CHAPTER XIV.
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD OF A DYING SEER.
Clodwig slept several hours, while Eric sat with the Banker, and drewrefreshment from his self-forgetting sympathy. The Banker failed inmany of the ordinary forms of society; but he possessed a nature fullof tact, and, in the midst of his deep emotion, Eric thought that onlyunselfishness has genuine tact. Want of tact is at bottom selfishness;for the man who is without it thinks and acts only for himself.
Eric now saw the Banker in a new light. In Carlsbad he had made ratheran effort to display his intelligence; but now his gentle and sensiblecharacter showed itself naturally. Eric remembered the Banker's oncehaving said to him at Carlsbad, "The Jews are the children ofcompassion: they understand how to bear and to relieve sorrow muchbetter than to create joy; the remembrance of past oppression givesthem sympathy with all suffering."
The Banker was ready to lend help at any moment, but allowed himself tobe put in the background again immediately.
Bella treated him with manifest neglect, but he took it good-humoredly,showing without words that he was not offended. She acted like hermother's own child; and moreover, he thought, she was not his friend.Clodwig was his friend, and he regarded it as a duty to bear somethingfor his sake. He sat in the library, ready to answer any call, andretiring again as soon as he believed himself in the way. Towardsmidnight, Eric was suddenly summoned; Clodwig had waked, and asked forhim.
"Ah! I have slept so well," said Clodwig; "and it's strange, Iconstantly dream now of my cousin Hatty, whom I am to marry. I likeher, and she likes me; but she has learned, and will learn nothing atall, and she has such a shrill laugh, and says, 'Come, Clodwig, you'reso sad, come, marry me, we'll be merry.' And then I say, 'Child, I'm soold already! see, I've no teeth left, and what will Bella say to it?''Ah, what' she says, 'nonsensical things! Come, we'll dance.' And thenwe dance down to the chapel; and there stands the priest beckoning tous, and we dance on, past the priest; and she's a splendid child withbeautiful eyes, and loves me dearly; and so we dance on and on, and Ican keep it up very well till I wake, without being tired."
"Is your cousin Hatty still living?"
"Oh, no! she died long ago. A few weeks since a grandson of hers washere with me. But isn't it strange that my first youthful love--I washardly ten years old--should have awakened in me? And she had an applein her hand, and bit into it, and then said, 'Take a bite too;' but,when I wanted to take the apple, she wouldn't let me, and said, 'Don'tbite too much.' And, when I awoke, the taste of the apple seemed stillin my mouth. Now it just comes back to me that we were once paintedtogether. The painter declared that it would please us very much sometime or other. He did it secretly, and, of course, the picture wasbought of him; I believe it is still in existence; but I don't knowwhere. Don't you like her name of Hatty? She is a half-grown girl in apink calico dress and white apron, and that's the way she was alwaysdressed, and she had a broad Florence straw hat, whose brim droopeddown upon her shoulders." So Clodwig went on, and said with a repressedsigh, "Bella has never cared to hear about my youth;" but then, as ifnot wishing to speak of her, he quickly added in a trembling voice,stretching out both hands, "Now attend, and I can tell you my story. Ihave had a very different life from that Herr Sonnenkamp. My father wasPrime-Minister, and I was born in the ministerial residence, the son ofa late marriage, an only son, like Herr Sonnenkamp; but my life wasdifferent. My father became representative of the Confederacy to theGerman Diet, and then I often lived here in summer on our estate. Thesociety of the representatives of the Confederacy,--who knows whetherit is not passing away without any one's having pictured it truly,--Imight have done it; even when I was still a student, it was plain to methat it was a society which exists only to stand in the way of everyimprovement. Come a little nearer and I will tell you what the GermanDiet is,--it is the evil conscience of the Princes. I thought so veryearly, and I was soon sure of it, and yet I stayed in the midst of it;and the farther I advanced, the more plainly I saw that it was true.All progress has built itself up apart from the Diet; and there issomething like it in the Church. Progress is made without her, asidefrom her; she has not done away with capital punishment, nor torture,nor the confinement of prisoners in irons: none of these has sheabolished. And now are coming the two great works of emancipation,--theemancipation of the slaves and of the serfs, and what is bringingthem about? Humanity alone in its freedom of action. You see, thisHerr Sonnenkamp lived in quite another world than mine, and yet mylife,--Ah, wait a minute, wait, I cannot say more now."
After a while, Clodwig began again,--
"This Sonnenkamp is another proof to me, our civilization has the samedefects as religion; it also gives no definite moral laws; it is not acomplete, not the true civilization."
He sat up in bed, saying,--
"Come, I want to say my last word to you. Two things I see looming upin the future; the one is imperialism, which is trying to establishitself in America; and the other, yet more terrible, is called a warfor religion. One party gathers around Rome; the other, around no man,no idea, but around freedom. Two great standards are raised, and aroundthese standards gather two armies. Invisibly on the one banner isinscribed, 'We cannot!' on the other, 'We will!'
"Hear yet more. A new faith, a new knowledge is to come, which willre-create the world. We wander continually in a grave-yard, our life isdead. Only a renewal through a great idea, through a new religion.Ah"--
He broke off abruptly as Bella entered the room.
She expressed her satisfaction at Clodwig's animation, and Clodwigstill preserved a courtly politeness towards his wife. She wanted tohand him some medicine, and he said,--
"Oh, yes! give it to me, but do not say any thing against DoctorRichard; please do not."
Bella sat quietly by the bed for a while; then Clodwig begged herto go to rest, and she complied. When he was again alone with Eric, hesaid,--
"In many painless hours by day and night, I have fancied to myself howthe human race of to-day will gather in countless hosts, and press,shoulder to shoulder, up some lofty height, to plant the banner underwhich they assemble. What watch-word can they inscribe upon it whichshall unite them one and all? Then I saw you; you were carrying thebanner, and on it was your motto, your words which you have spoken, theonly motto, Free labor! That is it. Happy are you that you have saidit, and I that I have heard and seen."
A glorious light rested on Clodwig's countenance, and beamed from hiseyes, as he gazed into the empty air; then he laid back his head, andclosed his eyes, but he felt for Eric's hand, and clasped it tight.After a while he raised himself again, saying,--
"Go into the room that you had when you first came here; take Robertwith you, and bring the bust of the Victoria here to me."
Eric went with the servant to the balcony chamber, and had the head ofthe Victoria taken down; that of the Medusa lay upon the floor infragments. He asked Robert who had broken it, but Robert knew nothingabout it. He hesitated to ask Bella or Clodwig about the matter, but helearned that Clodwig had not been in this room since his return.
When Eric had placed the bust opposite the sick man's bed, and arrangedthe lights properly, Clodwig said,--
"Yes, it looks like her, your mother knew her too."
He said nothing more. After he had gazed at the bust for a long time insilence, he asked Eric to call the Banker, and, when he came, he saidto him with a child-like smile,--
"It belongs to you too. There's a story about a little child, veryyoung, I can see him now, dressed only in a little shirt, sitting on acushion on the table, and my mother is holding me, and telling me--Ithink I can feel the warm breath of her words, as it comes against mybreast, she had laid her head on my breast, and she said, 'There wasonce a child who went into the woods to look for flowers, and he foundbeautiful red flowers, and picked them; and then he found beautifulblue flowers, and he threw the pretty red flowers away, and gatheredthe blue ones; and then he found beauti
ful yellow ones, and threw awaythe beautiful blue flowers to gather those; and next he found beautifulwhite ones; and he threw the pretty yellow ones away, and picked thewhite; and then he came out of the wood, and there was a brook; and hethrew the lovely white flowers into the brook, and had nothing left inhis hands.' That is my story, and that is the other one. I understandit now. The nations all came upon the earth, and they held therevelations in their hands,--the red, the blue, the yellow, and thewhite flowers--and at last they stood with nothing but their emptyhands. And then they said, 'It is well.' The empty hands speak, andsay, 'Unforced labor shaft thou perform.' Isn't it true, Eric, that Iunderstand what you said when you first came here? I see you now as youstood under the blossoming apple-tree, and your words came to me likemy mother's warm breath on my little breast. And now may you sleepwell. Good-night."
Eric sat by Clodwig's bed, with his hand clasped in his, till at lastthe grasp relaxed, and the sick man slept. Bella came again, andPranken with her; he prayed with the Sister of Mercy for thedangerously sick man, doing it without shyness or display, withunembarrassed air.
Eric made a sign to Bella to be very quiet. She sat silent for a time,and then withdrew with Pranken.
Eric struggled with sleep and weariness. The morning dawned, andflooded the chamber with its ruddy light. Eric went to the Sister ofMercy, and told her that the long sleep of their patient made himuneasy: he had leaned over him, and could hear no breathing; butperhaps it was on account of his own exhaustion.
They went to Clodwig's bed-side, and bent over him--death had come tohim in his sleep.
Das landhaus am Rhein. English Page 195