Hayward, after saying for a month that he was going South next day and
delaying from week to week out of inability to make up his mind to the
bother of packing and the tedium of a journey, had at last been driven
off just before Christmas by the preparations for that festival. He
could not support the thought of a Teutonic merry-making. It gave him
goose-flesh to think of the season’s aggressive cheerfulness, and in
his desire to avoid the obvious he determined to travel on Christmas
Eve.
Philip was not sorry to see him off, for he was a downright person and
it irritated him that anybody should not know his own mind. Though much
under Hayward’s influence, he would not grant that indecision pointed
to a charming sensitiveness; and he resented the shadow of a sneer with
which Hayward looked upon his straight ways. They corresponded. Hayward
was an admirable letter-writer, and knowing his talent took pains with
his letters. His temperament was receptive to the beautiful influences
with which he came in contact, and he was able in his letters from Rome
to put a subtle fragrance of Italy. He thought the city of the ancient
Romans a little vulgar, finding distinction only in the decadence of
the Empire; but the Rome of the Popes appealed to his sympathy, and in
his chosen words, quite exquisitely, there appeared a rococo beauty. He
wrote of old church music and the Alban Hills, and of the languor of
incense and the charm of the streets by night, in the rain, when the
pavements shone and the light of the street lamps was mysterious.
Perhaps he repeated these admirable letters to various friends. He did
not know what a troubling effect they had upon Philip; they seemed to
make his life very humdrum. With the spring Hayward grew dithyrambic.
He proposed that Philip should come down to Italy. He was wasting his
time at Heidelberg. The Germans were gross and life there was common;
how could the soul come to her own in that prim landscape? In Tuscany
the spring was scattering flowers through the land, and Philip was
nineteen; let him come and they could wander through the mountain towns
of Umbria. Their names sang in Philip’s heart. And Cacilie too, with
her lover, had gone to Italy. When he thought of them Philip was seized
with a restlessness he could not account for. He cursed his fate
because he had no money to travel, and he knew his uncle would not send
him more than the fifteen pounds a month which had been agreed upon. He
had not managed his allowance very well. His pension and the price of
his lessons left him very little over, and he had found going about
with Hayward expensive. Hayward had often suggested excursions, a visit
to the play, or a bottle of wine, when Philip had come to the end of
his month’s money; and with the folly of his age he had been unwilling
to confess he could not afford an extravagance.
Luckily Hayward’s letters came seldom, and in the intervals Philip
settled down again to his industrious life. He had matriculated at the
university and attended one or two courses of lectures. Kuno Fischer
was then at the height of his fame and during the winter had been
lecturing brilliantly on Schopenhauer. It was Philip’s introduction to
philosophy. He had a practical mind and moved uneasily amid the
abstract; but he found an unexpected fascination in listening to
metaphysical disquisitions; they made him breathless; it was a little
like watching a tight-rope dancer doing perilous feats over an abyss;
but it was very exciting. The pessimism of the subject attracted his
youth; and he believed that the world he was about to enter was a place
of pitiless woe and of darkness. That made him none the less eager to
enter it; and when, in due course, Mrs. Carey, acting as the
correspondent for his guardian’s views, suggested that it was time for
him to come back to England, he agreed with enthusiasm. He must make up
his mind now what he meant to do. If he left Heidelberg at the end of
July they could talk things over during August, and it would be a good
time to make arrangements.
The date of his departure was settled, and Mrs. Carey wrote to him
again. She reminded him of Miss Wilkinson, through whose kindness he
had gone to Frau Erlin’s house at Heidelberg, and told him that she had
arranged to spend a few weeks with them at Blackstable. She would be
crossing from Flushing on such and such a day, and if he travelled at
the same time he could look after her and come on to Blackstable in her
company. Philip’s shyness immediately made him write to say that he
could not leave till a day or two afterwards. He pictured himself
looking out for Miss Wilkinson, the embarrassment of going up to her
and asking if it were she (and he might so easily address the wrong
person and be snubbed), and then the difficulty of knowing whether in
the train he ought to talk to her or whether he could ignore her and
read his book.
At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had been thinking of
nothing but the future; and he went without regret. He never knew that
he had been happy there. Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of Der Trompeter
von Sackingen and in return he presented her with a volume of William
Morris. Very wisely neither of them ever read the other’s present.