Maurice Guest (28 page)

There was a hush of anticipation, in which Dove, stopping his BRETZEL half-way to his mouth, was heard to say in his tone of measured surprise: "C sharp major! Why, that is——"

The rest was drowned in the wild chromatic passages that Krafft sent up and down the piano with his right hand, while his left followed with full-bodied chords, each of which exceeded the octave. Before, however, there was time to laugh, this riot ceased, and became a mournful cadence, to the slowly passing harmonies of which, Krafft sang:

I am weary of everything that is, under the sun. I sicken at the long lines of rain, which are black against the sky; They drip, for a restless heart, with the drip of despair: For me, winds must rage, trees bend, and clouds sail stormily.

The whirlwind of the prelude commenced anew; the chords became still vaster; the player swayed from side to side, like a stripling-tree in a storm. Madeleine said, "Tch!" in disgust, but the rest of the company, who had only waited for this, burst into peals of laughter; some bent double in their seats, some leant back with their chins in the air. Even Dove smiled. Just, however, as those whose sense of humour was most highly developed, mopped their faces with gestures of exhaustion, and assured their neighbours that they "could not, really could not laugh any more," Furst entered and flapped his hands.

"Here he comes!"

A sudden silence fell, broken only by a few hysterical giggles from the ladies, and by a frivolous American, who cried: "Now for ALSO SCHRIE ZENOPHOBIA!" Krafft stopped playing, but remained sitting at the piano, wiping down the keys with his handkerchief.

Schilsky came in, somewhat embarrassed by the lull which had succeeded the hubbub heard in the passage, but wholly unconcerned at the lateness of the hour: except in matters of practical advancement, time did not exist for him. As soon as he appeared, the two ladies in the front row began to clap their hands; the rest of the company followed their example, then, in spite of Furst's efforts to prevent it, rose and crowded round him. Miss Jensen and her friend made themselves particularly conspicuous. Mrs Lauterischlager had an infatuation for the young man, of which she made no secret; she laid her hand caressingly on his coat-sleeve, and put her face as near his as propriety admitted.

"Disgusting, the way those women go on with him!" said Madeleine. "And what is worse, he likes it."

Schilsky listened to the babble of compliments with that mixture of boyish deference and unequivocal superiority, which made him so attractive to women. He was too good-natured to interrupt them and free himself, and would have stood as long as they liked, if Furst had not come to the rescue and led him to the piano. Schilsky laid his hand affectionately on Krafft's shoulder, and Krafft sprang up in exaggerated surprise. The audience took its seats again; the thick manuscript-score was set up on the music-rack, and the three young men at the piano had a brief disagreement with one another about turning the leaves: Krafft was bent on doing it, and Schilsky objected, for Krafft had a way of forgetting what he was at in the middle of a page. Krafft flushed, cast an angry look at his friend, and withdrew, in high dudgeon, to a corner.

Standing beside the piano, so turned to those about him that the two on the sofa in the next room only saw him sideways, and ill at that, Schilsky gave a short description of his work. He was nervous, which aggravated his lisp, and he spoke so rapidly and in such a low voice that no one but those immediately in front of him, could understand what he said. But it did not matter in the least; all present had come only to hear the music; they knew and cared nothing about Zarathustra and his spiritual development; and one and all waited impatiently for Schilsky to stop speaking. The listeners in the bedroom——merely caught disjointed words—WERDEGANG, NOTSCHREI, TARANTELN—but not one was curious enough even to lean forward in his seat. Madeleine made sarcastic inward comments on the behaviour of the party.

"It's perfectly clear to you, I suppose," she could not refrain from observing as, at the finish, Dove sagely wagged his head in agreement.

It transpired that there was an ode to be sung before the last section of the composition, and a debate ensued who, should sing it. The two ladies in the front had quite a little quarrel—without knowing anything about the song—as to which of their voices would best suit it. Schilsky was silent for a moment, tapping his fingers, then said suddenly: "Come on, Heinz," and looked at Krafft. But the latter, who was standing morose, with folded arms, did not move. He had a dozen reasons why he should not sing; he had a cold, was hoarse, was out of practice, could not read the music from sight.

"Good Heavens, what a fool Heinz is making of himself tonight!" said Madeleine.

But Schilsky thumped his fist on the lid, and said, if Krafft did not sing it, no one should; and that was the end of the matter. Krafft was pulled to the piano.

Schilsky took his seat, and, losing his nervousness as soon as he touched the keys, preluded firmly and easily, with his large, white hands. Now, every one leaned forward to see him better; especially the ladies threw themselves into positions from which they could watch hair and hands, and the slender, swaying figure.

"Isn't he divine?" said the bold-eyed girl on the bed, in a loud whisper, and hung upon her companion's neck in an ecstatic attitude.

After the diversity of noises which had hitherto interfered with his thinking connectedly, Maurice welcomed the continuous sound of the music, which went on without a break. He sat in a listening attitude, shading his eyes with his hand. Through his fingers, he surreptitiously watched the player. He had never before had an opportunity of observing Schilsky so closely, and, with a kind of blatant generosity, he now pointed out to himself each physical detail that he found prepossessing in the other, every feature that was likely to attract—in the next breath, only to struggle with his honest opinion that the composer was a slippery, loose-jointed, caddish fellow, who could never be proved to be worthy of Louise. But he was too down-hearted at what he had learnt in the course of the evening, to rise to any active feeling of dislike.

Intermittently he heard, in spite of himself, something of Schilsky's music; but he was not in a frame of mind to understand or to retain any impression of it. He was more effectively jerked out of his preoccupation by single spoken words, which, from time to time, struck his ear: this was Furst, who, in the absence of a programme, announced from his seat beside Schilsky, the headings of the different sections of the work: WERDEGANG; SEILTANZER—here Maurice saw Dove conducting with head and hand—NOTSCHREI; SCHWERMUT; TARANTELN—and here again, but vaguely, as if at a distance, he heard suppressed laughter. But he was thoroughly roused when Krafft, picking up a sheet of music and coming round to the front of the piano, began to sing DAS TRUNKENE LIED. By way of introduction, the low F in the bass of F minor sounded persistently, at syncopated intervals; Schilsky inclined his head, and Krafft sang, in his sweet, flute-like voice:

Oh, Mensch! Gieb Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? "Ich schlief, ich schlief, Aus tiefem Schlaf bin ich erwacht: Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht."

—the last phrase of which was repeated by the accompaniment, a semitone higher.

Tief ist ihr Weh, Lust—tiefer noch als Herzeleid:

As far as this, the voice had been supported by simple, full-sounding harmonies. Now, from out the depths, still of F minor, rose a hesitating theme, which seemed to grope its way: in imagination, one heard it given out by the bass strings; then the violas reiterated it, and dyed it purple; voice and violins sang it together; the high little flutes carried it up and beyond, out of reach, to a half close.

Weh spricht: vergeh!

Suddenly and unexpectedly, there entered a light yet mournful phrase in F major, which was almost a dance-rhythm, and seemed to be a small, frail pleading for something not rightly understood.

Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit, Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit.

The innocent little theme passed away, and the words were sung again to a stern and fateful close in D flat major.

The concluding section of the work returned to these motives, developed them, gathered them together, grouped them and interchanged them, in complicated thermatic counterpoint. Schilsky was barely able to cope with the difficulties of the score; he exerted himself desperately, laboured with his head and his whole body, and surmounted sheerly unplayable parts with the genial slitheriness that is the privilege of composers.

When, at last, he crashed to a close and wiped his face in exhaustion, there was a deafening uproar of applause. Loud cries were uttered and exclamations of enthusiasm; people rose from their seats and crowded round the piano to congratulate the player. Mrs. Lautenschlager could not desist from kissing his hand. A tall, thin Russian girl in spectacles, who had assiduously taken notes throughout, asked in a loud voice, and her peculiar, hoppy German, for information about the orchestration. What use had he made of the cymbals? She trusted a purely Wagnerian one. Schilsky hastened to reopen the score, and sat himself to answer the question earnestly and at length.

"Come, Maurice, let us go," said Madeleine, rising and shaking the creases from her skirt. "There will be congratulations enough. He won't miss ours."

Maurice had had an idea of lingering till everybody else had gone, on the chance of picking up fresh facts. But he was never good at excuses. So they slipped out into the passage, followed by Dove; but while the latter was looking for his hat, Madeleine pulled Maurice down the stairs.

"Quick, let us go!" she whispered; and, as they heard him coming after them, she drew her companion down still further, to the cellar flight, where they remained hidden until Dove had passed them, and his steps had died away in the street.

"We should have had nothing but his impressions and opinions all the way home," she said, as they emerged. "He was bottled up from having to keep quiet so long—I saw it in his face. And I couldn't stand it to-night. I'm in a bad temper, as you may have observed—or perhaps you haven't."

No, he had not noticed it.

"Well, you would have, if you hadn't been so taken up with yourself. What on earth is the matter with you?"

He feigned. surprise: and they walked in silence down one street and into the next. Then she spoke again. "Do you know—but you're sure not to know that either—you gave me a nasty turn to-night?"

"I?" His surprise was genuine this time.

"Yes, you—when I heard you say 'DU' to Heinz."

He looked at her in astonishment; but she was not in a hurry to continue. They walked another street-length, and all she said was: "How refreshing the air is after those stuffy rooms!"

As they turned a corner however, she made a fresh start.

"I think it's rather hard on me," she said, and laughed as she spoke. "Here am I again, having to lecture you! The fact is, I suppose, one's METIER clings to one, in spite of oneself. But there must be something about you, too, Maurice Guest, that makes one want to do it—want to look after you, so to speak—as if you couldn't be trusted to take care of yourself. Well, it disturbed me to-night, to see how intimate you and Heinz have got."

"Is that all? Why on earth should that trouble you? And anyhow," he added, "the whole affair came about without any wish of mine."

"How?" she demanded; and when he had told her: "And since then?"

He went into detail, coolly, without the resentment he had previously felt towards Krafft.

"And that's all?"

"Isn't it enough—for a fellow to go on in that way?"

"And you feel aggrieved?"

"No, not now. At first I was rather sore, though, for Heinz is an interesting fellow, and we were very thick for a time."

"Yes, of course—until Schilsky comes back. As soon as he appears on the scene, Master Heinz gives you the cold shoulder. Or perhaps you didn't know that Heinz is the attendant spirit of that heaven-born genius?"

Maurice did not reply, and when she spoke again, it was with renewed seriousness. "Believe me, Maurice, he is no friend for you. It's not only that you ought to be above letting yourself be treated in this way, but Heinz's friendship won't do you any good. He belongs to a bad set here—and Schilsky, too. If you were long with Heinz, you would be bound to get drawn into it, and then it would be good-bye to anything you might have done—to work and success. No, take my advice—it's sincerely meant—and steer clear of Heinz."

Maurice smiled to himself at her womanly idea of Krafft leading him to perdition. "But you're fond of him yourself, Madeleine," he said. "You can't help liking him either."

"I daresay I can't. But that is quite a different matter—quite;" and as if more than enough had now been said, she abruptly left the subject.

Before going home that night, Maurice made the old round by way of the BRUDERSTRASSE, and stood and looked up at the closed windows behind which Louise lived. The house was dark, and as still as was the deserted street. Only the Venetian blinds seemed to be faintly alive; the outer windows, removed for the summer, had not yet been replaced, and a mild wind flapped the blinds, just as it swayed the tops of the trees in the opposite garden. There was a breath of autumn in the air. He told himself aloud, in the nightly silence, that she was going away—as if by repeating the words, he might ultimately grow used to their meaning. The best that could be hoped for was that she would not go immediately, but would remain in Leipzig for a few weeks longer. Then a new fear beset him. What if she never came back again?—if she had left the place quietly, of set purpose?—if these windows were closed for good and all? A dryness invaded his throat at the possibility, and on the top of this evening of almost apathetic resignation to the inevitable, the knowledge surged up in him that all he asked was to be allowed to see her just once more. Afterwards, let come what might. Once again, he must stand face to face with her—must stamp a picture of her on his brain, to carry with him for ever.

For ever!—And through his feverish sleep ran, like a thread, the words he had heard Krafft sing, of an eternity that was deep and dreamless, a joy without beginning or end.