Das landhaus am Rhein. English

by Berthold Auerbach

  CHAPTER I.

  THE SUBTERRANEAN CALL.

  A fragrant strawberry glistens on the ground, beautiful to the eye, andluscious to the taste. If there were some method of seeing, or even ofhearing, what was going on at the root of the plant, we might perhapsbe able to discern how the ammonia, homely, and of very pungent odor,turned up conceitedly its nose, as much as to say, What indeed wouldall this be without me?

  The potash, on the other hand, brightly glistening and sweet-smelling,is under no necessity of saying anything, for its very appearance saysalready, All the scientific men of the upper world speak on my behalf.

  And the hard, silicious earth, in its comfortable repose, might beunderstood to say, I am an aboriginal inhabitant, and what do thesetransient fellows want? To-day here, and to-morrow gone; I have alreadylived through a great deal,--everything goes by fashion.

  The maggot-worm grubs at the root, blinking with its cunning eyes, andthinks, The rest are happy in rendering service, but I--I fattenmyself. The earth-worm rolls itself along in a proud feeling of triumphthat it can go through the streets and water-courses, whereoneverything is moving hither and thither. A mole, that has nestled inthe neighborhood, lies in wait for the moment when the maggot-worm istaking a little nap, after its surfeit, and gobbles it up.

  Such are the manifold operations of life and movement down there at theroots, and such also are those in the servants' room of Villa Edenabove.

  Herr Sonnenkamp has a wise rule, although many consider ithard-hearted, that all his servants must be unmarried. They receivegood wages, are in want of nothing, but make no pretension to familylife. A beggar never comes into the well-kept garden, for he woulddisturb its comfortable serenity. He receives alms, at the entrance,from the keeper of the lodge, and the old cook oftentimes complainsthat the remnants of food, which might nourish many a hungry one, go soutterly to waste.

  It is noon. They take their meals here, long before the table of theirmaster above is set. Two grooms and a third coachman, who keep watch inthe stables, eat by themselves in silence, for they must relieve theothers.

  The superintendent here below is the head-cook, dressed in lightclothes, and called for shortness, "the chief;" of a burly and portlyfigure, with a beardless face, and a large hawk-nose, he plays here themarquis. His German is a sort of jargon, but he rules over thesubordinate cook and kitchen-maids, with absolute sway.

  The watchmen have dined. A long table is laid for more than a dozenpersons, and they come in one after another.

  The first who makes his appearance, or, rather, the one to whom thefirst entrance is conceded, is the head-coachman, Bertram, with apowerful, gigantic form. He has a great red beard, parted in two wavingmasses coming to a peak, with an embroidered waistcoat covering hiships, and over it a striped blue and white jacket, with just a slightbadge of distinction from that of the other coachmen.

  With a greeting to the whole corps of servants, Bertram seatshimself at the head of the table with Joseph on his right, and thehead-gardener on his left. Next to this one, a little man, with seamedface and rapidly glancing eyes, takes a seat; this is Lutz, thecourier. Then the rest seat themselves according to their rank, thestable-boys and the men working in the garden being placed at the lowerend of the table.

  The first female cook, a special favorite of Fraeulein Perini, insistedstrenuously upon grace being said before dinner. Bertram, the travelledcoachman, a decided free-thinker, always busied himself during theblessing with his great embroidered waistcoat, which he drew proudlydown over his hips. Joseph folded his hands, but did not move his lips;the rest prayed silently.

  No sooner was the soup removed, and a little wine sipped,--for theservants had their wine every day,--than Bertram started the talk, andupon a very definite topic.

  "I was just waiting to see whether Lieutenant Dournay would recogniseme; I belonged to his battery."

  "Indeed!" Joseph delightedly chimed in. "He was right popular, I'mcertain?"

  Bertram did not consider it incumbent upon him to give a direct reply.He only said that he could never have believed that Herr Dournay wouldever become a servant.

  "Servant?"

  "Yes, a servant like us; and because he knows something of books, atutor."

  Joseph smiled in a melancholy way, and took great pains to bring thetable over to a correct view. First he praised the celebrated father ofEric, who had received at least twenty decorations; and his mother, whobelonged to the nobility; and he was very happy to say that CaptainDournay understood all about the sciences, and, to throw at their headsthe very hardest names which he could get hold of,--Anthropology,Osteology, Archaeology, and Petrifactology--all these the captain wasmaster of; he was a complete university in himself. But he did notsucceed in convincing the company that Eric was anything else than aservant.

  The head-gardener said, in a high-Prussian dialect:--

  "Anyhow, he is a handsome man, and sits his horse well; but he don'tknow a thing about gardening."

  Lootz, the courier, praised Eric for speaking good French and English,but of course, when it came to Russian, and Turkish, and Polish, thelearned gentleman didn't understand them; for Lutz himself, as ajourneyman tailor, having made the tour of all countries, understoodall languages. He had attended formerly Fraeulein von Pranken, thepresent Countess Wolfsgarten, and two English ladies, on their travels;now he acted as courier for Herr Sonnenkamp on his journeys, and wasidle the rest of the time, unless one calls work the carrying of theletter-bag to and from the railroad station, and the playing of theguitar, which the little man practised a good deal, with theaccompaniment of his own whistling. He had also a secret service.

  There appeared to be a tacit agreement at the table, that they shouldmake no reply to anything that Lutz said; he only received a smile fromthe second female cook, with whom he had a tender but not acknowledgedrelation.

  A man with Sarmatian features and a Polish accent claimed for Herr vonPranken the credit of having brought the man into the house. Bertramgave Joseph a slight nudge, and proceeded to praise Herr von Pranken inthe most eulogistic terms, while Joseph winked slyly, as if he wouldsay. Just so; this shows again that the Pole is in the secret serviceof Herr von Pranken.

  Now they speculated whether Herr von Pranken would take up his abode inthe house after his marriage with Manna, for this event was regarded asa settled thing.

  A gardener, who stammered a little, remarked that it was said at thevillage inn, that Herr Sonnenkamp had been a tailor. All laughed, andthe stuttering gardener, who was the special butt of the circle, wasmore and more spurred on to talk, and bantered till he became blue inthe face. Bertram, taking both waves of his long beard in his hands,exclaimed:--

  "If any one should tell me that, I'd show him how his teeth taste."

  "Just let people talk," said soothingly the head-gardener, with a smilein advance at his own wisdom, as he added, "As soon as a man gets on inthe world he must make up his mind to be slandered."

  One of the hostlers gave an account of a scuffle which had taken placebetween them and the servants of the so-called Wine-count, whoreproached them with being the servants of a man whom nobody knewanything about,--who he was, or where he came from; and that one ofthem had gone so far as to say that Frau Sonnenkamp was a purchasedslave.

  The secret, and, in fact, not very edifying history of several familieswas now related, until the stout female cook cried out at last:--

  "Do stop that talk! My mother used to say, that

  "'Whether houses be great or small. There lies a stone before them all.'"

  The second gardener, a lean, thin man, with a peaked face, called thesquirrel, who often had prayers with the pious people of theneighborhood, began a very evangelical discourse about evil speaking.He had, originally, been a gardener, then a policeman in a northerncapital, where Sonnenkamp became acquainted with him, and placed himback again in his first occupation, employing him frequently
incommissions that called for special circumspection.

  An ancient kitchen-maid, who sat apart, holding in her lap the platefrom, which she was eating, cried suddenly:--

  "You may say what you please, the gentleman who has just come marriesthe daughter of the family. Just bear that in mind. Mark my words. Hehasn't come for the young gentleman, but for the young lady. There wasonce on a time a prince and a princess in the castle, and the princeput on a servant's dress--yes, laugh away, but it is just so."

  Joseph and Bertram exchanged glances full of meaning.

  Now there was a general joking. Every one wished to have his fortunetold by old Kate. The courier made fun of superstitious people, butassumed a very forced smile when Bertram called out:--

  "Yes, indeed, the tailors are all enlightened, they don't believe inhell."

  There was no end to the laughing now. Suddenly a voice sounded from theceiling:--

  "Bertram is to put the horses to the glass-carriage, and Joseph to comeup."

  The company at the table broke up; the hostlers went to the stables,where they smoked their pipes, the gardeners to the park and thegreen-houses. Joseph told two servants to set the dinner-table, andthere was stillness under ground. Only the kettles bubbled and hissed,and the chief surveyed with lofty mien the progress of his work.

  An hour later, Lootz received the letters which he was to carry to thestation, and, in a very casual and innocent way, related that the newtutor had as adherents in the house, Bertram, who was formerlystationed in his battery, and Joseph, who considered himself committedto him as coming from the University. It had never been said in so manywords that Lutz was to be a spy over the servants, but it wasunderstood, as a matter of course, between him and his master.