CHAPTER XXIIIA COZY SUPPER
Franka drew a deep breath. She had listened with the deepest interest to every word spoken by Helmer, and now, when he had concluded, she turned around for the first time and became again aware of the prince’s presence.
“Well, what do you say, Your Highness?”
Victor Adolph had risen to his feet. His features expressed inward emotion. “The man stirred me.—Did you listen, Orell?”
The general respectfully answered: “At your service, Your Royal Highness.”
“Truly, did you follow it all?”
The question was put in a very skeptical tone.
“Not all. Much was too nebulous. Man’s a visionary—a dreamer ... no ground under his feet.”
“Well, yes,” remarked Victor Adolph, smiling; “in this epoch of aviation, this thing ‘the ground under the feet,’ seems to lose its importance.”
Several of Toker’s guests at this juncture entered Franka’s box.... The prince took his departure:—“I want to look up the speaker. I must shake hands with him.”
Helmer had in the mean time been conducted by Toker into the royal loge. Not without emotion did he make his bow before the two powerful rulers. If by any chance his message had worked upon theirwills, this might turn into action pregnant with results. Power is no illusion. A democratic spirit may regret that any one person should exercise it and may desire to change the fact, but no democrat need be blind to the importance of this fact as long as it exists. Abundant opportunities for doing things are placed in the hands of rulers, even when they are no longer autocrats, so that they might easily shorten the distance that separates idea and accomplishment.
Naturally, Helmer had no expectation that the King and the President would say to him: “Dear Sir, what you have said to-day will give the direction to our future activities.”—But at all events, they had listened to him and listened with sufficient interest to express the desire now to talk with him. Who could tell if this might not expedite the fulfillment of what he had wanted to suggest to his auditors?
The trivial ceremony of the presentation, of the friendly hand-shaking, the rather unmeaning questions and answers, went off in the conventional manner; yet Helmer did not prize the opportunity any the less: the seed of his work might have fallen on fruitful soil. After three minutes the whole affair was at an end and Helmer was stepping down into the hall. He intended to seek out Franka whose presence attracted him, but he was instantly surrounded by a crowd of people congratulating him on his discourse or asking him what he meant by this or that passage in it.
A gentleman approached him and introducedhimself:—“My name is Henri Juillot,” said he in French; “I am an engineer and I built a dirigible airship myself.”
“‘La Patrie’?” asked Helmer, interested. He had heard of the triumphant flight of this military airship and also of the accident which had happened to it later.
“You know about it?” exclaimed the Frenchman. “Then you also know the unfortunate ‘Patrie’ was driven out of its course by a storm and was never seen again.”
“Yes, I know; Count Zeppelin did not have much better luck at Echterdingen. But I hardly think, M. Juillot, that you will be very well satisfied with my conclusions. You designated your dirigible for war, and I protested most urgently against the exploitation of the splendid invention for such a purpose.”
“I believe that our views are not so very divergent,” replied the Frenchman. “My opinion is: the airship is going to give the death-blow to war.”
“Andyousay this? You, who worked in the service of the ministry of war?”
“Why not? Activity in a given calling does not necessarily shut out the view of the intellectual horizon, does it?”
“It ought not to do so—yet it generally does.”
The engineer stood up. “I will not detain you longer now, and indeed here comes some one looking for you.”
Helmer seized his hand, and shook it heartily. “I thank you for your words, M. Juillot. I hope we shall meet again.”
“Ah, at last you are discovered. I was looking for you as for a needle in a haystack!” It was Prince Victor Adolph who came up to him.
Helmer bowed.
“I felt I must speak to you,” continued the prince. “I wanted to tell you how deeply your address stirred me. A light seemed to rise before me, and I cannot tell you in merely a couple of words what I see in this light.”
Helmer expressed his thanks for these friendly words of recognition. He, indeed, cherished a high opinion of the prince, and therefore his praise gave him a real pleasure. And yet he was overmastered by a gnawing bitterness as he stood facing the handsome, manly, young prince. No self-deception availed any more; he was obliged to confess: the horrible tormenting passion so allied to envy—jealousy—began to poison his mind. How he had thought himself superior to such a feeling ... he had even encouraged Franka to bestow her love on this splendid young man, and had taken pleasure in his own magnanimity ... and now this evil passion had him in its clutches! There was only one cure for it: absence! The week at Lucerne was nearing its end and then their ways would diverge—his and Franka’s. Besides, he had his great solace: art, labor. For some time the idea of a new drama had been gradually dawning in his mind, So, as soon as he should be back, he would immediately gird himself to the task of writing it. As if in line with this idea, the prince now asked:—
“Have you conceived the idea of writing anynew poem. It will be difficult for you to surpass ‘Schwingen’!”
“I am going to write a drama, Your Royal Highness. I have the notion that one can speak in that way more directly, more persuasively to one’s contemporaries than in an epic.”
“Scarcely more persuasively than you spoke to-day. I thank you once more for the vistas which you opened up before me. Auf wiedersehen, Herr Helmer!” He shook Helmer’s hand and left him.
A minute later Helmer found Franka. She hastened up to him.
“Ah, Brother Chlodwig, at last,” she cried.
“Isay ‘at last.’ I had such a longing to see you. You must tell me....”
“Oh, I have ever so much to say to you,” she interrupted. “It almost seems like that evening when I talked with you the first time—do you remember? Or that other evening when you outlined the plan for my career. Let us do as we did then.... We will have supper, we three ... and talk, talk.... If we have supper now with the whole Rose Order, we cannot say half what we have to say. Do you consent?”
“Do I! That will be splendid!”
“Very good, then. So Eleonore and I will go up to our apartment and get the festive supper ready. Follow us in a quarter of an hour.”
When Helmer rejoined the ladies, the table was already set. Plates with all kinds of cold meat, patties, lobsters, chicken, strawberries and sweets, were arrayed on it, and at one side in a silver bucketa bottle of champagne. Moreover, on a small table, drawn close, and presided over by Frau Eleonore, a singing tea-kettle.
Franka, who had changed her evening gown for a soft white kimono, came forward to meet her guest with outstretched hand: “Welcome, Brother Chlodwig! Now we will enjoy a pleasant cozy hour. After all the great and overpowering things that surround one here, one really yearns for something domestic, calm, and comfortable.”
Chlodwig kissed her hand: “You make me happy, Franka. You could not have put a prettier crown on this day than this kind of invitation. And I mean to do honor to all these appetizing things—the fact is that, in the anxiety of preparing my address, I have scarcely eaten anything all day, and I am as hungry as a bear.”
“I am glad of that. So let us sit down. Let the feast begin!”
“Even the stage-setting is festive,” remarked Helmer. “I never saw your rooms lighted in the evening before.... This subdued rose-light is magical in its effect.”
“Oh,” sighed Franka, “it is impossible here to escape from the magical. Don’t you find also that it brings with it some homesickness for the simple and commonplace?... Please, take a bit of this patty.”
Helmer helped himself. “Yes, there seems to be a sort of pendulum law in our wishes.”
“Then, what would be the equilibrium? To be without a wish? But let us not philosophize—letus chat. We should have so much serious talk that I would rather not begin. Your address—I have not as yet said a word about it to you, let me shake hands with you ... it was fine! That address with its wide outlook,—it would lead to such deeply serious discussion on a hundred abstract things!”
“Then we will not talk about it,” assented Helmer.
“But please fill the glasses,” Franka held out her champagne-cup. “If we are not going to talk about your lecture, let us drink to the hope that what you suggested to our fellow-men may be fulfilled.”
They touched glasses.
“May also what your teaching promises be fulfilled, Franka Garlett,” said Helmer; “will you not join us, Frau von Rockhaus ... may I fill your glass?”
Frau Eleonore shook her head: “Thank you, I only drink tea ... and to tell you frankly, these toasts are too vague. Let our contemporaries and those who come after us look after their own good. Won’t you folks also think a little about yourselves? I am ready to drain my cup of tea to the nail-test if the toast shall be: ‘Three cheers to Franka,’ or ‘Three cheers to Helmer,’ or even a cheer or two to Eleonore.... And please understand, the fate of the last-named lady affects me more than that of unborn generations!”
“Good!” cried Franka; “agreed. Health to the three of us!—a ninefold cheer!”
The glasses clinked. Then Franka leaned herhead back on the cushion of the easy-chair and, smiling, closed her eyes. “At this moment I do have an attack of selfishness.... I feel all thrilled with a longing for ... for....”
“Happiness?” suggested Helmer.
“That expresses too much. Only a deep, heart-filling joy. But not a lonely joy ... I want your company, dear friends.” So saying, she stretched out her hands to left and right, and laid them on the arms of her two table companions.
Helmer felt this touch like an electric shock. What filled his heart was not an unquestioning, unwishing joy; rather it was a dream-happiness which flashed through him like lightning. But what this flash of lightning revealed was a burning sand waste of hopeless yearning. More clearly than the impulse of jealousy which he had recently experienced, this instantaneous burst of glowing tenderness showed him that he loved, as passionately as man ever loved. It was fortunate that the companion’s presence checked his impulse, for he was strongly tempted to fling himself at Franka’s feet and confess to her what made him so deeply unhappy. But he controlled himself. Franka must not be aware of the tempest that raged in his soul. He would not spoil the calm joy to which she had referred; yet he could not help knowing the source of this joy—could it be that on the very day she had made up her mind as to her future? Had the prince declared himself? But if that was the case, why washenot sitting by her side instead of Brother Chlodwig? Well, possibly she had not consideredthat proper. She had only invited the harmless “Brother” in order to confide in him her joy, in order that he might be let into the secret of the change of her destiny, he who had hitherto exerted such a powerful influence on her life, he who had been the guide in her vocation, the master builder of her fame. These thoughts had not occupied ten seconds. He took her hand which still lay on his arm and held it firmly with a tender pressure.
“Tell me the ground of your joy, dearest Franka ... let us speak of your future.”
Franka had not changed her position. Her eyes were still closed, her head leaning back: “No, no, nothing of the future now. I wanted to anchor my joyous feeling in the present, that only safe anchorage.... But I am willing”—she sat erect and withdrew her hand—“I am willing ... let us talk of my future plans. I decided day before yesterday to withdraw from publicity. That address is to be my last.”
“Is that his wish?”
“Whose wish?... Oh, I see what you mean.... You are mistaken. If what you imagine had come about, then, of course, the lecture trips would have had to cease, but it has not come about.”
“It will,” interrupted Frau Eleonore, “if you mean by this mysterious reference the threatened proposal of the violet prince.”
“Even in that case it is a question how I should deal with it,” retorted Franka.
A stone fell from Chlodwig’s heart.... Now he, too, felt flooded with the joy of the present.
“My decision,” pursued Franka, “is quite independent of these eventualities. It takes its rise from entirely new views, intuitions, and wishes which have come to me here during this wonderful week.”
“And you are going to give up your activity?”
“Traveling and public speaking, yes. I see before me other possibilities of work. And, besides, did you not advise pretty much the same thing after my last address?”
“Did I?”
“Yes, and you were right.... I feel it.”
“What are you going to do, then, Franka? What are your plans—your plan independent of the case ‘Victor Adolph’?”
“I am going to ... but it is not so entirely clear to me....”
“So, then the case ‘Victor Adolph’ is not altogether out of question!”
Franka laughed: “How persistent you are. You seem very anxious for me to have that chance. You were the first to call my attention to it. Moreover, I can imagine how eagerly you must think of this affair and desire it. Don’t you? You mean that if I should win power over the heart and actions of one of the great ones of the earth, I might then exert an influence, might be useful to my—to our ideals?”
“I might believe that—but wish it?” He shook his head. “Oh, let’s not talk about that possibility—it is much nicer not to do so.”
“Let us talk about yourself, then. You are certainly no ‘case,’ but the theme interests me.”
“It interests me, too,—especially if you treat it.”
“Do you know, I have made the acquaintance of an entirely new Helmer to-day.... Through your address ... I followed it all—all its political and social and high-thinking parts, but one thing especially impressed me: You are a good man.”
“That compliment does not always sound flattering.”
“Oh, but you must have recognized from my tone how I mean it. Moreover, the way in which you spoke about Good Will, about Goodness, the rank that you assigned to that quality as a motor power for all spiritual elevation,—you see, I understood you,—proves to me that you would prize no compliment higher than this. Or would you have preferred that I had said ‘a clever man’? Applied to a world-renowned poet—that would have been tautology. And that term carries no warmth with it. When you say to any one, ‘You are good,’ that is equivalent to saying, ‘I thank you.’ It is as if you would cradle your head on his heart and say, ‘Oh, here—here is safety.’”
“Franka!”
Both were silent for a while, looking into each other’s eyes. What is that substance called which often goes bombarding back and forth between the steady eyes of a man and of a woman?—It has not as yet found its Madame Curie.
Frau von Rockhaus broke the spell by asking Helmer what the two rulers had conversed with him about. He informed her. And now the conversationturned for a while on the events of the evening. He also told them about his meeting with the engineer Juillot. Franka on her part gave an amusing description of her aunt’s last call. Now gayly, now seriously, the talk went from one subject to another and the time flew. Franka sprang up as the clock struck twelve.
“Midnight already! Now we must say goodnight.”
Helmer had also risen to his feet. “Forgive me for staying so outrageously long ... but it has been so lovely!”
“Yes, it has been lovely,” assented Franka.
Words of thanks and of farewell followed. Still talking, Franka took a few steps by Helmer’s side toward the door. Then suddenly she stepped on something soft, that lay on the floor—a little piece of orange-peel—and slipped. She would have fallen, had not Helmer caught her with his strong arm. Then only Franka uttered a little cry.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, no; it was nothing.” And she released herself. “Adieu.”
After Helmer had again shaken hands with the two ladies and departed, Franka remained standing for some little time on the spot, lost in dreams.
“Well, what is it? What are you thinking about?” asked Frau Rockhaus.
Franka shook her head and made no answer. She was thinking of the bar of the blind.