Novel Notes

“‘Allow me, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Herr Geibel, ‘to introduce you to my friend, Lieutenant Fritz. Fritz, my dear fellow, bow to the ladies and gentlemen.’

“Geibel placed his hand encouragingly on Fritz’s shoulder, and the lieutenant bowed low, accompanying the action with a harsh clicking noise in his throat, unpleasantly suggestive of a death rattle. But that was only a detail.

“‘He walks a little stiffly’ (old Geibel took his arm and walked him forward a few steps. He certainly did walk stiffly), ‘but then, walking is not his forte. He is essentially a dancing man. I have only been able to teach him the waltz as yet, but at that he is faultless. Come, which of you ladies may I introduce him to, as a partner? He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won’t kick you or tread on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets giddy; and he is full of conversation. Come, speak up for yourself, my boy.’

“The old gentleman twisted one of the buttons of his coat, and immediately Fritz opened his mouth, and in thin tones that appeared to proceed from the back of his head, remarked suddenly, ‘May I have the pleasure?’ and then shut his mouth again with a snap.

“That Lieutenant Fritz had made a strong impression on the company was undoubted, yet none of the girls seemed inclined to dance with him. They looked askance at his waxen face, with its staring eyes and fixed smile, and shuddered. At last old Geibel came to the girl who had conceived the idea.

“‘It is your own suggestion, carried out to the letter,’ said Geibel, ‘an electric dancer. You owe it to the gentleman to give him a trial.’

“She was a bright saucy little girl, fond of a frolic. Her host added his entreaties, and she consented.

“Herr Geibel fixed the figure to her. Its right arm was screwed round her waist, and held her firmly; its delicately jointed left hand was made to fasten itself upon her right. The old toymaker showed her how to regulate its speed, and how to stop it, and release herself.

“‘It will take you round in a complete circle,’ he explained; ‘be careful that no one knocks against you, and alters its course.’

“The music struck up. Old Geibel put the current in motion, and Annette and her strange partner began to dance.

“For a while every one stood watching them. The figure performed its purpose admirably. Keeping perfect time and step, and holding its little partner tightly clasped in an unyielding embrace, it revolved steadily, pouring forth at the same time a constant flow of squeaky conversation, broken by brief intervals of grinding silence.

“‘How charming you are looking to-night,’ it remarked in its thin, far-away voice. ‘What a lovely day it has been. Do you like dancing? How well our steps agree. You will give me another, won’t you? Oh, don’t be so cruel. What a charming gown you have on. Isn’t waltzing delightful? I could go on dancing for ever – with you. Have you had supper?’

“As she grew more familiar with the uncanny creature, the girl’s nervousness wore off, and she entered into the fun of the thing.

“‘Oh, he’s just lovely,’ she cried, laughing, ‘I could go on dancing with him all my life.’

“Couple after couple now joined them, and soon all the dancers in the room were whirling round behind them. Nicholaus Geibel stood looking on, beaming with childish delight at his success,

“Old Wenzel approached him, and whispered something in his ear. Geibel laughed and nodded, and the two worked their way quietly towards the door.

“‘This is the young people’s house to-night,’ said Wenzel, as soon as they were outside; ‘you and I will have a quiet pipe and a glass of hock, over in the counting-house.’

“Meanwhile the dancing grew more fast and furious. Little Annette loosened the screw regulating her partner’s rate of progress, and the figure flew round with her swifter and swifter. Couple after couple dropped out exhausted, but they only went the faster, till at length they were the only pair left dancing.

“Madder and madder became the waltz. The music lagged behind: the musicians, unable to keep pace, ceased, and sat staring. The younger guests applauded, but the older faces began to grow anxious.

“‘Hadn’t you better stop, dear,’ said one of the women, ‘You’ll make yourself so tired.’

“But Annette did not answer.

“‘I believe she’s fainted,’ cried out a girl, who had caught sight of her face as it was swept by.

“One of the men sprang forward and clutched at the figure, but its impetus threw him down on to the floor, where its steel-cased feet laid bare his cheek. The thing evidently did not intend to part with its prize easily.

“Had any one retained a cool head, the figure, one cannot help thinking, might easily have been stopped. Two or three men, acting in concert, might have lifted it bodily off the floor, or have jammed it into a corner. But few human heads are capable of remaining cool under excitement. Those who are not present think how stupid must have been those who were; those who are, reflect afterwards how simple it would have been to do this, that, or the other, if only they had thought of it at the time.

“The women grew hysterical. The men shouted contradictory directions to one another. Two of them made a bungling rush at the figure, which had the result of forcing it out of its orbit in the centre of the room, and sending it crashing against the walls and furniture. A stream of blood showed itself down the girl’s white frock, and followed her along the floor. The affair was becoming horrible. The women rushed screaming from the room. The men followed them.

“One sensible suggestion was made: ‘Find Geibel – fetch Geibel.’

“No one had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ballroom, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor, as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off in a new direction.

“And everlastingly it talked in that thin ghostly voice, repeating over and over the same formula: ‘How charming you are looking to-night. What a lovely day it has been. Oh, don’t be so cruel. I could go on dancing for ever – with you. Have you had supper?’

“Of course they sought for Geibel everywhere but where he was. They looked in every room in the house, then they rushed off in a body to his own place, and spent precious minutes in waking up his deaf old housekeeper. At last it occurred to one of the party that Wenzel was missing also, and then the idea of the counting-house across the yard presented itself to them, and there they found him.

“He rose up, very pale, and followed them; and he and old Wenzel forced their way through the crowd of guests gathered outside, and entered the room, and locked the door behind them.

“From within there came the muffled sound of low voices and quick steps, followed by a confused scuffling noise, then silence, then the low voices again.

“After a time the door opened, and those near it pressed forward to enter, but old Wenzel’s broad shoulders barred the way.

“‘I want you – and you, Bekler,’ he said, addressing a couple of the elder men. His voice was calm, but his face was deadly white. ‘The rest of you, please go – get the women away as quickly as you can.’

“From that day old Nicholaus Geibel confined himself to the making of mechanical rabbits and cats that mewed and washed their faces.”

We agreed that the moral of MacShaughnassy’s story was a good one.

CHAPTER XII

How much more of our – fortunately not very valuable – time we devoted to this wonderful novel of ours, I cannot exactly say. Turning the dogs’-eared leaves of the dilapidated diary that lies before me, I find the record of our later gatherings confused and incomplete. For weeks there does not appear a single word. Then comes an alarmingly business-like minute of a meeting at which there were – “Present: Jephson, MacShaughnassy, Brown, and Self”; and at which the “Proceedings commenced at 8.30.” At what time the “proceedings” terminated, and what business was done, the chronicle, however, sayeth not; though, faintly pencilled in the margin of the page, I trace these hieroglyphics: “3.14.9-2.6.7,” bringing out a result of “1.8.2.” Evidently an unremunerative night.

On September 13th we seem to have become suddenly imbued with energy to a quite remarkable degree, for I read that we “Resolved to start the first chapter at once” – “at once” being underlined. After this spurt, we rest until October 4th, when we “Discussed whether it should be a novel of plot or of character,” without – so far as the diary affords indication – arriving at any definite decision. I observe that on the same day “Mac told a story about a man who accidentally bought a camel at a sale.” Details of the story are, however, wanting, which, perhaps, is fortunate for the reader.

On the 16th, we were still debating the character of our hero; and I see that I suggested “a man of the Charley Buswell type.”

Poor Charley, I wonder what could have made me think of him in connection with heroes; his lovableness, I suppose – certainly not his heroic qualities. I can recall his boyish face now (it was always a boyish face), the tears streaming down it as he sat in the schoolyard beside a bucket, in which he was drowning three white mice and a tame rat. I sat down opposite and cried too, while helping him to hold a saucepan lid over the poor little creatures, and thus there sprang up a friendship between us, which grew.

Over the grave of these murdered rodents, he took a solemn oath never to break school rules again, by keeping either white mice or tame rats, but to devote the whole of his energies for the future to pleasing his masters, and affording his parents some satisfaction for the money being spent upon his education.

Seven weeks later, the pervadence throughout the dormitory of an atmospheric effect more curious than pleasing led to the discovery that he had converted his box into a rabbit hutch. Confronted with eleven kicking witnesses, and reminded of his former promises, he explained that rabbits were not mice, and seemed to consider that a new and vexatious regulation had been sprung upon him. The rabbits were confiscated. What was their ultimate fate, we never knew with certainty, but three days later we were given rabbit-pie for dinner. To comfort him I endeavoured to assure him that these could not be his rabbits. He, however, convinced that they were, cried steadily into his plate all the time that he was eating them, and afterwards, in the playground, had a stand-up fight with a fourth form boy who had requested a second helping.

That evening he performed another solemn oath-taking, and for the next month was the model boy of the school. He read tracts, sent his spare pocket-money to assist in annoying the heathen, and subscribed to The Young Christian and The Weekly Rambler, an Evangelical Miscellany (whatever that may mean). An undiluted course of this pernicious literature naturally created in him a desire towards the opposite extreme. He suddenly dropped The Young Christian and The Weekly Rambler, and purchased penny dreadfuls; and taking no further interest in the welfare of the heathen, saved up and bought a second-hand revolver and a hundred cartridges. His ambition, he confided to me, was to become “a dead shot,” and the marvel of it is that he did not succeed.

Of course, there followed the usual discovery and consequent trouble, the usual repentance and reformation, the usual determination to start a new life.

Poor fellow, he lived “starting a new life.” Every New Year’s Day he would start a new life – on his birthday – on other people’s birthdays. I fancy that, later on, when he came to know their importance, he extended the principle to quarter days. “Tidying up, and starting afresh,” he always called it.

I think as a young man he was better than most of us. But he lacked that great gift which is the distinguishing feature of the English-speaking race all the world over, the gift of hypocrisy. He seemed incapable of doing the slightest thing without getting found out; a grave misfortune for a man to suffer from, this.

Dear simple-hearted fellow, it never occurred to him that he was as other men – with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he regarded himself as a monster of depravity. One evening I found him in his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of “tidying up.” A heap of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him. He was tearing them up and throwing them into the fire.

I came towards him, but he stopped me. “Don’t come near me,” he cried, “don’t touch me. I’m not fit to shake hands with a decent man.”

It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable. I did not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being no worse than the average.

“Don’t talk like that,” he answered excitedly; “you say that to comfort me, I know; but I don’t like to hear it. If I thought other men were like me I should be ashamed of being a man. I’ve been a blackguard, old fellow, but, please God, it’s not too late. To-morrow morning I begin a new life.”

He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and sent his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.

“My last drink,” he said, as we clicked glasses. “Here’s to the old life out, and the new life in.”

He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire. He was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.

For a long while after that I saw nothing of him. Then, one evening, sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me in company that could hardly be called doubtful.

He flushed and came over to me. “I’ve been an old woman for nearly six months,” he said, with a laugh. “I find I can’t stand it any longer.”

“After all,” he continued, “what is life for but to live? It’s only hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not. And do you know” – he leant across the table, speaking earnestly – “honestly and seriously, I’m a better man – I feel it and know it – when I am my natural self than when I am trying to be an impossible saint.”

That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes. He thought that an oath, if it were only big enough, would frighten away Human Nature, instead of serving only as a challenge to it. Accordingly, each reformation was more intemperate than the last, to be duly followed by a greater swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction.

Being now in a thoroughly reckless mood, he went the pace rather hotly. Then, one evening, without any previous warning, I had a note from him. “Come round and see me on Thursday. It is my wedding eve.”

I went. He was once more “tidying up.” All his drawers were open, and on the table were piled packs of cards, betting books, and much written paper, all, as before, in course of demolition.

I smiled: I could not help it, and, no way abashed, he laughed his usual hearty, honest laugh.

“I know,” he exclaimed gaily, “but this is not the same as the others.”

Then, laying his hand on my shoulder, and speaking with the sudden seriousness that comes so readily to shallow natures, he said, “God has heard my prayer, old friend. He knows I am weak. He has sent down an angel out of Heaven to help me.”

He took her portrait from the mantelpiece and handed it me. It seemed to me the face of a hard, narrow woman, but, of course, he raved about her.

As he talked, there fluttered to the ground from the heap before him an old restaurant bill, and, stooping, he picked it up and held it in his hand, musing.

“Have you ever noticed how the scent of the champagne and the candles seems to cling to these things?” he said lightly, sniffing carelessly at it. “I wonder what’s become of her?”

“I think I wouldn’t think about her at all to-night,” I answered.

He loosened his hand, letting the paper fall into the fire.

“My God!” he cried vehemently, “when I think of all the wrong I have done – the irreparable, ever-widening ruin I have perhaps brought into the world – O God! spare me a long life that I may make amends. Every hour, every minute of it shall be devoted to your service.”

As he stood there, with his eager boyish eyes upraised, a light seemed to fall upon his face and illumine it. I had pushed the photograph back to him, and it lay upon the table before him. He knelt and pressed his lips to it.

“With your help, my darling, and His,” he murmured.

The next morning he was married. She was a well-meaning girl, though her piety, as is the case with most people, was of the negative order; and her antipathy to things evil much stronger than her sympathy with things good. For a longer time than I had expected she kept him straight – perhaps a little too straight. But at last there came the inevitable relapse.

I called upon him, in answer to an excited message, and found him in the depths of despair. It was the old story, human weakness, combined with lamentable lack of the most ordinary precautions against being found out. He gave me details, interspersed with exuberant denunciations of himself, and I undertook the delicate task of peace-maker.

It was a weary work, but eventually she consented to forgive him. His joy, when I told him, was boundless.

“How good women are,” he said, while the tears came into his eyes. “But she shall not repent it. Please God, from this day forth, I’ll – ”

He stopped, and for the first time in his life the doubt of himself crossed his mind. As I sat watching him, the joy died out of his face, and the first hint of age passed over it.

“I seem to have been ‘tidying up and starting afresh’ all my life,” he said wearily; “I’m beginning to see where the untidiness lies, and the only way to get rid of it.”

I did not understand the meaning of his words at the time, but learnt it later on.

He strove, according to his strength, and fell. But by a miracle his transgression was not discovered. The facts came to light long afterwards, but at the time there were only two who knew.

It was his last failure. Late one evening I received a hurriedly-scrawled note from his wife, begging me to come round.

“A terrible thing has happened,” it ran; “Charley went up to his study after dinner, saying he had some ‘tidying up,’ as he calls it, to do, and did not wish to be disturbed. In clearing out his desk he must have handled carelessly the revolver that he always keeps there, not remembering, I suppose, that it was loaded. We heard a report, and on rushing into the room found him lying dead on the floor. The bullet had passed right through his heart.”

Hardly the type of man for a hero! And yet I do not know. Perhaps he fought harder than many a man who conquers. In the world’s courts, we are compelled to judge on circumstantial evidence only, and the chief witness, the man’s soul, cannot very well be called.

I remember the subject of bravery being discussed one evening at a dinner party, when a German gentleman present related an anecdote, the hero of which was a young Prussian officer.

“I cannot give you his name,” our German friend explained – “the man himself told me the story in confidence; and though he personally, by virtue of his after record, could afford to have it known, there are other reasons why it should not be bruited about.

“How I learnt it was in this way. For a dashing exploit performed during the brief war against Austria he had been presented with the Iron Cross. This, as you are well aware, is the most highly-prized decoration in our army; men who have earned it are usually conceited about it, and, indeed, have some excuse for being so. He, on the contrary, kept his locked in a drawer of his desk, and never wore it except when compelled by official etiquette. The mere sight of it seemed to be painful to him. One day I asked him the reason. We are very old and close friends, and he told me.

“The incident occurred when he was a young lieutenant. Indeed, it was his first engagement. By some means or another he had become separated from his company, and, unable to regain it, had attached himself to a line regiment stationed at the extreme right of the Prussian lines.

“The enemy’s effort was mainly directed against the left centre, and for a while our young lieutenant was nothing more than a distant spectator of the battle. Suddenly, however, the attack shifted, and the regiment found itself occupying an extremely important and critical position. The shells began to fall unpleasantly near, and the order was given to ‘grass.’

“The men fell upon their faces and waited. The shells ploughed the ground around them, smothering them with dirt. A horrible, griping pain started in my young friend’s stomach, and began creeping upwards. His head and heart both seemed to be shrinking and growing cold. A shot tore off the head of the man next to him, sending the blood spurting into his face; a minute later another ripped open the back of a poor fellow lying to the front of him.

“His body seemed not to belong to himself at all. A strange, shrivelled creature had taken possession of it. He raised his head and peered about him. He and three soldiers – youngsters, like himself, who had never before been under fire – appeared to be utterly alone in that hell. They were the end men of the regiment, and the configuration of the ground completely hid them from their comrades.

“They glanced at each other, these four, and read one another’s thoughts. Leaving their rifles lying on the grass, they commenced to crawl stealthily upon their bellies, the lieutenant leading, the other three following.

“Some few hundred yards in front of them rose a small, steep hill. If they could reach this it would shut them out of sight. They hastened on, pausing every thirty yards or so to lie still and pant for breath, then hurrying on again, quicker than before, tearing their flesh against the broken ground.

“At last they reached the base of the slope, and slinking a little way round it, raised their heads and looked back. Where they were it was impossible for them to be seen from the Prussian lines.

“They sprang to their feet and broke into a wild race. A dozen steps further they came face to face with an Austrian field battery.

“The demon that had taken possession of them had been growing stronger the further they had fled. They were not men, they were animals mad with fear. Driven by the same frenzy that prompted other panic-stricken creatures to once rush down a steep place into the sea, these four men, with a yell, flung themselves, sword in hand, upon the whole battery; and the whole battery, bewildered by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack, thinking the entire battalion was upon them, gave way, and rushed pell-mell down the hill.

“With the sight of those flying Austrians the fear, as independently as it had come to him, left him, and he felt only a desire to hack and kill. The four Prussians flew after them, cutting and stabbing at them as they ran; and when the Prussian cavalry came thundering up, they found my young lieutenant and his three friends had captured two guns and accounted for half a score of the enemy.

“Next day, he was summoned to headquarters.

“‘Will you be good enough to remember for the future, sir,’ said the Chief of the Staff, ‘that His Majesty does not require his lieutenants to execute manoeuvres on their own responsibility, and also that to attack a battery with three men is not war, but damned tomfoolery. You ought to be court-martialled, sir!’

“Then, in somewhat different tones, the old soldier added, his face softening into a smile: ‘However, alertness and daring, my young friend, are good qualities, especially when crowned with success. If the Austrians had once succeeded in planting a battery on that hill it might have been difficult to dislodge them. Perhaps, under the circumstances, His Majesty may overlook your indiscretion.’

“‘His Majesty not only overlooked it, but bestowed upon me the Iron Cross,’ concluded my friend. ‘For the credit of the army, I judged it better to keep quiet and take it. But, as you can understand, the sight of it does not recall very pleasurable reflections.’”

* * * * *

To return to my diary, I see that on November 14th we held another meeting. But at this there were present only “Jephson, MacShaughnassy, and Self”; and of Brown’s name I find henceforth no further trace. On Christmas eve we three met again, and my notes inform me that MacShaughnassy brewed some whiskey-punch, according to a recipe of his own, a record suggestive of a sad Christmas for all three of us. No particular business appears to have been accomplished on either occasion.