Hayward, after saying for a month that he was going South next day and
delaying from week to week out of inability to make up his mind to the
bother of packing and the tedium of a journey, had at last been driven off
just before Christmas by the preparations for that festival. He could not
support the thought of a Teutonic merry-making. It gave him goose-flesh to
think of the season's aggressive cheerfulness, and in his desire to avoid
the obvious he determined to travel on Christmas Eve.
Philip was not sorry to see him off, for he was a downright person and it
irritated him that anybody should not know his own mind. Though much under
Hayward's influence, he would not grant that indecision pointed to a
charming sensitiveness; and he resented the shadow of a sneer with which
Hayward looked upon his straight ways. They corresponded. Hayward was an
admirable letter-writer, and knowing his talent took pains with his
letters. His temperament was receptive to the beautiful influences with
which he came in contact, and he was able in his letters from Rome to put
a subtle fragrance of Italy. He thought the city of the ancient Romans a
little vulgar, finding distinction only in the decadence of the Empire;
but the Rome of the Popes appealed to his sympathy, and in his chosen
words, quite exquisitely, there appeared a rococo beauty. He wrote of old
church music and the Alban Hills, and of the languor of incense and the
charm of the streets by night, in the rain, when the pavements shone and
the light of the street lamps was mysterious. Perhaps he repeated these
admirable letters to various friends. He did not know what a troubling
effect they had upon Philip; they seemed to make his life very humdrum.
With the spring Hayward grew dithyrambic. He proposed that Philip should
come down to Italy. He was wasting his time at Heidelberg. The Germans
were gross and life there was common; how could the soul come to her own
in that prim landscape? In Tuscany the spring was scattering flowers
through the land, and Philip was nineteen; let him come and they could
wander through the mountain towns of Umbria. Their names sang in Philip's
heart. And Cacilie too, with her lover, had gone to Italy. When he thought
of them Philip was seized with a restlessness he could not account for. He
cursed his fate because he had no money to travel, and he knew his uncle
would not send him more than the fifteen pounds a month which had been
agreed upon. He had not managed his allowance very well. His pension and
the price of his lessons left him very little over, and he had found going
about with Hayward expensive. Hayward had often suggested excursions, a
visit to the play, or a bottle of wine, when Philip had come to the end of
his month's money; and with the folly of his age he had been unwilling to
confess he could not afford an extravagance.
Luckily Hayward's letters came seldom, and in the intervals Philip settled
down again to his industrious life. He had matriculated at the university
and attended one or two courses of lectures. Kuno Fischer was then at the
height of his fame and during the winter had been lecturing brilliantly on
Schopenhauer. It was Philip's introduction to philosophy. He had a
practical mind and moved uneasily amid the abstract; but he found an
unexpected fascination in listening to metaphysical disquisitions; they
made him breathless; it was a little like watching a tight-rope dancer
doing perilous feats over an abyss; but it was very exciting. The
pessimism of the subject attracted his youth; and he believed that the
world he was about to enter was a place of pitiless woe and of darkness.
That made him none the less eager to enter it; and when, in due course,
Mrs. Carey, acting as the correspondent for his guardian's views,
suggested that it was time for him to come back to England, he agreed with
enthusiasm. He must make up his mind now what he meant to do. If he left
Heidelberg at the end of July they could talk things over during August,
and it would be a good time to make arrangements.
The date of his departure was settled, and Mrs. Carey wrote to him again.
She reminded him of Miss Wilkinson, through whose kindness he had gone to
Frau Erlin's house at Heidelberg, and told him that she had arranged to
spend a few weeks with them at Blackstable. She would be crossing from
Flushing on such and such a day, and if he travelled at the same time he
could look after her and come on to Blackstable in her company. Philip's
shyness immediately made him write to say that he could not leave till a
day or two afterwards. He pictured himself looking out for Miss Wilkinson,
the embarrassment of going up to her and asking if it were she (and he
might so easily address the wrong person and be snubbed), and then the
difficulty of knowing whether in the train he ought to talk to her or
whether he could ignore her and read his book.
At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had been thinking of
nothing but the future; and he went without regret. He never knew that he
had been happy there. Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of Der Trompeter von
Sackingen and in return he presented her with a volume of William Morris.
Very wisely neither of them ever read the other's present.
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