WHEN THOUGHTS WILL SOAR A Romance of the Immediate Future

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 4dispatches 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.

5When 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 7merely 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 8day 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 9pony 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, 10as 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 11with 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

12future 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:—

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.

13It 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 14remarked: “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:—

15She 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?”

16“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.”