CHAPTER XVIITHE OPENING NIGHT
The exercises began at half-past seven in the evening; so at that time of the year it was still broad daylight. The public was admitted to the grounds flanked with pillared halls, spreading out from the lake to the palace and covering a wide stretch behind it. Here there was unrestrained freedom of movement. Thus the festival began like a large garden-party.
Mr. Toker, his daughter, and his celebrated guests, recognizable by the rosebud fastened to the breast, circulated among the others. An automatic orchestrion, consisting of instruments like the organ and the harmonium, played by electricity, and concealed behind trees, filled the place with delicate harmonies, ringing like the music of the spheres. The fountains played, and in their lofty columns of water glittered fiery red the rays of the sinking sun. In the air flying-machines like birds or dragon-flies performed artistic evolutions. Suddenly arose a balloon with an aëronaut costumed like the god Mars: from the basket two big guns were pointed threateningly toward the earth. This uncanny instrument of war rose to a great height, followed by the eyes and the shouts of the spectators. Some shouts of disapprobation mingled with the others, for there were many in the throng who felt disturbed by being reminded of the terrors of battles in themidst of a peaceful festival. It is true, men have been accustomed to the military maneuvers attracting eager crowds to watch them, and at the world expositions the military pavilion has always proved to be a great drawing-card. But here, at this festival of human exaltation,—celebrated under the symbol of the queen of flowers,—they were really not prepared for the sight of cannon. But the slight dissatisfaction soon resolved into pleasure, when from the mouth of the threatening guns, instead of shells, fresh rose-leaves were discharged over the throng, and on their descent to the earth fluttered about in the air like butterflies. There was universal applause. Even a great cannon-founder who was among the spectators, and who had recently signed very advantageous contracts with several governments for the delivery of balloon guns and of vertical cannon, clapped his hands with the rest. One must be ready to understand a joke; ... the successful cannon-king scarcely suspected with what deep seriousness Mr. Toker prepared all the graceful details of his work.
The little coterie of Austrian travelers were among those present. But as both of the old ladies were too weary to wander about, they took seats in one of the marquees which had been pitched in the grounds. Coriolan stayed with them, but Malhof went out to mingle with the promenaders. He had hardly taken two steps ere he fell in with Franka, who happened to be going in the direction of the marquee where her relatives were sitting. Malhof stopped in front of her:—
“Your very humble servant, Fräulein Garlett. Do you remember me?”
Franka offered him her hand. “Certainly, Baron Malhof. It is a pleasure to meet with a fellow-countryman.”
“Pray do not hasten on. You have no idea who is sitting in the next marquee ... you must not meet them without being forewarned....”
“Who is it?”
“That I must prepare your mind for by slow degrees. Let us walk for a few moments in the opposite direction and talk about old times. May I offer you my arm?”
Franka accepted. “You are really comical, Baron Malhof. Old times! We can scarcely be said to share youthful recollections.... We have met just twice, and the first time certainly under rather painful circumstances. The second time at Sielenburg was more agreeable.”
“Well, now it must be agreeable, too. What a change has taken place in your fate, Fräulein Franka! First, a poor deserted orphan; next, one of the wealthiest heiresses in the country; and now, in addition, a European reputation! And as beautiful as ever ... yet your features have changed ... there is something melancholy in your face. Are you happy?”
“Forever that question! Must one be happy?”
“Yes, one must if circumstances permit it, as in your case they do—rather, demand it. Or are you cast down by an unhappy love-affair?”
Franka laughed. “No, I am not in love with any one.”
“Well, that is certainly a misfortune. Your laugh did not ring merrily. I can easily imagine that a hundred opportunities were open to you, and perhaps for that very reason you do not want to marry, and you are not so far from wrong.... Freedom is a fine thing. But have you no lover?”
“Truly, Baron Malhof, you are....”
“Oh, do not scold me! On the reef of your virtue all the accumulated wisdom of my life goes to shipwreck. But this time I am preaching unselfishly, and the text of my sermon is: Do not let your youth pass in vain; don’t cheat your heart and your temperament of their rights. You did not come into the world, blest with beauty, wealth, and independence, to waste all these treasures, and bluestocking yourself merely for women’s rights’tournéeslike any ugly old maid. You must live, Fräulein Garlett—live!”
Franka stopped walking and withdrew her arm: “You are incorrigible. This is in the style of that letter of yours ... but I am not making a show of insulted virtue, it is insulted independence. What I do, and what I leave undone, is not your affair. You cannot look into my soul; you cannot know what I understand by living.”
Baron Malhof put on a contrite expression: “I have been at fault again, I see. I was trying to give good advice and I get a lesson. Forgive me!”
Franka took his arm again: “Now, tell me, please, what mischief lurks in the tent, from the neighborhood of which you have led me.”
“How good of you to be genial again! In the tent sit your two aunts and Cousin Coriolan.”
Certainly no joyful surprise showed itself in Franka’s face. “Aunt Adele and Aunt Albertine? How did they happen to come here?”
“To tell the honest truth, I persuaded them to take the journey. You will forgive me for that, too?”
“I will go this minute and greet my aunts.”
Franka made the best of a bad business. It was really disagreeable to her to meet again those three, especially here in this place, where a spirit prevailed which could not fail to be incomprehensible to them; ... however, when all was said, they were her people. Her people? What a false expression. How little she belonged to them. “To whom do I belong, I’d like to know?” Franka asked herself and a chill crept around her heart....
“Really, then, you are willing to be precipitated head over heels into the inevitable? That is true courage!”
A few minutes later the two entered the marquee. The meeting was rather stiff and constrained. Their paths had gone so far asunder! And, moreover, they had never been so very congenial. There was an exchange of greetings, but no heartiness could be felt or feigned; then they talked indifferently of the journey, of the festival week, and the like. Countess Adele invited Franka to sit down with them.
“Tell us how things are going with you and what you are doing. Do you speak this evening?”
“No,” replied Franka, as she took a seat beside her aunts. “I do not give my address until to-morrow.”
“And do you not feel alarmed? It is incomprehensible to me what you are doing.... Tell me, is the Helmer who is here, the one....”
Franka anticipated the question: “Yes, grandpapa’s former secretary. He has grown to be a world-famous poet.”
“I should never have believed it of him,” remarked Albertine.
“And I should never have believed that you, my respected aunts, would ever dream of such a thing as making a journey to the Rose-Festival. I really believe you were never out of Austria. Did you come in an airship?”
“That would be the last thing!” cried Countess Adele with horror. “I would never go in such a machine as long as I lived.... What has become of your companion?”
“Frau von Rockhaus? Oh, she is still with me.”
“That is good. One must always have a regard to appearances.”
Malhof sighed. “Oh, appearances! Besides, they are all out of style.”
After a while Franka got up. “Well, I must be going.... We shall meet again in the hall. The speeches will soon begin.”
“Really,” said Coriolan, “I am quite curious to see this wild show.”
A little later a fanfare gave the signal that the festival was to be formally opened in the theater-hall. Thither flocked all the visitors scattered throughout the grounds.
It was an immense hall with boxes and galleries.Yet the parquet was not, as in regular theaters, filled with rows of seats placed regularly, but was like a great salon, in which a multitude of sofas and armchairs were distributed about at haphazard, separated by screens and flowering plants, with rooms enough for people to pass from one group to another. Behind the boxes were wide lobbies, available for that part of the public that did not care to listen to any particular address, either because its subject was not interesting or because it was delivered in a language not understood. There was no curtain hung in front of the stage, which was really not a stage, but rather a podium or platform. This podium formed a second smaller salon with steps leading down into the parquet. There, on the upper level, were grouped Mr. Toker and all his illustrious guests, sitting and standing. In front was a small reading-desk with a chair.
Throughout the hall there was much to make it evident that here also was the realm of roses. The upholstery of the furniture and the fronts of the boxes were of pink velvet, and by an electric apparatus a pale rose glow was everywhere disseminated. A hidden ventilator provided the place with cool, rose-perfumed air. No chandelier was suspended from above, but the ceiling simulated the sky populated with electric lights, distributed like stars and nebulæ,—an accurate copy of a segment of the universe. Between the first row of boxes and the gallery was placed a wreath of medallion-portraits of great departed poets, savants, inventors, and discoverers from Vergil to Shakespeare and to Goethe;from Aristotle to Leonardo da Vinci, and then to Darwin; from Columbus to Gutenberg and to Montgolfier. Under the pictures the names sparkled with electric letters. In the center a little structure which, from the hall looked like a prompter’s box, concealed a phonograph apparatus to make a permanent record of the speaker’s words.
A signal rang out; Toker stepped to the front of the platform, and soon expectant silence prevailed in the hall. In a loud voice, but in simple, conversational manner and in English Toker began to speak:—
“Ladies and gentlemen! A hearty welcome to you all. I see in the hall many of the habitués of the Lucerne Rose-Weeks, yet also many new faces. To the new visitors I should like to tell in a few words the purpose of our establishment: It is a centralization of forces, a great dynamo-machine. For what is offered to you here in this limited place is meant for the millions outside, and is to be carried to the greatest distances, to be distributed among the working-people, and to be brought before the mightiest rulers. A number of the noblest spirits among our contemporaries are working together here. Each one brings a significant portion of the results of his thinking, his poetry, his investigations, of his creations; and all with the same aim, with the same end in view:—the progress of society toward greater righteousness and greater freedom, toward greater beauty and greater happiness. It is already recognized that what lifts men from barbarism to humanity is the work of growing intelligence, which awakensthe will toward goodness. This will animates us here. And therefore I beg you to listen to the coming addresses not only with friendly attention, but also with some reverence. Wherever men assemble for the purpose of elevating their thoughts into high regions, and of allowing their hearts to beat in good will for their fellow-creatures, there is a kind of temple. I now will allow Music to speak.”
Toker bowed and stepped back. Now followed the performance of the Rose-Quintette, directed by the composer, the gifted young Pole, himself. After it was finished, not only the Russian countess, but the whole assemblage broke out into a delirium of enthusiasm. “There,” exclaimed Countess Vera to Rinotti, who sat near her, “isn’t that as much a triumph as a victorious battle?”
“It is a battle, and the victor is named Melody,” replied the marchese.
Next, the great French author went to the desk and read a chapter from his last (as yet unprinted) book. It was entitled “La Vérité, toute la Vérité, rien que la Vérité.” Full of bold thought, of keen wit, of sparkling turns of speech, it was a bundle of new truths delivered to the auditors, and at the same time it was an unmasking of the lies that subjugate human society. This reading was followed by an intermission devoted to social intercourse, while the two circles, the audience and the performers, mingled together.
Prince Victor Adolph mounted the steps leading to the platform and approached Franka: “Shall we not hear you to-day, Miss Garlett?”
“No, Your Highness; my turn comes to-morrow—but I am already beginning to feel anxious.”
“You feel anxious! Yet you are accustomed to speak before crowded houses.”
“But not before hundreds of thousands of people. This fearful machine”—she indicated the phonograph in the prompter’s box—“will carry our words before that number.”
“Whether a thousand or a hundred thousand—isn’t it all the same?”
“Oh, no, the thousand, who come of their own free will to listen to an address, belong to a certain stratum of society, and are all animated by similar feelings. My public, for example, was mostly composed of young girls from middle-class circles, and had the desire to attain intellectual freedom and to put it into practice; but the public which I shall face to-morrow....”
“Yes, I know. Mr. Toker has told us—it embraces all ranks in all lands. Even in this hall, there is not much unanimity of sentiment. Look, for example, at the difference between my views and the views of my companion, Count Orell....”
“I must thank you for the splendid violets, Prince.”
“Oh, only a modest greeting.”
The prince remained a long time near Franka, engaging her in lively conversation. That attracted the attention of the two aunts and their friends.
“Well, it looks as if Franka had a very zealous suitor: who may it be?”
Malhof happened to be able to inform them.
“Indeed?” exclaimed Tante Adele thoughtfully. “A prince from the ruling house! That is dangerous. He certainly couldn’t marry her.”
Malhof shrugged his shoulders. “As if marriage must always be in the wind! I am curious to know whether the sermons preached up there for the welfare of humanity will not be directed also against the oppressive chains of marriage.”
“Nothing is sacred to you!” sighed the countess. “Besides, as you never were married, you cannot judge of marriage.”
“For the very reason that I have judged, I remained single.”
Coriolan sat with a terribly bored expression. He understood so little French that all the points of the reading he had heard had wholly escaped him; finally he had given up all attempt to listen. In his heart he was already repenting that he had ever taken this journey. The whole thing displeased him.... At the Apollo Theater it is more amusing ... there one understands everything ... and then this Rose-Masquerade....
“You look very savage, Coriolan!” remarked the Countess Adele; “you do not say a word.”
“I say, stay at home and entertain yourself sensibly.”
The young composer was now sitting next the Russian widow.
“The piece was heavenly ... perfectly splendid ... it must be a delight to be able to compose such things.” Her eyes rested warmly on the young musician.
“Every artistic creation carries with it a good bit of agony, most gracious Countess.”
“What gives others so much delight ought not to cause its creator any pain.”
“And yet, do you not always hear the sighs that tremble through so many pieces of music? These the artist must have drawn out of his own soul. But not only that—he must have not only experienced anguish in order to reproduce it in tones—creation itself is accompanied by pain; yearning, trouble, despondency ... the crushing sense of the inexpressible....”
“You must explain all this to me more definitely. Please come to-morrow and have a cup of tea—at five o’clock ... Grand Hotel ... say yes ... will you promise?”
Helmer, informed by Franka of the presence of the Sielenburg party, entered the hall and sought out the little Austrian group. Bowing, he went up to them: “May I be permitted ... in memory of old times.... I do not know whether you will remember me.”
The countess nodded: “To be sure, Herr Helmer ... you have made a great career ... famous poet ... that is no small thing! Who would ever have predicted it? You will give us your book to read, won’t you? And tell me, is this Mr. Toker not a very extravagant man?”
“He is certainly by no means an ordinary man.”
“Do you imply by that,” asked Coriolan sharply, “that we are ordinary people?”
“I meant nothing more than I said. Mr. Tokeris an exceptional phenomenon. A man, who by work and business has made an enormous fortune, and who now is placing this fortune at the service of the most ideal aims.”
Coriolan shrugged his shoulders. “He simply wants to get himself talked about.”
“What ideal aims do you mean?” asked the countess.
“Heavens! it is hard to explain them all in a few words. The main thing is the spread of thoughts that soar—Hochgedanken....”
“What is that?”
“If you will do me the honor of listening to my address, then you will understand Mr. Toker’s intentions, for I am going to speak in the spirit which lies at the foundation of the motto of this year’s Rose-Festival.”
“Are you going to speak to-day?”
“No; not until the third or fourth day.”
“It is good that you do not speak this evening,” remarked Fräulein Albertine, joining in the conversation. “I must tell you frankly that your voice seems to me somewhat hoarse ... perhaps you have a cold; it seems to me, too, that your nose is swollen ... you ought to rub on a little candle tallow.”
Helmer smiled. “I am afraid I should not be able to find a tallow candle in the whole Rose-Palace. But now I will bid you good-evening ... a new lecture is beginning.”
The young Russian author now stepped forward to the reader’s desk with a manuscript in his hand. At the same time ushers went through the hall,distributing printed pamphlets containing German, French, and English translations of what the author was to deliver in his native tongue. That portion of the public which did not understand Russian—and that was by far the larger—could now also follow the speaker and enjoy his euphonious utterance, now trembling with melancholy, now glowing with inspiration. What he offered, were brief sketches in prose: scenes from the time of war and of revolution, personal experiences or episodes, made vivid by poetic intuition; stories of the wolf’s pits, stories of barbed-wire fences, stories of shells filled with poison, by the fumes of which people were asphyxiated slowly and agonizingly; stories of women beaten by Cossack-nagaïkas; of tortures practiced in dungeons; ofpogroms, of executions, of massacring and of incendiary bands; of the woe in the hearts of young Russians of all classes, from the humblest of the people to the highest in court circles, who had suffered awfully under this terrorism, because their hearts and souls are open to the most progressive ideas of freedom and mildness; of the sorrows of the poets and the scientists, of the enlightened politicians and the simple man of the people, whose natural benevolence is opposed to all these cruelties, perpetrated by the demon Violence, because the minds of the masses are subject to the illusion that violence is the only means of resisting evil.
The poet added an epilogue to his little histories:—
“What I have related is sad, profoundly sad. Should I have refrained from doing this in thiscénacle? Our host has provided this festival weekunder the protection and shelter of Beauty—Beauty is the sister of Joy, not of Woe ... and I have brought before you so much woe.... I have unveiled so much that is unspeakably hateful! But it has not been a mistake; indeed, I know the goal that beckons to the founder of this Rose-Congress. Lofty thoughts are to fly forth into the world; lofty feelings must be aroused. And this object subserves a still most distant object: namely, that it should be a bit better, a bit brighter in this world of ours. To this end one must see clearly, must look straight at the reality. One must know all that is going on, everywhere. All the cries of complaint and all the shrieks of anguish must be heard as they are torn from tormented human beings by human unreason. Then flames up that lofty feeling—one of the noblest of all:—Pity!And thereby is the will strengthened—lofty will it may be called—to substitute for the infamous system of reciprocal persecution the sublime rule of reciprocal helpfulness.”
A gloomy mood had taken possession of the audience, yet with it was mingled also something of that reverential emotion by which Toker wanted to see his public stirred. Then followed a short interlude of music, and that in its turn was followed by a small ballet of quite unique kind. Arc-lamps were the instruments and variegated flames were the dancers. It seemed like adivertissementfrom fairyland, and yet it was only an experiment from the realm of chemistry.
This brought to a conclusion the exercises of the first evening, and social intercourse again assumed control.