Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine. Auerbach Berthold
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a physician. Well, good-night!"
When Eric was alone, everything vanished which he had seen or experienced during the day, and Roland's form alone remained before him. He tried to fancy what the boy's thoughts were in riding after him. He sought to transport himself into the boy's state of feeling; he could not entirely do so, for Roland was full of anger with Eric, for deserting one who was so truly and fondly devoted to him. The boy felt as if he had been robbed, and so he rode over to the town fancying that Eric must be coming to meet him, or must be watching for him at the window; he rode back weeping with anger.
The world, of which he was to possess so much, appeared to him worthless and strange, while it seemed to Eric, who had nothing but his own thoughts, bathed in a dew of blessing. In the stillness of the night he thought over the hospitable and homelike reception he had met from Clodwig, and now from the physician, and hospitality seemed to him the purest fruit of noble manhood. In ancient times men entertained gods and angels, and they still entertained them, for in freely offering what one has to a stranger, whose very existence was yesterday unknown, the divine is unfolded in the pure soul.
Up yonder at Wolfsgarten, Eric had met with a fatherly good-will, based upon congeniality of thought – here with the doctor, as much goodwill as difference of opinion; but here, too, that personal friendliness which is so satisfying and home-like.
There was Bella who always wished to make an impression in her own behalf, and here was the doctor's wife, who wished nothing for herself, who thanked Eric in her heart, and wished only that her husband might have the good fortune to be able to talk over learned subjects with another man. And were these many forms, were all these events, to be only the passing occurrences of a journey?
CHAPTER XIII.
AGAIN ALONE WITH THYSELF
"In the morning," the doctor often said, "I am like a washed chimney-sweeper." He rose, summer and winter, at five o'clock, studied uninterruptedly several hours, and answered only the most pressing calls from his patients. Through this practice of study he not only kept up his scientific knowledge, but as he bathed his body in fresh water, so was he also mentally invigorated; let come what would of the day, he had made sure of his portion of science. And that was the reason – we may congratulate ourselves upon knowing this secret – that was the reason why the doctor was so wide awake, so ready primed, and so vivacious. He himself designated these morning hours to an old fellow-student as his camel-hours, when he drank himself full, so that he could often refresh himself with a draught in the dry desert. And life, moreover, did not seem to him a desert, for he had something which thrived everywhere, and was all-prevailing, and that was an indestructible cheerfulness, and an equanimity, which he attributed above all to his sound digestion.
So was he sitting now; and when he heard Eric, whose room was over his study, getting up, he sent word to him to come soon to breakfast; and in this hour the freshness of the man was yet wholly unimpaired. His wife, who had to be busy, or rather, who made herself busy about household matters, in order not to oblige her husband to enter into any conversation on less learned matters, had soon gone into the garden, in which flourished many scions and seeds of various kinds out of Sonnenkamp's garden. But the doctor conversed with Eric upon no scientific topics.
In the breakfast-room there hung portraits of the parents and the grand-parents of the physician, and he took occasion to give some account of his own life. His grandfather and father had been boat-men, and the doctor had been present at the golden wedding of both, and expressed his hope to celebrate also his own. And after he had portrayed his own struggle with life, he proceeded to ask Eric about his pecuniary affairs, and those of his mother.
Eric disclosed the whole state of the case; he described how his mother had noble and rich friends; on whom she placed great expectations, but he did not believe in, and to speak honestly, he did not desire, any help of that sort. The doctor asserted in confirmation, that no one would help them substantially and handsomely; he unfolded, as he went along, wholly heretical views upon beneficence; he expatiated upon the nonsense of leaving endowments and legacies in one's will, and on scattering small donations. He thought it was much handsomer, and more permanently beneficial, to make an individual or a family entirely independent, so that they may thereby be the means of accomplishing greater good. He stated that he had often attempted to bring this about; nothing of this kind was to be effected with Herr Sonnenkamp, who would have nothing further to do with people into whose hat he had cast an alms.
The conversation, in this way, having once more turned upon Sonnenkamp, the doctor offered to take upon himself all the external financial arrangements with Sonnenkamp, insisting upon Eric's consent to his doing so.
"And do you take no farther trouble about this man," said the doctor, opening an egg. "See, it is all a fair exchange. We devour this egg with the greatest zest, while the hen got her living out of the manure-heap."
Eric was happy with this lively, practical man. He expressed his satisfaction that, here in this little town, there were so many noble persons, who could constitute a rich social environment. The doctor contested this, for he considered that the necessity of being thrown upon one another, and the not being able to make a selection, as one can do in a great city, belittled, contracted, and created gossip. One had, indeed, in a great city, no larger circle than was here formed for the direct participation in the various duties of life, but the necessity of contracting marriages within such a limited circle did not permit the existence of a free social community.
"On the whole," he said in conclusion, "we are no more to each other than a good whist-party."
It was time to think of departing. Eric left the house with a feeling of serene satisfaction. The doctor drove him to the nearest railroad station, where he got out and warmly shook Eric's hand, repeating the wish that they might be able to live together.
The train, meanwhile, stopped longer than usual at the little station, waiting the arrival of the train from the lower Rhine which was behind time. A merry crowd of men, young and old, greeted the doctor and seated themselves in the same car with Eric. The doctor told him that they were wine-testers, who were going to a sale which was to take place to-day at the wine-count's cellar. He called Eric's attention specially to a jovial-looking man, the gauger, the finest judge of wine in the district. The doctor laughed heartily when Eric said to him, that he had also gone about the whole district testing wines, that is, the spiritual wine of character.
"Strange how you make an application of everything!" laughed the physician. "Count Wolfsgarten, Pranken, Bella, Sonnenkamp, the huntsman, Sevenpiper, Musselina, Weidmann, Fräulein Perini, the Major, the priest, I, and Roland – a fine specimen-catalogue of wines. Look out that you do not stagger as you come out of the wine-cellar."
The doctor suddenly turned round, and cried: —
"You may yet induce me to put something in print. I am verily of the opinion, that though there must be some consumers who are not producers, there are no graduated German heads that don't want, at some time or other, to write a book; perhaps that helps them to study. And when you come again, you will, perhaps, bring me to the point of writing my history of sleep."
The train from the lower Rhine whistled, and the doctor, grasping Eric's hand again, said with emotion, —
"We are friends! take notice, that if either one of us is to be no longer the other's friend, he pledges himself to give a week's notice. And now farewell."
The last word was cut off, for the locomotive whistled, and Eric set out towards home.
He was sitting with downcast eyes when he heard some one in the car say, —
"There's young Sonnenkamp on horseback!"
Eric looked out, and caught one more glimpse of Roland, just as he disappeared behind a little hill.
Eric heard nothing of the lively talk, often interrupted by loud laughter, which the wine-party kept up; he had much in the past and future to think over, and he was glad when the party left the car at the next station, and he remained alone. He felt some repentance, and some doubt whether he had not acted wrongly and unwisely in not concluding an arrangement with Sonnenkamp, but he soon took courage again and cast his regret behind him.
We are rapidly rolled along