Books: Maurice Guest

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He was ready, come forth from the utter confusion around him, like a
god from a cloud. He wore light grey clothes, a loosely knotted,
bright blue tie, with floating ends and conspicuous white spots, and
buttoned boots of brown kid. Hair and handkerchief were strongly
scented.

Krafft, having been prevailed on to rise, made no further toilet than
that of dipping his head in a basin of water, which stood on the tail
of the grand piano. His hair emerged a mass of dripping ringlets,
covetously eyed by his companions.

They walked along the streets, Schilsky between the others, whom he
overtopped by head and shoulders: three young rebels out against the
Philistines: three bursting charges of animal spirits.

There was to be a concert that evening at the Conservatorium, and,
through vestibule and entrance-halls, which, for this reason, were
unusually crowded, the young men made a kind of triumphal progress.
Especially Schilsky. Not a girl, young or old, but peddled for a word
or a look from him; and he was only too prodigal of insolently
expressive glances, whispered greetings, and warm pressures of the
hand. The open flattery and bold adoration of which he was the object
mounted to his head; he felt secure in his freedom, and brimful of
selfconfidence; and, as the three of them walked back to the town, his
exhilaration, a sheer excess of well-being, was no longer to be kept
within decent bounds.

"Wait!" he cried suddenly as they were passing the Gewandhaus. "Wait a
minute! See me make that woman there take a fit."

He ran across the road to the opposite pavement, where the only person
in sight, a stout, middle-aged woman, was dragging slowly
along, her arms full of parcels; and, planting himself directly in
front of her, so that she was forced to stop, he seized both her hands
and worked them up and down.

"Now upon my soul, who would have thought of seeing you here, you
baggage, you?" he cried vociferously.

The woman was speechless from amazement; her packages fell to the
ground, and she gazed open-mouthed at the wild-haired lad before her,
making, at the same time, vain attempts to free her hands.

"No, this really is luck," he went on, holding her fast. "Come, a
kiss, my duck, just one! EIN KUSSCHEN IN EHREN, you know----" and, in
very fact, he leaned forward and pecked at her cheek.

The blood dyed her face and she panted with rage.

"You young scoundrel!" she gasped. "You impertinent young dog! I'll
give you in charge. I'll--I'II report you to the police. Let me go this
instant--this very instant, do you hear?--or I'll scream for help."

The other two had come over to enjoy the fun. Schilsky turned to them
with a comical air of dismay, and waved his arm. "Well I declare, if I
haven't been and made a mistake!" he exclaimed, and slapped his
forehead. "I'm out by I don't know how much--by twenty years, at least.
No thank you, Madam, keep your kisses! You're much too old and ugly
for me."

He flourished his big hat in her face, pirouetted on his heel, and the
three of them went down the street, hallooing with laughter.

They had supper together at the BAVARIA, Schilsky standing treat; for
they had gone by way of the BRUDERSTRASSE, where he called in to
investigate the vase mentioned in the letter. Afterwards, they
commenced an informal wandering from one haunt to another, now by
themselves, now with stray acquaintances. Krafft, who was still
enfeebled by the previous night, and who, under the best of
circumstances, could not carry as much as his friends, was the first
to give in. For a time, they got him about between them. Then Furst
grew obstreperous, and wanted to pour his beer on the floor as soon as
it was set before him, so that they were put out of two places, in the
second of which they left Krafft. But the better half of the night was
over before Schilsky was comfortably drunk, and in a state to unbosom
himself to a sympathetic waitress, about the hardship it was to be
bound to some one older than yourself. He shed tears of pity at
his lot, and was extremely communicative. "'N KORPER, SCHA-AGE IHNEN,
'N KORPER!" but old, old, a "HALB'SCH JAHR' UND'RT" older than he was,
and desperately jealous.

"It's too bad; such a nice young man as you are," said the MAMSELL,
who, herself not very sober, was sitting at ease on his knee, swinging
her legs. "But you nice ones are always chicken-hearted. Treat her as
she deserves, my chuck, and make no bones about it. Just let her
rip--and you stick to me!"

VI.

One cold, windy afternoon, when dust was stirring and rain seemed
imminent, Maurice Guest walked with bent head and his hat pulled over
his eyes. He was returning from the ZEITZERSTRASSE, where, in a
photographer's show-case, he had a few days earlier discovered a large
photograph of Louise. This was a source of great pleasure to him.
Here, no laws of breeding or delicacy hindered him from gazing at her
as often as he chose.

On this particular day, whether he had looked too long, or whether the
unrest of the weather, the sense of something impending, the dusty
dryness that craved rain, had got into his blood and disquieted him:
whatever it was, he felt restless and sick for news of her, and, at
this very moment, was on his way to Madeleine, in the foolish hope of
hearing her name.

But a little adventure befell him which made him forget his intention.

He was about to turn the corner of a street, when a sudden blast of
wind swept round, bearing with it some half dozen single sheets of
music. For a moment they whirled high, then sank fluttering to the
ground, only to rise again and race one another along the road.
Maurice instinctively gave chase, but it was not easy to catch them;
no sooner had he secured one than the next was out of his reach.

Meanwhile their owner, a young and very pretty girl, looked on and
laughed, without making any effort to help him; and the more he
exerted himself, the more she laughed. In one hand she was carrying a
violin-case, in the other a velvet muff, which now and again she
raised to her lips, as if to conceal her mirth. It was a graceful
movement, but an unnecessary one, for her laughter was of that
charming kind, which never gives offence; and, besides that, although
it was continuous, it was neither hearty enough nor frank enough to be
unbecoming the face was well under control. She stood there, with her
head slightly on one side, and the parted lips showed both rows of
small, even teeth; but the smile was unvarying, and, in spite of her
merriment, her eyes did not for an instant quit the young man's face,
as he darted to and fro.

Maurice could not help laughing himself, red and out of breath
though he was.

"Now for the last one," he said in German.

At these words she seemed more amused than ever. "I don't speak
German," she answered in English, with a strong American accent.

Having captured all the sheets, Maurice tried to arrange them for her.

"It's my Kayser," she explained with a quick, upward glance, adding
the next minute with a fresh ripple of laughter. "He's all to pieces."

"You have too much to carry," said Maurice. "On such a windy day,
too."

"That's what Joan said--Joan is my sister," she continued. "But I guess
it's so cold this afternoon I had to bring a muff along. If my fingers
are stiff I can't play, and then Herr Becker is angry." But she
laughed again as she spoke, and it was plain that the master's wrath
did not exactly incite fear. "Joan always comes along, but to-day
she's sick."

"Will you let me help you?" asked Maurice, and a moment later he was
walking at her side.

She handed over music and violin to him without a trace of hesitation;
and, as they went along the PROMENADE, she talked to him with as
little embarrassment as though they were old acquaintances. It was so
kind of him to help her, she thought; she couldn't imagine how she
would ever have got home without him, alone against the wind; and she
was perfectly sure he must be American--no one but an American would be
so nice. When Maurice denied this, she laughed very much indeed, and
was not sure, this being the case, whether she could like him or not;
as a rule, she didn't like English people; they were stiff and horrid,
and were always wanting either to be introduced or to shake hands.
Here she carried her muff up to her lips again, and her eyes shone
mischievously at him over the dark velvet. Maurice had never known
anyone so easily moved to laughter; whenever she spoke she laughed,
and she laughed at everything he said.

Off the PROMENADE, where the trees were of a marvellous Pale green,
they turned into a street of high spacious houses, the dark lines of
which were here and there broken by an arched gateway, or the delicate
tints of a spring garden. To a window in one of the largest houses
Maurice's little friend looked up, and smiled and nodded.

"There's my sister."

The young man looked, too, and saw a dark, thin-faced girl, who, when
she found four eyes fixed on her, abruptly drew in her head, and as
abruptly put it out again, leaning her two hands on the sill.

"She's wondering who it is," said Maurice's companion gleefully. Then,
turning her face up, she made a speaking-trumpet of her hands, and
cried: "It's all right, Joan.--Now I must run right up and tell her
about it," she said to Maurice. "Perhaps she'll scold; Joan is very
particular. Good-bye. Thank you ever so much for being so good to
me--oh, won't you tell me your name?"

The very next morning brought him a small pink note, faintly scented.
The pointed handwriting was still childish, but there was a coquettish
flourish beneath the pretty signature: Ephie Cayhill. Besides a
graceful word of thanks, she wrote: WE ARE AT HOME EVERY SUNDAY. MAMMA
WOULD BE VERY PLEASED.

Maurice did not scruple to call the following week, and on doing so,
found himself in the midst of one of those English-speaking coteries,
which spring up in all large, continental towns. Foreigners were not
excluded--Maurice discovered two or three of his German friends,
awkwardly balancing their cups on their knees. In order, however, to
gain access to the circle, it was necessary for them to have a
smattering of English; they had also to be flint against any open or
covert fun that might be made of them or their country; and above all,
to be skilled in the art of looking amiable, while these visitors from
other lands heatedly readjusted, to their own satisfaction, all that
did not please them in the life and laws of this country that was
temporarily their home.

Mrs. Cayhill was a handsome woman, who led a comfortable, vegetable
existence, and found it a task to rise from the plump sofa-cushion.
Her pleasant features were slack, and in those moments of life which
called for a sudden decision, they wore the helpless bewilderment of a
woman who has never been required to think for herself. Her grasp on
practical matters was rendered the more lax, too, by her being an
immoderate reader, who fed on novels from morning till night, and
slept with a page turned down beside her bed. She was for ever lost in
the joys or sorrows of some fictitious person, and, in consequence,
remained for the most part completely ignorant of what was going on
around her. When she did happen to become conscious of her
surroundings, she was callous, or merely indifferent, to them; for,
compared with romance, life was dull and diffuse; it lacked the wilful
simplicity, the exaggerative omissions, and forcible perspectives,
which make up art: in other words, life demanded that unceasing work
of selection and rejection, which it is the story-teller's duty to
Perform for his readers. All novels were fish to Mrs. Cayhill's net;
she lived in a world of intrigue and excitement, and, seated in her
easy-chair by the sitting-room window, was generally as remote from
her family as though she were in Timbuctoo.

There was a difference of ten years in age between her daughters, and
it was the younger of the two whose education was being completed.
Johanna, the elder, had been a disappointment to her mother. Left to
her own devices at an impressionable age, the girl had developed
bookish tastes at the cost of her appearance: influenced by a
free-thinking tutor of her brothers', she had read Huxley and Haeckel,
Goethe and Schopenhauer. Her wish had been for a university career,
but she was not of a self-assertive nature, and when Mrs. Cayhill, who
felt her world toppling about her ears at the mention of such a thing,
said: "Not while I live!" she yielded, without a further word; and the
fact that such an emphatic expression of opinion had been drawn from
the mild-tempered mother, made it a matter of course that no other
member of the family took Johanna's part. So she buried her ambitions,
and kept her mother's house in an admirable, methodical way.

It was not the sacrifice it seemed, however, because Johanna adored
her little sister, and would cheerfully have given up more than this
for her sake. Ephie, who was at that time just emerging from
childhood, was very pretty and precocious, and her mother had great
hopes of her. She also tired early of her lesson-books, and, soon
after she turned sixteen, declared her intention of leaving school. As
at least a couple of years had still to elapse before she was old
enough to be introduced in society, Mrs. Cayhill, taking the one
decisive step of her life, determined that travel in Europe should put
the final touches to Ephie's education: a little German and French;
some finishing lessons on the violin; a run through Italy and
Switzerland, and then to Paris, whence they would carry back with them
a complete and costly outfit. So, valiantly, Mrs. Cayhill had her
trunks packed, and, together with Johanna, who would as soon
have thought of denying her age as of letting these two helpless
beings go out into the world alone, they crossed the Atlantic.

For some three months now, they had been established in Leipzig. A
circulating library, rich in English novels, had been discovered; Mrs.
Cayhill was content; and it began to be plain to Johanna that the
greater part of their two years' absence would be spent in this place.
Ephie, too, had already had time to learn that, as far as music was
concerned, her business was not so much with finishing as with
beginning, and that the road to art, which she with all the rest must
follow, was a steep one. She might have found it still more arduous,
had Herr Becker, her master, not been a young man and very
impressionable. And Ephie never looked more charming than when, with
her rounded, dimpled arm raised in an exquisite curve, she leaned her
cheek against the glossy brown wood of her violin.

She was pretty with that untouched, infantine prettiness, before which
old and young go helplessly down. She was small and plump, with a
full, white throat and neck, and soft, rounded hands and wrists, that
were dimpled like a baby's. Her brown hair was drawn back from the low
forehead, but, both here and at the back of her neck, it broke into
innumerable little curls, which were much lighter in colour than the
rest. Her skin, faintly tinged, was as smooth as the skin of a cherry;
it had that exquisite freshness which is only to be found in a very
young girl, and is lovelier than the bloom on ripe fruit. Her dark
blue eyes were well opened, but the black lashes were so long and so
peculiarly straight that the eyes themselves were usually hidden, and
this made it all the more effective did she suddenly look up. Moulded
like wax, the small, upturned nose seemed to draw the top lip after
it; anyhow, the upper lip was too short to meet the lower, and
consequently, they were always slightly apart, in a kind of
questioning amaze. This mouth was the real beauty of the face: bright
red, full, yet delicate, arched like a bow, with corners that went in
and upwards, it belonged, by right of its absolute innocence, to the
face of a little child; and the thought was monstrous that nature and
the years would eventually combine to destroy so perfect a thing.

She also had a charming laugh, with a liquid note in it, that made one
think of water bubbling on a dry summer day.

It was this laugh that held the room on Sunday afternoon, and
drew the handful of young men together, time after time.

Mrs. Cayhill, who, on these occasions, was wont to lay aside her book,
was virtually a deeper echo of her little daughter, and Johanna only
counted in so far as she made and distributed cups of tea at the end
of the room. She did not look with favour on the young men who
gathered there, and her manner to them was curt and unpleasing. Each
of them in turn, as he went up to her for his cup, cudgelled his brain
for something to say; but it was no easy matter to converse with
Johanna. The ordinary small change and polite commonplace of
conversation, she met with a silent contempt. In musical chit-chat,
she took no interest whatever, and pretended to none, openly indeed
"detested music," and was unable to distinguish Mendelssohn from
Wagner, "except by the noise;" while if a bolder man than the rest
rashly ventured on the literary ground that was her special demesne,
she either smiled at what he said, in a disagreeably sarcastic way, or
flatly contradicted him. She was the thorn in the flesh of these young
men; and after having dutifully spent a few awkward moments at her
side, they stole back, one by one, to the opposite end of the room.
Here Ephie, bewitchingly dressed in blue, swung to and fro in a big
American rocking-chair--going backwards, it carried her feet right off
the ground--and talked charming nonsense, to the accompaniment of her
own light laugh, and her mother's deeper notes, which went on like an
organ-point, Mrs. Cayhill finding everything Ephic said, matchlessly
amusing.

As Dove and Maurice walked there together for the first time--it now
leaked out that Dove spent every Sunday afternoon in the
LESSINGSTRASSE--he spoke to Maurice of Johanna. Not in a disparaging
way; Dove had never been heard to mention a woman's name otherwise
than with respect. And, in this case, he deliberately showed up
Johanna's good qualities, in the hope that Maurice might feel
attracted by her, and remain at her side; for Dove had fallen deeply
in love with Ephie, and had, as it was, more rivals than he cared for,
in the field.

"You should get on with her, I think, Guest," he said slily. "You
read these German writers she is so interested in. But don't be
discouraged by her manner. For though she's one of the most unselfish
women I ever met, her way of Speaking is sometimes abrupt. She reminds
me, if it doesn't sound unkind, of a faithful watch-dog, or
something of the sort, which cannot express its devotion as it would
like to."

When, after a lively greeting from Ephie, and a few pleasant words
from Mrs. Cayhill, Maurice found himself standing beside Johanna, the
truth of Dove's simile was obvious to him. This dark, unattractive
girl had apparently no thought for anything but her tea-making; she
moved the cups this way and that, filled the pot with water, blew out
and lighted again the flame of the spirit-lamp, without paying the
least heed to Maurice, making, indeed, such an ostentatious show of
being occupied, that it would have needed a brave man to break in upon
her duties with idle words. He remained standing, however, in a
constrained silence, which lasted until she could not invent anything
else to do, and was obliged to drink her own tea. Then he said
abruptly, in a tone which he meant to be easy, but which was only
jaunty: "And how do you like being in Germany, Miss Cayhill? Does it
not seem very strange after America?"

Johanna lifted her shortsighted eyes to his face, and looked coolly
and disconcertingly at him through her glasses, as if she had just
become aware of his presence.

"Strange? Why should it?" she asked in an unfriendly tone.

"Why, what I mean is, everything must be so different here from what
you are accustomed to--at least it is from what we are used to in
England," he corrected himself. "The ways and manners, and the
language, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"Excuse me, I do not know," she answered in the same tone as before.
"If a person takes the trouble to prepare himself for residence in a
foreign country, nothing need seem either strange or surprising. But
English people, as is well known, expect to find a replica of England
in every country they go to."

There was a pause, in which James, the pianist, who was a regular
visitor, approached to have his cup refilled. All the circle knew, of
course, that Johanna was "doing for a new man"; and it seemed to
Maurice that James half closed one eye at him, and gave him a small,
sympathetic nudge with his elbow.

So he held to his guns. When James had retired, he began anew, without
preamble.

"My friend Dove tells me you are interested in German
literature?" he said with a slight upward inflection in his voice.

Johanna did not reply, but she shot a quick glance at him, and
colouring perceptibly, began to fidget with the tea-things.

"I've done a little in that line myself," continued Maurice, as she
made no move to answer him. "In a modest way, of course. Just lately I
finished reading the JUNGFRAU VON ORLEANS."

"Is that so?" said Johanna with an emphasis which made him colour
also.

"It is very fine, is it not?" he asked less surely, and as she again
acted as though he had not spoken, he lost his presence of mind. "I
suppose you know it? You're sure to."

This time Johanna turned scarlet, as if he had touched her on a sore
spot, and answered at once, sharply and rudely. "And I suppose," she
said, and her hands shook a little as they fussed about the tray,
"that you have also read MARIA STUART, and TELL, and a page or two of
Jean Paul. You have perhaps heard of Lessing and Goethe, and you
consider Heine the one and only German poet."

Maurice did not understand what she meant, but she had spoken so
loudly and forbiddingly that several eyes were turned on them, making
it incumbent on him not to take offence. He emptied his cup, and put
it down, and tried to give the matter an airy turn.

"And why not?" he asked pleasantly. "Is there anything wrong in
thinking so? Schiller and Goethe WERE great poets, weren't they? And
you will grant that Heine is the only German writer who has had
anything approaching a style?"

Johanna's face grew stony. "I have no intention of granting anything,"
she said. "Like all English people--it flatters your national vanity, I
presume--you think German literature began and ended with Heine.--A
miserable Jew!"

"Yes, but I say, one can hardly make him responsible for being a Jew,
can you? What has that got to do with it?" exclaimed Maurice, this
being a point of view that had never presented itself to him. And as
Johanna only murmured something that was inaudible, he added lamely:
"Then you don't think much of Heine?"

But she declined to be drawn into a discussion, even into an
expression of opinion, and the young man continued, with apology in
his tone: "It may be bad taste on my part, of course. But one
hears it said on every side. If you could tell me what I ought to
read . . . or, perhaps, advise me a little?" he ended tentatively.

"I don't lend my books," said Johanna more rudely than she had yet
spoken. And that was all Maurice could get from her. A minute or two
later, she rose and went out of the room.

It became much less restrained as soon as the door had closed behind
her. Ephie laughed more roguishly, and Mrs. Cayhill allowed herself to
find what her little daughter said, droller than before. With an
appearance of unconcern, Maurice strolled back to the group by the
window. Dove was also talking of literature.

"That reminds me, how did you like the book I lent you on Wednesday,
Mrs. Cayhill?" he asked, at the same instant springing forward to pick
up Ephie's handkerchief, which had fallen to the ground.

"Oh, very much indeed, very interesting, very good of you," answered
Mrs. Cayhill. "Ephie, darling, the sun is shining right on your face."

"What was it?" asked James, while Dove jumped up anew to lower the
blind, and Ephie raised a bare, dimpled arm to shade her eyes.

Mrs. Cayhill could not recollect the title just at once she had a
"wretched memory for names"--and went over what she had been reading.

"Let me see, it was . . . no, that was yesterday: SHADOWED BY THREE, a
most delightful Book. On Friday, RICHARD ELSMERE, and--oh, yes, I know,
it was about a farm, an Australian farm."

"THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM," put in Dove mildly, returning to his
seat.

"Australian or African, it doesn't matter which," said Mrs. Cayhill.
"Yes, a nice book, but a little coarse in parts, and very foolish at
the end--the disguising, and the dying out of doors, and the
looking-glass, and all that."

"I must say I think it a very powerful book," said Dove solemnly.
"That part, you know, where the boy listens to the clock ticking in
the night, and thinks to himself that with every tick, a soul goes
home to God. A very striking idea!"