For dinner, by which time I am curiously shaky, quite indifferent tofood, and possessed of an immense longing to lie down on a sofa and donothing, we have salad and potatoes and fruit--of course plums--andlentils because they are so good for us (it is a pity they are also sonasty), and cheese because one book says (it is an extraordinarilyconvincing book) that if a man shall eat beef steadily for a wholemorning from six to twelve without stopping, he will not at the end havetaken in half the nourishing matter that he would have absorbed aftertwo minutes laid out judiciously on cheese. Unfortunately I don't likecheese. After dinner I shut myself up with the works of Mr. EustaceMiles, which tell me in invigorating language of all the money, time,and energy I have saved, of my increase of bodily health, of how activeI am getting, how skilful and of what a tough endurance, how my brainshave grown clear and nimble, my morals risen high above the average, andhow keen my enjoyment of everything has become, including, strange tosay, my food. I read lying down, too spiritless to sit up; and Johannain the kitchen, who has dined on pig and beer, washes up with theclatter of exuberant energy, singing while she does so in a voice thatshakes the house that once she _liebte ein Student._
It is very bewildering. The advice one gets points in such oppositedirections. For instance, the neighbor made friends the very firstevening with Papa, who walked with injudicious inattention in our gardenand slipped down through a gap in the fence into his orchard and hisarms, he being engaged in picking up the fallen plums for his wife tomake jam of; and he told me when he came in one day at dinner and foundme struggling through what he considered dark ways and I thought werecabbages, that my salvation lay in almonds. I went down to Jena thatafternoon and bought three pounds of them. They were dear, anddreadfully heavy to carry up the hill, and when I was panting past theneighbor's gate his wife, a friendly lady who reads right through theadvertisements in the paper every morning and spends her evenings with apencil working out the acrostics, was standing at it cool andcomfortable; and she asked me, with the simple inquisitiveness naturalto our nation, what I had got in my parcel; and I, glad to stop a momentand get my breath, told her; and she immediately scoffed both at herhusband and at the almonds, and said if I ate them I would lay up formyself an old age steeped in a dreadful thing called xanthin poison. Iwent home and consulted the books. The neighbor's wife was right.Johanna made macaroons of the almonds, and Papa, who loves macaroons,chose to disbelieve the neighbor's wife and ate them.
But the books are not always so unanimous as they were about this. Oneexhorted us to eat many peas and beans, which we were cheerfullydoing,--for are they not in summer pleasant things?--when I read inanother that we might as well eat poison, so full were they, too, ofqualities ending in xanthin poison. Lentils, recommended warmly by mostbooks, are discountenanced by two because they make you fat. Rice hasshared the same condemnation. Lettuces we may eat, but without the oilthat soothes and the vinegar that interests, and if you add salt to themyou will be thirsty, and you must never drink. An undressed lettuce--aquite naked lettuce--is a very dull thing. Really, I would as soon eatgrass. We do refuse at present to follow this cruel advice, and havesalad every day in defiance of it, but my conscience forces me to putless and less dressing in it each time, hoping that so shall we weanourselves from the craving for it--'gradually,' as Papa says. Carrots,too, the books warn us against. I forget what it is they do to you thatis serious, but the neighbor told me they make your skin shine, andsince he told me that no carrot has crossed our threshold. Apples we mayeat, but we are not to suppose that they will nourish us; they areuseful only for preventing, by their bulk, the walls of our insides fromcoming together. The walls of the vegetarian inside are very apt to cometogether if the owner strikes out all the things he is warned againstfrom his menu, and then it is, when they are about to do that, thatfibrous bulk, most convenient in this form, should be applied; and, likethe roasted Sunday goose of our fleshlier days in Rauchgasse, thevegetarian goes about stuffed with apples. Meanwhile there are noapples, and I know not whither I must turn in search of bulk. Do youthink that in another week I shall be strong enough to write to you?
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XXXVII
Galgenberg, July 28th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--This is a most sweet evening, dripping, quiet,after a rainy day, with a strip of clear yellow sky behind the pinetrees on the crest of the hill. I gathered up my skirts and went downthrough the soaked grass to where against the fence there is a divinestraggly bush of pink China roses. I wanted to see how they were gettingon after their drenching; and as I stood looking at them in the calmlight, the fence at the back of them sodden into dark greens and blacksthat showed up every leaf and lovely loose wet flower, a robin came andsat on the fence near me and began to sing. You will say: Well, whatnext? And there isn't any next; at least, not a next that I am likely tomake understandable. It was only that I felt extraordinarily happy. Youwill say: But why? And if I were to explain, at the end you would stillbe saying Why? Well, you cannot see my face while I am writing to you,so that I have been able often to keep what I was really thinking safelycovered up, but you mustn't suppose that my letters have always exactlyrepresented my state of mind, and that my soul has made no pilgrimagesduring this half year. I think it has wandered thousands of miles. Andoften while I wrote scolding you, or was being wise and complacent, orsprightly and offensive, often just then the tired feet of it werebleeding most as they stumbled among the bitter stones. And this eveningI felt that the stones were at an end, that my soul has come home to meagain, securely into my keeping, glad to be back, and that there will beno more effort needed when I look life serenely in the face. Till nowthere was always effort. That I talk to you about it is the surest signthat it is over. The robin's singing, the clear light behind the pines,the dripping trees and bushes, the fragrance of the wet roses, thelittle white house, so modest and hidden, where Papa and I are going tobe happy, the perfect quiet after a stormy day, the perfect peace afterdiscordant months,--oh, I wanted to say thank you for each of thesebeautiful things. Do you remember you gave me a book of Ernest Dowson'spoems on the birthday I had while you were with us? And do you rememberhis
Now I will take me to a place of peace, Forget my heart's desire-- In solitude and prayer work out my soul's release?
It is what I feel I have done.
But I will not bore you with these sentiments. See, I am always anxiousto get back quickly to the surface of things, anxious to skim lightlyover the places where tears, happy or miserable, lie, and not to touchwith so much as the brush of a wing the secret tendernesses of the soul.Let us, sir, get back to vegetables. They are so safe as subjects forpolite letter-writing. And I have had three letters from you this weekcondemning their use with all the fervor the English language places atyour disposal--really it is generous to you in this respect--as asubstitute for the mixed diet of the ordinary Philistine. Yes, sir, Iregard you as an ordinary Philistine; and if you want to know what thatin my opinion is, it is one who walks along in the ruts he found readyinstead of, after sitting on a milestone and taking due thought, makinghis own ruts for himself. You are one of a flock; and you disapprove ofsheep like myself that choose to wander off and browse alone. Youcondemn all my practices. Nothing that I think or do seems good in youreyes. You tell me roundly that I am selfish, and accuse me, not roundlybecause you are afraid it might be indecorous, but obliquely, in a maskof words that does not for an instant hide your meaning, of wearingJaeger garments beneath my outer apparel. Soon, I gather you expect, Ishall become a spiritualist and a social democrat; and quite soon afterthat I suppose you are sure I shall cut off my hair and go about insandals. Well, I'll tell you something that may keep you quiet: I'mtired of vegetarianism. It isn't that I crave for fleshpots, for I shallcontinue as before to turn my back on them, on 'the boiled and roast,The heated nose in face of ghost,' but I grudge the time it takes andthe thought it takes. For the fortnight I have followed its precepts Ihav
e lived more entirely for my body than in any one fortnight of mylife. It was all body. I could think of nothing else. I was tending itthe whole day. Instead of growing, as I had fondly hoped, so free inspirit that I would be able to draw quite close to the _liebe Gott_, Iwas sunk in a pit of indifference to everything needing effort orenthusiasm. And it is not simple after all. Shelley's meal of rootssounds easy and elementary, but think of the exertion of going out,strengthened only by other roots, to find more for your next meal. Nutsand fruits, things that require no cooking, really were elaboratenuisances, the nuts having to be cracked and the fruit freed from whatPapa called its pedestrian portions. And they were so useless even thento a person who wanted to go out and dig in the garden. All they coulddo for me was to make me appreciate sofas. I am tired of it, tired ofwasting precious time thinking about and planning my wretched diet.Yesterday I had an egg for breakfast--it gave me one of Pater's'exquisite moments'--and a heavenly bowl of coffee with milk in it, andthe effect was to send me out singing into the garden and to start memending the fence. The neighbor came up to see what the vigoroushammer-strokes and snatches of _Siegfried_ could mean, and when he sawit was I immediately called out, 'You have been eating meat!'
'I have not,' I said, swinging my hammer to show what eggs and milk cando.
'In some form or other you have this day joined yourself to the animalkingdom,' he persisted; and when I told him about my breakfast he wipedhis hands (he had been picking fruit) and shook mine and congratulatedme. 'I have watched with concern,' he said, 'your eyes becoming dailybigger. It is not good when eyes do that. Now they will shrink to theirnormal size, and you will at last set your disgraceful garden in order.Are you aware that the grass ought to have been made into hay a monthago?'
He is a haggard man, thin of cheek, round of shoulder, short of sight,who teaches little boys Latin and Greek in Weimar. For thirty years hashe taught them, eking out his income in the way we all do in these partsby taking in foreigners wanting to learn German. In July he shakes Eisforeigners off and comes up here for six weeks' vacant pottering in hisorchard. He bought the house as a speculation, and lets the upper partto any one who will take it, living himself, with his wife and son, onthe ground floor. He is extremely kind to me, and has given me tounderstand that he considers me intelligent, so of course I like him.Only those persons who love intelligence in others and have doubts abouttheir own know the deliciousness of being told a thing like that. Iadore being praised. I am athirst for it. Dreadfully vain down in myheart, I go about pretending a fine aloofness from such weakness, sothat when nobody sees anything in me--and nobody ever does--I may atleast make a show of not having expected them to. Thus does a girl in aball-room with whom no one will dance pretend she does not want to. Thusdid the familiar fox conduct himself toward the grapes of tradition.Very well do I know there is nothing to praise; but because I am justclever enough to know that I am not clever, to be told that I amclever--do you follow me?--sets me tingling.
Now that's enough about me. Let us talk about you. You must not come toJena. What could have put such an idea into your head? It is a blazing,deserted place just now, looking from the top of the hills like a basinof hot _bouillon_ down there in the hollow, wrapped in its steam. TheUniversity is shut up. The professors scattered. Martens is inSwitzerland, and won't be back till September. Even the Schmidts, thoseinteresting people, have flapped up with screams of satisfaction into anest on the side of a precipice. I urge you with all my elder-sisterlyauthority to stay where you are. Plainly, if you were to come I wouldnot see you. Oh, I will leave off pretending I cannot imagine what youwant here: I know you want to see me. Well, you shall not. Why youshould want to is altogether beyond my comprehension. I believe you havecome to regard me as a sort of medicine, medicine of the tonic order,and wish to bring your sick soul to the very place where it isdispensed. But I, you see, will have nothing to do with sick souls, andI wholly repudiate the idea of being somebody's physic. I will not beyour physic. What medicinal properties you can extract from my lettersyou are welcome to, but pray are you mad that you should think of cominghere? When you do come you are to come with your wife, and when you havea wife you are not to come at all. How simple.
Really, I feel inclined to laugh when I try to picture you, after thelife you have been leading in London, after the days you are living nowat Clinches, attempting to arrange yourself on this perch of ours uphere. I cannot picture you. We have reduced our existence to the crudestelements, to the raw material; and you, I know, have grown a veryexquisite young man. The fact is you have had time to forget what we arereally like, my father and I and Johanna, and since my step-mother'stime we have advanced far in the casual scrappiness of housekeeping thatwe love. You would be like some strange and splendid bird in the midstof three extremely shabby sparrows. That is the physical point of view:a thing to be laughed at. From the moral it is for ever impossible.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XXXVIII
Galgenberg, Aug. 7th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--It is pleasant of you to take the trouble toemulate our neighbor and tell me that you too think me intelligent. Youput it, it is true, more elaborately than he does, with a greaterembroidery of fine words, but I will try to believe you equally sincere.I make you a profound _Knix_,--it's a more expressive word thancurtsey--of polite gratitude. But it is less excellent of you to add onthe top of these praises that I am adorable. With words like that,inappropriate, and to me eternally unconvincing, this correspondencewill come to an abrupt end. I shall not write again if that is how youare going to play the game. I would not write now if I were lessindifferent. As it is, I can look on with perfect calm, most serenelyunmoved by anything in that direction you may say to me; but if you careto have letters do not say them again. I shall never choose to allow youto suppose me vile.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XXXIX
Galgenberg, Aug. 13th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--You need not have sent me so many pages ofprotestations. Nothing you can say will persuade me that I am adorable,and I did exactly mean the world vile. Do not quarrel with MissCheriton; but if you must, do not tell me about it. Why should youalways want to tell one of us about the other? Have you no sense of whatis fit? I am nothing to you, and I will not hear these things.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XL
Galgenberg, Aug. 18th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--You must really write a book. Write a very longone, with plenty of room for all your words. What is your bill forpostage now? Johanna, I am sure, thinks you are sending me instalmentsof manuscript, and marvels at the extravagance that shuts it up inenvelopes instead of leaving its ends open and tying it up with string.Once more I must beg you not to write about Miss Cheriton. It is uselessto remind me that I have posed as your sister, and that to your sisteryou may confide anything, because I am not your sister. Sometimes I havewritten of an elder-sisterly attitude toward you, but that, of course,was only talk. I am not irascible enough for the position. I do think,though, you ought to be surrounded by women who are cross. Six cross anddetermined elder sisters would do wonders for you. And so would a motherwith an iron will. And perhaps an aunt living in the house might be agood thing; one of those aunts--I believe sufficiently abundant--whopierce your soul with their eyes and then describe it minutely atmeal-times in the presence of the family, expatiating particularly onwhat those corners of it look like, those corners you thought so secret,in which are huddled your dearest faults.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XLI