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

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СКАЧАТЬ be said that those who derive the laws of our life from revelation deny nature, or rather they do not deny her, but disregard her."

      "I am not a learned man, and, above all, I am no theologian," Sonnenkamp abruptly broke in. "All is fate. Damage is done by worms in the forest; there stands near us an oak-tree clean eaten up by them, and there stands another all untouched. Why is this? No one knows. And look here at these trees. I have watched what they call the economy of nature, and here a thousand life-germs perish in order that one may thrive; and it is just the same in human life."

      "I understand," Eric said. "All the things that survive have an aristocratic element wholly different from those things that perish; the blossom that unfolds itself to the perfect fruit is rich, the blighted one is poor. Do I rightly apprehend your meaning?"

      "In part," Sonnenkamp replied, somewhat weary. "I would only say to you that I have done looking for the man, for I despair of finding him, who could train my son, so that he would be fitted in the most direct way for his position in life."

      For some time the two walked together through the marvellously-blooming garden, where the bees were humming; and Eric thought that these, probably, were the bees of Claus, the huntsman.

      World passing strange, in which all is so unaccountably associated together!

      The sky was blue, and the blossoms so deliciously fragrant, and yet Eric, deeply troubled in spirit, seemed to himself to be insnared when he fixed his eyes upon a notice stuck up over the garden wall, which ran thus: —

      "Warning. Spring-guns and steel-traps in this garden."

      He looked around to Sonnenkamp, who said, smiling, —

      "Your look asks me if that notice yonder is true; it is just as that says. People think that no one dares to do that now. Keep always in the path near me."

      Sonnenkamp appeared to enjoy Eric's perplexity and annoyance. And yet it was a lie, for there were no spring-guns nor steel-traps in the garden.

      On this part of the wall, stars, circles, and squares, were shaped out of the tree-twigs; and Sonnenkamp laid his hand upon the shoulder of Eric, as the latter asserted that number and geometric form were given only to man. Geometric form, indeed, was the basis of all manifestation, and the straight line was never actually seen, but must be wholly the product of man's conception. This was also the characteristic mystery in the doctrine of Pythagoras.

      "I have thought for a long time," Sonnenkamp said with a laugh, "that I was a Pythagorean. I thank you for nominating me as one of the sect. We must christen our new art of gardening the Pythagorean."

      This outburst was in a bantering tone of contempt and satisfaction.

      They came to the place called Nice, by the colonnade constructed in the Pompeian style, which extended very far on the second terrace of the orchard.

      "Now I will show you my house," Sonnenkamp said, pressing against a little door which opened upon a subterranean passage, and conducting his guest into the habitation.

      CHAPTER XII.

      A LOOK INTO THE HOUSE AND INTO THE HEART

      Men-servants and maid-servants in the under-ground rooms were amazed to see Sonnenkamp and Eric make their entrance. Sonnenkamp, without noticing them, said to Eric in English: —

      "The two things to be first considered by a man consulting for repose, as I am, are the kitchen and the stable."

      He showed him the kitchen. There were dozens of different fire-places for the different dishes, and each kind of meat and vegetables; each viand had its special dish and pan, fire on the side and behind. The whole science of the preparation of extracts was here transported into the art of cookery. Eric was delighted with it as with a work of art.

      Sonnenkamp pointed out to his guest for special notice the fact that every fire-place and every stove in the house had its own chimney; he considered that as of great importance, as he had by that means made himself independent of the direction in which the wind might blow. The architect had resisted him on that point, and he had undergone great trouble and expense to have the requisite flues constructed, but by this means new beauties had been developed.

      Sonnenkamp now showed him the greater part of the house, through which electromagnetic bell-wires ran in every direction. The stairs were richly carpeted, everywhere were costly candelabra, and in the chambers broad double-beds.

      Everything was arranged with elegance and taste, a truly chaste elegance and refined taste, where gold, marble, and silk contributed to the artistic decoration, with no overloading of ornament, and with a preservation of the appearance of home-like comfort. The furniture was not standing about like things looking for some fitting place, but every piece was adapted to the building itself, and seemed fixed, and at home; and yet the arrangement had this peculiar feature, that all the furniture appeared waiting for the inmates to come and occupy it, and not placed there to be gazed at by them in passing to and fro.

      The heavy silk curtains, hanging in thick folds, were matched with the carpets; the large clocks in all the saloons were ticking, and the delicate works of art on the mantles and brackets were tastefully arranged. But it was plainly to be seen that this arrangement gave no physiognomical indication of the character of the owner, but was only the tasteful skill which every good upholsterer supplies to order; and, above all, one felt the absence of anything like an heir-loom. Eric could not rid himself of the impression that the persons here lived in their own house as if it were a hired one, and it seemed to him that Roland was following him, and that he must enter into the soul of the boy, who was already aware that some day he would call all this his own.

      Sonnenkamp declared that he thought it contemptible for people to embellish their houses with mediæval furniture, or the imitation of that, while it answered the purpose neither of ornament nor of comfort. When Eric replied to him, that Goethe had expressed the same thing, Sonnenkamp answered: "That is very pleasant to me. I think that Goethe understood life."

      He uttered this in a very condescending tone, as much as to say, that any one must esteem himself fortunate to have Herr Sonnenkamp recognise his worth.

      On the north side of the house in the large saloon, covered with a red Persian carpet, was a half-octagon recess, in the middle of which stood a handsome malachite table surrounded by fixed chairs.

      Four large windows, or rather four single panes of glass six feet in height, gave a free outlook; and in the spaces between the windows tablets of marble were inserted, half way up, on which were sculptured the four parts of the "Day" of Rietschel. The ceiling was ornamented with fine stucco-work, from which a silver lamp seemed to fly forth, rather than to hang down, for it took the form of a flying Cupid of bronze, holding a torch in his hand, and this torch, as Sonnenkamp immediately illustrated, could be lighted as a gas-burner.

      "Only here," he said smiling, "do I have works of art, insomuch as I would neither deceive myself nor others – I have no taste for creative art. You, as the son of a Professor of Æsthetics, perhaps consider this very barbarous?"

      "Not at all, only honest; and I think you are so far entitled to do as you think best."

      "It is a duty for every one to be honest, and there is no choice in the matter."

      "Pardon me if I have expressed myself badly. I mean, that even the realm of art is not free from rival claims; and he who has such a manifest gift for landscape-gardening, ought to be content with that, and can refrain from expressing himself in any other art."

      Sonnenkamp smiled. This man, he thought, СКАЧАТЬ