heard crying like this. He moved as far away from her as he could,
stood at the window, staring out and biting his lips, while she sobbed,
regardless of his presence, with the utter abandon of a child. Like a
child, too, she wept rebelliously, unchastenedly, as he could not have
believed it possible for a grown person to cry. Such grief as this, so
absolute a despair, had nothing to do with reason or the reasoning
faculties; and the words were not invented that would be able to soothe
it.
But, little by little, a change came over her crying. The rebellion
died out of it; it grew duller, and more blunted, hopeless, without
life. Her strength was almost gone. Now, however, there was another
note of childishness in it, that of complete exhaustion, which it is so
hard to hear. The tears rose to his own eyes; he would have liked to go
to her, to lay his hand on her head, and treat her tenderly, to make
her cease and be happy once more; but he did not dare. Had he done so,
she might not have repelled him; for, in all intensely passionate
grief, there comes a moment of subsidence, when the grief and its
origin are forgotten, and the one overruling desire is the desire to be
comforted, no matter who the comforter and what his means, so long as
they are masterful and strong.
She grew calmer; and soon she was only shaken at widening intervals by
a sob. Then these, too, ceased, and Maurice held his breath. But as,
after a considerable time had elapsed, she still lay without making
sound or movement, he crossed the room to look at her. She was fast
asleep, half sitting, half lying, with her head on the cushions, and
the tears wet on her cheeks. He hesitated between a wish to see her in
a more comfortable position, and an unwillingness to disturb her.
Finally, he took an eider-down quilt from the bed, and wrapped it round
her; then slipped noiselessly from the room.
It was past eight o'clock.
* * * * *
Ephie ran down the stairs as if a spectre were at her heels, and even
when in the street, did not venture to slacken her speed. Although the
dusk was rapidly passing into dark, a good deal of notice was attracted
by the sight of a well-dressed young girl running along, holding a
handkerchief to her face, and every now and then emitting a loud sob.
People stood and stared after her, and some little boys ran with her.
Instead of dropping her pace when she saw this, Ephie grew confused,
and ran more quickly than before. She had turned at random, on coming
out of the house; and she was in a part of the town she did not know.
In her eagerness to get away from people, she took any turn that
offered; and after a time she found that she had crossed the river, and
was on what was almost a country road. A little further off, she knew,
lay the woods; if once she were in their shelter, she would be safe;
and, without stopping to consider that night was falling, she ran
towards them at full speed. On the first seat she came to she sank
breathless and exhausted.
Her first sensation was one of relief at being alone. She unpinned and
took off the big, heavy hat, and laid it on the seat beside her, in
order to be more at her case; and then she cried, heartily, and without
precautions, enjoying to the full the luxury of being unwatched and
unheard. Since teatime, she seemed to have been fighting her tears,
exercising a self-restraint that was new to her and very hard; and not
to-day alone--oh, no, for weeks past, she had been obliged to act a
part. Not even in her bed at night had she been free to indulge her
grief; for, if she cried then, it made her pale and heavy-eyed next
day, and exposed her to Joan's comments. And there were so many things
to cry about: all the emotional excitement of the summer, with its ups
and downs of hope and fear; the never-ceasing need of dissimulation;
the gnawing uncertainty caused by Schilsky's silence; the growing sense
of blankness and disappointment; Joan's suspicions; Maurice's
discovery; the knowledge that Schilsky had gone away without a word to
her; and, worst of all, and most inexplicable, the terrible visit of
the afternoon--at the remembrance of the madwoman she had escaped from,
Ephie's tears flowed with renewed vigour. Her handkerchief was soaked
and useless; she held her fur tippet across her eyes to receive the
tears as they fell; and when this grew too wet, she raised the skirt of
her dress to her face. Not a sound was to be heard but her sobbing; she
was absolutely alone; and she wept on till those who cared for her,
whose chief wish was to keep grief from her, would hardly have
recognized in her the child they loved.
How long she had been there she did not know, when she was startled to
her feet by a loud rustling in the bushes behind her. Then, of a
sudden, she became aware that it was pitch-dark, and that she was all
by herself in the woods. She took to her heels, in a panic of fear, and
did not stop running till the street-lamps came into sight. When she
was under their friendly shine, and could see people walking on the
other side of the river, she remembered that she had left her hat lying
on the seat. At this fresh misfortune, she began to cry anew. But not
for anything in the world would she have ventured back to fetch it.
She crossed the Pleisse and came to a dark, quiet street, where few
people were; and here she wandered up and down. It was late; at home
they would be sitting at supper now, exhausting themselves in
conjectures where she could be. Ephie was very hungry, and at the
thought of the warmth and light of the supper-table, a lump rose in her
throat. If it had been only her mother, she might have faced her--but
Joan! Home in this plight, at this hour, hatless, and with swollen
face, to meet Joan's eyes and questions!--she shivered at the idea.
Moreover, the whole PENSION would get to know what had happened to her;
she would need to bear inquisitive looks and words; she would have to
explain, or, still worse, to invent and tell stories again; and of what
use were they now, when all was over? A feeling of lassitude overcame
her--an inability to begin fresh. All over: he would never put his arm
round her again, never come towards her, careless and smiling, and call
her his "little, little girl."
She sobbed to herself as she walked. Everything was bleak, and black,
and cheerless. She would perhaps die of the cold, and then all of them,
Joan in particular, would be filled with remorse. She stood and looked
at the inky water of the river between its stone walls. She had read of
people drowning themselves; what if she went down the steps and threw
herself in?--and she feebly fingered at the gate. But it was locked and
chained; and at the idea of her warm, soft body touching the icy water;
at the picture of herself lying drowned, with dank hair, or, like the
Christian Martyr, floating away on the surface; at the thought of their
grief, of HIM wringing his hands over her corpse, she was so moved that
she wept aloud again, and almost ran to be out of temptation's way.
It had begun to drizzle. Oh, how tired she was! And she was obliged
constantly to dodge impertinently staring men. In a long, wide street,
she entered a door-way that was not quite so dark as the others, and
sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. Here she must have dozed,
for she was roused by angry voices on the floor above. It sounded like
some one who was drunk; and she fled trembling back to the street.
A neighbouring clock struck ten. At this time of night, she could not
go home, even though she wished to. She was wandering the streets like
any outcast, late at night, without a hat--and her condition of
hatlessness she felt to be the chief stigma. But she was starving with
hunger, and so tired that she could scarcely drag one foot after the
other. Oh, what would they say if they knew what their poor little
Ephie was enduring! Her mother--Joan---Maurice!
Maurice! The thought of him came to her like a ray of light. It was to
Maurice she would turn. He would be good to her, and help her; he had
always been kind to her, till this afternoon. And he knew what had
happened; it would not be necessary to explain.--Oh, Maurice, Maurice!
She knew his address, if she could but find the street. A droschke
passed, and she tried to hail it; but she did not like to advance too
far out of the shadow, on account of her bare head. Finally, plucking
up courage, she inquired the way of a feather-hatted woman, who had
eyed her with an inquisitive stare.
It turned out that the BRAUSTRASSE was just round the corner; she had
perhaps been in the street already, without knowing it; and now she
found it, and the house, without difficulty. The street-door was still
open; or she would never have been bold enough to ring.
The stair was poorly lighted, and full of unsavoury smells. In her
agitation, Ephie rang on a wrong floor, and a strange man answered her
timid inquiry. She climbed a flight higher, and rang again. There was a
long and ominous pause, in which her heart beat fast; if Maurice did
not live here either, she would drop where she stood. She was about to
ring a second time, when felt slippers and an oil lamp moved along the
passage, the glass window was opened, and a woman's face peered out at
her. Yes, Herr Guest lived there, certainly, said Frau Krause, divided
between curiosity and indignation at having to rise from bed; and she
held the lamp above her head, in order to see Ephie better. But he was
not at home, and, even if he were, at this hour of night ... The heavy
words shuffled along, giving the voracious eyes time to devour.
At the thought that her request might be denied her, Ephie's courage
took its last leap.
"Why, I must see him. I have something important to tell him. Could I
not wait?" she urged in her broken German, feeling unspeakably small
and forlorn. And yielding to a desire to examine more nearly the bare,
damp head and costly furs, Frau Krause allowed the girl to pass before
her into Maurice's room.
She loitered as long as she could over lighting the lamp that stood on
the table; and meanwhile threw repeated glances at Ephie, who, having
given one look round the shabby room, sank into a corner of the sofa
and hid her face: the coarse browed woman, in petticoat and
night-jacket, seemed to her capable of robbery or murder. And so Frau
Krause unwillingly withdrew, to await further developments outside: the
holy, smooth-faced Herr Guest was a deep one, after all.
When Maurice entered, shortly before eleven, Ephie started up from a
broken sleep. He came in pale and disturbed, for Frau Krause had met
him in the passage with angry mutterings about a FRAUENZIMMER in his
room; and his thoughts had at once leaped fearfully to Louise. When he
saw Ephie, he uttered a loud exclamation of surprise.
"Good Lord, Ephie! What on earth are you doing here?"
She sprang at his hands, and caught her breath hysterically.
"Oh, Morry, you've come at last. Oh, I thought you would never come.
Where have you been? Oh, Morry, help me--help me, or I shall die!"
"Whatever is the matter? What are you doing here?"
At his perturbed amazement, she burst into tears, still clinging fast
to his hands. He led her back to the sofa, from which she had sprung.
"Hush, hush! Don't cry like that. What's the matter, child? Tell me
what it is--at once--and let me help you."
"Oh, yes, Morry, help me, help me! There's no one else. I didn't know
where to go. Oh, what shall I do!"
Her own words sounded so pathetic that she sobbed piteously. Maurice
stroked her hand, and waited for her to grow quieter. But now that she
had laid the responsibility of herself on other shoulders, Ephie was
quite unnerved: after the dark and fearful wanderings of the evening,
to be beside some one who knew, who would take care of her, who would
tell her what to do!
She sobbed and sobbed. Only with perseverance did Maurice draw from
her, word by word, an account of where she had been that evening,
broken by such cries as: "Oh, what shall I do! I can't ever go home
again--ever! ... and I lost my hat. Oh, Morry, Morry! And I didn't know
he had gone away--and it wasn't true what I said, that he was coming
back to marry me soon.. I only said it to spite her, because she said
such dreadful things to me. But we were engaged, all the same; he said
he would come to New York to marry me. And now ... oh, dear, oh, Morry!
..."
"Then he really promised to marry you, did he?"
"Yes, oh, yes. Everything was fixed. The last day I was there," she
wept. "But I didn't know he was going away; he never said a word about
it. Oh, what shall I do! Go after him, and bring him back, Morry. He
must come back. He can't leave me like this, he can't--oh, no, indeed!"
"You don't mean to say you went to see him, Ephie?--alone?--at his
room?" queried Maurice slowly, and he did not know how sternly. "When?
How often? Tell me everything. This is no time for fibbing."
But he could make little of Ephie's sobbed and hazy version of the
story; she herself could not remember clearly now; the impressions of
the last few hours had been so intense as to obliterate much of what
had gone before. "I thought I would drown myself ... but the water was
so black. Oh, why did you take me to that dreadful woman? Did you hear
what she said? It wasn't true, was it? Oh, it can't be!"
"It was quite true, Ephie. What he told YOU wasn't true. He never
really cared for anyone but her. They were--were engaged for years."
At this, she wept so heart-rendingly that he was afraid Frau Krause
would come in and interfere.
"You MUST control yourself. Crying won't alter things now. If you had
been frank and candid with us, it would never have happened." This was
the only reproach he could make her; what came after was Johanna's
business, not his. "And now I'm going to take you home. It's nearly
twelve o'clock. Think of the state your mother and sister will be in
about you."
But at the mention of Johanna, Ephie flung herself on the sofa again
and beat the cushions with her hands.
"Not Joan, not Joan!" she wailed. "No, I won't go home. What will she
say to me? Oh, I am so frightened! She'll kill me, I know she will."
And at Maurice's confident assurance that Johanna would have nothing
but love and sympathy for her, she shook her head. "I know Joan. She'll
never forgive me. Morry, let me stay with you. You've always been kind
to me. Oh, don't send me away!"
"Don't be a silly child, Ephie. You know yourself you can't stay here."
But he gave up urging her, coaxed her to lie down, and sat beside her,
stroking her hair. As he said no more, she gradually ceased to sob, and
in what seemed to the young man an incredibly short time, he heard from
her breathing that she was asleep. He covered her up, and stood a sheet
of music before the lamp, to shade her eyes. In the passage he ran up
against Frau Krause, whom he charged to prevent Ephie in the event of
her attempting to leave the house.
Buttoning up his coat-collar, he hastened through the mistlike rain to
fetch Johanna.
There was a light in every window of the PENSION in the LESSINGSTRASSE;
the street-door and both doors of the flat stood open. As he mounted
the stairs a confused sound of voices struck his car; and when he
entered the passage, he heard Mrs. Cayhill crying noisily. Johanna came
out to him at once; she was in hat and cloak. She listened stonily to
his statement that Ephie was safe at his lodgings, and put no
questions; but, on her returning to the sitting-room, Mrs. Cayhill's
sobs stopped abruptly, and several women spoke at once.
Johanna preserved her uncompromising attitude as they walked the
midnight streets. But as Maurice made no mien to explain matters
further, she so far conquered her aversion as to ask: "What have you
done to her?"
The young man's consternation at this view of the case was so evident
that even she felt the need of wording her question differently.
"Answer me. What is Ephie doing at your rooms?"
Maurice cleared his throat. "It's a long and unpleasant story, Miss
Cayhill. And I'm afraid I must tell it from the beginning.--You didn't
suspect, I fear, that ... well, that Ephie had a fancy for some one
here?"
At these words, which were very different from those she had expected,
Johanna eyed him in astonishment.
"A fancy!" she repeated incredulously. "What do you mean?"
"Even more--an infatuation," said Maurice with deliberation. "And for
some one I daresay you have never even heard of--a...a man here, a
violinist, called Schilsky."
The elaborate fabric she had that day reared, fell together about
Johanna's ears. She stared at Maurice as if she doubted his sanity; and
she continued to listen, with the same icy air of disbelief, to his
stammered and ineffectual narrative, until he said that he believed
"it" had been "going on since summer."
At this Johanna laughed aloud. "That is quite impossible," she said. "I
knew everything Ephie did, and everywhere she went."
"She met him nearly every day. They exchanged letters, and-----"
"It is impossible," repeated Johanna with vehemence, but less surely.
"----and a sort of engagement seems to have existed between them."
"And you knew this and never said a word to me?"
"I didn't know--not till to-night. I only suspected something--once ...
long ago. And I couldn't--I mean--one can't say a thing like that
without being quite sure----"
But here he broke down, conscious, as never before, of the negligence
he had been guilty of towards Ephie. And Johanna was not likely to
spare him: there was, indeed, a bitter antagonism to his half-hearted
conduct in the tone in which she said: "I stood to Ephie in a mother's
place. You might have warned me--oh, you might, indeed!"
They walked on in silence--a hard, resentful silence. Then Johanna put
the question he was expecting to hear.
"And what has all this to do with to-night?"
Maurice took up the thread of his narrative again, telling how Ephie
had waited vainly for news since returning from Switzerland, and how
she had only learnt that afternoon that Schilsky had been in Leipzig,
and had gone away again, without seeing her, or letting her know that
he did not intend to return.
"And how did she hear it?"
"At a friend's house."
"What friend?"
"A friend of mine, a--No; I had better be frank with you: the girl this
fellow was engaged to for a year or more."
"And Ephie did not know that?"
He shook his head.
"But you knew, and yet took her there?"
It was a hopeless job to try to exonerate himself. "Yes, there were
reasons--I couldn't help it, in fact. But I'm afraid I should not be
able to make you understand."
"No, never!" retorted Johanna, and squared her shoulders.
But there was more to be said--she had worse to learn before Ephie was
handed over to her care.
"And Ephie has been very foolish," he began anew, without looking at
her. "It seems--from what she has told me tonight--that she has been to
see this man ... been at his rooms ... more than once."
At first, he was certain, Johanna did not grasp the meaning of what he
said; she turned a blank face curiously to him. But, a moment later,
she gave a low cry, and hardly able to form the words for excitement,
asked: "Who ... what ... what kind of a man was he--this ... Schilsky?"
"Rotten," said Maurice; and she did not press him further. He heard her
breath coming quickly, and saw the kind of stiffening that went through
her body; but she kept silence, and did not speak again till they were
almost at his house-door. Then she said, in a voice that was hoarse
with feeling: "It has been all my fault. I did not take proper care of
her. I was blind and foolish. And I shall never be able to forgive
myself for it--never. But that Ephic--my little Ephie--the child
I--that Ephie could ... could do a thing like this ..." Her voice
tailed off in a sob.
Maurice struck matches, to light her up the dark staircase; and the
condition of the stairs, the disagreeable smells, the poverty of wall
and door revealed, made Johanna's heart sink still further: to
surroundings such as these had Ephie accustomed herself. They entered
without noise; everything was just as Maurice had left it, except that
the lamp had burned too high and filled the room with its fumes. As
Johanna paused, undecided what to do, Ephie started up, and, at the
sight of her sister, burst into loud cries of fear. Hiding her face,
she sobbed so alarmingly that Johanna did not venture to approach her.
She remained standing beside the table, one thin, ungloved hand resting
on it, while Maurice bent over Ephie and tried to soothe her.
"Please fetch a droschke," Johanna said grimly, as Ephie's sobs showed
no signs of abating; and when, after a lengthy search in the night,
Maurice returned, she was standing in the same position, staring with
drawn, unblinking eyes at the smoky lamp, which no one had thought of
lowering. Ephie was still crying, and only Maurice might go near her.
He coaxed her to rise, wrapped his rug round her, and carried her, more
than he led her, down the stairs.
"Be good enough to drive home with us," said Johanna. And so he sat
with his arm round Ephie, who pressed her face against his shoulder,
while the droschke jolted over the cobbled streets, and Johanna held
herself pale and erect on the opposite seat. She mounted the stairs in
front of them. Ephie was limp and heavy going up; but no sooner did she
catch sight of Mrs. Cayhill than, with a cry, she rushed from the young
man's side, and threw herself into her mother's arms.
"Oh, mummy, mummy!"
Downstairs, in the rain-soaked street, Maurice found the
droschke-driver waiting for his fare. It only amounted to a couple of
marks, and it was no doubt a just retribution for what had happened
that he should be obliged to lay it out; but, none the less, it seemed
like the last straw--the last dismal touch--in a day of forlorn
discomfort.
V.
A few weeks later, a great variety of cabin-trunks and saratogas
blocked the corridor of the PENSION. The addresses they bore were in
Johanna's small, pointed handwriting.
On this, the last afternoon of the Cayhills' stay in Leipzig, Maurice
saw Johanna again for the first time. She had had her hands full. In
the woods, on that damp October night, and on her subsequent
wanderings, Ephie had caught a severe cold; and the doctor had feared
an inflammation of the lungs. This had been staved off; but there was
also, it seemed, a latent weakness of the chest, hitherto unsuspected,
which kept them anxious. Ephie still had a dry, grating cough, which
was troublesome at night, and left her tired and fretful by day. They
were travelling direct to the South of France, where they intended to
remain until she had quite recovered her strength.
Maurice sat beside Johanna on the deep sofa where he and Ephie had
worked at harmony together. But the windows of the room were shut now,
and the room itself looked unfamiliar; for it had been stripped of all
the trifles and fancy things that had given it such a comfortable,
home-like air, and was only the bare, lodging-house room once more.
Johanna was as self-possessed as of old, a trifle paler, a trifle
thinner of lip.
She told him that they intended leaving quietly the next morning,
without partings or farewells. Ephie was still weak and the less
excitement she had to undergo, the better it would be for her.
"Then I shall not see Ephie again?" queried Maurice in surprise.
Johanna thought not: it would only recall the unhappy night to her
memory; besides, she had not asked to see him, as she no doubt would
have done, had she wished it.--At this, the eleventh hour, Johanna did
not think it worth while to tell Maurice that Ephie bore him an
unalterable grudge.
"I never want to see him again."
That was all she said to Johanna; but, during her illness, she had
brooded long over his treachery. And even if things had come all right
in the end, she would never have been able to forgive his speaking to
her of Schilsky in the way he had done. No, she was finished with
Maurice Guest; he was too double-faced, too deceitful for her.--And she
cried bitterly, with her face turned to the wall.
The young man could not but somewhat lamely agree with Johanna that it
was better to let the matter end thus: for he felt that towards the
Cayhills he had been guilty of a breach of trust such as it is
difficult to forgive. At the same time, he was humanly hurt that Ephie
would not even say good-bye to him.
He asked their further plans, and learnt that as soon as Ephie was well
again, they would sail for New York.
"My father has cabled twice for us."
Johanna's manner was uncompromisingly dry and short. After her last
words, there was a long pause, and Maurice made a movement to rise. But
she put out her hand and detained him.
"There is something I should like to say to you." And thereupon, with
the abruptness of a nervous person: "When I have seen my sister and
mother safe back, I intend leaving home myself. I am going to Harvard."
Maurice realised that the girl was telling him a fact of considerable
importance to herself, and did his best to look interested.
"Really? That's always been a wish of yours, hasn't it?"
"Yes." Johanna coloured, hesitated as he had never known her to do,
then burst out: "And now there is nothing in the way of it." She drew
her thumb across the leaf-corners of a book that was lying on the
table. "Oh, I know what you will say: how, now that Ephie has turned
out to be weak and untrustworthy, there is all the more reason for me
to remain with her, to look after her. But that is not possible." She
faced him sharply, as though he had contradicted her. "I am incapable
of pretending to be the same when my feelings have changed; and, as I
told you--as I knew that night--I shall never be able to feel for Ephie
as I did before. I am ready, as I said, to take all the blame for what
has happened; I was blind and careless. But if the care and affection
of years count for nothing; if I have been so little able to win her
confidence; if, indeed, I have only succeeded in making her dislike me,
by my care of her, so that when she is in trouble, she turns from me,
instead of to me--why, then I have failed lamentably in what I had made
the chief duty of my life."
"Besides," she continued more quietly, "there is another reason: Ephie
is going to fall a victim to her nerves. I see that; and my poor,
foolish mother is doing her best to foster it.--You smile? Only because
you do not understand what it means. It is no laughing matter. If an
American woman once becomes conscious of her nerves, then Heaven help
her!--Now I am not of a disinterested enough nature to devote myself to
sick-nursing where there is no real sickness. And then, too, my mother
intends taking a French maid back with her, and a person of that class
will perform such duties much more competently than I."
She spoke with bitterness. Maurice mumbled some words of sympathy,
wondering why she should choose to say these things to him.
"Even at home my place is filled," continued Johanna. "The housekeeper
who was appointed during our absence has been found so satisfactory
that she will continue in the post after our return. Everywhere, you
see, I have proved superfluous. There, as here."
"I'm sure you're mistaken," said Maurice with more warmth. "And, Miss
Joan, there's something I should like to say, if I may. Don't you think
you take what has happened here a little too seriously? No doubt Ephie
behaved foolishly. But was it after all any more than a girlish
escapade?"
"Too seriously?"
Johanna turned her shortsighted eyes on the young man, and gazed at him
almost pityingly. How little, oh, how little, she said to herself, one
mortal knew and could know of another, in spite of the medium of
speech, in spite of common experiences! Some of the nights at the
beginning of Ephie's illness returned vividly to her mind, nights, when
she, Johanna, had paced her room by the hour, filled with a terrible
dread, a numbing uncertainty, which she would sooner have died than
have let cross her lips. She had borne it quite alone, this horrible
fear; her mother had been told of the whole affair only what it was
absolutely necessary for her to know. And, naturally enough, the young
man who now sat at her side, being a man, could not be expected to
understand. But the consciousness of her isolation made Johanna speak
with renewed harshness.
"Too seriously?" she repeated. "Oh, I think not. The girlish escapade,
as you call it, was the least of it. If that had been all, if it had
only been her infatuation for some one who was unworthy of her, I could
have forgiven Ephie till seventy times seven. But, after all these
years, after the way I have loved her--no, idolised her!--for her to
treat me as she did--do you think it possible to take that too
seriously? There was no reason she should not have had her little
secrets. If she had let me see that something was going on, which she
did not want to tell me about, do you think I should have forced
her?"--and Johanna spoke in all good faith, forgetful of how she had
been used to clip and doctor Ephie's sentiments. "But that she could
deceive me wilfully, and lie so lightly, with a smile, when, all the
time, she was living a double life, one to my face and one behind my
back--that I cannot forgive. Something has died in me that I used to
feel for her. I could never trust her again, and where there is no
trust there can be no real love."
"She didn't understand what she was doing. She is so young."
"Just for that reason. So young, and so skilled in deceit. That is
hardest of all, even to think of: that she could wear her dear innocent
face, while behind it, in her brain, were cold, calculating thoughts
how she could best deceive me! If there had been but a single sign to
waken my suspicions, then, yes, then I could have forgiven her," said
Johanna, and again forgot how often of late she had been puzzled by the
subtle change in Ephie. "If I could just know that, in spite of her
efforts, she had been too candid to succeed!"
She had unburdened herself and it had been a relief to her, but nothing
could be helped or mended. Both knew this, and after a few polite
questions about her future plans and studies, Maurice rose to take his
leave.
"Say good-bye to them both for me, and give Ephie my love."
"I will. I think she will be sorry afterwards that she did not see you.
She has always liked you."
"Good-bye then. Or perhaps it is only AUF WIEDERSEHEN?"
"I hardly think so." Johanna had returned to her usual sedate manner.
"If I do visit Europe again, it will not be for five or six years at
least."
"And that's a long time. Who knows where I may be, by then!"
He held Johanna's hand in his, and saw her gauntly slim figure outlined
against the bare sitting-room. It was not likely that they would ever
meet again. But he could not summon up any very lively feelings of
regret. Johanna had not touched him deeply; she had left him as cool as
he had no doubt left her; neither had found the key to the other. Her
chief attraction for him had been her devotion to Ephie; and now,
having been put to the test, this was found wanting. She had been
wounded in her own pride and self-love, and could not forgive. At heart
she was no more generous and unselfish than the rest.
He repeated farewell messages as he stood in the passage. Johanna held
the front door open for him, and, as he went down the stairs, he heard
it close behind him, with that extreme noiselessness that was
characteristic of Johanna's treatment of it.
The following morning, shortly after ten o'clock, a train steamed out
of the THURINGER BAHNHOF, carrying the Cayhills with it. The day was
misty and cheerless, and none of the three travellers turned her head
to give the town a parting glance. They left unattended, without
flowers or other souvenirs, without any of the demonstratively pathetic
farewells, the waving of hats, and crowding about the carriage-door,
which one of the family, at least, had connected inseverably with their
departure. And thus Ephie's musical studies came to an abrupt and
untimely end.
* * * * *
"My faith in women is shattered. I shall never believe in a woman
again."
Dove paced the floor of Maurice's room with long and steady strides,
beneath which a particular board creaked at intervals. His voice was
husky, and the ruddiness of his cheeks had paled.
At the outset of Ephie's illness, Dove had called every morning at the
PENSION, to make inquiries and to leave his regards. But when the story
leaked out, as it soon did, in an exaggerated and distorted form, he
straightway ceased his visits. Thus he was wholly unprepared for the
family's hurried departure, the news of which was broken to him by
Maurice. Dove was dumbfounded. Not a single sententious phrase crossed
his lips; and he remained unashamed of the moisture that dimmed his
eyes. But he maintained his bearing commendably; and it was impossible
not to admire the upright, manly air with which he walked down the
street.
The next day, however, he returned, and was silent no longer. He made
no secret of having been hard hit; just as previously he had let his
friends into his hopes and intentions, so now every one heard of his
reverses. He felt a tremendous need of unbosoming himself; he had been
so sure of success, or, at least, so unthinking of failure, and the
blow to his selfesteem was a rude one.
Maurice sat with his hands in his pockets, and tried to urge reason.
But Dove would not admit even the possibility of his having been
mistaken. He had received innumerable proofs of Ephie's regard for him.
"Remember how young she was! Girls of that age never know their own
minds," said Maurice. But Dove was inclined to take Johanna's sterner
view, and to cry: "So young and so untender!" for which he, too,
substituted "untrue"; and, just on this score, to deduce unfavourable
inferences for Ephie's whole moral character. As Maurice listened to
him, he could not help thinking that Johanna's affection had been of
the same nature as Dove's, in other words, had had a touch of the
masculine about it: it had existed only as long as it could guide and
subordinate; it denied to its object any midget attempt at individual
life; it set up lofty moral standards, and was implacable when a
smaller, frailer being found it impossible to live up to them.
At the same time, he was sorry for Dove, who, in his blindness, had
laid himself open to receive this snubbing; and he listened patiently,
even a thought flattered by his confidence, until he learnt from
Madeleine that Dove was making the round of his acquaintances, and
behaving in the same way to anyone who would let him. Then he found
that the openness with which Dove related his past hopes, and the marks
of affection Ephie had given him, bordered on indecency. He said so,
with a wrathful frankness; but Dove could not see it in that light, and
was not offended.
As the personal smart weakened, the more serious question that Dove had
to face was, what he was going to tell his relatives at home. For it
now came out that he had represented the affair to them as settled; in
his perfectly sincere optimism, he had regarded himself as an all but
engaged man. And the point that disturbed him was, how to back out with
dignity, yet without violating the truth, on which he set great store.
"I'm sure he needn't let that trouble him," said Madeleine, on hearing
of his dilemma. "He has only to say that HE has changed his mind, which
is true enough."
This was the conclusion Dove eventually came to himself--though not
with such unseemly haste as Madeleine. Having approached the matter
from all sides, he argued that it would be more considerate to Ephie to
put it in this light than to tell the story in detail. And
consequently, two elderly people in Peterborough nodded to each other
one morning over the breakfast-table, and agreed that Edward had done
well. They had not been much in favour of the American match, but they
had trusted implicitly in their son's good sense, and now, as ever, he
had acted in the most becoming way. He had never given them an hour's
uneasiness since his birth.
Dove wrote:
CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE ARISEN, MY DEAR PARENTS, WHICH MAKE IT
INCONTROVERTIBLY CLEAR TO ME THAT THE YOUNG LADY TO WHOM I WAS PAYING
MY ADDRESSES WHEN I CONSULTED YOU IN SUMMER AND MYSELF WOULD NOT HAVE
KNOWN TRUE HAPPINESS IN OUR UNION. ON MORE INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCE IT
TRANSPIRED THAT OUR CHARACTERS WERE TOTALLY UNSUITED. I HAVE THEREFORE
FOUND IT ADVISABLE TO BANISH THE AFFAIR FROM MY MIND AND TO DEVOTE
MYSELF WHOLLY TO MY STUDIES.
As time passed, and Dove was able to view what had happened more
objectively, he began to feel and even to hint that, all things
considered, he had had a rather lucky escape; and from this, it was not
very far to believing that if he had not just seen through the whole
affair from the beginning, he had at any rate had some inkling of it;
and now, instead of giving proofs of Ephie's affection, he narrated the
gradual growth of his suspicions, and how these had ultimately been
verified. In conclusion, he congratulated himself on having drawn back,
with open eyes, while there was still time.
"Like his cheek!" said Madeleine. "But he could imagine himself into
being the Shah of Persia, if he sat down and gave his mind to it. I
don't believe the snub is going to do him a bit of good. He bobs up
again like a cork, irrepressible. HAVE you heard him quote: 'Frailty
thy name is woman!' or: 'If women could be fair and yet not
fond'?--It's as good as a play."
But altogether, Madeleine was very sharp of tongue since she learnt the
part Maurice had played in what, for a day, was the scandal of the
English-speaking colony. She had taken him to task at once, for his
"lamentable interference."
"Haven't I warned you, Maurice, not to mix yourself up in Louise's
affairs? No good can come of it. She breeds mischief. And if that
absurd child had really drowned herself"--in the version of the story
that had reached Madeleine's ears, Maurice was represented fishing
Ephie bodily from the river--"you would have had to bear the whole
brunt of the blame. It ought to teach you a lesson. For you're just the
kind of boy women will always take advantage of, a mean advantage, you
know. Consider how you were treated in this case--by both of them! They
were not a scrap grateful to you for what you did--women never are.
They only look down on you for letting them have their own way.
Kindness and complaisance don't move them. A well-developed biceps and
a cruel mouth--that's what they want, and that's all!" she wound up
with a flourish, in an extreme bad temper.
She sat, one dull November afternoon, at her piano, and continued to
run her fingers over the keys. Maurice leant on the lid, and listened
to her. But they had barely exchanged a word, when there was a light
tap at the door, and Krafft entered. Both started at his unexpected
appearance, and Madeleine cried: "You come in like a ghost, to frighten
people out of their wits."
Krafft was buttoned to the chin in a travelling-ulster, and looked pale
and thin.
"What news from St. Petersburg?" queried Madeleine with a certain
asperity.
But Maurice recalled an errand he had to do in town; and, on hearing
this, Krafft, who was lolling aimlessly, declared that he would
accompany him.
"But you've only just come!" expostulated Madeleine. "What in the name
of goodness did you climb the stairs for?"
He patted her cheek, without replying.
The young men went away together, Maurice puffing somewhat
ostentatiously at a cigarette. The wind was cold, and Krafft seemed to
shrink into his ulster before it, keeping his hands deep in his
pockets. But from time to time, he threw a side-glance at his friend,
and at length asked, in the tone of appeal which Maurice found it hard
to withstand: "What's the matter, LIEBSTER? Why are you so
different?--so changed?"
"The matter? Nothing--that I'm aware of," said Maurice, and considered
the tip of his cigarette.
"Oh, yes, there is," and Krafft laid a caressing hand on his
companion's arm. "You are changed. You're not frank with me. I feel
such things at once."
"Well, how on earth am I to know when to be frank with you, and when
not? Before you ... not very long ago, you behaved as if you didn't
want to have anything more to do with me."
"You are changed, and, if I'm not mistaken, I know why," said Krafft,
ignoring his answer. "You have been listening to gossip--to what my
enemies say of me."
"I don't listen to gossip. And I didn't know you had enemies, as you
call them."
"I?--and not have enemies?" He flared up as though Maurice had
affronted him. "My good fellow, did you ever bear of a man worth his
salt, who didn't have enemies? It's the penalty one pays: only the
dolts and the 'all-too-many' are friends with the whole world. No one
who has work to do that's worth doing, can avoid making enemies. And
who knows what a friend is, who hasn't an enemy to match him? It's a
question of light and shade, theme and counter-theme, of artistic
proportion." He laughed, in his superior way. But directly afterwards,
he dropped back into his former humble tone. "But that you, my friend,
are so ready to let yourself be influenced--I should not have believed
it of you."
"What I heard, I heard from Furst; and I have no reason to suspect him
of falsehood.--Of course, if you assure me it was not true, that's a
different thing." He turned so sharply that he sent a beautiful flush
over Krafft's face. "Come, give me your word, Heirtz, and things will
be straight again."
But Krafft merely shrugged his shoulders, and his colour subsided as
rapidly as it had risen.
"Are you still such an outsider," he asked, "after all this time--in my
society--as to attach importance to a word? What is 'giving a word'? Do
you really think it is of any value? May I not give it tonight, and
take it back to-morrow, according to the mood I am in, according to
whether I believe it myself or not, at the moment?--You think a thing
must either be true or not true? You are wrong. Do you believe, when
you answer a question in the affirmative or the negative, that you are
actually telling the truth? No, my friend, to be perfectly truthful one
would need to lose oneself in a maze of explanation, such as no
questioner would have the patience to listen to. One would need to take
into account the innumerable threads that have gone to making the
statement what it is. Do you think, for instance, if I answered yes or
no, in the present case, it would be true? If I deny what you
heard--does that tell you that I have longed with all my heart for it
to come to pass? Or say I admit it--I should need to unroll my life
before you to make you understand. No, there's no such thing as
absolute truth. If there were, the finest subtleties of existence would
be lost. There is neither positive truth nor positive untruth; life is
not so coarse-fibred as that. And only the grossest natures can be
satisfied with a blunt yes or no. Truth?--it is one of the many
miserable conventions the human brain has tortured itself with, and its
first principle is an utter lack of the imaginative faculties.--A DIEU!"
VI.
In the days that followed, Maurice threw himself heart and soul into
his work. He had lost ground of late, he saw it plainly now: after his
vigorous start, he had quickly grown slack. He was not, to-day, at the
stage he ought to be, and there was not a doubt but that Schwarz saw
it, too. Now that he, came to think of it, he had more than once been
aware of a studied coolness in the master's manner, of a rather
ostentatious indifference to the quality of the work he brought to the
class: and this he knew by hearsay to be Schwarz's attitude towards
those of his pupils in whom his interest was waning. If he, Maurice,
wished to regain his place in the little Pasha's favour, he must work
like a coal-heaver. But the fact was, the strenuous industry to which
he now condemned himself, was something of a relaxation after the
mental anxiety he had recently undergone; this striking of a black and
white keyboard was a pleasant, thought-deadening employment, and could
be got through, no matter what one's mood.--And so he rose early again,
and did not leave the house till he had five hours' practice behind him.
WER SICH DER EINSAMKEIT ERGIEBT, ACH, DER IST BALD ALLEIN: at the end
of a fortnight, Maurice smiled to find the words of Goethe's song
proved on himself. If he did not go to see his friends, none of them
came to him. Dove, who was at the stage of: "I told you so," in the
affair of the Cayhills, had found fresh listeners, who were more
sympathetic than Maurice could be expected to be: and Madeleine was up
to her ears in work, as she phrased it, with the "C minor Beethoven."
"Agility of finger equals softening of the brain" was a frequent gibe
of Krafft's; and now and then, at the close of a hard day's work,
Maurice believed that the saying contained a grain of truth. Opening
both halves of his window, he would lean out on the sill, too tired for
connected thought. But when dusk fell, he lay on the sofa, with his
arms clasped under his head, his knees crossed in the air.
At first, in his new buoyancy of spirit, he was able to keep foolish
ideas behind him, as well as to put away all recollection of the
disagreeable events he had been mixed up in of late: after having, for
weeks, borne a load that was too heavy for him, he breathed freely once
more. The responsibility of taking care of Ephie had been removed from
him--and this by far outweighed the little that he missed her. The
matter had wound up, too, in a fairly peaceable way; all being
considered, things might have been worse. So, at first, he throve under
his light-heartedness; and only now became aware how great the strain
of the past few weeks had been. His chief sensation was relief, and
also of relief at being able to feel relieved--indeed, the moment even
came when he thought it would be possible calmly to accept the fact of
Louise having left the town, and of his never being likely to see her
again.
Gradually, however, he began to be astonished at himself, and in the
background of his mind, there arose a somewhat morbid curiosity, even a
slight alarm, at his own indifference. He found it hard to understand
himself. Could his feelings, those feelings which, a week or two ago,
he had believed unalterable, have changed in so short a time? Was his
nature one of so little stability? He began to consider himself with
something approaching dismay, and though, all this time, he had been
going about on a kind of mental tiptoe, for fear of rousing something
that might be dormant in him, he now could not help probing himself, in
order to see if the change he observed were genuine or not. And this
with a steadily increasing frequency. Instead of continuing thankful
for the respite, he ultimately grew uneasy under it. Am I a person of
this weak, straw-like consistency, to be tossed about by every wind
that blows? Is there something beneath it all that I cannot fathom?
He had not seen Louise since the night he had left her asleep, beside
the sofa; and he was resolved not to see her--not, at least, until she
wished to see him. It was much better for him that the uncertainties of
the bygone months did not begin anew; then, too, she had called him to
her when she was in trouble, and not for anything in the world would he
presume on her appeal. Besides, his presence would recall to her the
unpleasant details connected with Ephie's visit, which he hoped she had
by this time begun to forget. Thus he argued with himself, giving
several reasons where one would have served; and the upshot of it was,
that his own state of mind occupied him considerably.
His friends noticed the improvement in him; the careworn expression
that had settled down on him of late gave way to his old air of
animation; and on all the small topics of the day, he brought a
sympathetic interest to bear, such as people had ceased to expect from
him. Madeleine, in particular, was satisfied with her "boy," as she
took to calling him. She noted and checked off, in wise silence, each
inch of his progress along the road of healthy endeavour; and the
relations between them became almost as hearty as at the commencement
of their friendship. Privately, she believed that the events of the
past month had taught him a lesson, which he would not soon forget. It
was sufficient, however, if they had inspired him with a distrust of
Louise, which would keep him from her for the present; for Madeleine
had grounds for believing that before many weeks had passed, Louise
would have left Leipzig.
So she kept Maurice as close to her as work permitted; and as the
winter's flood of concerts set in, in full force, he accompanied her,
almost nightly, to the Old Gewandhaus or the ALBERTHALLE; for Madeleine
was an indefatigable concert-goer, and never missed a performer of
note, rarely even a first appearance at the HOTEL DE PRUSSE or a
BLUTHNER MATINEE. On the night she herself played in an
AIBENDUNTERHALTUNG, with the easily gained success that attended all
she did, Maurice went with her to the green-room, and was the first
afterwards to tell her how her performance had "gone." That same
evening she took him with her to the house of friends of hers, the
Hensels. There he met some of the best musical society of the place,
made a pleasant impression, and was invited to return.
Meanwhile, winter had set in, with extreme severity. Piercing north
winds drove down the narrow streets, and raged round the corners of the
Gewandhaus square: on emerging from the PROBE on a Wednesday morning,
one's breath was cut clean off, and the tears raced down one's cheeks.
When the wind dropped, there were hard black frosts--a deadly, stagnant
kind of cold, which seemed to penetrate every pore of the skin and
every cranny of the house. Then came the snow, which fell for three
days and nights on end, and for several nights after, so that the town
was lost under a white pall: house-entrances were with difficulty kept
free, and the swept streets were banked with walls of snow, four and
five feet high. The night-frosts redoubled their keenness; the snow
underfoot crackled like electric sparks; the sleighs crunched the
roads. But except for this, and for the tinkling of the sleigh-bells,
the streets were as noiseless as though laid with straw, and especially
while fresh snow still formed a soft coating on the crisp layer below.
All dripping water hung as icicles; water froze in ewers and pitchers;
milk froze in cans and jugs; and this though the great stoves in the
dwelling-rooms were heated to bursting-point. Red-nosed, red-eared men,
on whose beards and moustaches the breath had turned to ice-drops,
cried to one another at street-corners that such a winter had not been
known for thirty years; and, as they spoke, they stamped their feet,
and clapped their hands, to keep the chilly blood agoing. Women muffled
and veiled themselves like Orientals, hardly showing the tips of their
noses; and all manner of strange, antiquated fur-garments saw the day.
At night, if one opened a window, and peered out at the houses
crouching beneath their thick white load, and at the deserted,
snow-bound streets, over which the street-lamps threw a pale, uncertain
light--at night, familiar things took on an unfamiliar aspect, and the
well-known streets might have been the untrodden ways that led to a new
world.
Early in November, all ponds and pools were bearing, and forthwith many
hundreds of people forgot the severity of the weather, and thronged out
with their skates.
Maurice was among the first. He was a passionate skater; and it was the
one form of sport in which he excelled. As four o'clock came round, he
could contain himself no longer; he would rather have gone without his
dinner, than have missed, on the JOHANNATEICH, the two hours that
elapsed before the sweepers, crying: "FEIERABEND!" drove the skaters
before them, with their brooms. In a tightly buttoned square jacket,
the collar of which was turned up as far as it would go, with the flaps
of his astrachan cap drawn over his cars, his hands in coarse woollen
gloves, Maurice defied the cold, flying round the two ponds that formed
the JOHANNATEICH, or practising intricate figures with a Canadian
acquaintance in a corner.
Madeleine watched him approvingly from one of the wooden bridges that
spanned the neck connecting the ponds. She rejoiced at his glowing face
and vigorous, boyish pleasure, also at the skill that marked him out as
one of the best skaters present. For some time, Maurice tried in vain
to persuade her to join him. Madeleine, usually so confident, was here
diffident and timid. She had never in her life attempted to skate, and
was sure she would fall. And what should she do if she broke a thumb or
strained a finger?--with her PRUFUNG just before the door. She would
never have the courage to confess to Schwarz how it had happened; for
he was against "sport" in any form. But Maurice laughed at her fears.
"There is not the least chance of your falling," he cried up to her.
"Do come down, Madeleine. Before you've gone round twice, you'll be
able to throw off all those mufflings."
Finally, she let herself be persuaded, and according to his promise,
Maurice remained at her side from the moment of her first, hesitating
steps, each of which was accompanied by a faint scream, to the time
when, with the aid of only one of his hands, she made uncertain efforts
at striking out. She did not learn quickly; but she was soon as
enthusiastic a skater as Maurice himself; and he fell into the habit of
calling for her, every afternoon, on his way to the ponds.
Dove was also of assistance in the beginning, and, as usual, was well
up in the theory of the thing, though he did not shine in practice.
"Oh, bother, never mind how you go at first. That'll come afterwards,"
said Maurice impatiently. But Dove thought the rules should be observed
from the beginning, and gave Madeleine minute instructions how to place
her feet.
Towards five o'clock, the ice grew more crowded, and especially was
this the case on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when the schools had
half-holidays. On one of these latter days, Maurice did not find
Madeleine at home; and he had been on the ponds for nearly an hour,
before he espied her on a bench beside the GARDEROBE, having her skates
put on by a blue-smocked attendant. He waved his cap to her, and skated
over.
"Why are you so late?"
"Oh, thank goodness, there you are. I should never have dared to stand
up alone in this crowd. Aren't these children awful? Get away, you
little brutes! If you touch me, I'll fall.--Here, give me change," she
said to the ice-man, holding out a twenty-pfennig piece.
Maurice saw that she was unusually excited, and as soon as he had drawn
her out of reach of the children, asked her the reason.
"I've something interesting to tell you, Maurice."
But here Dove, coming up behind, took possession of her left hand, with
no other greeting than the military salute, which, on the ice, he
adopted for all his friends, male and female, alike; and Madeleine
hastily swallowed the rest of her sentence.
They skated round the larger of the ponds several times without
stopping. The cold evening air stung their faces; the sun had gone down
in a lurid haze; Madeleine's skirts swayed behind her and lent her a
fictitious grace.
But presently she cried a halt, and while she rested in a quiet corner,
they watched Maurice doing a complicated figure, which he and his
Canadian friend had invented the day before. Dove was explaining how it
was done--"It is really not so hard as it looks"--when, with a cry of
"ACHTUNG!" some one whizzed in among them, scattered the group, and,
revolving on himself, ended with a jump in the air. It was James. He
took out his handkerchief and blew his nose, in the most unconcerned
manner possible.
"I don't think such acrobatic tricks should be allowed," said Madeleine
disapprovingly; she had been forced to grab Dove's arm to keep her
balance.
"Say, do you boys know the river has six inches and will be open
to-morrow, if it isn't to-day?" asked James, stooping to tighten a
strap.
"Is that so? Oh gee, that's fine!" cried Miss Martin, who had skated
leisurely up in his rear. "Say, you people, why don't we fix up a party
an' go up it nights? A lady in my boarding-house done that with some
folks she was acquainted with last year. Seems to me we oughtn't to be
behind."
Miss Martin was a skilled and graceful skater, and looked her best in a
dark fur hat and jacket, which set off her abundance of pale flaxen
hair. Others had followed her, and it was resolved to form a party for
the following evening, provided Dove had previously ascertained if the
river actually was "free," in order that they ran no risk of being
ignominiously turned off.
"The ice may be a bit rough, but it's a fine run to Connewitz."
"An' by moonlight, too--but say, is there a moon? Why, I presume there
ought to be," said Miss Martin.
"'Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?'" quoted Dove,
examining a tiny pocket-calendar.
"Oh gee, that's fine!" repeated Miss Martin, on hearing his answer.
"Say, we must dance a FRANCAISE. Mr. Guest, you an' I'll be partners, I
surmise," and ceasing to waltz and pirouette with James, she took a
long sweep, then stood steady, and let her skates bear her out to the
middle of the pond. Her skirts clung close in front, and swept out
behind her lithe figure, until it was lost in the crowd.
"Don't you wish YOU could skate like that?" asked the sharp-tongued
little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine.
Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at
the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton
gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life
besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in
private, so postponed telling her news till the following evening.
Shortly after eight o'clock, the next night, a noisy party whistled and
hallooed in the street below Maurice's window. He was the last to join,
and then some ten or eleven of them picked their steps along the
hard-frozen ruts of the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG, a road that followed the
river to the outskirts of the town. Just above the GERMANIABAD, a rough
scat had been erected on the ice, for the convenience of skaters. They
were the first to make use of it; the snow before it was untrodden; and
the Pleisse wound white and solitary between its banks of snow.
They set off in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, each striking out for
himself. When, however, they had passed the narrower windings, gone
under the iron bridge which was low enough to catch the unwary by the
forehead, and when the full breadth of the river was before them, they
took hands, and, forming a long line, skated in time to the songs some
one struck up, and in which all joined: THE ROSE OF SHARON, JINGLE
BELLS, THERE IS A TAVERN IN OUR TOWN. As they advanced to the corners
where the big trees trailed their naked branches on the ice, just as in
summer they sank their leaves in the water, Miss Jensen, who, despite
her proportions, was a surprisingly good skater, sent her big voice
over the snow-bound stillness in an aria from the PROPHET; and after
this, Miss Martin, no; to be done, struck up the popular ALLERSEELEN.
This was the song of the hour; they all knew it, and up and down and
across the ice rang out their voices in unison: WIE EINST IM MAI, WIE
EINST IM MAI.
Inside Wagner's WALDCAFE at Connewitz, they sat closely packed round
one of the wooden tables, and drank beer and coffee, and ate BERLINER
PFANNKUCHEN. The great iron stove was almost red-hot; the ladies threw
off their wrappings; cold faces glowed and burnt, and frozen hands
tingled. One and all were in high spirits, and the jollity reached a
climax when, having exchanged hats, James and Miss Jensen cleared a
space in the middle of the floor and danced a nigger-dance, the lady
with her skirts tucked up above her ankles. In the adjoining room, some
one began to play a concertina, and then two or three couples stood up
and danced, with much laughter and many outcries at the narrowness of
the space. Even Dove joined in, his partner being a very pretty
American, whom Miss Martin had brought with her, and whose side Dove
had not left for a moment. Only Madeleine and Dickensey sat aloof, and
for once were agreed: Americans were really "very bad form." There was
no livelier pair than Maurice and Miss Martin; the latter's voice could
be heard above all others, as she taught Maurice new steps in a corner
of the room. Her flaxen hair had partly come loose, and she did not
stop to put it up. They were the first to run through the dark garden,
past the snow-laden benches and arbours, which, in summer, were buried
in greenery; and, from the low wooden landing place, they jumped hand
in hand on to the ice, and had shot a long way down the river before
any of the rest could follow them.
But this did not please Madeleine. As it was, she was vexed at not
having had the opportunity of a quiet word with Maurice; and when she
had laboriously skated up, with Dickensey, to the spot where, in a
bright splash of moonlight, Maurice and Miss Martin were cutting
ingenious capers, she cried to the former in a peremptory tone:
"There's something wrong with my skate, Maurice. Will you look at it,
please?" and as sharply declined Dickensey's proffered aid.
Maurice came to her side at once, and in this way she detained him. But
Dickensey hovered not far off, and Miss Martin was still in sight.
Madeleine caught her skate in a crack, fell on her knee, and said she
had now loosened the strap altogether. She sat down on a heap of snow,
and Dickensey's shade vanished good-naturedly round a corner.
"Well, YOU seem to be enjoying yourself," she said as Maurice drew off
his gloves and knelt down.
"Why, yes, aren't you?" he replied so frankly that she did not continue
the subject.
"I've been trying all the evening to get a word with you. I told you
yesterday, you remember, that I wanted to speak to you. Sit down here,
for a moment, so that we can talk in peace," and she spread part of her
skirt over the snow-heap.
Maurice complied, and she could not discover any trace of reluctance in
his manner.
"I want your advice," she continued. "I was taken quite by surprise
myself. Schwarz sent for me, you know, after counterpoint. It was about
my PRUFUNG at Easter. If I play then, it's a case of the C minor
Beethoven. Well, now he says it's a thousand pities for me to break off
just at the stage I'm at, and he wants me to stay for another year. If
I do, he'll give me the G major--that's a temptation, isn't it? On the
other hand, I shall have been here my full time--three years--at
Easter. That's a year longer than I originally intended, and I feel I'm
getting too old to be a pupil. But this talk with Schwarz has upset my
plans. I'm naturally flattered at his interesting himself in me. He
wouldn't do it for every one. And I do feel I could gain an immense
deal in another year.--Now, what do you think?"
"Why, stay, of course, Madeleine. If you can afford it, that is. I
can't imagine anyone wanting to leave."
"Oh, my capital will last so long, and it's a good enough investment."
"But wasn't a place being kept open for you in a school?"
"Yes; but I don't think a year more or less will make much difference
to them. I must sound them, of course, though," said Madeleine, and did
not mention that she had written and posted the letter the night
before. "Then you advise me to stay?"
"Why, of course," he repeated, and was mildly astonished at her. "If
everything is as smooth as you say."
"You would miss me, if I left?"
"Why, of course I should," he said again, and wondered what in the
world she was driving at.
"Well, all the better," replied Madeleine. "For when one has really got
to like a person, one would rather it made a difference than not."
She was silent after this, and sat looking down the stretch of ice they
had travelled: the moon was behind a cloud, and the woods on either
side were masses of dense black shadow. Not a soul was in sight; the
river was like a deserted highway. Madeleine stared down it, and did
not feel exactly satisfied with the result of her investigation. She
had not expected anything extraordinary--Heaven forbid!--but she had
been uncomfortably conscious of Maurice's surprise. To her last remark,
he had made no answer: he was occupied with the screw of one of his
skates.
She drew his attention to the fact that, if she remained in Leipzig for
another twelvemonth, they would finish at the same time; and thereupon
she sketched out a plan of them going somewhere together, and starting
a music-school of their own. Maurice, who thought she was jesting,
laughingly assented. But Madeleine was in earnest: "Other people have
done it--why shouldn't we? We could take a 'cellist with us, and go to
America, or Australia, or Canada--there are hundreds of places. And
there's a great deal of money in it, I'm sure. A little capital would
be needed to begin with, but not much, and I could supply that. You've
always said you dreaded going back to the English provinces to
decay--here's your chance!"
She saw the whole scheme cut and dried before her. As they, skated
after the rest, she continued to enlarge upon it, in a detailed way
that astonished Maurice. He confessed that, with a head like hers to
conduct it, such a plan stood a fair chance of success; and thus
encouraged, Madeleine undertook to make a kind of beginning at once, by
sounding some of the numerous friends she had, scattered through
America. Her idea was that they should go over together, and travel to
various places, giving concerts, and acquainting themselves, as they
did so, with the musical conditions of the towns they visited.
"And the 'cellist shall be an American--that will draw."
According to the pace at which they were skating, the others should
have remained well out of reach. But on turning a corner, they came
upon the whole party dancing a FRANCAISE--which two members
whistled--on a patch of ice that was smoother than the rest.
"Here, Guest, come along, we want you," was the cry as soon as Maurice
appeared; and, to Madeleine's deep displeasure, she was thrown on Dove,
whose skill had not sufficed. When the dancing was over, Maurice once
more found himself with Miss Martin, whom, for some distance, he pushed
before him, she standing steady on her skates, and talking to him over
her shoulder.
"That wasn't a bit pretty of you, Mr. Guest," she asserted, with her
long, slow, twanged speech. "It was fixed up yesterday, I recollect,
that you were to dance the FRANCAISE with me. Yes, indeed. An' then I
had to take up with Mr. Dove. Now Mr. Dove is just a lovely gentleman,
but he don't skate elegantly, an' he nearly tumbled me twice. Yes,
indeed. But I presume when Miss Wade says come, then you're most
obliged to go."
"How is it one don't ever see you now?" she queried a moment later. "It
isn't anyhow so pleasurable at dinner as it used to be. But I hear
you're working most hard--it's to' bad."
"It's what one comes to here."
"I guess it is. But I do like to see my friends once in a while. Say,
now, Mr. Guest, won't you drink coffee with me one afternoon? I'll make
you some real American coffee if you do, sir. What they call coffee
here don't count."
She turned, offered him her hand, and they began to skate in long,
outward curving lines.
"I think one has just a fine time here, don't you?" she continued.
"Momma, she came right with me, an' stopped a bit, till I was fixed up
in a boarding-house. But she didn't find it agreeable, no sir. She
missed America, an' presumed I would, too. When she was leaving, she
said to me: 'EI'nor Martin, if you find you can't endure it among these
Dutch, just you cable, and poppa he'll come along an' fetch you right
home,' But I'm sure I haven't desired to quit, no, not once. I think
it's just fine. But then I've gotten me so many friends I don't ever
need to feel lonesome. Why, my friend Susie Fay, she says: 'Why,
EI'nor, I guess you're acquainted with most every one in the place.'
An' I reckon she's not far out. Anyways there ain't more than two
Americans in the city I don't know. An' I see most all strangers that
come. Say, are you acquainted with Miss Moses? She's from Chicago, an'
resides in a boarding-house way down by the COLONNADEN. I got
acquainted with her yesterday. She's a lovely lady, an', why, she's
just as smart as she can be. Say, if you like, I'll invite her along,
so you can get acquainted with her too."
Maurice expressed pleasure at the prospect; and Miss Martin continued
to rattle on, with easy frankness, of herself, her family, and her
friends. He listened vaguely, with half an ear, since it was only
required of him to throw in an occasional word of assent. But suddenly
his attention was arrested, and brought headlong back to what she was
saying: in the string of names that fell from her tongue, he believed
he had caught one he knew.
"Miss Dufrayer?" he queried.
"That's it," replied his companion. "Louise Dufrayer. Well, sir, as I
was going on to remark, when first I was acquainted with her, she was
just as sweet as she could be; yes, indeed; why, she was just dandy.
But she hasn't behaved a bit pretty--I presume you heard tell of what
took place here this fall?"
"Then you know Miss Dufrayer?"
"Yes, indeed. But I don't see her any more, an' I guess I don't want
to. Not but what I've heard she feels pretty mean about it now--beg
pardon?--how I know? Why, indeed, the other day, Schwarz come in an'
told us how she's moping what she can--moping herself to death--if I
recollect, those were his very words. Yes, indeed. She don't take
lessons no more, I presume. I think she should go right away from this
city. It ain't possible to be acquainted with her any more, for all
she's so lonesome, an' one feels sort of bad about it, yes, indeed. But
momma, the last thing she said to me was: 'Now EI'nor Martin, just keep
your eyes open, an' don't get acquainted with people you might feel bad
about afterwards.' An' I presume momma was right. I don't-- Oh, say, do
look at her, isn't she a peach?"--this, as her pretty friend, with Dove
in tow, came gliding up to them. "Say, Susie Fay, are you acquainted
with Mr. Guest?"
"MR. Guest. Pleased to know you," said Susie cordially; and Miss Martin
was good-natured enough to skate off with Dove, leaving Maurice to her
friend.
But afterwards, at the bench, as he was undoing Madeleine's skates, he
overheard pretty Susie remark, without much care to moderate her voice:
"Say, EI'nor Martin, that's the quietest sort of young man I've ever
shown round a district. Why, seems to me, he couldn't say 'shoh.' Guess
you shouldn't have left us, EI'nor."
And Miss Martin guessed so, too.
VII.
When he had seen Madeleine home, Maurice returned to his room, and not
feeling inclined to sleep, sat down to read. But his thoughts strayed;
he forgot to turn the page; and sat staring over the book at the
pattern of the tablecloth. Incidents of the evening flashed before him:
Miss Jensen, in James's hat, with her skirts pinned up; Madeleine
earnest and decisive on the bank of snow; the maze and laughter of the
FRANCAISE; Miss Martin's slim, straight figure as he pushed her before
him. He did not try to control these details, nor was he conscious of a
mental effort; they stood out for an instant, as vivid sensations, then
glided by, to make room for others. But, as he let them pass, he became
aware that below them, in depths of his mind he had believed
undisturbed, there was present a feeling of strange unhappiness, which
he did not know the cause of: these sharp pictures resembled an attempt
on the part of his mind, to deceive him as to what was really going on
in him. But he did not want to know, and he allowed his thoughts to
take wider flights: recalling the scheme Madeleine had proposed, he
considered it with a clearness of view, which, at the time, had been
impossible. From this, he turned to America itself, and reflected on
the opportunities the country offered. He saw the two of them sweeping
through vast tracts of uncultivated land, in a train that outdid all
real trains in swiftness; saw unknown tropical places, where the yellow
fruit hung low and heavy, and people walked shadeless, sandy roads, in
white hats, under white umbrellas. He saw Madeleine and himself on the
awning-spanned deck of an ocean steamer, anchoring in a harbour where
the sea was the colour of turquoise, touched to sapphire where the
mountains came down to the shore.
"Moping herself to death": the phrase crystallised in his brain with
such suddenness that he said it aloud. Now he knew what it was that was
troubling him. He had not consciously recalled the words, nor had they
even made a very incisive impression on him at the time; but they had
evidently lain dormant, now to return and to strike him, as if no
others had been said. He explained to himself what they meant. It was
this: outside, in the crisp, stinging air, people lived and moved, busy
with many matters, or sported, as he and his companions had done that
evening: inside, she sat alone, mournful, forsaken. He saw her in the
dark sofacorner, with her head on her hands. Day passed and night
passed, but she was always in the same place; and her head was bowed so
low that her white fingers were lost in the waves of her hair. He saw
her thus with the distinctness of a vision, and except in this way
could not see her at all.
He felt it little short of shameful that he should have carelessly
amused himself; and, as always where she was concerned, a deep,
unreasoning sense of his own unworthiness, filled him. He demanded of
himself, with a new energy, what he could do to help her. Fantastic
plans rose as usual in his mind, and as usual were dismissed. For the
one thing he was determined not to do, was to thrust himself on her
uncalled. Her solitude was of her own choosing, and no one had the
right to break in upon it. It was perhaps her way of doing penance;
and, at this thought, he felt a thrill of satisfaction.
At night, he consoled himself that things would seem different in the
morning; but when he wakened from a restless sleep, crowded with dreams
one more grotesque than another, he was still prone to be gloomy. He
could think more clearly by daylight--that was all: his pitying
sympathy for her had only increased. It interfered with everything he
did; just as it had formerly done--just in the old way. And he had been
on the brink of believing himself grown indifferent, and stronger in
common sense. Fool that he was! Only a word was needed to bring his
card-house down. The placidity of the past weeks had been a mere
coating of thin ice, which had given way beneath the first test. A
distrust of himself took him, a distrust so deep that it amounted to
aversion; for in his present state of mind he discerned only a
despicable weakness. But though he was thus bewildered at his own
inconsistency, he was still assured that he would not approach
Louise--not, that is, unless she sent for him. So much control he still
had over his actions: and he went so far as to make his staying away a
touchstone of his stability. This, too, although reason told him the
end of it all would be, that Louise would actually leave Leipzig,
without sending for him, or even remembering his existence.
He worked steadily enough. A skilled observer might have remarked a
slight contraction of the corners of his mouth; none of his friends,
however, noticed anything, with the exception of Madeleine, and all she
said was: "You look so cross sometimes. Is anything the matter?"
Late one afternoon, they were on the ice as usual. While Madeleine
talked to Dickensey, Maurice practised beside them. In making a
particularly complicated gyration, he all but overbalanced himself, and
his cap fell on the ice. As he was brushing the snow off it, he chanced
to raise his eyes. A number of people were standing on the wooden
bridge, watching the skaters; to the front, some children climbed and
pushed on the wooden railing. His eye was ranging carelessly over them,
when he started so violently that he again let his cap drop. He picked
it up, threw another hasty look at the bridge, then turned and skated
some distance away, where he could see without being seen. Yes, he had
not been mistaken; it was Louise; he recognised her although a fur hat
almost covered her hair. She was gazing down, with an intentness he
knew in her; one hand rested on the parapet. And then, as he looked,
his blood seemed to congeal: she was not alone; he saw her turn and
speak to some one behind her. For a moment things swam before him.
Then, a blind curiosity drove him forward to find out whom she spoke
to. People moved on the bridge, obstructing his view, then several went
away, and there was no further hindrance to his seeing: her companion
was the shabby little Englishman, of doubtful reputation, with whom he
had met her once or twice that summer. He felt himself grow cold. But
now that he had certainty, his chief idea was to prevent the others
from knowing, too; he grew sick at the thought of Madeleine's sharp
comments, and Dickensey's cynicism. Rejoining them, he insisted--so
imperiously that Madeleine showed surprise--on their skating with him
on the further pond; and he kept them going round and round without a
pause.
When the bridge was empty, and he had made sure that Louise was not
standing anywhere about the edge of the ice, he left his companions,
and, without explanation, crossed to the benches and took off his
skates. He did not, however, go home; he went into the SCHEIBENHOLZ,
and from there along outlying roads till he reached the river; and
then, screwing on his skates again, he struck out with his face to the
wind. Dusk was falling; at first he met some skaters making for home;
but these were few, and he soon left them behind. When the state of the
ice did not allow of his skating further, he plunged into the woods
again, beyond Connewitz, tumbling in his haste, tripping over
snow-bound roots, sinking kneedeep in the soft snow. His endeavour was
to exhaust himself. If he sat at home now, before this fever was out of
him, he might be tempted to knock his head against the wall of his
room. Movement, space, air--plenty of air!--that was what he needed.
Hitherto, he had been surprised at his own conduct; now he was aghast:
the hot rush of jealousy that had swept through him at the sight of the
couple on the bridge, was a revelation even to himself. His previous
feelings had been those of a child compared with this--a mere weak
revolt against the inevitable. But what had now happened was not
inevitable; that was the sting of it: it was a violent chance-effect.
And his distress was so keen that, for the first time, she, too, had to
bear her share of blame. He said jeeringly to himself, that, quixotic
as ever, he had held aloof from her, leaving her in solitude to an
atonement of his own imagining; and meanwhile, some one who was not
troubled by foolish ideals stepped in and took his place. For it WAS
his place; he could not rid himself of that belief. If anyone had a
right to be at her side it was he, unless, indeed, all that he had
undergone on her behalf during the past months counted for nothing.
Of course this Eggis was an unscrupulous fellow; but it was just such
men as this--he might note that for future use--who won where others
lost. At the same time, he shrank from the idea of imitating him; and
even had he been bold enough, not a single errand could he devise to
serve him as an excuse. He could not go to her and say: I come because
I have seen you with some one else. And yet that would be the truth;
and it would lurk beneath all he said.
The days of anxiety that followed were hard to bear. He dreaded every
street-corner, for fear Louise and the other should turn it; dreaded
raising his eyes to the bridges over the ice; and was so irritable in
temper that Madeleine suggested he should go to Dresden in the
Christmas holidays, for change of air.
For, over all this, Christmas had come down--the season of gift-making,
and glittering Christmas trees, of BOWLE, STOLLEN, and HONIGKUCHEN. For
a fortnight beforehand, the open squares and places were set out with
fir-trees of all sizes--their pungent fragrance met one at every turn:
the shops were ablaze till late evening, crowded with eagerly seeking
purchasers; the streets were impassible for the masses of country
people that thronged them. Every one carried brown paper parcels, and
was in a hurry. As the time drew near, subordinates and officials grew
noticeably polite; the very houseporter touched his cap at your
approach. Bakers' shops were piled high with WEIHNACHTSSTOLLEN, which
were a special mark of the festival: cakes shaped like torpedoes, whose
sugared, almonded coats brisked brown and tempting. But the spicy scent
of the firs was the motive that recurred most persistently: it clung
even to the stairways of the houses.
Maurice had assisted Madeleine with her circumstantial shopping; and,
at dusk on Christmas Eve, he helped her to carry her parcels to the
house of some German friends. He himself was invited to Miss Jensen's,
where a party of English and Americans would celebrate the evening in
their own fashion; but not till eight o'clock. When he had picked out
at a confectioner's, a TORTE for the Fursts, he did not know how to
kill time. He was in an unsettled mood, and the atmosphere of
excitement, which had penetrated the familiar details of life, jarred
on him. It seemed absurdly childish, the way in which even the grown-up
part of the population surrendered itself to the sentimental pleasures
of the season. But foreigners were only big children; or, at least,
they could lay aside age and dignity at will. He felt misanthropic, and
went for a long walk; and when he had passed the last tree-market,
where poor buyers were bargaining for the poor trees that were left, he
met only isolated stragglers. In some houses, the trees were already
lighted.
On his return, he went to a flower-shop in the KONIGSPLATZ, and chose
an azalea to take to Miss Jensen. While he was waiting for the pot to
be swathed in crimped paper, his eye was caught by a large bunch of red
and yellow roses, which stood in a vase at the back of the counter. He
regarded them for a moment, without conscious thought; then, suddenly
colouring, he stretched out his hand.
"I'll take those roses, too. What do they cost?"
The girl who served him--a very pretty girl, with plaits of
straw-coloured hair, wound Madonna-like round her head--named a sum
that seemed exorbitant to his inexperience, and told a wordy story of
how they had been ordered, and then countermanded at the last moment.
"A pity. Such fine flowers!"
Her interest was awakened in the rather shabby young man who paid the
price without flinching; and she threw inquisitive looks at him as she
wrapped the roses in tissue-paper.
A moment later, Maurice was in the street with the flowers in his hand.
He had acted so spontaneously that he now believed his mind to have
been made up before he entered the shop; no, more, as if all that had
happened during the past week had led straight up to his impulsive
action. Or was it only that, at the sight of the flowers, a kind of
refrain had begun to run through his head: she loves roses, loves roses?
But he did not give himself time for reflection; he hurried through the
cold night air, sheltering the flowers under his coat. Soon he was once
more in the BRUDERSTRASSE, on the stair, every step of which, though he
had only climbed it some three or four times, he seemed to know by
heart. As, however, he waited for the door to be opened, his heart
misgave him; he was not sure how she would regard his gift, and, in a
burst of cowardice, he resolved just to hand in the roses, without even
leaving his name. But his first ring remained unanswered, and before he
rang again, he had time to be afraid she would not be at home--a
simple, but disappointing solution.
There was another pause. Then he heard sounds, steps came along the
passage, and the door was opened by Louise herself.
He was so unprepared for this that he could not collect his wits; he
thrust the flowers into her hand, with a few stammered words, and his
foot was on the stair before she could make a movement to stop him.
Louise had peered out from the darkness of the passage to the dusk of
the landing, with the air of one roused from sleep. She looked from him
to the roses in her hand, and back at him. He tried to say something
else, raised his hat, and was about to go. But, when she saw this, she
impulsively stepped towards him.
"Are they for me?" she asked. And added: "Will you not come in? Please,
come in."
At the sound of her voice, Maurice came back from the stair-head. But
it was not possible for him to stay: friends--engaged--a promise of
long standing.
"Ah then ... of course." She retreated into the shadow of the doorway.
"But I am quite alone. There is no one in but me."
"Why, however does that happen?" Maurice asked quickly, and was ready
at once to be wrath with all the world. He paused irresolute, with his
hand on the banisters.
"I said I didn't mind. But it is lonely."
"I should think it was.--On this night of all others, too."
He followed her down the passage. In the room there was no light except
what played on the walls from the streetlamps, the blinds being still
undrawn. She had been sitting in the dark. Now, she took the globe off
the lamp, and would have lighted it, but she could not find matches.
"Let me do it," said Maurice, taking out his own; and, over the head of
this trifling service, he had a feeling of intense satisfaction. By the
light that was cast on the table, he watched her free the roses from
their paper, and raise them to her face. She did not mention them
again, but it was ample thanks to see her touch several of them singly,
as she put them in a jug of water.
But this done, they sat on opposite sides of the table, and had nothing
to say to each other. After each banal observation he made came a
heart-rending pause; she let a subject drop as soon as it was broached.
It was over two months now since Maurice had seen her, and he was
startled by the change that had taken place in her. Her face seemed to
have grown longer; and there were hollows in the fine oval of the
cheeks, in consequence of which the nose looked larger, and more
pinched. The chin-lines were sharpened, the eyes more sunken, while the
shadows beneath them were as dark as though they were plastered on with
bistre. But it was chiefly the expression of the face that had altered:
the lifelessness of the eyes was new to it, and the firm compression of
the mouth: now, when she smiled, no thin line of white appeared, such
as he had been used to watch for.
Even more marked than this, though, was the change that had taken place
in her manner. He had known her as passionately self-assertive; and he
could not now accustom himself to the condition of apathy in which he
found her. "Moping to death" had been no exaggeration; help was needed
here, and at once, if she were not to be irretrievably injured.
As he thought these things, he talked at random. There were not many
topics, however, that could be touched on with impunity, and he
returned more than once to the ice and the skating, as offering a kind
of neutral ground, on which he was safe. And Louise listened, and
sometimes assented; but her look was that of one who listens to the
affairs of another world. Could she not be persuaded to join them on
the JOHANNATEICH, he was asking her. What matter though she did not
skate! It was easily learned. Madeleine had been a beginner that
winter, and now seldom missed an afternoon.
"Oh, if Madeleine is there, I should not go," she said with a touch of
the old arrogance.
Then he told her of the frozen river, with its long, lonely, grey-white
reaches. Her eyes kindled at this, he fancied, and in her answer was
more of herself. "I have never trodden on ice in my life. Oh, I should
be afraid--horribly afraid!"
For those who did not skate there were chairs, he urged--big,
green-painted, sledge-like chairs, which ran smoothly. The ice was many
inches thick; there was not the least need to be afraid.
But she only smiled, and did not answer.
"Then I can't persuade you?" he asked, and was annoyed at his own
powerlessness. She can go with Eggis, he told himself, and
simultaneously spoke out the thought. "I saw you on the bridge the
other day."
But if he had imagined this would rouse her, he was wrong.
"Yes?" she said indifferently, and with that laming want of curiosity
which prevents a subject from being followed up.
They sat in silence for some seconds. With her fingers, she pulled at
the fringe of the tablecloth. Then, all of a sudden rising from her
chair, she went over to the jug of roses, which she had placed on the
writing-table, bent over the flowers with a kind of perceptible
hesitation, and as suddenly came back to her seat.
"Suppose we went to-night." she said, and for the first time looked
hard at Maurice.
"To-night?" he had echoed, before he could check himself.
"Ah yes--I forgot. You are going out."
"That's the least of it," he answered, and stood up, fearful lest she
should sink back into her former listlessness. "But it's Christmas Eve.
There wouldn't be a soul on the river but ourselves. Are you sure you
would like it?"
"Just for that reason," she replied, and wound her handkerchief in and
out of her hands, so afraid was she now that he would refuse. "I could
be ready in five minutes."
With his brain in a whirl, Maurice went back to the flowershop, and,
having written a few words of apology on a card, ordered this to be
sent with his purchase to Miss Jensen. When he returned, Louise was
ready. But he was not satisfied: she did not know how cold it would be:
and he made her put on a heavy jacket under her fur cape, and take a
silk shawl, in which, if necessary, she could muffle up her head. He
himself carried a travelling-rug for her knees.
"As if we were going on a journey!" she said, as she obeyed him. Her
eyes shone with a spark of their old light, in approval of the
adventurous nature of their undertaking.
The hard-frozen streets, over which a cutting wind drove, were
deserted. In many windows, the golden glory of the CHRISTBAUM was
visible; the steep blackness of the houses was splashed with patches of
light. At intervals, a belated holidaymaker was still to be met with
hurrying townwards: only they two were leaving the town, and its
innocent revels, behind them. Maurice had a somewhat guilty feeling
about the whole affair: they also belonged by rights to the town
to-night. He was aware, too, of a vague anxiety, which he could not
repress; and these feelings successfully prevented him taking an undue
pleasure in what was happening to him. He had swung his skates, fetched
in passing, over his shoulder; and they walked as quickly as the
slippery snow permitted. Louise had not spoken since leaving the house;
she also stood mutely by, while the astonished boatman, knocked out in
the middle of his festivities, unlocked the boat-shed where the
ice-chairs were kept. The Christmas punch had made him merry; he
multiplied words, and was even a little facetious at their expense.
According to him, a snow-storm was imminent, and he warned them not to
be late in returning.
Maurice helped Louise into the chair, and wrapped the rug round her. If
she were really afraid, as she had asserted, she did not show it. Even
after they had started, she remained as silent as before; indeed, on
looking back, Maurice thought they had not exchanged a word all the way
to Connewitz. He pushed in a kind of dream; the wind was with them, and
it was comparatively easy work; but the ice was rough, and too hard,
and there were seamy cracks to be avoided. The snow had drifted into
huge piles at the sides; and, as they advanced, it lay unswept on their
track. It was a hazily bright night, but rapid clouds were passing. Not
a creature was to be seen: had a rift opened in the ice, and had they
two gone through it, the mystery of their disappearance would never
have been solved.
Slight, upright, unfathomable as the night, Louise sat before him. What
her thoughts were on this fantastic journey, he never knew, nor just
what secret nerve in her was satisfied by it. By leaning sideways, he
could see that her eyes were fixed on the grey-white stretch to be
travelled: her warm breath came back to him; and the coil of her hair,
with its piquant odour, was so close that, by bending, he could have
touched it with his lips. But he was still in too detached a mood to be
happy; he felt, throughout, as if all this were happening to some one
else, not to him.
At their journey's end, he helped her, cold and stiff, along the snowy
path to the WALDCAFE. In a corner of the big room, which was empty,
they sat beside the stove, before cups of steaming coffee. The landlady
served them herself, and looked with the same curious interest as the
boatman at the forlorn pair.
Louise had laid her fur cap aside with her other wraps, and had drawn
off her gloves; and now she sat with her hand propping her chin. She
was still disinclined to speak; from the expression of her eyes,
Maurice judged that her thought were very far away. Sitting opposite
her, he shaded his own eyes with his hand, and scrutinised her closely.
In the stronger light of this room, he could see more plainly than
before the havoc trouble had made of her face. And yet, in spite of the
shadows that had descended on it, it was still to him the most adorable
face in the world. He could not analyse his feelings any better now
than in the beginning; but this face had exactly the same effect upon
him now as then. It seemed to be a matter of the nerves. Nor was it the
face alone: it was also the lines of throat and chin, when she turned
her head; it was the gesture with which she fingered the knot of hair
on her neck; above all, her hands, whose every movement was full of
meaning: yes, these things sent answering ripples through him, as sound
does through air.
He had stared too openly: she felt his eyes, and raised her own. For a
few seconds, they looked at each other. Then she held out her hand.
"You are my friend."
He pressed it, without replying; he could not think of anything
suitable to say; what rose to his lips was too emotional, too
tell-tale. But he made a vow that, from this day on, she should never
doubt the truth of what she said.
"You are my friend."
He would take care of her as no one had ever yet tried to do. She might
safely give herself into his charge. The unobtrusive aid that was
mingled tenderness and respect, should always be hers.
"Are you warmer now?"
He could not altogether suppress the new note that had got into his
voice. All strangeness seemed to have been swept away between them; he
was wide-awake to the fact that he was sitting alone with her, apart
from the rest of the world.
He looked at his watch: it was time to go; but she begged for a little
longer, and so they sat on for another half-hour, in the warm and
drowsy stillness.
Outside, they found a leaden sky; and they had not gone far before snow
began to fall: great flakes came flying to them, smiting their faces,
stinging their eyes, melting on their lips. The wind was against them;
they were exposed to the full force of the blizzard. Maurice pushed
till he panted; but their progress was slow. At intervals, he stopped,
to shake the snow off the rug, and to enwrap Louise afresh; and each
violent gust that met him when he turned a corner, smote him doubly;
for he pictured to himself the fury with which it must hurl itself
against her, sitting motionless before it.
It took them twice as long to return; and when Louise tried to get out
of the chair, she found herself so paralysed with cold that she could
hardly stand. Blinded by the snow, she clung to Maurice's arm; he heard
her teeth chatter, as they toiled their way along the ARNDTSTRASSE,
through the thick, new snow-layer. Not a droschke was to be seen; and
they were half-way home before they met one. The driver was drunk or
asleep, and had first to be roused. Louise sank limply into a corner.
The cab slithered and slipped over the dangerous roads, jolting them
from side to side. Maurice had laid the rug across her knees, and she
had ceased to shiver. But, by the light of a street-lamp which they
passed, he was dismayed to see that tears were running down her cheeks.
"What is it? Are you so cold?--Just a little patience. We shall soon be
there."
He took her hand, and chafed it. At this, she began to cry. He did not
know how to comfort her, and looked out of the window, scanning each
house they passed, to see if it were not the last. She was still crying
when the cab drew up. The house-key had been forgotten; there was
nothing for it but to ring for the landlady, and to stand in the wind
till she came down. The old woman was not so astonished as Maurice had
expected; but she was very wroth at the folly of the proceeding, and
did not scruple to say so.
"SO 'NE DUMMHEIT, SO 'NE DUMMHEIT!" she mumbled, as, between them, they
got Louise up the stairs; and she treated Maurice's advice concerning
cordials and hot drinks with scant courtesy.
"JA, JA--JAWOHL!" she sniffed. And, on the landing, the door was shut
in his face.
VIII.
What she needed, what she had always needed, was a friend, he said to
himself. She had never had anyone to stand by her and advise her to
wisdom, in the matter of impulsive acts and wishes. He would be that
friend. He had not, it was true, made a very happy beginning, with the
expedition that had ended so unfortunately; but he promised himself not
to be led into an indiscretion of the kind again. It was a friend's
part to warn in due time, and to point out the possible consequences of
a rash act. He only excused his behaviour because he had not seen her
for over two months, and had felt too sorry for her to refuse the first
thing she asked of him. But from now on, he would be firm. He would win
her back to life--reawaken her interest in what was going on around
her. He would devote himself to serving her: not selfishly, as others
had done, with their own ends in view; the gentle, steady aid should be
hers, which he had always longed to give her. He felt strong enough to
face any contingency: it seemed, indeed, as if his love for her had all
along been aiming at this issue; as if each of the unhappy hours he had
spent, since first meeting her, was made up for by the words: "You are
my friend."
A deep sense of responsibility filled him. In obedience, however, to a
puritanic streak in his nature, he hedged himself round with
restrictions, lest he should believe he was setting out on all too
primrose a path. He erected limiting boundaries, which were not to be
overstepped. For example, on the two days that followed the memorable
Christmas Eve, he only made inquiries at the door after Louise, and
when he learned that the cold she had caught was better, did not
return. For, on one point, his mind was made up: idle tongues should
have no fresh cause for gossip.
At the expiry of a fortnight, however, he began to fear that if he
remained away any longer, she would think him indifferent to her offer
of friendship. So, late one afternoon, he called to see her. But when
he was face to face with her, he doubted whether she had given him a
thought in the interval: she seemed mildly surprised at his coming. It
was even possible that she had forgotten, by now, what she had said to
him; and he sought anew for a means of impressing himself on her
consciousness.
She was crouched in the rocking-chair, close beside the stove, and was
wrapped in a thick woollen shawl; but the hand she gave him was as cold
as stone. She was trying to keep warm, she said; she had not been
properly warm since the night on the ice.
"But there's an easy remedy for that," said Maurice, who came in ruddy
from the sharp air. "You must go out and walk. Then you will soon get
warm."
But she shuddered at the suggestion, and also made an expressive
gesture to indicate the general laxity of her dress--the soiled
dressing-gown, her untidy hair. Then she leaned forward again, holding
both hands, palms out, to the mica pane in the door of the stove,
through which the red coals glowed.
"If only winter were over!"
He gazed at the expressive lines of hand and wrist, and was reminded of
an adoring Madonna he had somewhere seen engraved: her hands were held
back in the same way; the thumbs slightly thrown out, the three long
fingers together, the little one apart: here as there, was the same
supple, passionate indolence. But he could find no more to say than on
the occasion of his former visit; she did not help him; and more and
more did it seem to the young man as if the words he had gone about
hugging to him, had never been spoken. After a desperate quarter of an
hour, he rose to take leave. But simultaneously, she, too, got up from
the rocking-chair, and, standing pale and uncertain before him, asked
him if she might trouble him to do something for her. A box had been
sent to her from England, she told him, while she tumbled over the
dusty letters and papers accumulated on the writing-table, and had been
lying unclaimed at the custom-house for several weeks now--how many she
did not know, and she spread out her fingers, with a funny little
movement, to show her ignorance. She had only remembered it a day or
two ago; the dues would no doubt be considerable. If it were not too
much trouble ... she would be so grateful; she would rather ask him
than Mr. Eggis.
"I should be delighted," said Maurice.
He went the next morning, at nine o'clock, spent a trying hour with
uncivil officials, and, in the afternoon, called to report to Louise.
As he was saying good-bye to her, he inquired if there were nothing
else of a similar nature he could do for her; he was glad to be of use.
Smiling, Louise admitted that there were other things, many of them,
more than he would have patience for. She should try him and see, said
Maurice, and laid his hat down again, to hear what they were.
As a consequence of this, the following days saw him on various
commissions in different quarters of the town, scanning the names of
shops, searching for streets he did not know. But matters did not
always run smoothly; complications arose, for instance, over a paid
bill that had been sent in a second time, and over an earlier one that
had not been paid at all; and Maurice was forced to confess his
ignorance of the circumstances. When this had happened more than once,
he sat down, with her consent, at the writing-table, to work through
the mass of papers, and the contents of a couple of drawers.