Books: Maurice Guest

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Since the afternoon when he had heard from Madeleine Wade who this
was, he had not advanced a step nearer making her acquaintance; though
a couple of weeks had passed, though he now knew two people who knew
her, and though his satisfaction at learning her name had immediately
yielded to a hunger for more. And now, hardly a day went by, on which
he did not see her. His infatuation had made him keen of scent; by
following her, with due precaution, he had found out for himself in
the BRUDERSTRASSE, the roomy old house she lived in; had found out how
she came and went. He knew her associates, knew the streets she
preferred, the hour of day at which she was to be met at the
Conservatorium. Far away, at the other end of one of the quiet streets
that lay wide and sunny about the Gewandhaus, when, to other eyes she
was a mere speck in the distance, he learned to recognise her--if only
by the speed at which his heart beat--and he even gave chase to
imaginary resemblances. Once he remained sitting in a tramway far
beyond his destination, because he traced, in one of the passengers, a
curious likeness to her, in long, wavy eyebrows that were highest in
the middle of the forehead.

Thus the pale face with the heavy eyes haunted him by day and by
night.

He was very happy and very unhappy, by turns--never at rest. If he
imagined she had looked observantly at him as she passed, he was
elated for hours after. If she did not seem to notice him, it was
brought home to him anew that he was nothing to her; and once, when he
had gazed too boldly, instead of turning away his eyes, as she went
close by him to Schwarz's room, and she had resented the look with
cold surprise, he felt as culpable as if he had insulted her. He
atoned for his behaviour, the next time they met, by assuming his very
humblest air; once, too, he deliberately threw himself in her way, for
the mere pleasure of standing aside with the emphatic deference of a
slave. Throughout this period, and particularly after an occasion such
as the last, his self-consciousness was so peculiarly intensified that
his surroundings ceased to exist for him--they two were the gigantic
figures on a shadow background--and what he sometimes could not believe
was, that such feelings as these should be seething in him, and she
remain ignorant of them. He lost touch with reality, and dreamed
dreams of imperceptible threads, finer than any gossamer, which could
be spun from soul to soul, without the need of speech.

He heaped on her all the spiritual perfections that answered to her
appearance. And he did not, for a time, observe anything to make him
waver in his faith that she was whiter, stiller, and more
unapproachable--of a different clay, in short, from other women. Then,
however, this illusion was shattered. Late one afternoon, she came
down the stairs of the house she lived in, and, pausing at the door,
looked up and down the hot, empty street, shading her eyes with her
hand. No one was in sight, and she was about to turn away, when, from
where he was watching in a neighbouring doorway, Maurice saw the
red-haired violinist come swiftly round the corner. She saw him, too,
took a few, quick steps towards him, and, believing herself unseen,
looked up in is face as they met; and the passionate tenderness of the
look, the sudden lighting of lip and eye, racked the poor, unwilling
spy for days. To suit this abrupt descent from the pedestal, he
was obliged to carve a new attribute to his idol, and laboriously
adapt it.

Schilsky, this insolent boy, was the thorn in his side. It was
Schilsky she was oftenest to be met with; he was her companion at the
most unexpected hours; and, with reluctance, Maurice had to admit to
himself that she had apparently no thought to spare for anyone else.
But it did not make any difference. The curious way in which he felt
towards her, the strange, overwhelming effect her face had on him,
took no account of outside things. Though he might never hope for a
word from her; though he should learn in the coming moment that she
was the other's promised wife; he could not for that reason banish her
from his mind. His feelings were not to be put on and off, like
clothes; he had no power over them. It was simply a case of accepting
things as they were, and this he sought to do.

But his imagination made it hard for him, by throwing up pictures in
which Schilsky was all-prominent. He saw him the confidant of her joys
and troubles; HE knew their origin, knew what key her day was set in.
If her head ached, if she were tired or spiritless, his hand was on
her brow. The smallest events in her life were an open book to him;
and it was these worthless details that Maurice Guest envied him most.
He kept a tight hold on his fancy, but if, as sometimes happened, it
slipped control, and painted further looks of the kind he had seen
exchanged between them, a kiss or an embrace, he was as wretched as if
he had in reality been present.

At other times, this jealous unrest was not the bitterest drop in his
cup; it was bitterer to know that she was squandering her love on one
who was unworthy of it. At first, from a feeling of exaggerated
delicacy, he had gone out of his way to escape hearing Schilsky's
name; but this mood passed, and gave place to an undignified hankering
to learn everything he could, concerning the young man. What he heard
amounted to this: a talented rascal, the best violinist the
Conservatorium had turned out for years, one to whom all gates would
open; but--this "but" always followed, with a meaning smile and a wink
of the eye: and then came the anecdotes. They had nothing
heaven-scaling in them--these soiled love-stories; this perpetual
impecuniosity; this inability to refuse money, no matter whose the
hand that offered it; this fine art in the disregarding of established
canons--and, to Maurice Guest, bred to sterner standards, they seemed
unspeakably low and mean. Hours came when he strove in vain to
understand her. Ignorant of these things she could not be; was it
within the limits of the possible that she could overlook them?--and he
shivered lest he should be forced to think less highly of her.
Ultimately, sending his mind back over what he had read and heard,
drawing on his own slight experience, he came to a compromise with
himself. He said that most often the best and fairest women loved men
who were unworthy of them. Was it not a weakness and a strength of her
sex to see good where no good was?--a kind of divine frailty, a wilful
blindness, a sweet inability to discern.

At times, again, he felt almost content that Schilsky was what he was.
If the day should ever come when, all barriers down, he, Maurice
Guest, might be intimately associated with her life; if he should ever
have the chance of proving to her what real love was, what a holy
mystic thing, how far removed from a blind passing fancy; if he might
serve her, be her slave, lay his hands under her feet, lead her up and
on, all suffused in a sunset of tenderness: then, she would see that
what she had believed to be love had been nothing but a FATA MORGANA,
a mirage of the skies. And he heard himself whispering words of
incredible fondness to her, saw her listening with wonder in her eyes.

At still other moments, he was ready to renounce every hope, if, by
doing so, he could add jot or tittle to her happiness.

The further he spun himself into his dreams, however, and the better
he learnt to know her in imagination, the harder it grew to take the
first step towards realising his wishes. In those few, brief days,
when he hugged her name to him as a talisman, he waited cheerfully for
something to happen, something unusual, that would bring him to her
notice--a dropped handkerchief, a seat vacated for her at a concert,
even a timely accident. But as day after day went by, in eventless
monotony, he began to cast about him for human aid. From Dove, his
daily companion, Dove of the outstretched paws of continual help, he
now shrank away. Miss Martin was not to be spoken to except in Dove's
company. There was only one person who could assist him, if she would,
and that was Madeleine Wade. He called to mind the hearty invitation
she had given him, and reproached himself for not having taken
advantage of it.

One afternoon, towards six o'clock, he rang the bell of her lodgings
in the MOZARTSTRASSE. This was a new street, the first blocks of which
gave directly on the Gewandhaus square; but, at the further
end, where she lived, a phalanx of redbrick and stucco fronts looked
primly across at a similar line. In the third storey of one of these
houses, Madeleine Wade had a single, large room, the furniture of
which was so skilfully contrived, that, by day, all traces of the
room's double calling were obliterated.

As he entered, on this first occasion, she was practising at a grand
piano which stood before one of the windows. She rose at once, and,
having greeted him warmly, made him sit down among the comfortable
cushions that lined the sofa. Then she took cups and saucers from a
cupboard in the wall, and prepared tea over a spirit-lamp. He soon
felt quite at home with her, and enjoyed himself so well that many
such informal visits followed.

But the fact was not to be denied: it was her surroundings that
attracted him, rather than she herself. True, he found her frankness
delightfully "refreshing," and when he spoke of her, it was as of an
"awfully good sort," "a first-class girl"; for Madeleine was
invariably lively, kind and helpful. At the same time, she was without
doubt a trifle too composed, too sure of herself; she had too keen an
eye for human foibles; she came towards you with a perfectly natural
openness, and she came all the way--there was nothing left for you to
explore. And when not actually with her, it was easy to forget her;
there was never a look or a smile, never a barbed word, never a sudden
spontaneous gesture--the vivid translation of a thought--to stamp itself
on your memory.

But it was only at the outset that he thought things like these.
Madeleine Wade had been through experiences of the same kind before;
and hardly a fortnight later they were calling each other by their
Christian names.

When he came to her, towards evening, tired and inclined to be lonely,
she seated him in a corner of the sofa, and did not ask him to say
much until she had made the tea. Then, when the cups were steaming in
front of them, she discussed sympathetically with him the progress of
his work. She questioned him, too, about

When he came to her, tired and inclined to be lonely, she seated him
in a corner of the sofa, and did not ask him to say much until she
made tea. Then, when the cups were steaming in front of them, she
discussed sympathetically with him the progress of his work. She
questioned him, too, about his home and family, and he read her parts
of his mother's letters, which arrived without fail every Tuesday
morning. She also drew from him a more detailed account of his
previous life; and, in this connection, they had several animated
discussions about teaching, a calling to which Madeleine looked
composedly forward to returning, while Maurice, in strong superlative,
declared he had rather force a flock of sheep to walk in line.
She told him, too, some of the gossip the musical quarter of the town
was rife with, about those in high places; and, in particular, of the
bitter rivalry that had grown up with the years between Schwarz and
Bendel, the chief masters of the piano. If these two met in the
street, they passed each other with a stony stare; if, at an
ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, a pupil of one was to play, the other rose
ostentatiously and left the hall. She also hinted that in order to
obtain all you wanted at the Conservatorium, to be favoured above your
fellows, it was only necessary flagrantly to bribe one of the clerks,
Kleefeld by name, who was open to receive anything, being wretchedly
impecunious and the father of a large family.

Finding, too, that Maurice was bent on learning German, she, who spoke
the language fluently, proposed that they should read it together; and
soon it became their custom to work through a few pages of QUINTUS
FIXLEIN, a scene or two of Schiller, some lyrics of Heine. They also
began to play duets, symphonies old and new, and Madeleine took care
constantly to have something fresh and interesting at hand. To all
this the young man brought an unbounded zeal, and, if he had had his
way, they would have gone on playing or reading far into the evening.

She smiled at his eagerness. "You absorb like a sponge."

When it grew too dark to see, he confided to her that his dearest wish
was to be a conductor. He was not yet clear how it could be managed,
but he was sure that this was the branch of his art for which he had
most aptitude.

Here she interrupted him. "Do you never write verses?"

Her question seemed to him so meaningless that he only laughed, and
went on with what he was saying. For the event of his plan proving
impracticable--at home they had no idea of it--he was training as a
concert-player; but he intended to miss no chance that offered, of
learning how to handle an orchestra.

Throughout these hours of stimulating companionship, however, he did
not lose sight of his original purpose in going to see Madeleine. It
was only that just the right moment never seemed to come; and the name
he was so anxious to hear, had not once been mentioned between them.
Often, in the dusk, his lips twitched to speak it; but he feared his
own awkwardness, and her quick tongue; then, too, the subject was
usually far aside from what they were talking of, and it would have
made a ludicrous impression to drag it in by the hair.

But one day his patience was rewarded. He had carelessly taken
up a paper-bound volume of Chopin, and was on the point of commenting
upon it, for he had lately begun to understand the difference between
a Litolff and a Mikuli. But it slipped from his hand, and he was
obliged to crawl under the piano to pick it up; on a corner of the
cover, in a big, black, scrawly writing, was the name of Marie Louise
Dufrayer. He cleared his throat, laid the volume down, took it up
again; then, realising that the moment had come, he put a bold face on
the matter.

"I see this belongs to Miss Dufrayer," he said bluntly, and, as his
companion's answer was only a careless: "Yes, Louise forgot it the
last time she was here," he went on without delay: "I should like to
know Miss Dufrayer, Madeleine. Do you think you could introduce me to
her?"

Madeleine, who was in the act of taking down a book from her hanging
shelves, turned and looked at him. He was still red in the face, from
the exertion of stooping.

"Introduce you to Louise?" she queried. "Why?--why do you want to be
introduced to her?"

"Oh, I don't know. For no particular reason."

She sat down at the table, opened the book, and turned the leaves.

"Oh well, I daresay I can, if you wish it, and an opportunity
occurs--if you're with me some day when I meet her.--Now shall we go on
with the JUNGFRAU? We were beginning the third act, I think. Here it
is:

Wir waren Herzensbruder, Waffenfreunde,
Fur eine Sache hoben wir den Arm!"

But Maurice did not take the book she handed him across the table.

"Won't you give me a more definite promise than that?"

Madeleine sat back in her chair, and, folding her arms, looked
thoughtfully at him.

Only a momentary silence followed his words, but, in this fraction of
time, a series of impressions swept through her brain with the
continuity of a bird's flight. It was clear to her at once, that what
prompted his insistence was not an ordinary curiosity, or a passing
whim; in a flash, she understood that here, below the surface,
something was at work in him, the existence of which she had not even
suspected. She was more than annoyed with herself at her own
foolish obtuseness; she had had these experiences before, and then, as
now, the object of her interest had invariably been turned aside by
the first pretty, silly face that came his way. The main difference
was that she had been more than ordinarily drawn to Maurice Guest;
and, believing it impossible, in this case, for anyone else to be
sharing the field with her, she had over-indulged the hope that he
sought her out for herself alone.

She endeavoured to learn more. But this time Maurice was on his guard,
and the questions she put, straight though they were, only elicited
the response that he had seen Miss Dufrayer shortly after arriving,
and had been much struck by her.

Madeleine's brain travelled rapidly backwards. "But if I remember
rightly, Maurice, we met Louise one day in the SCHEIBENHOLZ, the first
time we went for a walk together. Why didn't you stop then, and be
introduced to her, if you were so anxious?"

"Why do we ever do foolish things?"

Her amazement was so patent that he made uncomfortable apology for
himself. "It is ridiculous, I know," he said and coloured. "And it
must seem doubly so to you. But that I should want to know her--there's
nothing strange in that, is there? You, too, Madeleine, have surely
admired people sometimes--some one, say, who has done a fine thing--and
have felt that you must know them personally, at all costs?"

"Perhaps I have. But romantic feelings of that kind are sure to end in
smoke. As a rule they've no foundation but our own wishes.--If you take
my advice, Maurice, you will be content to admire Louise at a
distance. Think her as pretty as you like, and imagine her to be all
that's sweet and charming: but never mind about knowing her."

"But why on earth not?"

"Why, nothing will come of it."

"That depends on what you mean by nothing."

"You don't understand. I must be plainer.--Do sit down, and don't
fidget so.--How long have you been here now? Nearly two months. Well,
that's long enough to know something of what's going on. You must have
both seen and heard that Louise has no eyes for anyone but a certain
person, to put it bluntly, that she is wrapped up in Schilsky. This
has been going on for over a year now, and she seems to grow more
infatuated every day. When she first came to Leipzig, we were friends;
she lived in this neighbourhood, and I was able to be of
service to her. Now, weeks go by and I don't see her; she has broken
with every one--for Louise is not a girl to do things by
halves.--Introduce you? Of course I can. But suppose it done, with all
pomp and ceremony, what will you get from it? I know Louise. A word or
two, if her ladyship is in the mood; if not, you will be so much thin
air for her. And after that, a nod if she meets you in the street--and
that's all."

"It's enough."

"You're easily satisfied.--But tell me, honestly now, Maurice, what
possible good can that do you?"

He moved aimlessly about the room. "Good? Must one always look for
good in everything?--I can see quite well that from your point of view
the whole thing must seem absurd. I expect nothing whatever from it,
but I'm going to know her, and that's all about it."

Still in the same position, with folded arms, Madeleine observed him
with unblinking eyes.

"And you won't bear me a grudge, if things go badly?--I mean if you are
disappointed, or dissatisfied?"

He made a gesture of impatience.

"Yes, but I know Louise, and you don't."

He had picked up from the writing-table the photograph of a curate,
and he stared at it as if he had no thought but to let the mild
features stamp themselves on his mind. Madeleine's eyes continued to
bore him through. At last, out of a silence, she said slowly: "Of
course I can introduce you--it's done with a wave of the hand. But, as
your friend, I think it only right to warn you what you must expect.
For I can see you don't understand in the least, and are laying up a
big disappointment for yourself. However, you shall have your way--if
only to show you that I am right."

"Thanks, Madeleine--thanks awfully."

They settled down to read Schiller. But Maurice made one slip after
another, and she let them pass uncorrected. She was annoyed with
herself afresh, for having made too much of the matter, for having
blown it up to a fictitious importance, when the wiser way would have
been to treat it as of no consequence at all.

The next afternoon he arrived, with expectation in his face; but not
on this day, nor the next, nor the next again, did she bring the
subject up between them. On the fourth, however, as he was leaving,
she said abruptly: "You must have patience for a little, Maurice.
Louise has gone to Dresden."

"That's why the blinds are down," he exclaimed without
thinking, then coloured furiously at his own words, and, to smooth
them over, asked: "Why has she gone? For how long?"

But Madeleine caught him up. "SIEH DA, some one has been playing
sentinel!" she said in raillery; and it seemed to him that every fold
in his brain was laid bare to her, before she answered: "She has gone
for a week or ten days--to visit some friends who are staying there."

He nodded, and was about to open the door, when she added: "But set
your mind at rest--HE is here."

Maurice looked sharply up; but a minute or two passed before the true
meaning of her words broke on him. He coloured again--a mortifying
habit he had not outgrown, and one which seemed to affect him more in
the presence of Madeleine than of anyone else.

"It's hardly a thing to joke about."

"Joke!--who is joking?" she asked, and raised her eyebrows so high that
her forehead was filled with wrinkles. "Nothing was further from my
thoughts."

Maurice hesitated, and stood undecided, holding the doorhandle. Then,
following an impulse, he turned and sat down again. "Madeleine, tell
me--I wouldn't ask anyone but you--what sort of a fellow IS this
Schilsky?"

"What sort of a fellow?" She laughed sarcastically. "To be quite
truthful, Maurice, the best fiddler the Con. has turned out for
years."

"Now you're joking again. As if I didn't know that. Everyone says the
same."

"You want his moral character? Well, I'll be equally candid. Or, at
least, I'll give you my opinion of him. It's another superlative. Just
as I consider him the best violinist, I also hold him to be the
greatest scamp in the place--and I've no objection to use a stronger
word if you like. I wouldn't take his hand, no, not if he offered it
to me. The last time he was in this room, about six months ago, he--
well, let us say he borrowed, without a word to me, five or six marks
that were lying loose on the writing-table. Yes, it's a fact," she
repeated, complacently eyeing Maurice's dismay. "Otherwise?--oh,
otherwise, he was born, I think, with a silver spoon in his mouth. He
has one piece of luck after another. Zeppelin discovered him ten years
ago, on a concert-tour--his father is a smith in Warsaw--and brought him
to Leipzig. He was a prodigy, then, and a rich Jewish banker
took him up, and paid for his education; and when he washed his hands
of him in disgust, Schaefele's wife--Schaefele is head of the
HANDELVEREIN, you know--adopted him as a son--some people say as more
than a son, for, though she was nearly forty, she was perfectly crazy
over him, and behaved as foolishly as any of the dozens of silly girls
who have lost their hearts to him."

"I suppose they are engaged," said Maurice after a pause, speaking out
of his own thoughts.

"Do you?" she asked with mild humour. "I really never asked them.--But
this is just another example of his good fortune. When he has worn out
every one else's patience, through his dishonest extravagance, he
picks up a rich wife, who is not averse to supporting him before
marriage."

Maurice looked at her reproachfully. "I wonder you care to repeat such
gossip."

"It's not gossip, Maurice. Every one knows it. Louise makes no mystery
of her doings--doesn't care that much what people say. While as for
him--well, it's enough to know it's Schilsky. The thing is an open
secret. Listen, now, and I'll tell you how it began--just to let you
judge for yourself what kind of a girl you have to deal with in
Louise, and how Schilsky behaves when he wants a thing, and whether
such a pair think a formal engagement necessary to their happiness.
When Louise came here, a year and a half ago, Schilsky was away
somewhere with Zeppelin, and didn't get back till a couple of months
afterwards. As I said, I knew Louise pretty well at that time; she had
got herself into trouble with--but that's neither here nor there. Well,
my lord returns--he himself tells how it happened. It was a Thursday
evening, and a Radius Commemoration was going on at the Con. He went
in late, and stood at the back of the hall. Louise was there, too,
just before him, and, from the first minute he saw her, he couldn't
take his eyes off her--others who were by say, too, he seemed perfectly
fascinated. No one can stare as rudely as Schilsky, and he ended by
making her so uncomfortable that she couldn't bear it any longer, and
went out of the hall. He after her, and it didn't take him an hour to
find out all about her. The next evening, at an ABEND, they were both
there again it was just like Louise to go!--and the same thing was
repeated. She left again before it was over, he followed, and this
time found her in one of the side corridors; and there--mind you,
without a single word having passed between them!--he took her
in his arms and kissed her, kissed her soundly, half a dozen
times--though they had never once spoken to each other: he boasts of it
to this day. That same evening----"