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....”