Henry Handel Richardson

“ Schilsky was nowhere to be seen. Half a week later, the same thing was repeated, except that on this day, she made herself prettier than ever: she was like some gay, garden flower, in a big white hat, round the brim of which lay scarlet poppies, and a dress of a light blue, which heightened the colour of her cheeks, and, reflected in her eyes, made them bluer than a fjord in the sun. But her spirits were low; if she did not see him this time, despair would crush her.
But she did—saw him while she was still some distance off, standing near the portico of the Conservatorium ”

“ He was astonished at the severity of his own voice.
"Oh, don't be so serious, Maurice!" She had folded the veil to a neat square, stuck three hatpins in it, and thrown it with her hat and jacket on the sofa. "No one has tried to murder me," she said, and raised both her hands to her hair. "I was standing before Haase's window—the big jeweller's in the PETERSTRASSE, you know. I've always loved jewellers' windows—especially at night, when they're lighted up. As a child, I thought heaven must be like the glitter of diamonds on blue velvet—the Jasper Sea, you know, and the pearly floor." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Why do you come here, Madeleine, and talk like that to me? He did what he was obliged to—that's all: for I should never have let him go. Can't you see how preposterous it is to think that by talking of respectability, and unworthiness, you can make me leave off caring for him?—when for months I have lived for nothing else? Do you think one can change one's feelings so easily? Don't you understand that to love a person once is to love him always and altogether?—his faults as well—everything he does, good or bad, no matter what other people think of it? ”

“ Maurice laid down his knife, and, in the first break, asked abruptly: "When does he go?"
"Go?—who?" said Krafft indifferently, tickling Wotan's nose with a piece of skin which he held out of reach.
"Who?—why, Schilsky, of course."
It sounded as if another than he had said the words: they were so short and harsh. The plate Avery was holding fell to the floor. Krafft sat back in his chair, and stared at Maurice, with a face that was all eyes.
"You knew he was going away?—or didn't you?" asked Maurice in a rough voice. "Every one knows. The whole place knows." ”

“ Things had lost their familiar aspect; she had once more lived right through the great experience of her life. Putting her hands to her forehead, she tried to force her thoughts back to reality. Then, stiffly, she rose from her knees. In doing so, she touched the roses. With a gesture that was her real awakening, she caught them up and pressed them to her face. It was a satisfaction to her that fingers and cheeks were pricked by their thorns. She was conscious of wishing to hurt herself. With her lips on the cool buds, she stammered broken words: "Maurice—my poor Maurice!" ”

“ The weather was superb, and to them, in their egotism, it came to seem in the order of things that they should rise in the morning to cloudless skies and golden sunshine; that the cool green seclusion of the woods should be theirs, where they were more securely shut off from the world than inside the house. Louise lay on the moss, with her arms under her head, or sat with her back against a tree-trunk. Maurice was always in front of her, so that he could see her face as he talked—this face of which he could never see enough. ”

“ But chancing to look at Madeleine, she grew quieter. "You would never do that, would you?" she repeated. "And do you know why?" Her words came quickly again; her voice shook with excitement. "Because you will never care for anyone more than yourself—it isn't in you to do it. You will go through life, tight on to the end, without knowing what it is to care for some one—oh, but I mean absolutely, unthinkingly——"
She broke down, and hid her face again. Madeleine had carried the cups and saucers to a side-table, and now put on her hat. ”

“ If only the affair with Maurice had not been of so unsavoury a nature! Did he, Dove, become seriously involved, it might be difficult to prove to judges so severe as his future parents-in-law, that he had acted out of pure goodness of heart. For, that he would be embroiled, in other words, that he would have success in his mission, there was no manner of doubt in his mind—a conviction he shared with the generality of mankind: that it is only necessary for an offender's eyes to be opened to the enormity of his wrongdoing, for him to be reasonable and to renounce it. ”

“ They could not imagine how fond she was of Joan.
"She is worth more than all of you put together." And at the cries of: "Oh, oh!" she was thrown into a new fit of merriment, and went still further. "I would not give Joan's little finger for anyone in the world."
And meanwhile, as all her hearers—all, that is to say, except Dove, who sat moody, fingering his slight moustache, and gazing at Ephie with fondly reproachful eyes—as all of them, with Mrs. Cayhill at their head, made vehement protest against this sweeping assertion, Johanna sat alone in her bedroom, at the back of the house. ”

“ His plans for the future were many, and widely divergent. 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. ”

“ He rose to his feet.
"A man who loves a woman as I love you," he said almost violently, "has only one wish—can have only one. I shall never rest or be thoroughly happy till you consent to marry me. That you can refuse as you do, seems to prove that you don't care for me enough."
She put her arms round his neck: her wide sleeves fell back, leaving her arms bear. "Maurice," she said gently, "why must you worry yourself?—You know if you are set on our marrying, I'll give way. But I don't want to be married—not yet. There's plenty of time. ”

“ He threw it into a corner.
"Louise! ... you! to take such words on your tongue! Is there no shame left in you?" His throat was dry and narrow.
"Shame! You only mean the need for concealment. Before you had got me, there was no talk of shame."
"Do you know what you're saying?"
"Oh, that's your eternal cry!" and, suddenly spurred to anger, she rose again. "I know—yes, I know! Do you think I'm a fool? Why must you alone be so innocent! Why should you alone not know that I was only jealous of a single person, and that was Krafft?"
Maurice turned away. ”

“ Waiter, a round of SCHNAPS!"
"Shut up, Krafft!" said Furst uneasily.
"Damn you, Heinz!" cried Schilsky, striking the table. He swallowed his brandy at a gulp, and held out the glass to be refilled. His anger fell still more; he began to commiserate himself. "By Hell, I wish a plague would sweep every woman off the earth!"
"The deuce, why don't you keep clear of them?"
Schilsky laughed, without raising his heavy eyes. "If they'd only give one the chance. Damn them all!—old and young——I say. If it weren't for them, a man could lead a quiet life." ”

“ On the first afternoon, Maurice was full of his new friends, and described them at length to her. But Madeleine damped his ardour.
"I know them, yes, of course," she said. "The usual Americans—even the blue-stocking, from whom heaven defend us. The little one is pretty enough as long as she keeps her mouth shut. But the moment she speaks, every illusion is shattered.—Why I don't go there on a Sunday? Good gracious, do you think they want me?—me, or any other petticoat? Are honours made to be divided?—No, Maurice, I don't like Americans. ”

“ It was all very well: he might repeat to himself that he had happened on Schwarz at an inopportune moment. That did not count. For him, Maurice, the opportune moment simply did not exist; he was one of those people who are always inopportune, come and go as they will. He might have waited for days; he would never have caught Schwarz in the right mood, or in the nick of time. How he envied those fortunate mortals who always arrived at the right moment, and instinctively said the right thing! That talent had never been his. ”

“ I only ask you to let yourself be loved—as I could love you. If only you could say you liked me a little, all the rest would come, I'm confident of it. In time, I should make you love me. For I would take, oh, such care of you! I want to make you happy, only to make you happy. I've no other wish than to show you what happiness is."
"It sounds so good ... you are good, Maurice. But the future—tell me, have thought of the future?" ”

“ When, after a lively greeting from Ephie, and a few pleasant words from Mrs. Cayhill, Maurice found himself standing beside Johanna, the truth of Dove's simile was obvious to him. This dark, unattractive girl had apparently no thought for anything but her tea-making; she moved the cups this way and that, filled the pot with water, blew out and lighted again the flame of the spirit-lamp, without paying the least heed to Maurice, making, indeed, such an ostentatious show of being occupied, that it would have needed a brave man to break in upon her duties with idle words. ”

“ It was one of the briskest times of day, and the short street and the steps of the building were alive with young people of both sexes. Young men sauntered to and from the cafe at the corner, or stood gesticulating in animated groups. All alike were conspicuous for a rather wilful slovenliness, for smooth faces and bushy hair, while the numerous girls, with whom they paused to laugh and trifle, were, for the most part, showy in dress and loudly vivacious in manner. On the kerbstone, a knot of the latter, tittering among themselves, shot furtive glances at Dove and Maurice as they passed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On their sofa, Madeleine and Maurlee sat in silence, pretending to listen to Dove, who was narrating his journey. Madeleine was out of humour; she tapped the floor, and had a crease in her forehead. As for Maurice, he was in such poor spirits that she could not but observe it.
"Why are you so quiet? Is anything the matter?"
He shook his head, without speaking. His vague sense of impending misfortune had crystallised into a definite thought; he knew now what it signified. If Schilsky went away from Leipzig, Louise would probably go, too, and that would be the end of everything. ”

“ Had anyone suggested to Frau Furst that her daughter should be a clerk, even a teacher, she would have flung up hands of horror; but music!—that was a different matter. It was, moreover, the single one of the arts, in which this staunch advocate of womanliness granted her sex a share.
"Ask Franz," she said to Maurice. "Franz knows. He will explain. All women can do is to reproduce what some one else has thought or felt."
As an immortal example of the limits set by sex, she invariably fell back on Clara Schumann, with whom she had more than once come into personal contact. ”

“ Louise shook her head, but did not speak.
"A few weeks' change of air is what you need to set you up again."
"I cannot go away."
"Nonsense! Of course you can. You don't want to be ill all the winter?"
"I don't want to be well."
Madeleine sniffed audibly. "There's no reasoning with you. When you hear on all sides that it's for your own good——"
"Oh, stop tormenting me!" cried Louise, raising a drawn face with disordered hair. "I won't go away! Nothing will make me. I shall stay here—though I never get well again." ”

“ Then she sighed, and pushed her hair back from forehead. "I don't know why I should say all this to you," she said contritely. "But often, just with you, I seem to forget what I am saying. It must be, I think, because you're so quiet yourself."
At this, Maurice turned and came over to her. "No, it's for another reason. You need to say these things to some one. You have brooded over them to yourself till they are magnified out of all proportion. It's the best thing in the world for you to say them aloud." ”

“ But when she wished him good-bye, she said, with a strange smile: "Altogether, I am very grateful to you, Maurice, for having made me go away."
He himself no longer felt any satisfaction at what he had done. As soon as he left her, he tried to comprehend what had happened: the change in her was too marked for him to be able to console himself that he had imagined it. Not only had she seemingly recovered, as if by magic, from the lassitude of the winter—he could even have forgiven her the alteration in her style of dress, although this, too, helped to alienate her from him. ”

“ As long as she has her beauty, a woman is under no necessity to bolster up her conscience, or to be reasonable, or to think.—Think? God forbid! There are plain women enough for that. We don't ask our Lady of Milo to be witty for us, or to solve us problems. Believe me, there is more thought, more eloquence, in the corners of a beautiful mouth—the upward look of two dark eyes—than in all women have said or done from Sappho down. Springy colour, light, music, perfume: they are all to be found in the curves of a perfect throat or arm."
Madeleine's silence bristled with irony. ”

“ You would wish yourself out again," answered Maurice; and as Krafft nodded, without seeming to resent his tone, he ventured to put forward a few points for the other side of the question. He suggested that always to be brooding over death unfitted you for life. Every one had to die when his time came; it was foolish to look upon your own death as an exception to the rule. Besides, when sensation had left you—the soul, the spirit, whatever you liked to call it—what did it matter what afterwards became of your body? ”

“ 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!" ”

“ All through the tedious second act, Ephie wound her handkerchief round and round, and in and out of her fingers. Would it never end? How long would the fat, ugly Brunnhilde stand talking to Siegmund and the woman who lay so ungracefully between his knees? As if it mattered a straw what these sham people did or felt! Would he speak to her in the next interval, or would he not?
The side curtains had hardly swept down before she was up from her seat, hurrying Johanna away. ”

“ When Maurice went downstairs, he could not find Louise, and some time elapsed before she and Herries emerged from the supper-room. Although the lines beneath her eyes were like rings of hammered iron, she danced anew, went on to the very end, with a few other infatuated people. Finally, the tired musicians rose stiffly to pack their instruments; and, with a sigh of exhaustion, she received on her shoulders the cloak Maurice stood holding. ”

“ The loss of the flower of his flock made him doubly unsure; he felt himself a marked man, for Bendel and other enemies to jeer at. Aloud, he spoke long and vehemently, as if mere noisy words would heal the wound. And the pupils who had remained faithful to him, gathered all the more closely round him, and burned as he did. If wishes could have injured or killed, Furst's career would then and there have come to an end: his ingratitude, his treachery, and his lack of moral fibre, were denounced on every hand.
One day, at this time, Maurice entered Schwarz's room. ”