“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.”