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