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