Das landhaus am Rhein. English by Berthold Auerbach
CHAPTER XII.
SONNENKAMP FINDS A CONGENIAL SPIRIT.
Sonnenkamp was sitting alone in his large room; he looked up towardsthe castle, which was nearly completed. Who will dwell in it? He turnedhis eye away. He stood for a long time in front of Roland's picture.
"One should have no children, know nothing of them," he exclaimed. Hewas terrified at the sound of his own voice.
He opened the money-safe; he contemplated the neatly-arranged papers,and the drawers that contained the coined and uncoined gold.
"What help are you to me? and still----"
There was a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
Joseph answered:--
"His Highness the Prince is here, and wishes----"
The Prince? Could it be possible? Was it all only a dream? Is thePrince coming to ask his pardon? Does he feel----?
Sonnenkamp went to the door; he opened it; there stood the RussianPrince Valerian. He said, with friendly words, that he had come to seeif he could, in any way, be of assistance, and Herr Weidmann also----
"I need no assistance! I need no one," broke in Sonnenkamp, shuttingthe door and locking it once more.
"I have no pity, and want no pity," said he to himself, holding bothhis clenched hands on his breast. There was another knock.
"What is it? Why don't they leave me in peace?"
Through the key-hole came the sound of a gentle voice:--
"It is I, the Countess Bella."
Sonnenkamp shivered.
Is it a trick? It is some one who insists on speaking to him, assumingthat name and that voice.
Well! At any rate, the person who puts on that mask is very cunning.Let us see who it is that is so shrewd!
He opened the door and stood transfixed; it was indeed Bella.
"Give me your hand!" she cried. "Your hand! You are a hero, I havenever before seen a hero. And what are all these puppets around you?Stuffing for uniforms, nothing more; cowardly professors and newspaperhacks! There is still a bugbear which they call humanity, of which theyare all in fear; before which they creep away, like children from thewolf. You alone are a man!"
"Sit down," at last said Sonnenkamp in astonishment; he did, not in theleast understand what all this could mean. Bella kept up the samestrain, saying:--
"I knew that you were a conqueror, but I did not know that you weresuch a mighty one."
Still Sonnenkamp was not able to understand. What does this woman want?Is this a kind of mockery? But he was disposed to think otherwise, whenshe exclaimed:--
"They are weaklings--cowards, all of them, the world of rankparticularly! They ought to have created you a count, an ordinary baronis altogether too small a thing for you. You have done what they allwould have liked to do--no, not all, but only certain ones who have themettle within them. But they are ashamed before the man whoaccomplishes what they had not the energy, or the courage, or thedaring to accomplish. They have swords, they carry fancy daggers, andare frightened at the rattan of the school-master, who raps them on thefingers with it and says to them: 'Know ye not that we are living inthe epoch--or do they call it the century, the age--of humanity?' Bygood right, all the nobles of the land should leave their cards foryou, and congratulate you. How many of these puppets would be inpossession of nobility, if they had to win it by heroism like yours?Look at me; were I young, had you come in my youth, I would have goneout with you into the wide world; you have in you a Napoleonic vein.Give me your hand!"
She reached out both her hands and pressed his passionately.
"You do not recollect, but I have kept it in mind," said she in ahaughty tone, "when you and Prince Valerian dined with us, you said:'There is a priestcraft of Humanity.' You were right. Before the flimsyhumanity of Jean Jacques Rousseau, they all bow down in fear, strongfree men; they are dreaming of a paradise of equality, where black andwhite, noble and mean, the genius and the blockhead, shall be brewedinto a mass together; they have a new faith in a book, the 'ContratSocial' is their Bible. I am not afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau----"
With a joyful look, Sonnenkamp interrupted her:--
"A cause is not lost, no, it is victorious, if highminded women areenthusiastic over it."
"Thanks--thanks," continued Bella.
She seized his hand and stroked his thumb with her delicate fingers.
"So one of the pets of the school-masters has sunk his teeth in here?Be proud of it; it is a mark of honor, more so than if it had been wonin battle. Now let nothing in the world subdue you; enjoy yourself; youhave nothing more to conceal; now stand your ground and show that youare the only one that is not afraid of the school-masters. Thedauntless man acknowledges and conforms to the inevitable."
Bella had risen; her eye was blazing, her cheeks were glowing, and hercountenance wore a look of mysterious and terrible fascination.
So must Medusa have appeared, so must she have breathed, so must shehave trembled.
And in the midst of this deep emotion, Bella felt that it was a finescene: here are the sublime tones of voice at her command, here ismajesty, here is passion. She suddenly stood still like a livingpicture, as soon as she became conscious of this conception, and hereye sought for a mirror in which to behold herself.
She shook her head, and turned back as if she were coming upon thestage out of one of the side scenes.
"Will you tell me how you have become so great and daring, so free--theonly free man?"
Sonnenkamp, the strong man, trembled within himself. He had an avowalupon his lips, but he dared not utter it; he had a demoniacal smileupon his face, as Bella said to him:--
"There is one thing only you must not do; speak not to me of love:anything but the 'fable convenue;' that is nothing--for you nothing andto me nothing. Still another thing. You will learn it now too, if youdo not know it already,--the greatest tyranny in the world is thefamily. Grieve not for your family; a hero has no family, and besides,it is only a sentimental tradition that the heroes used to play withtheir children on the floor. You must be alone, think of yourselfalone; then you are strong, you are like a man born of Byron's fancy,and such a man actually stands before me. You have made only onemistake; a man like you, such a hero, should have no family, should notwant to have any. Be firm, do not suffer yourself to be cleft in twainand crushed to atoms through this mistake."
Sonnenkamp was still too much shaken not to feel a shudder creep overhim at the sight of this apparition, that seemed to have sprung outfrom the world of fable; he said that he had had an idea, of the mereexistence of which he had only been conscious in a shadowy way, but nowit was clear; he was resolved to continue the struggle, to wage openwar, that is, covert but decisive war; he would bring the virtuouspeople hereabouts to a different way of thinking, this next would behis task. He had a plan that was not yet clear to him, but it wouldbecome clear.
Bella said that she did not wish to speak to any one in the housebeside himself; she was going back at once, but she trusted that hewould be firm and stand his ground, for otherwise she would have todespise all men, and among them the only one who had ever won herrespect by real power.
Sonnenkamp opened the seed-room, accompanied Bella through it, andopened the door that led to the private stair overrun with climbingplants. Here he kissed her hand at parting. But while still on thesteps, Bella called after him:--
"And one thing more! The first thing for you to do is to free yourselffrom slavery; you must send away this teacher's family."
She made a repellant gesture, and added:--
"This teacher's family should establish their transcendental distilleryin the little University town once more."
When Sonnenkamp returned to his room after Bella's departure, it seemedto him as if everything had been only a dream; but he still breathedthe odor of the delicate perfumery which Bella's garments had leftbehind in his room; he still saw the chair on which she had beensitting; she had actually been there.
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"I could love this man!" she exclaimed; "he is a conqueror, he has wonfor himself a bit of the world. Pshaw! Let them grub for remains fromthe Roman world, which was so powerful and despised every one thatspoke of justice for the slaves--and what are they themselves?"
"Sister," said Pranken playfully, "you are still too young and handsometo dress yourself up with those ingenious whims; you do not need suchcosmetic contrivances."
Bella drew back a step from him, and then said:--
"No, I wanted to say a word to you; but no. Only persevere, andbring your designs with Manna to a point soon. How does the littlecloister-plant do?"
"I beg of you, Bella----"
"Well, well, I'm going directly, I can do none of you any good."
She turned away quickly, and went back to Wolfsgarten.
Pranken looked after her with astonishment. He composed himself, forthe Priest came up. He reached out his hand to him humbly, and spokevery gratefully of his having come voluntarily to build up anew thehouse of sorrow.