Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine
After a while, Clodwig began again, —
"This Sonnenkamp is another proof to me, our civilization has the same defects as religion; it also gives no definite moral laws; it is not a complete, 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 up in the future; the one is imperialism, which is trying to establish itself in America; and the other, yet more terrible, is called a war for religion. One party gathers around Rome; the other, around no man, no idea, but around freedom. Two great standards are raised, and around these standards gather two armies. Invisibly on the one banner is inscribed, 'We cannot!' on the other, 'We will!'
"Hear yet more. A new faith, a new knowledge is to come, which will re-create the world. We wander continually in a grave-yard, our life is dead. 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 Clodwig still preserved a courtly politeness towards his wife. She wanted to hand him some medicine, and he said, —
"Oh, yes! give it to me, but do not say any thing against Doctor Richard; please do not."
Bella sat quietly by the bed for a while; then Clodwig begged her to go to rest, and she complied. When he was again alone with Eric, he said, —
"In many painless hours by day and night, I have fancied to myself how the human race of to-day will gather in countless hosts, and press, shoulder to shoulder, up some lofty height, to plant the banner under which they assemble. What watch-word can they inscribe upon it which shall unite them one and all? Then I saw you; you were carrying the banner, and on it was your motto, your words which you have spoken, the only motto, Free labor! That is it. Happy are you that you have said it, and I that I have heard and seen."
A glorious light rested on Clodwig's countenance, and beamed from his eyes, as he gazed into the empty air; then he laid back his head, and closed 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 Robert with you, and bring the bust of the Victoria here to me."
Eric went with the servant to the balcony chamber, and had the head of the Victoria taken down; that of the Medusa lay upon the floor in fragments. He asked Robert who had broken it, but Robert knew nothing about it. He hesitated to ask Bella or Clodwig about the matter, but he learned that Clodwig had not been in this room since his return.
When Eric had placed the bust opposite the sick man's bed, and arranged the 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 in silence, he asked Eric to call the Banker, and, when he came, he said to him with a child-like smile, —
"It belongs to you too. There's a story about a little child, very young, I can see him now, dressed only in a little shirt, sitting on a cushion on the table, and my mother is holding me, and telling me – I think I can feel the warm breath of her words, as it comes against my breast, she had laid her head on my breast, and she said, 'There was once a child who went into the woods to look for flowers, and he found beautiful red flowers, and picked them; and then he found beautiful blue flowers, and he threw the pretty red flowers away, and gathered the blue ones; and then he found beautiful yellow ones, and threw away the beautiful blue flowers to gather those; and next he found beautiful white ones; and he threw the pretty yellow ones away, and picked the white; and then he came out of the wood, and there was a brook; and he threw the lovely white flowers into the brook, and had nothing left in his hands.' That is my story, and that is the other one. I understand it now. The nations all came upon the earth, and they held the revelations in their hands, – the red, the blue, the yellow, and the white flowers – and at last they stood with nothing but their empty hands. And then they said, 'It is well.' The empty hands speak, and say, 'Unforced labor shaft thou perform.' Isn't it true, Eric, that I understand what you said when you first came here? I see you now as you stood under the blossoming apple-tree, and your words came to me like my mother's warm breath on my little breast. And now may you sleep well. Good-night."
Eric sat by Clodwig's bed, with his hand clasped in his, till at last the grasp relaxed, and the sick man slept. Bella came again, and Pranken with her; he prayed with the Sister of Mercy for the dangerously sick man, doing it without shyness or display, with unembarrassed 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, and flooded the chamber with its ruddy light. Eric went to the Sister of Mercy, and told her that the long sleep of their patient made him uneasy: he had leaned over him, and could hear no breathing; but perhaps it was on account of his own exhaustion.
They went to Clodwig's bed-side, and bent over him – death had come to him in his sleep.
CHAPTER XV.
A GOOD CONCLUSION TO A BAD RESULT
Eric had Pranken called, and charged him with the duty of informing his sister; but Pranken insisted that they should let Bella sleep as long as she would, as she needed the strength. So the dawning day grew brighter and brighter, and the Sister of Mercy sat praying by the bedside of him who had fallen asleep.
Eric went down into the garden, where he met the Banker: he silently gave him his hand, and they walked on together without speaking. Eric was called in to Bella, who was upon the sofa, weeping. The Sister of Mercy had broken the news to her when she woke. Bella had been with the corpse, and now was mourning loud and immoderately. Eric consoled her, requesting that she would excuse his absence for a few hours, as he must see how they all were at the Villa, and would return by evening.
He rode homewards.
At the foot of the mountain, Claus met him with his son, the Cooper; and the field-guard cried, —
"Good luck, Herr Captain! good luck for you; and you are good luck for us too. We've just bought the Carp Inn for Ferdinand. Could there be any thing better? I'm father of an inn."
Eric hushed him, but could not get in a word; for Claus exclaimed, —
"Do you know that now Sevenpiper's going to let his daughter marry Ferdinand? and it's all owing to you."
"Me?"
"Yes, indeed. If the rich Sonnenkamp can let his daughter marry a teacher, Sevenpiper can give his daughter to the Cooper. Isn't that so? O Herr Captain! You are a good luck for us all. And here, Herr Captain, here's my hand: I'll drink not a drop more after to-day, except when I'm thirsty: mayn't I quench my thirst? Thank heaven, I've got a very good thirst. But at the wedding I'll have a time of it; for nobody can go it like the Screamer. Come along with me, Herr Captain, put up your horse, we've a good stable, it's a first-rate inn."
Eric could not reconcile the contradiction: he comes from a death-bed into the very midst of jollity. He told Claus nothing of Clodwig's decease, and only begged to be allowed to ride on, and so left them.
He reached Villa Eden.
"Has Bella any female friend with her," the Professorin asked, as soon as she learned of Clodwig's death.
Eric said that she had not. It was painful to the Professorin that she could not render any assistance and consolation to Bella. Bella had triumphed in the fact, that, self-contained, she had been more feared than loved by women; and now, in her time of affliction, she had no one whose right and dutiful privilege it was to come to her, that she might lay her head, weighed down with sorrow and tears, upon a friendly bosom. But Aunt Claudine said to Eric, —
"When you drive to Wolfsgarten again, take me with you."
Manna begged Eric to rest; but Eric saw that there was no rest for him, for he received very soon a note from Bella by a messenger, in which were these words, written in great haste, —
"You must come immediately to bear witness for me. I am ruined and disgraced."
Eric drove to Wolfsgarten. Aunt Claudine accompanied him, and Professor Einsiedel had offered his services also; but the Mother and Manna urged him to remain with them. The Professor was a consolation and a quiet support for them at the Villa. Eric promised to return that night. What can have happened at Wolfsgarten in these few hours since Clodwig's death?
They came to Wolfsgarten. The servants stood around, and looked shyly at Eric; one of them saying, – Eric heard it very distinctly, —
"Who knows whether he has not helped do it?"
The Sister of Mercy came to meet Eric, and said to him hurriedly, —
"A horrible thing has happened. The layer-out of the corpse, in removing the clothes, found a wound upon the Count's neck, and has called the coroner: now it is said that Count Clodwig was strangled. You were present until the very last breath, you are involved in the most horrible suspicion. Inconceivable, incomprehensible! If the Doctor would only come! We have despatched messengers everywhere for him; but he is not to be found."
Bella had heard of Eric's arrival, and pulled incessantly at the bell: she desired that he would come to her. Eric requested Aunt Claudine to remain in the lower room, where the Banker was still sitting quietly, and went with the Sister of Mercy to Bella.
"Leave us alone together for a moment," begged Bella. "No, that would excite suspicion. Remain." – "Foh! suspicion!" shrieked Bella. "You men are all hypocrites. Let the world say what it will, leave us alone. Every thing is a lie, and he was a liar too."
Eric was alone with Bella who said, —
"I have received a punishment more horrible than the most cunning Devil could ever have contrived. Herr Dournay, it is said that I, Bella Pranken, have strangled my husband, – I have sacrificed my life to be now suspected of this! Here I stand: whatever I have done, whatever I have thought, now is it a thousand-fold atoned for. And I curse it that I have been faithful. He wore the picture of another woman on his heart until his heart ceased to beat."
"The Doctor is here," was suddenly called outside.
The Doctor and Pranken entered; and the Doctor said, —
"I know the whole. This blockhead of a coroner! Every ignorant person knows that a wound on a corpse is a very different thing from one on a living body. There is only a trifling mark, a little abrasion of the skin on the Count's neck. Can't you tell me what made this?"
Bella now narrated that Robert had come to ask her whether they should leave the picture, which the Count wore on his heart, to be buried with him. She asked what sort of a picture it was, and was told that it was that of a lady. Hurrying there in her excitement, which she now lamented, she had snatched from the corpse the picture which was hung by a small cord about the neck.
"It was the miniature of his deceased wife: here it is," said she. She pointed to a gentle face, on a thin plate of gold.
The Doctor and Eric looked at the picture, and then at Bella. Eric thought to himself, "This was why he had the bust of the Victoria brought to his bedside. Wonderful likeness!"
The Doctor said that they must not make known publicly this passionate act of the Countess as the occasion of the coroner's mistake. He begged them to fall in with his explanation, that some of the caustic medicine which the invalid had taken had dropped down about the string, and caused this abrasion.
To his horror, Eric now recollected that Clodwig had exhorted him to take something from his bosom after he was dead. He told of this now; and the Doctor and Bella shook their heads.
The Doctor requested Bella, Eric, Pranken, the Banker, and the Sister of Mercy to go with him into the chamber of death. He had all the servants called, and rebuked the coroner sharply, pointing out to him that only the outer skin had been reddened by a caustic medicine.
Eric cast one more look at the dead body of his friend. Even the statue of the Victoria, that stood opposite, seemed to look in sorrow upon it.
The gentlemen led Bella back into her chamber. Aunt Claudine entered. Bella extended her left hand to her, while with the right she held a handkerchief pressed to her face. The gentlemen went down to receive the King's private physician, whose carriage was just driving into the court. Doctor Richard stated in few words the cause of Clodwig's death, which was the result of a cold, together with great mental excitement. They then all repaired to the room looking on the garden, whither Doctor Richard ordered wine to be brought, and insisted on Eric's drinking with them, as he would need to use every means to keep up his strength.
"Drink," he said, "you cannot do without it. Great demands are making upon you now, and the machine must be fed with wine."
Eric drank, but he drank a tear with the wine; for tears fell from his eyes into the glass. He left the room for a moment, and returned with a little box in which, he said, were Clodwig's orders, which his friend had commissioned him to return to the Prince. As his presence was necessary now at the Villa, he requested the court-physician to undertake the commission for him; to which he readily assented, adding, that in Clodwig a nobleman had been taken away, whose memory was a source of strength to them all: the moderation and perfect balance of his nature, his repose and gentleness, were characteristics which belonged to a generation that was passing away.
Doctor Richard, who was sitting in an arm-chair, with his legs crossed one over the other, exclaimed, —
"All that is true: the expression, 'He was too noble for this world,' might be used with truth of him. He had the advantage, or the disadvantage, of viewing every individual thing in its connection with humanity; and, as to the thing itself, it was a matter of perfect indifference to him, whether it was done to-day or to-morrow, by you or anybody else. He might have accomplished great things, have exerted a wide-spread influence; but the task seemed to him too hard, and he excused himself from it. Every event, every experience, was made subservient to the development of his beautiful character. Good, beautiful, lofty, but a childless, barren existence is that, whose mother is a philosophy which accepts all things, comprehends all things, only to reduce them afterwards to a system. I have often reproached him with that while he lived; and I venture to do the same now that he is dead."
"He repeated to me once an expression of yours, Captain Dournay," said the Banker. "You once said to him, 'Man has to do railway duty on the earth;' and the words made a great impression on him. So it is, we all have to act more or less as guards on the swiftly-rolling train of our generation; but it is not every one who is fitted for the post."
There was much that Eric wanted to say, and he might have explained many points; for what had Clodwig not discussed with him? But he had no chance to speak; for the doctor cried, —
"I do not believe that I am inclined to find fault with this man. Of all in the wide world who will hear of his death, and mourn for him, not one respected him more than I."
Some reference was made to the horrible suspicion which had fallen upon Bella; but the Doctor repeated emphatically that this was a monstrous mistake, and heartily regretted that nothing could be done to efface all remembrance of it; for men would always hold fast to such a calumny, at least, they would not wholly forget it.
Pranken entered with a clergyman of the neighborhood, who finally consented, after much persuasion on the part of Pranken and the royal physician, to pronounce a benediction over the body.
The Doctor presently drove off with the Court-physician: and, soon afterward, Eric also departed, with the Banker and Aunt Claudine; for Bella had requested to be left alone.
They looked back sorrowfully at the mansion, from whose summit a black flag was now waving.
For two days, Clodwig's body lay upon satin cushions in the great drawing-room, exposed to the public gaze. His countenance was peaceful. He was surrounded by palms and flowers, and candles burned at the side of the coffin.
People from the whole country round flocked to take a last look at Clodwig; some from respect, and some from curiosity. Bella could hear them say as they left the house, "He shows no signs of having been strangled."
On the third day, Eric, the Justice, the Banker, the Major, the chief men of the city, besides an ambassador from the King, and several high officers of state, followed Clodwig's body to the tomb of the Wolfsgartens.
The bells rang from mountain and valley: it was the funeral of the last of the Wolfsgartens.
Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he had actually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among the mourners.
The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: he would have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed the solemnity of the occasion.
Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knew that, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror, and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which he pretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in the public room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, a cattle-dealer, who said, —
"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Very fine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulated of us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"
The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spoke of the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which was true, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red mark about the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which he always wore the picture of his first wife.
A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this charge against Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to a decision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must be favorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will be to get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she is won."
Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligence of every thing that was going on.
CHAPTER XVI.
AWAY UNDER FIERY RAIN!
A damp, autumnal fog penetrated Clodwig's sick-room through the open windows, and lay in drops on the brow of the statue of Victory.
Still and desolate it was at Wolfsgarten: even Pranken had gone.
Bella sat in her room enveloped in her mourning weeds. She had black bracelets on her wrists, and had just been trying on her black gloves. She drew them off now, laid her hands together, and gazed with that terrible Medusa look into vacancy, into the future, into the great blank. "You are alone," said a voice within her; "you were always alone in yourself, in the world, – a solitary nature; lonely as wife, always alone."
Once more her cheeks flamed with sudden rage to think that any one, the veriest fool, could for an instant imagine that she had murdered her husband. Was it for this that she had so long crushed every impulse of her heart? Was the world after all not believe in her happiness? She went in imagination from house to house of the capital, and heard her name on all tongues.
The ticking of the clock reminded her of what Clodwig had once said, "The pendulum of our life vibrates between recollections of the past, and desires for the future." – "That was true of him, but not of me: I do not stand between recollection and desire: I want the present. I crave life, ardent life."
She rose, and was vexed that she could not resist going to her mirror; but once there she staid, and was still more vexed to see that her figure was not as slender as it used to be; and yet black makes one look slender. She seemed to have lost all her charms! Her thoughts went further: since he had to die before you, why could he not have died years ago, while you were still beautiful? She shuddered at the thought, but the next moment commended her own sincerity. Further spoke the voice within her, and, proudly raising her head, she said almost aloud to herself, —
"I care nothing for conventionality. What I may think a year hence, I will think now, to-day. What to me is the world's division of time? Thoughts that others would have a year hence, I permit myself to-day. Yes; you are a widow, who will be visited only from compassion, – a widow, with none to stand by her. And then this degrading suspicion! I can go to the capital; I can take a house. Oh, what a god-like destiny! I am myself a house, and shall be made lady president of a soup establishment, and shall have a select dozen of orphans in blue aprons come to my funeral. I have had enough of that sort of thing already. No! I cannot live alone. Shall I travel again, seek forgetfulness and fancied pleasure in landscapes, crowds, works of art, and then talk, laugh, play in society? I have proved it all vanity, emptiness. Prince Valerian could be won. Hut could I play the hypocrite again in a strange world, and charitably rejoice that the Russian peasants are, figuratively, to have their hair curled? The Wine-cavalier would be very complaisant, always making his bows, and paying his devotions: it is only manner to be seen, but then the manner is good, agreeable, and – false, the whole of it!
"No, no! I must away into conflict, into war, danger, distress; but life, mighty, all-absorbing life, I must have. I scorn the whole world; I hurl back in its face its honors, its caprices of philanthropy."
A horseman gallops into the court-yard, a tall figure in black. Is it not Sonnenkamp? What can he want?
Sonnenkamp was announced.
"He is welcome," was her answer.
Sonnenkamp entered.
"Countess," he said, "I bring back to you what once I received from you, – the courage of a hero."
"Ah, courage! I am in humiliation; deserted, broken, weak."
"You humiliated deserted, weak? You kindled in me a strength great enough to defy the world: I am young again, fresh again. Countess, in this bitter and critical hour I come to you, only to you. You alone are now the world to me; you alone make the world of value to me; I would gladly give you something, be to you something, that shall make the world seem precious to you again."
Bella stood motionless, and he continued:
"Raise yourself above this hour, above this year, above this country, above all conventionalities. If it be possible for any human being to do this, you are that one.
"Bella, I might tell you that I would escape into the wide world; would sacrifice, destroy every thing ruthlessly; put from me wife, children, all, only on condition that you would follow me, that you would dare to turn your back upon every thing, and be a free, independent nature: I might tell you that, and it would be true. But it is not that which should decide you. It is not for me you should live, but for yourself. Bella, we read in old histories of men and women who bound themselves together by a crime: such unions seldom last. I see your soul open before me – no, I have it within me, and speak from it. You say as I do, 'Here I am in conflict with the world. The world requires concern for others, and I have the spirit of egoism; I am no philanthropist, I am no charitable institution.' You desire, as I do, to assert self; I desire a thing for you, only because I desire it for myself. Others would decoy you, persuade you with honeyed phrases; I honor you too highly: you have courage to be yourself."
"I do not understand you. What do you mean? What do you desire for yourself; what do you desire for me?"
"For myself, what have I left to desire? A bullet through my head. But there is one thing which can save me."
"What is that?"
"It is yourself. To show you what greatness is, to see you great – for that I would still gladly live and fight. If there is such a thing as admiration, as bowing before what is noble, before a world-subduing genius, I" —
