WHEN THOUGHTS WILL SOAR
_A Romance of the Immediate Future_
BY
BARONESS BERTHA VON SUTTNER
Author of “Lay down your Arms”
TRANSLATED BY
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
=The Riverside Press Cambridge=
1914
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published June 1914_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PRELUDE 3
I. FRANKA GARLETT 6
II. CHLODWIG HELMER 31
III. FRANKA’S NEW HOME 39
IV. LIFE IN SIELENBURG CASTLE 46
INTERMEZZO 63
V. COUNT SIELEN’S WILL 68
VI. A SECOND ANONYMOUS MESSAGE 82
VII. FRANKA’S SALON 98
VIII. THE OUTLINES OF A GREAT PLAN 112
IX. FRANKA’S DÉBUT AND CAREER 122
X. AT LUCERNE 139
XI. AN EVENING IN THE ROSE-PALACE 152
XII. MR. TOKER’S ILLUSTRIOUS GUESTS 165
XIII. A LUNCHEON PARTY 177
XIV. DREAMS OF LOVE 187
XV. RINOTTI AND PRINCE VICTOR ADOLPH 198
XVI. THE SIELENBURG PARTY 209
XVII. THE OPENING NIGHT 218
XVIII. FRANKA’S LECTURE 233
XIX. YE YOUNG MAIDENS, LISTEN TO ME 243
XX. ANOTHER LETTER FROM CHLODWIG HELMER 257
XXI. NEW WONDERS 271
XXII. CHLODWIG HELMER’S LECTURE: THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR 288
XXIII. A COZY SUPPER 311
XXIV. SUNDRY CONVERSATIONS 323
XXV. SCENES OF BEAUTY AND OF LOVE 352
XXVI. CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON 365
XXVII. SPEECHES AND LETTERS 378
XXVIII. A CORNUCOPIA FULL OF GIFTS 399
XXIX. FRANKA DECIDES HER FATE 415
FINALE 435
WHEN THOUGHTS WILL SOAR
PRELUDE
Mr. John A. Toker, the American multimillionaire, flung down his
newspaper in some excitement and became lost in thought.
The paragraph that had so agitated him read:—
“The sovereign expressed to Count Zeppelin his regret at being unable on
this occasion to see the airship which, he was convinced, was destined
to furnish the weapon of the heights in future wars.”
For more than an hour the little old gentleman remained absorbed in his
reflections; then he seized pen and paper and made various notes. He was
evidently drafting a rather complicated plan. He now and again ran his
pen through what he had written and substituted other words. One sheet
was filled with a list of names—the names of distinguished
contemporaries; another with figures, apparently a schedule of estimated
expenses, in which the individual items for the most part had five or
six numerals.
Even after an hour the plan was not as yet near completion, but Mr.
Toker was compelled to interrupt his labors in order to take up with
other demands of the day. One of his secretaries, who had made a careful
preliminary sifting of the letters and dispatches brought by the
morning’s mail, came with such as he had found important enough to be
called to his master’s attention.
Mr. Toker dictated various answers. When this correspondence was cleared
away, a host of other affairs required his consideration:—business
connected with the management of his property; reports from the many
concerns in which he was interested; audiences with the foremen of his
enormous landed estate, his farmers and agents. Moreover, the guests at
the castle and the members of his family could not be neglected, and
sport and exercise were necessary to maintain his physical elasticity,
while for the satisfaction of his intellectual cravings reading in many
fields had to be provided for—indeed, the multimillionaire frequently
found it exasperating to realize that one man might be richer than
others in money, but not in time; one may have thousands of dollars to
spend every hour, but not more than sixteen waking hours to spend in a
day.
“Money is a great help in accomplishing big things,” Mr. Toker used to
say with a sigh, “but mostly those things require much time, and in this
respect I feel that I am a very poor fellow.”
Several weeks passed without the American Crœsus being able to proceed
with the elaboration of his project. But he carried round with him the
idea that lay at the foundation of it. In his mind one thought gave
birth to another; visions arose without any definite outlines;
suggestions flashed through his brain, but served only as reminders of
things that might later become clear.
When he again took up the notes that he had made, he canceled several
names from the list and added new ones. It was a varied assortment of
from thirty to forty of his contemporaries: Björnson, Maurice
Maeterlinck, Eleanora Duse, Elihu Root, the American statesman; Madame
Curie, the discoverer of radium; Nansen, the Arctic explorer; Prince
Albert of Monaco, the oceanographic scientist; Tolstoï, Marconi, and
many great men from the scientific world, who had won distinction as
pathfinders in the domain of philosophy, sociology, history, and natural
science.
He also went over the sheet with the numbers, and added a cipher in many
cases. Thus, for example, the item of “Roses,” which had been set down
at ten thousand francs, he increased to a hundred thousand. Moreover,
the word “roses” frequently appeared in his notes, and the thought of
those queenly flowers seemed especially to impress itself on his mind,
for the pencilings which he made on the edge of the paper, as he strove
to catch an idea, portrayed very clearly, even if inartistically, the
forms of roses and rosebuds.
One sheet was filled with catchwords the meaning of which to one
uninitiated would have been scarcely comprehensible: as, for instance,
“Concentration and accumulation of forces. Motion through explosions.
Agglomeration of scattered atoms. Energy radiating in all directions.
Roses, roses ... the Power of Beauty. Subjugation of the forces of
Nature. High flying. Revelations. New lights, new tones, new thoughts,
moss roses....”
CHAPTER I
FRANKA GARLETT
A young girl stepped out of the gate of the Central Cemetery of Vienna.
For almost eight weeks she had been going there to lay a few flowers on
her father’s grave. That dearly beloved parent had been her only stay in
this world, and he had been so unexpectedly and prematurely snatched
away from her! Frank Garlett had reached only the age of forty-five. His
sudden death had resulted from an accident: he had fallen from the
running-board of a tram-car, had rolled under the wheels, and, severely
injured, had been brought to his dwelling by the Rescue Society, and
there a few hours later he had breathed his last in the arms of his
daughter, who was half-crazed with terror and grief.
Franka walked slowly and wearily home from the cemetery. Her lodgings,
her empty, orphaned lodgings, were not far distant. Behind her, with
steps equally slow, strode a man who had caught sight of her at the
cemetery gate, and, dazzled by her brilliant youthful beauty, which
betrayed itself in spite of her paleness and the traces of tears, was
now following her for the purpose of discovering who she was. He was an
elderly man of distinguished appearance.
As Franka entered the front door, he also paused there, but did not
venture to address her. He merely went to the porter’s door and rang the
bell. A buxom woman came out and greeted him:—
“What is it you wish?”
“I should like to make an inquiry; please allow me to come in.”
The woman moved aside and allowed the stranger to pass in. He sat down
in an armchair, took out of his pocket his portemonnaie, and handed the
woman a ten-crown note.
“Tell me, who the young lady is who just entered this house, dressed in
deep mourning. And give me all the information you can about her.”
“Oh, she?... She’s a Miss Garlett—yes, a pretty lass, but a poor little
body! Her father died not long ago, and now she’s all alone.... She was
almost beside herself with grief when they took him away. Now she’s a
bit calmer. Every day she goes out and visits him in the graveyard, but
otherwise she never goes out and no one comes to see her. And no one
came to see them when the old gentleman—in fact, he was not old—was
alive. You see he met with an accident—fell off the electric. When they
brought him in....”
“Who and what was Mr. Garlett?” asked the other, interrupting her.
“A professor, or a philosopher, or something like that. He gave lessons.
That was how he earned their living, I reckon. I’d like to know what the
poor little lass will have to live on now. The rent is soon due, and it
was always a hard pull to pay the rent.... The two had to be mighty
thrifty. They had only one old woman who used to come in every day to
help, and they only nibbled—like sparrows. But books! their rooms were
just piled up with ’em! He must have been a real bookworm, the poor
gentleman! and the little one used to be reading all the time, too....
The only luxury they ever allowed themselves was to go three or four
times a month to the fourth gallery of the opera house or to the Burg
Theater. But they weren’t never down in the mouth, neither of ’em, in
spite of all the worry and their little money; on the contrary, they
were as gay as larks—especially the lassie. We always heard her laughing
and singing in her room, though outside, to be sure, she was always
serious and, so to say, a bit haughty; perhaps she inherited a bit of
haughtiness from her departed mamma.”
“Was Mr. Garlett a widower, and how long had he been?”
“Oh, for fifteen years or so. That was quite a romance. His wife was a
count’s daughter, it seems. He had been private tutor to her brother at
a castle: the young lady fell in love with him—he was a handsome
fellow—indeed, he was. They eloped and were married. The parents—mighty
stuck-up folks they was—was furious and put a curse on their daughter.”
“Ah, my dear lady, that only happens in old-fashioned novels: parents
cursing their children.”
“I don’t know nothing about these things, but this much I know, they
wouldn’t have anything more to do with her; never gave her no money,
sent back all her letters, and the dainty young lady, who all her life
had ridden in kerridges and had her pony and ate nothin’ but cakes and
ice cream, and al’ays had noblemen dancing attendance on her,—for she
was heiress to a great estate and was as pretty as a picture,—just like
her daughter, so folks says,—well, she couldn’t stand poverty and living
among common people, and so she just up and died when her little girl
was only five years old.”
The stranger arose. “I thank you; I have all the information I wish.”
Franka climbed the stairs up to her rooms, which were situated on the
fourth story. Painfully, clinging to the banister, often pausing to get
her breath, which always seemed to die away in a trembling sigh, she
made her way up. The deepest sigh she drew as she opened the door and
entered the anteroom. The anteroom? Really the kitchen; but the kitchen
hearth was hidden by a screen. The place was rather dark and chilly. It
was April, and the weather was still pretty cold.
Franka passed through this place and pushed open the door of a front
room: her bedroom. Here it was brighter and more comfortable. The
furnishings were to the last degree simple, not to say shabby, and yet a
certain something in the arrangement of the furniture, in the articles
and trinkets disposed on the tables and the walls, betrayed a taste for
elegance.
She laid aside her hat and cloak and opened the door into the adjacent
room, which had served her and her departed father as sitting-room and
dining-room, as study- and music-room. The door leading into still
another contiguous chamber was closed. That was the room where Garlett
had slept and dressed, and where he had died. Franka glanced into it—as
she always did when she returned, as if to give a mute greeting to the
place where she had last seen the beloved form of the departed, cold in
death; then she softly closed the door again with a reverent gesture,
crossed the sitting-room, and stretched herself out on the sofa with a
long-drawn sigh—half lamentation, half ease.
She was so weary, so weary in body and soul at this moment, that the
goad of her grief began to vanish from her consciousness, and she
experienced only a kind of over-saturation of pain and a keen sense of
yearning for rest. She drew over her chilly limbs the skin rug that lay
on the sofa and banished all thought and feeling; she wished only to
breathe and rest.
She was not sleepy; her eyes remained wide open, and she saw the rows of
books which on the opposite wall reached from the floor to the ceiling.
She saw her piano which had been silent and neglected for weeks. She saw
her writing-desk which stood by the window, and the great center-table
heaped with many folios. Gradually it began to grow darker, and through
the window panes fell the glare from a row of brightly lighted windows
of the house opposite. Up there was a printing establishment. The
muffled rumble of the rotary presses also came to her ears. From the
apartment on the floor below penetrated the staccato strumming of a too
familiar opera-waltz—repeated with obstinate pertinacity—detestable
sounds! Oh, if one could but hear the musical tinkle of a brook or the
call of the cuckoo!
An overmastering love for nature, for its perfumes and voices, for its
green vistas and golden gleams, had ever been one of Franka’s strongest
passions—an unfortunate passion, for the crushing struggle for existence
had enchained father and daughter almost exclusively to the narrow
streets of the suburbs, and very rarely had opportunities been given for
them to get glimpses of the splendors of free nature.
Nevertheless, this young girl’s mental life had not been narrow. She had
ventured to gaze off over wide horizons, up to sublime heights, into
mysterious depths, in a manner seldom afforded to young persons of her
age and sex. Her father had been an investigator, a scientist, a
thinker, and a poet, and he had made the child his comrade. She was no
bluestocking, thank Heaven—from that she was safeguarded by her
temperament, by her inborn charm; besides, he had spared her all the dry
details of science, all the rubbishy accumulations of accuracy,
endeavoring rather to disclose to her only the blossoms of the wonders
of science, of the intellect and of arts. But of life itself she had
enjoyed extraordinarily little: no travel, no experiences, no
love-affairs (she had been far too rigorously and jealously guarded
against anything of that sort), no passions:—none of these things had
penetrated into the monotony and loneliness of her existence. All the
more, therefore, in place of these came visions, hopes, air-castles,
confident expectations that the future concealed in its folds some great
good fortune in store for her, a good fortune in which above all others
her beloved father would share. And instead of this, a great, an
absolutely incomprehensible piece of evil fortune had come upon her: the
sudden departure of her dearest and only friend, teacher, playmate,
protector, her all in all.
In her present desolation the only persons who had interested themselves
in her were an elderly couple who had rooms on the same floor—a retired
major and his wife. When Mr. Garlett died, the major had taken upon
himself to make all the arrangements for the funeral, and the major’s
wife had done her best to comfort and console the despairing girl.
The major had investigated the drawers in the writing-table to see if a
will or anything else were to be found. There was no will, only a
savings-bank book calling for several hundred gulden, and of course the
only daughter inherited this: it was enough to cover the funeral
expenses and to leave a small sum over. In a portfolio was a sealed
letter with the direction, “In case of my death to be mailed.” The
address on it ran:—
_To His Excellency_
_Count Eduard von Sielen_,
_Geheimer Rat, etc._,
_Schloss Sielenburg_,
_Moravia_.
This letter the major registered and mailed without letting Franka know
anything about it, because in these first days she was so dazed that she
really did not hear what was said to her.
It so happened that the major and his wife moved from Vienna to Graz,
and Franka was now really alone. She realized that she was obliged to
devise some means of earning her livelihood, and yet she had been
putting off from day to day the effort of taking the first steps in this
direction. The money in the bank was sufficient to allow her for a short
time to lead her own life. But this respite was, indeed, brief,
especially as the rent would be shortly due.
Franka was not thinking of this at all as she lay there in the twilight
and gave herself up to the sense of restfulness that was coming over
her. Gradually this absence of thought, between sleeping and waking,
transformed itself into a pleasant half-dream. The waltz-rhythms from
the neighbor’s piano grew into a murmurous combination of organ tones
and the distant roaring of the sea; the gleam of light from the
printing-house opposite took on the prismatic colors of an electric
fountain; and through her mind—or was it through her blood?—vividly
flashed the consciousness, not expressed and not even formulated in
thought:—“I am young, I am beautiful, I am alive....”
The next day Franka set out to look for a position. She thought she
might become a companion or a reader or something of that sort. She
applied at several employment bureaus. Her name was registered, the
booking-fee was put into the cash-drawer, and then she was asked for
references. She had none. The woman who had charge of one bureau
remarked: “You have one great fault: you are too young and too pretty.”
The remark was to the point. Although she was more than twenty, Franka
seemed scarcely eighteen. She was very tall and supple in figure; her
big black eyes—though much weeping had temporarily robbed them of their
usual fire—were shaded by beautiful thick lashes; her mouth had a fairly
fascinating loveliness; in her carriage and in every movement there was
something both charming and aristocratic.
“Do you know, miss,” said the manageress, “you would do better to go on
the stage rather than try to find a position.”
Franka shook her head: “For that one needs talent as well as special
training.”
“You might attend a theatrical training-school.”
“I have not the means. Besides, I should not find it congenial.”
“You will find it very hard to get a place in a home ... without
references and so dangerously pretty.... I should hesitate to recommend
you. There is nothing that I know of now to suit you. However, perhaps
something may turn up; if there should, I will communicate with you.”
When Franka got home after this unsuccessful circuit, the maid met her
with the information that a gentleman had been there inquiring after
her. He said he had been acquainted with her late father and that he
would return in an hour.
Shortly after this the doorbell rang and the maid brought her a
visiting-card on which Franka read:—
_Freiherr Ludwig Malhof, k.k. Kämmerer._
She admitted the visitor. At the first glance she recognized in the
person entering the elderly gentleman who had recently followed her from
the cemetery to the house. She had only once, when she reached the door,
turned around to glance at him, but his appearance was too striking not
to make an immediate impression: a figure of more than ordinary height
with broad shoulders and long, sweeping gray side-whiskers.
“Pardon me, Fräulein, for introducing myself, yet I might....”
“You knew my father?” said Franka, interrupting his apology; “will you
not sit down, Baron, and tell me...?”
She herself took a seat and indicated a chair for her visitor. He sat
down and placed his silk hat on the floor. His eyes rested inquisitively
on the lovely maiden’s face.
“In fact,” said he, somewhat hesitatingly, “I am ... I met Mr. Garlett
at a friend’s house where he was giving lessons.” His glance wandered to
the opposite wall on which hung a portrait.
“Is that your picture?—A wonderful likeness.”
“That is my mother’s portrait.”
“Ah! such a resemblance!... And have you lost your mother also? So you
are absolutely an orphan, quite alone?”
“Quite alone.”
“But you have some relatives?”
Franka shook her head.
“Then you have some protector? Perhaps a sweetheart?”
“No, no one.”
“It does not seem possible that when one is so beautiful, there has not
been some love-affair....”
A shade of annoyance flew over Franka’s face: “Sir, you desired to speak
to me of my father....”
“Exactly so, your father ... but, my dear child, let us rather speak of
yourself.” In the man’s eyes flashed a look of lustful eagerness. He
quickly dropped them, but Franka had seen it. “Yes, of you,” he
continued; “your fate is worthy of all sympathy. Mr. Garlett cannot have
left much property.... Your future is so uncertain.... You are exposed
to all sorts of dangers.... You need a friend”—he stretched out his
hand—“you need a fatherly friend—let me take your little white hand....”
At the same time his voice began to tremble with ill-restrained
tenderness.
Franka stood up, and withdrew her hand which the other had seized. She
surveyed him with haughty eyes. “Among the dangers of which you speak
certainly belongs that of an absolutely strange man penetrating to my
lodgings and offering me his friendship.”
The amorous cavalier realized that he had gone too far. “This energetic
sally on your part shows me, my dear Miss Garlett, that you know how to
protect yourself from certain dangers. You are a very sensible young
woman.” He also had stood up, and had taken possession of his hat. “I
shall turn this reasonableness to account. You will hear from me
again.... I will leave you now; yet I beg of you to be convinced that I
wish you everything good.”
A stiff bow and he went out without Franka’s making any attempt to
retain him.
When she was left alone, she breathed a sigh of relief. Still a shadow
of doubt came over her, whether she had done wrong in offending a
possibly harmless man who wanted to befriend her, whether he had really
known her father, and for that reason had followed her from the
cemetery.... Yet, no, her feminine instinct had detected the lustful
look which had betrayed its forked flame in the eyes and the honeyed
smiles of the elegant old gentleman.
Alas, to be alone and without means in this world, and obliged to defend
herself against such attacks!—Nowhere an arm to protect her, nowhere a
heart to which she might fly for refuge.... And now, what? Supposing she
should find no situation? And even if she did, would she not be still
just as lonely, just as deserted among strangers?
“Oh, father, father,” she cried aloud; “my noble, my youthful-hearted
father, why did you have to die?—Die without accomplishing the high
tasks which lay before you!...”
Whether Garlett would have ever accomplished the tasks to which his
daughter made reference is very doubtful. There had been literary plans
which he had long had in mind, but he had never brought any of them to
fulfillment. Was it from lack of time—for when one must give private
instructions to earn one’s bread and butter, there is little leisure for
writing books—or was it from lack of energy? He had never got beyond
projects, sketches, introductions. But in Franka’s eyes he always was to
be the greatest author of his age. His masterpiece was there—it lay
complete in his brain and required only to be written out.
In their readings and their studies together, it had often happened that
he would pause and develop some idea associated with what they had been
perusing, or would utter some deep remark, and add: “I will write a book
about that.” Themes for essays were on hand in abundance, and Franka had
made a collection of such utterances which she had jotted down in a
book. She had turned over these pages every day since her father’s
death—to her this seemed like a continued spiritual communication with
him. Now, after her unexpected caller had taken his departure, and
feeling doubly unhappy under the bitter impression that he had made upon
her, she went once more to the cupboard where those papers were kept, in
order to obtain from them diversion and edification.
She would soon be obliged to part with the books and all her household
goods, for if she were burdened with a library and furniture she could
not enter the house of strangers, but this beloved volume she would keep
forever and in all situations of life. From it the very voice of the
beloved father would speak; from it would flash up in her mind those
momentary pictures, which often a sentence or a word—just as a
stereopticon throws them on a screen—can waken out of the depths of
memory.
The leaf which she first took up contained only brief notes in Garlett’s
handwriting. Were they thoughts of his own, were they citations?
Probably both mingled together. Franka read:—
The aim of men’s active organization
Is the getting out of the World all the good it will yield,
Whether it be the domain of the Mind’s creation,
Whether it be the crop of the well-eared field.
None of the fixed stars is nearer to us than four millions of millions
of miles.... And we call that speck Austria—a great country!
Moral progress finally consists in the increase of the horror felt
against the infliction of pain.
Over abysses of night the eye of the Spirit can wander,
There to behold the gleaming of yet uncreated light.
Nothing great can ever be accomplished without inspiration.
Where to-day the vanguard camps, there to-morrow the rearmost rests.
“Of all good works, the long list through,
Which is the best for us to do?
When his disciples of the Prophet
Asked this, what think you he made of it?
No good work with another can interfere:
Do each in its right time: that is clear.”
O Napoleon, standing on the Vendôme column, if the blood that thou
hast caused to be shed, were collected here on this place, easily
mightest thou drink of it, not stooping.
A few days later a packet was left at Franka’s door; she herself took it
in. When she saw the postman, she hoped that he was bringing her a
notification from the employment bureau that a place had been found for
her. What would she do if her small store of money should come to an end
before she had found any situation? There were still left the furniture
and the books, but what they would bring would be small and soon
exhausted. She had already made inquiries of second-hand dealers and
antiquaries: these had come and looked at her possessions and offered
for the “whole business” a ridiculously small price....
She opened the package: a jewel-case and a letter were inclosed in it.
The case contained a pair of diamond studs. The letter read as follows:—
DEAR FRAÜLEIN,—
I promised that I would appeal to your reason. This is what I am
doing, and I picture to myself a sensible, a very sensible young lady
as reading these lines. I shall talk very frankly with you. You must
also be perfectly frank, not only with me, but also with yourself,
putting on no mask, affecting no pose—least of all those of virtue,
such as belong only to the heroines of Gartenlaube novels. Real life
must be taken and lived in another way, if one is reasonable, and that
you are, my lovely Franka!
Now, listen: I have fallen violently in love with you. I saw you in
the street and followed you. I made inquiries about you and your
circumstances. I know the whole story; you are without family and
without means, and are on the very threshold of bitter poverty. I also
know that you are endeavoring to find a paying situation, for I
followed you when you went to the employment office.
Tell me, really, would you, with your striking beauty, take up with a
wage employment, be a dependent? Now there is one thing that I might
have done: I might have tried little by little to sneak into your good
graces and then ... but it goes against my grain to play the elderly
Don Juan. I am aware that I no longer have the appearance to warrant
my attempting to win young maidens’ hearts; but I can make a
reasonable maiden happy: that is, I can offer her a care-free life, a
life full of enjoyments. Only, there is to be no misunderstanding:
this is not an offer of marriage. I am a confirmed old bachelor and I
propose to remain one. What I offer you is better than the fortune of
being the wife of an unloved and jealous old husband, for if you
wished to deceive him it would entail great worry in hiding it and it
might cause a damaged reputation besides.
I offer you freedom,—perfect liberty,—the unobtrusive society of a
lively man, not without wit, who will, as they say, “look after you”
as long as you will permit him to do so. First and foremost he offers
you luxury. Listen: luxury. That means the essential element of
beauty, the only atmosphere for a creature like you. A splendid villa
in the cottage-quarter, servants, a carriage of your own, gowns,
jewelry: everything of this sort I lay at your feet. This does not
imply a retired and restricted life—not at all: in your salon we shall
receive my friends and their lady friends,—artists and writers and
interesting foreigners: it shall be a real salon where everything
sparkles with intellect, music, and gayety; also theaters and concerts
to your heart’s desire. And in summer: journeys, trips to the
seashore, the mountains....
As you see, Franka, child, a horn of plenty filled with delights is
going to be poured out for you. Only do not be a narrow-minded
Philistine; only no “principles” and moral commandments after the type
of ancient almanac stories or complimentary gift literature for girls
of riper age. Life, my dear young lady, is entirely different from the
stale moralities that find their expression in the samplers of old
maids and that are honored in the tea-table chatter of suburban
aunties, as they turn up their eyes in holy horror!—Life wants to be
boldly grasped, to be conquered with joyous pride; above all, to be
enjoyed.
Such an opportunity is not offered to many of your sex; how many, in
spite of youth and beauty, must, if they are poor, waste their lives
in degrading, wearisome, laborious occupations, struggling with all
sorts of privations, only at last to take up with some rough husband
who will make her wretched—unless, indeed, the terrible, abominable
fate overtakes her, of which possibly you know nothing, of becoming a
victim of the international white-slave traffic which not infrequently
makes use of intelligence offices....
Was it not your good genius, your guardian angel, that has so disposed
matters that an elderly man, heart-free and wise in experience, has
crossed your path, has fallen in love first with your pretty face,
then with your whole admirable personality, that this man has no other
obligation than the disposition of a very large estate, and that he in
fond expectation of your summons signs himself
Your humble Slave?
MALHOF.
After Franka had finished reading this letter, she tore it into tiny
bits, and, laying them on the pale-yellow velvet of the jewel-case next
the glittering stones, made the whole into a package, which she
carefully tied up and sealed; and, after addressing it to Baron Ludwig
Malhof, hastened to mail it at the nearest post-office station without
taking a moment’s time for consideration. She felt a keen satisfaction
in flinging the gift and the letter down at the feet of her insulter. On
receiving them back, he would redden with shame as if he had been struck
by the riding-whip of an angry queen.
Or would he not rather laugh at her for her “virtuous pose,” for her
“moral Philistinism”? Franka was conscious that it was not a
conventional “virtue” which had stimulated her impulsive action, but a
mixture of one tenth sense of honor and nine tenths aversion.... She was
not quite ignorant as regards the mysteries of love, although she had so
far had no love-affairs. Her father had delicately initiated her,
through studies of plants and animals, into the secrets of the
transmission of life, and her comprehensive reading, begun when she was
a little child,—the poets, somewhat later the German, French, and
English novelists,—had given her an insight into the whole world of
passion,—into the tragedies and joys, the sorrows and dreams, of love;
also into the crimes and baseness, the ardent happiness and the depths
of despair, which are found in the domain of sex, and, on the whole, she
had a boundlessly high ideal of love. Perhaps for the very reason that
hitherto she had found no one to inspire this feeling in her soul,
because no little adventures and gleams of romance had disillusioned
her, her ideas and presentiments, if by chance they swept into this
domain, were so high-strung.
A love union and paradise were to her two similar conceptions. A pure
fountain of devoted tenderness and a glowing hearth of passionate
yearnings were concealed in her inmost being, still panoplied round with
virgin austerity, with a delicate, flower-like terror of any impure
touch. If ever she bestowed the treasure of her love, it would be for
the recipient and for herself a sacred moment of the loftiest bliss.
And the idea of her throwing herself away for money, for clothes, for
precious stones,—and instead of highest rapture to feel only deepest
repulsion,—to endure the embraces of that old satyr, the kisses of a
shriveled, detestable mouth.... No! Sooner die! And should Fate never
offer her the possibility of giving that treasure to one truly beloved,
then were it better sunk in the depths of the sea! That hateful creature
had written something about a horn of plenty filled with joys—yes, she
possessed such a one to pour out upon the dear life that would be united
with hers.... No; that should not be wasted and shattered!
The next day, as Baron Malhof was preparing to go and get his answer
from the young girl, an answer which he did not doubt would be
favorable, though perhaps awkwardly expressed, he was interrupted in the
midst of his fastidious toilet by the arrival of the package. After he
had opened it, he hissed out two words which expressed his whole sense
of disgust:—“Stupid goose!”
Several weeks elapsed, and still no situation offered. Now Franka was
constrained to sell her books in order to exist for a time—and what an
existence! She was standing in front of the bookcase, selecting the
volumes which for the time being she still felt unable to part with; she
intended to lay these aside so that the second-hand dealer whom she had
summoned might not see them.
Tears stood in her eyes, for to her it was a great and painful
sacrifice. She would have preferred to keep them all, for almost every
one of those volumes was associated in her memory with joyous,
soul-stimulating hours—all of Goethe, all of Shakespeare, Byron, Victor
Hugo, and other classics of universal literature. They must all go—these
good spirits which had with their magical pictures glorified so many
winter evenings for the two solitaries! Also, away with the thick-bodied
works of the philosophers, from Aristotle to Schopenhauer; away with the
works of history and the encyclopædias; away with the whole rows of
modern fiction.
Only a shelf-full of scientific books by contemporaneous
authors,—scientists, thinkers, and stylists at the same time,—Bölsche,
Bruno Wille, Herbert Spencer, Emerson, Anatole France, Haeckel, Ernst
Mach, Friedrich Jodl, and a few others,—these she would keep and take
with her and plunge into again in order to get edification from the
remembrance of the unforgettable words which her father had spoken to
her when they were reading them together.
“Child, these are revelations! What the human mind—which is certainly a
part of God—has gradually glimpsed at and recognized—is the disclosure
of the Highest, and therefore is what men call Revelation. In
astonishment and awe we are learning things of which our fathers and the
majority of our contemporaries had no suspicion. We are penetrating into
mysteries which bring before our eyes the grandeur of the universe and
its infinities and which still remain mysteries—for our consciousness
only perceives but does not comprehend them. We are standing on the
threshold of perfectly new apperceptions, and so at the threshold of a
wholly new epoch: fortunate are we who are to live in this twentieth
century. It is the cradle of some new-born thing destined to the most
glorious development. What will it be called? No one as yet knows; only
posterity will find a name for it.
“Child, approach these revelations with a religious mind. You know what
I call ‘religious’: to have the sense of reverence, to know that there
are sublime things as yet unknown; to wish to be worthy of the greatness
and the goodness that everywhere prevails and therefore to be good one’s
self. Now, perhaps you may ask what I mean by ‘good’? There is no end in
the chain of definitions;—do not always try to explain, but rather to
feel, and then you have the right thing....”
In many of the books which Franka was now glancing over were places
marked by her father’s marginal notes; some of them, made with pencil,
were so pale that they were scarcely legible. Franka got a pen and ink
and retraced the lines. While she was engaged in this work, she was
interrupted by the entrance of the maid:—
“Excuse me, miss, there is a gentleman outside as wishes to speak to
you.”
“Oh, yes, I was expecting him; please show him in.”
A comfortable-looking, well-dressed man of middle age entered. He bowed
politely.
“Miss Garlett? I take the liberty ...”
“You have come to see about the books?”
“What books?”
“Were you not sent by the dealer?”
“No, miss. I take the liberty of introducing myself: Attorney Dr.
Fixstern. It concerns a matter which is of the highest importance for
you.”
“Oh, in regard to a situation—?”
A suspicion crossed her mind. She remembered what Baron Malhof had
written her regarding the traps that sometimes are laid in the offers of
employment bureaus. She would be on her guard.
“No, not at all; something quite different. Will you permit me to sit
down—as the interview may be somewhat protracted?” And he drew a chair
up to the table.
“Please, I am listening; but I have not very much time....” And she
herself sat down at some little distance.
“Oh, you will give me all the time I want! What I have to say to you is
too agreeable for you to wish to break off my communication, my dear
very much honored Miss Franka Garlett. That is your name, is it not?”
“Yes, that is my name,” she answered coldly.
“Daughter of the late Professor Garlett, and likewise of his late lawful
wife, Ida Garlett, born Countess Sielen of Sielenburg?”
“My father and I were not accustomed ever to mention that title.”
“Your father was very democratic in his notions, was he not? But to the
business in hand: I am the attorney of His Excellency the old Count
Sielen, and I have come here at his request.”
Franka listened in the greatest agitation; this did not sound like an
offer of a situation and was, indeed, surprising.
Dr. Fixstern took out of his breast-pocket an envelope and laid it down
before him on the table. Then he went on to say:—
“Your grandfather, miss, a short time after his return from Egypt, where
he had been sojourning on account of his health, found waiting for him a
letter from Mr. Garlett. I have it here. Perhaps you are familiar with
its contents?... No?... Then, will you please read it?”
With a throbbing heart Franka took the letter and unfolded it. The
beloved handwriting! It was like a greeting from beyond the grave. She
read:—
TO THE COUNT OF SIELEN:—
For almost a generation I have been to you like one vanished. Never
have I attempted to approach you. As it were, an abyss lay between
us—we had both inflicted the utmost pain on the other: you, by your
harsh repudiation of my beloved wife, who died in consequence of it—I
to you, by robbing you of your daughter. As long as we lived we could
not pardon each other.
But in the presence of death, all resentment, pride, and everything of
the sort which are the bitter prerogatives of the living, disappear.
This letter comes into your hands only in case death has stricken me
before my Franka is provided for; such is the name of my daughter,
your grandchild. Orphaned, left without a farthing, she might be
exposed to the deepest poverty and the greatest dangers. This thought
is my sorrow and my torment. The maiden is sweet and good and highly
educated, and—as you cannot read coldly—she has grown up to be the
image of her mother—feature for feature. Graf Sielen, I beg of you:
look after the young girl. Do not let her suffer want or ruin.
The signature, with date and address, followed. Having read it through,
Franka gazed at the sheet for a long time.
Dr. Fixstern awakened her out of her thoughts:—
“Would you like to know, miss, how His Excellency responds to this
letter of your father—a letter which, it must be said, is very effective
by reason of its brevity?”
A warm stream of joy expanded Franka’s heart. The lawyer had already
informed her that he had pleasant news for her: so it was clear that her
grandfather was going to look after her: there would be some one to love
her again....
“Well, Doctor,” she asked, with eagerness, “what message do you bring
me?”
“A pleasant one, my dear miss. The count has instituted inquiries about
you, has had you carefully watched of late, and has now decided to
invite you to come to Sielenburg. He will provide for your future. He
himself would have come to Vienna to fetch you, but illness confines him
to his room—the old gentleman is now more than seventy—Egypt seems not
to have done him any good. Now I am commissioned, in the first place, to
make this disclosure to you, and, in the second place, to hand you these
lines.”
He took a second sheet out of the envelope and handed it to Franka, who
read as follows:—
SIELENBURG, May 20, 1909.
DEAR GRANDDAUGHTER:—
I invite you to make your home with me. The bearer, my attorney, will
provide whatever is necessary and will accompany you hither. God bless
you.
COUNT EDUARD SIELEN.
“In the third place,” proceeded Dr. Fixstern, “I am to hand you a small
sum of money,” and suiting the action to the word he laid on the table a
bundle of bank-notes—there were ten one-hundred-kronen bills,—“and, in
the fourth place, to consult with you regarding the prospective journey
to Moravia. You probably require some little preparation and in this my
wife may be able to help you.... Now, my dear miss, have you a little
more time to spare for me?”
Franka offered him her hand. She could not immediately find words—it was
like a dream, like a fairy-tale. A home! So suddenly to be rescued from
all her tribulation and all her desolation—a home!