Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther Read online

  XIV

  Jena, Nov. 25th. Monday Night.

  The last post has been. No letter. If you had posted it in London onSaturday after the examination I ought to have had it by now. I amtortured by the fear that something has happened to you. Such dreadfulthings do happen. Those great, blundering, blind fists of Fate, layingabout in mechanical cruelty, crushing the most precious lives asindifferently as we crush an ant in an afternoon walk, how they terrifyme. All day I have been seeing foolish, horrible pictures--your train toLondon smashing up, your cab coming to grief--the thousand things thatmight so easily happen really doing it at last. I sent my two letters toJermyn Street, supposing you would have left Clinches, but now somehow Idon't think you did leave it, but went up from there for the exam. Doyou know it is three days since I heard from you? That wouldn't matterso much--for I am determined never to bother you to write, I amdetermined I will never be an exacting woman--if it were not for theall-important examination. You said that if you passed it well and got agood place in the Foreign Office you would feel justified in tellingyour father about us. That means that we would be openly engaged. Notthat I care for that, or want it except as the next step to our meetingagain. It is clear that we cannot meet again till our engagement isknown. Even if you could get away and come over for a few days I wouldnot see you. I will not be kissed behind doors. These things are toowonderful to be handled after the manner of kitchen-maids. I am willingto be as silent as the grave for as long as you choose, but so long as Iam silent we shall not meet. I tell you I am incurably honest. I cannotbear to lie. And even these letters, this perpetual writing when no oneis likely to look, this perpetual watching for the postman so that noone will be likely to see, does not make me love myself any better. Itis true I need not have watched quite so carefully lately, need I? OhRoger, why don't you write? What has happened? Think of my wretchedplight if you are ill. Just left to wonder at the silence, to gnaw awayat my miserable heart. Or, if some one took pity on me and sent meword,--your servant, or the doctor, or the kind Nancy--what could I doeven then but still sit here and wait? How could I, a person of whomnobody has heard, go to you? It seems to me that the whole world has aright to be with you, to know about you, except myself. I cannot waitfor the next post. The waiting for these posts makes me feel physicallysick. If the man is a little late, what torments I suffer lest he shouldnot be coming at all. Then I hear him trudging up the stairs. I fly tothe door, absolutely vainly trying to choke down hope. 'There will be noletter, no letter, no letter,' I keep on crying to my thumping heart sothat the disappointment shall not be quite so bitter; and it takes nonotice, but thumps back wildly, 'Oh, there will, there will.' And whatthe man gives me is a circular for Papa.

  It is quite absurd, madly absurd, the anguish I feel when that happens.My one wish, my only wish, as I creep back again down the passage to mywork, is that I could go to sleep, and sleep and sleep and forget that Ihave ever hoped for anything; sleep for years, and wake up quiet andold, with all these passionate, tearing feelings gone from me for ever.

  XV

  Jena, Nov. 28th.

  Last night I got your letter written on Sunday at Clinches, a place fromwhich letters do not seem to depart easily. My knowledge of England'sgeography is limited, so how could I guess that it was so easy to go upto London from there for the exam, and back again the same day? As youhad no time, you say, to go to Jermyn Street, I suppose the two lettersI sent there will be forwarded to you. If they are not it does notmatter. They were only a string of little trivial things that would lookreally quite too little and trivial to be worth reading in themagnificence of Clinches. I am glad you are well; glad you are happy;glad you feel you did not do badly on Saturday. It is a good thing to bewell and happy and satisfied, and a pleasant thing to have found afriend who takes so much interest in you, and to whom you can tell yourmost sacred thoughts: doubly pleasant, of course, when the friendchances to be a woman, and she is pretty, and young, and rich, andeverything else that is suitable and desirable. The world is an amusingplace. My step-mother talked of you this morning at breakfast. She was,it seems, in a prophetic mood. She shook her head after the manner ofthe more gloomy of the prophets, and hoped you would steer clear ofentanglements.

  'And why should he not, _meine Liebste_?' inquired Papa.

  'Not for nothing has he got that mouth, Ferdinand,' answered she.

  ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.

  XVI

  Jena, Nov. 29th.

  My darling, forgive me. If I could only get it back! I who hateunreasonableness, who hate bitterness, who hate exacting women, pettywomen, jealous women, to write a thing so angry. How horrible thisletter-writing is. If I had said all that to you in a sudden flare ofwrath I would have been sorry so immediately, and at once have madeeverything fair and sweet again with a kiss. And I never would have gotbeyond the first words, never have reached my step-mother's silly andrude remarks, never have dreamed of repeating the unkind, unjust things.Now, Roger, listen to me: my faith in you is perfect, my love for you isperfect, but I am so undisciplined, so new to love, that you must bepatient, you must be ready to forgive easily for a little while, till Ihave had time to grow wise. Just think, when you feel irritated, of thecircumstances of my life. Everything has come so easily, so naturally toyou. But I have been always poor, always second-rate--oh, it'strue--shut out from the best things and people, lonely because thesociety I could have was too little worth having, and the society Iwould have liked didn't want me. How could it? It never came our way,never even knew we were there. I have had a shabby, restricted,incomplete life; I mean the last ten years of it, since my fathermarried again. Before that, if the shabbiness was there I did not seeit; there seemed to be sunshine every day, and room to breathe, andlaughter enough; but then I was a child, and saw sunshine everywhere. Isthere not much excuse for some one who has found a treasure, some onetill then very needy, if his anxiety lest he should be robbed makeshim--irritable? You see, I put it mildly. I know very well thatirritable isn't the right word. I know very well what are the rightwords, and how horrid they are, and how much ashamed I am of theirbitter truth. Pity me. A person so unbalanced, so stripped of allself-control that she writes things she knows must hurt to the being sheloves so utterly, does deserve pity from better, serener natures. I donot understand you yet. I do not understand the ways yet of people wholive as you do. I am socially inferior, and therefore sensitive andsuspicious. I am groping about, and am so blind that only sometimes canI dimly feel how dark it really is. I have built up a set of idealsabout love and lovers, absurd crude things, clumsy fabrics suited to theconditions of Rauchgasse, and the first time you do not exactly fit themI am desperately certain that the world is coming to an end. But howhopeless it is, this trying to explain, this trying to undo. How shall Ilive till you write that you do still love me?

  Your wretched

  ROSE-MARIE.

  XVII

  Jena, Nov. 30th.

  I counted up my money this morning to see if there would be enough totake me to England, supposing some day I should wake up and find myselfno longer able to bear the silence. I know I should be mad if I went,but sometimes one is mad. There was not nearly enough. The cheapestroute would cost more than comes in my way during a year. I have a ringof my mother's with a diamond in it, my only treasure, that I mightsell. I never wear it; my red hands are not pretty enough for rings, soit is only sentiment that makes it precious. And if it would take me toyou and give me just one half-hour's talk with you and sweep away theicy fog that seems to be settling down on my soul and shutting outeverything that is wholesome and sweet, I am sure my darling mother,whose one thought was always to make me happy, would say, 'Child, go andsell it, and buy peace.'

  XVIII

  Jena, Dec. 1st.

  Last night I dreamed I did go to England, and I found you in a room witha crowd of people, and you nodded not unkindly, and went on talking tothe others, and I waited in my corner till they should have gone, waitedfor the moment when we woul
d run into each other's arms; and with thelast group you too went out talking and laughing, and did not come backagain. It was not that you wanted to avoid me; you had simply forgottenthat I was there. And I crept out into the street, and it was raining,and through the rain I made my way back across Europe to my home, to theone place where they would not shut me out, and when I opened the doorall the empty future years were waiting for me there, gray, vacant,listless.

  XIX

  Jena, Dec. 2d.

  These scraps of letters are not worth the postman's trouble, are notworth the stamps; but if I did not talk to you a little every day I donot think I could live. Yesterday you got my angry letter. If you werenot at Clinches I could have had an answer to-morrow; as it is, I mustwait till Wednesday. Roger, I am really a cheerful person. You mustn'tsuppose that it is my habit to be so dreary. I don't know what has comeover me. Every day I send you another shred of gloom, and deepen thewrong impression you must be getting of me. I know very well that nobodylikes to listen to sighs, and that no man can possibly go on for longloving a dreary woman. Yet I cannot stop. A dreary man is bad enough,but he would be endured because we endure every variety of man with soamazing a patience; but a dreary woman is unforgivable, hideous. Now amI not luminously reasonable? But only in theory. My practice lies rightdown on the ground, wet through by that icy fog that is freezing me intosomething I do not recognize. You do remember I was cheerful once?During the whole of your year with us I defy you to recollect a singleday, a single hour of gloom. Well, that is really how I always am, and Ican only suppose that I am going to be ill. There is no other way ofaccounting for the cold terror of life that sits crouching on my heart.

  XX

  Dec. 3d.

  Dearest,--You will be pleased to hear that I feel gayer to-night, sothat I cannot, after all, be sickening for anything horrid. It is anungrateful practice, letting oneself go to vague fears of the futurewhen there is nothing wrong with the present. All these days duringwhich I have been steeped in gloom and have been taking pains to putsome of it into envelopes and send it to you were good days inthemselves. Life went on here quite placidly. The weather was sweet withthat touching, forlorn sweetness of beautiful worn-out things, of lateautumn when winter is waiting round the corner, of leaves droppingslowly down through clear light, of the smell of oozy earth sending upfaint whiffs of corruption. From my window I saw the hills every day atsunset, how wonderfully they dressed themselves in pink; and in theafternoons, in the free hour when dinner was done and coffee not yetthought of, I went down into the Paradies valley and sat on the coarsegray grass by the river, and watched the water slipping by beneath theosiers, the one hurried thing in an infinite tranquillity. I ought tohave had a volume of Goethe under my arm and been happy. I ought to haveread nice bits out of _Faust_, or about those extraordinary people inthe Elective Affinities, and rejoiced in Goethe, and in the fine days,and in my good fortune in being alive, and in having you to love. Well,it is over now, I hope,--I mean the gloom. These things must take theircourse, I suppose, and while they are doing it one must grope about asbest one can by the flickering lantern-light of one's own affrightedspirit. My step-mother looked at me at least once on each of thesemiserable days, and said: 'Rose-Marie, you look very odd. I hope you arenot going to have anything expensive. Measles are in Jena, and also thewhooping-cough.'

  'Which of them is the cheapest?' I inquired.

  'Both are beyond our means,' said my step-mother severely.

  And today at dinner she was quite relieved because I ate some _dickerReis_ after having turned from it with abhorrence for at least a week.Good-by, dearest.

  Your almost cured

  ROSE-MARIE.

  XXI

  Jena, Dec. 4th.

  Your letter has come. You must do what you know is best. I agree toeverything. You must do what your father has set his heart on, sincequite clearly your heart is set on the same thing. All the careful wordsin the world cannot hide that from me. And they shall not. Do you thinkI dare not look death in the face? I am just a girl you kissed oncebehind a door, giving way before a passing gust of temptation. Youcannot, shall not marry me as the price of that slight episode. You sayyou will if I insist. Insist? My dear Roger, with both hands I give youback any part of your freedom I may have had in my keeping. Reason,expediency, all the prudences are on your side. You depend entirely onyour father; you cannot marry against his wishes; he has told you tomarry Miss Cheriton; she is the daughter of his oldest friend; she isextremely rich; every good gift is hers; and I cannot compete. Compete?Do you suppose I would put out a finger to compete? I give it up. I bowmyself out.

  But let us be honest. Apart from anything to do with your father'scommands, you have fallen into her toils as completely as you did intomine. My step-mother was right about your softness. Any woman who choseand had enough opportunity could make you think you loved her, make youkiss her. Luckily this one is absolutely suitable. You say, in thecourse of the longest letter you have written me--it must have been atiresome letter to have to write--that father or no father you will notbe hurried, you will not marry for a long time, that the wound is toofresh, &c, &c. What is this talk of wounds? Nobody knows about me. Ishall not be in your way. You need observe no period of mourning for acorpse people don't know is there. True, Miss Cheriton herself knows.Well, she will not tell; and if she does not mind, why should you? I amso sorry I have written you so many letters full of so many follies.Will you burn them? I would rather not have them back. But I encloseyours, as you may prefer to burn them yourself. I am so very sorry abouteverything. At least it has been short, and not dragged on growingthinner and thinner till it died of starvation. Once I wrote and beggedyou to tell me if you thought you had made a mistake about me, because Ifelt I could bear to know better then than later. And you wrote back andswore all sorts of things by heaven and earth, all sorts of convictionsand unshakable things. Well, now you have another set of convictions,that's all. I am not going to beat the big drum of sentiment and make awailful noise. Nothing is so dead as a dead infatuation. The more aperson was infatuated the more he resents an attempt to galvanize thedull dead thing into life. I am wise, you see, to the end. Andreasonable too, I hope. And brave. And brave, I tell you. Do you think Iwill be a coward, and cry out? I make you a present of everything; ofthe love and happy thoughts, of the pleasant dreams and plans, of thelittle prayers sent up, and the blessings called down--there were agreat many every day--of the kisses, and all the dear sweetness. Take itall. I want nothing from you in return. Remember it as a pleasantinterlude, or fling it into a corner of your mind where used-up thingsgrow dim with cobwebs. But do you suppose that having given you all thisI am going to give you my soul as well? To moan my life away, mybeautiful life? You are not worth it. You are not worth anything,hardly. You are quite invertebrate. My life shall be splendid in spiteof you. You shall not cheat me of one single chance of heaven. Nowgood-by. Please burn this last one, too. I suppose no one who heard itwould quite believe this story, would quite believe it possible for aman to go such lengths of--shall we call it unkindness? to a girl in asingle month; but you and I know it is true.

  ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.

  XXII

  Jena, March 5th.

  Dear Mr. Anstruther,--It was extremely kind of you to remember mybirthday and to find time in the middle of all your work to send me yourgood wishes. I hope you are getting on well, and that you like what youare doing. Professor Martens seems to tell you all the Jena news. Yes, Iwas ill; but we had such a long winter that it was rather lucky to beout of it, tucked away comfortably in bed. There is still snow in theditches and on the shady side of things. I escaped the bad weather asthoroughly as those persons do who go with infinite trouble during thesemonths to Egypt.

  Yours sincerely,

  ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.

  My father and step-mother beg to be remembered to you.

  XXIII

  Jena, March 18th.

  Dear Mr. Anstruther,--It is very kind indeed of you
to want to know howI am and what was the matter with me. It wasn't anything very pleasant,but quite inoffensive aesthetically. I don't care to think about it much.I caught cold, and it got on to my lungs and stayed on them. Now it isover, and I may walk up and down the sunny side of the street for halfan hour on fine days.

  We all hope you are well, and that you like your work.

  Yours sincerely,

  ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.

  XXIV

  Jena, March 25th.

  Dear Mr. Anstruther,--You ask me to tell you more about my illness, butI am afraid I must refuse. I see no use in thinking of painful pastthings. They ought always to be forgotten as quickly as possible; ifthey are not, they have a trick of turning the present sour, and I clingto the present, to the one thing one really has, and like to make it ascheerful as possible--like to get, by industrious squeezing, every dropof honey out of it. Just now I cannot tell you how thankful I am simplyto be alive with nothing in my body hurting. To be alive with a greatmany things in one's body hurting is a poor sort of amusement. It is notat all a game worth playing. People talk of sick persons clinging tolife however sick they are, say they invariably do it, that they preferit on any terms to dying; well, I was a sick person who did not cling atall. I did not want it. I was most willing to be done with it. ButDeath, though he used often to come up and look at me, and once at leastsat beside me for quite a long while, went away again, and after a timeleft off bothering about me altogether; and here I am walking out in thesun every day, and listening with immense pleasure to the chaffinches.