Books: Maurice Guest

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"JA, JA," said the woman, and rearranged the covering. "It's a pleasure to
handle such a pretty corpse. That one there, now,"--with her chin she
pointed to the other figure, and made a face of disgust. "EIN EKLIGER
KERL! There was nothing to be done with him."

"Let me see what he's like," begged Louise.

"It's an ugly sight," said the woman. However, she pulled the sheet down,
and so far that not only the face, but also a part of the hairy black
breast was visible.

Louise shuddered, yet the very horror of the thing fascinated her, and she
plied the woman with questions about the workings of the agonising poison
that had been swallowed. After one hasty glance, Maurice had
turned away, and now stood staring out of the high, barred window into a
gloomy little courtyard, For him, the air of the room was hard to breathe,
owing to the faint, yet unmistakable odour, which even the waxen figure of
the girl had begun to exhale; and he marvelled how Louise, who was so
sensitive, could endure it.

Outside, both drew long breaths of the cold, evening air, and Louise
bought a bunch of violets, which she pressed to nose and mouth.

"Horrible, horrible!" she said, at the same time raising her shoulders in
their heavy cape. "Oh, that man!--I shall never forget his face."

"What do you go to such places for? You have only yourself to thank for
it." He, too, was aware that a needless and repellent memory had been
added to their lives.

"Oh, everything's my own fault--I know that. You are never to blame for
anything!"

"Did I ask you to go there ?--did I?"

But she only laughed in reply, through and through hostile to him; and
they walked for some distance in silence.

"Why are you going this way?" he asked suspiciously, when she turned into
a street that led in the opposite direction to that which they should have
taken.

"I'm not going home. I couldn't sit alone in the dark with that . . that
thing before my eyes."

"Who asked you to sit alone?--Where are you going?"

"I don't know . . . where I like."

"That's no answer."

"And if I don't choose to answer?--I don't want you. I want to be alone.
I'm sick of your perpetual bad-temper, and your eternal
slf-righteousness."

He laughed, just as she had done. The sound enraged her.

"Oh, the dead at least are at peace!" she cried.

"Yes! . . . why don't you say it? You wish you were lying there--at peace
from me!"

"Why should I say what you know so well?"

"Go and do it then!--who's hindering you?"

"For you?--kill myself for you?"

One word gave another; they pressed forward, in the falling dusk, like two
distraught creatures, heedless of the notice they attracted, or of who
should hear their bitter words. And because their gestures were, to some
extent, regulated by the conventions of the street, because they could not
face each other with flaming eyes, and throw out hands and arms to
emphasise what they said, their words were all the more cruel. Louise made
straight for home now; she escaped into the house, banging the door.
Maurice strode down the street, in a tumult of resentment, vowing never to
return.

Avery Hill was buried the following afternoon. Maurice went to the
funeral, becaug, since he had seen the dead girl's body at the mortuary,
he had been invaded by a kind of pity for her, lying alone at the mercy of
barber and LEICHENFRAU. And so, towards three o'clock, he fought his way
against a cutting wind to the JOHANNISFRIEDHOF.

A mere handful of people stood round the grave. In addition to the English
chaplain, and a couple of diggers, there were present Dove, two Americans,
and a young clerk from the consul's office, who was happy to be
associated, in any fashion, with the English residents. It was the coldest
day of that winter. Over the earth swept a harsh, dry wind, which cut like
the blade of a knife, and forced stinging tears from the eyes. This wind
had dried the frozen surface of the ground to the impenetrability of iron;
loose earth crumbled before it like powder. Grass and shrubs had
shrivelled, blighted by its breath; the bare trees were sooty-black
against the sky. So intense was the prevailing sensation of icy dryness
that it seemed as if the earth would never again know moisture. People's
faces grew as wizened as the skins of old apples; throats and lungs were
choked by the grey dust, which whirled through the streets, and made
breathing an effort.

In the outlying cemetery it was still bleaker than in the shelter of the
houses. Over this stretch of ground the wind swept as over the surface of
a sea. The grave-diggers related the extraordinary difficulty they had had
in digging the grave; the earth that had been thrown up lay cracked into
huge, frozen lumps. These two men stood in the background while the
service was going on, and stamped their feet and beat their hands, encased
in monstrous woollen gloves, to keep the blood flowing. The English
chaplain, a tall, cadaverous man, with sunken cheeks and a straw-coloured
beard, had wound a red and white comforter over his surplice; the five
young men pulled down the ear-flaps of their caps, and stood, with
high-drawn shoulders. burrowing their hands in their pockets. The chaplain
gabbled the few necessary prayers: they were inaudible to his hearers; for
the rushing wind carried them straight over his shoulder into
space. He was not more than a bare ten minutes over the service. Then the
diggers came forward to lower the coffin. Owing to the stiffness of their
hands, the ropes slid from their grasp, and the coffin fell forward into
the hard yellow grave with a bump. The young men took the obligatory
handfuls of earth, and struck the side of the coffin with them as gently
as possible. With the last word still on his lips, the chaplain shut his
book and fled; and the rest hastily dispersed. Maurice shook off the young
clerk, who was murmuring unintelligible words of sympathy, and left the
cemetery in the wake of the two Americans, for whom a droschke was in
waiting to take them back to the town.

"Waal, I'm sort o' relieved that wasn't MY funeral," he heard one of them
say.

He walked at full speed to restore his famished circulation. When he was
in the heart of the town again, he entered a cafe; and there he remained,
with his elbows on the little marble table, letting the scene he had just
come through pass once more before his mind. There had been something
grotesquely indecent about the haste of every one concerned: the chaplain,
gabbling like a parrot, out of regard for the safety of his own lungs; the
hurry-skurry of the diggers, whose thoughts were no doubt running on the
size of their gratuities; the openly expressed satisfaction of the few
mourners, when they were free to hurry off again, as in hurry they had
arrived. Not one present but had counted the minutes, at the expiry of
which the dead girl would be consigned to her appointed hole. What an
ending! All the talent, the incipient genius, that had been in her, thrust
away with the greatest possible despatch, buried out of sight in the
hideously hard, cold earth. Snuffed out like a candle, and with as little
ceremony, was all the warm, complex life that had made up this one,
throbbing bit of humanity: for what it had been, not a soul alive now
cared. And what a night, too, for one's first night underground! Brr!--At
the thought of it, he drank another cup of coffee, and a fiery, stirring
liqueur. But the sense of depression clung to him, and, as he walked home,
he regretted the impulse that had led him to attend the funeral. For all
the melancholy of valediction was his. The dead girl was free--and he had
a sudden vision of her, as she had lain in the mortuary, with the look of
superhuman peace on her face. Over the head of this, he was sarcastic at
his own expense. For though she WERE being treated like a piece of lumber,
what did it matter to her? Beneath the screening lid, she
continued to sleep, tranquil, undisturbed. On the other hand, how absurd
it was that he, who had cared little for her in life, should in this wise
constitute himself her only mourner! And, mentally and physically, he now
jerked himself to rights, and even began to whistle, as he went, in an
attempt to seem at harmony with himself. But the tune that rose to his
lips was Krafft's song, THE ROSE OF SHARON, and he straightway broke off,
in disgust and confusion.

In his room, as soon as he had struck a match to light the lamp, he saw
that a letter was lying on the table. By the gradual spread of the light,
he made out that it bore an Austrian stamp, and directly he took it in his
hand, he recognised the writing. Heinz!--it was from Heinz! He tore open
the envelope with unsteady fingers; what could Heinz have to write to him
about? Instinctively, he connected it in some way with the events of the
afternoon. But it was a very brief note, covering hardly a page of the
paper. Standing beside the lamp, Maurice held the sheet in the circle of
light, and ran his eye over the few lines. He took them in, in a flash,
that is to say, he read them automatically; but their sense did not
penetrate his brain. He tried again, and still he could not grasp what
they meant; still again, and slowly, word by word, till he could have
repeated them by heart; but always without getting at their inner meaning.
Then, however, and all of a sudden, as if some inner consciousness had
understood them, and now gave bodily warning of it; suddenly, his knees
began to shake, and he was forced to sit down. Sitting, he continued to
stare at the page of writing before him, with contracted pupils. He
commenced to read again, and even said the first line or two of the letter
aloud, as if that might aid him. But the paper fell from his hand, and he
gazed, instead, into the flame of the lamp, right into the inmost flame,
till he was blind with it. His head fell forward, and lay on his hands,
and on the rustling sheet of paper.

"God in Heaven!"

He heard himself say it, and was even conscious of the fact that, like
every mortal in the throes of a strong emotion, he, too, called on God.

A long and profound silence ensued. It went on and on, persisted, was
about to become eternal, when it was rudely broken by the sound of a
child's cry. He raised his head. The walls swam round him: in spite of the
coldness of the night and the fact that the room was unheated, he was
clammy with perspiration. The skin of his face, too, had a
peculiar, drawn feeling, as if it were a mask that was too tight for it.
He shivered. Then his eye fell on the letter lying open on the table.
Without a moment's hesitation, without waiting even to put the lamp out,
he seized it, and went headlong from the house.

But he was strangely unequal to exertion. He felt a craving for stimulant,
and entering a wine-shop, drank a couple of cognacs. His strength came
back to him; people moved out of his way; he had energy enough to climb
the stair, and to go through the business of unlocking the door.

At his abrupt entrance, Louise concealed something in a drawer, and turned
the key on it. But Maurice was too self-absorbed to heed her action, or
consciously to hear her exclamation at his haggard appearance. He shut the
door, crossed to where she was standing, and, without speaking, pulled her
nearer to the lamp. By its light, he scanned her face with a desperate
eagerness.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

At the sound of her voice, the tension of the past hour relaxed. He let
his head fall on her shoulder, and shut his eyes, swaying as she swayed
beneath his weight.

"Forgive me! . . . forgive me!"

"You've been drinking, I think." But she held still under his grasp.

"Yes, I have. Louise! . . . tell me it's a horrible mistake. Help me, you
MUST help me!"

"How can I help you, if you won't tell me what the matter is?" She
believed him to be half drunk, and spoke as to a drunken person, without
meaning much.

"Yes, yes . . . I will. Only give me time."

But he postponed beginning. Leaning more heavily on her, he pressed his
lips to the stuff of her dress. He would have liked to sleep, just where
he was; indeed, he was invaded by the desire to sleep, never again to
unclose his eyes. But she grew restless, and tried to draw her shoulder
away. Then he looked at her, and a feverish stream of words, half
self-recriminative, half in self-defence, burst from his lips. But they
had little to do with the matter in hand, and were incomprehensible to
her. "It has been a terrible nightmare. And only you can drive it away."
As he spoke, he looked, with a sudden suspicion, right into her eyes. But
they neither faltered nor grew uneasy.

"It will turn out to be nothing, I know," she said coldly. "You're
always devising some new way of tormenting me."

Her words roused him. Fumbling in his pocket, he drew from it Krafft's
letter. "Is that nothing? Read it and tell me. I found it at home on my
table."

Louise took it with unmoved indifference. But directly she saw whose
handwriting it was, her face grew grave and attentive. She looked back
from the envelope to him, to see what he was thinking, to learn how much
he knew. In spite of his roughness there was a hungry, imploring look in
his eyes, an appeal to her to put him out of misery, and in the way he
desired. And, as always, before such a look, her own face hardened.

"Read it! What he dares to write to me!"

Slowly, as if it were impossible for her to hurry, she drew the sheet from
the crumpled envelope and smoothed it out. As she did so, she half turned
away. But not so far that he could not see the dark, disfiguring blood
stain her neck and blotch her cheek--even her ear grew crimson. She read
deliberately, lingering over each word, but the instant she had finished,
she crushed the paper to a ball, and threw it to the other end of the
room.

"The scoundrel!" she cried. "Oh, the scoundrel!" Clenching her two hands,
she pressed them to her face.

Maurice did not say a word; he hardly dared to draw breath, for fear some
sign of her guilt might escape him. Leaning against the table, he marked
each tell-tale quiver of lip or eyelid.

"The blackguard!" she cried again, shaken by rage. "If I had him here, I'd
strangle him with my own hands!"

He gloated over her anger. "Yes," he said in a low voice. "I, too . . .
could kill him."

There was a pause, in which each followed out a possible means of revenge.

"Now you see," he said. "When I got home--when I found that--I thought I
should go mad."

Reminded thus, of his share in the matter, Louise turned her head, and
considered him. Her face was tense.

"Forgive me!" said Maurice, and held out his hands to her.

She gave him another look of the same kind. "I forgive YOU. What for?"

"Because . . . since I got it, I've been thinking vile things."

"Oh, that!" She moved away, and gave a curt laugh, which met him
like a stab. But she had no consideration for him: she had only room in
her mind for Krafft's treachery. "I could kill him," she said again.
"Don't. . . . Leave me alone!"--this to Maurice, who was trying to take
her hand. "Don't touch me!"

"Not touch you!--why not?" In an instant his softness passed over into
suspicion: it was like a dry pile that had waited for the match. "I not
touch you?" he repeated. "Do you want to make me believe that what he says
there is true?"

"Believe what you like."

"But that's just what I won't do. Turn here! Look me in the face! Now tell
me it's a lie."

She struggled to free her hands. "You hurt me, Maurice! Let me go!"

"Be careful!--or I shall hurt you more than this. Now answer me!"

"You!--with your ridiculous heroics! Be careful yourself!"

His grip of her grew tighter.

"For your precious peace of mind then--that you may not be kept in
suspense: what Heinz says there is--true!"

He did not at once grasp what she meant. He stood staring stupidly at her,
still clutching her hands. With a determined effort, Louise wrenched them
away.

"Don't you hear what I say? It's true--all true--every word of it!"

At the cruel repetition, he went pale, and after that, seemed to go on
growing paler, until his face was like a sheet of paper. A horrible
silence ensued; neither dared to let go of the other's eyes.

"My God!" he said at last. "My God!"

He sat down at the table, and buried his face in his arms. Louise did not
move; she stood waiting, her hands, which were red and sore, pressed
against her sides. And as minutes passed, and he did not stir, she began
in a vacant way to count the ticks of the clock. If he did not speak soon,
did not go on with what had to come, and get it over, she would be forced
to scream. A scream was mounting in her throat.

"When was it? . . . How? . . . Why?"

She made no answer.

He straightened himself, holding on to the table. "And if that letter
hadn't come, you wouldn't have told me?"

Again she did not reply. He sprang to his feet, interpreting her
inability to bring forth a sound as mere contemptuous defiance.

"WHY did you tell me? Did I need to know?" he cried, loudly, and, in the
confines of the room, ' his voice had the force of a shout. As she still
remained dumb, he leaned across the table and actually shouted at her.
"Any more?--are there any more? He won't have been the only one. Tell me,
I say! Good God! Don't you hear me?" The arteries in his temples were
beating like two separate hearts. As nothing he said would make her open
her lips, he snatched up her hands again, and dragged her a few steps
forward--this, to prove to himself that he had at least bodily power over
her. "How dare you stand there and say it's true! You brazen,
shameless----!"

She thought he was going to strike her, and moved her head quickly to one
side. The movement did not escape him; he was amazed at it, and horrified
by it. "You're afraid of me, are you? You expect to be beaten, when you
make a confession of that sort?" And as she kept her head bent, in
suspense, he shouted: "Very well, you shall have something to be afraid of
. . . you--!" and lifting his hand, he struck her a blow on the shoulder.
It was given with force, and she sank to the floor, where she lay in a
heap, screening her face with her arm. The first taste of his greater
strength was like the flavour of blood to a beast of prey. In her mind,
she might defy him, physically he was her master; and he struck her, again
and again. But he did not wring any sound from her. She lay face
downwards, and let the blows fall.

When his first onslaught of rage had spent itself, a glimmering of reason
returned to him. He staggered to his feet, and looked down with horror at
the prostrate figure. "My God, what am I doing?--what have I done?" A
sudden fear swept through him that he had killed her.

But now, for the first time, she spoke. "It's true!" he heard her say.

At these words, the desire actually to kill her was so overwhelming that
he rnoved precipitately away, and, in order not to see her, pressed his
smarting hand to his eyes. But in the greater clearness of thought this
shutting off of externals brought with it, the ultimate meaning of what
she had done was revealed to him; he saw red through his closed lids, and,
going back to her, he struck her anew. The knowledge that, under her
dressing-gown, she had nothing on but a thin nightgown, gave him
pleasure; he felt each of the blows fall full and hard on her firm flesh.

From time to time, she turned her face to cry: "It's true . . . it is
true!" deliberately inciting him to continue.

But the moment came when his arm sank powerless to his side, when, if his
life had depended on it, he could not have struck another blow. With
difficulty, he rose to his feet; and such was the apathy that came over
him, that it was all he could do to drag himself to the sofa. Once there,
he leaned back and closed his eyes.

For half an hour or more, neither of them stirred. Then, when she
understood that he had done, that he was not coming back to her, Louise
pulled herself into a sitting position, and from there to her feet. She
could hardly stand; her head swam; not an inch of her body but ached and
stung. Her exaltation had left her now; she began to feel sick, and, going
over to the bed, she fell heavily upon it.

Maurice heard her movements; but so incapable did he feel of further
effort that lie remained sitting, with his eyes shut. A new sound roused
him: she was shivering, and with such violence that the bedstead was
shaken. After a crucial struggle with himself, he rose, and crossed the
room. She was lying outside the bedclothes. He pulled off an eider-down
quilt, and spread it over her. As he did this, his arms were round her,
all the beloved body was in his grasp. When he had finished, he did not
remove them, but, kneeling down beside the bed, pressed his face to the
quilt, and to the warm body below.

And so the night wore away.

XI.

Throughout February, and the greater part of March, the HAUPTPRUFUNGEN
were held in the Conservatorium: twice a week, from six to eight o'clock
in the evening, the concert hall was crammed with an eager crowd. To these
concerts, the outside public was admitted, the critics were invited, and
the performances received notices in the newspapers; in short, the
outgoing student was, for the first time, treated like a real debutant.
Concerted music was accompanied by the full orchestra; the large gallery
that ran round the hall was opened up; and the girls, whose eager faces
hung over its edge, were more brightly decked than usual, in ribbons and
laces. Some of those who stepped down the platform seemed thoroughly to
relish their first taste of publicity; others, on the contrary, were
awkward and abashed, and did not venture to notice the encouragement that
greeted their entrance. There were players as composed as the most
hardened virtuosi; others, again, who were overcome by stage-fright to
such an extent that they barely escaped a total fiasco.

The success of the year was Dove, in his performance of Chopin's Concerto
in E minor. Dove's unshakable self-possession was here of immense value to
him. Not a note was missed, not a turn slurred; the runs and brilliant
passage-work of the concerto left his fingers like showers of pearls; his
touch had the necessary delicacy, and, in addition to this, his reading
was quite a revelation to his friends in the matter of TEMPERAMENT. It is
true that Schwarz prohibited any undignified display of the emotional side
of Chopin; the interpretation had to be on classical lines; but even the
most determined opponents of Schwarz's method were forced to acknowledge
that Dove made no mean show of the poetic contents of the music. The
master himself, in his imperturbable way--he chose to act as if, all along,
he had had this surprise for people up his sleeve--the master was in
transports. His stern face wore an almost genial expression; he smiled,
and talked loudly, and, when the performance was over, hurried to and fro,
full of importance, shaking hands and accepting congratulations, with a
fine shade of reserve. Dove's fellow-pupils were enraptured for Schwarz's
sake; for, undeniably, the master's numbers this year were poor,
compared with those of other teachers. It behoved the remainder to make
the most of this isolated triumph; they did so, and were entertained by
Schwarz at a special dinner, where many healths were drunk.

Those who had "made their PRUFUNG," as the phrase ran, were, as a rule,
glad to leave Leipzig when the ordeal was behind them. But Dove, who, on
the day following his performance, when his name was to be read in the
newspapers accompanied by various epithets of praise, had proposed and
been accepted, and was this time returning to England a solemnly engaged
man--Dove waited a week for his fiancee and her family, who had not been
prepared for so sudden a move. He was the man of the hour. As a response
to the flattering notices, he had called on all his critics, and been
received by several; and he could hardly walk a street-length, without
running the gauntlet of some belated congratulation. Schwarz had spoken
seriously to him about prosecuting his studies for a further year, with
the not impossible prospect of a performance in the Gewandhaus at the end
of it; but Dove had laid before his master the reasons why this could not
be: he was no longer a free man; there were now other wishes to be
consulted in addition to his own. Besides, if the truth must be told, Dove
had higher aims, and these led him imperatively back to England.

Madeleine was ready to leave a couple of days after her last performance.
Her plans for the future were fixed and sure. She had long ago given up
making adventurous schemes for storming America: that had merely been her
contribution to the romance of the place. Now she was hastening away to
spend the month of March in Paris; she was not due at the school to which
she was returning till the end of April; and, in Paris, she intended to
take a brief course of finishing lessons, to rub off what she
called "German thoroughness." She, too, had made a highly successful exit,
though without creating a furore like Dove. Since all she did was well
done, it was not possible for her to be a surprise to anyone.