CHAPTER XI.
STRIVE TO MAKE MONEY.
It is not well to hear a man so much spoken of and praised, beforeseeing him face to face. It seemed incomprehensible to Eric how thisman exerted such a wide influence, and impossible for himself to enterinto his life. The doctor was immediately called away, for thelandlord's father being sick, his arrival was regarded as veryfortunate. Eric walked up and down the shore; he seemed to himself tobe thrown into a strange world, and to be borne along by strangepotencies. How long it was since he had left Roland, how long since hewent by this village, which was then to him only a name! Now, perhaps,some eventful occurrence was to take place here, and the name of thisvillage to be stamped indelibly upon his life.
"Herr Captain! Herr Weidmann wishes me to ask you to come into thegarden," the boatman cried to him.
Eric went back into the garden, where Weidmann came to him, with anentirely different mien, saying that he would now, for the first time,bid him welcome; previously he had been very busy. A short timeafterwards the doctor also came.
The three now seated themselves at the table in a corner of the garden,where there was an extensive prospect, and Weidmann began in a humorousway to depict "the heroic treatment" of the doctor's, practice, wholiked to deal in drastic remedies. A suitable point of agreement wasestablished between Eric and Weidmann, while they united in afacetious, but entirely respectful assault upon the doctor.
Eric learned that the doctor had already proposed that he shouldundertake the superintendence of the powder-mill. Weidmann, in themeanwhile, explained that the difficulties were too great, and that thegovernment threw in the way all sorts of obstacles, although theywanted principally to open a market in the New World, and with thisview, his nephew, Doctor Fritz, had sent over from America, and hadwell recommended, one of the men with whom he had just been conversing.And his nephew desired that they would find some experienced Germanartillery officer, who would emigrate to America, and there take chargeof a manufactory of gunpowder and matches, with the sure prospect ofsoon making a fortune.
The doctor looked towards Eric, but he smiled and shook his head in thenegative.
Weidmann informed them further, that a discovery had been lately madeof a deposit of manganese, and that they were desirous of forming acompany to work the mine; that a man who knew how to regulate mattersmight easily make himself acquainted with the business.
He also looked inquiringly at Eric, and then made him the direct offerof a considerable salary, and an increasing share of the profits.
Eric declined, courteously and gratefully, as he had not entirelydecided whether he would engage at all in any new pursuit. The doctorentered warmly into the matter, and extolled the superiority of ourage, in which men of ripe scientific attainments devoted themselves toactive employments, and, through their independent property; created acommonalty such as no period of history had ever before known.
"'This is ours, this is ours,' we commoners can say. Don't you thinkso?"
"Most certainly."
"Now then, go thou and do likewise."
And he added to this, how glad the Weidmann family would be to receivehim into their circle.
Eric smilingly replied, that he felt obliged to decline this veryfriendly offer; that he valued very highly the independence whichproperty gives, but was not adapted to a life of acquisition.
"Indeed?" cried the doctor, and there was something of contempt in histone. "Do you know how the question of our age is put? It is, To use,or to be used? Why are you willing to be used by this Herr Sonnenkamp?"
"You surely would not want me to use other people, and appropriate tomyself the product of their labor?"
"It is not well," interposed Weidmann, "to generalize in this way upona wholly personal question. I see--I expected that the utter separationof the rich and the poor would vitally interest you; but here we haveour doctor, and he will agree with me, that it is with the so-calledsocial maladies as with those of the body. We know to-day, better thanany period has ever known, the scientific diagnosis of disease, but weare ignorant of the specific remedy, and a disease must be known a longtime, and known very thoroughly, before its method of cure isdiscovered; yet we must put up with it, in the meantime, and let itpass."
"Have you had no craving to be rich?" the doctor cried, apparentlyexcited.
"It would be unwise to have a craving for what I cannot obtain throughmy own capabilities."
Weidmann's eye was quietly fixed upon Eric's countenance; the latterwas aware of it, and whilst he thought, at this moment, that he couldwith a motion of his hand quietly relinquish all the offered riches ofthe world, the temptation came over his soul. What it would be for oneto be free from all the cares of life, and to be able to devote himselfto life itself; and he saw also how he could gratify every wish of hismother and his aunt.
But no; the first wish of his mother will be that he should remain trueto himself. And the more Clodwig there, and here the physician, wantedto turn him aside from his vocation, so much the clearer was it to him,that he not only must abide by that vocation, but that he also hadincurred a moral obligation to Roland.
Weidmann related that he had received a letter from New York, from hisnephew. Doctor Fritz, who was going to send immediately his youngdaughter to be educated in Germany. The conversation now turned uponpersons and things with which Eric was unacquainted.
The boatman came to inform them that the last steamboat was now comingup the river.
The doctor and Eric took hasty leave of Weidmann, who warmly shookEric's hand, and requested him to claim his help in any situation inlife where he could be of service.
The physician and Eric got into the boat and were rowed to thesteamboat. Hardly a word was spoken by them during the passage to thetown, where they were to disembark.
When they reached it, men and women were walking under thenewly-planted lindens, for it is always a significant event of the daywhen the steamboat arrives, which remains here over night. The wife ofthe doctor was also at the landing, and she went homeward with Eric andher husband. She was very friendly to Eric, whom she had already met atWolfsgarten; Eric, indeed, had no recollection of her, for at that timehe had scarcely noticed, in fact, the modest, silent woman.
Many persons were waiting at the house for the physician. Eric wasshown into his chamber, and then into the library; he was glad to seethat the physician kept abreast with all the new investigations of hisscience, and he hoped through his help to fill up many a gap in his ownknowledge.
The twilight came on; as Eric was sitting quietly in a large chair, heheard a horse trotting by the house. He involuntarily stood up, andlooked out; he thought that the rider who had just passed was Roland,or had only his own imagination, and his continual thinking about theboy, deluded him?
There was an air of comfort in the physician's house, and everythinggave evidence of solid prosperity; but the physician was obliged to gofrom the tea-table to a neighboring village.
Eric walked with the doctor's wife along the pretty road on the bank ofthe river, and there was a double satisfaction in her words, as shesaid that she greatly desired that her husband could have constantintercourse with such a mentally active friend as Eric, for he oftenfelt himself lonely here in the town, and he was often obliged todepend wholly upon himself.
Eric was happy, for he perceived in this not only a friendlyappreciation of himself, but also the deep and intelligent esteem ofthe wife, who would like to bestow upon her husband a permanentblessing.
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