CHAPTER XI.
THE BOND OF HONOR.
It was evening. Roland was going through the village. In the streetsfloated an odor of the May wine; everybody was merry and bustling; thewine-presses were creaking and dripping in the streets, men were movingalong slowly with full heavy tubs on their backs.
Roland gazed at everybody with questioning look; he would have liked tocry out,--
See, here is a beggar, he begs of you something of love, of kindness,of pity for him and his father. Ah, only a little charity!
He saw the houses to which on his births day he had carriedjoy-bringing gifts; the people returned his greetings, but they werenot, as formerly, gladdened and honored by them; he left the village.
Outside of it, on the river-bank, he sat behind a hedge, as he didbefore he ran away to Eric. Now he was sitting in unspeakable sadness,that bade fair to wither his life-strength. A water-ousel flew up nearhim. With childish self-forgetfulness, he bent the boughs away fromeach other, and saw a nest with five young ones stretching out theirbills. How happy he would have been in by-gone days to have made such adiscovery! Now, he stood there, and said to himself sadly,--
Ah! you are at home.
He heard a carriage come rattling towards him on the road, and hethought of that poor servant in the night, who would rather hunger andbeg than possess property unjustly acquired.
Not far from him on the bank a boat was loosened from its chain; heheard the chain rattle, and at the same moment he felt in his heart asif he heard the slaves, who, bound in one long chain, were comingtowards him; and this again transformed itself in his imagination, andhe saw the dwarf, fettered as he had once seen him, and the groom; theywere walking along the road, and behind them the constable, with hisloaded gun gleaming in the sun.
He looked, up.
There, indeed, was a constable walking along. What if he were coming toarrest his father?
O no, there was no fear of that!
What was the matter, then?
And while his eye was still fastened on the bush behind which theconstable disappeared, he became, as it were, clairvoyant, his sightreaching out to all things instinctively. His thought stretched away toClodwig, to the Doctor, to the Major, to the Huntsman. What are theyall saying? Profoundly it came upon him: Man does not live for himselfalone. There is an invisible and inseparable community, whose bond isrespect and honor. He could bear no longer to sit alone with hisconfused thoughts; he said to himself almost aloud;--
"To the Huntsman's."
With nimble foot and beating heart, as if he expected to find somethingthere, he knew not what, he ascended the mountain. Before reaching thetown he was met by the second son of the Huntsman; he too was slowlyplodding: he was carrying a heavy tub of young wine. The lad was of thesame age with Roland, and while still at some distance, he cried out:--
"Father said that you would come. Just go right in, he is expectingyou."
Roland thanked him and went on. As he entered the Huntsman's house, thelatter cried out to him:--
"Knew you were coming. Have a salve for you. Needn't tell me anything,know everything this long while. Can give you something."
"What?"
"Boy, there are two things in the world that help; praying anddrinking. If you can't pray, drink till you have enough. Come, that'sthe best thing."
"Shame on you," rejoined Roland, "shame on you, there is anotherthing."
"What now? What?"
"Why, thinking. I cannot yet do it well at all, and I know not whatwill come of it, but still help must come of it."
"Huzza!" cried the Huntsman, "you're a splendid lad! Say, have youdecided yet what you'll do with the big pile of money, when you've oncegot it in your hand?"
"No."
"Very well. No doubt you'll learn. Now, I tell you, don't fret youryoung life away. Have pity on your father; he is a poor man, with allhis millions. Show that you're a lad who deserves to have the sun shineon him.
"Listen! mind!" he said, interrupting himself suddenly.
The black-bird was singing the melody: "Rejoice in your life." Rolandand the Huntsman looked at each other, and Roland smiled.
"Just so!" cried the Huntsman. "Learn that by heart, too. Rejoice Inyour life, all else is silly stuff. The bird is sensible. You've doneyour part well." He nodded to the black-bird, which was regarding theman and the boy with a wise look, as if it knew what it had done, andwas sure of applause; and turning to Roland, he continued merrily;--
"So--just so!--just so! Hold up your head, and if you need any one,call on me. You got me out of prison; that I'll never forget. Now comeand be merry, as your dogs are."
He took out a loaf of bread, which Roland was to give to the dogs toeat; but Roland ate first with great zest.
"Hurrah! victory!" shouted Claus, "you're hungry. The battle's won! Nowlet the water run down the Rhine, there's another day to-morrow."
Eric had had a presentiment that Roland would be at the field-guard's;he went after him, and was rejoiced to find him calm once more. Theywent home together, and Roland said:--
"Over there at the Huntsman's it came into my head all at once: Whatwould Benjamin Franklin say to me now? Do you know, Eric, what he wouldsay?"
"Not entirely, but I think he would say that a man who does nothing butgrieve stands on a level with the brute, which in a mishap cannot helpitself. The power of man has its beginning in this, that he can grasp,comprehend, and direct his misfortune in such a way as to makesomething out of it for his own good. If you suffer yourself to fallasleep in affliction, you are responsible for your own injury. Rouseyourself. As long as there is anything which you can esteem inyourself, you have aright to the esteem of others."
"Thanks," exclaimed Roland. "For my part, I have been thinking whatBenjamin Franklin would say. I saw him before me with his genialcountenance, his long snow-white hair, and he said:--Mark you, theworst thing is not what shames us in the eyes of the world, but toallow the shame so to pervert your mind that you look upon all men asbase."
What he had listened to on the way he had shaped into a strong pillarof thought for himself.
Eric could not tell how it gladdened his heart to feel that he hadfashioned this youth for such things; he wanted to cry out to him, Youare a man; but he repressed it. It would not do to say it aloud. With atranquillity wrung from the most profound grief, they both returned tothe villa.
They reached the garden wall, from the face of which the porter wasscraping something.
"There it is! there it is!" exclaimed Roland. "I have read it!"
The porter was scraping the mortar with a sharp iron, and this scrapingwent through Roland's soul as if the work were done on his own heart.All the coolness and composure that he had gained disappeared.
"There it is!" he exclaimed. "It will have to be scraped off againto-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, and forever. Ah, Eric, why aremen so wicked! What good does it do them to insult us?"
Eric consoled him by saying that men are not so wicked, they merelyliked to irritate and mock one another.
He accompanied Roland to his room, and there the youth sat still, hishand clenched and pressed against his lip, till his teeth left theirmark on his fingers. For a long while he spoke not a word. He looked atthe stuffed bird, and said softly to himself once more, "Hiawatha!"
He stood at the window, and looked down into the park, up into the sky,where the swallows were gathering in great flocks, getting ready tocross the sea into warmer lands. Everything, everything has its home,something was saying in the heart of this youth; the plant that cannotstir is carried to a secure shelter, and the swallow draws to a placewhere it can still be happy. O, if some one could only tell us nowwhere we might be happy!
All at once he shrank back from the window, for he saw the Russianprince entering the courtyard; behind the Prince came the Doctor in hiscarriage. Roland begged Eric to leave him alone, and not bring any oneto see him.
Eric went away, and Roland locked himself up in his room.
Das landhaus am Rhein. English Page 176