Victor Adolph started: “Good Heavens, how can you use such a word—revolt! Your address enchanted me, as your whole being enchants me, but the theme—yes, you are quite right—aroused an instinctive antipathy. And it would have been pleasant to me if you had been willing to explain your meaning, yet this expectation was presumptuous. Do not be angry with me.”
He rose and took his leave. Franka did not attempt to detain him.
CHAPTER XXI
NEW WONDERS
The programme of that evening began with an aviation festival over the lake. A surprise had been prepared: the first trial of a new method of flight. The invention had been worked out and tested privately under John Toker’s patronage; this day it was to be exhibited before the world.
The festival began at six o’clock. The weather was marvelously fine. A cloudless blue sky, the temperature, seasonable for June, was warm, but agreeably moderated by a cool breeze which ruffled the surface of the lake. On the shores a fleet of boats was arrayed with streamers and flowers, and provided with rugs and soft pillows. On the opposite side lay a number of passenger vessels, the decks of which had been hired for spectators. The population of Lucerne stood in dense throngs along the lake. Excitement and anticipation stirred through the crowd. The spectacle of aeroplanes and flying-machines had, indeed, already by this time lost its heart-thrilling fascination. It was no longer as in 1909 and 1910, when the sight of these pioneers of the upper air seemed to take one’s very breath away, when they still seemed to be both dream and miracle. The device had now become extremely common everywhere: in many places airships were making regular trips, aeroplanes had been adopted widely as vehicles of sport and luxury, just as automobiles had several years before, and every nation possessed its little air-fleet. No one longer uttered the exclamation, “Ah!” when a flyer shot up into the air—the marvel had become a commonplace—was simply taken for granted.
But on this occasion, expectation had been once more keyed to the highest pitch. It was known that when Toker promised a surprise, something sensational was going to be produced, something that was not only magnificent and unprecedented, but also of vital significance and calculated to give contemporary society an uplift into new regions.
A programme had been issued for the aviation festival. At six o’clock commencement of evolutions in the air over the lake; at seven o’clock: a surprise announced by three cannon shots.
More than half an hour before the specified hour, the boats, the vessels, the wharves, and also the windows and balconies of the villas and the hotels facing the lake were packed. At the stroke of six, the Toker flotilla of flying-machines ascended and began to perform their evolutions.
“Those aeroplanes are masked and costumed,” cried one of the spectators, and that exactly expressed it. These air-vehicles had the shape of all kinds of historical and imaginary equipages. The primitive type of superposed and juxtaposed frames without sides was no longer affected. The wonderful things swept slowly, one behind the other, at a comparatively low elevation, circling about the lake, as far as it was peopled with spectators.
Now the throng really uttered its “Ah!” for such graceful vessels had never before been seen in the air. Slender ships with inflated sails, Roman chariots, Venetian gondolas, Lohengrin swans, enormous shells glittering in mother-of-pearl and the like, were occupied by aviators, appropriately costumed. The planes and apparatus used for propulsion and steering were concealed with plenty of white and gray material, which looked like clouds, giving a magically picturesque effect. A manufacturer of flying-machines, present among the spectators, shrugged his shoulders and remarked to a bystander: “Child’s play with masquerade!”