DREAMS OF LOVE
“Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie, toi qui vis sans amour?”
The text of this song haunted Franka’s memory. She was reclining on the
couch in her little salon, her arms crossed behind her head, her eyes
closed.
The red silk shades at the windows were drawn and a ruddy twilight
permeated the room. All the salons in the suites put at the disposal of
Mr. Toker’s guests had red hangings and white walls. The chairs and
sofas were rose-colored. The carpets showed red roses on a white ground.
The sleeping-rooms were also upholstered in these two colors, and the
bathrooms attached to each apartment were fitted with rose-marble. Toker
did not want his guests to be for a single minute free from the spell of
roses. Even the water, as it flowed through the faucets at the
washstands, was perfumed with roses, and rose-scented soap was provided.
The chandeliers were of pale-rose glass and a rose-colored shade
protected every electric lamp.
Frau Eleonore was sitting at the writing-table of the little salon and
was writing picture-postcards for the whole circle of her acquaintance.
Now and then she interrupted this occupation and glanced over at Franka.
“There, you have been lying for almost an hour perfectly motionless, my
dear; were you asleep?”
“No, only thinking.”
“Were you meditating on your coming address?”
“No, I am thinking—for a wonder—of myself. I am putting Franka Garlett
timid questions and she is answering them hesitatingly.”
“Might one know what the subject of this interesting inquisition is?”
“It is too vague to be expressed in words.”
“Yet I think I can imagine: the first question put by the inquisitor to
the victim runs: ‘Confess! how did yesterday’s prince please you?’”
“You think so, do you?” She shook her head, laughing; “you are on the
wrong track.”
“Indeed! Then, perhaps....”
“Please do not _you_ take upon yourself the office of investigator....
Instead, please go on writing your ‘cordial greetings from Lucerne’ and
let me think for a while longer.”
“Very well; I must post a dozen or more cards before the mail is
collected.”
Franka again took up the thread of her thoughts as before.... “_Toi qui
vis sans amour._” ... Now for the first time, called up by Frau
Eleonore’s jesting words, arose Victor Adolph’s picture before her. She
had certainly not been thinking of him before. Only of love in general:
not even of that—rather of the sense of troublous unsatisfying yearning
which occasionally took possession of her and caused her pain—a feeling
of emptiness, of melancholy ... and as if to give some explanation for
it, she had been repeating to herself the words of that French song.
Was it possible that her life’s failure consisted in the fact that it
was without love? She had given herself with zeal and enthusiasm to a
great idea, to a great object, and had relentlessly waved aside
everything else. She had accomplished her lofty task and her success had
brought her great satisfaction. She had made known perfectly new
theories regarding the rights and duties of women and had been able to
impose them on others. So successful had her work been that she had won
a reputation confirmed by her enrollment in the Order of the Knights of
the Roses, and yet ... and yet ... there was this yearning.... What for?
If it were for love, how came it that no one of those who had come into
her vicinity had awakened that passion in her heart? Not one had
attracted her, or even for a moment put her senses into a tumult. Though
often, whether in a dream or in a book she was reading, the glamour of
artistic impressions or of mild spring nights, a sudden glow swept
through her veins, oppressing her, it was never associated with the
image of any special man. And if an impulse swelled her heart toward
tenderness,—not toward passionate bliss, but toward a sincere, gentle
tenderness,—then she had no idea whom she should bless with it.
No, she had not been thinking of the prince; she was trying to formulate
another recollection of the evening before: that moment, when in her
terror at a vision in the firmament, she had rested her hand on Helmer’s
arm ... and the feeling of calmness, of refuge, of sweet security, which
had come over her. Once again, now that the interruption caused by Frau
Eleonore was past, she closed her eyes and tried to recall her former
sensation: she succeeded in doing so: the sense of refuge and security
was there once more, and sweetly rang the words: “A warm house and a
loving heart in it”....
“Dear heart,” she murmured.
Frau Eleonore stood up: “What did you say? Do you wish anything?”
At the same instant a groom entered and brought a great gilded basket
filled with Parma violets. A visiting-card lay in it: Prince Victor
Adolph von X——.
When Helmer took his departure, Bruning also bade good-bye to the little
luncheon coterie with the intention of accompanying his friend.
“You still owe me a call,” said he; “won’t you come up to my room for a
little while? No? Then let me go a part of the way with you. How did you
like the two ladies? Shall I tell you something about them?”
“I’d rather hear about the Italian Minister—the man interests me.”
“I can believe it. There is no one in all Europe more interesting at the
present time. He is of the clay from which the Cavours, the Talleyrands,
the Bismarcks, and the Chamberlains are made. One who can talk fluently
of future events, of fermentations and collisions, because he himself is
one who causes events to come, who ferments and collides.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“You swear by that school which does not believe in the power of
individuals to influence the history of nations? It is your idea, that
the nameless masses, that all-powerful Necessity, and the like,
condition the course of history....”
“There you are again with your ‘history.’ If you mean by it the changes
that result from universal conditions, then, certainly, the laws of
nature and the nameless masses, unconsciously obeying them, form the
motive power; but if it concerns the events that are brought about by
the intrigues of diplomats and despots and the newspapers that are
subservient to them, then I grant that this kind of history is made by
ambitious and unscrupulous individuals.”
“Well, then, if that is understood, my Romeo Rinotti is just a
history-maker. ‘Unscrupulousness’ is his fetish ... in fact, it _is_ the
reasonable basis of all real politics. Rinotti is not as yet at the
helm, else a portentous chapter in the history of our century would have
been written long ago; but he will yet come to the helm, and then ...
well, he makes no secret of the lofty aims which he has conceived for
the grandeur and glory of his country. Whether he will attain them is,
indeed, another question; I have _my_ doubts; for fortunately we in
Austria, we also have resolute men in leading positions ... a fine,
proud imperialism has flowered since Aehrenthal’s great stroke of
genius; and our military strength, as well as that of our allies, is to
be reckoned with.... Our fleet of airships also makes a good showing. So
Rinotti’s bold plans will scarcely be fulfilled, in spite of all Slavic
assistance ... but whatever the consequences may be, the impulse will
suffice, as I said, to produce a mighty chapter in history. I must say,
although the man is really our enemy, he inspires me with respect,
because of his powerful will: universal history needs such chaps. At the
same time, he is a fascinating man.... The women are all crazy over
him ... that Baltic woman, for example.... Did you notice how her eyes
were riveted on him? If the Countess Solnikova has not fallen under his
spell, it is only thanks to her fancy for your composer.... But here I
am chattering away and you do not say a word ... apparently you are up
in the clouds again, your favorite habitation, and probably have not
been listening to what I said.”
“On the contrary, I have been listening with all attention. What you
tell me of Rinotti interests me immensely. It proves clearly, once more,
how our official world is still entangled in the ancient concepts and
methods, how men cannot see what the needs of the age are. They do not
suspect that the epoch of cabinet intrigues is just as obsolete, though
not so far removed from us, as the Tertiary or the Miocene period. Or
are we really still in the very midst of it? Am I the one who does not
see the actuality, because my eyes are fixed too eagerly on the future,
just as the eyes of the Rinottis and their admirers are directed toward
the past? However, I am very grateful to you, for what you have told me
shows how imperative the work is which must be the outcome of the
Rose-Week.”
“You incorrigible visionary! Do you really imagine that Toker, Helmer,
and Company are going to lift the world out of its hinges? I have
permitted myself to compare the undertaking of this worthy firm to
Hagenbeck; I might have said that it is a great cosmopolitan
variety-show ... well, I am curious; especially for your number on the
programme:—‘Mr. Chlodwig Helmer, prestidigitator on the poets’ ladder.’
But here we are at your lodgings—I will leave you. No offense, I
hope....”
Helmer shrugged his shoulders: “I know you of old, and if I am inwardly
annoyed at your cynicism, I don’t lay it up against you.”
“And I likewise pardon you for calling my modicum of common sense and
mother wit cynicism. Such a long-established comradeship isn’t going to
be broken up by such quizzing. The earth would be boresome if it
contained nothing but mere practical people—a few dreamers must be
allowed to practice their somnambulism. _Servus_, old fellow.”
Bruning said good-bye at the entrance door of the Rose-Palace; Helmer,
however, did not go in, but walked off in another direction. The
conversation with his boyhood friend had given a serious trend to his
thoughts, and he was not inclined at the moment to meet any of Mr.
Toker’s guests and converse with them. He preferred a solitary walk.
He knew a path which led from the shore of the lake to a distant grove
where it was very silent and pleasant: thither he directed his steps. He
had often in his life found that when he was vexed with men—either with
individual men or with human society at large—he was immediately
pacified by taking refuge with Nature. To him Nature, the mother of all
creatures—Nature, the generous, the life-abounding, the sublime, the
unfathomable, the inexorable keeper of her own mysteries, the never
disobedient servant of her own laws, the spendthrift and miser of her
own treasures—to him Nature was not some thing, but some one. A some one
whom he loved with awe and whose magical gifts he accepted as the token
of some measure of reciprocal love.
He strolled for some distance along the shore of the lake; boats large
and small were darting across its mirror-like surface. Snow-capped
mountains arose in the background. Helmer appreciated the imposing
beauty of the whole landscape; but what he wanted to find was a retired,
circumscribed spot without a broad outlook, without the effect of
theatrical decorations or panoramic views, a little place, where he
might be alone with a few trees and a few wild flowers. So he turned
aside into a narrow path between two wooded hills, and after a short
walk entered the dark, cool corner which he was looking for. There
nothing was to be seen worthy of being called “a splendid region” or of
being remarked as bearing a characteristic Swiss flavor; the little
assemblage of firs and birches, of oaks and beeches, of stunted bushes,
of mossy stones, and tall grasses might have been duplicated in any
other place in Europe. The sunlight danced in the lightly waving foliage
and a delicious perfume of gum and strawberries filled the air. Blue and
yellow and rose-colored flowers were blooming all about, wooed by
fluttering white butterflies. Then there was a dreamily monotonous music
of humming bees, chirping crickets, and murmuring brooks, now and then
interrupted by the clear call of the blackbird.
Helmer flung himself down in the grass at the foot of a leafy beech tree
and—breathed. Really he did nothing else—without thoughts, without
recollections, he lay there awhile and merely breathed. Long, joyous
inhalations, just like all the plant brethren around him, the life of
which is scornfully called “vegetating,” although it is perhaps the
purest form of the joy of existence. He contemplated a tiny beetle which
was climbing laboriously up a swaying blade of grass, and in doing so
lost its balance. A pair of very industrious ants, laden with
building-materials, hastened by. A little green worm wriggled
circumspectly, and as it drew its tail up to its head it made an arch,
then stretched itself out again in order to make another—a complicated
method of locomotion.
Helmer followed with friendly eyes all these movements which seem so
important to those who make them. Also a beautiful gift of Nature, he
said to himself, this consciousness of importance which is common to the
most insignificant little creature, and which confers upon it a sort of
dignity. And thus he began once more to take up the thread of thought.
And the things also which he wanted to escape from began once more to
recur in his mind: all the scornful, stupid, harmful conversation of all
those people whose judgments and behavior lay so far removed from the
realm toward which his poetic activities and yearning ran. In the circle
of the Knighthood of the Rose, to be sure, he had found kindred spirits,
all working like himself to prepare the coming kingdom; but there were
only two or three dozen of them, and the others were millions, and among
them the very ones that had the most power and influence, rank and
station ... they form the great public and we ... we are a number or two
in a variety-show.
He shook his head. No, that is not true. We also have millions behind
us—dumb, yearning millions, who are only waiting for the liberating act.
The liberating act, however, must be forestalled by the liberating
word ... so let us first say just what we have to say.
He passed in review the scheme of his poem. Did it express everything
that in hours of inspiration swept before his mind? Alas, no! Far, far
from it—there still remained much work for him to do. The problems, the
subjects crowded in upon him—every day with its new experiences brought
new ideas. Especially this last week, by contact with the great artists
and thinkers, who surpassed him in so many ways, so many new horizons
had opened before him. It was, indeed, a marvelous company. Franka must
assuredly be grateful to him that she had been invited to be present,
for he had suggested to her the career which she had so brilliantly
followed. Franka ... his thoughts dwelt longer at this name, at the
picture which it called up. How confidingly, how beseechingly, as if
asking his aid, she had clung to him.... It made his heart glow. He was
not thinking now of her genius, of her beauty, but rather of that
helplessness ... oh, if he could only hold her in his arms to protect
her and to comfort her.... Pshaw, what nonsense! she needed no
protection; she was a wealthy, influential lady, with everything at her
command. Yesterday, after that brief minute on the terrace, she went
into the salon and was instantly surrounded; that prince had paid her
his homage most openly. And such a handsome, seductive man that Victor
Adolph.... If she, the proud beauty, wanted to have a love-affair, what
more did she need to do than make a sign in order to have her pick among
the highest, the most distinguished?... “Can it be that I am jealous?...
No, thank God, I am not in love with her; one does not covet the stars.
I will even advise her now to think of her own happiness. It was my
fault to a certain degree that she, so Joan-of-Arc-like, shut her heart
up in an iron breastplate. I gave her that counsel, that terrible
counsel....”