“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.