Books: Maurice Guest

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Meanwhile, winter had set in, with extreme severity. Piercing north
winds drove down the narrow streets, and raged round the corners of
the Gewandhaus square: on emerging from the PROBE on a Wednesday
morning, one's breath was cut clean off, and the tears raced down
one's cheeks. When the wind dropped, there were hard black frosts--a
deadly, stagnant kind of cold, which seemed to penetrate every pore of
the skin and every cranny of the house. Then came the snow, which fell
for three days and nights on end, and for several nights after, so
that the town was lost under a white pall: house-entrances were with
difficulty kept free, and the swept streets were banked with walls of
snow, four and five feet high. The night-frosts redoubled their
keenness; the snow underfoot crackled like electric sparks; the
sleighs crunched the roads. But except for this, and for the tinkling
of the sleigh-bells, the streets were as noiseless as though laid with
straw, and especially while fresh snow still formed a soft
coating on the crisp layer below. All dripping water hung as icicles;
water froze in ewers and pitchers; milk froze in cans and jugs; and
this though the great stoves in the dwelling-rooms were heated to
bursting-point. Red-nosed, red-eared men, on whose beards and
moustaches the breath had turned to ice-drops, cried to one another at
street-corners that such a winter had not been known for thirty years;
and, as they spoke, they stamped their feet, and clapped their hands,
to keep the chilly blood agoing. Women muffled and veiled themselves
like Orientals, hardly showing the tips of their noses; and all manner
of strange, antiquated fur-garments saw the day. At night, if one
opened a window, and peered out at the houses crouching beneath their
thick white load, and at the deserted, snow-bound streets, over which
the street-lamps threw a pale, uncertain light--at night, familiar
things took on an unfamiliar aspect, and the well-known streets might
have been the untrodden ways that led to a new world.

Early in November, all ponds and pools were bearing, and forthwith
many hundreds of people forgot the severity of the weather, and
thronged out with their skates.

Maurice was among the first. He was a passionate skater; and it was
the one form of sport in which he excelled. As four o'clock came
round, he could contain himself no longer; he would rather have gone
without his dinner, thanhave missed, on the JOHANNATEICH, the two
hours that elapsed before the sweepers, crying: "FEIERABEND!" drove
the skaters before them, with their brooms. In a tightly buttoned
square jacket, the collar of which was turned up as far as it would
go, with the flaps of his astrachan cap drawn over his cars, his hands
in coarse woollen gloves, Maurice defied the cold, flying round the
two ponds that formed the JOHANNATEICH, or practising intricate
figures with a Canadian acquaintance in a corner.

Madeleine watched him approvingly from one of the wooden bridges that
spanned the neck connecting the ponds. She rejoiced at his glowing
face and vigorous, boyish pleasure, also at the skill that marked him
out as one of the best skaters present. For some time, Maurice tried
in vain to persuade her to join him. Madeleine, usually so confident,
was here diffident and timid. She had never in her life attempted to
skate, and was sure she would fall. And what should she do if she
broke a thumb or strained a finger?--with her PRUFUNG just before the
door. She would never have the courage to confess to Schwarz
how it had happened; for he was against "sport" in any form. But
Maurice laughed at her fears.

"There is not the least chance of your falling," he cried up to her.
"Do come down, Madeleine. Before you've gone round twice, you'll be
able to throw off all those mufflings."

Finally, she let herself be persuaded, and according to his promise,
Maurice remained at her side from the moment of her first, hesitating
steps, each of which was accompanied by a faint scream, to the time
when, with the aid of only one of his hands, she made uncertain
efforts at striking out. She did not learn quickly; but she was soon
as enthusiastic a skater as Maurice himself; and he fell into the
habit of calling for her, every afternoon, on his way to the ponds.

Dove was also of assistance in the beginning, and, as usual, was well
up in the theory of the thing, though he did not shine in practice.

"Oh, bother, never mind how you go at first. That'll come afterwards,"
said Maurice impatiently. But Dove thought the rules should be
observed from the beginning, and gave Madeleine minute instructions
how to place her feet.

Towards five o'clock, the ice grew more crowded, and especially was
this the case on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when the schools had
half-holidays. On one of these latter days, Maurice did not find
Madeleine at home; and he had been on the ponds for nearly an hour,
before he espied her on a bench beside the GARDEROBE, having her
skates put on by a blue-smocked attendant. He waved his cap to her,
and skated over.

"Why are you so late?"

"Oh, thank goodness, there you are. I should never have dared to stand
up alone in this crowd. Aren't these children awful? Get away, you
little brutes! If you touch me, I'll fall.--Here, give me change," she
said to the ice-man, holding out a twenty-pfennig piece.

Maurice saw that she was unusually excited, and as soon as he had
drawn her out of reach of the children, asked her the reason.

"I've something interesting to tell you, Maurice."

But here Dove, coming up behind, took possession of her left hand,
with no other greeting than the military salute, which, on the ice, he
adopted for all his friends, male and female, alike; and Madeleine
hastily swallowed the rest of her sentence.

They skated round the larger of the ponds several times
without stopping. The cold evening air stung their faces; the sun had
gone down in a lurid haze; Madeleine's skirts swayed behind her and
lent her a fictitious grace.

But presently she cried a halt, and while she rested in a quiet
corner, they watched Maurice doing a complicated figure, which he and
his Canadian friend had invented the day before. Dove was explaining
how it was done--"It is really not so hard as it looks"--when, with a
cry of "ACHTUNG!" some one whizzed in among them, scattered the group,
and, revolving on himself, ended with a jump in the air. It was James.
He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose, in the most
unconcerned manner possible.

"I don't think such acrobatic tricks should be allowed," said
Madeleine disapprovingly; she had been forced to grab Dove's arm to
keep her balance.

"Say, do you boys know the river has six inches and will be open
to-morrow, if it isn't to-day?" asked James, stooping to tighten a
strap.

"Is that so? Oh gee, that's fine!" cried Miss Martin, who had skated
leisurely up in his rear. "Say, you people, why don't we fix up a
party an' go up it nights? A lady in my boarding-house done that with
some folks she was acquainted with last year. Seems to me we oughtn't
to be behind."

Miss Martin was a skilled and graceful skater, and looked her best in
a dark fur hat and jacket, which set off her abundance of pale flaxen
hair. Others had followed her, and it was resolved to form a party for
the following evening, provided Dove had previously ascertained if the
river actually was "free," in order that they ran no risk of being
ignominiously turned off.

"The ice may be a bit rough, but it's a fine run to Connewitz."

"An' by moonlight, too--but say, is there a moon? Why, I presume there
ought to be," said Miss Martin.

"'Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?'" quoted Dove,
examining a tiny pocket-calendar.

"Oh gee, that's fine!" repeated Miss Martin, on hearing his answer.
"Say, we must dance a FRANCAISE. Mr. Guest, you an' I'll be partners,
I surmise," and ceasing to waltz and pirouette with James, she took a
long sweep, then stood steady, and let her skates bear her out to the
middle of the pond. Her skirts clung close in front, and swept
out behind her lithe figure, until it was lost in the crowd.

"Don't you wish YOU could skate like that?" asked the sharp-tongued
little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine.
Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at
the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton
gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life
besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in
private, so postponed telling her news till the following evening.

Shortly after eight o'clock, the next night, a noisy party whistled
and hallooed in the street below Maurice's window. He was the last to
join, and then some ten or eleven of them picked their steps along the
hard-frozen ruts of the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG, a road that followed the
river to the outskirts of the town. Just above the GERMANIABAD, a
rough scat had been erected on the ice, for the convenience of
skaters. They were the first to make use of it; the snow before it was
untrodden; and the Pleisse wound white and solitary between its banks
of snow.

They set off in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, each striking out for
himself. When, however, they had passed the narrower windings, gone
under the iron bridge which was low enough to catch the unwary by the
forehead, and when the full breadth of the river was before them, they
took hands, and, forming a long line, skated in time to the songs some
one struck up, and in which all joined: THE ROSE OF SHARON, JINGLE
BELLS, THERE IS A TAVERN IN OUR TOWN. As they advanced to the corners
where the big trees trailed their naked branches on the ice, just as
in summer they sank their leaves in the water, Miss Jensen, who,
despite her proportions, was a surprisingly good skater, sent her big
voice over the snow-bound stillness in an aria from the PROPHET; and
after this, Miss Martin, no; to be done, struck up the popular
ALLERSEELEN. This was the song of the hour; they all knew it, and up
and down and across the ice rang out their voices in unison: WIE EINST
IM MAI, WIE EINST IM MAI.

Inside Wagner's WALDCAFE at Connewitz, they sat closely packed round
one of the wooden tables, and drank beer and coffee, and ate BERLINER
PFANNKUCHEN. The great iron stove was almost red-hot; the ladies threw
off their wrappings; cold faces glowed and burnt, and frozen hands
tingled. One and all were in high spirits, and the jollity
reached a climax when, having exchanged hats, James and Miss Jensen
cleared a space in the middle of the floor and danced a nigger-dance,
the lady with her skirts tucked up above her ankles. In the adjoining
room, some one began to play a concertina, and then two or three
couples stood up and danced, with much laughter and many outcries at
the narrowness of the space. Even Dove joined in, his partner being a
very pretty American, whom Miss Martin had brought with her, and whose
side Dove had not left for a moment. Only Madeleine and Dickensey sat
aloof, and for once were agreed: Americans were really "very bad
form." There was no livelier pair than Maurice and Miss Martin; the
latter's voice could be heard above all others, as she taught Maurice
new steps in a corner of the room. Her flaxen hair had partly come
loose, and she did not stop to put it up. They were the first to run
through the dark garden, past the snow-laden benches and arbours,
which, in summer, were buried in greenery; and, from the low wooden
landingplace, they jumped hand in hand on to the ice, and had shot a
long way down the river before any of the rest could follow them.

But this did not please Madeleine. As it was, she was vexed at not
having had the opportunity of a quiet word with Maurice; and when she
had laboriously skated up, with Dickensey, to the spot where, in a
bright splash of moonlight, Maurice and Miss Martin were cutting
ingenious capers, she cried to the former in a peremptory tone:
"There's something wrong with my skate, Maurice. Will you look at it,
please?" and as sharply declined Dickensey's proffered aid.

Maurice came to her side at once, and in this way she detained him.
But Dickensey hovered not far off, and Miss Martin was still in sight.
Madeleine caught her skate in a crack, fell on her knee, and said she
had now loosened the strap altogether. She sat down on a heap of snow,
and Dickensey's shade vanished good-naturedly round a corner.

"Well, YOU seem to be enjoying yourself," she said as Maurice drew off
his gloves and knelt down.

"Why, yes, aren't you?" he replied so frankly that she did not
continue the subject.

"I've been trying all the evening to get a word with you. I told you
yesterday, you remember, that I wanted to speak to you. Sit down here,
for a moment, so that we can talk in peace," and she spread part of her
skirt over the snow-heap.

Maurice complied, and she could not discover any trace of
reluctance in his manner.

"I want your advice," she continued. "I was taken quite by surprise
myself. Schwarz sent for me, you know, after counterpoint. It was
about my PRUFUNG at Easter. If I play then, it's a case of the C minor
Beethoven. Well, now he says it's a thousand pities for me to break
off just at the stage I'm at, and he wants me to stay for another
year. If I do, he'll give me the G major--that's a temptation, isn't
it? On the other hand, I shall have been here my full time--three
years--at Easter. That's a year longer than I originally intended, and
I feel I'm getting too old to be a pupil. But this talk with Schwarz
has upset my plans. I'm naturally flattered at his interesting himself
in me. He wouldn't do it for every one. And I do feel I could gain an
immense deal in another year.--Now, what do you think?"

"Why, stay, of course, Madeleine. If you can afford it, that is. I
can't imagine anyone wanting to leave."

"Oh, my capital will last so long, and it's a good enough investment."

"But wasn't a place being kept open for you in a school?"

"Yes; but I don't think a year more or less will make much difference
to them. I must sound them, of course, though," said Madeleine, and
did not mention that she had written and posted the letter the night
before. "Then you advise me to stay?"

"Why, of course," he repeated, and was mildly astonished at her. "If
everything is as smooth as you say."

"You would miss me, if I left?"

"Why, of course I should," he said again, and wondered what in the
world she was driving at.

"Well, all the better," replied Madeleine. "For when one has really
got to like a person, one would rather it made a difference than not."

She was silent after this, and sat looking down the stretch of ice
they had travelled: the moon was behind a cloud, and the woods on
either side were masses of dense black shadow. Not a soul was in
sight; the river was like a deserted highway. Madeleine stared down
it, and did not feel exactly satisfied with the result of her
investigation. She had not expected anything extraordinary--Heaven
forbid!--but she had been uncomfortably conscious of Maurice's
surprise. To her last remark, he had made no answer: be was
occupied with the screw of one of his skates.

She drew his attention to the fact that, if she remained in Leipzig
for another twelvemonth, they would finish at the same time; and
thereupon she sketched out a plan of them going somewhere together,
and starting a music-school of their own. Maurice, who thought she was
jesting, laughingly assented. But Madeleine was in earnest: "Other
people have done it--why shouldn't we? We could take a 'cellist with
us, and go to America, or Australia, or Canada--there are hundreds of
places. And there's a great deal of money in it, I'm sure. A little
capital would be needed to begin with, but not much, and I could
supply that. You've always said you dreaded going back to the English
provinces to decay--here's your chance!"

She saw the whole scheme cut and dried before her. As they, skated
after the rest, she continued to enlarge upon it, in a detailed way
that astonished Maurice. He confessed that, with a head like hers to
conduct it, such a plan stood a fair chance of success; and thus
encouraged, Madeleine undertook to make a kind of beginning at once,
by sounding some of the numerous friends she had, scattered through
America. Her idea was that they should go over together, and travel to
various places, giving concerts, and acquainting themselves, as they
did so, with the musical conditions of the towns they visited.

"And the 'cellist shall be an American--that will draw."

According to the pace at which they were skating, the others should
have remained well out of reach. But on turning a corner, they came
upon the whole party dancing a FRANCAISE--which two members whistled--on
a patch of ice that was smoother than the rest.

"Here, Guest, come along, we want you," was the cry as soon as Maurice
appeared; and, to Madeleine's deep displeasure, she was thrown on
Dove, whose skill had not sufficed. When the dancing was over, Maurice
once more found himself with Miss Martin, whom, for some distance, he
pushed before him, she standing steady on her skates, and talking to
him over her shoulder.

"That wasn't a bit pretty of you, Mr. Guest," she asserted, with her
long, slow, twanged speech. "It was fixed up yesterday, I recollect,
that you were to dance the FRANCAISE with me. Yes, indeed. An' then I
had to take up with Mr. Dove. Now Mr. Dove is just a lovely gentleman,
but he don't skate elegantly, an' he nearly tumbled me twice.
Yes, indeed. But I presume when Miss Wade says come, then you're most
obliged to go."

"How is it one don't ever see you now?" she queried a moment later.
"It isn't anyhow so pleasurable at dinner as it used to be. But I hear
you're working most hard--it's to' bad."

"It's what one comes to here."

"I guess it is. But I do like to see my friends once in a while. Say,
now, Mr. Guest, won't you drink coffee with me one afternoon? I'll
make you some real American coffee if you do, sir. What they call
coffee here don't count."

She turned, offered him her hand, and they began to skate in long,
outward curving lines.

"I think one has just a fine time here, don't you?" she continued.
"Momma, she came right with me, an' stopped a bit, till I was fixed up
in a boarding-house. But she didn't find it agreeable, no sir. She
missed America, an' presumed I would, too. When she was leaving, she
said to me: 'EI'nor Martin, if you find you can't endure it among
these Dutch, just you cable, and poppa he'll come along an' fetch you
right home,' But I'm sure I haven't desired to quit, no, not once. I
think it's just fine. But then I've gotten me so many friends I don't
ever need to feel lonesome. Why, my friend Susie Fay, she says: 'Why,
EI'nor, I guess you're acquainted with most every one in the place.'
An' I reckon she's not far out. Anyways there ain't more than two
Americans in the city I don't know. An' I see most all strangers that
come. Say, are you acquainted with Miss Moses? She's from Chicago, an'
resides in a boarding-house way down by the COLONNADEN. I got
acquainted with her yesterday. She's a lovely lady, an', why, she's
just as smart as she can be. Say, if you like, I'll invite her along,
so you can get acquainted with her too."

Maurice expressed pleasure at the prospect; and Miss Martin continued
to rattle on, with easy frankness, of herself, her family, and her
friends. He listened vaguely, with half an ear, since it was only
required of him to throw in an occasional word of assent. But suddenly
his attention was arrested, and brought headlong back to what she was
saying: in the string of names that fell from her tongue, he believed
he had caught one he knew.

"Miss Dufrayer?" he queried.

"That's it," replied his companion. "Louise Dufrayer. Well,
sir, as I was going on to remark, when first I was acquainted with
her, she was just as sweet as she could be; yes, indeed; why, she was
just dandy. But she hasn't behaved a bit pretty--I presume you heard
tell of what took place here this fall?"

"Then you know Miss Dufrayer?"

"Yes, indeed. But I don't see her any more, an' I guess I don't want
to. Not but what I've heard she feels pretty mean about it now--beg
pardon?--how I know? Why, indeed, the other day, Schwarz come in an'
told us how she's moping what she can--moping herself to death--if I
recollect, those were his very words. Yes, indeed. She don't take
lessons no more, I presume. I think she should go right away from this
city. It ain't possible to be acquainted with her any more, for all
she's so lonesome, an' one feels sort of bad about it, yes, indeed.
But momma, the last thing she said to me was: 'Now EI'nor Martin, just
keep your eyes open, an' don't get acquainted with people you might
feel bad about afterwards.' An' I presume momma was right. I don't--
Oh, say, do look at her, isn't she a peach?"--this, as her pretty
friend, with Dove in tow, came gliding up to them. "Say, Susie Fay,
are you acquainted with Mr. Guest?"

"MR. Guest. Pleased to know you," said Susie cordially; and Miss
Martin was good-natured enough to skate off with Dove, leaving Maurice
to her friend.

But afterwards, at the bench, as he was undoing Madeleine's skates, he
overheard pretty Susie remark, without much care to moderate her
voice: "Say, EI'nor Martin, that's the quietest sort of young man I've
ever shown round a district. Why, seems to me, he couldn't say 'shoh.'
Guess you shouldn't have left us, EI'nor."

And Miss Martin guessed so, too.

VII.

When he had seen Madeleine home, Maurice returned to his room, and not
feeling inclined to sleep, sat down to read. But his thoughts strayed;
he forgot to turn the page; and sat staring over the book at the
pattern of the tablecloth. Incidents of the evening flashed before
him: Miss Jensen, in James's hat, with her skirts pinned up; Madeleine
earnest and decisive on the bank of snow; the maze and laughter of the
FRANCAISE; Miss Martin's slim, straight figure as he pushed her before
him. He did not try to control these details, nor was he conscious of
a mental effort; they stood out for an instant, as vivid sensations,
then glided by, to make room for others. But, as he let them pass, he
became aware that below them, in depths of his mind he had believed
undisturbed, there was present a feeling of strange unhappiness, which
he did not know the cause of: these sharp pictures resembled an
attempt on the part of his mind, to deceive him as to what was really
going on in him. But he did not want to know, and he allowed his
thoughts to take wider flights: recalling the scheme Madeleine had
proposed, he considered it with a clearness of view, which, at the
time, had been impossible. From this, he turned to America itself, and
reflected on the opportunities the country offered. He saw the two of
them sweeping through vast tracts of uncultivated land, in a train
that outdid all real trains in swiftness; saw unknown tropical places,
where the yellow fruit hung low and heavy, and people walked
shadeless, sandy roads, in white hats, under white umbrellas. He saw
Madeleine and himself on the awning-spanned deck of an ocean steamer,
anchoring in a harbour where the sea was the colour of turquoise,
touched to sapphire where the mountains came down to the shore.

"Moping herself to death": the phrase crystallised in his brain with
such suddenness that he said it aloud. Now he knew what it was that
was troubling him. He had not consciously recalled the words, nor had
they even made a very incisive impression on him at the time; but they
had evidently lain dormant, now to return and to strike him, as if no
others had been said. He explained to himself what they meant.
It was this: outside, in the crisp, stinging air, people lived and
moved, busy with many matters, or sported, as he and his companions
had done that evening: inside, she sat alone, mournful, forsaken. He
saw her in the dark sofacorner, with her head on her hands. Day passed
and night passed, but she was always in the same place; and her head
was bowed so low that her white fingers were lost in the waves of her
hair. He saw her thus with the distinctness of a vision, and except in
this way could not see her at all.

He felt it little short of shameful that he should have carelessly
amused himself; and, as always where she was concerned, a deep,
unreasoning sense of his own unworthiness, filled him. He demanded of
himself, with a new energy, what he could do to help her. Fantastic
plans rose as usual in his mind, and as usual were dismissed. For the
one thing he was determined not to do, was to thrust himself on her
uncalled. Her solitude was of her own choosing, and no one had the
right to break in upon it. It was perhaps her way of doing penance;
and, at this thought, he felt a thrill of satisfaction.

At night, he consoled himself that things would seem different in the
morning; but when he wakened from a restless sleep, crowded with
dreams one more grotesque than another, he was still prone to be
gloomy. He could think more clearly by daylight--that was all: his
pitying sympathy for her had only increased. It interfered with
everything he did; just as it had formerly done--just in the old way.
And he had been on the brink of believing himself grown indifferent,
and stronger in common sense. Fool that he was! Only a word was needed
to bring his card-house down. The placidity of the past weeks had been
a mere coating of thin ice, which had given way beneath the first
test. A distrust of himself took him, a distrust so deep that it
amounted to aversion; for in his present state of mind he discerned
only a despicable weakness. But though he was thus bewildered at his
own inconsistency, he was still assured that he would not approach
Louise--not, that is, unless she sent for him. So much control he still
had over his actions: and he went so far as to make his staying away a
touchstone of his stability. This, too, although reason told him the
end of it all would be, that Louise would actually leave Leipzig,
without sending for him, or even remembering his existence.