Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine. Auerbach Berthold
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of childlike fondness in the tone and gesture, as he grasped Eric's hand.
"If your father says that you may go, you should go," Eric quietly answered.
Roland departed with lingering steps, halting at intervals, but still he went.
CHAPTER VII.
AN EXAMINATION THAT ENDS WITH A LAUGH
For some time, the two walked silently side by side. Eric was dissatisfied with himself; he lived too exclusively in himself, and in the longing to arrange everything according to his own mental laws, and to express each truth in the most comprehensive way, throwing himself into it in the excitement of the moment with perfect freedom and naiveté, yet not unconscious of his intellectual riches.
Hence the hearers felt that, what he said was not only inopportune, but was presented with a sort of zealous importunity. Eric acknowledged this and was conscious of it immediately afterward, when he had divested himself of himself; yet he was continually making the same mistake, which caused him to appear in an ambiguous light, and as if he were out of his appropriate place. Eric had a sort of clairvoyant perception how all this was affecting Sonnenkamp, but he could not discern the peculiar triumph that it afforded him over the visionary, as he smiled to himself at the green youth who served up such freshly-cooked dishes of sophomoric learning. He knows what it is, he has passed through it all. People settle themselves down there in the little university-town, and coming in contact with no one else, they live in a fantastic world of humanity, and appear to themselves to be personages of the greatest consequence, whom an ungrateful lack of appreciation hinders from manifesting their efficiency in actual life. And this captain-doctor now before him had only a small company of ideas under his command.
Sonnenkamp whistled to himself, – whistled so low that nobody but himself could hear the tune; he even knew how to set his lips so that nobody perceived him to be whistling.
He placed himself in a chair on a little eminence, and showed Eric also a seat.
"You must have noticed," he said at last, "that Fräulein Perini is a very strict Catholic, and all our household belong to the Church; may I ask, then, why you rang the changes so loudly upon your Huguenot descent?"
"Because I wish to show my colors, and nail them to the mast; for no one must ever take me for what I am not."
Sonnenkamp was silent for some time, and then he said, leaning back in his seat, —
"I am master in this house, and I tell you that your confession shall be no hindrance. But now" – he bent himself down, putting both hands on his knees and looking straight at Eric – "but now – I came very near falling from my horse to-day, which has never happened to me before, because I was deeply engaged, while riding, in reflection upon what you said to me – in brief – the main point of our conversation. How do you think that a boy who is to engage in no business and who is to come into possession of a million – or rather say, of millions – how do you think that such a boy is to be educated?"
"I can give a precise answer to that question."
"Can you? I am listening."
"The answer is simple. He cannot be educated at all."
"What! not at all?"
"That is what I affirm. The great mysterious Destiny alone can educate him. All that we can do is, to work with him, and to help him rule over and apply whatever strength he has."
"To rule over and to apply," Sonnenkamp murmured to himself; "that sounds well, and I must say that you confirm an impression which has often before this been made upon me. Only a soldier, only a man who has developed and trained his own inborn courageous energies, only such an one can accomplish anything great in our time; nothing can be done by sermons and books, for they cannot overcome the old, nor create the new age."
In a changed, almost cringingly humble tone, Sonnenkamp continued, —
"It may appear in the highest degree strange, that I, a man of little knowledge, who have not had time in the active business of life to learn anything rightly, – that I should seem to subject you to examination; but you must be convinced that I do it for my own instruction. I see, already, that I have even more to learn from you than Roland has.
"I pray you then to tell me what training – imagine yourself a father in my circumstances – what training you would give your own son."
"I believe," Eric answered, "that fantasy can call up all sorts of pictures, but a relation which is one of the mysteries of nature can only be known through experience, and cannot be apprehended by any stretch of the imagination. Permit me then to answer from my own outside point of view."
"Very well."
"My father was the educator of a prince, and I think his task was the easier one."
"You would then place wealth above sovereignty?"
"Not at all; but in a prince the sense of duty is very early awakened. Not only pride but duty is a means, every moment, of inducing him to conduct himself as a prince. The formal assumption of state dignity, in which those in the highest rank are so accomplished, appears from a very early age as an essential feature of their position, as a duty, and becomes a second nature. Taste becomes connoisseurship. Pardon my scholastic ways," Eric laughingly said, breaking in upon his exposition.
"Don't stop – to me it is in the highest degree interesting."
Sonnenkamp leaned back in his seat, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of Eric's discourse, as if it were some choice tid-bit: very well for this man to go off into the regions of speculation, who in the meanwhile could not call his own the chair on which he sat, nor the spot of earth on which he stood, whilst he; Sonnenkamp, could proudly call his all that was around him, and could obtain possession, if he wished, of all that was within reach of his sight, and, as the keeper said, buy up the whole of the Rhinegau.
"Continue," he said, putting a fresh cigar in his mouth.
"It may seem laughable," resumed Eric, "but it is certainly significant that a prince receives, in his very cradle, a military rank. When reason awakens in him, he sees his father always under the ordinance of duty. I do not at all deny that this duty often sits very lightly upon him, if it is not wholly neglected, but a certain appearance of duty must always be preserved. The son of a rich man, on the other hand, does not see the duty which wealth imposes placed so peremptorily before his eyes; he sees beneficence, utility, the fostering Of art, hospitality, but all this not as duty, but as free personal inclination."
"You come round again to the obligation imposed by social civilization. I pray you, however, – you have a decided talent for instruction, I see that plainly; and I am at any rate thankful to Count Clodwig and to you."
"A point for comparison occurs to me," Eric began anew.
"Go on," Sonnenkamp said, encouragingly.
"It was a custom, in the good old time, for German princes to learn some trade. Irrespective of all else, they learned how to understand and to esteem labor. The rich youth ought to have something like this, without its being suffered to degenerate into a mere hollow ceremonial."
"Very suggestive," Sonnenkamp asserted. He had proposed to himself only to make inquiries of Eric, only to procure a new species of enjoyment by allowing a learned idealist to open his whole budget; he had taken especial satisfaction in the thought that Eric would do this for his enjoyment, and would reap no advantage from it himself; he also experienced a certain delight in being able for once to journey into the region of the ideal – it seemed a very pretty thing – but only for one hour, for one half-day; and now he was unexpectedly awakened to a lively interest. He placed his hand upon Eric's arm, and said, —
"You are really a good teacher."
Eric continued, without remarking upon the compliment, —
"I set a very high value upon sovereignty; it is a great influence, and confers independence and self-possession."
"Yes, that is true. But do you know what is the most desirable thing, which money cannot buy?"
Eric shook his head, and Sonnenkamp continued, —
"A