XII.
The second half of July scattered the little circle in all directions.Maurice spent a couple of days at the different railway-stations,seeing his friends off. One after another they passed into thatanticipatory mood, which makes an egoist of the prospective traveller:his thoughts start, as it were, in advance; he has none left for thepeople who are remaining behind, and receives their care and attentionas his due.
Dove was packed and strapped, ready to set out an hour after he had hadhis last lesson; and while he printed labels for his luggage, and tooka circumstantial leave of his landlady and her family, with whom he wasa prime favourite by reason of his decent and orderly habits, Mauricefetched for him from the lending library, the pieces of music set bySchwarz as a holiday task. Dove was on tenterhooks to be off. Of late,things had gone superlatively well with him: he had performed withapplause in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, and been highly commended by Schwarz;while, as for Ephie, she had been so sweet and winning, so modestlyencouraging of his suit, that he had every reason to hope for successin this quarter also. Too dutiful a son, however, to take,unauthorised, such an important step as that of proposing marriage, hewas now travelling home to sound two elderly people, resident in a sidestreet in Peterborough, on the advisability of an Americandaughter-in-law.
The Cayhills had been among the first to leave, and would be absenttill the middle of September. One afternoon, Maurice started them fromthe THURINGER BAHNHOF, on their journey to Switzerland. Having seenMrs. Cayhill comfortably settled with her bags, books and cushions, inthe corner of a first-class carriage, and given Johanna assistance withthe tickets, he stood till the train went, talking to Ephie; and helong retained a picture of her, standing with one foot on the step, ina becoming travelling-dress, a hat with a veil flying from it, and asmall hand-bag slung across her shoulder, laughing and dimpling, andwell aware of the admiring glances that were cast at her. It was arelief to Maurice that she was going away for a time; his feeling ofresponsibility with regard to her had not flagged, and he had made apoint of seeing her more often, and of knowing more of her movementsthan before. As, however, he had not observed anything further todisturb him, his suspicions were on the verge of subsiding--assuspicions have a way of doing when we wish them to--and in the lastday or two, he had begun to feel much less sure, and to wonder if,after all, he had not been mistaken.
"I shall miss you, Morry. I almost wish I were not going," said Ephie,and this was not untrue, in spite of the pretty new dresses her trunkscontained. "Say, I don't believe I shall enjoy myself one bit. You willwrite, Morry, won't you, and tell me what goes on? All the news youhear and who you see and everything."----
"Be sure you write," said Madeleine, too, when he saw her off early inthe morning to Berlin, where she was to meet her English charges."Christiania, POSTE RESTANTE, till the first, and then Bergen. 'FROKENWADE,' don't forget."
The train started; her handkerchief fluttered from the window until thecarriage was out of sight.
Maurice was alone; every one he knew disappeared, even Furst, who hadobtained a holiday engagement in a villa near Dresden. An odd stillnessreigned in the BRAUSTRASSE and its neighbourhood; from houses which hadhitherto been clangrous with musical noises, not a sound issued.Familiar rooms and lodgings were either closely shuttered, or, inprocess of scouring, hung out their curtains to flutter on the sill.
The days passed, unmarked, eventless, like the uniform pages of a dullbook. When the solitude grew unbearable, Maurice went to visit FrauFurst, and had his supper with the family. He was a welcome guest, forhe not only paid for all the beer that was drunk, but also brought sucha generous portion of sausage for his own supper, that it supplied oneor other of the little girls as well. Afterwards, they sat round thekitchen-table, listening, the children with the old-fashioned solemnitythat characterised them, to Frau Furst's reminiscences. Otherwise, hehardly exchanged a word with anyone, but sat at his piano the livelongday. Of late, Schwarz had been somewhat cool and off-hand in mannerwith him; the master had also not displayed the same detailed interestin his plans for the summer, as in those of the rest of the class. Thiswas one reason why he had not gone away like every one else; the other,that he had been unwilling to write home for an increase of allowance.Sometimes, when the day was hot, he envied his friends refreshingthemselves by wood, mountain or sea; but, in the main, he workedbriskly at Czerny's FINGERFERTIGKEIT, and with such perseverance thatultimately his fingers stumbled from fatigue.
With the beginning of August, the heat grew oppressive; all day long,the sun beat, fierce and unremittent, on this city of the plains, andthe baked pavements were warm to the feet. Business slackened, and themidday rest in shops and offices was extended beyond its usual limit.Conservatorium and Gewandhaus, at first given over to relays ofcharwomen, their brooms and buckets, soon lay dead and deserted, too;and if, in the evening, Maurice passed the former building, he wouldsee the janitor sitting at leisure in the middle of the pavement,smoking his long black cigar. The old trees in the PROMENADE, and theyoung striplings that followed the river in the LAMPESTRASSE, droopedtheir brown leaves thick with dust; the familiar smell of roastingcoffee, which haunted most house- and stair-ways, was intensified; andout of drains and rivers rose nauseous and penetrating odours, fromwhich there was no escape. Every three or four days, when theatmosphere of the town had reached a pitch of unsavouriness which itseemed impossible to surpass, sudden storms swept up, tropical in theirviolence: blasts of thunder cracked like splitting beams; lightningdarted along the narrow streets; rain fell in white, sizzling sheets.But the morning after, it was as hot as ever.
Maurice grew so accustomed to meet no one he knew, that one afternoontowards the middle of August, he was pulled up by a jerk of surprise infront of the PLEISSENBURG, on stumbling across Heinrich Krafft. He hadstopped and impulsively greeted the young man, before he recalled hisprevious antipathy to him.
Krafft was sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, and, onbeing accosted, he looked vaguely and somewhat moodily at Maurice. Thenext moment, however, he laid a hand on the lappel of Maurice's coat,and, without preamble, burst into a witty and obscene anecdote, whichhad evidently been in his mind when they met. This story, and the factthat, by the North Sea, he had stood before breakers twenty feet high,were the only particulars Maurice bore away from their interview. Hisprevious impatience with such eccentricity returned, but none the less,he looked grudgingly after the other's vanishing form.
A day or two later, towards evening, he saw Krafft again. As he wasgoing through an outlying street, he came upon a group of children, whowere amusing themselves by teasing a cat; the animal had been hit inthe eye by a stone, and cowered, terrified and blinded, against thewall of a house. The children formed a half circle round it, and two ofthe biggest boys held a young and lively dog by the collar, inciting itand restraining it, and revelling in the cat's convulsive starts ateach capering bark.
While Maurice was considering how to expostulate with them, Krafft cameswiftly up behind, jerked two of the children apart, and, with a deftand perfectly noiseless movement, caught up the cat and hid its headunder his coat. Then, cuffing the biggest boy, he kicked the dog, andordered the rest to disperse. The children did so lingeringly; and onceout of his reach, stood and mocked him.
He begged Maurice to accompany him to his lodgings, and there Mauriceheld the animal, a large, half-starved street-cat, while Krafft, on hisknees before it, examined the wound. As he did this, he crooned in awordless language, and the cat was quiet, in spite of the pain hecaused it. But directly he took his hands off it, it jumped from thetable, and fled under the furthest corner of the sofa.
Krafft next fetched milk and a saucer, from a cupboard in the wall, andwent down on his knees again: while Maurice sat and watched andwondered at his tireless endeavours to induce the animal to advance. Heexplained his proceedings in a whisper.
"If I put the saucer down and leave it," he said, "it won't help atall. A cat's confidence must be won straight away.
"
He was still in this position, making persuasive little noises, whenthe door opened, and Avery Hill, his companion of a previous occasion,entered. At the sight of Krafft crouching on the floor, she paused withher hand on the door, and looked from him to Maurice.
"Heinz?" she said interrogatively. Then she saw the saucer of milk, andunderstood. "Heinz!" she said again; and this time the word was areprimand.
"Ssh!--be quiet," said Krafft peevishly, without looking up.
The girl took no notice of Maurice's attempt to greet her. Letting fallon the grand piano, some volumes of music she was carrying, shecontinued sternly: "Another cat!--oh, it is abominable of you! This isthe third he has picked up this year," she said explanatorily, yet notmore to Maurice than to herself. "And the last was so dirty anddestructive that Frau Schulz threatened to turn him out, if he did notget rid of it. He knows as well as I do that he cannot keep a cat here."
Her placidly tragic face had grown hard; and altogether, the anger shedisplayed seemed out of proportion to the trival offence.
Krafft remained undisturbed. "It's not the least use scolding. Go andmake it right with the old crow.--Come, puss, come."
The girl checked the words that rose to her lips, gave a slight shrug,and went out of the room. They heard her, in the passage, disputingwith the landlady, who was justly indignant.
"If it weren't for you, Fraulein, I wouldn't keep him another day," shedeclared.
Meanwhile the cat, which, in the girl's presence, had shrunk stillfurther into its hiding-place, began to make advances. It crept a stepforward, retreated again, stretched out its nose to sniff at the milk,and, all of a sudden, emerged and drank greedily.
Krafft touched its head, and the animal paused in its hungry gulping torub its back against the caressing hand. When the last drop of milk wasfinished, it withdrew to its corner, but less suspiciously.
Krafft rose to his feet and stretched himself, and when Avery returned,he smiled at her.
"Now then, is it all right?"
She did not reply, but went to the piano, to search for something amongthe scattered music. Krafft clasped his hands behind his head, andleaning against the table, watched her with an ironical curl of the lip.
"O LENE! LENE! O MAGDALENE!" he sang under his breath; and, for thesecond time, Maurice received the impression that a by-play was beingcarried on between these two.
"Look at this," said Krafft after a pause. "Here, ladies and gentlemen,is one of those rare persons who have a jot of talent in them, and offshe goes--I don't mean at this moment, but tomorrow, the day after,every day--to waste it in teaching children finger-exercises. If youask her why she does it, she will tell you it is necessary to live.Necessary to live!--who has ever proved that it is?"
For an instant, it seemed as if the girl were going to flash out abitter retort that might have betrayed her. Then she showed the sameself-control as before, and went, without a word, into the next room.She was absent for a few minutes, and when she reappeared, carried whatwas unmistakably a bundle of soiled linen, going away with this on onearm, the volumes of music she had picked out on the other. She did notwish the young men good-night, but, in passing Maurice, she said in anunfriendly tone: "Do you know what time it is?" and to Krafft: "It islate, Heiriz, you are not to play."
The door had barely closed behind her, when Krafft broke into the loud,repellent laugh that had so jarred on Maurice at their former meeting.He had risen at once, and now said he must go. But Krafft would nothear of it; he pressed him into his seat again, with an effusive warmthof manner.
"Don't mind her. Stay, like a good fellow. Of course, I am going toplay to you."
He flicked the keys of the piano with his handkerchief, adjusted thedistance of his seat, threw back his head, and half closing his eyes,began to play. Except for the unsteady flickerings cast on the wall bya street-lamp, the room was soon in darkness.
Maurice resumed his seat reluctantly. He had been dragged upstairsagainst his will; and throughout the foregoing scene, had sat anuncomfortable spectator. He had as little desire for the girl to returnand find him there, as for Krafft to play to him. But no excuse forleaving offered itself, and each moment made it harder to interrupt theplayer, who had promptly forgotten the fact of his presence.
After he had listened for a time, however, Maurice ceased to think ofescaping. Madeleine had once alluded to Krafft's skill as aninterpreter of Chopin, but, all the same, he had not expected anythinglike what he now heard, and at first he could not make anything of it.He had hitherto only known Chopin's music as played in the sentimentalfashion of the English drawing-room. Here, now, came some one who madeit clear that, no matter how pessimistic it appeared on the surface,this music was, at its core an essentially masculine music; it kickeddesperately against the pricks of existence; what failed it was onlythe last philosophic calm. He could not, of course, know that varioussmall things had combined to throw the player into one of his mostprodigal moods: the rescue and taming of the cat, the passage-at-armswith Avery, her stimulating forbiddal, and, last and best, the onesilent listener in the dark--this stranger, picked up at random in thestreets, who had never yet heard him play, and to whom he might revealhimself with an indecency that friendship precluded.
When at length, Frau Schulz entered, in her bed-jacket, to say that itwas long past ten o'clock, Krafft wakened as if out of a trance, andhid his eyes from the light. Frau Schulz, a robust person, disregardedhis protests, and herself locked the piano and took the key.
"She makes me promise to," she whispered to Maurice, pointing over hershoulder at an imaginary person. "If I didn't, he'd go on all night.He's no more fit to look after himself than a baby--and he gets itagain with his boots in the morning.--Yes, yes, call me names if itpleases you. Names don't kill. And if I am a hag, you're a rascal,that's what you are! The way you treat that poor, good creature makesone's blood boil."
Krafft waved her away, and opening the window, leaned out on the sill:a wave of warm air filled the room. Maurice rose with renewed decision,and sought his hat. But Krafft also took his down from a peg. "Yes, letus go out."
It was a breathless August night, laden with intensified scents andsmells, and the moonlight lay thick and white on the ground: a night toprovoke to extravagant follies. In the utter stillness of the woods,the young men passed from places of inky blackness into bluish whitepatches, dropped through the trees like monstrous silver thalers. Thetown lay behind them in a glorifying haze; the river stretchedsilver-scaled in the moonlight, like a gigantic fish-back.
Krafft walked in front of his companion, in preoccupied silence. Hisslender hands, dangling loosely, still twitched from their recentexertions, and from time to time, he turned the palms outward, with animpatient gesture. Maurice wished himself alone. He was not at easeunder this new companionship that had thrust itself upon him; indeed, astrong mental antagonism was still uppermost in him, towards the moodycreature at whose heels he followed; and if, at this moment, he hadbeen asked to give voice to his feelings, the term "crazy idiot" wouldhave been the first to rise to his lips.
Suddenly, without turning, or slackening his pace, Krafft commenced tospeak: at first in a low voice, as if he were thinking aloud. But oneword gave another, his thoughts came rapidly, he began to gesticulate,and finally, wrought on by the beauty of the night, by this choicemoment for speech, still excited by his own playing, and in an infiniteneed of expression, he swept the silence before him with the force of aflood set free. If he thought Maurice were about to interrupt him, hemade an imploring gesture, and left what he was saying unfinished, tospring over to the next theme ready in his brain. Names jostled oneanother on his tongue: he passed from Beethoven and Chopin to Berliozand Wagner, to Liszt and Richard Strauss--and his words were to Mauricelike the unrolling of a great scroll. In the same breath, he was withNietzsche, and Apollonic and Dionysian; and from here he went on toRichard Dehmel, to ANATOL, and the gentle "Loris" of the early verses;to Max Klinger, and the propriety of coloure
d sculpture; to PAPA HAMLETand the future of the LIED. Maurice, listening intently, had fleetingglimpses into a land of which he knew nothing. He kept as still as amouse, in order not to betray his ignorance; for Krafft was notdidactic, and talked as if the subjects he touched on were as familiarto Maurice as to himself. On the other hand, Maurice believed it was amatter of indifference to him whether he was understood or not; hespoke for the pure joy of talking, out of the motley profusion of hisknowledge.
Meanwhile, he had grown personal. And while he was still speaking withfervour of Vienna--which was his home--of gay, melancholy Wien, heflung round and put a question to his companion.
"Do you ever think of death?"
Maurice had been the listener for so long that he started.
"Death?" he echoed, and was as much embarrassed as though asked whetherhe believed in God. "I don't know. No, I don't think I do. Why shouldone think of death when one is alive and well?"
Krafft laughed at this, with a pitying irony. "Happy you!" he said."Happy you!" His voice sank, and he continued almost fearfully: "I havethe vision of it before me, always wherever I go. Listen; I will tellyou; it is like this." He laid his hand on Maurice's arm, and drew himnearer. "I know--no matter how strong and sound I may be at thismoment; no matter how I laugh, or weep, or play the fool; no matter howlittle thought I give it, or whether I think about it all day long--Iknow the hour will come, at last, when I shall gasp, choke, grow blackin the face, in the vain struggle for another single mouthful of thatair which has always been mine at will. And no one will be able to helpme; there is no escape from that hour; no power on earth can keep itfrom me. And it is all a matter of chance when it happens--a greatlottery: one draws to-day, one to-morrow; but my turn will surely come,and each day that passes brings me twenty-four hours nearer the end."He drew still closer to Maurice. "Tell me, have you never stood beforea doorway--the doorway of some strange house that you have perhapsnever consciously gone past before--and waited, with the atrociouscuriosity that death and its hideous paraphernalia waken in one, for acoffin to be carried out?--the coffin of an utter stranger, who is ofinterest to you now, for the first and the last time. And have you notthought to yourself, with a shudder, that some day, in this selfsameway, under the same indifferent sky, among a group of loiterers as idlycurious as these, you yourself will be carried out, feet foremost, likea bale of goods, like useless lumber, all will and dignity gone fromyou, never to enter there again?--there, where all the little humanthings you have loved, and used, and lived amongst, are lying just asyou left them--the book you laid down, the coat you wore--now all of agreater worth than you. You are mere dead flesh, and behind the horridlid lie stark and cold, with rigid fingers and half-closed eyes, andthe chief desire of every one, even of those you have loved most, is tobe rid of you, to be out of reach of sight and smell of you. And so,after being carted, and jolted, and unloaded, you will be thrown into ahole, and your body, ice-cold, and as yielding as meat to thetouch--oh, that awful icy softness!--your flesh will begin to rot, tobe such that not your nearest friend would touch you. God, it isunbearable!"
He wiped his forehead, and Maurice was silent, not knowing what to say;he felt that such rational arguments as he might be able to offer,would have little value in the face of this intensely personal view,which was stammered forth with the bitterness of an accusation. But asthey crossed the suspension bridge, Krafft stopped, and stood lookingat the water, which glistened in the moonlight like a living thing.
"No, it is impossible for me to put death out of my mind," he went on."And yet, a spring into this silver fire down here would end all that,and satisfy one's curiosity as well. Why is one not readier to make thespring?--and what would one's sensations be? The mad rush through theair--the crash--the sinking in the awful blackness ..."
"Those of fear and cold. You would wish yourself out again," answeredMaurice; and as Krafft nodded, without seeming to resent his tone, heventured to put forward a few points for the other side of thequestion. He suggested that always to be brooding over death unfittedyou for life. Every one had to die when his time came; it was foolishto look upon your own death as an exception to the rule. Besides, whensensation had left you--the soul, the spirit, whatever you liked tocall it--what did it matter what afterwards became of your body? Itwas, then, in reality, nothing but lumber, fresh nourishment for thesoil; and it was morbid to care so much how it was treated, justbecause it had once been your tenement, when it was now as worthless asthe crab's empty shell.
He stuttered this out piece-wise, in his halting German; then paused,not sure how his companion would take the didactic tone he had falleninto. But Krafft had turned, and was gazing at him, considering himattentively for the first time. When Maurice ceased to speak, he noddeda hasty assent: "Yes, yes, it is quite true. Go on." And as the former,having nothing more to say, was mute, he added: "You are like some oneI once knew. He was a great musician. I saw him die; he died by inches;it lasted for months; he could neither die nor live."
"Why do you brood over these things, if you find them so awful? Are younot afraid your nerves will go through with you, and make you dosomething foolish?" asked Maurice, and was himself astonished at hisboldness.
"Of course I am. My life is a perpetual struggle against suicide,"answered Krafft.
In the distance, a church-clock struck a quarter to twelve, and it wason Maurice's tongue to suggest that they should move homewards, when,with one of his unexpected transitions, Krafft turned to him and saidin a low voice: "What do you say? Shall you and I be friends?"
Maurice hesitated, in some embarrassment. "Why yes, I should be veryglad."
"And you will let me say 'DU' to you?"
"Certainly. If you are sure you won't regret it in the morning."
Krafft stretched out his hand. As Maurice held in his the fine, slimfingers, which seemed mere skin and muscle, a hitherto unknown feelingof kindliness came over him for the young man at his side. At thismoment, he had the lively sensation that he was the stronger and wiserof the two, and that it was even a little beneath him to take the othertoo seriously.
"You think so poorly of me then? You think no good thing can come outof me?" asked Krafft, and there was an appealing note in his voice,which, but a short time back, had been so overbearing.
Had Maurice known him better, he would have promptly retorted: "Don'tbe a fool." As it was, he laughed. "Who am I to sit in judgment? Theonly thing I do know is, that if I had your talent--no, a quarter ofit--I should pull myself together and astonish the world."
"It sounds so easy; but I have too many doubts of myself," said Krafft,and laid his hand on Maurice's shoulder. "And I have never had anyoneto keep me up to the mark--till now. I have always needed some one likeyou. You are strong and sympathetic; and one has the feeling that youunderstand."
Maurice was far from certain that he did. However, he answered in afrank way, doing his best to keep down the sentimental tone that hadinvaded the conversation. At heart he was little moved by this newfriendship, which hail begun with the word itself; he told himself thatit was only a whim of Krafft's, which would be forgotten in themorning. But, as they stood thus on the bridge, shoulder to shoulder,he did not understand how he could ever have taken anything this frailcreature did, amiss. At the moment, there was a clinging helplessnessabout Krafft, which instinctively roused his manlier feelings. He saidto himself that he had done wrong in lightly condemning his companion;and, impelled by this sudden burst of protectiveness, he seized themoment, and spoke earnestly to Krafft of earnest things, of duty, notonly to one's fellows, but to oneself and one's abilities, of theinspiring gain of unremitted endeavour.
Afterwards, they sauntered home--first to Maurice's lodging, then toKrafft's, and once again to Maurice's. At this stage, Krafft wasfrankness itself; Maurice learnt to his surprise that the slim, boyishlad at his side was over twenty-seven years of age; that, for severalsemesters, Krafft had studied medicine in Vienna, then had thrown upthis "disgusting occupation," to be
come a clerk in a wealthy uncle'scounting-house. From this, he had drifted into journalism, and finally,at the instigation of Hans von Bullow, to music; he had been for twoand a half years with Bullow, on travel, and in Hamburg, and was atpresent in Leipzig solely to have his "fingers put in order." His plansfor the future were many, and widely divergent. At one time, a musicalcareer tempted him irresistibly; every one but Schwarz--thisfinger-machine, this generator of living metronomes--believed that hecould make a name for himself as a player of Chopin. At other times,and more often, he contemplated retiring from the world and entering amonastery. He spoke with a morbid horror--yet as if the idea of itfascinated him--of the publicity of the concert-platform, and paintedin glowing colours a monastery he knew of, standing on a wooded hill,not far from Vienna. He had once spent several weeks there, recoveringfrom an illness, and the gardens, the trimly bedded flowers, theglancing sunlight in the utter silence of the corridors, were things hecould not forget. He had lain day for day on a garden-bench, readingNovalis, and it still seemed to him that the wishless happiness ofthose days was the greatest he had known.
Beside this, Maurice's account of himself sounded tame and unimportant;he felt, too, that the circumstances of English life were too farremoved from his companion's sphere, for the latter to be able tounderstand them.
On waking next morning, Maurice recalled the incidents of the eveningwith a smile; felt a touch of warmth at the remembrance of the momentwhen he had held Krafft's hand in his; then classed the whole episodeas strained, and dismissed it from his mind. He had just shut thepiano, after a busy forenoon, when Krafft burst in, his cheeks pinkwith haste and excitement. He had discovered a room to let, in thehouse he lived in, and nothing would satisfy him but that Mauriceshould come instantly to see it. Laughing at his eagerness, Maurice putforward his reasons for preferring to remain where he was. But Krafftwould take no denial, and not wishing to hurt his feelings, Mauricegave way, and agreed at least to look at the room.
It was larger and more cheerful than his own, and had also, aconvenient alcove for the bedstead; and after inspecting it, Mauricefelt willing to expend the extra marks it cost. They withdrew toKrafft's room to come to a decision. There, however, they found AveryHill, who, as soon as she heard what they contemplated, put a veto onit. Growing pale, as she always did where others would have flushed,she said: "It is an absurd idea--sheer nonsense! I won't have it,understand that! Pray, excuse me," she continued to Maurice, speakingin a more friendly tone than she had yet used to him, "but you must notlisten to him. It is just one of his whims--nothing more. In less thana week, you would wish yourself away again. You have no idea howchangeable he is--how impossible to live with."
Maurice hastened to reassure her. Krafft did not speak; he stood at thewindow, with his back to them, his forehead pressed against the glass.
So Maurice continued to live in the BRAUSTRASSE, under the despoticrule of Frau Krause, who took every advantage of his good-nature. Butafter this, not a day passed without his seeing Krafft; the lattersought him out on trivial pretexts. Maurice hardly recognised him: hewas gentle, amiable, and amenable to reason; he subordinated himselfentirely to Maurice, and laid an ever-increasing weight on his opinion.Maurice became able to wind him round his finger; and the hint of areproof from him served to throw Krafft into a state of nervousdepression. Without difficulty, Maurice found himself to rights in hisrole of mentor, and began to flatter himself that he would ultimatelymake of Krafft a decent member of society. As it was, he soon inducedhis friend to study in a more methodical way; they practised for thesame number of hours in the forenoon, and met in the afternoon; andKrafft only sometimes broke through this arrangement, by appearing inthe BRAUSTRASSE early in the morning, and, despite remonstrance,throwing himself on the sofa, and remaining there, while Mauricepractised. The latter ended by growing accustomed to this whim as toseveral other things that had jarred on him--such as Krafft's love fora dirty jest--and overlooked or forgave them. At first embarrassed bythe mushroom growth of a friendship he had not invited, he soon grewgenuinely attached to Krafft, and missed him when he was absent fromhim.
Avery Hill could hardly be termed third in the alliance; Maurice'sadvent had thrust her into the background, where she kept watch overtheir doings with her cold, disdainful eye. Maurice was not clear howshe regarded his intrusion. Sometimes, particularly when she saw theimprovement in Heinrich's way of life, she seemed to tolerate hispresence gladly; at others again, her jealous aversion to him was tooopen to be overlooked. The jealousy was natural; he was an interloper,and Heinz neglected her shamefully for him; but there was somethingelse behind it, another feeling, which Maurice could not make out. Heby no means understood the relationship that existed between his friendand this girl of the stone-grey eyes and stern, red lips. The two livedalmost door by door, went in and out of each other's rooms at allhours, and yet, he had never heard them exchange an affectionate word,or seen a mark of endearment pass between them. Avery's attachment--ifsuch it could be called--was noticeable only in the many small ways inwhich she cared for Krafft's comfort; her manner with him wasinvariably severe and distant, with the exception of those occasionswhen a seeming trifle raised in her a burst of the dull, passionateanger, beneath which Krafft shrank. Maurice believed that his friendwould be happier away from her; in spite of her fresh colouring, he,Maurice, found her wanting in attraction, nothing that a woman ought tobe. But her name was rarely mentioned between them; Krafft was, as arule, reticent concerning her, and when he did speak of her, it was ina tone of such contempt that Maurice was glad to shirk the subject.
"It's all she wants," Krafft had replied, when his companion venturedto take her part. "She wouldn't thank you to be treated differently.Believe me, women are all alike; they are made to be trodden on.Ill-usage brings out their good points--just as kneading makes doughlight. Let them alone, or pamper them, and they spread like a weed, andchoke you"--and he quoted a saying about going to women and notforgetting the whip, at which Maurice stood aghast.
"But why, if you despise a person like that--why have her always aboutyou?" he cried, at the end of a flaming plea for woman's dignity andworth.
Krafft shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose the truth is we are dependenton them--yes, dependent, from the moment we are laid in the cradle.It's a woman who puts on our first clothes and a woman who puts on ourlast. But why talk about these things?"--he slipped his arm throughMaurice's. "Tell me about yourself; and when you are tired of talking,I will play."
It usually ended in his playing. They ranged through the highways andbyways of music.
One afternoon--it was a warm, wet, grey day towards the end ofAugust--Maurice found Krafft in a strangely apathetic mood. Theweather, this moist warmth, had got on his nerves, he said; he had beenunable to settle to anything; was weighed down by a lassitude heavierthan iron. When Maurice entered, he was stretched on the sofa, withclosed eyes; on his chest slept Wotan, the one-eyed cat, now growingsleek and fat. While Maurice was trying to rally him, Krafft sprang up.With a precipitance that was the extreme opposite of his previoussloth, he lowered both window-blinds, and, lighting two candles, setthem on the piano, where they dispersed the immediate darkness, but nomore.
"I am going to play TRISTAN to you."
Maurice had learnt by this time that it was useless to try to thwartKrafft. He laughed and nodded, and having nothing in particular to do,lay down in the latter's place on the sofa.
Krafft shook his hair back, and began the prelude to the opera in arapt, ecstatic way, finding in the music an outlet for all hisnervousness. At first, he played from memory; when this gave out, heset the piano-score up before him, then forgot it again, and went onplaying by heart. Sometimes he sang the different parts, in a light,sweet tenor; sometimes recited them, with dramatic fervour. Only henever ceased to play, never gave his hearer a moment in which torecover himself.
Frau Schulz's entry with the lamp, and her grumblings at the"UNVERSCHAMTE SPEKTAKEL" passed unheeded. A strength that w
as more thanhuman seemed to take possession of the frail youth at the piano.Evening crept on afternoon, night on evening, and still he continued,drunk with the most emotional music conceived by a human brain.
Even when hands and fingers could do no more, the frenzy that was inhim would not let him rest: he paced the room, and talked--talked forhours, his eyes ablaze. A church-clock struck ten, then half-past, theneleven, and not for a moment was he still; his speech seemed, indeed,to gather impetus as it advanced like a mountain torrent.
Then, all of a sudden, in the middle of a vehement defence ofanti-Semitism, to which he had been led by the misdeeds of those"arch-charlatans," Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, he stopped short, like arun-down clock, and, falling into a chair before the table, buried hisface in his arms. There was silence, the more intense for all that hadpreceded it. Wotan wakened from sleep, and was heard to stretch hislimbs, with a yawn and a sigh. The spell was broken; Maurice, his headin a whirl, rose stiff and cramped from his uncomfortable position onthe sofa.
"You rascal, you make one lose all sense of time. And I am starving. Imust snatch something at Canitz's as I go by."
Krafft started, and raised a haggard face with twitching lips. "You arenot going to leave me?--like this?"
Maurice was both hungry and tired--worn out, in fact.
"We will go somewhere in the town," said Krafft. "And then for a walk.The rain has stopped--look!"
He drew up one of the blinds, and they saw that the stars were shining.
"Yes, but what about to-morrow?--and to-morrow's work?"
"To-morrow may never come. And to-night is."
"Those are only words. Do you know the time?"
Krafft turned quickly from the window. "And if I make it a test of thefriendship you have professed for me, that you stay here with meto-night?--You can sleep on the sofa."
"Why on earth get personal?" said Maurice; he could not find his hat,which had fallen in a dark corner. "Heinz, dear boy, be reasonable.Come, give me the house-key--like a good fellow."
"It's the first--the only thing, I have asked of you."
"Nonsense. You have asked dozens."
Krafft took a few steps towards him, and threw the key on the floor athis feet. Wotan, who was at the door, mewing to be let out, sprangback, in affright.
"Go, go, go!" Krafft cried. "I never want to see you again."
Earlier than usual the next morning, Maurice returned to set thingsright, and to laugh with Heinz at their extravagance the night before.But Krafft was not to be seen. From Frau Schulz, who flounced past himin the passage, first with hot water, then with black coffee, Mauricelearned that Krafft had been brought home early that morning, in adisgraceful state of intoxication. Frau Schulz still boiled at theremembrance.
"SO 'N SCHWEIN, SO 'N SCHWEIN!" she cried. "But this time he goes. Ihave said it before and, fool that I am, have always let them persuademe. But this is the end. Not a day after the fifteenth will I have himin the house."
Maurice slipped away.
Two days passed before he saw his friend again. He found him pale anddejected, with reddish, heavy eyes and a sneering smile. He was whollychanged; his words were tainted with the perverse irony, which, at thebeginning of their acquaintance, had made his manner so repellent. Butnow, Maurice was not, at once, frightened away by it; he could notbelieve Heinrich's pique was serious, and gave himself trouble to winhis friend back. He chid, laughed, rallied, was earnest and apologetic,and all this without being conscious of having done wrong.
"I think you had better leave him alone," said Avery, after watchinghis fruitless efforts. "He doesn't want you."
It was true; now Krafft had no thought for anyone but Avery. It wasAvery here, and Avery there. He called her by a pet name, was anxiousfor her comfort, and hung affectionately on her arm.--The worst of itwas, that he did not seem in the least ashamed of his fickleness.
Maurice made one further attempt to move him, then, hurt and angry,intruded no more. At first, he was chiefly angry. But, gradually, thehurt deepened, and became a sense of injury, which made him avoid thestreet Krafft lived in, and shun him when they met. He missed him,after the close companionship of the past weeks, and felt as if he hadbeen suddenly deprived of a part of himself. And he would no doubt havemissed him more keenly still, if, just at this juncture, his attentionhad not been engrossed by another and more important matter.
Maurice Guest Page 12