Maurice Guest

by Henry Handel Richardson

  XII.

  Easter fell early, and the Ninth Symphony had been performed in theGewandhaus before March was fairly out. Now, both Conservatorium andGewandhaus were closed, and the familiar haunts were empty.

  Hitherto, Maurice had made shift to preserve appearances: at intervals,not too conspicuously far apart, he had gone backwards and forwards tohis classes, keeping his head above water with a minimum of work. Now,however, there was no further need for deceiving people. Most of thosewho had been his fellow-students had left Leipzig; he could not put hisfinger on a single person remaining with whom he had had a neareracquaintance. No one was left to comment on what he did and how helived. And this knowledge withdrew the last prop from his sense ofpropriety. He ceased to face the trouble that care for his personimplied, just as he gave up raising the lid of the piano and making aneedless pretence of work. Openly now, he took up his abode in theBRUDERSTRASSE, where he spent the long, idle days stretched on thesofa, rolling cigarettes--in far greater numbers than he could smoke,and vacantly, yet with a kind of gusto, as if his fingers, so longaccustomed to violent exercise, had a relish for the task. He wasseldom free from headache; an iron ring, which it was impossible toloosen, bound his forehead. His disinclination to speech grew upon him,too; not only had he no thoughts that it was worth breaking the silenceto express; the effort demanded by the forming of words was too greatfor him. His feeling of indifference-stupefying indifference--grew sostrong that sometimes he felt it beyond his strength consciously totake in the shape of the objects about the room.

  The days were eventless. He lay and watched her movements, which werespiritless and hurried, by turns, but now seldom marked by the graciousimpulsiveness that had made up so large a part of her charm. He wascontent to live from hour to hour at her side; for that this was hislast respite, he well knew. And the further the month advanced, themore tenaciously he clung. The one thought which now had force to rousehim was, that the day would come on which he would see her face for thelast time. The fact that she had given herself to another, while yetbelonging to him, ceased to affect him displeasurably, as did also hisfixed idea that she was, at the present moment, deceiving him anew. Hissole obsession was now a fear of the inevitable end. And it was thisfear which, at rare intervals, broke the taciturn dejection in which hewas sunk, by giving rise to appalling fits of violence. But after ascene of this kind, he would half suffocate her with remorse. And this,perhaps, worked destruction most surely of all: the knowledge that,despite the ungovernable aversion she felt for him, she could stilltolerate his endearments. Not once, as long as they had been together,had she refused to be caressed.

  But the impossibility of the life they were leading broke over Louiseat times, with the shock of an ice-cold wave.

  "If you have any feeling left in you--if you have ever cared for me inthe least--go away now!" she wept. "Go to the ends of the earth--onlyleave me!"

  He was giddy with headache that day. "To whom? Who is it you want now?"

  One afternoon as he lay there, the landlady came in with a telegram forhim, which she said had been brought round by one of Frau Krause'schildren--she tossed it on the table, as she spoke, to express thecontempt she felt for him. Several minutes elapsed before he put outhis hand for it, and then he did so, because it required less energy toopen it than to leave it unopened. When he had read it, he gave a shortlaugh, and threw it back on the table. Louise, who was in the otherpart of the room, came out, half-dressed, to see what the matter was.She, tool laughed at its contents in her insolent way, and, on passingthe writing-table, pulled open the drawer where she kept her money.

  "There's enough for two. And you're no prouder in this, I suppose, thanin anything else."

  The peremptory summons home, and the announcement that no furtherallowance would be remitted, was not a surprise to him; he had knownall along that, sooner or later, he would be thrown on his ownresources. It had happened a little earlier than he had expected--thatwas all. A week had still to run till the end of the month.--Thatnight, however, when Louise was out, he meditated, in a desultoryfashion, over the likely and unlikely occupations to which he couldturn his hand.

  A few days later, she came home one evening in a different mood: foronce, no cruel words crossed her lips. They sat side by side on thesofa; and of such stuff was happiness now made that he was content.Chancing to look up, he was dismayed to see that her eyes were full oftears, which, as he watched, ran over and down her cheeks. He slid tohis knees, and laid his head in her lap.

  She fell asleep early; for, no matter what happened, how uneventful orhow tragically exciting her day was, her faculty for sleep remainedunchanged. It was a brilliant night; in the sky was a great, round,yellow moon, and the room was lit up by it. The blind of the windowfacing the bed had not been lowered; and a square patch of light fellacross the bed. He turned and looked at her, lying in it. Her face wastowards him; one arm was flung up above her head; the hand lay with thepalm exposed. Something in the look of the face, blanched by the unreallight, made him recall the first time he had seen it, and theimpression it had then left on his mind. While she played in Schwarz'sroom, she had turned and looked at him, and it had seemed to him then,that some occult force had gone out from the face, and struck home inhim. And it had never lessened. Strange, that so small a thing, hardlybigger than one's two closed fists, should be able to exert such aninfluence over one! For this face it was--the pale oval, in the darksetting, the exotic colouring, the heavy-lidded eyes--which held him;it was this face which drew him surely back with a vital nostalgia--ahomesickness for the sight of her and the touch of her--if he were toolong absent. It had not been any coincidence of temperament orsympathies--by rights, all the rights of their different natures, theyhad not belonged together--any more than it had been a mere blinduprush of sensual desire. And just as his feelings for her had hadnothing to do with reason, or with the practical conduct of his life sothey had outlasted tenderness, faithfulness, respect. What ever it wasthat held him, it lay deeper than these conventional ideas of virtue.The power her face had over him was undiminished, though he now foundit neither beautiful nor good; though he knew the true meaning of eachdeeply graven line.--This then was love?--this morbid possession by awoman's face.

  He laid his arm across his tired eyes, and, without waiting to considerthe question he had propounded, commenced to follow out a new train ofthought. No doubt, for each individual, there existed in one othermortal some physical detail which he or she could find only in thisparticular person. It might be the veriest trifle. Some found it, itseemed, in the colour of an eye; some in the modulations of a voice,the curve of a lip, the shape of a hand, the lines of a body in motion.Whatever it chanced to be, it was, in most cases, an insignificantcharacteristic, which, for others, simply did not exist, but which, tothe one affected by it, made instant appeal, and just to that corner ofthe soul which had hitherto suffered aimlessly for the want of it--asuffering which nothing but this intonation, this particular smile,could allay. He himself had long since learnt what it was, about herface, that made a like appeal to him. It was her eyes. Not their size,or their dark brilliancy, but the manner of their setting: the spaciouslid that fell from the high, wavy eyebrow, first sloping deeplyinwards, then curving out again, over the eyeball; this, and the cleansweep of the broad, white lid, which, when lowered, gave the face aninfantine look--a look of marble. He knew it was this; for, on thestrength of a mere hinted resemblance, he had been unable to take hiseyes off the face of another woman; the likeness in this detail had methis gaze with a kind of shock. But what a meaningless thing was life,when the way a lid drooped, or an eyebrow grew on a forehead, couldmake such havoc of your nerves! And more especially when, in the brainor soul that lay behind, no spiritual trait answered to thephysical.--Well, that was for others to puzzle over, not for him. Thestrong man tore himself away while there was still time, or savedhimself in an engrossing pursuit. He, having had neither strength norsaving occupation, had bartered all he had, and knowingly,
for thebeauty of this face. And as long as it existed for him, his home wasbeside it.

  He turned restlessly. Disturbed in her dreams, Louise flung over on herother side.

  "Eugen!" she murmured. "Save me!--Here I am! Oh, don't you see me?"

  He shook her by the arm. "Wake up!"

  She was startled and angry. "Won't you even let me sleep?"

  "Keep your dreams to yourself then!"

  There was a savage hatred in her look. "Oh, if I only could! ... ifonly my hands were strong enough!--! I'd kill you!"

  "You've done your best."

  "Yes. And I'm glad! Remember that, afterwards. I was glad!"

  It had been a radiant April morning of breeze and sunshine, but towardsmidday, clouds gathered, and the sunlight was constantly intercepted.Maurice had had occasion to fetch something from his lodgings and wason his way back. The streets were thronged with people: business men,shop-assistants and students, returning to work from the restaurants inwhich they had dined. At a corner of the ZEITZERSTRASSE, a hand-carthad been overturned, and a crowd had gathered; for, no matter how busypeople were, they had time to gape and stare; and they were now aseager as children to observe this incident, in the development of whicha stout policeman was wordily authoritative. Maurice found that he hadloitered with the rest, to watch the gathering up of the spilt wares,and to hear the ensuing altercation between hawker and policeman. Onturning to walk on again, his eye was caught and held by the tallfigure of a man who was going in the same direction as he, but at abrisk pace, and several yards in front of him. This person must havepassed the group round the cart. Now, intervening heads and shouldersdivided them, obstructing Maurice's view; still, signs were not wantingin him that his subliminal consciousness was beginning to recognise theman who walked ahead. There was something oddly familiar in the gait,in the droop of the shoulders, the nervous movement of the head, theaimless motion of the dangling hands and arms--briefly, in all theloosely hung body. And, besides this, the broad-brimmed felt hat ...Good God! He stiffened, with a sudden start, and, in an instant, hisentire attention was concentrated in an effort to see the colour of thehair under the hat. Was it red? He tried to strike out in lengthiersteps, but the legs of the man in front were longer, and his ownunruly. After a moment's indecision, however, he mastered them, andthen, so afraid was he of the other passing out of sight, that he allbut ran, and kept this pace up till he was close behind the man hefollowed. There he fell into a walk again, but a weak and difficultwalk, for his heart was leaping in his chest. He had not been mistaken.The person close before him, so close that he could almost have touchedhim, was no other than Schilsky--the Schilsky of old, with theinsolent, short-sighted eyes, and the loose, easy walk.

  Maurice followed him--followed warily and yet unreflectingly--rightdown the long, populous street. Sometimes blindly, too, for, when thestreet and all it contained swam before him, he was obliged to shut hiseyes. People looked with attention at him; he caught a glimpse ofhimself in a barber's mirror, and saw that his face had turned agreenish white. His mind was set on one point. Arrived at the cornerwhere the street ran out into the KONIGSPLATZ, which turning wouldSchilsky take? Would he go to the right, where lay the BRUDERSTRASSE,or would he take the lower street to the left? Until this question wasanswered, it was impossible to decide what should be done next. Butfirst, there came a lengthy pause: Schilsky entered a musicshop, andremained inside, leaning over the counter, for a quarter of an hour.Finally, however, the corner was reached. He appeared to hesitate: fora moment it seemed as if he were going straight on, which would meanfresh uncertainty. Then, with a sudden outward fling of the hands, hewent off to the left, in the direction of the Gewandhaus.

  Maurice did not follow him any further. He stood and watched, until hecould no longer see the swaying head. After that he had a kind ofcollapse. He leaned up against the wall of a house, and wiped theperspiration from his forehead. Passers by believed him to be drunk,and were either amused, or horrified, or saddened. He discovered, intruth, that his legs were shaking as if with an ague, and, stumblinginto a neighbouring wine-shop, he drank brandy--not enough to stupefyhim, only to give back to his legs their missing strength.

  To postpone her knowing! To hinder her from knowing at any cost!--hisblurred thoughts got no further than this. He covered the ground at amad pace, clinging fast to the belief that he would find her, as he hadleft her, in bed. But his first glimpse of her turned him cold. She wasstanding before the glass, dressed to go out. This in itself was badenough. Worse, far worse, was it that she had put on, to-day, one ofthe light, thin dresses she had worn the previous spring, and neversince. It was impossible to see her tricked out in this fashion, anddoubt her knowledge of the damning fact. He held it for proved that shewas dressed to leave him; and the sight of her, refreshed andrejuvenated, gave the last thrust to his tottering sense. He demandedwith such savageness the meaning of her adornment, that the indignantamazement with which she turned on him was real, and not feigned.

  "Take off that dress! You shan't go out of the house in it!--Take itoff!"

  He raved, threatened, implored, always with icy fingers at his heart.He knew that she knew; he would have taken his oath on it; and he onlyhad room in his brain for one thought: to prevent her knowing. His ragespent itself on the light, flowery dress. As nothing he said moved her,he set his foot on the skirt, and tore it down from the waist. Shestruck at him for this, then took another from the wardrobe--a stilllighter and gaudier one. They had never yet gone through an hour suchas that which followed. At its expiry, clothes and furniture lay strewnabout the room.

  When Louise saw that he was not to be shaken off, that, wherever shewent on this day, he would go, too, she gave up any plan she might havehad, and followed where he led. This was, as swiftly as possible, bythe outlying road to the Connewitz woods. If he could but once get herthere, they would be safe from surprise. Once out there, in solitude,among the screening trees, something, he did not yet know what, butsomething would--must--happen.

  He dragged her relentlessly along. But until they got there! His eyesgrew stiff and giddy with looking before him, behind him, on all sides.And never had she seemed to move so slowly; never had she stared sobrazenly about her, as on this afternoon. With every step they took,certainty burned higher in him; the thin, fixed smile that disfiguredher lips said: do your worst; do all you can; nothing will save you! Hedid not draw a full breath till they were far out on the SCHLEUSSIGERWEG. Then he dropped her arm, and wiped his face.

  The road was heavy with mud, from rains of the preceding day. Louise,dragging at his side, was careless of it, and let her long skirt trailbehind her. He called her attention to it, furiously, and this was thefirst time he had spoken since leaving the house. But she did not evenlook down: she picked out a part of the road that was still dirtier,where her feet sank and stuck.

  They crossed the bridge, and joined the wood-path. On one of the firstseats they came to, Louise sank exhausted. Filled with the idea ofgetting her into the heart of the woods, he was ahead of her, urgingthe pace; and he had taken a further step or two before he saw that shehad remained behind. He was forced to return.

  "What are you sitting there for?" He turned on her, with difficultyresisting the impulse to strike her full in her contemptuous white face.

  She laughed--her terrible laugh, which made the very nerves twitch inhis finger-tips. "Why does one usually sit down?"

  "ONE?--You're not one! You're you!" Now he wished hundreds of listenerswere in their neighbourhood, that the fierceness of his voice mightcarry to them.

  "And you're a madman!"

  "Yes, treat me like the dirt under your feet! But you can't deceiveme.--Do you think I don't know why you're stopping here?"

  She looked away from him, without replying.

  "Do you think I don't know why you've decked yourself out like this?"

  "For God's sake stop harping on my dress!"

  "Why you've bedizened yourself? ... why you were going out? ... wh
yyou've spied and gaped eternally from one side of the street to theother?"

  As she only continued to look away, the desire seized him to saysomething so incisive that the implacability of her face would have tochange, no matter to what. "I'll tell you then!" he shouted, and struckthe palm of one hand with the back of the other, so that the bones inboth bit and stung. "I'll tell you. You're waiting here ... waiting, Isay! But you'll wait to no purpose! For you've reckoned without me."

  "Oh, very well, then, if it pleases you, I'm waiting! But you can atleast say for what? For you perhaps?--for you to regain your senses?"

  "Stop your damned sneering! Will you tell me you don't knowwho's--don't know he's here?"

  Still she continued to overlook him. "He?--who?--what?" She flung thelittle words at him like stones. Yet, in the second that elapsed beforehis reply, a faint presentiment widened her eyes.

  "You've got the audacity to ask that?" Flinging himself down on theseat, he put his hands in his pockets, and stretched out his legs. "Whobut your precious Schilsky!--the man who knew how you ought to betreated ... who gave you what you deserved!"

  His first feeling was one of relief: the truth was out; there was anend to the torture of the past hour. But after this one flash ofsensation, he ceased to consider himself. At his words Louise turned sowhite that he thought she was going to faint. She raised her hand toher throat, and held it there. She tried to say something, and couldnot utter a sound. Her voice had left her. She turned her head andlooked at him, in a strange, apprehensive way, with the eyes of atrapped animal.

  "Eugen!--Eugen is here?" she said at last. "Here?--Do you know whatyou're saying?" Now that her voice had come, it was a little thinwhisper, like the voice of a sick person. She pushed hat and hair, bothsuddenly become an intolerable weight, back from her forehead.

  Still he was not warned. "Will you swear to me you didn't know?"

  "I know? I swear?" Her voice was still a mere echo of itself. But nowshe rose, and standing at the end of the seat furthest from him, heldon to the back of it. "I know?" she repeated, as if to herself. Thenshe drew a long breath, which quivered through her, and, with it, voiceand emotion and the power of expression returned. "I know?" she criedwith a startling loudness. "Good God, you fool, do you think I'd behere with you, if I had known?--if I had known!"

  A foreboding of what he had done came to Maurice. "Take care!--takecare what you say!"

  She burst into a peal of hysterical laughter, which echoed through thewoods.

  "Take care!" he said again, and trembled.

  "Of what?--of you, perhaps? YOU!"

  "I may kill you yet."

  "Oh, such as you don't kill!"

  She lowered her veil, and stooped for her gloves. He looked up at herswift movement. There was a blueness round his lips.

  "What are you going to do?"

  She laughed.

  "You're ... you're going to him! Louise!--you are NOT going to him?"

  "Oh, you poor, crazy fool, what made you tell me?"

  "Stay here!" He caught her by the sleeve. But she shook his hand off asthough it were a poisonous insect. "For God's sake, think what you'redoing! Have a little mercy on me!"

  "Have you ever had mercy on me?"

  She took a few, quick steps away from the seat, then with an equallyimpulsive resolve, came back and confronted him.

  "You talk to me of mercy?--you!--when nothing I could wish you would bebad enough for you?--Oh, I never thought it would be possible to hateanyone as I hate you--you mean-souled, despicable dummy of a man!--Whycouldn't you have let me alone? I didn't care that much for you--notTHAT much! But you came, with your pretence of friendship, and yourflattery, and your sympathy--it was all lies, every word of it! Do youthink what has happened to us would ever have happened if you'd been adifferent kind of man?--But you have never had a clean thought ofme--never! Do you suppose I haven't known what you were thinking andbelieving about me in these last weeks?--those nights when I waitednight after night to see a light come back in his windows? Yes, and Ilet you believe it; I wanted you to; I was glad you did--glad to seeyou suffer. I wish you were dead!--Do you see that river? Go and throwyourself into it. I'll stand here and watch you sink, and laugh when Isee you drowning.--Oh, I hate you--hate you! I shall hate you to mylast hour!"

  She spat on the ground at his feet. Before he could raise his head, shewas gone.

  He made an involuntary, but wholly uncertain, movement to follow her,did not, however, carry it out, and sank back into his former attitude.His cold hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders drawn up; andhis face, drained of its blood, was like the face of an old man. He hadmade no attempt to defend himself, had sat mute, letting her vindictivewords go over him, inwardly admitting their truth. Now he closed hiseyes, and kept them shut, until the thudding of his heart grew lessforcible. When he looked up again, his gaze met the muddy, sluggishwater, into which she had dared him to throw himself. But he did noteven recall her taunt. He merely sat and stared at the river, amazed atthe way in which it had, as it were, detached itself from otherobjects. All at once it had acquired a life of its own, and it wasdifficult to believe that it had ever been an integral part of thelandscape.

  He remained sitting till the mists were breast-high. But even when,after more than one start--for his legs were stiff and numbed--he roseto go home, he did not realise what had happened to him. He was onlyaware that night had fallen, and that it would be better to get back inthe direction of the town.

  The twinkling street-lamps did more than anything towards rousing him.But they also made him long, with a sudden vehemence, for some warm,brightly lighted interior, where it would be possible to forget thenight--haunted river. He sought out an obscure cafe, and entering,called for brandy. On this night, he was under no necessity to limithimself; and he sat, glowering at the table, and emptying his glass,until he had died a temporary, and charitable, death. The delicioussensation of sipping the brandy was his chief remembrance of thesehours; but, also, like far-off, incorporate happenings, he wasconscious, as the night deepened, of women's shrill and lively voices,and of the pressure of a woman's arms.