Henry Handel Richardson

“ At one time, a musical career tempted him irresistibly; every one but Schwarz—this finger-machine, this generator of living metronomes—believed that he could make a name for himself as a player of Chopin. At other times, and more often, he contemplated retiring from the world and entering a monastery. He spoke with a morbid horror—yet as if the idea of it fascinated him—of the publicity of the concert-platform, and painted in glowing colours a monastery he knew of, standing on a wooded hill, not far from Vienna. ”

“ And have you not thought to yourself, with a shudder, that some day, in this selfsame way, under the same indifferent sky, among a group of loiterers as idly curious as these, you yourself will be carried out, feet foremost, like a bale of goods, like useless lumber, all will and dignity gone from you, never to enter there again?—there, where all the little human things you have loved, and used, and lived amongst, are lying just as you left them—the book you laid down, the coat you wore—now all of a greater worth than you. ”

“ Maurice believed that his friend would be happier away from her; in spite of her fresh colouring, he, Maurice, found her wanting in attraction, nothing that a woman ought to be. But her name was rarely mentioned between them; Krafft was, as a rule, reticent concerning her, and when he did speak of her, it was in a tone of such contempt that Maurice was glad to shirk the subject.
“It’s all she wants,” Krafft had replied, when his companion ventured to 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. ”

“ And while he was still speaking with fervour of Vienna—which was his home—of gay, melancholy Wien, he flung 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 whether he believed in God. “I don’t know. No, I don’t think I do. Why should one think of death when one is alive and well?”
Krafft laughed at this, with a pitying irony. “Happy you!” he said. “Happy you!” ”

“ When Maurice entered, he was stretched on the sofa, with closed eyes; on his chest slept Wotan, the one-eyed cat, now growing sleek and fat. While Maurice was trying to rally him, Krafft sprang up. With a precipitance that was the extreme opposite of his previous sloth, he lowered both window-blinds, and, lighting two candles, set them on the piano, where they dispersed the immediate darkness, but no more. ”

“ Frau Schulz’s entry with the lamp, and her grumblings at the “UNVERSCHAMTE SPEKTAKEL” passed unheeded. A strength that was more than human 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. ”

“ Are you not afraid your nerves will go through with you, and make you do something foolish?” asked Maurice, and was himself astonished at his boldness.
“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 was on Maurice’s tongue to suggest that they should move homewards, when, with one of his unexpected transitions, Krafft turned to him and said in a low voice: “What do you say? Shall you and I be friends?” ”

“ O MAGDALENE!” he sang under his breath; and, for the second time, Maurice received the impression that a by-play was being carried 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 off she goes—I don’t mean at this moment, but tomorrow, the day after, every day—to waste it in teaching children finger-exercises. If you ask her why she does it, she will tell you it is necessary to live. Necessary to live!—who has ever proved that it is?” ”

“ Krafft shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose the truth is we are dependent on 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 our last. But why talk about these things?”—he slipped his arm through Maurice’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 and byways of music.
One afternoon—it was a warm, wet, grey day towards the end of August—Maurice found Krafft in a strangely apathetic mood. ”

“ He’s no more fit to look after himself than a baby—and he gets it again with his boots in the morning.—Yes, yes, call me names if it pleases 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 makes one’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. ”

“ And so, after being carted, and jolted, and unloaded, you will be thrown into a hole, and your body, ice-cold, and as yielding as meat to the touch—oh, that awful icy softness!—your flesh will begin to rot, to be such that not your nearest friend would touch you. ”

“ You are mere dead flesh, and behind the horrid lid lie stark and cold, with rigid fingers and half-closed eyes, and the chief desire of every one, even of those you have loved most, is to be rid of you, to be out of reach of sight and smell of you. ”

“ As he did this, he crooned in a wordless language, and the cat was quiet, in spite of the pain he caused it. But directly he took his hands off it, it jumped from the table, and fled under the furthest corner of the sofa.
Krafft next fetched milk and a saucer, from a cupboard in the wall, and went down on his knees again: while Maurice sat and watched and wondered at his tireless endeavours to induce the animal to advance. He explained his proceedings in a whisper.
“If I put the saucer down and leave it,” he said, “it won’t help at all. A cat’s confidence must be won straight away.” ”

“ Ill-usage brings out their good points—just as kneading makes dough light. Let them alone, or pamper them, and they spread like a weed, and choke you”—and he quoted a saying about going to women and not forgetting the whip, at which Maurice stood aghast. ”

“ You will write, Morry, won’t you, and tell me what goes on? All the news you hear and who you see and everything.”——
“Be sure you write,” said Madeleine, too, when he saw her off early in the morning to Berlin, where she was to meet her English charges. “Christiania, POSTE RESTANTE, till the first, and then Bergen. ‘FROKEN WADE,’ don’t forget.”
The train started; her handkerchief fluttered from the window until the carriage was out of sight.
Maurice was alone; every one he knew disappeared, even Furst, who had obtained a holiday engagement in a villa near Dresden. ”

“ Afterwards, they sauntered home—first to Maurice’s lodging, then to Krafft’s, and once again to Maurice’s. At this stage, Krafft was frankness itself; Maurice learnt to his surprise that the slim, boyish lad at his side was over twenty-seven years of age; that, for several semesters, Krafft had studied medicine in Vienna, then had thrown up this “disgusting occupation,” to become a clerk in a wealthy uncle’s counting-house. From this, he had drifted into journalism, and finally, at the instigation of Hans von Bullow, to music ”