Books: Maurice Guest

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Long before it was time for him to come, she was stationed at the window.
She learned to know the people who appeared in the street between the
hours of four and six so accurately that she could have described them
blindfold. There was the oldfaced little girl who delivered milk; there
was the postman who emptied into his canvas receptacle, the blue
letter-box affixed to the opposite wall; the student with the gashed face
and red cap, who lived a couple of doors further down, and always whistled
the same tune; the big Newfoundland dog that stalked majestically at his
side, and answered to the name of Tasso--she knew them all. These two last
hours were weighted with lead. He came, sometimes a poor half-hour too
soon, but usually not till past six o'clock. Never, in her life, had she
waited for anyone like this, and, towards the end of the time, a sense of
injury, of more than mortal endurance, would steal through her and dull
her heart towards him, in a way that frightened her.

When, at length, she saw him turn the corner, when she had caught and
answered his swift upward glance, she drew back into the shadow of the
room, and hid her face in her hands.

Then she listened.

He had the key of the little papered door in the wall. Between the sound
of his step on the stair, and the turning of the key in the lock,
there was time for her to undergo a moment of suspense that drove her hand
to her throat. What if, after the tension of the afternoon, her heart, her
nerves--parts of her over which she had no control--should not take their
customary bound towards him? What if her pulses should not answer his? But
before she could think her thought to the end, he was there; and when she
saw his kind eyes alight, his eager hands outstretched, her nervous fears
were vanquished. Maurice hardly gave himself time to shut the door, before
catching her to him in a long embrace. And yet, though she did not suspect
it, he, too, had a twinge of uncertainty on entering. Her bodily presence
still affected him with a sense of strangeness--it took him a moment to
get used to her again, as it were--and he was forced to reassure himself
that nothing had changed during his absence, that she was still all his
own.

When the agitation of these first, few, speechless minutes had subsided, a
great tenderness seized Louise; freeing one hand, she smoothed back his
hair from his forehead, with movements each of which was a caress. As for
him, his first impetuous rush of feeling was invariably followed by an
almost morbid pity for her, which, in this form, was a new note in their
relation to each other, or a harking back to the oldest note of all. When
he considered how dependent she was on him, how her one desire was to have
him with her, he felt that he could never repay her or do enough for her:
and, whatever his own state of mind previous to coming, when once he was
there, he exerted himself to the utmost, to cheer her. It was always she
who needed consolation; and, by means of his endearments, she was petted
back to happiness like a tired child.

In his efforts to take her out of herself, Maurice told her how he had
spent the day: where he had been, and whom he had met--every detail that
he thought might interest her. She listened, in grateful silence, but she
never put a question. This at an end, he returned once more, in a kind of
eternal circle, to the one subject of which she never wearied. He might
repeat, for the thousandth time, how dear she was to him, without the
least fear that the story would grow stale in the telling.

And once here, amidst the deep tenderness of his words, he felt her slowly
come to life again, and unfold like a flower. After the long, dead day,
Louise was consumed by a desire to drain such moments as these to the
dregs. She did not let a word of his pass unchallenged, and all that she
herself said, was an attempt to discover some spasm of mental ecstasy,
which they had not yet experienced. Sometimes, the feeling grew so
strong that it forced her to give an outward sign. Slipping to her knees,
she gazed at him with the eyes of a faithful animal. "What have I done to
make you look at me like that?" asked Maurice, amazed.

"What can I do to show you how I love you? Tell me what I can do."

"Do?--what do you want to do? Be your own dear self--that's all, and more
than enough."

But she continued to look beseechingly at him, waiting for the word that
might be the word of her salvation.

"Haven't you done enough already, in giving yourself to me?" he asked,
seeing how she hung on his lips.

But she repeated: "What can I do? Let me do something. Oh, I wish you
would hurt me, or be unkind to me!"

He tried to make her understand that he wished for no such humble
adoration, that, indeed, he could not be happy under it. If either was to
serve the other, it was he; he asked nothing better than to put his hands
under her feet. But he could neither coax her nor laugh her out of her
absorption: she had the will to self-abasement; and she remained
unsatisfied, waiting for the word he would not speak.

Once or twice, during these weeks, they went out in the evening, and, in
the corner of some quiet restaurant, took a festive little meal. But, for
the most part, she preferred to stay at home. She was not dressed, she
said, or she was tired, or it was too hot, or it had rained. And Maurice
did not urge her; for, on the last occasion, the evening had been spoiled
for him by the conduct of some people at a neighbouring table; they had
stared at Louise, and whispered remarks about her. At home, she herself
prepared the supper, moving indolently about the room, her dressing-gown
dragging after her, from table to cupboard, and back again, often with a
pause at his side, in which she forgot what she had set out for. Maurice
disputed each trifling service with her; he could only think of Louise as
made to be waited on, slow to serve herself.

"Let me do it, dearest."

She had risen anew to fetch something. Now she stood beside him, and put
her arms round his neck.

"What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do," she said, and crushed his
head against her breast.

He loosened her fingers, and drew her to his knee. "What do you
want me to say, dear discontent? Do?--you were never meant to do anything
in this world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so!
Look at them! Most white and most useless!"

"There are things not made with hands," she answered obscurely. She let
him do what he liked; but she kept her face turned away; and over her eyes
passed a faint shadow of resignation.

But this mood also was a transient one; hours followed, when she no longer
sought and questioned, but when she gave, recklessly, in a wild endeavour
to lose the sense of twofold being. And before these outbreaks, the young
man was helpless. His past life, and such experience as he had gathered in
it, grew fantastic and unreal, might all have belonged to some one else:
the sole reality in a world of shadows was this soft human body that he
held in his arms.

Point by point, however, each of which wounded, consciousness fought
itself free again. Such violent extremes of emotion were, in truth,
contrary to his nature. They made him unsure. And, as the pendulum swung
back, something vital in him made protest.

"Sometimes, it seems as if there were something else . . . something
that's not love at all . . . more like hate--yes, as if you hated me . . .
would like to kill me."

Her whole body was moved by the sigh she drew.

"If I only could! Then I should know that you were mine indeed."

"Is it possible for me to be more yours than I am?"

"Part of you would never be mine, though we spent all our lives together."

He roused himself from his lethargy. "How can you say that?--And yet I
think I know what you mean. It's like a kind of rage that comes over
one--Yes, I've felt it, too. Listen, darling!--there are things one can't
say in daylight. I, too, have felt . . . sometimes . . . that in spite of
all my love for you--I mean our love for each other--yet there was still
something, a part of you, I had no power over. The real you is
something--some one I don't really know in spite of all the kisses.
Yes"--and the more he tried to find words for what he meant, the more
convinced he grew of its truth. "Nothing keeps us apart; you love me, are
here in my arms, and yet . . .yet there's a bit of you I can't
influence--that is still strange to me. How often I have to ask you why
you look at me in a certain way, or what you are thinking of! I never know
your thoughts; I've never once been able to read them; you always keep
something back.--Why is it, dear? Is it my fault? If I could just once get
at your real self--if I knew that once, only once, in all these weeks, you
had been mine--every bit of you--then . . . yes, then, I believe I would
be satisfied to . . . to--I don't know what!"

He had spoken in an even, monotonous voice, almost more to himself than to
her. Now, however, he was forced to the opposite extreme of anxious
solicitude. "No, no, I didn't really mean it. Darling! . . . hush!--don't
cry like that. I didn't know what I was saying; it isn 't true, not a word
of it."

She had flung herself across him; her own elemental weeping shook her from
head to foot. He realised, for the first time, the depth and strength of
it, now that it, as it were, went through him, too. Gathering her to him,
he made wild and foolish promises. But nothing soothed her: she wept on,
until the dawn crept in, thinly grey, round the windows. But when it grew
so light that the objects in the room were recovering their form, she fell
asleep, and he hardly dared to breathe, for fear of disturbing her.

By day, the sensations he had tried to express to her seemed the figments
of the night. He needed only to be absent from her to feel the old
restlessness tug at his heart-strings. At such moments, it seemed to him
ridiculous to torment himself about an infinitesimal flaw in their love,
and one which perhaps existed only in his imagination. To be with her
again was his sole desire; and to feel her cheek on his, to be free to run
his hands through her exciting hair, belonged, when he was separated from
her, to that small category of things for which he would have bartered his
soul.

One evening, towards the end of September, Louise watched for him at the
window. It had been a warm autumn day, rich in varying lights and shades.
Now it was late, nearly half-past six, and still he had not come: her eyes
were tired with staring down the street.

When at last he appeared, she saw that that he was carrying flowers. Her
heart, which, at the sight of him, had set up a glad and violent beating,
settled down again at once, to its normal course. She knew what the
flowers meant: in a spirit of candour, which had something disarming in
it, he invariably brought them when he could not stay long with her; and
she had learned to dread seeing them in his hand.

In very truth, he was barely inside the room before he told her
that he could only stay for an hour. He was to play his trio the following
evening, and now, at the last moment, the 'cellist had been taken ill. He
had spent the greater part of the afternoon looking for a substitute, and
having found one, had still to interview him again, to let him know the
time at which Schwarz had appointed an extra rehearsal for the next day.

Maurice had mentioned more than once the date of his playing; but it had
never seemed more to Louise than a disturbing outside fact, to be put out
of mind or kissed away. She had forgotten all about it, and the knowledge
of this overcame her disappointment; she tried to atone, by being
reasonable. Maurice had steeled himself against pleadings and despondency,
and was grateful to her for making things easy. He wished to outdo himself
in tender encouragement; but she remained evasive: and since, in spite of
himself, he could not hinder his thoughts from slipping forward to the
coming evening, he, too, had moments of preoccupied silence.

When the clock struck eight, he rose to go. In saying goodnight, he turned
her face up, and asked her had she decided if she were coming to hear him
play.

It was on her direct lips to reply that she had not thought anything about
it. A glance at his face checked her. He was waiting anxiously for her
answer: it was a matter of importance to him. Her previous sense of
remissness was still with her, hampering her, making her unfree; and for a
minute she did not know what to say.

"Would you mind much if I asked you not to come?" he said as she
hesitated.

"No, of course not," she hastened to respond, glad to be relieved of the
decision. "If you would rather I didn't."

"It's a fancy of mine, dearest--foolish, I know--that I shall get on
better if you're not there."

"It's all right. I understand."

When he had gone, she returned to her place at the window. It was a fine
night: there was no moon; but the stars glittered furiously in the
inky-blue sky, a stretch of which was visible above the gardens. The
vastness of the night, the distance of sky and stars, made her shiver.
Leaning her wrists on the cold, moist sill, she looked down into the
street; it was not very far; but a jump from where she was, to the
pavement, would suffice to put an end to every feeling. She was very
lonely; no one wanted her. Here she might stand, at this forlorn post, for
hours, for the whole night; no one would either know or care.--And
her feeling of error, of unfreedom and desolation grew so hard to bear
that, for fear she should actually throw herself down, she banged the
window to, with a crash that resounded through the street.

But there was something else at work in her to-night, which she could not
understand. She struggled with it, as one struggles with a forgotten
melody, which hovers behind the consciousness, and will not emerge.

Except for the light thrown by a small lamp, the room was in shadow. She
went slowly back to the sofa. On the way she trod on the roses; they had
been knocked down and forgotten. She picked them up, and laid them on the
cushioned seat beside her. They were dark crimson, and gave out a strong
scent: Maurice had seldom brought her such beautiful roses. She sat with
her elbows on her knees, her hands closed and pressed to her cheeks, as
though she could only think with her muscles at a strain. In memory, she
went over what he had said, reflected on what his words meant, and strove,
honestly, to project herself into that part of his life, of which she knew
nothing. But it was not easy; for one thing, the smell of the roses was
too strong; it seemed to hinder her imagination. They had the scent that
only deep red roses have--one which seems to come from a distance, from
the very heart of cool, pure things--and more and more, she felt as if
something within her were trying to find vent in it, something that
swelled up, subsided, and mounted again, with what was almost a physical
effort. It had been the truth when she told him that she understood; but
it had touched her strangely all the same: for it had let her see into an
unsuspected corner of his nature. He, too, then, had a cranny in his
brain, where such fancies lodged--such an eccentric, artist fancy, or
whim, or superstition--as that, out of several hundred people, a single
individual could distract and disturb. He . . . too!

The little word had done it. Now she knew--knew what the roses had been
trying to tell her. And as if invisible hands had touched a spring in her
brain, thereby opening some secret place, the memory of a certain hour
returned to her, returned with such force that she fell on her knees, and
pressed her face to the seat of the sofa. On the floor beside her lay the
roses. Why, oh why, had he needed to bring them to her, on this night of
all others?

On the day she remembered, they had been lavished over the
room-one June evening, two years ago. And ever afterwards, the scent of
blood-red roses had been associated for her with one of the sweet, leading
themes in Beethoven's violin concerto. There was a special concert that
night at the Conservatorium; the hall was filled to the last place. She
waited with him in the green-room, until his turn came to play. Then she
went into the hall, and stood at the back, under the gallery. Once more,
she was aware of the stir that ran through the audience, as Schilsky
walked down the platform. Hardly, however, had he drawn his bow across the
strings, when she felt a touch on her arm, and a Russian, who was an
intimate friend of his, beckoned her outside. There, he told her that he
had been sent to ask her to leave the hall; and they smiled at each other,
in understanding of the whim. Afterwards, she learned how, just about to
step on to the platform, Schilsky had had a presentiment that things would
go wrong if she remained inside. In his gratitude, and in the boyish
exultation with which success filled him, he had collected all the roses,
and wantonly pulled them to pieces. Red petals fell like flakes of red
snow; and, crushed and bruised, the fragile leaves had yielded a scent,
tenfold increased.

While it lasted, the vision was painfully intense: on returning to
herself, she was obliged to look round and think where she was. The lamp
burned steadily; the dull room was just as she had left it. With a cry,
she buried her face in the cushions again, and held her hands to her ears.

More, more, and more again! She was as hungry for these memories as a
child for dainties. She was starved for them. And now, dead to the
present, she relived the past happy hours of triumph and excitement, not
one of which had hung heavy, in each of which her craving for sensation
had been stilled. She saw herself as she had then been, proud, secure,
unspeakably content. Forgotten words rang in her ears, words of love and
of anger, words that were like ointment and like knives. Then, not a day
had been empty or tedious; life was always highly coloured, and there was
neither pleasure nor pain that she had not tasted to the full. Even the
suffering she had gone through, for his sake, was no longer hateful to
her. Anything--anything rather than this dead level of monotony on which
she had fallen.

When, finally, she raised her head, she might, for all she knew, have been
absent for days. Things had lost their familiar aspect; she had once more
lived right through the great experience of her life. Putting her hands to
her forehead, she tried to force her thoughts back to reality.
Then, stiffly, she rose from her knees. In doing so, she touched the
roses. With a gesture that was her real awakening, she caught them up and
pressed them to her face. It was a satisfaction to her that fingers and
cheeks were pricked by their thorns. She was conscious of wishing to hurt
herself. With her lips on the cool buds, she stammered broken words:
"Maurice--my poor Maurice!" and kissed the flowers, feeling as if, in some
occult way, he would be aware of her kisses, of the love she was thus
expending on him.

For, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she was sensible of a great
compassion for him; and with each pressure of her lips to the roses, she
implored his forgiveness for her unpremeditated desertion. She called to
mind his tenderness, his unceasing care of her, and, closing her eyes,
stretched out her arms to him, in the empty room. Already she began to
live for the following evening, when he would come again. Now, only to
sleep through as many as she could of the hours that separated them! She
would be to him the next night, what she had never yet been: his own rival
in fondness. And as a beginning, she crossed the room, and put the fading
roses in a pitcher of water.

IV.

Towards seven o'clock the following evening, Maurice loitered about the
vestibule of the Conservatorium. In spite of his attempt to time himself,
he had arrived too early, and his predecessor on the programme had still
to play two movements of a sonata by Beethoven.

As he stood there, Madeleine entered by the street-door.

"Is that you?" she asked, in the ironical tone she now habitually used to
him. "You look just as if you were posing for the John in a Rubens
Crucifixion.--Feel shaky? No? You ought to, you know. One plays all the
better for it.--Well, good luck to you! I'll hold my thumbs."

He went along the passage to the little green-room, at the heels of his
string-players. On seeing them go by, it had occurred to him that he might
draw their attention to a passage in the VARIATIONS, with which he had not
been satisfied at rehearsal that day. But when he caught them up, they
were so deep in talk that he hesitated to interrupt. The 'cellist, a
greasy, little fellow with a mop of touzled hair, was relating an
adventure he had had the night before. His droll way of telling it was
more amusing than the long-winded story, and he himself was more tickled
by it than was the violinist, a lanky German-American boy, with oily black
hair and a pimpled face. Throughout, both tuned their instruments
assiduously, with that air of inattention common to string-players.

Meanwhile, the sonata by Beethoven ran its course. While the story-teller
still smacked his lips, it came to an end, and the performer, a tall,
Polish girl, with a long, sallow, bird-like neck, round which was wound a
piece of black velvet, descended the steps. Behind her was heard the
applause of many hands. As this showed no sign of ceasing, Schwarz, who
had come out of the hall by a lower door, bade her return and bow her
thanks. At his words, the girl burst into tears.

"NA, NA, NA!" he said soothingly. "What's all this about? You did
excellently."

She seized his hand and clung to it. The 'cellist ran to fetch water; the
other two young men were embarrassed, and looked away.

Here, however, several friends burst into the room, and bore
Fraulein Prybowski off. Schwarz gave the signal, the stringplayers picked
up their instruments, and the little procession, with Maurice at its head,
mounted the steps to the platform.

Although before an audience for the first time in his life, Maurice had
never felt more composed. Passing by the organ, and the empty seats of the
orchestra, he descended to the front of the platform, where two grand
pianos stood side by side; and, as he went, he noted that the hall was
exceptionally well filled. He let down the lid of the piano to the peg for
chambermusic; he lowered the piano-chair, and flicked the keys with his
handkerchief. And Schwarz, sitting by him, to turn the pages of the music,
felt so sure of this pupil's coolness that he yawned, and stroked the
insides of his trouser-legs.

Maurice was just ready for the start, when the 'cellist, who was restless,
discovered that the stand which had been placed for him was insecure;
rising from his scat, he went to fetch another from the back of the
platform. In the delay that ensued, Maurice looked round at the audience.
He saw innumerable heads and faces, all turned expectantly towards him,
like lines of globular fruits. His eye ranged indifferently over the
occupants of the front seats--strange faces, which told him nothing--until
his attention was arrested by a face almost directly beneath him, in the
second row. For the flash of a second, he thought he knew the person to
whom it belonged, and struggled to recall a name. Then, almost as swiftly,
he dismissed the idea. It was, however, a face of that kind which, once
seen, is never forgotten--a frog-like face, with protruding eyes, and the
frog's expressive leer. Somewhere, not very long ago, this face had been
before him, and had stared at him in the same disconcerting manner--but
where? when? In the few seconds that remained, his brain worked furiously,
sped back in desperate haste over all the likely places where he might
have seen it. And a restaurant evolved itself; a table in a secluded
corner; chrysanthemums and their acrid scent; a screen, round which this
repulsive face had peered. It had fixed them both, with such malevolence
that it had destroyed his pleasure, and he had persuaded Louise to go
home. His memory was now so alert that he could recall the man's two
companions as well.

The scene built itself up with inconceivable rapidity. And while he was
still absorbed by it, Schwarz raised a decisive hand. It was the signal to
begin; he obeyed unthinkingly; and was at the bottom of the first page
before he knew it.

Throughout the whole of the opening movement, he was not rightly
awake to what he was doing. His fingers, like well-drilled soldiers, went
automatically through their work, neither blundering nor forgetting; but
the mind which should have controlled them was unable to concentrate
itself: he heard himself play as though he were listening to some one
else. He was only roused by the burst of applause that succeeded the final
chords. As he struck the first notes of the ANDANTE WITH VARIATIONS, he
nerved himself for an effort; but now, as if it were the result of his
previous inattention, an odd uneasiness beset him; and his beginning to
weigh each note as he played it, his fingers hesitated and grew less sure.
Having failed, through over-care, in the rounding of a turn, he resolved
to let things go as they would, and his thoughts wander at will. The
movements of the trio succeeded one another; the VARIATIONS ceased, and
were followed by the crisp gaiety of the MINUET. The lights above his head
were reflected in the shining ebony of the piano; regularly, every moment
or two, he was struck by the appearance of Schwarz's broad, fat hand,
which crossed his range of vision to turn a leaf; he meditated absently on
a sharp uplifting of this hand that occurred, as though the master were
dissatisfied with the rhythm--the 'cellist's fault, no doubt: he had been
inexact at rehearsal, and, this evening, was too much taken up with his
own witticisms beforehand, to think about what he had to do. And thus the
four divisions of the trio slipped past, separated by a disturbing noise
of hands, which continued to seem as unreal to Maurice as everything else.
Only as the last notes of the PRESTISSIMO died away, in the disappointing,
ineffectual scales in C major, with which the trio closed--not till then
did he grasp that the event to which he had looked forward for many weeks
was behind him, and also that no one present knew less of how it had
passed off than he himself.