Books: Maurice Guest

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"--and a chance such as this, he will certainly never have again. A
hundred thousand marks, if a pfennig, and a face to turn after in the
street! No, he is a confounded deal wiser to stay here and make sure
of her, for that sort is as slippery as an eel."

"Krafft can tell us; he let her go; is she?--is it true?" shouted half
a dozen.

Krafft looked up and winked. His reply was so gross and so witty that
there was a very howl of mirth.

"KRAFFT HOCH, HOCH KRAFFT!" they cried, and roared again, until the
proprietor, a mild, round-faced man, who was loath to meddle with his
best customers, advanced to the middle of the floor, where he stood
smiling uneasily and rubbing his hands.

But it was growing late.

"Why the devil doesn't he come?" yawned Boehmer.

Perhaps," said Dove, mouthing deliberately as if he had a good
thing on his tongue; perhaps, by now, he is safe in the arms of----"

"Jesus or Morpheus?" asked a cockney 'cellist.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus!" sang the tipsy pianist; but he was
outsung by Krafft, who, rising from his seat, gave with dramatic
gesture:

O sink' hernieder,
Nacht der Liebe,
gieb Vergessen,
dass ich lebe . . .

After this, with much laughter and ado, they broke up to seek another
cafe in the heart of the town, where the absinthe was good and the
billiard-table better, two of his friends supporting Ford, who was
testily debating with himself why a composer should compose his own
works. At the first corner, Maurice whispered a word to Dove, and,
unnoticed by the rest, slipped away. For some time, he heard the sound
of their voices down the quiet street. A member of the group, in
defiance of the night, began to sing; and then, just as one bird is
provoked by another, rose a clear, sweet voice he recognised as
Krafft's, in a song the refrain of which was sung by all:

Give me the Rose of Sharon,
And a bottle of Cyprus wine!

What followed was confused, indistinct, but over and over again he
heard:

. . . the Rose of Sharon,
. . . a bottle of Cyprus wine!

until that, too, was lost in the distance.

When he reached his room, he did not light the lamp, but crossed to
the window and stood looking out into the darkness. The day's
impressions, motley as the changes of a kaleidoscope, seethed in his
brain, clamoured to be recalled and set in order; but he kept them
back; he could not face the task. He felt averse to any mental effort,
in need of a repose as absolute as the very essence of silence itself.
The sky was overcast; a wayward breeze blew coolly in upon him and
refreshed him; a few single raindrops fell. In the air a gentle
melancholy was abroad, and, as he stood there, wax for any
passing mood, it descended on him and enveloped him. He gave himself
up to it, unresistingly, allowed himself to toy with it, to sink
beneath it. Just, however, as he was sinking, sinking, he was roused,
suddenly, as from sleep, by the vivid presentiment that something was
about to happen to him: it seemed as if an important event were
looming in the near distance, ready to burst in upon his life, and not
only instantly, but with a monstrous crash of sound. His pulses beat
more quickly, his nerves stretched, like bows. But it was very still;
everything around him slept, and the streets were deserted.

A keen sense of desolation came over him; never, in his life, had he
felt so utterly alone. In all this great city that spread, ocean-like,
around him, not a heart was the lighter for his being there. Oh, to
have some one beside him!--some one who would talk soothingly to him,
of shadowy, far-off things, or, still better, be merely a sympathetic
presence. He passed rapidly in review people he had known, saw their
faces and heard their voices, but not one of them would do. No, he
wanted a friend, the friend he had often dreamed of, whose thoughts
would be his thoughts, with whom there would be no need of speech.
Then his longing swelled, grew fiercer and more undefined, and a
sudden burst of energy convulsed him and struggled to find vent. His
breath came hard, and he stretched his arms out into the night,
uncertainly, as if to grasp something he did not see; but they fell to
his side again. He would have liked to sweep through the air, to feel
the wind rushing dizzily through him; or to be set down before some
feat that demanded the strength of a Titan--anything, no matter what,
to be rid of the fever in his veins. But it beset him, again and
again, only by slow degrees weakening and dying away.

A bitter moisture sprang to his eyes. Leaning his head on his arms, he
endeavoured to call up her face. But it was of no use, though he
strained every nerve; for some time he could see only the rose that
had lain beside her on the piano, and in the troubled image that at
last crowned his patience, her eyes looked out, like jewels, from a
setting of golden petals.

Lying wakeful in the darkness, he saw them more clearly. Now, though,
they had a bluish light, were like moons, moons that burnt. If he lit
the lamp and tried to read, they got between him and the book, and
danced up and down the pages, with jerky, clockwork movements, like
stage fireflies. He put the light out, and lay staring vacantly
at the pale square of the window. And then, just when he was least
expecting it, he saw the whole face, so close to him and so
distinctly, that he started up on his elbow; and in the second or two
it remained--a Medusa-face, opaquely white, with deep, unfathomable
eyes--he recognised, with a shock, that his peace of mind was gone;
that the sudden experience of a few hours back had given his life new
meaning; that something had happened to him which could not be undone;
in other words--with an incredulous gasp at his own folly--that he was
head over ears in love.

Through the uneasy sleep into which he ultimately fell, she, and the
yellow rose, and the Rose of Sharon--a giant flower, with monstrous
crimson petals--passed and repassed, in one of those glorious tangles,
which no dreamer has ever unravelled.

When he wakened, it was broad daylight, and things wore a different
aspect. Not that his impression of the night had faded, but it was
forced to retire behind the hard, clear affairs of the morning. He got
up, full of vigour, impatient to be at work, and having breakfasted,
sat down at the piano, where he remained until his hands dropped from
the keys with fatigue. Throughout these hours, his mind ran chiefly on
the words Schwarz had said to him, the previous evening. They rose
before him in their full significance, and he leisurely chewed the
honeyed cud of praise. "I will undertake to make something of you,
undertake to make something of you"--his brain tore the phrase to
tatters. "Something" was properly vague, as praise should be, and
allowed the imagination free scope. Under the stimulus, everything
came easy; he mastered a passage of bound sixths that had baffled him
for days. And in this elated frame of mind, there was something almost
pleasurable in the pang with which he would become conscious of a
shadow in the background, a spot on his sun to make him unhappy.

Unhappy?--no: it gave a zest to his goings--out and comings-in. Through
long hours of work he was borne up by an ardent hope: afterwards, he
might see her. It made the streets exciting places of possible
surprises. Might she not, at any moment, turn the corner and be before
him? Might she not, this very instant, be going in the same direction
as he, in the next street? But a very little of this pleasant dallying
with chance was enough. One morning, when the houses opposite
were ablaze with sunshine, and he had settled down to practice with a
keen relish for the obstacles to be overcome; on this morning, within
half an hour, his mood swung round to the other extreme, and, from now
on, his desire to see her again was a burning unrest, which roused him
from sleep, and drove him out, at odd hours, no matter what he was
doing. Moodily he scoured the streets round the Conservatorium,
disconcerted by his own folly, and pricked incessantly by the
consciousness of time wasted. A companion at his side might have
dispelled the cobwebs; but Dove, his only friend, he avoided, for the
reason that Dove's unfailing good spirits needed to be met with a
similiar mood. And as for speaking of the matter, the mere thought of
the detailed explanation that would now be necessary, did he open his
lips, filled him with dismay. When four or five days had gone by in
this manner, without result, he took to hanging about, with other
idlers, on the steps of the Conservatorium, always hoping that she
would suddenly emerge from the doors behind him, or come towards him,
a roll of music in her hand.

But she never came.

One afternoon, however, as he loitered there, he encountered his
acquaintance of the very first day. He recognised her while she was
still some distance off, by her peculiar springy gait; at each step,
she rose slightly on the front part of her foot, as if her heels were
on springs. As before, she was indifferently dressed; a small, close
hat came down over her face and hid her forehead; her skirt seemed
shrunken, and hung limp about her ankles, accentuating the
straightness of her figure. But below the brim of the hat her eyes
were as bright as ever, and took note of all that happened. On seeing
Maurice, she professed to remember him "perfectly," beginning to speak
before she had quite come up to him.

The following day they met once more at the same place. This time, she
raised her eyebrows.

"You here again?" she said.

She disappeared inside the building; but a few minutes later returned,
and said she was going for a walk: would he come, too?

He assented, with grateful surprise, and they set off together in the
direction of the woods, as briskly as though they were on an errand.
But when they had crossed the suspension-bridge and reached the
quieter paths that ran through the NONNE, they simultaneously
slackened their pace. The luxuriant undergrowth of shrub, which filled
in, like lacework, the spaces between the tree-trunks, was sprinkled
with its first dots and pricks of green, and the afternoon was
pleasant for walking--sunless and still, and just a little fragrantly
damp from all the rife budding and sprouting. It was a day to further
a friendship more effectually than half a dozen brighter ones; a day
on which to speak out thoughts which a June sky, the indiscreet
playing of full sunlight, even the rustling of the breeze in the
leaves might scare, like fish, from the surface.

When they had laughingly introduced themselves to each other Maurice
Guest's companion talked about herself, with a frankness that left
nothing to be desired, and impressed the young man at her side very
agreeably. Before they had gone far, he knew all about her. Her name
was Madeleine Wade; she came from a small town in Leicestershire, and,
except for a step-brother, stood alone in the world. For several
years, she had been a teacher in a large school near London, and the
position was open for her to return to, when she had completed this,
the final year of her course. Then, however, she would devote herself
exclusively to the teaching of music, and, with this in view, she had
here taken up as many branches of study as she had time for. Besides
piano, which was her chief subject, she learned singing, organ,
counterpoint, and the elements of the violin.

"So much is demanded nowadays," she said in her dear soprano. "And if
you want to get on, it doesn't do to be behindhand. Of course, it
means hard work, but that is nothing to me--I am used to work and love
it. Since I was seventeen--I am twenty-six now--I can fairly say I have
never got up in the morning, without having my whole day mapped and
planned before me.--So you see idlers can have no place on my list of
saints."

She spoke lightly, yet with a certain under-meaning. As, however,
Maurice Guest, on whom her words made a sympathetic impression, as of
something strong and self-reliant--as he did not respond to it, she
fell back on directness, and asked him what he had been doing when she
met him, both on this day and the one before.

"I tell you candidly, I was astonished to find you there again," she
said. "As a rule, new-comers are desperately earnest brooms."

His laugh was a trifle uneasy; and he answered evasively, not meaning
to say much. But he had reckoned without the week of silence that lay
behind him; it had been more of a strain than he knew, and his pent-up
speech once set agoing could not be brought to a stop. An almost
physical need of comunication made itself felt in him; he spoke with a
volubility that was foreign to him, began his sentences with a
confidential "You see," and said things at which he himself was
amazed. He related impressions, not facts, and impressions which,
until now, he had not been conscious of receiving; he told unguardedly
of his plans and ambitions, and even went back and touched on his
home-life, dwelling with considerable bitterness on the scant sympathy
he had received.

His companion looked at him curiously. She had expected a casual
answer to her casual words, a surface frankness, such as she herself
had shown, and, at first, she felt sceptical towards this unbidden
confidence: she did not care for people who gave themselves away at a
word; either they were naive to foolishness or inordinately vain. But
having listened for some time to his outpourings, she began to feel
reassured; and soon she understood that he was talking thus at random,
merely because he was lonely and bottled-up. Before he had finished,
she was even a little gratified by his openness, and on his confiding
to her what Schwarz had said to him, she smiled indulgently.

"Perhaps I took it to mean more than it actually did," said Maurice
apologetically. "But anyhow it was cheering to hear it. You see, I
must prove to the people at home that I was right and they were wrong.
Failure was preached at me on every side. I was the only soul to
believe in myself."

"And you really disliked teaching so?"

"Hated it with all my heart."

She frankly examined him. He had a pale, longish face, with thin lips,
which might indicate either narrow prejudice or a fanatic tenacity.
When he grew animated, he had a habit of opening his eyes very wide,
and of staring straight before him. At such moments, too, he tossed
back his head, with the impatient movements of a young horse. His
hands and feet were good, his clothes of a provincial cut. Her fingers
itched to retie the bow of his cravat for him, to pull him here and
there into shape. Altogether, he made the impression upon her of being
a very young man: when he coloured, or otherwise grew embarrassed,
under her steady gaze, she mentally put him down for less than
twenty. But he had good manners; he allowed her to pass before him,
where the way grew narrow; walked on the outside of the path; made
haste to draw back an obstreperous branch; and not one of these
trifling conventionalities was lost on Madeleine Wade.

They had turned their steps homewards, and were drawing near the edge
of the wood, when, through the tree-trunks, which here were bare and
far apart, they saw two people walking arm in arm; and on turning a
corner found the couple coming straight towards them, on the same path
as themselves. In the full flush of his talk, Maurice Guest did not at
first grasp what was about to happen. He had ended the sentence he was
at, and begun another, before the truth broke on him. Then he
stuttered, lost the thread of his thought, was abruptly silent; and
what he had been going to say, and what, a moment before, had seemed
of the utmost importance, was never said. His companion did not seem
to notice his preoccupation; she gave an exclamation of what sounded
like surprise, and herself looked steadily at the approaching pair.
Thus they went forward to a meeting which the young man had imagined
to himself in many ways, but not in this. The moment he had waited for
had come; and now he wished himself miles away. Meanwhile, they walked
on, in a brutal, matter-of-fact fashion, and at a fairish pace, though
each step he took was an event, and his feet were as heavy and awkward
as if they did not belong to him.

The other two sauntered towards them, without haste. The man she was
with had his arm through hers, her hand in his left hand, while in his
right he twirled a cane. They were not speaking; she looked before
her, rather listlessly, with dark, indifferent eyes. To see this, to
see also that she was taller and broader than he had believed, and in
full daylight somewhat sallow, Maurice had first to conquer an
aversion to look at all, on account of the open familiarity of their
attitude. It was not like this that he had dreamt of finding her. And
so it happened that when, without a word to him, his companion crossed
the path and confronted the other two, he only lingered for an
instant, in an agony of indecision, and then, by an impulse over which
he had no control, walked on and stood out of earshot.

He drew a deep breath, like one who has escaped a danger; but almost
simultaneously he bit his lip with mortification: could any power on
earth make it clear to him why he had acted in this way? All
his thoughts had been directed towards this moment for so long, only
to take this miserable end. A string of contemptuous epithets for
himself rose to his lips. But when he looked back at the group, the
reason of his folly was apparent to him; at the sight of this other
beside her, a sharp twinge of jealousy had run through him and
disturbed his balance. He gazed ardently at her in the hope that she
would look round, but it was only the man--he was caressing his slight
moustache and hitting at loose stones while the girls talked--who
turned, as if drawn by Maurice's stare, and looked full at him, with
studied insolence. In him, Maurice recognised the violinist of the
concert, but he, too, was taller than he had believed, and much
younger. A mere boy, said Maurice to himself; a mere boy, with a
disagreeable dissipated face.

Madeleine Wade came hurrying to rejoin him, apologising for the delay;
the meeting had, however, been fortunate, as she had had a message
from Schwarz to deliver. Maurice let a few seconds elapse, then asked
without preamble: "Who is that?"

His companion looked quickly at him, struck both by his tone and by
his unconscious use of the singular. The air of indifference with
which he was looking out across the meadowland, told its own tale.

"Schilsky? Don't you know Schilsky? Our Joachim IN SPE?" she asked, to
tease him.

Maurice Guest coloured. "Yes, I heard him play the other night," he
answered in good faith. "But I didn't mean him. I meant the--the lady
he was with."

The girl at his side laughed, not very heartily.

"ET TU, BRUTE!" she said. "I might have known it. It really is
remarkable that though so many people don't think Louise goodlooking--I
have often heard her called plain--yet I never knew a man go past her
without turning his head.--You want to know who and what she is? Well,
that depends on whom you ask. Schwarz would tell you she was one of
his most gifted pupils--but no: he always says that of his pretty
girls, and some do find her pretty, you know."

"She is, indeed, very," said Maurice with warmth. "Though I think
pretty is not just the word."

"No, I don't suppose it is," said Madeleine, and this time there was a
note of mockery in her laugh. But Maurice did not let himself be
deterred. As it seemed likely that she was going to let the
subject rest here, he persisted: "But suppose I asked you--what would
you say?"

She gave him a shrewd side-glance. "I think I won't tell you," she
said, more gravely. "If a man has once thought a girl pretty, and all
the rest of it, he's never grateful for the truth. If I said Louise
was a baggage, or a minx, or some other horrid thing, you would always
bear me a grudge for it, so please note, I don't say it--for we are
going to be friends, I hope?"

"I hope so, too," said the young man.

They walked some distance along the unfinished end of the
MOZARTSTRASSE, where only a few villas stood, in newly made gardens.

"At least, I should like to know her name her whole name. You said
Louise, I think?"

She laughed outright at this. "Her name is Dufrayer, Louise Dufrayer,
and she has been here studying with Schwarz for about a year and a
half now. She has some talent, but is indolent to the last degree, and
only works when she can't help it. Also she always has an admirer of
some kind in tow. This, to-day, is her last particular friend.--Is that
biographical matter enough?"

He was afraid he had made himself ridiculous in her eyes, and did not
answer. They walked the rest of the way in silence. At her house-door,
they paused to take leave of each other.

"Good-bye. Come and see me sometimes when you have time. We were once
colleagues, you know, and are now fellow-pupils. I should be glad to
help you if you ever need help."

He thanked her and promised to remember; then walked home without,
knowing how he did it. He had room in brain for one thought only; he
knew her name, he knew her name. He said it again and again to
himself, walked in time with it, and found it as heady as wine; the
mere sound of the spoken syllables seemed to bring her nearer to him,
to establish a mysterious connection between them. Moreover, in itself
it pleased him extraordinarily; and he was vaguely grateful to
something outside himself, that it was a name he could honestly
admire.

In a kind of defiant challenge to unseen powers, he doubled his arm
and felt the muscles in it. Then he sat down at his piano, and, to the
dismay of his landlady--for it was now late evening--practised for a
couple of hours without stopping. And the scales he sent flying
up and down in the darkness had a ring of exultation in them, were
like cries of triumph.

He had discovered the "Open Sesame" to his treasure. And there was
time and to spare. He left everything to the future, in blind trust
that it would bring him good fortune. It was enough that they were
here together, inhabitants of the same town. Besides, he had formed a
friendship with some one who knew her; a way would surely open up, in
which he might make her aware of his presence. In the meantime, it was
something to live for. Each day that dawned might be THE day.

But little by little, like a fountain run dry, his elation subsided,
and, as he lay sleepless, he had a sudden fit of jealous despair. He
remembered, with a horrid distinctness, how he had seen her. Again she
came towards them, at the other's side, hand in hand with him,
inattentive to all but him. Now he could almost have wept at the
recollection. Those clasped hands!--he could have forgiven everything
else, but the thought of these remained with him and stung him. Here
he lay, thinking wild and foolish things, building castles that had no
earthly foundation, and all the time it was another who had the right
to be with her, to walk at her side, and share her thoughts. Again he
was the outsider; behind these two was a life full of detail and
circumstance, of which he knew nothing. His excited brain called up
pictures, imagined fiercely at words and looks, until the darkness and
stillness of the room became unendurable; and he sprang up, threw on
his clothing, and went out. Retracing his steps, he found the very
spot where they had met. Guiltily, with a stealthy look round him,
though wood and night were black as ink, he knelt down and kissed the
gravel where he thought she had stood.

IV.

It was through Dove's agency--Dove was always on the spot to guide and
assist his friends; to advise where the best, or cheapest, or rarest,
of anything was to be had, from secondhand Wagner scores to hair
pomade; he knew those shops where the "half-quarters" of ham or
roast-beef weighed heavier than elsewhere, restaurants where the beer
had least froth and the cutlets were largest for the money; knew the
ins and outs of Leipzig as no other foreigner did, knew all that went
on, and the affairs of everybody, as though he went through life
garnering in just those little facts that others were apt to overlook.
Through Dove, Maurice became a paying guest at a dinner-table kept by
two maiden ladies, who eked out their income by providing a plain
meal, at a low price, for respectable young people.

The company was made up to a large extent of English-speaking
foreigners. There were several university students--grave-faced, older
men, with beards and spectacles--who looked down on the young
musicians, and talked, of set purpose, on abstruse subjects. More
noteworthy were two American pianists: Ford, who could not carry a
single glass of beer, and played better when he had had more than one;
and James, a wiry, red-haired man, with an unfaltering opinion of
himself, and an iron wrist--by means of a week's practice, he could
ruin any piano. Two ladies were also present. Philadelphia Jensen; of
German-American parentage, was a student of voice-production, under a
Swedish singing master who had lately set musical circles in a
ferment, with his new and extraordinary method: its devotees swore
that, in time, it would display marvellous results; but, in the
meantime, the most advanced pupils were only emitting single notes,
and the greater number stood, every morning, before their respective
mirrors, watching their mouths open and shut, fish-fashion, without
producing a sound. Miss Jensen--she preferred the English pronunciation
of the J--was a large, fleshy woman, with a curled fringe and prominent
eyes. Her future stage-presence was the object of general admiration;
it was whispered that she aimed at Isolde. Loud in voice and manner,
she was fond of proclaiming her views on all kinds of subjects,
from diaphragmatic respiration, through GHOSTS, which was being read
by a bold, advanced few, down to the continental methods of regulating
vice--to the intense embarrassment of those who sat next her at table.
Still another American lady, Miss Martin, was studying with Bendel,
the rival of Schwarz; and as she lived in the same quarter of the town
as Dove and Maurice, the three of them often walked home together. For
the most part, Miss Martin was in a state of tragic despair. With the
frankness of her race, she admitted that she had arrived in Leipzig,
expecting to astonish. In this she had been disappointed; Bendel had
treated her like any other of his pupils; she was still playing Haydn
and Czerny, and saw endless vistas of similar composers "back of
these." Dove laid the whole blame on Bendel's method--which he
denounced with eloquence--and strongly advocated her becoming a pupil
of Schwarz. He himself undertook to arrange matters, and, in what
seemed an incredibly short time, the change was effected. For a
little, things went better; Schwarz was reported to have said that she
had talent, great talent, and that he would make something of her; but
soon, she was complaining anew: if there were any difference between
Czerny and Bertini, Haydn and Dussek, some one might "slick up "and
tell her what it was. Off the subject of her own gifts, she was a
lively, affable girl, with china-blue eyes, pale flaxen hair, and
coal-black eyebrows; and both young men got on well with her, in the
usual superficial way. For Maurice Guest, she had the additional
attraction, that he had once seen her in the street with the object of
his romantic fancy.