CHAPTER VIII.
STEEL-TRAPS IN THE POETS' GARDEN.
Sonnenkamp prided himself in growing the best wines; but thetraditional account of the joyous celebration of the harvest-home is amere fable. In the morning the mists were hanging far and wide over thevalleys, and in the early evening they shut out the whole landscape.The leaves had fallen from the trees, and the hoar frost glistened onthe bare twigs, when at last the grapes were gathered and pressed.
The Major would not allow it to be thought of for a moment, that theyshould omit firing their salute; he took extreme satisfaction in histwo comrades, Eric and Roland, who fired at his word of command, sothat the three reports sounded as one. But this was the wholecelebration of the merry harvest-home.
Fires had been already made at the villa, and Sonnenkamp's pride ineach stove having its own chimney was shown to be well founded. But itwas a truly festive occasion when the Professorin had a fire kindledfor the first time in her sitting-room. She had invited Eric and Rolandto be present, and Fraeulein Milch happened to be there. And as they sattogether before the open fire-place, in serene and homelike content, itwould be hard to say precisely what it was that made them so cheery andpeaceful.
The Mother exhorted Eric to resume his habit of reading aloud, in thecosy winter evenings, some great poems, and he promised to do so. Hefelt that he must make some extra effort to dispel the coldnessproduced by his refusal to receive as a pupil the son of theCabinetsraethin.
Sonnenkamp, who had an extensive hunting-park, sent out cards invitingsome persons of the best society to a hunting-party. Invitations alsocame from the neighbors, and Eric was able to be present with Roland ata great hunting-party as often as once a week.
Roland was proud of his father's skill in the chase; he was regarded byall as the leader, and the whole company listened with pleasure to hisaccounts of grand hunts in America. He had even made a short excursionto Algiers, and there shot a lion, whose skin was now under hiswriting-table; it was meant for a sleigh-robe, but here in the country,a merry sleigh-ride was a rare thing.
The supper after the chase, in a large apartment fitted up for thepurpose, was always of the merriest sort. The Major was here in hiselement, and officiated as lord of the castle; he spoke of the eveningswhich Eric enlivened at Villa Eden by reading the ancient and moderndramas; he never knew before that there were so many fine things in theworld, and that one individual man could make everything so plainmerely by his voice.
Eric had read aloud almost without exception one evening every week.The impression made upon the hearers was various. The Major always satwith his hands devoutly folded; Frau Ceres reclined in her easy-chair,occasionally opening her eyes, to show that she was not asleep;Fraeulein Perini was employed with some hand-work, which she prosecutedsteadily, exhibiting no emotion; the Mother and the Aunt sat therequietly; Sonnenkamp had a standing request that they would excuse hisrudeness. Turning to Roland, he said good-humoredly,--
"Don't get this bad habit--don't get in the way of having a stick inyour hand to whittle."
And so he sat and whittled away, occasionally looking up with a fixedstare, holding the knife in his right hand and the piece of wood in hisleft; then he would resume his whittling.
Roland always seated himself opposite the reader, so that Eric mustlook him in the face. Often, until it was very late, Roland would talkwith Eric about the wonderful things he had been listening to.
Eric had been reading Macbeth, and he was glad to hear Roland say,--
"This Lady Macbeth could easily be transformed into a witch, like oneof those who came in at the beginning."
Another time, when Eric had been reading Hamlet, he was not a littlesurprised at hearing Roland say to him in the evening, before going tobed,--
"Strange! Hamlet, in that soliloquy, speaks of no one returning fromthe other world, when, only a short time before, the spirit of hisfather had appeared, and he appears again afterwards."
One evening, after Eric had read Goethe's Iphigenia, Roland said,--
"I can't make out at all why Manna said once that she was Iphigenia. Ifshe were Iphigenia, I should be Orestes. I, Orestes? I? Why was it? Doyou understand Manna's meaning?"
Eric said no.
One evening when the Physician and the Priest were present, Sonnenkamprequested Eric to read aloud Shakespeare's Othello. Eric looked atRoland. Will not Roland be stirred up to fresh questioning concerningthe negroes? He had no reason he could assign for declining, and hecould contrive no excuse for sending Roland away.
Eric commenced reading. The fulness and flexibility of his voice gavethe requisite expression to each character, and he preserved the properdistinction between reading and theatrical presentation. He brought outno strong colors; it was an artistic embodiment that allowed theoutlines of form to appear, but gave no coloring; it was not animitation of life, but a simple outline drawing of the generalfeatures, softened but sufficiently defined.
The Doctor nodded to the Mother, as much as to say that Eric'sinterpretation was very pleasant.
For the first time, Frau Ceres listened with eager attention, withoutleaning back once during the whole evening; she continued bent forward,and her countenance wore an unusual expression.
Eric read on continuously, and when he was giving the close ofOthello's sorrowful confession of guilt, in a voice struggling withtears, like one resisting the inclination to weep, great tears ran downover the pale face of Frau Ceres.
The piece was ended.
Frau Ceres rose quickly, and requested the Mother to accompany her toher chamber.
Fraeulein Perini and the rest of the ladies went away at the same time.The men were standing up, and only Roland remained sitting, as ifspell-bound to the chair.
Glancing towards the Doctor, the Major said,--
"Isn't this a really wonderful man?"
The Doctor nodded.
The Priest had his hands folded together; Sonnenkamp surveyed hiswhittlings, placing them in a little pile together, just as if they hadbeen gold-shavings, and even bending down to pick up some that hadfallen upon the floor. Now he straightened himself up and asked Eric,--
"What do you think of Desdemona's guilt?"
"Guilt and innocence," replied Eric, "are not positive naturalconceptions; they are the result of the social and moral laws ofhumanity. Nature deals only with the free play of forces, andShakespeare's plays exhibit to us only this free play of naturalimpulses in men and women."
"That's true," interrupted the priest. "In this work there's nothingsaid about religion, for religion would necessarily soften, ameliorate,and rule over the savage natures, conducting themselves just likenatural forces, or rather would bring them into subjection to thehigher revealed laws."
"Fine, very fine," said Sonnenkamp, who was quite pale; "but permit meto ask the Captain to give me an answer to my question."
"I can answer your first question," Eric rejoined, "only in the wordsof our greatest writer on aesthetics: The poet would characterize alion, and, in order to do it, he must represent him as tearing inpieces a lamb. The guilt of the lamb does not come into question atall. The lion must act in accordance with his nature. But I think thatthe deep tragedy of this drama lies hidden."
"And what do you think it is?"
"This maiden, Desdemona, without mother, brother, or sister, grown upfrom childhood among men, might love a hero, whose lyric, childlikenature, craving love and clinging fast to her, would make him crouchlike a tamed lion at her feet. This submissive strength, renouncing noelement of its wild energy, but, as it were, purified and exalted,opens the well-spring of that love which covers everything else withoblivion, overcomes the difference of race, and washes clean out theblack color of the skin.
"When Othello kissed her for the first time, she closed her eyes, andhe kissed her on the eyes; and her eyes are closed not for one instantmerely, but for a long period. But an unparallelled horror, a wildinsanity, would be the resul
t of this shutting of the eyes whenDesdemona should hold in her arms a child, who should appear, in itswhole exterior, strange, abhorrent to her, like some creature that didnot belong to the human race. Out from her heart, crushed and trampledunder foot, there must have come a shriek of agony. A child upon herbreast, a creature so unlike herself! That look, which Hegel describesas the highest of all that the eye can express, the first look of themother upon the child, that first mother's look must have killedDesdemona, or made her raving mad."
Sonnenkamp, who had all the time been rapidly shifting the whittlingsabout with his fingers, now threw them all upon the floor in a heap,and went up to Eric, holding both hands stretched out at length. Hishuge frame trembled with emotion, as he cried out:--
"You are a free man, a freethinker; you are not to be humbugged. Youare the first one that ever gave me a reasonable explanation of thisantipathy. Yes, it's so. The instinct of the poet is wonderfullyprophetic. 'Against all rules of nature!' This is the expression ofDesdemona's father, and this is the whole solution of the problem. Onthis expression the whole turns, and every part is in harmony with it.The result must be, as it is, a product of nature. It's againstnature!"
The men who were present had never before heard Sonnenkamp speak inthis way, and Roland, who had been staring fixedly before him, lookedup as if he must convince himself that it was really his father who wasspeaking. In an exultant tone, for he observed the effect produced uponthem all, he continued:--
"Marriage--marriage! The Romans understood what was meant by that.Where marriage is in violation of nature's laws, there can be no talkof rights of humanity, equality of rights. Apes, with all their boastedreason, nothing but apes, are these silly preachers of humanity, whobuild up their theories and universal crotchets, without looking at thefacts, and know really nothing of these brutes endowed with speech, whoare not human beings, but everlastingly apish and malicious! Ho, ho!thou noble friend of humanity!" he exclaimed, striding up and down theroom, "Marry thy daughter to a nigger, do that! do that! Be in terror,every moment, that he will tear her limb from joint. Hug a blackgrandchild! do that, noble friend of humanity! then come to me andharangue about the equality of the black and the white race!"
Sonnenkamp had clenched his fists, as if he were clutching anantagonist by the throat; his eyes flashed, his lips opened, and hisjaws snapped together like a tiger leaping upon his prey. He nowsuddenly placed his hand upon his breast, as if making a powerfuleffort to hold himself in control.
"You, Herr Captain, and the poet, have taken me somewhat by surprise,"he said, with a constrained smile; and then he again repeated that Erichad gone to the root of the matter. That a white girl could not becomethe wife of a nigger was no prejudice, but a law of nature.
"I thank you," he said in conclusion, turning once more towards Eric;"you have given me a great deal to think about."
The men looked at each other in astonishment, and the Doctor added, ina timid way very foreign from his usual manner, that he must give hisassent to this on physiological grounds, for it was a well-known factthat mixed races, in the third generation, became sterile. A separationof the races, however, does not exclude human rights, any more than itexcluded human duties; and religion laid them upon all alike.
While saying this he turned towards the Priest, who felt himself calledupon to state that the negroes were susceptible of religiousconviction, and capable of receiving religious instruction, and thatthis secured to them the full rights of men.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Sonnenkamp. "Is that the fact? Why then did not theChurch ordain the removal of slavery?"
"Because the Church," replied the Priest quietly, "has nothing to dowith ordaining anything of the kind. The Church directs itself to thehuman soul, and prepares it for the heavenly kingdom. In what socialcondition the body of man, the outside covering of this soul, may be,we have nothing to do with ordaining or determining. Neither slaverynor freedom is a hindrance to the divine life. Our Lord and Mastercalled the souls of the Jews to enter into the kingdom of heaven whilstthey were Roman citizens, and under subjection. He called all nationsthrough his apostles, and did not stop to ask about their politicalcondition and constitution. Our kingdom is the kingdom of souls, whichare one and the same, whether they live in a republic or under atyranny, whether their bodies are white or black. We are glad to havethe body free, but it is not our work to make it so."
"Theodore Parker takes a different view," Roland suddenly exclaimed.
As if a bullet bad whistled close to his ears, Sonnenkamp cried,--
"What? Where did you find out about that man? Who told you about him?How's this?"
Roland trembled all over, for his father seized him by his shouldersand shook him.
"Father!" he cried out in a manly voice, "I have a free soul too! I amyour son, but my soul is free!"
All were amazed. Nothing more would be said about his voice changing.
Sonnenkamp let go his hold, his breast heaving up and down as he pantedviolently for breath. Suddenly he exclaimed,--
"I am very glad, my son; that's noble, that's grand. You are real youngAmerica It's right! fine! splendid!"
They were struck with fresh amazement. This sudden change of mood inSonnenkamp took all present by surprise. But he went on in a mildtone,--
"I am glad that you were not to be frightened. You have goodpluck--it's all right. Now tell me where you found out about Parker?"
Roland gave a true account of matters, except that he said nothingabout Parker's name having been mentioned by the Professorin when theywere making their calls in the town.
"Why didn't you speak of it to me?" asked his father.
"I can keep a secret," replied Roland. "You've tested me yourself onthat score."
"That's true, my son; you have justified my confidence."
"We ought to have gone home a long time ago," said the Major, and thiswas the signal for the company to break up.
The Major had never felt his heart beat so violently, never whenstationed on some exposed outpost, never even in battle, as during thereading; and yet it beat worse, after the conversation had taken sothreatening a turn.
He kept shaking his big head, and stretching out with his hands in theair deprecatingly and beseechingly, as if he would say,--
"For heaven's sake, drop this talk! It's not good, 'twill only doharm!"
Then he took another look at Sonnenkamp, shrugging up his shoulders."What _does_ the man mean," he thought, "by talking to us in thisstyle! We wouldn't put a hair in his path; what's the use of stirringus up in this matter! Oh, Fraeulein Milch had the right of it, when sheurged him to stay at home to-day.
"How comfortable it would be to be sitting in the arm-chair, in whichLaadi is now lying! And one might have been asleep two hours ago, andnow it will be midnight before one gets home! And there's FraeuleinMilch sitting up, and sitting up, till he comes in. It was like beingsaved, when he took out his watch, and could say how late it was."
The Professorin came back at this moment, and told Roland that hismother wished to see him. Roland went to her.
Eric accompanied his mother and the rest, as they set out for homethrough the snowy night.
Das landhaus am Rhein. English Page 111