Das landhaus am Rhein. English by Berthold Auerbach

  CHAPTER IX.

  ANTHONY.

  The schoolmaster of the village was stiff and formal in manner; hereceived the Captain very humbly. The three were soon seated togetherat the inn, and the village teacher related the history of his life.

  He was sixty-four years old, but seemed still very vigorous. He had thesame reason for complaining which all public teachers have, and relatedwith a mingled pride and bitterness that his son, twenty-one years ofage, was receiving more than twice the pay in a cement-factory of theyoung Herr Weidmann, than his father was receiving after a service oftwo and thirty years. He had four sons, but not one should becomea schoolmaster. Another son was a merchant, and the oldest abuilding-contractor in America.

  "Yes," cried he, "we schoolmasters are no better off than any commonday-laborer."

  "Would you remain a schoolmaster," asked Eric, "if you had acompetency?"

  "No."

  "And you would never have become one?"

  "I think not."

  "This is the deplorable part of it," cried Knopf, "that riches alwayssay, and say rightly, I ought not to remove all need, for through thisthe beautiful and noble build themselves up; need calls into being theideal, the virtuous. See here, Herr Captain Colleague, Herr Sonnenkamp,who is a good deal of a man, of wide observation, says,--

  "'I must not trouble myself concerning the people about me, neithermust Roland, for if he did, he would lose all comfort of his life; hewould never be able to ride out, without thinking of the misery andsuffering he witnessed in this place and in that.' See, here is ourriddle. How can one at the same time be a person of elevated thought,and be rich? We teachers are the guardians of the ideal. Look at thevillages all around; there is in them all a visible and an invisibletower, and the invisible is the ideality of the schoolmaster sittingthere with his children. I honor you, because you also have become aschoolmaster."

  Eric looked up in a sort of surprise, for his vanity was inwardlywounded at being reckoned a schoolmaster, but he quickly overcame it,and was happy in the thought. He prevailed upon the villageschoolmaster to go on with the history of his life. He was a goodmathematician, had been employed in the land-registry and in thecustom-house; he lost his situation when the Zollverein wasestablished; for two years he looked round for something to do, almostin a starving condition, and then became a schoolmaster. He had marriedwell, that is, into a wealthy family, so that he was able to give hissons a good education.

  Evening had come on. Eric promised the village schoolmaster to give himsomething to do with the instruction of Roland.

  Knopf accompanied Eric for some distance, and then requested him tomount his horse.

  Knopf stood looking after Eric for a long time, until he was hidden bya bend of the mountain, and his puffed lips addressed words in a lowtone to him, after he had disappeared.

  On the way home, Eric was surprised that he thought less about Roland,than he did about Manna, who was to arrive this evening.

  Laughable old stories, how the tutor fell in love with the daughter ofthe house, and was expelled by the hard-hearted, rich father, and herehe stands before the house all lighted up, he hears music; above, thelovely one celebrates her marriage with a very noble coxcomb, and apistol-shot--no; it would be more practical to find some bettersituation.

  Eric had humor enough to dismiss every such fancy; he would remaindistant, composed, and respectful towards the daughter of the house.

  When he rode up to the villa, the carriages had already arrived, andEric received from Herr Sonnenkamp a reproof for his want offriendliness in not remaining at home, or taking note of the hour oftheir arrival.

  After the conversation that he had had with Knopf, the feeling of beingin service seemed to him now very strange; or was this receptionintended to give him a hint of how he was to conduct himself towardsManna?

  Eric made no reply to the reprimand, for such it was. He came toRoland, who warmly embraced him and cried,--

  "Ah! with you only is it well, all the rest are--"

  "Say nothing about the rest," interrupted Eric.

  But he could not restrain Roland from relating the disappointment ofall, that Manna did not return with them.

  Eric breathed more freely.

  Roland mixed up in his relation an account of Bella's getting out atthe water-cure establishment on their return, because a message fromCount Clodwig had informed her that he would meet her there. Finally hesaid,--

  "What does all the rest amount to? You are there in the convent, and Ihave told Manna that you look just like the Saint Anthony in the churchof the convent. Yes, laugh, if you please! If he should laugh, he wouldlaugh just like you; he looked just as you look now. Manna told me thestory. The saint has been praying to heaven, and the Christ-child haslaid himself there in his arms, when he was all alone, and he looks athim so lovingly, so devoutly."

  Eric was thrilled; a pure living being has also been given into hishands. Is he worthy to receive it, and can his look rest purely uponit?

  They sat together without speaking, and Roland, at last, cried,--

  "We will not leave each other again, ever. To-day when I sat there uponthe deck, all alone, it seemed to me--I was not asleep, I was wideawake--it seemed that you came, and took me in your arms and held me."

  Roland's face glowed; he was feverishly excited, and Eric had greatdifficulty in calming him down. But what he could not easily do waseasy for the dogs; Roland became the self-forgetting child again, whenhe was with the dogs, who had grown so astonishingly in a few days.

  Pranken also came in a very friendly way to Eric, and said that headmired his stimulating power, for Roland had exhibited during theirabsence a susceptibility of mind and a sensitiveness of feeling, whichno one would have supposed him capable of.

  Now say what you please, candid reader! Yesterday, an hour ago, youheld in little esteem some man's judgment, you saw distinctly hislimitations, and now he shows that he recognizes your worth, he praisesyou, he extols you, and suddenly, without being aware of it, youropinion is changed concerning him whom you before regarded as one-sidedand contracted, especially if you are a person struggling withyourself, withdrawn into yourself, and often self-doubting.

  This was the case with Eric. Pranken seemed to him a man of very goodjudgment, very amiable indeed; and he even expressed openly hissatisfaction, that the friends of the family stood by him and cheeredhim in his difficult work of education.

  Pranken was content; Eric manifestly acknowledged his position; heshowed this by not accompanying them on the journey, and not thrustinghimself into the family; perhaps also there was a certain touch ofpride in not wanting to appear as a part of the retinue; at any rate,Eric did not seem destitute of tact.

  Pranken understood how to make this patronizing protection appear as asort of friendly confidence.