Books: Maurice Guest

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But as Krafft drew out his case to take another cigarette, a tattered
volume of Reclam's UNIVERSAL LIBRARY fell from his pocket, and spread
itself on the floor. Madeleine stooped and pieced it together.

"What have we here ?--ah, your Bible!" she said sarcastically: it was a
novel by a modern Danish poet, who died young. "You carry it about with
you, I see."

"To-day I needed STIMMUNG. But don't say Bible; that's an error of taste.
Say ' death-book.' One can study death in it, in all its forms."

"To give you STIMMUNG! I can't understand your love for the book, Heinz.
It's morbid."

"Everything's morbid that the ordinary mortal doesn't wish to be
reminded of. Some day--if I don't turn stoker or acrobat beforehand, and
give up peddling in the emotions--some day I shall write music to it. That
would be a melodrama worth making."

"Morbid, Heirtz, morbid!"

"All women are not of your opinion. I remember once hearing a woman say,
had the author still lived, she would have pilgrimaged barefoot to see
him."

"Oh, I dare say. There are women enough of that kind."

"Fools, of course?"

"Extravagant; unbalanced. The class of person that suffers from a diseased
temperament.--But men can make fools of themselves, too. There are
specimens enough here to start a museum with."

"Of which you, as NORMALMENSCH, could be showman."

Madeleine pushed her chair back towards the head of the, sofa, so that she
came to sit out of the range of Krafft's eyes.

"Talking of fools," she said slowly, "have you seen anything of Maurice
Guest lately?"

Krafft lowered a spike of ash into the tray. "I have not."

"Yes; I heard he had got into a different hour," she said disconnectedly.
As, however, Krafft remained impassive, she took the leap. "Is there--can
nothing be done for him, Heinz?"

Here Krafft did just what she had expected him to do: rose on his elbow,
and turned to look at her. But her face was inscrutable.

"Explain," he said, dropping back into his former position.

"Oh, explain!" she echoed, firing up at once. "I suppose if a
fellow-mortal were on his way to the scaffold, you men would still ask for
explanations. Listen to me. You're the only man here Maurice was at all
friendly with--I shouldn't turn to you, you scoffer, you may be sure of
it, if I knew of anyone else. He liked you; and at one time, what you said
had a good deal of influence with him. It might still have. Go to him,
Heinz, and talk straight to him. Make him think of his future, and of all
the other things he has apparently forgotten.--You needn't laugh! You
could do it well enough if you chose--if you weren't so hideously
cynical.--Oh, don't laugh like that! You're loathsome when you do. And
there's nothing natural about it."

But Krafft enjoyed himself undisturbed. "Not natural? It ought to be," he
said when he could speak again. "Oh, you English, you English!--was there
ever a people like you? Don't talk to me of men and women, Mada.
Only an Englishwoman would look at the thing as you do. How you would love
to reform and straitlace all us unregenerate youths! You've done your best
for me--in vain!--and now it's Guest. Mada, you have the Puritan's watery
fluid in your veins, and Cain's mark on your brow: the mark of the raceace
that carries its Sundays, its--language, its drinks, its dress, and its
conventions with it, whereever it goes, and is surprised, and mildly
shocked, if these things are not instantly adopted by the poor, purblind
foreigner.--You are the missionaries of the world!"

"Oh, I've heard all that before. Some day, Heinz, you really must come to
England and revise your impressions of us. However, I'm not going to let
you shirk the subject. I will tell you this. I know the MILIEU Maurice
Guest has sprung from, and I can judge, as you never can, how totally he
is unfitting himself to return. The way he's going on--I hear on all sides
that he'll never 'make his PRUFUNG,' now, and you yourself know his
certificate won't be worth a straw."

"There's something fascinating, I admit," Krafft went on, "about a people
of such a purely practical genius. And it follows, as a matter of course,
that, being the extreme individualists you are, you should question the
right of others to their particular mode of existence. For individualism
of this type implies a training, a culture, a grand style, which it has
taken centuries to attain--WE have still centuries to go, before we get
there. If we ever do! For we are the artists among nations--waxen
temperaments, formed to take on impressions, to be moulded this way and
that, by our age, our epoch. You are the moralists, we are the . . ."

"The immoralists."

"If you like. In your vocabulary, that's a synonym for KUNSTLER."

"You make me ill, Heinz!"

"KUSS' DIE HAND!" He was silent, following a smoke-ring with his eyes.
"Seriously, Mada," he said after a moment--but there was no answering
seriousness in his face, which mocked as usual. "Seriously, now, I suppose
you wouldn't admit what this DRESSUR, this HOHE SCHULE Guest is going
through, might be of service to him in the end?"

"No, indeed, I wouldn't," she answered hotly. "You talk as if he were a
circus-horse. Think of him now, and think of him as he was when he first
came here. A good fellow--wasn't he? And full to the brim of plans and
projects--ridiculous enough, some of them--but the great thing is to
be able to make plans. As long as a man can do that, he's on the upward
grade.--And he had talent, you said so yourself, and unlimited
perseverance."

"Good God, Madeleine" burst out Krafft. "That you should have been in this
place as long as you have, and still remain so immaculate!--Surely you
realise that something more than talent and perseverance is necessary? One
can have talent as one has a hat . . . use it or not as one likes.--I tell
you, the mill Guest is going through may be his salvation--artistically."

"And morally?" asked Madeleine, not without bitterness. "Must one give
thanks then, if one's friend doesn't turn out a genius?"

Krafft shrugged his shoulders. "As you take it. The artist has as much to
do with morality, as, let us say, your musical festivals have to do with
art.--And if his genius isn't strong enough to float him, he goes under,
UND DAMIT BASTA! The better for art. There are bunglers enough.--But I'll
tell you this," he rose on his elbow again, and spoke more warmly. "Since
I've seen what our friend is capable of; how he has allowed himself to be
absorbed; since, in short, he has behaved In such a highly un-British
way--well, since then, I have some hope of him. He seems open to
impression.--And impressions are the only things that matter to the
artist."

"Oh, don't go on, please! I'm sick to death of the very words art and
artist."

"Cheer up, Mada! You've nothing of the kind in your blood." He stretched
himself and yawned. "Nor has he, either, I believe. A face may deceive.
And a clear head, and unlimited perseverance, and intelligence, and
ambition--none of these things is enough. The Lord asks more of his
chosen."

Madeleine clasped her hands behind her head, and tilted back her chair.

"So you couldn't interfere, I see? Your artistic conscience would forbid
it."

"Why don't you do it yourself?" He scrutinised her face, with a sarcastic
smile.

"Oh, say it out! I know what you think."

"And am I not right?"

"No, you're not. How I hate the construction you put on things! In your
eyes, nothing is pure or disinterested. You can't even imagine to yourself
a friendship between a man and a woman. Such a thing isn't known
here--in your nation of artists. Your men are too inflammatory, and too
self-sufficient, to want their calves fatted for any but the one
sacrifice. Girls have their very kitchen-aprons tied on them with an
undermeaning. And poor souls, who can blame them for submitting! What a
fate is theirs, if they don't manage to catch a man! Gossip and needlework
are only slow poison."

"Now you're spiteful. But I'll tell YOU something. Such friendships as you
speak of are only possible where the woman is old--or ugly--or abnormal,
in some way: a man-woman, or a clever woman, or some other freak of
nature. Now, our women are, as a rule, sexually healthy. They know what
they're here for, too, and are not ashamed of it. Also, they still have
their share of physical attraction. While yours--good God! I wonder you
manage to keep the breed going!"

"Stop, Heinz!" said Madeleine sternly. "You are illogical, and indecent;
and you know there's a limit I don't choose to let you pass.--You're
wrong, too. You've only to look about you, here, with unbiassed eyes, to
see which race the prettiest girls belong to.--But never mind! You only
launch out in this way that you may not be obliged to discuss Maurice
Guest. I know you. I can read you like a book."

"You are not very old . . . or ugly . . . or abnormal, Mada."

She smiled in spite of herself. "And are we not friends, pray?"

"Something that way.--But in all you say about Guest, the impersonal note
is wanting. You're jealous."

"I'm nothing of the sort!--But you'll at least allow me to resent seeing a
friend of mine in the claws of this . . . this vampire?"

Krafft laughed. "Vampire is good!--A poor, distraught--"

"Spare your phrases, Heinz. She's bad through and through, and stupid into
the bargain."

"Lulu stupid? EI, EI, Mada! Your eyes are indeed askew. She has a touch of
the other extreme--of genius."

"NA!--Well, if this is another of your manifestations of genius, then
permit me to hate--no, to loathe it, in all its forms."

"GANZ NACH BELIEBEN! It's a privilege of your sex, you know. There never
was a woman yet who didn't prefer a good, square talent."

"A crack this way, and it's madness; that, and the world says
genius. And some people have a peculiar gift for discovering it. Those who
set themselves to it can find genius in a flea's jump."

"But has it never occurred to you, that the power of loving--that some
women have a genius for loving?--No, why do I ask! For if I am a book, you
are a poster--a placard."

"What a people you are for words! You make phrases about everything.
That's a ridiculous thing to say. If every fickle woman--"

"Fickle woman! fickle fiddle-sticks!" he interrupted. "That's only a tag.
The people whose business it is to decide these things--DIE HERREN
DICHTER--are not agreed to this day whet it's man who's fickle or woman.
In this mood it's one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats it
after them, like sheep."

"Well, if you wish me to put it more plainly: if what you say were true,
vice would be condoned."

"Vice!!" he cried with derision, and sat up and faced her. "Vice!--my dear
Mada!--sweet, innocent child! . . . No, no. A special talent is needed for
that kind of thing; an unlimited capacity for suffering; an entire
renunciation of what is commonly called happiness! You hold the good old
Philistine opinions. You think, no doubt, of two lovers living together in
delirious pleasure, in SAUS UND BRAUS.--Nothing could be falser. A woman
only needs to have the higher want in her nature, and the suffering is
there, too. She's born gifted with the faculty. And a woman of the type
we're speaking of, is as often as not the flower of her kind.--Or becomes
it.--For see all she gains on her way: the mere passing from hand to hand;
the intense impressionable nature; the process of being moulded--why, even
the common prostitute gets a certain manly breadth of mind, such as you
other women never arrive at. Each one who comes and goes leaves her
something: an experience--a turn of thought--it may be only an
intuition--which she has not had before."

"And the contamination? The soul?" cried Madeleine; two red spots had come
out on her cheeks.

"As you understand it, such a woman has no soul, and doesn't need one. All
she needs is tact and taste."

"You are the eternal scoffer."

"I never was more serious in my life.--But let us put it another way. What
does a--what does any beautiful woman want with a soul, or brains, or
morals, or whatever you choose to call it? Let her give thanks, night and
day, that she is what she is: one of the few perfect things on
this imperfect earth. Let her care for her beauty, and treasure it, and
serve it. Time ,enough when it is gone, to cultivate the soul--if, indeed,
she doesn't bury herself alive, as it's her duty to do, instead of
decaying publicly. Mada! do you know a more disgusting, more humiliating
sight than the sagging of the skin on a neck that was once like marble?--
than a mouth visibly losing its form?--the slender shoulders we have
adored, broadening into massivity?--all the fine spiritual delicacy of
youth being touched to heaviness?--all the barbarous cruelty, in short,
with which, before our eyes, time treats the woman who is no longer
young.--No, no! As long as she has her beauty, a woman is under no
necessity to bolster up her conscience, or to be reasonable, or to think.
--Think? God forbid! There are plain women enough for that. We don't ask
our Lady of Milo to be witty for us, or to solve us problems. Believe me,
there is more thought, more eloquence, in the corners of a beautiful
mouth--the upward look of two dark eyes--than in all women have said or
done from Sappho down. Springy colour, light, music, perfume: they are all
to be found in the curves of a perfect throat or arm."

Madeleine's silence bristled with irony.

"And that," he went on, "was where the girl you are blaspheming had such
exquisite tact. She knew this. Her instinct taught her what was required
of her. She would fall into an attitude, and remain motionless in it, as
if she knew the eye must feast its full. Or if she did move, and
speak--for she, too, had hours of a desperate garrulity--then one was
content, as well. Her vitality was so intense that her whole body spoke
when her lips did; she would pass so rapidly from one position to another
that you had to shut your eyes for fear that, out of all this multitude,
you would not be able to carry one away with you.--If some of her ways of
expressing herself in motion could be caught and fixed, a sculptor's fame
would be made.--A painter's, if he could reproduce the trick she has of
smiling entirely with her eyes and eyebrows.--And then her hands! Mada,
I wonder you other women don't weep for envy of them. She has only to
raise them, to pass them over her forehead, or to finger at her hair,
and the world is hers.--Do you really think a man asks soul of a woman
with such eyes and hand as those?--Good God, no! He worships her and
adores her. Were is only one place for him, and that's on his knees
before her."

"Well, really, Heinz!" said Madeleine, and the spots on her cheeks burnt a
dull red. "In imagination, do you know, I'm carried just three
years backwards? Do you remember that spring evening, when you came
rushing in here to me? 'I've seen the most beautiful woman in the world,
and I'm drunk with her.' And how I couldn't understand? For I thought her
plain, just as I still do.--But then, if I remember aright, your
admiration was by no means the platonic, artistic affair
it . . . hm! . . . is now."

"It was not.--But now, you understand, Mada, that I think a man makes a
good exchange of career, and success, and other such accidents of his
material existence, for the right to touch these hands at will. The one
thing necessary is, that he be fit for the post. I demand of him that he
be a gourmand, a connoisseur in beauty. And it's here, mind you, that I
have doubts of our friend.--Is it clear to you?"

"As clear as day, thanks. And you may be QUITE sure: of me never applying
to you for help again. I shall respect your principles."

"And mind you, I don't say Guest may not come out of the affair all
right--enriched for the rest of his life."

"Very good. And now you may go. I regret that I ever bothered with you."

Krafft went across to where Madeleine was standing, put his hands on her
two shoulders, and laid his head on his right arm, so that she, who was
taller than he was, looked down on the roundnesses of his curly hair.
"You're a good fellow, Mada--a good fellow! JA, JA--who knows! If you had
had just a little more of the EWIGWEIBLICHE about you!"

"Too much honour . . . But you don't expect Englishwomen to join your
harem, do, you?"

"There would have been a certain repose in belonging to a woman of your
type. But it's the charm--physical charm--we poor wretches can't do
without."

"Upon my word, it's almost a declaration!" cried Madeleine, not unnettled.
"Take my advice, Heinz. Hie you home, and marry the person you ought to.
Take pity on the poor thing's constancy. Unless," she added, a moment
later, with a sarcastic laugh, "since you're still so infatuated with
Louise, you persuade her to transfer her favours to you. That would solve
all difficulties in the most satisfactory way. She would have the variety
that seems necessary to her existence; you could lie on your knees before
her all day long; and our friend would be restored to sanity. Think it
over, Heinz. It's a good idea."

"Do you think she'd have me?" he asked, as he shook himself into
his coat.

"Heaven knows and Heaven only! Where Louise is concerned, nothing's
impossible--I've always maintained it."

"Well, ta-ta!--You shall have early news, I promise you."

Madeleine heard him go down the stair, whistling the ROSE OF SHARON. But
he could not have been half-way to the bottom, when he turned and came
back. Holding her door ajar, he stuck a laughing face into the room.

"Upon my word, Mada, I congratulate you! It's a colossal idea."

But Madeleine had had enough of him. "I'm glad it pleases you. Now go, go!
You've played the fool here long enough."

When he emerged from the house, Krafft had stopped whistling. He walked
with his hands in his pockets, his felt hat pulled down over his eyes. At
the corner, he was so lost in thought as to be unable to guide his feet:
he stood and gazed at the pavement. Still on the same spot, he pushed his
hat to the back of his head, and burst into such an eerie peal of laughter
that some ladies, who were coming towards him, started back, and, picking
up their skirts, went off the pavernent, in order to avoid passing him too
nearly.

The following afternoon, at an hour when Maurice was safely out of the
way, Krafft climbed the stair to the house in the BRUDERSTRASSE.

The landlady did not know him. Yes, Fraulein was at home, she said; but--
Krafft promptly entered, and himself closed the door.

Outside Louise's room, he listened, with bent head. Having satisfied
himself, he turned the handle of the door and went in.

Louise stood at the window, watching the snow fall. It had snowed
uninterruptedly since early morning; out of the leaden sky, flake after
flake fluttered down, whirled, spun, and became part of the fallen mass.
At the opening of the door, she did not stir; for it would only be Maurice
coming back to ask forgiveness; and she was too unspeakably tired to begin
all over again.

Krafft stood and eyed her, from the crown of her rough head, to the
bedraggled tail of the dressing-gown.

"GRUSS' GOTT, LULU!"

At the sound of his voice, she jumped round with a scream.

"You, Heinz! YOU!"

The blood suffused her face a purplish red; her voice was shrill
with dismay; her eyes hung on the young man as though he were a returning
spirit.

With an effort, she got the better of her first fright, and took a step
towards him. "How DARE you come into this room!"

Krafft hung his wet coat over the back of a chair, and wiped his face dry
of the melted snow.

"No heroics, Lulu!"

But she could not contain herself. "Oh, how dare you, It's a mean,
dishonourable trick--only you would do it!"

"Sit down and listen to what I have to say. It won't take long. And it's
to your own advantage, I think, not to make a noise.--May I smoke?"

She obeyed, taking the nearest chair; for she had begun to tremble; her
legs shook under her. But when he held out the case of cigarettes to her,
she struck it, and the contents were spilled on the floor.

"Look here, Lulu," he said, and crossing his legs, put one hand in his
pocket, while with the other he made gestures suitable to his words. "I've
not come here to-day to rake up old sores. Time has gone over them and
healed them, and it's only your--NEBENBEI GESAGT, extremely bad-conscience
that makes you afraid of me. I'm not here for myself, but--"

"Heinz!" The cry escaped her against her will. "For him? You've come from
him!"

He removed his cigarette and smiled. "Him? Which? Which of them do you
mean?"

"Which?" It was another uncontrollable exclamation. Then the expression of
almost savage joy that had lighted up her face, died out. "Oh, I know you!
. . . know you and hate you, Heinz! I've never hated anyone as much as
you."

"And a woman of your temperament hates uncommonly well.--No, all jokes
aside,"--the word cut her; he saw this, and repeated it. "Joking apart,
I've come to you to-day, merely to ask if you don't think your present
little affair has gone far enough?"

She was as composed as he was. "What business is it of yours?"

"Oh, none. Except that the poor fool was once my friend."

She gave a daring laugh, full of suggestion.

But Krafft was not put out by it. "Don't do that again," he said. "It
sounds ugly; and you have nothing to do with ugliness, you know. No, I
repeat once more: this is not a personal matter."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

It was now she who smiled derisively. "Have you forgotten a certain
evening in this room, three years ago?"

But he did not flinch. "Upon my word, if you are bold enough to recall
that!--However, the reminder was unnecessary. Tell me now: aren't you
about done with Guest?"

For still a moment, she fought to keep up her show of dignity. Then she
broke down. "Heinz!--oh, I don't know! Oh, yes, yes, yes--a thousand
times, yes! Oh, I'm so tired--I can't tell you how tired I am--of the very
sight of him! I never wanted him, believe me, I didn't! He thrust himself
on me. It was not my doing."

"Oh, come now! Tell that to some one else."

"Yes, I know: you only think the worst of me. But though I was weak, and
yielded, anyone would have done the same. He gave me no peace.--But I've
been punished out of all proportion to the little bit of happiness it
brought me. There's no more miserable creature alive than I am."

"What interests me," continued Krafft, in a matter-of-fact tone, "is, how
you came to choose so far afield from your particular type. It's well
enough represented here."

She saw the folly of wasting herself upon him, and gave a deep sigh. Then,
however, the same wild change as before came over her face. Stooping, she
took his hand and fondled it.

"Heinz! Now that you're here, do one thing--only one--for me! Have pity on
me! I've gone through so much--been so unhappy. Tell me--there's only one
thing I want to know. Where is he? Will he NEVER come back? For you know.
You must know. You have seen him."

She had sunk to her knees; her head was bent over his hand; she laid her
cheek against it. Krafft considered her thoughtfully; his eye dwelt with
approval on the broad, slender shoulders, the lithe neck--all the sure
grace of the crouching body.

"Will you do something for me, Lulu?"

"Anything!"

"Then let your hair down."

He himself drew out the pins and combs that held it, and the black mass
fell, and lay in wide, generous waves round face and neck.

"That's the idea! Now go on."

Louise kissed his hand. "Tell me; you must know."

"But is it possible that still interests you?"

"Oh, no! My life depends on it, that's all. You are cruel and bad;
but still I can speak to you--for months now, I haven't had a soul to
speak to. Be kind to me this once, Heinz. I CAN'T go on living without
him. I haven't lived since he left me--not an hour!--Oh, you're my last
hope!"

"You'll have plenty of hopes in your life yet."

"In those old days, you hated me, too. But don't bear malice now. There's
nothing I won't do for you, if you tell me. I'll never speak to--never
even think of you again."

"I'm not so long-suffering."

"Then you won't tell me?"

"I didn't say that."

She crushed his hand between hers. "Here's the chance you asked for--to
save your friend! Oh, won't you understand?"

An inward satisfaction, of which only he himself knew the cause, warmed
Krafft through at seeing her prostrate before him. But as he continued to
look at her, a thought crossed his mind, and quickly resolved, he laid his
cigarette on the table, and put his hands, first on her head, amid the
tempting confusion of her hair, which met them like a thick stuff pleasant
to the touch, and from there to her shoulders, inclining her towards him.
She looked up, and though her eyes were full of tears, her white face was
alight in an instant with hope again, as he said: "Would you do something
else for me if I told you?"

She strained back, so that she might see his face. "Heinz!--what is it?"
And then, with a sudden gasp of comprehension: