A Blaze
Mansfield

  "Max, you silly devil, you'll break your neck if
you go careering down the slide that way.  Drop it,
and come to the Club House with me and get some coffee."
  "I've had enough for to-day.  I'm damp all through.  There,
give us a cigarette, Victor, old man.  When are you going
home?"
  "Not for another hour.  It's fine this afternoon, and I'm
getting into decent shape.  Look out, get off the track; here
come Fraulein Winkel.  Damned elegant the way she manages
her sleigh!"
  "I'm cold all through.  That's the worst of this place -- the
mists -- it's a damp cold.  Here, Forman, look after this sleigh --
and stick it somewhere so that I can get it without looking
through a hundred and fifty others to-morrow morning."
  They sat down at a small round table near the stove and
ordered coffee.  Victor sprawled in his chair, patting his little
brown dog Bobo and looking, half laughingly, at Max.
  "What's the matter, my dear? Isn't the world being nice
and pretty?"
  "I want my coffee, and I want to put my feet into my pocket
-- they're like stones....Nothing to eat, thanks -- the cake is
like underdone india-rubber here."

  Fuchs and Wistuba came and sat at their table.  Max half
turned his back and stretched his feet out to the oven.  The
three other men all began talking at once -- of the weather -- of
the record slide -- of the fine condition of the Wald See for
skating.
  Suddenly Fuchs looked at Max, raised his eyebrows and
nodded across to Victor, who shook his head.
  "Baby doesn't feel well," he said, feeding the brown dog
with broken lumps of sugar, "and nobody's to disturb him --
I'm nurse."
  "That's the first time I've ever known him off colour," said
Wistuba.  "I've always imagined he had the better part of this
world that could not be taken away from him.  I think he says
his prayers to the dear Lord for having spared him being taken
home in seven basketsful to-night.  It's a fool's game to risk
your all that way and leave the nation desolate."
  "Dry up," said Max. "You ought to be wheeled about on
the snow in a perambulator."
  "Oh, no offence, I hope. Don't get nasty....How's your
wife, Victor?"
  "She's not at all well.  She hurt her head coming down the
slide with Max on Sunday.  I told her to stay at home all day."
  "I'm sorry.  Are you other fellows going back to the town
or stopping on here?"
  Fuchs and Victor said they were stopping -- Max did not
answer, but sat motionless while the men paid for their coffee
and moved away. Victor came back a moment and put a hand
on his shoulder.
  "If you're going right back, my dear, I wish you'd look Elsa
up and tell her I won't be in till late.  And feed with us tonight
at Limpold, will you? And take some hot grog when
you get in."
  "Thanks, old fellow, I'm all right.  Going back now."
  He rose, stretched himself, buttoned on his heavy coat and
lighted another cigarette.

  From the door Victor watched him plunging through the
heavy snow -- head bent -- hands thrust in his pockets -- he
almost appeared to be running through the heavy snow towards
the town.
  Someone came stamping up the stairs, paused at the door of
her sitting-room, and knocked.
  "Is that you, Victor?" she called.
  "No, it is I...can I come in?"
  "Of course.  Why, what a Santa Claus!  Hang your coat
on the landing and shake yourself over the banisters.  Had a
good time?"
  The room was full of light and warmth.  Elsa, in a white
velvet tea-gown, lay curled up on the sofa -- a book of fashions
on her lap, a box of creams beside her.
  The curtains were not yet drawn before the windows and a
blue light shone through, and the white boughs of the trees
sprayed across.
  A woman's room -- full of flowers and photographs and silk
pillows -- the floor smothered in rugs -- an immense tiger-skin
under the piano -- just the head protruding -- sleepily savage.
  "It was good enough," said Max. "Victor can't be in till late.
He told me to come up and tell you."
  He started walking up and down -- tore off his gloves and
flung them on the table.
  "Don't do that, Max," said Elsa, "you get on my nerves.
And I've got a headache to-day; I'm feverish and quite flushed.
...Don't I look flushed?"
  He paused by the window and glanced at her a moment over
his shoulder.
  "No," he said; I didn't notice it."
  "Oh, you haven't looked at me properly, and I've got a new
tea-gown on, too."  She pulled her skirts together and patted a
little place on the couch.

  "Come along and sit by me and tell me why you're being naughty."
  But, standing by the window, he suddenly flung his arm across his eyes.
  "Oh," he said, "I can't.  I'm done -- I'm spent -- I'm smashed."
  Silence in the room.  The fashion-book fell to the floor with
a quick rustle of leaves.  Elsa sat forward, her hands clasped in
her lap; a strange light shone in her eyes, a red colour stained
her mouth.
  Then she spoke very quickly.
  "Come over here and explain yourself.  I don't know what
on earth you are talking about."
  "You do know -- you know far better than I.  You've simply
played with Victor in my presence that I may feel worse.  You've
tormented me -- you've led me on -- offering me everything and
nothing at all.  It's been a sipder-and-fly business from first
to last -- and I've never for one moment been ignorant of that --
and I've never for one moment been able to withstand it."
  He turned round deliberately.
  "Do you suppose that when you asked me to pin your
flowers into your evening-gown -- when you let me come into
your bedroom when Victor was out while you did your hair --
when you pretended to be a baby and let me feed you with
grapes -- when you have run to me and searched in all my
pockets for a cigarette -- knowing perfectly well where they were
kept -- going through every pocket just the same -- I knowing
too -- I keeping up the farce -- do you suppose that now you
have finally lighted your bonfire you are going to prevent the
whole house from burning?"
  She suddenly turned white and drew in her breath sharply.
  "Don't talk to me like that.  You have no right to talk to
me like that.  I am another man's wife."
  "Hum," he sneered, throwing back his head, "that's rather
late in the game, and that's been your trump card all along.
You only love Victor on the cat-and-cream principle -- you,
a poor little starved kitten that he's given everything to, that
he's carried in his breast, never dreaming that those little pink
claws could tear out a man's heart."
  She stirred, looking at him with almost fear in her eyes.
  "After all" -- unsteadily -- "this is my room; I'll have to ask you to go."
  But he stumbled towards her, knelt down by the couch,
burying his head in her lap, clasping his arms round her waist.
  "And I l_o_v_e_ you -- I love you; the humiliation of it -- I
adore you.  Don't -- don't -- just a minute let me stay here --
just a moment in a whole life -- Elsa!  Elsa!"
  She leant back and pressed her head into the pillows.
  Then his muffled voice: "I feel like a savage.  I want your
whole body.  I want to carry you away to a cave and love you
until I kill you -- you can't understand how a man feels.  I kill
myself when I see you -- I'm sick of my own strength that turns
in upon itself, and dies, and rises new-born like a Phoenix out
of the ashes of that horrible death.  Love me just this once,
tell me a lie, s_a_y_ that you do -- you are always lying."
  Instead, she pushed him away -- frightened.
  "Get up," she said; "suppose the servant came in with the tea?"
  "Oh, ye gods!"  He stumbled to his feet and stood staring down at her.
  "You're rotten to the core and so am I; But you're
heathenishly beautiful."
  The woman went over to the piano -- stood there -- striking
one note -- her brows drawn together.  Then she shrugged her
shoulders and smiled.
  "I'll make a confession.  Every word you have said is true.
I can't help it.  I can't help seeking admiration any more than a
cat can help going to people to be stroked.  It's my nature.
I'm borne out of my time.  And yet, you know, I'm not a
c_o_m_m_o_n_ woman. I like men to adore me -- to flatter me -- even
to make love to me -- but I would never give myself to any man.
I would never let a man kiss me...even."
  "It's immeasurably worse -- you've no legitimate excuse.
Why, even a prostitute has a greater sense of generosity!"
  "I know," she said, "I know perfectly well -- but I can't help
the way I'm built...Are you going?"
  He put on his gloves.
  "Well," he said, "what's going to happen to us now?"
  Again she shrugged her shoulders.
  "I haven't the slightest idea.  I never have -- just let things
occur."
  "All alone?" cried Victor.  "Has Max been here?"
  "He only stayed a moment, and wouldn't even have tea.  I
sent him home to change his clothes....He was frightfully boring."
  "You poor darling, you hair's coming down.  I'll fix it,
stand still a moment... so you were bored?"
  "Um-m -- frightfully....Oh, you've run a hairpin right
into your wife's head -- you naughty boy!"
  She flung her arms round his neck and looked up at him, half
laughing, like a beautiful, loving child.
  "God! What a woman you are," said the man. "You
make me so infernally proud -- dearest, that I...I tell you!"