CHAPTER XXIVSUNDRY CONVERSATIONS
The next afternoon many scattered groups were sitting again in the hall of the Grand Hotel, and in the majority of them the conversation turned on Chlodwig Helmer’s address. Translations of it into French, English, and Italian were lying about on the tables. Some of the hotel guests held in their hands Helmer’s book “Schwingen.” The works of all the authors present in the Toker palace were not only to be found in the Lucerne bookshops, but were for sale also in the various hotels. Many visitors who had heard the poet’s address, the day before, had now got the work that had made his name famous and were eagerly turning its pages.
In one corner sat Bruning, Malhof, and Regenburg chatting over their wine and cigars. They were discussing their fellow-countryman, Helmer.
“He was a schoolmate of mine,” Bruning was saying. “Not at all a remarkable scholar: weak in mathematics; hardly up in the ancient languages. His teachers, however, were easy on him—he was the son of a cabinet minister.”
The well-known sportsman exclaimed in astonishment: “Oh, you don’t say so? I had supposed he used to be a secretary or the like with a count....”
“Quite right, he was ... at one time. His parents died early; his property was gone; he did notstick to his career as government clerk; poetizing had got into his blood; he was always in the clouds, even on the school form ... and then he accepted a position which afforded him leisure for writing. After he left the count’s house, he devoted himself entirely to the art of poetry. I should have expected a more brilliant career for him.”
“Pardon me,” said Malhof, “isn’t that a rather brilliant career—being a celebrated poet?”
Bruning shrugged his shoulders: “What is it to be a celebrated poet in our country, while one is alive? Did you ever meet one at court? Is a street ever named after one? And one was never known to get rich like a successful operetta composer or a brewer. My friend Helmer ought to make a good match. I had schemed one for him long ago. But he is so horribly unpractical—you could see that from his address yesterday. These sentimental impossibilities! Lack of tact—talks there before a public audience composed of kings, statesmen, people of the world, as if it were a gathering of Socialists.”
“Yes,” said the sportsman in confirmation, “I noticed that he attacked military institutions with especial virulence—like a real Red. He apparently thinks it is not right for aeronautics and aviation to be used for military purposes. That is unpatriotic. I long ago enlisted in the volunteer automobile corps and I should not hesitate to place my flying-machine at the disposal of the Ministry of War. But, by Jove! that was a marvelous exhibition of flying the day before yesterday. I must get a pair of folding wings like those!”
“To return to Helmer,” said Malhof. “A good deal that he said was rather striking ... things that I had never thought of before, though I am an old man of wide experience; things, the possibility and desirability of which I must admit.”
“Really!” cried Bruning. “Such changes—that will turn things upside down—do they seem desirable to you?”
“Desirable for the next generation, not for our own, for people do not like to be disturbed in their quiet and in their habits. We do not only say, ‘After us the deluge’; we also say, ‘After us the millennium’; for in order to bring it about, we should have to make quite too inconvenient efforts ... let our great-grandchildren attain a golden age; we ourselves are quite comfortable in our present circumstances; we want to go on enjoying the present order of things and educate our boys to do the same.”
Bruning nodded his head in assent: “Wesay this—but our friend Regenburg is right: the Socialists think otherwise; they are not contented with the circumstances; they want revolution; therefore such cloud-storming addresses are not merely unpractical; they are dangerous, and we must be on our guard against them.”
“’Tis not necessary,” replied Malhof. “Active measures against them would only profit the revolutionists. All their dreaming, speechmaking, dissertations remain inoperative through the vast passive resistance which they buck up against—a wholly unconscious resistance, for it is combined of indifference and absolute ignorance. If one ofthem speaks in an assembly and the assembly applauds, then he believes that he has conquered a comprehending world of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, not only does the world of his contemporaries remain unmoved, but even among the assembled audience the majority, when they have left the hall, scarcely remember what arguments have been put before them. How little interest men feel in universal questions! Most people do not even know that there are circumstances that might be changed. Everything that exists in the social and political line, they take for granted, like the weather and the seasons. It is easy enough to hear about those matters, but to take an active part in them, that is another thing. People have so many private interests which are wholly absorbing—their career, their business, their trade, their passions, their family cares, their bitter days and their joyous festivals—there is no room for speculations and Utopias and revolutions. Existing institutions have their competent directors regularly appointed to look after their management, or, in case of necessity, to bring about reform; but we do not have to get mixed up in it ... everything revolutionary is so inconvenient; it disturbs every kind of activity—Heaven protect us from it! You see, that is the state of mind of the compact masses. And so let the world reformers talk themselves hoarse. When they are talked out, it is burnt-out fireworks—nothing more!”
“Do you reckon yourself also among the ‘compact masses,’ Herr von Malhof?” asked Bruning.
“Certainly I do. Never in my life have I taken any interest in the so-called ‘questions.’ I have had far too much to do in making my existence as pleasant and enjoyable as possible. For me, the wisdom of life consists in making the little square metre of existence which we possess as comfortable as we can, in trying to embellish it, without at the same time staring at the thousand-mile stretches that lie beyond. And then, one thing more, my good friend: to battle against thousand-year-old institutions with addresses and volumes of poems, as your honored friend does, is like scratching away Chimborazo with a nail-file. As far as I could make out, Herr Helmer strikes at the belt-line of militarism with his aeronautic arguments—I could not repeat them—the things rebound from my memory like dry-peas from a wall. Just look at our military establishment at home. How does it stand there? Isn’t it just like a Chimborazo? All that glory, that prestige, that power—there is only one other power comparable to it—the Church. That is the reason the two stand by each other so firmly. And really are not all who have their habitations at the foot of these Chimborazos perfectly contented? Haven’t they planted there all their joy, their ambition, their fame, their ideas of virtue?... What is the good, then, of frightening them out of their comfortable security under the pretext that other and more comfortable conditions are to be created for coming generations? No, your young friend must not cherish any illusions; believe me, he will not....”
“Why do you say all this to me?” interrupted Bruning; “I am entirely of your opinion and have never pretended to Helmer that I shared his illusions. I know the world better than he does.... ‘One cannot think highly enough of man’!—such an idea as that can only be expressed by a philosopher far removed from reality, and repeated by a cloud-sailing poet. Well, and what do you say, Regenburg?”
“I—what do I say?—About what?”
“Haven’t you been listening?”
“Oh, yes—I—well, I am afraid that through all these new sports,—especially in the air,—the horses will entirely die out.”
“Even Pegasuses?” suggested Malhof, laughing.
In another niche sat Romeo Rinotti and Gaston de la Rochère in a colloquy. They, too, were discussing the yesterday’s address. The Frenchman held the translation of Helmer’s speech in his hand. He looked disgusted.
“What do you say to it? Have you read it through?” asked Rinotti.
“I have just glanced over it, my dear Marquis. And that has sufficed to make me angry enough.” He flung the pamphlet on the table. “German poets should confine themselves to singing about forget-me-nots, but not deliver discourses about things they do not understand. What does this one know about the action of airships in the war to come? Or perhaps he wants to spoil the pleasure of other nations in building air-fleets, because Germany—thanksto her Zeppelin—has gone so far ahead.... In return our single flyers are far more numerous and much better perfected. Besides, we have really made a beginning with the dirigibles ... might far more easily reach the forefront again, if this miserable pestilential republic would only look out better for the national defense.”
Rinotti laughed: “So then you are an arch-royalist? But you are really doing injustice to your present régime; just see how in the last few years your expenditure for the army and the fleet has mounted up.”
“Oh, stuff; that is only hypocrisy ... they are afraid of arousing the anger of genuine patriots, and consequently they do not venture to hold back the funds as much as they would like to; but at the same time they haven’t the slightest intention of standing up boldly for the honor of France.”
“You mean theRevanche. Certainly, only a very few of your fellow-countrymen wish for that any longer.”
“That is just the trouble. Magnanimous feelings, bold ideas are dying out.... No, not quite so bad as that ... they still live, but they are suppressed, kept down ... and what can you expect as long as a party is in power sacrilegious enough to lay violent hands on the Church? Thence only one thing can rescue our poor land: to restore the monarchy.”
“Are you a leader ofles Camelots du Roy?” asked Rinotti.
“No; the methods of these young men are too coarse for me—they even shock the claimants themselves.Yet I am undisturbed:Dieu protège la France. In one way or another Providence will restore to us our old rights. If not a king, perhaps a dictator, or a great soldier will come.... We have already had one or two attempts to that end: Boulanger, Marchand ... the right one will sometime appear, and if he should succeed in winning back the beloved provinces, even if he should merely wave the colors in order to hasten to the frontier, then,—then all Frenchmen would follow him with wild enthusiasm.”
Rinotti shook his head. “Do you believe so? I opine that a war which your nationalists themselves should start would no longer be popular in the country. The storm must break out somewhere else: Germany would have to be entangled in war with England or Russia; then France might go to their help and in the natural course of events theRevanchemight come of itself; even the régime might be changed. Why, even a defeat might result in overturning the republic and the new king might have the chance of restoring the conditions that you desire.”
“That would be fine! But how can one look forward to such events when everywhere these anti-military doctrines are making their way not only in Socialist congresses, but even in public entertainments, like these here—and in presence of the heads of States!”
“Words, words!” exclaimed Rinotti scornfully: “borne away by the wind. And even if the wind should carry away a few fruitful seeds, when will they sprout?—In the far, distant future. Meantime,however, deeds come to the front ... deeds of the present, which are the fruits of seeds scattered in the past. The old hatred, the old distrust, the long cumulated threats: all that must rage itself out first. And the entire world of to-day is prepared for it; school has trained for it, the masses are drilled for it; the instruments are ready. And how easily do these latent forces break out into acute manifestation! What is preached by good people, but bad politicians,—à la Helmer,—arouses no fanaticism, however conciliatory, however reasonable it may sound. Can one ever bring conciliation to fever-heat or reason to a flame? Ah, believe me, only the violent instincts drive the machinery called history. And those who are elected to make history need nothing else but force, and again force, in order to keep the machine going in the direction which they want. And the general conception ‘force’ splits into separate qualities: unbending will, unscrupulousness, inflexibility, formidableness—these are the attributes of the great statesman. But only in his political activity; as a private citizen he must at the same time be amiable, yielding, full of good humor, tender to his family, polite to his subordinates—in general, what is called ‘un charmeur.’ In addition he must have genius; and this, too, is needed: he must have luck!”
La Rochère had accompanied Rinotti’s utterance with nods of satisfaction. “You are a wise statesman!” he exclaimed; and leaning over to look the marchese in the eye, he asked in a lower tone of voice: “Tell me, is there likelihood of war breakingout anywhere? Do you perchance know anything about it?”
Rinotti bit his lips: “I know nothing, and if I did, I should not tell.”
Prince Victor Adolph was sitting on his balcony, reading over and over a letter which he had received that morning from home. Its writer was his oldest brother, the crown prince, who informed him, under the seal of confidence, that an old project, which had once before been broached and then dropped, had come to the front again and was on the point of accomplishment. The point was, that Victor Adolph was to be made regent of a border province which was aspiring to independence. By this appointment, the province would immediately find its desires for autonomy fulfilled. This was a tempting outlook: anything rather than the empty show of military service so detestable to him. In this position, opportunity would be afforded him of working up, of carrying out plans the mighty outlines of which hovered before his mind. A joyous feeling of expectation stirred the young man’s soul. The future, the future—it lay open before him; and he would fill it with progressive ideas, with progressive deeds, with “soaring thoughts” ... He dwelt on these words.
Then an idea suggested itself to him. He went to a writing-table, dashed off a few lines on a sheet of paper, and rang.
“Take this immediately to the Rose-Palace,” he ordered the servant who responded to his summons.The note was addressed to Chlodwig Helmer, and contained an invitation to Mr. Helmer to call on the prince in the course of the afternoon, if he had time.
A quarter of an hour later, Chlodwig sent in his name. The prince was in his salon alone. He started forward to meet his visitor.
Helmer bowed:—
“Your Royal Highness summoned me....”
Victor Adolph offered him his hand: “Thank you for fulfilling my wish so promptly. Yesterday evening we had no opportunity, and I was so desirous of hearing a good deal more on the subject of your address. Let us sit down.... Here, please. A cigarette?” He held out his gold cigarette-case.
Chlodwig thanked him and took one. The prince also offered him a light and then kindled his own.
“You see, Herr Helmer,” he pursued, “what you said yesterday evening moved me tremendously. Partly, because you gave utterance to ideas which have been for a long time floating indefinitely in my mind, and partly because you opened up before me entirely new perspectives.”
“I am delighted to hear such a thing, Your Highness. Tell me what was familiar to you and what was new?”
“There is, for example, ... good Heavens, I really don’t know where to begin.... I should like to have a lesson in things which you did not speak about. I will ask you: If you were a king, what would you do to carry out the lofty flight of your ideals?”
“If I were a king,” repeated Chlodwig thoughtfully. “Many a man has imagined to himself that contingency.Si j’étais roiis the title of an opera.—If I were a king, then I should have lived in other conditions, should have had another kind of education, inherited other instincts.... The love of soldiering would be inherent in my blood—the first king was a victorious soldier;—the concept ‘Majesty,’ mounting from the humbly bowing masses, would have risen to my head, stinging and bewitching me, like the bubbling spirits rising in champagne-cups.... My breast would be swelled with the consciousness of power. I should probably not let it be noticed, and I should take pains to seem affable and natural. I should be well aware that my power was to a certain degree limited in modern, constitutional, and enlightened times, and, therefore, I should instinctively fear what threatens it still more: revolutionary ideas and activities; and likewise should instinctively prize all that protected it: my faithful nobles, my loyal army; on the whole, the conservative spirit. I should simply know nothing of the struggles and problems and aims of the progressive spirit. ‘Liberal,’ in the court-jargon, is synonymous with ‘suspicious,’ and ‘radical’; signifying a will-power, which goes to the very root of things, is synonymous with ‘criminal.’ I should not have had much experience of the sorrows of the poor and wretched; that would be to me as remote and natural as a pool in a morass or the débris of a quarry. My consolation would be that the poor people would still hope for compensation beyond the grave,and in order to strengthen them in this hope, I should set them an example of piety—should perhaps actually be pious, through the necessity slumbering in every better soul of being occasionally humble. As I am one who tries to do right, and should be the same if I were a king, I should fulfill scrupulously my really difficult duties. I should work with zeal and industry. For recreation and pleasure, I should go hunting. Indeed, this sport would involve a certain amount of ambition, for I should be well aware of the respectful interest with which the world would chronicle every successful shot of my rifle and be ready to erect a monument in memory of my thousandth stag. I should....”
“Stop!” cried the prince; “you are unfair!”
“Quite possibly. I have been generalizing, and in doing so, one cannot be fair. And above all, Your Royal Highness, I regret having somewhat failed in due tact. I should not have spoken to a king’s son as I have. But because I know that you are quite different from the others....”
“But you are also unfair to those others, Herr Helmer. Don’t you believe that the spirit of the age also makes its way through the seams of palaces and throne-rooms? That ‘lofty thinking’ and free thinking are also carried on under crowns? Look at those little German courts the princes of which cherish a cult for art or promote the investigations and activities of such men as, for example, Ernst Haeckel! And this ‘lofty thought’ for which you seem especially enthusiastic, ‘universal peace’: don’t you see that the very emperor who at his first accessionto the throne was expected by the world to hanker after military laurels, has for long decades done everything he could to avoid war?”
“I recognize that,” answered Helmer; “but the question means more than merely not waging war; it means putting down war.”
“I call your attention to this: I just remarked the Emperor has done what he could. The power and will of a great ruler stand behind mighty barriers and walls. His court, his army, his environment, his whole inheritance of traditional principles and the institutions which he is placed there to preserve—all these things combine together to hamper the accomplishment of his aspirations. The portrait that you have just painted of a king does not apply any longer to our contemporary rulers in their inmost reality—yet their environment combines to make them such. Now, see here, my dear poet, you were complaining that they knew nothing of the sorrows of the people; you are right: the classes are too widely separated; they know nothing of each other. So it is with the princes: those that do not live in association with them know but little about them and form false notions; they conceive them to be of the ‘demigod’ or ‘Serenissimus’ type, but in truth they are exactly like other men; differing from one another, good and bad, stupid and clever, insignificant and talented. But they do have one actual advantage: they control more power and influence than ordinary mortals, and for that reason it would be a good thing if princes were to come forward as champions of the highest aspirations of the time.”
“But suppose—my objection may, perhaps, again sound somewhat tactless—but suppose these aspirations include what Kant once laid down as a postulate—that monarchies are doomed to make way for a republican régime....”
“This will not be accomplished overnight.”
“No; and then I grant you that the question is not whether the régime ought to change. Governmental forms are, after all, only forms—the content is the important thing. What must change, what must grow, is the spirit, and certainly in all strata. The general level of all mankind must rise. I myself should not like to see the control of government put into the hands of the masses as they are to-day.”
The prince made a somewhat impatient gesture. “I beg of you, Herr Helmer, let us not deal in generalities. Yesterday, I heard a wonderfully beautiful litany of them proceed from your lips; now I should like something positive, concrete. For that reason, I put my question to you: What would youdoif you were a king?Do—work at—that is the gist of the matter. And a king can do things, as long as Kant’s wish is not as yet fulfilled—because he has much power; not unlimited power, of course. Put to yourself this case: that you—you yourself, no one else, you with all your experiences, your knowledge, your poetic accomplishment—were suddenly made a powerful king.... One can imagine one’s self in another position—I know it from experience. I have often asked myself, if I were a common soldier, if I were a poor proletarian, how should I feel, what should I try to do in order to win a littlehappiness and freedom for myself and my fellows, or to give vent to my wrath over the unfairness under which we sigh and drudge.... Perhaps you do not know, Helmer, that I take a passionate interest in social problems; that often, just as others sneak into gambling-hells or other places of forbidden pleasure, I have slipped into assemblies where the Socialists....”
“I know it, Your Highness,” interrupted Helmer.
The prince had been speaking with animated voice and his cheeks were flushed. Now he seized Chlodwig’s hand. “So then, tell me! You who are a poet and therefore something of a prophet; you who would raise goodness to the level of a motive force for political action,—tell me, how would you help the people?”
“What people? Mine? Is it impossible to help one people alone. In our day of universal international intercourse and trade, every country is dependent on every other. One nation cannot by itself be rich, happy, and independent. The nations are not hermits; they form a community. In my kingdom, could I put down capitalism, could I do away with war, if others threatened me with it; if I took down my own tariff walls, could I break through the limitations of the others? There is no individual happiness—‘reciprocally’—‘coöperatively’—‘mutually’: those are the adverbs without which no blissful verb can be conjugated.”
“Then what would you do?”
“Seek to make alliances with my fellow-royalties. I should—yet I have no perfected plan of actionin my mind, Prince. Only one thing is quite clear: the mechanicians have won over a new element which for many thousands of years they never dared hope to enter into. There is also a spiritual, a moral upper ocean into which hitherto no one has ventured to steer the so-called ship of State. I cherish the faith that by this time among the potentates, one—the Zeppelin—is born and will work and accomplish, and dare obstinately, confidently, prophetically, in spite of all doubts, all resistance; and will let his ship mount up into those heights of light.... Pardon me, Prince, I have one great fault into which I am always falling: speaking far too much in metaphors.”
“Pardonable in a poet.”
“But you wished to hear something concrete, positive,—in this respect I have served you ill.”
“No; your Zeppelin picture gives me a quite correct orientation. First one must gather from the light of reason, even if no experience answers for it, that a thing is feasible; then one must will and dare. The individual manipulations will come into play later.”
Helmer gazed at the prince. A warm wave of liking for him arose in his heart; then instantly this same heart seemed to contract as if under a cold pressure. The thought of Franka ... how natural it would be that she should love that man....
As if Victor Adolph had read the poet’s thoughts, he asked: “You are an old acquaintance of Fräulein Garlett’s, are you not?”
Chlodwig gave a start. “Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
“The lady interests me very much. Can you tell me anything of her story?”
Helmer told him what he knew: the secluded childhood and youth with her father who was in slender circumstances; her worship of that father; the summons to the grandfather’s home; the fabulous inheritance; and then her passionate desire to accomplish some great work, to offer herself up in the service of her fellow-men—as if an atonement for the unearned wealth; then her career and its results.
“A remarkable fortune!” exclaimed Victor Adolph. “You were her teacher?”
“I? Her teacher?”
“Yes, she told me so herself.”
“She meant that when she was as yet uncertain how she might find the great thing which she dreamed of doing, I gave her some advice.”
“And has not this pretty young woman had any love-affair in the course of her life?”
“I know of none.”
“Is she so cold? She must have had many suitors.”
“Indeed, she has. She has been much sought after and has refused many an offer.”
“And you yourself, Herr Helmer, in all this giving of advice, has your heart remained without a wound?”
“Your Highness ... I....”
“Well, well; it was an indiscreet question. Pray don’t feel obliged to answer it.”
The valet brought the afternoon mail on a silver salver, and at the same time announced that His Excellency the adjutant to the King of Italy desiredto see His Highness. Chlodwig arose and took his departure.
The prince shook hands with him: “Auf wiedersehen. We will have another talk—not on indiscreet questions, but about dirigible ships of State.”
“Papa, am I interrupting you?”
Gwendoline stood at the door of Toker’s room.
“Of course, you interrupt me, for I am never unoccupied. But come in, Gwen; it will do me good to have you divert me a little from all kinds of melancholy things.”
The young girl stepped nearer. “How is that? You are in trouble! Does not everything go according to your wish in this rose-magic of which you are yourself the great conjurer?”
“Here everything is fairly satisfactory; but outside, in the wide world!” And he indicated a heap of newspapers and letters lying before him on the table.
While glancing through these messages from the outside world, John Toker had been spending a couple of uncomfortable hours. Very bad tidings had come. Not only the alarmist predictions which emanate from those parties that always have on tap announcements of an unavoidable war with this, that, or the other neighboring State; but also positive proofs that in various places, in circles that had the necessary power in their hands, the intention prevailed to deliver the blow. In more than one center of discord, little flames were rising and might easily break out into a destructive conflagration.The press was not lacking in writers who were working with poker and bellows for this end so desirable to them for many reasons. Fortunately there were not lacking, among either rulers or statesmen, those who were using their best endeavors to stamp out the dangerous embers; who hesitated about drawing the sword even when they were provoked—but the decision finally lies, after all, with the aggressive and not with the opposing portion.
Not only from the papers, but also from private sources, Toker had received the intimation that dangerous dissensions were likely to break out. He was in friendly relationship with powerful circles in various countries, and he got wind of much that was going on behind the scenes in politics. Thus it had been conveyed to him that day that one country, whose chief ruler was thoroughly opposed to war, had a large military party working with all its might, in order that an insignificant question at issue should be made the cause for an ultimatum. This party desired to march right in. It found that the moment was favorable. The victory would be easily won; glory and laurels might be obtained; internal dangers fermenting might thus be obviated; and in spite of the opposition of the monarch they were plotting to aggravate the friction in order that the “marching in” might be plausible.
However, that is not the proper word: what the war-lovers in question had in mind was not “marching in,” but “flying in.” In all countries the air-fleets had attained considerable proportions, but just at this time this particular State had made aremarkable advance. Moreover, a new invention in the domain of aviation had been recently made and was kept a great secret, and a new explosive had been introduced. With this, the enemy could be annihilated and the world confounded. The admiral of the air-fleet was all on fire to enrich the military history of the world with a hitherto unheard-of battle and victory. John A. Toker felt a quite peculiar horror at this form of the modern, ultra-modern art of war; not only because he expected the most terrible destruction from it; but also his æsthetic and moral feelings were revolted by seeing hell carried even into the regions of the skies.
Still other catastrophes were looming on the horizon: bread riots; economic crises; terrorism from below by assassination and incendiarism; terrorism from above by executions; ... and for those who looked far ahead, a general break-up; civilization buried under ruins. Can this be the end and goal of mankind’s lofty aspirations?
Toker felt like one who has brought a wonderfully beautiful garden, situated at the foot of a mountain, to a high state of cultivation, and suddenly notices that the mountain has begun to smoke.
“Every comparison limps” is a correct expression: the lameness in this figure is, that the destruction streaming from the fiery depths of the volcano is the work of incomprehensible, uncontrollable powers of nature, while in these eruptions treasured as “historical,” men themselves have fabricatedthe lava, and, thanks to their crater-deep idiocy, use it for their own destruction.
Yet not all the news that had been brought to Toker’s notice, and lay there in a great pile, was bad: there were also some encouraging items. If one attentively listens in every quarter, one can hear the subdued regular rumble of the great loom, where the genius of Progress is weaving stitch by stitch the web of Unity which is bound ultimately to bring together the whole civilized world. Toker’s alarm grew out of the fact that the all-reigning spirit of growth is often interrupted and set back by the spirit of destruction, which by fits and starts exercises its harmful calling and in some places undoes what seems on the fairest path of development.
“Well, Gwen, what amusing thing have you to tell me?”
“Amusing? I wanted a serious talk with you, papa.”
“You—and serious! But really you look quite solemn. Has anything happened?”
Gwendoline made several attempts to speak, and then paused again; she was seeking for the right words and could not find them.
“Courage, Gwen! Have you some wish?”
“More than that, papa;—it is a resolution.”
“Oho! that sounds really serious. Perhaps you want to marry one of my Rose-Knights. We should have to think that over very gravely.”
“You are making sport of me, papa. I believe you consider me a very stupid girl, and, indeed, I know I am. Up till now I have not taken any interestin all the great things which you are working for. But in these last few days my eyes have been opened.”
“Have you been listening to all the things that my great guests have said, and did you understand them?”
“No, not all. I believed, as you yourself seem to believe, that those things are too high for me; that I could not understand them; that they had nothing to do with me. Only when the personal appeal was made to me, did I prick up my ears.”
Mr. Toker raised his head in astonishment. “An appeal made to you personally? How so? by whom?”
“By Franka Garlett: ‘Ye young maidens, listen to me!’ she said. I listened to her and....”
“Well ... and...?” urged Toker eagerly.
Gwendoline, who had been standing behind the writing-table, now sat down, as she was frequently wont to do, on the arm of Toker’s chair. She put her arm around her father’s neck and said: “You have called all these prominent people here, haven’t you, in order that their words, which you permit to be so freely uttered, may have a wide audience, may arouse to convictions and to deeds; in a word, may make proselytes....”
“Yes, that is my intention.”
“Well, I believe it will succeed. I know of one enthusiastic proselyte already made by Miss Garlett.”
“You, my dear?”
“Yes, I. Let me have a share in your work; initiateme! I want to learn to have the same kind of ideas. I don’t believe that I lack the ability. Yesterday, I listened very attentively to the address of that ‘Schwingen’ poet. (And between us, if I am not mistaken, he is in love with Miss Garlett.) I could not understand all that he said, but still I understood enough to get some new light; the question is to make men, that is to say, their souls, fly up into higher regions.”
Quite correct, thought Toker; but that their souls may fly high, the main thing is to help their bodies out of wretchedness, depravity, hunger, and squalor—the masses must be able to free themselves. Aloud he said: “Just see, how my little girl has profited from the teachings of my speakers! Gwen, this gratifies me, indeed! Go on with your thinking and your learning.”
“But I should like alsoto dosomething, papa, and you must tell me what!”
“Just at this moment I can’t tell you what you will be capable of doing. First let what has been sowed in your little head during these last two days ripen. I have my doubts about such sudden conversions. Nine chances out of ten, such seeds will be blown away again.”
Gwendoline sprang to her feet: “Have you so little faith in me?” she exclaimed reproachfully. “No wonder, though, for up till now I have been such a superficial good-for-nothing thing.”
“You have been a child, and that was all that was expected of you; there is no reason why you should not remain such for a while yet. Destinies andtasks are unequally distributed. Not all men can give themselves exclusively to caring for the weal of others; there must be some, also, who are carelessly happy themselves—especially in life’s Maytime.”
The morning after the supper with Helmer, Franka awoke with a dull headache. She had not slept well, but restlessly, feverishly, anxiously. She could not have told what had filled her mind with worry, with anticipation, with uncertainty; for her thoughts had led her on rather confused meanderings. Now as she got up, she felt that there was a burden on her mind, and she explained this state of things by the deluge of impressions that had swept over her, and by the fact that her resolution to renounce her career as a lecturer had left her facing an uncertain and aimless future.... And yet at the same time this resolution was agreeable to her, for in that career she no longer saw before her any shining goal, any prize of victory to satisfy her longing.
Aye, it was longing which lurked in the background of her unrest. Longing? For what? Franka was no unsophisticated child, and she put the question to herself, without unconscious bashfulness: “Is my hour come? Does Nature demand her rights? Do I wish to live, to love?”
Her thoughts turned on the two young men who for several days had filled her imagination and her dreams. But neither of them had declared himself. The prince was perhaps too proud, the poet too modest, to want to marry her. And to which of themshould she give the preference? To this question her heart gave a whispered answer, but so softly whispered that it was not decisive.
After her cold morning bath and her hot morning tea, she felt refreshed and somewhat calmer. She put on a simple street-toilette and left her room. She felt the need of getting out into free nature, and she bent her steps toward the neighboring wood. Purposely she refrained from inviting Frau Eleonore to accompany her, for she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, to take counsel of her own heart.
She wanted to ask herself what now were her wishes, her hopes, her purposes.—Was the resolution definitely fixed to retire from a public career? Was it justified? She had taken up as her task “To accomplish something great”: was this task accomplished? And was it not presumption to suppose that she was capable of accomplishing anything “great”? To do that, one must be great one’s self, and that she certainly was not. During this Rose-Week, when she had met with so many brilliant men and women of genius, she had fallen very low in her own estimation.
What was she with her rather superficial fluency in comparison with all these mighty artists, thinkers, poets, inventors? Could she only tell them all how insignificant she felt in comparison with them! Just as there are attacks of pride and ambition, so Franka now had an attack of the deepest humility, a strong yearning for seclusion:—it was one of those hours when one wishes one’s Ego dismounted from its too prominent pedestal, whereon it has been standingin far too haughty isolation; when one would like to compel it into a kneeling and leaning attitude of humbleness before a dearer “Thou”....
Through the grove breathed a delicious fragrance of warm resin and moist moss. Buried in her thoughts, Franka had been wandering for an hour hither and thither through the forest, and had reached a spot where a wooden seat was built around an ancient oak tree. She was rather tired, and so sat down on the seat, winding her arm around the trunk and leaning her forehead on it: thus she rested. The air was hot and full of the hum of insects. An agreeable weariness closed Franka’s eyelids; yet she was not asleep, only sinking into a comfortable half-doze, comparable to the feeling that plants may have under the caress of the sunbeams or the fanning of gentle breezes. Her breath, the beating of her heart and the song of the forest, the whispering of the tree-tops, melted together into one harmonious rhythm. It was the undefined, softly soothing delight of mere existence—nothing more. And yet with it all was mingled something new, something never before experienced by her, something that did not seem to belong wholly to the present, but throbbed as if at the coming of a future fulfillment—
A voice startled her out of this twilight of the soul: “Is that you, Signorina Garlett?”
It was the great Italian tragédienne who was out also for a lonely morning walk.
Franka sprang up.
“Don’t move. I will sit down with you for a fewminutes. It is very charming here, so quiet and peaceful. I have disturbed you. You were deep in dreams ... probably you were thinking about your lover.”
“I have no lover.”
“That is incredible—only you will not confide in me. But you might, carina. I am so much older than you are; I have tasted so fully of the joys and sorrows of life, and I know well that we women—if we are genuine women—experience all our pleasure and all our grief only through love ... everything else is nothing. Our art, our beauty, our social or domestic virtues—all that is only the shell, is only the tabernacle; the true sanctuary is our burning and bleeding heart.”
“So speaks one from the South,” replied Franka. “The rest of us are colder. My heart truly—up to the present time—has neither burned nor bled for any man. I do not take into account any passing little acceleration of its throbbing. My work, my duties, have completely occupied me—up to now....”
“What has been your special work?”
“Making girls over into thinking beings.”
“Thinking—not feeling?”
“The one does not exclude the other. Men, too, feel and love; at the same time it is their duty to think—not that they always do so—I must agree to that. You, great artist that you are, who have penetrated into the depths of poetry, would surely be the last person to forbid women thinking.”
“No, I do not; but I insist that they love. And ultimately, they all obey—even the women of theNorth. In the Northern poets especially I have found the most fundamental love-problems. However, madamigella Franka, you just said the words ‘up to now’ in a tone which makes me suspect that perhaps the coldness which you boast of is already beginning to melt.”
Franka’s cheeks glowed: “How you read people’s souls, maestra!”
The other smiled sweetly, and seized Franka’s hand. “So it must come,” said she, “once in every life. But,” she added in another tone, “shan’t we return? Don’t you hear distant thunder?”
In fact a low growling of thunder was heard, repeated two or three times; and the air was sultry. Franka got up.
“Very well, let us go. We shall have time enough to get under shelter. You see, it is the same way with my love ... far and low I seem to hear the premonition of what may prove to be a heart-storm. It has not as yet arrived, but it is coming and it will be welcome: I shall not flee from it, as we are now trying to escape from the threatening shower.”
By this time a few scattering drops were falling. The two women hastened their steps. Suddenly the Italian actress said:—
“Its coming has been noticed.”
“The coming of what? A quarter of an hour ago, the sky was perfectly blue.”
“I am speaking of your love-affair, dearest.”
Franka, surprised, lifted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Well—the handsome German prince.”