade to the treeless vineyards."

  They continued their journey in silence, when suddenly Pranken startedconvulsively, for there came before him, as if in a dream, a vision ofhimself, pistol in hand, confronting in a duel the man now seated byhis side. Whence came the vision? He could not tell. And yet, was itmeant to be a prophetic warning?

  He forced himself to talk. A prominent trait of his character, whichbelonged to him by nature and education was a social disposition, adesire to please all with whom he came in contact. To drive away thevision, and in obedience to this social impulse, he began to tell Ericwhere he had been. By the advice of his brother-in-law, Count Clodwigvon Wolfsgarten, he had just paid a visit to a much respected landedproprietor in the neighborhood, in order to enter upon a course ofinstruction, if the arrangement should prove mutually agreeable.

  The land-holder Weidmann,--who was often called the March-minister,because as a pioneer to help stem the revolutionary current in 1848 hewas made minister for three days,--was considered, in all thesurrounding region, as an authority upon agricultural as well aspolitical matters.

  Pranken talked on, and the more he talked the more he enjoyed his ownwitty sallies; and the more he indulged in them, the more pungent theybecame. He began: "I should like to know how this man will strike you;he has, like"--here he hesitated a little, but quickly added--"like allgreat reformers, a vast train of fine dogmas, enough to supply a wholeCapuchin monastery."

  Eric laughed, and Pranken, laughing also, continued: "Ah! the world ismade up of nothing but humbug! The much-talked-of poetry of a landedproprietor's life is nothing but a constant desire for lucre, trickedout with paint from the glow of the morning and evening sky. This HerrWeidmann and his sons think of nothing but the everlasting dollar. Hehas six sons, five of whom I know, and all look impertinently well,with pretentiously white, faultless teeth, and full beards. Thesemountains, which travellers admire, are compelled to yield them winefrom the surface, and slate, manganese, ore, and chemicals from themines beneath. They have five different factories; one son is a miner,another a machinist, a third a chemist, and so they work into eachothers' hands and for their common interest. I have been told that theyextract forty different substances from beechwood, and then send theexhausted residuum as charcoal to the Paris restaurants. Isn't that apretty love of nature? Then, as to Father Weidmann,--you enjoy the songof the nightingales, I know. Well, Father Weidmann obtained from thegovernment an edict of protection for them, because they eat insectsand are very useful to the fields and woods. Father Weidmann lives in arestored castle, but if a minstrel came there
to-day he would get nohearing, unless he sang the noble love by which Nitrogen and Hydrogenare bound to Ammonia. I am almost crazed with super-phosphates andalkalies. Do you think, it is a destiny worth striving after, to beable to increase the food of mankind by a few sacks of potatoes?"

  Before Eric could answer, Pranken added: "Ah, there is just nothingthat one would like to turn to. The army is the one profession."

  As they were ascending a steep hill overlooking the river with itsislands, Pranken, pointing up the stream to a white house upon thebank, said, "Yonder is the Sonnenkamp villa, which bears the name ofEden. That great glass dome on which the evening sun is shining is thepalm-house. Herr Sonnenkamp is an enthusiastic gardener; hisconservatories and hot-houses excel those of princes."

  Eric, standing upright in the carriage, looked back upon the landscape,and the house where was to be, probably, the turning-point of his life.As he sat down Pranken offered him a cigar. Eric declined, for he hadgiven up smoking.

  "He who does not smoke will not do for Herr Sonnenkamp;" and heemphasized the word Herr. "Next to his plants, he prides himself uponhis great variety of genuine cigars; and he was specially grateful tome, when I once said to him that he possessed a seraglio of cigars. Idon't know how he who refuses a cigar can get along with him."

  "I can smoke, but I am no slave to the habit," replied Eric, taking thecigar.

  "You seem to me not only a Doctor of Philosophy," said Pranken, "butalso a real philosopher."

  The two travellers drove on in silence. Eric looked down, his mindoccupied with many and various thoughts.

  O wonderful world! Invincible potencies hover in the air; a human soulis journeying there and does not imagine that another is pressingtowards him, and that they both have one destiny. This is the greatnessof the human spirit, that there is a preparation for taking up intoitself, as if they had one life, some person whose name is not evenknown, whose countenance has not been seen, and of whose existencethere has been no anticipation. He who has not lived for himself alone,he who has dreamed, thought, labored, striven for the common good, heis ready, each hour, to enter into the universal life, and utters thecreative word. Be soul of my soul, and speaks the word of salvation,"Thou art thy brother's keeper."