Franka again took up the thread of her thoughts as before.... “Toi qui vis sans amour.” ... Now for the first time, called up by Frau Eleonore’s jesting words, arose Victor Adolph’s picture before her. She had certainly not been thinking of him before. Only of love in general: not even of that—rather of the sense of troublous unsatisfying yearning which occasionally took possession of her and caused her pain—a feeling of emptiness, of melancholy ... and as if to give some explanation for it, she had been repeating to herself the words of that French song.
Was it possible that her life’s failure consisted in the fact that it was without love? She had given herself with zeal and enthusiasm to a great idea, to a great object, and had relentlessly waved aside everything else. She had accomplished her lofty task and her success had brought her great satisfaction. She had made known perfectly new theories regarding the rights and duties of women and had been able to impose them on others. So successful had her work been that she had won a reputation confirmed by her enrollment in the Order of the Knights of the Roses, and yet ... and yet ... there was this yearning.... What for? If it were for love, how came it that no one of those who had come into her vicinity had awakened that passion in her heart? Not one had attracted her, or even for a moment put her senses into a tumult. Though often, whether in a dream or in a book she was reading, the glamour of artistic impressions or of mild spring nights, a sudden glow swept through her veins, oppressing her, it was never associated with the image of any special man. And if an impulse swelled her heart toward tenderness,—not toward passionate bliss, but toward a sincere, gentle tenderness,—then she had no idea whom she should bless with it.
No, she had not been thinking of the prince; she was trying to formulate another recollection of the evening before: that moment, when in her terror at a vision in the firmament, she had rested her hand on Helmer’s arm ... and the feeling of calmness, of refuge, of sweet security, which had come over her. Once again, now that the interruption caused by Frau Eleonore was past, she closed her eyes and tried to recall her former sensation: she succeeded in doing so: the sense of refuge and security was there once more, and sweetly rang the words: “A warm house and a loving heart in it”....
“Dear heart,” she murmured.
Frau Eleonore stood up: “What did you say? Do you wish anything?”
At the same instant a groom entered and brought a great gilded basket filled with Parma violets. A visiting-card lay in it: Prince Victor Adolph von X——.
When Helmer took his departure, Bruning also bade good-bye to the little luncheon coterie with the intention of accompanying his friend.
“You still owe me a call,” said he; “won’t you come up to my room for a little while? No? Then let me go a part of the way with you. How did you like the two ladies? Shall I tell you something about them?”
“I’d rather hear about the Italian Minister—the man interests me.”
“I can believe it. There is no one in all Europe more interesting at the present time. He is of the clay from which the Cavours, the Talleyrands, the Bismarcks, and the Chamberlains are made. One who can talk fluently of future events, of fermentations and collisions, because he himself is one who causes events to come, who ferments and collides.”