CHAPTER XXVIII
A CORNUCOPIA FULL OF GIFTS
The next to the last evening of this Rose-Week was at hand. The principal speaker was to be that young American, as yet unknown to the great majority, to whom Helmer had referred when he said to the little coterie at the hotel: “I know of things which are in preparation ... there is in our midst an inventor, a conqueror....”
In the hall great excitement reigned. The preliminary exercises, although they were of the highest artistic excellence, had been listened to with but half an ear. Only when the American had taken his place at the reading-desk did the public experience that piquant satisfaction which one expresses in the three words: “Now it is coming!”
Franka did not come down until just before the recess; she took her place in a somewhat remote and dimly lighted corner. But Helmer caught sight of her and hastened to her. She was alone. Frau Eleonore, afflicted with a bad headache, had gone to bed.
Franka offered Helmer her hand: “Thank you for your letter, Brother Chlodwig. Sit down with me.” And she made room for him on the small sofa on which she was seated. “But tell me how you knew that the prince—”
“He himself told me so.”
“That he was betrothed to me?”
“That he had proposed to you ... and now he has been compelled to go away.”
“You know that, too?”
“He told me this in a note. This is really sad for both of you.”
“He will be back again.”
“Back here? But you were intending to return to Austria after the Rose-Week....”
“But he might come to Austria.”
“Of course.”
Both were silent. Helmer himself did not understand how it was possible for him to speak with her so calmly and not to show any sign of the mighty feelings that were tormenting him. However, he had actually become more composed in her presence—such loftiness and purity radiated from her that covetous emotions and jealous ideas were banished from her vicinity. He enveloped her in a gentle, affectionate glance. How beautiful she was in her flowing white robe with the modest bunch of violets at her breast, and the proud string of pearls around her neck! yes, proud and modest she was, and thus she adorned herself.
For a time she met his eyes. There lay in them the same delicate, affectionate caress that she had detected between the lines of his letter. Then she broke the silence.
“I like your fraternal letters. Always, when a fateful hour is striking for me, comes such a letter and brings me comfort, stimulus, warning, or blessing, as it happens. And in such symbolical language: at one time, you hand me shield and spear, and this time it was myrtle and the bridal veil. Yet you did not say that; you carefully avoid such banal figures of speech!”
“Carefully? No: he who is tormented by fear of commonplaces can never be true and simple. Tell me, Franka, also quite truly and simply, how do you feel in view of this turn in your fate?”
Franka deliberated. Then with a deep breath: “How do I feel about it? Truly, that is not so simple to say. Such remarkable experiences have come to me ... in what I have gone through this week: it is not merely one, there are ten emotions. Just as after a convulsion of nature, islands are suddenly surging up, mountains are toppled over, so has my earth-surface been transformed. The Garlett career has been drowned.... Franka’s love-life has come to the surface.”
“Franka’s love-life ...” repeated Helmer slowly and softly.
“But that is not all,” continued Franka; “so much that is new has surged into my spiritual life. My conception of life has altered, has widened; I have seen such magnificent, such tremendous things arise, things still unsuspected by any of us. And in the measure as my conception of life has grown, the little Ego has shrivelled up. And what this poor little Ego can do for the incomprehensible giant ‘world’ seems so insignificant to it that it recalls that, after all, it is a part of the universe, a tiny part endowed with a right to happiness. Every man has two souls in his breast, which take counsel and struggle with each other, and say: ‘I claim my right.’”
“Yes, I understand.... Then the one Franka does what the other wants, and—a third person is blessed.”
The conversation was interrupted: Baron Malhof joined them, and so it became three-cornered. And then the young American began to speak, and all stopped talking and listened.
His first words were:—“I bring gifts!”—then he made a brief pause:—“A cornucopia of gifts: immeasurable riches for you, for all the world!”
Again he paused for a while, and just as he began, so he continued his discourse in paragraphs separated by brief pauses, and the paragraphs marked by concise sentences.
“You who will receive these gifts will not exult like children around a Christmas tree. Children receive what they comprehend, what they have been wanting, what they immediately use. The new things that I bring will be slow in becoming understood: likewise slow in spreading and winning appreciation. Many will indifferently push them aside; many will even resist them. Whatever destroys the beaten track—the customary habits of thought and of action—people avoid. A Japanese proverb says: ‘An evil which has lasted two years becomes a necessity.’
“I bring riches. But our society is schooled to poverty and want; it is built up on these. Especially for the rich, their existence seems indispensable. Performance of the baser necessary functions, stimulus to progress: on this the social usefulness of poverty is founded; opportunity for the preaching of contentment, for the giving of alms, so certain to bring one to heaven—these advantages of poverty are becomingly treasured by the rich. When I tell these rich men that there can be riches for all, this disturbs their circle, and they reply indignantly: ‘Sheer fancy! Utopia! Humbug!’ The poor and wretched are not quite so entranced with the advantages and amenities of poverty which appeal so forcibly to the well-to-do. And whenever they do not belong to the great majority of the dully resigned, they strive to remedy it by planning a new division of the property extant, or a change in the economic system.
“You all know what this attempt is called. But do not be alarmed—I am not going to preach socialism. Division and control of property belong to another field. Here I am speaking of the increase of property: an increase so infinitely great that it leaves no place at all for want.
“Possibly, by application of common sense and justice, it might be feasible, even with the materials in our possession, to banish wretchedness from the world. Whether the existing unreason and injustice would not maintain poverty even when superabundance were obtained—who knows? Certainly not for any length of time.
“More than ten years ago, the tidings of Luther Burbank’s miracles in the cultivation of plants was communicated to the world. This man succeeded in cultivating, on his lonely California farm, varieties of vegetables and fruits of a size never before known, and he managed to rid of its spines a kind of cactus which grows in the most arid sands of the desert and so make it edible for man and beast.
“Does not that sound like a dry botanical fact, interesting only to a few truck-gardeners, but sure to leave the great mass of the people indifferent? The world did remain unmoved: a couple of illustrated articles in family magazines, causing a few readers to shake their heads dubiously,—‘Strawberries as big as a child’s head, stoneless plums, spineless cactuses—remarkable!’—and then it was all forgotten.
“Would you not have thought there would be a cry of jubilation from one end of the world to the other: ‘What—we can compel Nature to new gifts, we can bring forth provender and food in such quantities! We can make the deserts and rocky soil to provide us with such cheap harvests that the evil demons, Hunger and Famine, will be banished forever from the earth!’ No, the readers of the family magazines did not see so far.
“Human art creating species, giant species,—is that a mere trifle? Are we not on the way to becoming gods, when we conquer the mysterious power from which flows new life in new forms?
“But wait! We are still far distant from that. Our moral will still stands much below our physical power. Our colleague, Chlodwig Helmer, has attached this reproach to the conquest of the air, and with equal justice this same reproach can be made to our conquest of the hidden creative forces of the earth. We master the technical, the mechanical, the physical—but where remains the uplift and the depth? Where remains the exultant comprehension of the miracle, where the ecstasy?
“Certainly, those inventions are not passing without any notice. Professionals have busied themselves with them. Capitalists have made use of them; first in small concerns, then gradually in great corporations—but always for the advantage of the exploiters. There are already stretches of the Sahara given over to culture of the Opuntia cactus; there are California vegetable-gardens, raising the giant cabbage, and a lively export trade is carried on with it, made very difficult, however, by the customs restrictions hastily imposed: the poor lands must still be forefended against overabundance—they must never be swamped with cheap foreign products. Divitiae ante portas.... An agrarian ‘Marseillaise’ will soon be sung with a fiscal rattle of drums: ‘Aux tarifs, citoyens!’”
“Oh, dear!” whispered Malhof, who was a warm advocate of protectionism; “the man comes out for free trade. Is that also to be a part of High Thinking?”
Helmer nodded: “Certainly. Freedom belongs to the highest concepts.”
“I also prize freedom, especially in love!” said Malhof; “but in the domain of political economy—”
Franka uttered a warning: “Sh!” She wanted to hear the address.
The speaker went on to say:—
“A strange error has been holding and still largely holds men in its toils: The belief that the good things of this world are to be had in a constant and limited quantity; he who would have anything must take it from some one else; every man can get more only at the expense of some one else who gets less. And thus, all practical self-seeking, all ethical altruism, all political-economical wisdom is confined to the rearrangement, the redivision, the stealing, and the giving away of the whole existent mass. This error in its most primitive form engendered the battle for the fertile soil: every consumer left dead was a gain for the hungry survivors. At the first beginnings, the belief that the good things were limited in quantity was by no means a heresy ... nothing at all was produced. In later times, however, such an increase in the general store of wealth has come about that no one any longer would have needed to starve had not limited exchange, unjust division, and senseless waste assured the continuance of poverty! The worse waste consists in the nations’ spending two thirds of their wealth in making preparations to annihilate the other third.
“O Stupidity, mighty sovereign, thy empire is abysmally deep! We know well that the common possession has greatly increased, but still we say to ourselves: ‘Not enough, not enough!’ And still we think that property is a thing which may be looted and must be defended. And still we believe that any one can win only in proportion as another loses!
“But now something has been brought forth amongst us which certainly is as splendid as the conquest of the air: this which is to be announced now by me—this is the secret concealed in my hand like a costly present, with which I shall give you a great surprise.”
He took a step nearer to the edge of the platform and held out his right hand tightly closed toward the audience. All eyes and all glasses were directed to him, as if they expected to see some kind of a wonder-bird fly from his fist. His face looked also so promising,—there was a victorious smile hovering over his lips. It was a typical American face: smooth-shaven, with firmly chiseled features of Napoleonic cast, clear eyes, and glistening teeth. He opened his hand with a gesture of giving:—
“I bring you the news that we are able to increase and enlarge our common fund—increase it infinitely beyond all our needs, beyond all our powers of imagination. Rejoice, all ye who are here present, and all ye whom in the outside world my words may reach, among whom surely there are many poor and heavy-laden! Rejoice—we are all winners of the great prize! Some time will, indeed, elapse before the prize is paid over, but, all the same, the lucky numbers are drawn!
“Let me explain: Wealth consists not only in sufficient quantities of victuals,—although it would be a fine result if abundance of that should prevail in all places,—but it also consists in a thousand other products of human labor. On the whole, wealth is the product only of labor, not of money. Money is merely a conventional medium of exchange, nothing more. Its value is regulated by the abundance or the scarcity of what is on hand. Where there is no production, and therefore nothing on hand, then even the heaviest gold-piece has no value. Without labor nothing is produced; even the planting and the harvesting and the use of the spineless cactus demand the power of labor; and how much more of it is needed for the creation of a thousand things which beautify and alleviate the lives of the rich—buildings, works of art, means of intercourse, materials, implements, machinery. To have an abundance of all these things, what quantities of work—hence of working power—is needed! Do we possess a sufficiency of that?
“Now, then,”—again he extended his arm and opened his hand as if he were flinging something into the hall,—“now, then, here is another gift: the message of an increase of the universal treasure of working power—an increase beyond all necessities, beyond all our flights of imagination. What we need is a pitcher full, and what will be at our disposal is an ocean!
“This is not the place or the hour to make physical demonstrations in order to prove what I say. You must take my word for it. In a pamphlet, prepared for the occasion and containing all the practical details, you will find the clear technical and mathematical proofs. A copy of this pamphlet will be handed to each one present. Here and now I will only bring the fact to your knowledge that of late a new series of discoveries and inventions have been made. I will tell you of these and of the results which are expected to flow from them. Of some of them I myself have been the fortunate originator, others proceed from others. I shall mention no names, but merely explain the things themselves:—no, not explain,—bring them before you.”
The speaker made a long pause during which the pamphlet, printed in three languages, was distributed. A loud buzz of remarks exchanged, mingled with the rustle of turning leaves, arose. The excitement had been growing more intense from the beginning; there was a general expectation of something solemn, revolutionary, joy-conferring.
This word “general” can scarcely be said to include the dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, who were present in no small numbers; to such people new inventions are a torment—they antagonize and belittle them as much as possible; they are filled with distrust and depreciation in the presence of innovations—the new jolts; the new is dangerous. Not as yet perished from the face of the earth is the race of those who opposed the introduction of the railway on the ground that the trade between Grossmeseritsch and Jungbunzlau might suffer!
“Now what is he going to bring us—you probably know, Herr Helmer.”
Chlodwig stared up as from a dream. “What? who?” He had not taken the drift of Baron Malhof’s question; moreover, he had barely heard that man yonder on the platform, so deeply had he been absorbed all the time in studying Franka’s face and his own feelings. He, who had before been so passionately interested in the events of the world, he who in other circumstances would have listened with the keenest interest to the stimulating words of the young American, was now so completely under the spell of the two passions—jealousy and love—that everything else sank into a dim mist. Franka also was only partially attentive to what was going on. To be sure, she had listened to the conclusions of the lecturer, but in the background of her thoughts she was ceaselessly engaged with the questions of her destiny now so imperatively facing her, and the more the man on the platform spoke of the treasures of happiness beckoning to human society, the more insistent within her grew the demand that she herself should drain happiness in long draughts, and bestow happiness in lavish generosity, united to the man she loved....
Again the young inventor took up his theme:—
“Radium has been known since the year 1900. Its marvelous properties were gradually discovered. The possibility that this element which, from its rarity, at first cost a hundred dollars a milligram, might be obtained in large quantities, dates from yesterday. This furnishes us with a source of power beyond comprehension. A profusion of force has been placed at our disposal so that all efficacy of work can be multiplied a hundred fold, a thousand fold, a hundred thousand fold.
“No figure need alarm us any more when we experience what molecular forces exist in this radiant matter. Every molecule has minute particles, atoms; the atoms of radium are thrown out with the rapidity of twenty thousand miles a second. Can you picture to yourself the weight of the impact?
“Not only can we procure this in masses—this fabulous element—but we can compress it. The radium condenser has been invented. It will be mere child’s play to annihilate in a few minutes hostile fleets and armies, to destroy hostile cities by means of packages of radium-beams sent down from cloudy altitudes. Reciprocally, forty-eight hours after the so-called ‘opening of hostilities’ both warring parties might vanquish each the other and leave in the enemy’s land not a building and not a living thing.”
The speaker paused and looked around. Then he apostrophized his auditors:—
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are certainly astonished that I here announce a present of the good things of this world and thereupon spread before you such a vision of horrors. Merciful Heaven! I do not say that these things are to be, but that you can do them if you desire. It remains within your choice and your will to make use of destructive possibilities or not. Power and force, a force approaching almightiness—is that not a wonderful possession? It would not be an almighty power if it had not also the capacity of working the utmost iniquity and the limit of imbecility. If I could have presented you with Aladdin’s lamp whose slaves carry out every command, these slaves would infallibly murder you if that command were given them. But I take it for granted that you would utter quite different wishes.
“Aye, the obedient Genii of the radium-lamp, the fluorescing electrons, can annihilate, destroy, and exterminate; but at our bidding they will annihilate bacteria, destroy the germs of disease, put an end to the weakness of old age—but they are not going to annihilate cities and useful lives. For the very reason that they are capable of carrying out to its ultimate absurdity the aims of war, their annihilating powers are not going to have as their offering the crumbling into ruins of human society, but the shattering of the idol, Mars.
“I have not come to the end of my gifts: The latest inventions include the wireless transmission of the electric current; and this: the electrical fertilization of the soil; and this: the direct transformation of the heat of the sun into mechanical energy. We have the sun-motor. Have you a suspicion of what that signifies? The primeval source of all life, the storehouse of all power, the hot sun-ray captured in our pocket apparatus!
“Even now, I have not done with my gifts. This time it is only a few trifles, just as on the Christmas tree next some precious jewel hangs a little bag of chocolate bonbons. We are now able to fly through the air almost as do birds. One of my fellow-countrymen has invented a contrivance—he calls it the ‘Nautilus’—in which we can glide through the water like a fish without the slightest exertion, with torpedo-like swiftness. Provided with the Nautilus one can go from Calais to Dover in a quarter of an hour. This has the advantage over travel through the air: one cannot fall into the water!
“Then—one more bonbon—a dynamic marvel of an apparatus—the inventor has given it the name of ‘Talmi Athlete.’ With this, bound around the wrist, the weakest man can lift and carry the heaviest burden.
“Still another bonbon! The ear-spectacles: a little instrument with which the deaf can hear as well as the near-sighted can see with glasses of high power.
“And still another and marvelously sweet bonbon—the inventor has called it a ‘Paradise Air-Bath’: a cabinet is filled with an artificially compounded atmosphere: ozone, compressed resinous air, tempered electrical waves, pungent carbonic acid, and a hitherto unknown material. Whoever enters this cabinet is permeated by that physical, causeless feeling of happiness such as the mountain-climber experiences on the top of the Alps, the child at play, the young person dancing: quickened pulses, heightened heart-action, expanded lungs—in short, intense joy of life.
“But to return to the mighty powers we have conquered. The question of first importance is not the creating of new possibilities of enjoyment,—the well-to-do already have a sufficiency of such things,—but rather the abolition of misery: the physical moral atmosphere of the rich would also be purified by this, since at the present time deleterious vapors of crime and illness mount up into it from the caves of poverty. We have penetrated into the bowels of the earth and have brought to light whole cargoes of radium. We have constructed the condenser, and now we have in our hands the mysterious and almost unlimited creative power which decides death and life.—Everything on which the death-dealing ray is directed, is irrevocably lost—whether it be a colony of microbes or a whole province. We can accomplish death by wholesale; we can strengthen the development of life. Radium can hasten the growth of plants threefold and make them thrice as large; it can also retard growth. According to the way it is applied, the wonder-element is the awakener of life-energy, or cripples it. We shall be enabled by means of it to lengthen the span of human life; we shall be able—but now I will desist. The line of consequences which follow a newly accomplished advance is inconceivable. The gold ingot lies before you—now go hence and coin it!”