“What is your poetry? What are your aspirations?”
Helmer explained. His poetry was not to be understood merely in a figurative sense; he was actually writing poetry! He told of the books which he had already written and those which he had in mind to write. Above all, the great epic “Pinions.” And as he in eloquent, fiery words explained the meaning and purpose of this poem, and recited some of the lines, out of these words a light fell on Franka as to the meaning of the work which lay before her. The conversation lasted nearly two hours. The plan was discussed alternately in its details and then in its great outlines—lines lost in sublime distances, where to-day Franka’s spiritual eyes for the first time penetrated.
It had struck eight o’clock. Helmer was on the point of taking his departure.
“No, no,” cried Franka, “now you must have supper with us—informally—just we three alone. Please, Frau Eleonore, you are sitting near the bell, ring for supper to be served. You poor creature must be all used up by silently listening to all these wonderful things. You need something to strengthen you, and so do we two.”
“Uff!” exclaimed Frau von Rockhaus as she touched the bell, and after she had given the order to the servant, “Supper for three,” she again uttered her “Uff!” adding, it was high time and ten minutes more had turned her crazy.
Franka laughed: “Did you understand what we were talking about?”
“Well, yes, fairly well. Mr. Helmer wants to build a new flying-machine. You are going to fly up into the air, and from up there deliver addresses—and so you need to have lessons in declamation. You will not touch upon the right of ‘Women to vote,’ but you will make the whole sex mobile so that they can carry on their activities somewhere in the upper regions. Then, there is to be a circuit through the German cities—or is it through an epic in ten books?—tending to introduce a new civilization; and the requisites for this simple scheme are as far as I could make out—air-propellers, moral search-lights and a Valkyrie’s horse.”
Chlodwig laughed heartily, so heartily that Franka listened in surprise; she had never heard him laugh so before. It sounded so merry, so boyish, so entirely different from what might have been expected from that serious man who had just been talking with her on the gravest of world-problems—a man whom she had judged, particularly from his behavior on the Sielenburg and from the tone of his letters, and also from the thoughtful expression of his face, to be rather inclined to melancholy.
Now all three were in the most cheerful mood, and during the little supper not a word further was said about the serious plans for the future; the jesting tone that had been hit upon was preserved throughout; several times again, though more quietly, rang out Helmer’s characteristic laugh with its golden ring of genuine merriment, and Franka was filled with a sense of perfect ease and enjoyment, which was doubly agreeable after the preceding strain of intellectual excitement; at the same time she realized that her confidence in her brotherly young friend was growing stronger—only a good, pure-minded man laughs like that.
After ten months of industrious study, Franka felt prepared to begin her career. She had also accepted Chlodwig’s advice to go through all the books of which he had furnished a list; these brought her into touch with the history and present condition of all the great questions stirring the world, and she made him explain to her his standpoint in these matters.