Books: Maurice Guest

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A day or two later, towards evening, he saw Krafft again. As
he was going through an outlying street, he came upon a group of
children, who were amusing themselves by teasing a cat; the animal had
been hit in the eye by a stone, and cowered, terrified and blinded,
against the wall of a house. The children formed a half circle round
it, and two of the biggest boys held a young and lively dog by the
collar, inciting it and restraining it, and revelling in the cat's
convulsive starts at each capering bark.

While Maurice was considering how to expostulate with them, Krafft
came swiftly up behind, jerked two of the children apart, and, with a
deft and perfectly noiseless movement, caught up the cat and hid its
head under his coat. Then, cuffing the biggest boy, he kicked the dog,
and ordered the rest to disperse. The children did so lingeringly; and
once out of his reach, stood and mocked him.

He begged Maurice to accompany him to his lodgings, and there Maurice
held the animal, a large, half-starved street-cat, while Krafft, on
his knees before it, examined the wound. As he did this, he crooned in
a wordless language, and the cat was quiet, in spite of the pain he
caused it. But directly he took his hands off it, it jumped from the
table, and fled under the furthest corner of the sofa.

Krafft next fetched milk and a saucer, from a cupboard in the wall,
and went down on his knees again: while Maurice sat and watched and
wondered at his tireless endeavours to induce the animal to advance.
He explained his proceedings in a whisper.

"If I put the saucer down and leave it," he said, "it won't help at
all. A cat's confidence must be won straight away."

He was still in this position, making persuasive little noises, when
the door opened, and Avery Hill, his companion of a previous occasion,
entered. At the sight of Krafft crouching on the floor, she paused
with her hand on the door, and looked from him to Maurice.

"Heinz?" she said interrogatively. Then she saw the saucer of milk,
and understood. "Heinz!" she said again; and this time the word was a
reprimand.

"Ssh!--be quiet," said Krafft peevishly, without looking up.

The girl took no notice of Maurice's attempt to greet her. Letting
fall on the grand piano, some volumes of music she was carrying, she
continued sternly: "Another cat!--oh, it is abominable of you! This is
the third he has picked up this year," she said explanatorily,
yet not more to Maurice than to herself. "And the last was so dirty
and destructive that Frau Schulz threatened to turn him out, if he did
not get rid of it. He knows as well as I do that he cannot keep a cat
here."

Her placidly tragic face had grown hard; and altogether, the anger she
displayed seemed out of proportion to the trival offence.

Krafft remained undisturbed. "It's not the least use scolding. Go and
make it right with the old crow.--Come, puss, come."

The girl checked the words that rose to her lips, gave a slight shrug,
and went out of the room. They heard her, in the passage, disputing
with the landlady, who was justly indignant.

"If it weren't for you, Fraulein, I wouldn't keep him another day,"
she declared.

Meanwhile the cat, which, in the girl's presence, had shrunk still
further into its hiding-place, began to make advances. It crept a step
forward, retreated again, stretched out its nose to sniff at the milk,
and, all of a sudden, emerged and drank greedily.

Krafft touched its head, and the animal paused in its hungry gulping
to rub its back against the caressing hand. When the last drop of milk
was finished, it withdrew to its corner, but less suspiciously.

Krafft rose to his feet and stretched himself, and when Avery
returned, he smiled at her.

"Now then, is it all right?"

She did not reply, but went to the piano, to search for something
among the scattered music. Krafft clasped his hands behind his head,
and leaning against the table, watched her with an ironical curl of
the lip.

"O LENE! LENE! O MAGDALENE!" he sang under his breath; and, for the
second time, Maurice received the impression that a by-play was being
carried on between these two.

"Look at this," said Krafft after a pause. "Here, ladies and
gentlemen, is one of those rare persons who have a jot of talent in
them, and off she goes--I don't mean at this moment, but tomorrow, the
day after, every day--to waste it in teaching children finger-exercises.
If you ask her why she does it, she will tell you it is necessary to live.
Necessary to live!--who has ever proved that it is?"

For an instant, it seemed as if the girl were going to flash
out a bitter retort that might have betrayed her. Then she showed the
same self-control as before, and went, without a word, into the next
room. She was absent for a few minutes, and when she reappeared,
carried what was unmistakably a bundle of soiled linen, going away
with this on one arm, the volumes of music she had picked out on the
other. She did not wish the young men good-night, but, in passing
Maurice, she said in an unfriendly tone: "Do you know what time it
is?" and to Krafft: "It is late, Heiriz, you are not to play."

The door had barely closed behind her, when Krafft broke into the
loud, repellent laugh that had so jarred on Maurice at their former
meeting. He had risen at once, and now said he must go. But Krafft
would not hear of it; he pressed him into his seat again, with an
effusive warmth of manner.

"Don't mind her. Stay, like a good fellow. Of course, I am going to
play to you."

He flicked the keys of the piano with his handkerchief, adjusted the
distance of his seat, threw back his head, and half closing his eyes,
began to play. Except for the unsteady flickerings cast on the wall by
a street-lamp, the room was soon in darkness.

Maurice resumed his seat reluctantly. He had been dragged upstairs
against his will; and throughout the foregoing scene, had sat an
uncomfortable spectator. He had as little desire for the girl to
return and find him there, as for Krafft to play to him. But no excuse
for leaving offered itself, and each moment made it harder to interrupt
the player, who had promptly forgotten the fact of his presence.

After he had listened for a time, however, Maurice ceased to think of
escaping. Madeleine had once alluded to Krafft's skill as an
interpreter of Chopin, but, all the same, he had not expected anything
like what he now heard, and at first he could not make anything of it.
He had hitherto only known Chopin's music as played in the sentimental
fashion of the English drawing-room. Here, now, came some one who made
it clear that, no matter how pessimistic it appeared on the surface,
this music was, at its core an essentially masculine music; it kicked
desperately against the pricks of existence; what failed it was only
the last philosophic calm. He could not, of course, know that various
small things had combined to throw the player into one of his most
prodigal moods: the rescue and taming of the cat, the passage-at-arms
with Avery, her stimulating forbiddal, and, last and best, the one
silent listener in the dark--this stranger, picked up at random
in the streets, who had never yet heard him play, and to whom he might
reveal himself with an indecency that friendship precluded.

When at length, Frau Schulz entered, in her bed-jacket, to say that it
was long past ten o'clock, Krafft wakened as if out of a trance, and
hid his eyes from the light. Frau Schulz, a robust person, disregarded
his protests, and herself locked the piano and took the key.

"She makes me promise to," she whispered to Maurice, pointing over her
shoulder at an imaginary person. "If I didn't, he'd go on all night.
He's no more fit to look after himself than a baby--and he gets it
again with his boots in the morning.--Yes, yes, call me names if it
pleases you. Names don't kill. And if I am a hag, you're a rascal,
that's what you are! The way you treat that poor, good creature makes
one's blood boil."

Krafft waved her away, and opening the window, leaned out on the sill:
a wave of warm air filled the room. Maurice rose with renewed
decision, and sought his hat. But Krafft also took his down from a
peg. "Yes, let us go out."

It was a breathless August night, laden with intensified scents and
smells, and the moonlight lay thick and white on the ground: a night
to provoke to extravagant follies. In the utter stillness of the
woods, the young men passed from places of inky blackness into bluish
white patches, dropped through the trees like monstrous silver
thalers. The town lay behind them in a glorifying haze; the river
stretched silver-scaled in the moonlight, like a gigantic fish-back.

Krafft walked in front of his companion, in preoccupied silence. His
slender hands, dangling loosely, still twitched from their recent
exertions, and from time to time, he turned the palms outward, with an
impatient gesture. Maurice wished himself alone. He was not at ease
under this new companionship that had thrust itself upon him; indeed,
a strong mental antagonism was still uppermost in him, towards the
moody creature at whose heels he followed; and if, at this moment, he
had been asked to give voice to his feelings, the term "crazy idiot"
would have been the first to rise to his lips.

Suddenly, without turning, or slackening his pace, Krafft commenced to
speak: at first in a low voice, as if he were thinking aloud. But one
word gave another, his thoughts came rapidly, he began to gesticulate,
and finally, wrought on by the beauty of the night, by this choice
moment for speech, still excited by his own playing, and in an
infinite need of expression, he swept the silence before him with the
force of a flood set free. If he thought Maurice were about to
interrupt him, he made an imploring gesture, and left what he was
saying unfinished, to spring over to the next theme ready in his
brain. Names jostled one another on his tongue: he passed from
Beethoven and Chopin to Berlioz and Wagner, to Liszt and Richard
Strauss--and his words were to Maurice like the unrolling of a great
scroll. In the same breath, he was with Nietzsche, and Apollonic and
Dionysian; and from here he went on to Richard Dehmel, to ANATOL, and
the gentle "Loris" of the early verses; to Max Klinger, and the
propriety of coloured sculpture; to PAPA HAMLET and the future of the
LIED. Maurice, listening intently, had fleeting glimpses into a land
of which he knew nothing. He kept as still as a mouse, in order not to
betray his ignorance; for Krafft was not didactic, and talked as if
the subjects he touched on were as familiar to Maurice as to himself.
On the other hand, Maurice believed it was a matter of indifference to
him whether he was understood or not; he spoke for the pure joy of
talking, out of the motley profusion of his knowledge.

Meanwhile, he had grown personal. And while he was still speaking with
fervour of Vienna--which was his home--of gay, melancholy Wien, he flung
round and put a question to his companion.

"Do you ever think of death?"

Maurice had been the listener for so long that he started.

"Death?" he echoed, and was as much embarrassed as though asked
whether he believed in God. "I don't know. No, I don't think I do. Why
should one think of death when one is alive and well?"

Krafft laughed at this, with a pitying irony. "Happy you!" he said.
"Happy you!" His voice sank, and he continued almost fearfully: "I
have the vision of it before me, always wherever I go. Listen; I will
tell you; it is like this." He laid his hand on Maurice's arm, and
drew him nearer. "I know--no matter how strong and sound I may be at
this moment; no matter how I laugh, or weep, or play the fool; no
matter how little thought I give it, or whether I think about it all
day long--I know the hour will come, at last, when I shall gasp, choke,
grow black in the face, in the vain struggle for another single
mouthful of that air which has always been mine at will. And no one
will be able to help me; there is no escape from that hour; no
power on earth can keep it from me. And it is all a matter of chance
when it happens--a great lottery: one draws to-day, one to-morrow; but
my turn will surely come, and each day that passes brings me
twenty-four hours nearer the end." He drew still closer to Maurice.
"Tell me, have you never stood before a doorway--the doorway of some
strange house that you have perhaps never consciously gone past
before--and waited, with the atrocious curiosity that death and its
hideous paraphernalia waken in one, for a coffin to be carried out?--the
coffin of an utter stranger, who is of interest to you now, for
the first and the last time. And have you not thought to yourself,
with a shudder, that some day, in this selfsame way, under the same
indifferent sky, among a group of loiterers as idly curious as these,
you yourself will be carried out, feet foremost, like a bale of goods,
like useless lumber, all will and dignity gone from you, never to
enter there again?--there, where all the little human things you have
loved, and used, and lived amongst, are lying just as you left
them--the book you laid down, the coat you wore--now all of a greater
worth than you. You are mere dead flesh, and behind the horrid lid lie
stark and cold, with rigid fingers and half-closed eyes, and the chief
desire of every one, even of those you have loved most, is to be rid
of you, to be out of reach of sight and smell of you. And so, after
being carted, and jolted, and unloaded, you will be thrown into a
hole, and your body, ice-cold, and as yielding as meat to the
touch--oh, that awful icy softness!--your flesh will begin to rot, to be
such that not your nearest friend would touch you. God, it is unbearable!"

He wiped his forehead, and Maurice was silent, not knowing what to
say; he felt that such rational arguments as he might be able to
offer, would have little value in the face of this intensely personal
view, which was stammered forth with the bitterness of an accusation.
But as they crossed the suspensionbridge, Krafft stopped, and stood
looking at the water, which glistened in the moonlight like a living
thing.

"No, it is impossible for me to put death out of my mind," he went on.
"And yet, a spring into this silver fire down here would end all that,
and satisfy one's curiosity as well. Why is one not readier to make
the spring?--and what would one's sensations be? The mad rush through
the air--the crash--the sinking in the awful blackness . . ."

"Those of fear and cold. You would wish yourself out again,"
answered Maurice; and as Krafft nodded, without seeming to resent his
tone, he ventured to put forward a few points for the other side of
the question. He suggested that always to be brooding over death
unfitted you for life. Every one had to die when his time came; it was
foolish to look upon your own death as an exception to the rule.
Besides, when sensation had left you--the soul, the spirit, whatever
you liked to call it--what did it matter what afterwards became of your
body? It was, then, in reality, nothing but lumber, fresh nourishment
for the soil; and it was morbid to care so much how it was treated,
just because it had once been your tenement, when it was now as
worthless as the crab's empty shell.

He stuttered this out piece-wise, in his halting German; then paused,
not sure how his companion would take the didactic tone he had fallen
into. But Krafft had turned, and was gazing at him, considering him
attentively for the first time. When Maurice ceased to speak, he
nodded a hasty assent: "Yes, yes, it is quite true. Go on." And as the
former, having nothing more to say, was mute, he added: "You are like
some one I once knew. He was a great musician. I saw him die; he died
by inches; it lasted for months; he could neither die nor live."

"Why do you brood over these things, if you find them so awful? Are
you not afraid your nerves will go through with you, and make you do
something foolish?" asked Maurice, and was himself astonished at his
boldness.

"Of course I am. My life is a perpetual struggle against suicide,"
answered Krafft.

In the distance, a church-clock struck a quarter to twelve, and it was
on Maurice's tongue to suggest that they should move homewards, when,
with one of his unexpected transitions, Krafft turned to him and said
in a low voice: "What do you say? Shall you and I be friends?"

Maurice hesitated, in some embarrassment. "Why yes, I should be very
glad."

"And you will let me say 'DU' to you?"

"Certainly. If you are sure you won't regret it in the morning."

Krafft stretched out his hand. As Maurice held in his the fine, slim
fingers, which seemed mere skin and muscle, a hitherto unknown feeling
of kindliness came over him for the young man at his side. At this
moment, he had the lively sensation that he was the stronger and wiser
of the two, and that it was even a little beneath him to take
the other too seriously.

"You think so poorly of me then? You think no good thing can come out
of me?" asked Krafft, and there was an appealing note in his voice,
which, but a short time back, had been so overbearing.

Had Maurice known him better, he would have promptly retorted: "Don't
be a fool." As it was, he laughed. "Who am I to sit in judgment? The
only thing I do know is, that if I had your talent--no, a quarter of
it--I should pull myself together and astonish the world."

"It sounds so easy; but I have too many doubts of myself," said
Krafft, and laid his hand on Maurice's shoulder. "And I have never had
anyone to keep me up to the mark--till now. I have always needed some
one like you. You are strong and sympathetic; and one has the feeling
that you understand."

Maurice was far from certain that he did. However, he answered in a
frank way, doing his best to keep down the sentimental tone that had
invaded the conversation. At heart he was little moved by this new
friendship, which hail begun with the word itself; he told himself
that it was only a whim of Krafft's, which would be forgotten in the
morning. But, as they stood thus on the bridge, shoulder to shoulder,
he did not understand how he could ever have taken anything this frail
creature did, amiss. At the moment, there was a clinging helplessness
about Krafft, which instinctively roused his manlier feelings. He said
to himself that he had done wrong in lightly condemning his companion;
and, impelled by this sudden burst of protectiveness, he seized the
moment, and spoke earnestly to Krafft of earnest things, of duty, not
only to one's fellows, but to oneself and one's abilities, of the
inspiring gain of unremitted endeavour.

Afterwards, they sauntered home--first to Maurice's lodging, then to
Krafft's, and once again to Maurice's. At this stage, Krafft was
frankness itself; Maurice learnt to his surprise that the slim, boyish
lad at his side was over twenty-seven years of age; that, for several
semesters, Krafft had studied medicine in Vienna, then had thrown up
this "disgusting occupation," to become a clerk in a wealthy uncle's
counting-house. From this, he had drifted into journalism, and
finally, at the instigation of Hans von Bullow, to music; he had been
for two and a half years with Bullow, on travel, and in Hamburg, and
was at present in Leipzig solely to have his "fingers put in order."
His plans for the future were many, and widely divergent. At
one time, a musical career tempted him irresistibly; every one but
Schwarz--this finger-machine, this generator of living
metronomes--believed that he could make a name for himself as a player
of Chopin. At other times, and more often, he contemplated retiring
from the world and entering a monastery. He spoke with a morbid
horror--yet as if the idea of it fascinated him--of the publicity of the
concert-platform, and painted in glowing colours a monastery he knew
of, standing on a wooded hill, not far from Vienna. He had once spent
several weeks there, recovering from an illness, and the gardens, the
trimly bedded flowers, the glancing sunlight in the utter silence of
the corridors, were things he could not forget. He had lain day for
day on a garden-bench, reading Novalis, and it still seemed to him
that the wishless happiness of those days was the greatest he had
known.

Beside this, Maurice's account of himself sounded tame and unimportant;
he felt, too, that the circumstances of English life were too far removed
from his companion's sphere, for the latter to be able to understand them.

On waking next morning, Maurice recalled the incidents of the evening
with a smile; felt a touch of warmth at the remembrance of the moment
when he had held Krafft's hand in his; then classed the whole episode
as strained, and dismissed it from his mind. He had just shut the
piano, after a busy forenoon, when Krafft burst in, his cheeks pink
with haste and excitement. He had discovered a room to let, in the
house he lived in, and nothing would satisfy him but that Maurice
should come instantly to see it. Laughing at his eagerness, Maurice
put forward his reasons for preferring to remain where he was. But
Krafft would take no denial, and not wishing to hurt his feelings,
Maurice gave way, and agreed at least to look at the room.

It was larger and more cheerful than his own, and had also, a
convenient alcove for the bedstead; and after inspecting it, Maurice
felt willing to expend the extra marks it cost. They withdrew to
Krafft's room to come to a decision. There, however, they found Avery
Hill, who, as soon as she heard what they contemplated, put a veto on
it. Growing pale, as she always did where others would have flushed,
she said: "It is an absurd idea--sheer nonsense! I won't have it,
understand that! Pray, excuse me," she continued to Maurice, speaking
in a more friendly tone than she had yet used to him, "but you
must not listen to him. It is just one of his whims--nothing more. In
less than a week, you would wish yourself away again. You have no idea
how changeable he is--how impossible to live with."

Maurice hastened to reassure her. Krafft did not speak; he stood at
the window, with his back to them, his forehead pressed against the
glass.

So Maurice continued to live in the BRAUSTRASSE, under the despotic
rule of Frau Krause, who took every advantage of his good-nature. But
after this, not a day passed without his seeing Krafft; the latter
sought him out on trivial pretexts. Maurice hardly recognised him: he
was gentle, amiable, and amenable to reason; he subordinated himself
entirely to Maurice, and laid an ever-increasing weight on his
opinion. Maurice became able to wind him round his finger; and the
hint of a reproof from him served to throw Krafft into a state of
nervous depression. Without difficulty, Maurice found himself to
rights in his role of mentor, and began to flatter himself that he
would ultimately make of Krafft a decent member of society. As it was,
he soon induced his friend to study in a more methodical way; they
practised for the same number of hours in the forenoon, and met in the
afternoon; and Krafft only sometimes broke through this arrangement,
by appearing in the BRAUSTRASSE early in the morning, and, despite
remonstrance, throwing himself on the sofa, and remaining there, while
Maurice practised. The latter ended by growing accustomed to this whim
as to several other things that had jarred on him--such as Krafft's
love for a dirty jest--and overlooked or forgave them. At first
embarrassed by the mushroom growth of a friendship he had not invited,
he soon grew genuinely attached to Krafft, and missed him when he was
absent from him.

Avery Hill could hardly be termed third in the alliance; Maurice's
advent had thrust her into the background, where she kept watch over
their doings with her cold, disdainful eye. Maurice was not clear how
she regarded his intrusion. Sometimes, particularly when she saw the
improvement in Heinrich's way of life, she seemed to tolerate his
presence gladly; at others again, her jealous aversion to him was too
open to be overlooked. The jealousy was natural; he was an interloper,
and Heinz neglected her shamefully for him; but there was something
else behind it, another feeling, which Maurice could not make out. He
by no means understood the relationship that existed between
his friend and this girl of the stone-grey eyes and stern, red lips.
The two lived almost door by door, went in and out of each other's
rooms at all hours, and yet, he had never heard them exchange an
affectionate word, or seen a mark of endearment pass between them.
Avery's attachment--if such it could be called--was noticeable only in
the many small ways in which she cared for Krafft's comfort; her
manner with him was invariably severe and distant, with the exception
of those occasions when a seeming trifle raised in her a burst of the
dull, passionate anger, beneath which Krafft shrank. Maurice believed
that his friend would be happier away from her; in spite of her fresh
colouring, he, Maurice, found her wanting in attraction, nothing that
a woman ought to be. But her name was rarely mentioned between them;
Krafft was, as a rule, reticent concerning her, and when he did speak
of her, it was in a tone of such contempt that Maurice was glad to
shirk the subject.