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

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СКАЧАТЬ noon I have my soup – nobody makes soup like her – my bit of good roast meat, my pint of wine, my coffee – with four beans she makes better coffee than any one else can with a pound – and yet it has happened to me a thousand times to have to sing this song to the fellow sitting here: You are the most ungrateful fellow in the world, to be cross as you often are, and wish for this and that which you have not. Only look round you; see how nice and neat everything is, – good bread, a good arm-chair, a good pipe and so much good rest, – you are the happiest man in the world to have all this. Yes, my dear comrade, you may be deucedly learned – I beg pardon – I mean, you may be very learned – look you – I never studied, I never learned anything, I was a drummer – I'll tell you about it sometime – yes, comrade – what was I saying? ah, that's it, you know a thousand times more than I do, but one thing you can learn of me. Make the best of life; now's the time, be happy now, enjoy yourself now, this hour won't come back again. Don't always be thinking about to-morrow. Just draw a long breath, comrade – there, what sort of air is that? is there better anywhere? – and then we have our nice, clean clothes on! – Ah, thank the Builder of all the worlds! – Yes, comrade, if I had had any one, when I was your age, to tell me what I'm telling you – Pooh, pooh! – What an old talker I am – I'm glad you've come to see me! – Well, how do you get on? Are you really going to drill our boy? I think you are the right man to do it, you will bring him into line – you know, comrade, what that means – only a soldier can do that. Only a soldier can school men. Nothing but strict discipline! – I'll warrant, he'll come out right – he'll do well – Fräulein Milch has always said, 'He'll come out right, if he only falls into the right hands.' The school-masters are all of no use; Herr Knopf was very worthy and good-hearted, but he didn't hold the reins tight. Thank the Builder of all the worlds, now it's all right! – Thank you for coming to see me. If I can help you, remember that we are comrades. It's very fortunate that you have been a soldier. I have always wished – Fräulein Milch can testify that I've said a hundred times, none but a soldier will do! – Now let us make a soldier of Roland, a true soldier, he has courage, he only wants the training!"

      "I should like," answered Eric, "if I really have the position – "

      "Really have the position? There's no doubt about it, I tell you – Pooh, pooh; I'll wager something on that. But, I ask your pardon, I won't talk any more – what were you going to say, comrade?"

      "I think we ought not to train him for any special calling; Roland must be a cultivated, wise, and good man, whatever his profession may prove to be – "

      "Just so, just so – excellently said – that's right – the fellow has given me much anxiety! How foolish people are, to hanker after millions. When they get them, all they can do is to eat their fill and sleep eight hours, that's all any one can do. The chief point is – " here the Major lowered his voice, and raised his hand – "the chief point is, he must return to nature; that is all the world needs – to return to nature."

      Eric luckily abstained from asking the Major what he precisely meant by this mysterious proposition, for the Major would, unfortunately, not have been able to tell him; but he was fond of the phrase, and always used it, leaving every one to find out the meaning for himself.

      "To return to nature, everything is included in that," he repeated.

      After a while he began: —

      "Yes, what was I going to ask? – Tell me, did not you have a great deal to bear as a soldier, because you were a commoner and not a noble?"

      Eric answered in the negative, and the Major stammered out, —

      "Indeed, indeed – you – a liberally educated man, felt less of it. I asked for my discharge. I'll tell you about it sometime."

      Eric mentioned that he had been at the priest's, and the Major said, —

      "He is an excellent man, but I call for no aid of the ecclesiastics. You know I am a Freemason."

      Eric assented, and the Major continued: "Whatever is good in me has its home in that; we will talk farther of it – I will be your god-father. Ah, how glad Herr Weidmann will be to know you."

      And again, at the mention of Weidmann's name, it seemed as if a beautiful view of the highest mountains of the landscape was brought before the mind. The Major resumed: —

      "But now as to the ecclesiastics. Look" – he drew his chair a little nearer – "look at my drum, it's all there in that – look you, I was a drummer – yes, smile away, if you like – look you, everybody says such a drum makes nothing but racket, and I tell them there's music in it, as beautiful as – I won't disparage any one – as beautiful as any other – look you, then, I say, – mark my words – then I say, 'I will not quarrel with you if you hear nothing but noise, but don't quarrel with me, if I hear something else.' Look you, I have thought it all over, everything else will be made by machinery, men are very clever, but drum and trumpet-signals can not be made by machinery, human hands and mouths are needed for that; I was a drummer, for example, I'll tell you about it. Look you, I know by the sound what sort of a heart a man has, when he beats a drum; where you, my brother, hear nothing but noise and confusion, I hear music and deep meaning. Therefore, for God's sake, no strife about religions; one is worth as much or as little as another, they only lead the march; but the main thing is, how every man marches for himself, how he has drilled himself, and what sort of a heart he has in his body."

      Eric was amused by the eccentricity of this man, who had a deep earnestness and moral freedom peculiar to himself.

      Standing his pipe near him, the Major asked, —

      "Is there any human being in the world whom you hate, at the sight of whom the heart in your body gives a twist?"

      Eric answered in the negative, and said that his father had always impressed it upon him, that nothing injured one's own soul like hatred; and that for his own sake, a man ought not to let such a feeling take root within him.

      "That's the man for me! that's the man for me!" cried the Major. "Now we shall get on together. Whoever has had such a father is the man for me!"

      He then told Eric that there was a man in the village whom he hated: he was the tax-collector, who wore the St. Helena medal given by the present Napoleon to the veterans, for the heroic deeds in which they had taken part in the subjugation of their fatherland. "And would you believe it!" exclaimed the Major, "the man has had himself painted with the St. Helena medal; the portrait hangs framed in his room of state, and under it, in a separate frame, the diploma signed by the French minister. I don't bow to the man, nor return his bow, nor sit down at the same table with him; he has a different principle of honor from, mine. And tell me, ought there not to be some way of punishing such men? I can only do it by showing my contempt; it is painful to me, but must I not do it?"

      The old man looked much astonished when Eric represented to him that the man ought to be judged mildly, since vanity had great powers to mislead, and besides, many governments had been well pleased to have their subjects win the St. Helena medal, and the man, who was in the service of the State, was not to be sentenced without hearing.

      "That's good! that's good!" cried the old Major, nodding frequently, according to his habit; "you are the right kind of teacher! I am seventy years old, that is, I am seventy-three now, and I've known many men, and let people say what they will, I have never known a bad man, one really bad. In passion, and stupidity, and pride, men do much that's wrong; but, good God! one ought to thank his heavenly Father that he isn't such as he might very often have become. Thank you; thank you: you have lifted the enemy from my neck; – yes, from my neck; he has sat there, heavy and – look, here comes the man himself!"

      The collector was walking by the garden; the Major went to the hedge with many nods and gestures СКАЧАТЬ