Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine. Auerbach Berthold

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СКАЧАТЬ a great variety of articles found buried in the ground. Eric, fresh from the study of antiquities, showed himself so familiar with all the related topics, that Bella could not refrain from expressing her astonishment.

      "You are a good teacher, and it must be a pleasure to be instructed by you." Eric thanked her, and Bella continued with friendly affability, – "Yes, indeed! many people give instruction in order to make a brilliant appearance, and many deal forth their knowledge reluctantly; but you, Doctor, teach like a beneficent friend who delights in being able to impart, but takes a yet greater pleasure in bestowing a benefit upon the recipient; and you impart in such a way that one is not only convinced you understand the matter, but believes that he himself does."

      Clodwig looked up in amazement, for he had said the evening before precisely the same thing of Eric's father, while making mention of the fact that the only little treatise ever published by him had received the disinterested help of Professor Dournay.

      Bella withdrew after having thus shown her friendliness and her admiring surprise. The two men sat together for a long time after this, and then went to Eric's room, where Eric handed to the count a copy of his Doctor's thesis; and it then first occurred to him how strangely it had happened that he had there discussed the apocryphal treatise of Plato, "Concerning Riches," and now he was to be called upon to educate one under conditions of wealth. Eric and Clodwig were greatly struck by this coincidence.

      Clodwig requested Eric to translate the manuscript from Latin into German. He did so, and it was to them a time of real enjoyment.

      When they arose, Clodwig observed to Eric how strange it must appear to him to find the Medusa and Victoria opposite each other; but he confessed to a heresy which met with his own approval, though not in accordance with the received scientific explanation. The Medusa was to him the expression of all-consuming passion, which stiffens with horror the sinning beholder who sees therein the image of himself; and it was very significant that the ancients represented this entire abandonment of all the higher spiritual nature through a womanly form, the unrestrained indulgence of passion being opposite to the truly feminine, and so the more unseemly. The Victoria of Rauch, on the other hand, appeared to him to be the embodiment of an eminently modern spiritual conception.

      "This countenance is wonderfully like" – he did not finish the sentence, but, stammeringly beginning another, continued: "This is not that Goddess of Victory who wears proudly and loftily the crown upon her gleaming forehead; this is the representation of victory which is inwardly sad that there is a foe to be conquered. Yes, still further, this Victoria is to me the goddess of victory over self, which is always the grandest victory."

      After Clodwig had made this remark, he said, "Now I leave you to yourself; you have already talked too much to-day and yesterday." Eric remained alone, and while he was writing to his mother, Clodwig sat with Bella and said to her: —

      "This young man is a genius, and ought not to live in a dependent situation, bound to routine service; he ought to be free like a bird, singing, flying, as he will, without any fixed and unalterable limits of time and occupation, and especially he ought to be by himself. It is a joy to meet with such originality and depth."

      "Is he not too well aware of his own worth?" asked Bella, a flash of displeasure gleaming in her eyes.

      "Not at all. He does not wish to shine, and yet he is genuine light. I feel as if I stood in the clear sunshine of the spirit; he is a man of pure character, and I am at home with him in the inmost realities, as I am with myself." Bella said nothing, and Clodwig continued: – "I like especially in him, that he lets one who is talking with him complete his sentence; he does not interrupt by any movement or any change of feature; and in such an active and richly endowed mind this is doubly valuable, and something more than mere civility."

      Bella still kept silence, bent over her embroidery, on which she was diligently intent. At last she looked up, and with a beaming countenance, said, "I rejoice in your joy."

      "And I should like to perpetuate this joy," Clodwig replied.

      "He is a handsome man," added Bella.

      Clodwig answered, smiling, "Now, since you have called my attention to it, I am reminded how handsome he is. But he does not plume himself upon his good looks, and I think that to be genuine beauty, which, when present has nothing strikingly prominent, all being in harmonious combination, but which, when thought of afterwards, reveals new and beautiful attributes and forms. Most handsome men are forever looking into a mirror visible only to themselves. But why should I give up this man to somebody else, and above all to this Sonnencamp? I am situated so that I can offer him a home with me for years! Why not do it?

      "Why not?" said Bella, putting away her embroidery. "I need not assure you that I have no other joy in life than yours. So it is now with this brief happiness of yours, this childlike confidence you place in this noble-looking man. I see also that he has something elevated in his nature; he imparts much and gladly, is stimulating and quickening."

      "Why not then?"

      "Because we want to be alone! Clodwig, let us be by ourselves! It is my desire that even my brother should soon leave us; every third person, whether related by blood or by the most intimate spiritual ties, causes a separation, so that we do not have exclusive possession of each other."

      While she was speaking, she had placed her hand on Clodwig's arm, and now she grasped his hand and stroked it. As Clodwig went away, Bella looked after him, shaking her head.

      Bella came to the dinner-table handsomely dressed, and with a single rose in her hair. The men appeared weary, but she was extremely animated. She spoke a great deal of the happiness she had always had in being at the house of Eric's parents, where no ignoble word was ever uttered, for the mother cherished every high thought, like a priestess tending and feeding the smallest flame of the ideal on the household altar. Eric, who thought that he was proof against any further excitement, experienced a new and elevated emotion.

      They drove out at noon, and Bella was silent during the ride. They visited a former Roman encampment. Bella sat alone under a tree, upon a covering spread upon the ground, and the men walked about.

      When they came together around the evening lamp, Bella seemed like an entirely different person, having for the third time, that day, changed her dress. She was now very lively.

      Bella had never been, during her whole life, dissatisfied with herself; she had never repented anything she had done, always saying. You were fully justified, at the moment when you acted. She did not wish at this time to appear in a false light to her husband's favorite, or as a mere trifling appendage; Eric should know who she was, that she was not only Clodwig's wife, but over and above all, Bella von Pranken.

      She was ready to play as soon as Clodwig expressed the wish to hear her. The quick and eager haste with which she took off her ringing and rattling bracelets, which Eric at once with marked attentiveness received from her hand and placed upon the marble table under the mirror, – the manner in which she poised her hands like two fluttering pinions, and then brought them down upon the keys, like a swimmer who is in his element, – all served to show how resolved she was to occupy no second place. And never, since she had been Clodwig's wife, had Bella played as she now did in the presence of a third person, reserving hitherto her masterly performance on the piano for Clodwig alone. To-day her execution displayed such zest and skill that Clodwig himself, who knew every peculiar excellence in her method of playing, received a new surprise and delight.

      During a pause, Eric seemed to strike the right key by remarking, that, after such elevated enjoyment in the intercourse with noble persons and in the wide survey of unbounded nature, there is nothing for the soul but to let the feelings dissolve and die away in the unlimited and shoreless ethereal atmosphere of music. A realm of waking dreams is then opened СКАЧАТЬ