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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Later Life, by Louis Couperus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Later Life
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2011 [EBook #37578]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LATER LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             THE LATER LIFE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             LOUIS COUPERUS
+
+           Author of "Small Souls," "Footsteps of Fate," etc.
+
+                             Translated by
+                      Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+
+
+
+                                New York
+                         Dodd, Mead and Company
+                                  1915
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+
+The Later Life is the second of The Books of the Small Souls,
+following immediately upon Small Souls, the novel that gives the
+title to the series. In the present story, Couperus reverts, at
+times and in a measure, to that earlier, "sensitivist" method which
+he abandoned almost wholly in Small Souls and which he again abandons
+in The Twilight of the Souls and in Dr. Adriaan, the third and fourth
+novels of the series.
+
+
+    Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
+
+    Chelsea,
+    22 March, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LATER LIFE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Van der Welcke woke that morning from a long, sound sleep and
+stretched himself luxuriously in the warmth of the sheets. But
+suddenly he remembered what he had been dreaming; and, as he did so,
+he gazed into the wardrobe-glass, in which he could just see himself
+from his pillow. A smile began to flicker about his curly moustache;
+his blue eyes lit up with merriment. The sheets, which still covered
+his body--he had flung his arms above his head--rose and fell with
+the ripple of his silent chuckles; and suddenly, irrepressibly,
+he burst into a loud guffaw:
+
+"Addie!" he shouted, roaring with laughter. "Addie, are you
+up?... Addie, come here for a minute!"
+
+The door between the two rooms opened; Addie entered.
+
+"Addie!... Just imagine ... just imagine what I've been dreaming. It
+was at the seaside--Ostende or Scheveningen or somewhere--and
+everybody, everybody was going about ... half-naked ... their legs
+bare... and the rest beautifully dressed. The men had coloured
+shirts and light jackets and exquisite ties and straw hats, gloves
+and a stick in their hands ... and the rest ... the rest was stark
+naked. The ladies wore lovely blouses, magnificent hats, parasols
+... and that was all!... And there was nothing in it, Addie, really
+there was nothing in it; it was all quite natural, quite proper,
+quite fashionable; and they walked about like that and sat on chairs
+and listened to the music!... And the fishermen ... the fishermen,
+Addie, went about like that too!... And the musicians ... in the
+bandstand ... were half-naked too; and ... the tails ... of their
+dress-coats ... hung down ... well ... like that!"
+
+Van der Welcke, as he told his dream in broken sentences, lay shaking
+with laughter; his whole bed shook, the sheets rose and fell; he was
+red in the face, as if on the verge of choking; he wept as though
+consumed with grief; he gasped for breath, threw the bed-clothes off:
+
+"Just imagine it ... just imagine it ... you never ... you never saw
+such a stretch of sands as that!"
+
+Addie had begun by listening with his usual serious face; but, when
+he saw his father crying and gasping for breath, rolling about in
+the bed, and when the vision of those sands became clearer to his
+imagination, he also was seized with irresistible laughter. But he
+had one peculiarity, that he could not laugh outright, but, shaken
+with internal merriment, would laugh in his stomach without uttering
+a sound; and he now sat on the edge of his father's bed, rocking with
+silent laughter as the bed rocked under him. He tried not to look at
+his father, for, when he saw his father's face, distorted and purple
+with his paroxysms of laughter, lying on the white pillow like the
+mask of some faun, he had to make agonized clutches at his stomach and,
+bent double, to try to laugh outright; and he couldn't, he couldn't.
+
+"Doesn't it ... doesn't it ... strike you as funny?" asked Van der
+Welcke, hearing no sound of laughter from his son.
+
+And he looked at Addie and, suddenly remembering that Addie could
+never roar with laughter out loud, he became still merrier at the
+sight of his poor boy's silent throes, his noiseless stomach-laugh,
+until his own laughter rang through the room, echoing back from the
+walls, filling the whole room with loud Homeric mirth.
+
+"Oh, Father, stop!" said Addie at last, a little relieved by his
+internal paroxysms, the tears streaming in wet streaks down his face.
+
+And he heaved a sigh of despair that he could not laugh like his
+father.
+
+"Give me a pencil and paper," said Van der Welcke, "and I'll draw
+you my dream."
+
+But Addie was very severe and shocked:
+
+"No, Father, that won't do! That'll never do.... it'd be a vulgar
+drawing!"
+
+And his son's chaste seriousness worked to such an extent upon Van
+der Welcke's easily tickled nerves that he began roaring once more
+at Addie's indignation....
+
+Truitje was prowling about the passage, knocking at all the doors,
+not knowing where Addie was:
+
+"Are you up, Master Addie?"
+
+"Yes," cried Addie. "Wait a minute."
+
+He went to the door:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"A telegram ... from the mistress, I expect...."
+
+"Here."
+
+He took the telegram, shut the door again.
+
+"From Mamma?" asked Van der Welcke.
+
+"Sure to be. Yes, from Paris: 'J'arrive ce soir.'"
+
+Van der Welcke grew serious:
+
+"And high time too. What business had Mamma to go rushing abroad like
+that?... One'd think we were well off.... What did you do about those
+bills, Addie?"
+
+"I went to the shops and said that mevrouw was out of town and that
+they'd have to wait."
+
+"I see. That's all right.... Can you meet Mamma at the station?"
+
+"Yes. The train's due at six.... Then we'll have dinner afterwards,
+with Mamma."
+
+"I don't know.... I think I'd better dine at the club."
+
+"Come, Father, don't be silly!"
+
+"No," said Van der Welcke, crossly, "don't bother me. I'll stay on
+at the Witte."
+
+"But don't you see that means starting off with a
+manifestation? Whereas, if you wait in for Mamma peacefully and we all
+have dinner together, then things'll come right of themselves. That'll
+be much easier than if you go staying out at once: Mamma would only
+think it rude."
+
+"Rude?... Rude?..."
+
+"Well, there's nothing to flare up about! And you just come home to
+dinner. Then you'll be on the right side."
+
+"I'll think it over. If I don't look out, you'll be bossing me
+altogether."
+
+"Well, then, don't mind me, stay at the Witte."
+
+"Oho! So you're offended, young man?"
+
+"Oh, no! I'd rather you came home, of course; but, if you prefer to
+dine at the Witte, do."
+
+"Dearly-beloved son!" said Van der Welcke, throwing out his hands
+with a comical gesture of resignation. "Your father will obey your
+sapient wishes."
+
+"Fond Father, I thank you. But I must be off to school now."
+
+"Good-bye, then ... and you'd better forget those sands."
+
+They both exploded and Addie hurried away and vanished, shaking with
+his painful stomach-laugh, while he heard Van der Welcke break into
+a fresh guffaw:
+
+"He can laugh!" thought the boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Van der Welcke had dressed and breakfasted and, because he felt
+bored, took his bicycle and went for a long ride by himself. He was
+very often bored these days, now that Addie was working hard at the
+grammar-school. Without his boy, he seemed at once to have nothing to
+do, no object in life; he could see no reason for his existence. He
+would smoke endless cigarettes in his den, or go bicycling, or turn
+up once in a way at the Plaats, once in a way at the Witte; but he
+did not go to either of his clubs as often as he used to. He saw much
+less of his friends, his friends of former days, the men of birth
+and position who had all won fame in their respective spheres, though
+Van Vreeswijck continued his visits regularly, appreciating the cosy
+little dinners. Van der Welcke generally felt lonely and stranded,
+found his own company more and more boring from day to day; and it
+was only when he saw his boy come back from school that he cheered up,
+enjoyed life, was glad and lively as a child.
+
+He loved the quick movement of it; and he cycled and cycled along the
+lonely, chill, windy country-roads, aiming at no destination, just
+pedalling away for the sake of speed, for the sake of covering the
+ground. If he were only rich: then he'd have a motor-car! There was
+nothing like a motor-car! A motor-car made up for this rotten, stodgy,
+boring life. To rush along the smooth roads in your car, to let her
+rip: tock, tock, tock, tock, tock-tock-tock-tock! Ha!... Ha!... That
+would be grand! Suppose his father were to make him a present of a
+car.... Ha!... Tock-tock-tock-tock!... And, as he spurted along, he
+suggested to himself the frantic orgy of speed of a puffing, snorting
+motor-car, the acrid stench of its petrol-fumes, the ready obedience of
+the pneumatic-tyred wheels while the car flew through the dust like a
+storm-chariot over the clouds. It made him poetic--tock-tock-tock-tock,
+tock-tock-tock-tock--but, as long as his father lived, he would never
+have enough money to buy himself a decent car!
+
+Life was stodgy, rotten, boring.... If only Addie had finished
+school! But then ... then he would have to go to the university ... and
+into the diplomatic service.... No, no, the older his boy grew, the
+less he would see of him.... How wretched it all was: he did not know
+whether to wish that Addie was older or not!... To think, it wasn't
+a year ago since the child used to sit on his knee, with his cheek
+against his father's, his arm round his father's neck; and Van der
+Welcke would feel that slight and yet sturdy frame against his heart;
+and now ... now already he was a lad, a chap with a deep voice, who
+ruled his father with a rod of iron! Yes, Van der Welcke was simply
+ruled by him: there was no getting away from it! Suppose he wanted to
+stay and dine at the Witte that night: why the blazes shouldn't he? And
+he knew as sure as anything that he wouldn't! He would come home like
+a good little boy, because Addie had rather he did, because otherwise
+Addie would look upon it as a manifestation against Constance.... She
+too was coming back, after Addie had written that it really wouldn't
+do, financially. She had run away like a madwoman, two months ago,
+after that pleasant business at the last Sunday-evening which they had
+spent at Mamma van Lowe's, after the furious scene which she had made
+him, Van der Welcke, because he wanted to hit their brother-in-law,
+Van Naghel, in the face. Mind, it was for her, for his wife's sake,
+that he wanted to hit Van Naghel in the face. For her sake, because
+that pompous ass had dared to say that he wasn't keen on Constance
+calling on Bertha's at-home day ... but that in other respects they
+were brothers and sisters! The disgusting snob! That old woman, that
+non-entity, that rotter, that twopenny-halfpenny cabinet-minister,
+who had got on simply because old Van Lowe, in his day, had kicked
+him upstairs step by step!... Van der Welcke was still furious when
+he thought of the fellow, with his smooth face and his namby-pamby
+speeches. He hadn't been able to control himself that time: his wife,
+at any rate, was his wife; his wife was Baroness van der Welcke; and
+he couldn't stand it, that they should insult his wife and before his
+face too; and, if Paul had not prevented him, he would have struck the
+snobbish ass in the face, thrashed him, thrashed him, thrashed him! His
+blood still boiled at the thought of it.... Well, there it was! Paul
+had held him back ... but still, he would have liked to challenge
+the fellow, to have fought a duel with him!... He grinned--pedalling
+like mad, bending over like a record-breaker at the last lap of
+a bicycle-race--he grinned now when he thought of the despair of
+the whole family, because their revered brother-in-law Van Naghel,
+"his excellency," whom they all looked up to with such reverence,
+might have to fight a duel with a brother-in-law who was already
+viewed with sufficient disfavour at the Hague!... Well, it hadn't
+come off. They had all interfered; but it wasn't for that reason,
+but because dear old Mamma van Lowe had taken to her bed--and also
+for Addie's sake--that he had not insisted on the duel. Yes, those
+Dutchmen: they never wanted to fight if they could help it! He,
+Van der Welcke, would have liked to fight, though Van Naghel had
+been a thousand times his brother-in-law, a thousand times colonial
+secretary. And it wasn't only that the whole family had thought the
+very idea of a duel so dreadful; but his wise son had interfered,
+had taken up a very severe attitude to his father, had reproached
+him because he--still "a young man," as Addie put it in his amusing
+way--wanted to insult and strike a man of Uncle van Naghel's age,
+even though it was for Mamma's sake! And Addie had gone to Frans van
+Naghel, the eldest son, the undergraduate, of whom he was very fond;
+and Frans was furious, wanted to take his father's place and fight in
+his stead. But Addie had said that Papa was in the wrong, that Papa
+had lost his self-control; and he had calmed Frans and told him,
+his father, positively, that it was his, Van der Welcke's, duty to
+apologize to Uncle van Naghel! That boy, that boy, thought Van der
+Welcke, thinking half-angrily of his son's perpetual tutelage. It
+was really too silly: if he didn't look out, the brat would twist
+him round his little finger entirely. A little chap like that,
+a schoolboy of fourteen ... and yet the beggar had managed so that
+Frans did not challenge Van der Welcke and that Van der Welcke had
+sent Van Naghel a note of apology, a note the thought of which made
+him boil even now, made him rant and curse at the thought that he had
+let himself be persuaded by the fourteen-year-old schoolboy. And then
+he had had to express his regret to Mamma van Lowe into the bargain;
+but that he didn't mind, for she was an old dear and he thought it
+too bad that the wretched affair should have made her ill. And so
+the fourteen-year-old schoolboy had succeeded in hushing up a Hague
+scandal, just like a grown-up man.... When you came to think of it,
+it was simply absurd, incredible; you would never have believed it if
+you read it in a book; and it was the positive truth: the schoolboy had
+prevented the cabinet-minister or his son from fighting a duel with
+the schoolboy's father!... And now Van der Welcke had to choke with
+laughter at the thought of it; and, as he spurted along the roads,
+like a professional, with his back bent into an arch, he roared with
+laughter all by himself and thought:
+
+"Lord, what an extraordinary beggar he is!"
+
+But the boy's mother, after scene upon scene with him, the father; his
+mother, furious that her husband should have dared to raise his hand
+against that revered brother-in-law, "his excellency;" his mother,
+driven out of her senses, with every nerve on edge after all that
+she had had to endure that Sunday: his mother the boy had not been
+able to restrain; a woman is always more difficult to manage than
+a man; a mother is not half so easy as a father! Constance, after
+one of those scenes which followed one upon the other as long as the
+atmosphere remained charged with electricity, had said:
+
+"I'm sick of it all; I'm going away; I'm going abroad!"
+
+And even the fact that she was leaving her son behind her did not
+bring her to reason. She packed her trunks, told Truitje to keep
+house for the master and Master Addie as she herself used to and went
+away, almost insolently, hardly even saying good-bye to Addie.... They
+thought at first that she would do something rash, goodness knows what,
+and were anxious because they didn't know where Constance had gone;
+but the next day there was a telegram from Paris to reassure them,
+telling them that Constance was going to Nice and meant to stay some
+time. Then letters came from Nice and they had no more fears, nor had
+Mamma van Lowe; they all thought the change might even do her good; and
+she continued pretty sensible. She wrote to her mother, to Addie; she
+wrote to Truitje, impressing upon her to look after the house well and
+after the master and Master Addie and to see that everything was going
+on all right when her mistress returned. And this sensible, housewifely
+letter had done more than anything to reassure Mamma van Lowe and the
+two of them; and now they didn't grudge Constance, Mamma, her trip,
+for once in a way. But it was an expensive amusement. Constance, it
+was true, had taken some money of her own with her; but still, since
+they had come to the Hague, Van der Welcke no longer made anything
+out of wine- and insurance-commissions; he was no longer an agent for
+the Brussels firms; and they had not much to live on and had to be
+very economical. And so Van der Welcke, after seven weeks had passed,
+was obliged to tell Addie that it wouldn't do for Mamma to stay on at
+Nice, in an expensive hotel, and that he had better write to her. And
+the schoolboy had written asking his mother to come back now, telling
+his mother that that would have to do and that there was no money
+left. And Constance was coming home that evening.
+
+Van der Welcke was in good spirits all day, perhaps through the
+after-effects of his dream--he kept seeing those sands before his
+eyes--and, pedalling along like mad, he sat shaking in his saddle,
+thinking of that young scamp of his, who ruled over his father and
+mother. It wasn't right, it was too absurd, soon they would neither of
+them be able to call their souls their own; but the boy was so sensible
+and he was always the little peacemaker, who settled everything. Yes,
+the scamp was the joy of his life; and really, really, except for
+the boy, everything was unrelieved gloom.... If only he could buy
+a motor-car, or at least a motor-cycle. He must find out one day,
+just ask what a motor-cycle cost.... But, apart from that, what was
+there? Especially now that they two--Constance in particular--had
+wanted at all costs to "rehabilitate" themselves, as Constance called
+it, in Hague society and now that they had failed utterly through that
+scene with Van Naghel, things were stodgier than ever ... with no one
+to come and see them but Van Vreeswijck, with no outside interests
+whatever. It was his fault, his fault, his wife kept reproaching him
+in their scenes, almost with enjoyment, revelling in her revenge,
+because he, not long ago, had reproached her that it was her fault,
+her fault that they were buried away there, "cursing their luck in the
+Kerkhoflaan." And he was sorry too because of Marianne: she used to
+come and dine once in a way; when Van Vreeswijck was coming, Constance
+would ask either Paul or Marianne, to make four; and, now that he had
+insulted her father, she wouldn't come again, they were on unfriendly
+terms not only with the parents, but also with the daughter ... and
+with the sons, to the great regret of Addie, who was very fond of
+Frans and Henri.... His fault! His fault! Perhaps it was his fault,
+but he couldn't always restrain himself, control himself, master
+himself. Possibly, if he had stuck to his career, he would have learnt
+to do it, after his training in diplomatic reserve ... or else he
+would always have remained an indifferent diplomatist. That might have
+happened too; it was quite possible!... Yes, he was sorry ... because
+of Marianne. She was a nice girl, so natural, so unaffected, in spite
+of her worldly environment; and he liked her eyes, her voice. He was
+sorry ... because of Marianne; but it couldn't be helped: although
+he had written to her father, she would not come to the house again,
+she would never come again, he thought.
+
+And he almost sighed, sadly, he did not know why, no doubt because
+life would be still more stodgy without Marianne's eyes and voice. But,
+after all, it was only once every four or five weeks that she used to
+come and dine; so what did it really matter? What did it matter? No,
+really nothing mattered; really, the whole world was a sickening,
+stodgy business, rottenly managed.... Oh, if he could only have bought
+a motor! The longing was so intense, so violent that he was almost
+tempted to ask his father for one straight out. And now, while he
+spurted home after his long ride, he hummed between his teeth, to
+the rhythm of the flying wheels, a song which he suddenly made up
+for himself:
+
+"A motor-car--and a motor-car: Ottocar in a motor-car--Ottocar in
+a motor-car!"
+
+And burning with his longing for the unattainable, he pedalled
+away--Ottocar in a motor-car!--in a mad frenzy, delighting in the
+sheer speed of his ride, which made people turn round and stare at him,
+at his arched back and his piston-legs, like an automaton's....
+
+He came home very late, just as Addie was starting to go to the
+station.
+
+"I really thought, Daddy, that you were staying at the Witte after
+all!" said the boy. "You're so late!"
+
+"No, old chap, I wouldn't have dared do that!" cried Van der
+Welcke. "Ottocar--in a motor-car! I've been cycling my legs off and
+I'm tired out."
+
+"You're quite red in the face."
+
+"Yes, I've had great fun! Ottocar--in his motor-car! You see, I've
+got to have my fun by myself ... when you're cooped up at school."
+
+"What are you saying, Father, about Ottocar?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, it's a song: Ottocar in his motor-car!..."
+
+"Well, I'm off ... to meet Mamma. Good-bye, you mad old Dad!"
+
+"Good-bye, my boy.... Come here a moment...."
+
+"What's the matter now?..."
+
+"Old chap, I feel so lonely sometimes ... so terribly alone ... so
+forlorn.... Tell me, Addie, you'll always be your father's chum,
+won't you?... You won't leave me, like all the rest? You'll stay with
+your old father?"
+
+"But, Daddy, what makes you so sentimental suddenly?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not sentimental ... but, my dear boy, I'm so awfully
+bored sometimes!"
+
+"Then why don't you find more to do, Daddy?"
+
+"Oh, my boy, what would you have me do?... Oh, if I only had a car!"
+
+"A car?..."
+
+"A motor-car! Like Ottocar!"
+
+And Van der Welcke burst out laughing:
+
+"He at least had one!" he bellowed, amidst his laughter.
+
+"Father, you're mad!"
+
+"Yes, to-day ... because of that dream, those wonderful sands.... Oh,
+how I wish I were Ottocar!... My boy, my boy, I'm so terribly bored
+sometimes!"
+
+"And just after you've had a jolly bicycle-ride!"
+
+"All on my own ... with my head full of all sorts of wretched
+thoughts!..."
+
+"Well, to-morrow, Wednesday afternoon, we'll go together."
+
+"Do you mean it? A long ride? To-morrow? To-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, a long ride."
+
+"You brick! My own Addie! My boy! My boy!"
+
+He was as grateful as a child, caught his son in his arms:
+
+"Addie, let me give you one more hug!"
+
+"Well, be quick about it, Father, for I must really go, or I shall
+be late."
+
+Van der Welcke put his arms round him, kissed him on both cheeks,
+and flew upstairs. He undressed, flung his clothes to right and
+left, washed his face in a huge basin of water, shaved quickly,
+dressed himself neatly. He did all this with much fuss and rushing
+about, as though his toilet was a most important affair. Then he
+went downstairs. The table was laid. It was nearly seven. Constance
+would be there in no time. And, sitting down in the drawing-room
+with a cigarette, looking round the room--Constance' room all over,
+in which he sat as a stranger--he hummed, while he waited for his
+wife and his son:
+
+"And Ottocar had a motor-car; but I--have--none!..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Addie ran up the stairs to the platform just as the train from Paris
+steamed in. He hurried along, looking into the windows.... There was
+Mamma, there was Mamma! And he flung himself on the handle, pulled
+open the door, helped Constance to alight.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "There you are! There you are at last!"
+
+She laughed, kissed him, her handsome, sturdy boy:
+
+"My boy, how could I do so long without you?"
+
+"Ah, so you see! You're surprised at it yourself! Come, make haste,
+I've got a cab. Give me your luggage-ticket."
+
+He swept her along; and, in the cab, while they were waiting for
+the luggage:
+
+"Tell me, Addie," she said, "is there really no money left?"
+
+"Do you imagine that, when you go spending seven weeks at Nice,
+in a first-class hotel, there'll still be money?"
+
+"I never thought of it like that," she said meekly.
+
+He laughed, thought her tremendously amusing. She laughed too, they
+both bubbled with mirth, Constance glad at seeing him, at finding
+him looking so well and in such good spirits.
+
+"Mamma, you're hopeless!" he exclaimed. "Did you really never think
+that there was no money left?"
+
+"No," said Constance, humbly.
+
+And they both started laughing again. He shook his head, considered
+her incorrigible:
+
+"And I've got some bills too, for the things you bought when you
+went away."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, remembering. "But they can wait."
+
+"I told them that you were abroad and that they'd have to wait."
+
+"Of course," said she.
+
+And they arrived in the Kerkhoflaan in excellent spirits.
+
+"Well, Truitje, have you looked after the master and Master Addie
+nicely?"
+
+"I did the best I could, ma'am.... But it's just as well you're
+back again...."
+
+"Well, Constance?"
+
+"Well, Henri?"
+
+"Did you have a good time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You're looking well."
+
+"Thanks.... Oh, have you waited dinner for me?"
+
+"Well, of course!"
+
+"I'll go and wash my hands and I'll be down immediately."
+
+"Mamma never thought for a moment ... that there was no money left,"
+said Addie.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Van der Welcke.
+
+But he seemed to consider it quite natural; and, when Constance came
+downstairs, he said, laughing:
+
+"Didn't you think that there was no money left?"
+
+Constance glanced up, imagining that he meant to make a scene. But
+he was smiling; and his question sounded good-humoured.
+
+"No!" she said, as if it was only natural.
+
+And now they all went into fits of laughter, Addie with his silent
+convulsions, which made him shake up and down painfully.
+
+"Do laugh right out, boy!" said Van der Welcke, teasing him. "Do
+laugh right out, if you can."
+
+They were very gay as they sat down to dinner.
+
+"And just guess," said Constance, "whom I met in the hotel at
+Nice, whom I sat next to at the table d'hote: the d'Azignys, from
+Rome.... The first people I met, the d'Azignys. It's incredible how
+small the world is, how small, how small!"
+
+He also remembered the d'Azignys: the French ambassador at Rome and
+his wife ... fifteen years ago now....
+
+"Really?" he asked, greatly interested. "Were they all right?"
+
+"Oh, quite," she said, "quite! I remembered them at once, but didn't
+bow. But d'Azigny was very polite; and, after a minute or two, he
+spoke to me, asked if he wasn't right in thinking I was the Baronne
+de Staffelaer. 'Baronne van der Welcke,' I replied. He flushed up
+and his wife nudged him, but after that they were very charming
+and amiable all the time I was at Nice. I saw a lot of them and,
+through their introduction, I went to a splendid ball at the Duc de
+Rivoli's. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wore a beautiful dress, I was in
+my element once more, I was a foreigner, everybody was very pleasant
+and I felt light-hearted again, quit of everything and everybody,
+and I thought to myself...."
+
+"Well, what did you think?"
+
+"Oh, if only we had never gone back to Holland! If, when Brussels
+became so dull, we had just moved to a town like Nice. It's delightful
+there. As a foreigner, you need have nothing to trouble about,
+you can do just as you like, know just whom you please. You feel
+so free, so free.... And why, I thought, must Addie become and
+remain a Dutchman? He could just as well be a Frenchman ... or a
+cosmopolitan...."
+
+"Thank you, Mamma: I don't feel like being a Frenchman, nor yet a
+cosmopolitan. And you'd better not say that to Uncle Gerrit, or you
+can look out for squalls."
+
+"Addie, I've met with so many squalls in my dear Holland that I feel
+like blowing away myself, away from everybody...."
+
+"Including your son?"
+
+"No, my boy. I missed you. I thought of you every day. I am so glad
+to see you again. But I did think to myself that we should have done
+better never to come back to Holland."
+
+"Yes," said Van der Welcke, thoughtfully.
+
+"We could have lived at Nice, if we liked."
+
+"Yes," Van der Welcke admitted, a little dubiously, "but you were
+longing for your family."
+
+She clenched her little hand and struck the table with it:
+
+"And you!" she cried. "Didn't you long for your parents, for your
+country?"
+
+"But not so much as you did."
+
+"And who thought it necessary for Addie? I didn't!" she exclaimed,
+in a shrill voice. "I didn't for a moment! It was you!"
+
+"Oh, d----," said Addie, almost breaking into an oath. "My dearest
+parents, for Heaven's sake don't begin quarrelling at once, for I
+assure the two of you that, if you do, I'll blow away and I'll go to
+Nice ... money or no money!"
+
+Van der Welcke and Constance gave one roar and Addie joined in
+the laugh.
+
+"Oh, that boy!" said Van der Welcke, choking with merriment. "That
+boy!"
+
+Constance uttered a deep sigh:
+
+"Oh, Addie!" she said. "Mamma does and says such strange things,
+sometimes ... but she doesn't mean them a bit. She's really glad
+to be back again, in her horrid country ... and in her own home,
+her dear cosy home ... and with her son, her darling boy!"
+
+And, throwing her arm round his neck, she let her head fall on his
+breast and she sobbed, sobbed aloud, so that Truitje, entering the
+room, started, but then, accustomed to these perpetual, inevitable
+scenes, quietly went on laying the dessert-plates.
+
+Van der Welcke fiddled with his knife.
+
+"Why can't those two manage to get on better together?" thought Addie,
+sadly, while he comforted his mother and gently patted her shoulder....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"And shall Mamma show you what she looked like at the Duc de Rivoli's?"
+
+Dinner was over and she was sitting by her open trunk, while Truitje
+helped her unpack and put the things away.
+
+"I had my photograph taken at Nice. But first here's a work-box for
+Truitje, with Nice violets on it. Look, Truitje: it's palm-wood inlaid;
+a present for you. And here's one for cook."
+
+"Oh, thank you, ma'am!"
+
+"And for my wise son I hunted all over Nice for a souvenir and found
+nothing, for I was afraid of bringing you something not serious enough
+for your patriarchal tastes; and so I had myself photographed for
+you. There: the last frivolous portrait of your mother."
+
+She took the photograph from its envelope: it showed her at
+full-length, standing, in her ball-dress; a photograph taken with a
+great deal of artistry and chic, but too young, too much touched up,
+with a little too much pose about the hair, the fan, the train.
+
+He looked at her with a smile.
+
+"Well, what do you think of it?" she asked.
+
+"What a bundle of vanity you are, Mamma!"
+
+"Don't you like it? Then give it back at once."
+
+"Why, no, Mummy: I think it awfully jolly to have a photograph
+of you...."
+
+"Of my last mad mood. Now your mother is really going to grow old,
+my boy. Upon my word, I believe Truitje admires my portrait more than
+my son does!..."
+
+"Oh, ma'am, I think it's splendid!"
+
+"How many did you have done, Mummy?"
+
+"Six. One for Granny, one for Uncle Gerrit, one for Uncle Paul,
+one for you, one for myself...."
+
+"And one for Papa."
+
+"Oh, Papa owns the original!"
+
+"No, give your husband one."
+
+"Henri!" she called.
+
+He came in.
+
+"Here's a portrait of your wife."
+
+"Lovely!" he exclaimed. "That's awfully good! Thanks very much."
+
+"Glad you like it. My husband and my handmaid are satisfied, at any
+rate. My son thinks me a bundle of vanity.... Oh, how glad I am to be
+back!... Here's the ball-dress. We'll put it away to-morrow. I shall
+never wear the thing again. A dress that cost six hundred francs for
+one wearing. Now we'll be old again and economical."
+
+They all laughed, including Truitje.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am to be back!... My own room, my own
+cupboards.... Truitje, what did you give your masters to eat?"
+
+"Well, just what you used to, ma'am!..."
+
+"So it was all right? I wasn't missed?..."
+
+"Oh, but you mustn't go away for so long again, ma'am!" said Truitje,
+in alarm.
+
+Constance laughed and stretched herself out on her sofa, glad to be
+home. Van der Welcke left the room with his photograph, Truitje with
+her work-box.
+
+"Come here, Addie. Papa has had you for seven weeks. Now you belong
+to me ... for an indefinite period."
+
+She drew him down beside her, took his hands. It struck him that
+she looked tired, more like her years, not like her photograph; and,
+his mind travelling swiftly to his father, he thought his father so
+young, outwardly a young man and inwardly sometimes a child: Ottocar
+in a motor-car....
+
+"It's strange, Addie," she said, softly, "that you are only fourteen:
+you always seem to me at least twenty. And I think it strange also
+that I should have such a big son. So everything is strange. And your
+mother herself, my boy, is the strangest of all. If you ask me honestly
+if I like being 'vain,' I mean, taking part in social frivolities,
+I shouldn't know what to answer. I certainly used to enjoy it in the
+old days; and, a fortnight ago, I admit I looked upon it as a sort
+of youth that comes over one again; but really it all means nothing:
+just a little brilliancy; and then you feel so tired and empty ... and
+so discontented...."
+
+She stopped suddenly, not caring to say more, and looked at the
+photograph, now lying on a table beside her. It made her laugh again;
+and at the same time a tear trembled on her lashes. And she did not
+know if it gave her a peaceful feeling to be growing old ... or if
+she regretted it. It was as though the sun of Nice had imbued her
+with a strange, dull melancholy which she herself did not understand.
+
+"To live!" she thought. "I have never lived. I would so gladly live
+once ... just once. To live! But not like this ... in a dress that
+cost six hundred francs. I know that, I know all about it: it is
+just a momentary brilliancy and then nothing.... To live! I should
+like to live ... really ... truly. There must be something. But it
+is a mad wish. I am too old. I am growing old, I am becoming an old
+woman.... To live! I have never lived ... I have been in the world,
+as a woman of the world; I spoilt that life; then I hid myself.... I
+was so anxious to come back to my country and my family; and it all
+meant nothing but a little show and illusion ... and a great deal
+of disappointment. And so the days were wasted, one after the other,
+and I ... have ... never ... lived.... Just as I throw away my money,
+so I have thrown away my days. Perhaps I have squandered all my days
+... for nothing. Oh, I oughtn't to feel like this! What does it mean
+when I do? What am I regretting? What is there left for me? At Nice,
+I thought for a moment of joining in that feminine revolt against
+approaching age; and I did join in it; and I succeeded. But what
+does it all mean and what is the use of it? It only means shining
+a little longer, for nothing; but it does not mean living.... But to
+long for it doesn't mean anything either, for there is nothing for me
+now but to grow old, in my home; and, even if I am not exactly among my
+people, my brothers and sisters, at any rate I have my mother ... and,
+perhaps for quite a long time still, my son too...."
+
+"Mummy ... what are you thinking about so deeply?"
+
+But she smiled, said nothing, looked earnestly at him:
+
+"He's much fonder of his father," she thought. "I know it, but it
+can't be helped. I must put up with it and accept what he gives me."
+
+"Come, Mummy, what are you thinking about?"
+
+"Lots of things, my boy ... and perhaps nothing.... Mamma feels so
+lonely ... with no one about her ... except you...."
+
+He started, struck by what she had said: it was almost the same words
+that his father had used that afternoon.
+
+"My boy, will you always stay with me? You won't go away, like
+everybody?..."
+
+"Come, Mummy, you've got Granny and Uncle Gerrit and Uncle Paul."
+
+"Yes, they are nice," she said, softly.
+
+And she thought:
+
+"I shall lose him, later, when he's grown up.... I know that I shall
+lose him...."
+
+It made her feel very weak and helpless; and she began to cry....
+
+He knelt down beside her and, in a stern voice, forbade her to be so
+excitable, forbade her to cry about nothing....
+
+It was heavenly to have him laying down the law like that. And she
+thought:
+
+"I shall lose him, when he's grown up.... Oh, let me be thankful that
+I have him still!..."
+
+Then, tired out, she went to sleep; and he left her, thinking to
+himself:
+
+"They both feel the same thing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+She tried tyrannically to monopolize her son, so that Van der Welcke
+became very jealous. It was the next day, Wednesday afternoon.
+
+"Are you coming with me to Granny's?"
+
+"I promised Papa to go cycling."
+
+"You've had seven weeks for cycling with Papa."
+
+"I promised him yesterday that I would go for a long ride to-day."
+
+She was angry, offended:
+
+"The first day that I'm home!..." she began.
+
+He kissed her, with a shower of tiny little kisses, tried to appease
+her wrath:
+
+"I promised!" he said. "We don't go cycling together often. You will
+have me to yourself all the evening. Be sensible now and nice; and
+don't be so cross."
+
+She tried to be reasonable, but it cost her an effort. She went alone
+to Mrs. van Lowe's. She saw two umbrellas in the hall:
+
+"Who is with mevrouw?" she asked the maid.
+
+"Mrs. van Naghel and Mrs. van Saetzema."
+
+She hesitated. She had not seen her sisters since that awful
+Sunday-evening. She had gone abroad five days after. But she wanted
+to show them....
+
+She went upstairs. Her step was no longer as timid as when she
+climbed those stairs ten months ago, when she first came back among
+them all. She did not wish to seem arrogant, but also she did not
+wish to be too humble. She entered with a smile:
+
+"Mamma!" she cried, gaily, kissing her mother.
+
+Mrs. van Lowe was surprised:
+
+"My child!" she exclaimed, trembling. "My child! Are you back? Are
+you back again? What a long time you've been abroad!"
+
+"I've enjoyed myself immensely. How d'ye do, Bertha? How d'ye do,
+Adolphine?"
+
+She did not shake hands, but just nodded to them, almost
+cordially, because of her mother, who looked anxiously at her three
+daughters. Bertha and Adolphine nodded back. Carelessly and easily,
+she took the lead in the conversation and talked about Nice. She
+tried to talk naturally, without bragging; but in spite of herself
+there was a note of triumph in her voice:
+
+"Yes, I felt I wanted to go abroad a bit.... Not nice of me to run
+away without saying good-bye, was it, Mamma dear? Well, you see,
+Constance sometimes behaves differently from other people.... I had
+a very pleasant time at Nice: full season, lovely weather."
+
+"Weren't you lonely?"
+
+"No, for on the very first day I met some of our Rome friends at
+the hotel...."
+
+She felt that Bertha started, blinked her eyes, disapproved of her
+for daring to speak of Rome. And she revelled in doing so, casually
+and airily, thought it delicious to dazzle Adolphine with a list of
+her social triumphs, very naturally described:
+
+"People we used to know in Rome: Comte and Comtesse d'Azigny. He was
+French ambassador in those days. They recognized me at once and were
+very kind; and through the introduction I went to a glorious ball
+at the Duchesse de Rivoli's. And, Mummy, here's a portrait of your
+daughter in her ball-dress."
+
+She showed the photograph, enjoyed giving the almost too-well-executed
+portrait to Mamma, not to her sisters, while letting them see it. She
+described her dress, described the ball, bragging a little this time,
+saying that, after all, parties abroad were always much grander than
+that "seeing a few friends" in Holland, addressing all her remarks
+to Mamma and, in words just tinged with ostentation, displaying no
+small scorn for Bertha's dinners and Adolphine's "little evenings:"
+
+"Everything here is on such a small scale," she continued. "There,
+the first thing you see is a suite of twelve rooms, all with electric
+light ... or, better still, all lit up with wax-candles.... Yes, our
+little social efforts at the Hague cut a very poor figure beside it."
+
+She gave a contemptuous little laugh to annoy her sisters, while Mamma,
+always interested in the doings of the great, did not notice the
+contempt and was glad enough to see that the sisters behaved as usual
+to one another. And now Constance went on to say that everything had
+gone on so well at home, that Truitje had looked after everything, even
+though Constance had gone away indefinitely, an unprecedented thing,
+so unlike a Dutch housewife! Then she turned to her sisters with an
+indifferent phrase or two; and they answered her almost cordially,
+out of respect for Mamma....
+
+Adolphine was the first to leave, exasperated by Constance'
+insufferable tone, by all that talk about Nice, all those counts and
+dukes whom Constance had mentioned; and, when Constance said good-bye,
+Bertha also left and they went down the stairs together.
+
+"Constance," said Bertha, "can I speak to you a minute in the
+cloak-room?"
+
+Constance looked up haughtily, surprised; but she did not like to
+refuse. They went into the little cloak-room.
+
+"Constance," said Bertha, "I do so want to say that I am sorry for
+what happened between us. Really, it pained me very much. And I want
+to tell you also that Van Naghel greatly appreciated Van der Welcke's
+writing to him to apologize. He has written to Van der Welcke to say
+so. But we should both like to call on you one day, to show you how
+glad we should be to come back to the old terms once more."
+
+"Bertha," said Constance, a little impatiently and wearily, "I am
+prepared to receive your visit, but I should really like to know what
+is the good of it and why you suggest it. Do let us have some sincerity
+... when there is no occasion for hypocrisy. Sometimes one has to be
+insincere ... but there is no need for that between us now. We both
+know that our mutual sympathy, if it ever existed, is dead. We never
+meet except at Mamma's and we don't let her see our estrangement. Apart
+from that, it seems to me that things are over between us."
+
+"So you would rather that Van Naghel and I did not come?"
+
+"It's not for me to decide, Bertha: I shall speak about it to Van
+der Welcke and write you a line."
+
+"Is that cold answer all you have to say to me, Constance?"
+
+"Bertha, a little time ago, I was not backward in showing my affection
+for you all. Perhaps I asked too much in return; but, in any case,
+I was repulsed. And now I retire. That is all."
+
+"Constance, you don't know how sorry we all are that the old aunts
+... spoke as they did. They are foolish old women, Constance; they
+are in their second childhood. Mamma had to take to her bed, her
+nerves are still quite upset; she can't bear to see her sisters now;
+and it sometimes sends her almost out of her mind. I have never seen
+her like it before. And we are all of us, all of us, Constance, very,
+very sorry."
+
+"Bertha, those two old women only yelled out at the top of their
+voices, as deaf people do, what the rest of you thought in your
+hearts."
+
+"Come, Constance, don't be so bitter. You are hard and unjust. I swear
+that you are mistaken. It is not as you think. Let me show it to you
+in the future, let me prove it to you ... and please speak to Van der
+Welcke and write and tell me a day when we shall find you at home,
+so that Van Naghel can shake hands with Van der Welcke. He is not
+a young man, Constance, and your husband is under forty. It's true,
+Van der Welcke has apologized and Van Naghel appreciates it, but that
+doesn't prevent him from wishing to shake hands with Van der Welcke."
+
+"I'll tell my husband, Bertha. But I don't know that he will think it
+so necessary to shake hands, any more than I do. We live very quietly
+now, Bertha, and people, Hague people, no longer concern us. And Van
+Naghel only wants to shake hands because of people."
+
+"And because of the old friendship."
+
+"Very well, Bertha," said Constance, coldly, "because of the old
+friendship: a vague term that says very little to me. What I wished
+for was brotherly and sisterly affection, cordial companionship. That
+is no longer possible: it was a foolish fancy of mine, which has gone
+forever. But, as I said, I shall speak to Van der Welcke."
+
+They came out into the hall; the maid was waiting at the door. It
+was raining. Bertha's carriage was outside, had been sent to fetch her.
+
+"Shall I drop you on my way, Constance?"
+
+"No, thank you, Bertha; the fresh air will do me good; I'd rather
+walk."
+
+And, as she walked, she thought:
+
+"Oh, why did I go on like that to annoy them? And why didn't I welcome
+Bertha's visit at once?... It's all so small, so petty...."
+
+And she shrugged her shoulders under her umbrella, laughed at herself
+a little, because she had shown herself so petty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+At Addie's wish, at the little schoolboy's wish, the Van der Welckes
+responded to Van Naghel's advances and Constance sent a note. The
+visit was paid and the brothers-in-law shook hands. Van der Welcke
+himself shrugged his shoulders over the whole business; but Addie
+was pleased, started going for walks again with Frans and spoke to
+Karel again at the grammar-school, though he did not much care for
+him. Two days later, Marianne called in the afternoon, when the rain
+was coming down in torrents. Constance was at home. The girl stood
+in the door-way of the drawing-room:
+
+"May I come in, Auntie?..."
+
+"Of course, Marianne, do."
+
+"I don't like to: I'm rather wet."
+
+"Nonsense, come in!"
+
+And the girl suddenly ran in and threw herself on her knees beside
+Constance, almost with a scream:
+
+"I am so glad, I am so glad!" she cried.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"That Uncle wrote to Papa ... that Papa and Mamma have been here
+... that everything is all right again.... It was so dreadful; it
+kept me from sleeping. I kept on thinking about it. It was a sort
+of nightmare, an obsession. Auntie, dear Auntie, is everything all
+right now?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, child."
+
+"Really all right?... Are you coming to us again ... and may I come
+and see you ... and will you ask me to dinner again soon? Is everything
+all right, really all right?"
+
+She snuggled up to her aunt like a child, putting her head against
+Constance' knees, stroking her hands:
+
+"You will ask me again soon, Auntie, won't you? I love coming to
+you, I simply love it. I should have missed it so, I can't tell you
+how much...."
+
+Her voice broke, as she knelt by Constance' side, and she suddenly
+burst into tears, sobbing out her words so excitedly that Constance
+was startled, thinking it almost unnatural, absurd:
+
+"I was nearly coming to you before Papa and Mamma had been.... But I
+didn't dare.... I was afraid Papa would be angry.... But I can come
+now, it's all right now...."
+
+"Yes, it's all right now...."
+
+She kissed Marianne. But the door opened and Van der Welcke entered.
+
+"How do you do, Uncle?"
+
+He always thought it odd when Marianne called him uncle, just like
+that:
+
+"Is it you, Marianne?... Constance, did I leave my Figaro down here?"
+
+"The Figaro? No...."
+
+He hunted for his paper and then sat down.
+
+"Uncle," said Marianne, "I've just been telling Auntie, I'm so glad,
+I'm so glad that everything's settled."
+
+"So am I, Marianne."
+
+Outside, the rain came pelting down, lashed by the howling
+wind. Inside, all was cosiness, with Constance pouring out the tea
+and telling them about Nice, while Marianne talked about Emilie and
+Van Raven and how they were not getting on very well together and
+how Otto and Frances were also beginning to squabble and how Mamma
+took it all to heart and allowed it to depress her:
+
+"I sha'n't get married," she said. "I see nothing but unhappy marriages
+around me. I sha'n't get married."
+
+Then she started. She had a knack of behaving awkwardly and tactlessly,
+of saying things which she ought not to say. Van der Welcke looked
+at her, smiling. To make up for her indiscretion, she was more
+demonstrative than ever, profuse in exclamations of delight:
+
+"Oh, Auntie, how glad I am to be with you once more!... I must be
+off presently in the rain.... I wish I could stay...."
+
+"But stay and dine," said Van der Welcke.
+
+Constance hesitated: she saw that Marianne would like to stop on
+and she did not know what to do, did not wish to seem ungracious;
+and yet....
+
+"Will you stay to dinner?" she asked.
+
+Marianne beamed with joy:
+
+"Oh, I should love to, Auntie! Mamma knows I'm here; she'll
+understand...."
+
+Constance was sorry that she had asked her; her nerves were feeling
+the strain of it all; but she was determined to control herself,
+to behave naturally and ordinarily. She could see it plainly: they
+were too fond of each other!
+
+They were in love! Long before, she had seemed to guess it, when she
+saw them together, at her little dinners. The veriest trifle--an
+intonation of voice, a laughing phrase, the passing of a dish of
+fruit--had made her seem to guess it. Then the vague thought that went
+through her mind, like a little cloud, would vanish at once, leaving
+not even a shadow behind it. But the cloud had come drifting again and
+again, brought by a gesture, a glance, a how-do-you-do or good-bye,
+an appointment for a bicycle ride. On such occasions, the brothers had
+always gone too--so had Addie--and there had never been anything that
+was in the least incorrect; and at the little dinners there was never
+a joke that went too far, nor an attempt at flirtation, nor the very
+least resemblance to love-making. And therefore those vague thoughts
+had always drifted away again, like clouds; and Constance would think:
+
+"There is nothing, there is nothing. I am mistaken. I am imagining
+something that doesn't exist."
+
+She had not seen them together for two months; and she knew, had
+understood from a word dropped here and there, that Van der Welcke had
+not seen Marianne during those two months which had passed since that
+Sunday evening. And now, suddenly, she was struck by it: the shy,
+almost glad hesitation while the girl was standing at the door of
+Constance' drawing-room; her unconcealed delight at being able to
+come back to this house; the almost unnatural joy with which she
+had sobbed at Constance' knee ... until Van der Welcke came in,
+after doubtless recognizing the sound of her voice in his little
+smoking-room, as transparent as a child, with his clumsy excuse of
+searching for a newspaper. And now at once she was struck by it: the
+almost insuppressible affection with which they had greeted each other,
+with a certain smiling radiance that beamed from them, involuntarily,
+irresistibly, unconsciously.... But still Constance thought:
+
+"I am mistaken, there is nothing; and I am imagining something that
+doesn't exist."
+
+And the thought passed away, that they were really in love with
+each other; only this time there remained a faint wonder, a doubt,
+which had never been there before. And, while she talked about Nice,
+it struck her that Van der Welcke was still there ... that he was
+staying on in her drawing-room, a thing which he never did except
+when Paul was there, or Gerrit.... He sat on, without saying much;
+but that happy smile never left his lips.... Yet she still thought:
+
+"I am mistaken; it is only imagination; there is nothing, or at most
+a little mutual attraction; and what harm is there in that?"
+
+But, be this as it might, she, who was so jealous where her son
+was concerned, now felt not the least shade of jealousy amid her
+wondering doubts. Yes, it was all gone, any love, passion, sentiment
+that she had ever entertained for Henri. It was quite dead.... And,
+now that he smiled like that, she noticed, with a sort of surprise,
+how young he was:
+
+"He is thirty-eight," she thought, "and looks even younger."
+
+As he sat there, calmly, always with the light of a smile on
+his face, it struck her that he was very young, with a healthy,
+youthful freshness, and that he had not a wrinkle, not a grey hair
+in his head.... His blue eyes were almost the eyes of a child. Even
+Addie's eyes, though they were like his father's, were more serious,
+had an older look.... And, at the sight of that youthfulness,
+she thought herself old, even though she was now showing Marianne
+the pretty photograph from Nice.... Yes, she felt old; and she was
+hardly surprised--if it was so, if she was not mistaken--at that
+youthfulness in her husband and at his possible love for that young
+girl.... Marianne's youth seemed to be nearer to his own youth.... And
+sometimes it was so evident that she almost ceased doubting and
+promised herself to be careful, not to encourage Marianne, not to
+invite her any more....
+
+Unconscious: was it unconscious, thought Constance, on their part? Had
+they ever exchanged a more affectionate word, a pressure of the hand,
+a glance? Had they already confessed it to each other ... and to
+themselves? And a delicate intuition told her:
+
+"No, they have confessed nothing to each other; no, they have not
+even confessed anything to themselves."
+
+Perhaps neither of them knew it yet; and, if so, Constance was the
+only one who knew. She looked at Marianne: the girl was very young,
+even though she had been out a year or two. She had something of
+Emilie's fragility, but she was more natural, franker; and that
+natural frankness showed in her whole attitude: she seemed not
+to think, but to allow herself to be dragged along by impulse,
+by sentiment.... She looked out with her smile at the pelting rain,
+nestled deeper in her chair, luxuriously, like a kitten, then suddenly
+jumped up, poured out a cup of tea for Constance and herself; and,
+when Van der Welcke begged his wife's leave to smoke a cigarette,
+she sprang up again, struck a match, held the light to him, with a
+fragile grace of gesture like a little statue. Her pale-brown eyes,
+with a touch of gold-dust over them, were like chrysolite; and they
+gazed up enthusiastically and then cast their glance downwards timidly,
+under the shade of their lids. She was pale, with the anaemic pallor
+of alabaster, the pallor of our jaded society-girls; and her hands
+moved feverishly and restlessly, as though the fingers were constantly
+seeking an object for their butterfly sensitiveness....
+
+Was it so? Or was it all Constance' imagination? And, amidst her
+wondering doubts, there came suddenly--if it really was so--a spasm
+of jealousy; but not jealousy of her husband's love: jealousy of
+his youth. She suddenly looked back fifteen years and felt herself
+grown old, felt him remaining young. Life, real life, for which she
+sometimes had a vague yearning, while she felt herself too old for it,
+after frittering away her days: that life he would perhaps still be
+able to live, if he met with it. He at least was not too old for it!
+
+It all filled her with a passion of misery and anger; and then again
+she thought:
+
+"No, there is nothing; and I am imagining all manner of things that
+do not exist."
+
+Addie came home; and, with the rain pelting outside, there was a
+gentle cosiness indoors, at table. Constance was silent, but the
+others were cheerful. And, when, after tea had been served, the fury
+out of doors seemed to have subsided, Marianne stood up, almost too
+unwilling to go away:
+
+"It's time for me to go, Auntie...."
+
+"Shall Addie see you home?"
+
+"No, Addie's working," said Van der Welcke. "I'll see Marianne home."
+
+Constance said nothing.
+
+"Oh, Auntie," said Marianne, "I am so glad that everything's settled!"
+
+She kissed Constance passionately.
+
+"Uncle, isn't it a nuisance for you to go all that way with me?"
+
+"I wish I had a bicycle for you!..."
+
+"Yes, if only we had our tandem here!"
+
+"It's stopped raining; we shall be able to walk."
+
+They went, leaving Constance alone. Her eyes were eager to follow them
+along the street. She could not help herself, softly opened a window,
+looked out into the damp winter night. She saw them go towards the
+Bankastraat. They were walking side by side, quite ordinarily. She
+watched them for a minute or two, until they turned the corner:
+
+"No," she said, "there is nothing. Oh, it would be too dreadful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Van der Welcke and Marianne went side by side.
+
+"How deliciously fresh it is now," she almost carolled. "The wind
+has gone down and the air is lovely; and look, how beautiful the
+sky is with those last black clouds.... Oh, I think it so ripping,
+that everything's all right again between you and Papa! I did feel it
+so. You know how fond I am of both of you, Aunt Constance and you,
+and of Addie; and it was all so sad.... Tell me, does Auntie still
+feel bitter about it? I expect she does.... Ah, I understand quite well
+now ... that she would have liked to come to our house ... officially,
+let me say! But why not first have spoken to Mamma ... or to me, who
+am so fond of you? Then we could have seen: we might have thought
+of something. As it was, Mamma was so startled by that unexpected
+visit.... Poor Aunt Constance, she isn't happy! How sad that you and
+she aren't happier together! Oh, I could cry about it at times: it
+seems such a shame!... A man and woman married ... and then ... and
+then what I so often see!... I oughtn't to have said what I did before
+dinner, it was stupid of me; but I may speak now, mayn't I?... Oh, I
+sha'n't marry, I won't marry!... To be married like Otto and Frances,
+like Emilie and Van Raven: I think it dreadful. Or like you and Auntie:
+I should think it dreadful. Can't you be happier together? Not even for
+Addie's sake? I wish you could; it would make me so happy. I can't bear
+it, when you and Auntie quarrel.... She was sweet and gentle to-night,
+but so very quiet. She is so nice.... That was a mad fit of hers, to
+go abroad so suddenly; but then she had had so much to vex her. Oh,
+those two old aunts: I could have murdered them! I can hear them
+now!... Poor Auntie! Do try and be a little nice to her.... Has this
+been going on between you for years? Don't you love each other any
+longer?... No, I sha'n't marry, I sha'n't marry, I shall never marry."
+
+"Come, Marianne: if some one comes along whom you get to love...."
+
+"No, I shall never marry.... I might expect too much of my husband. I
+should really want to find something beautiful, some great joy, in my
+love ... and to marry for the sake of marrying, like Frances or Emilie,
+is a thing I couldn't, couldn't do.... Otto is fonder of Louise than of
+his wife; and lately Emilie and Henri are inseparable.... In our family
+there has always been that affection between brother and sister. But
+it is too strong, far too strong. It doesn't make them happy. I've
+never felt it in that way, fond as I am of my brothers.... No, I
+should place the man I love above everybody, above everybody.... But
+I suppose you're laughing ... at my bread-and-butter notions...."
+
+"No, I'm not laughing, Marianne; and, just as you would like to
+see Aunt Constance and me happy, so I should like to see you happy
+... with a man whom you loved."
+
+"That will never be, Uncle; no, that will never be."
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"Oh, I feel it, I feel it!..."
+
+"Come, I'll have a bet on it," he said, laughingly.
+
+"No, Uncle," she said, with a pained smile, "I won't bet on a thing
+like that...."
+
+"I didn't mean to hurt you, Marianne...."
+
+"I know that...."
+
+"But you mustn't be so melancholy, at your age. You're so young...."
+
+"Twenty-one. That's quite old."
+
+"Old! Old! What about me?"
+
+She laughed:
+
+"Oh, you're young! A man...."
+
+"Is always young?"
+
+"Not always. But you are."
+
+"A young uncle?"
+
+"Yes, a young uncle.... A woman gets old quicker...."
+
+"So, when you're old and I am still young, we shall be about the
+same age."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"What a calculation! No, you're older. But age doesn't go by years."
+
+"No. I sometimes have very young wishes. Do you know what I have been
+longing for since yesterday, like a baby, like a boy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"A motor-car."
+
+She laughed, with a laugh like little tinkling bells:
+
+"A motor-car?"
+
+"Wouldn't it be delightful? To go tearing and tearing over fields
+and roads, through clouds of dust...."
+
+"You're becoming poetic!"
+
+"Yes, it's making me poetic...."
+
+"And the smell of the petrol?... The mask and goggles against the
+dust?... The hideous dress?..."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing!... To tear and fly along, faster and faster,
+at a mad pace...."
+
+"I have never been in a motor-car...." [1]
+
+"I have, in Brussels, in a friend's car. There's nothing to come up
+to it."
+
+Her laugh tinkled out again:
+
+"Yes, now you're most certainly like a boy!"
+
+"I'm so young?"
+
+"O young Uncle!"
+
+"You oughtn't to call me uncle, Marianne: I'm too young for it."
+
+The tinkling bells:
+
+"What am I to call you then?"
+
+"Anything you like. Not uncle."
+
+"Nunkie?"
+
+"No, no...."
+
+"But I can't call you Henri ... or Van der Welcke?"
+
+"No, that's too difficult. Better say nothing."
+
+The tinkling bells:
+
+"Nothing. Very well.... But am I to say U or je?" [2]
+
+"Say je."
+
+"But it seems so funny ... before people!"
+
+"People, people! You can't always bother about people."
+
+"But I have to: I'm a girl!"
+
+"Oh, Marianne, people are always a nuisance!"
+
+"A desert island would be the thing."
+
+"Yes, a desert island...."
+
+"With a motor-car...."
+
+"And just you and me."
+
+They both laughed; and her little bells tinkled through his boyish
+laugh.
+
+"What a perfect night!"
+
+"Perfect: the air is so crisp...."
+
+"Marianne...."
+
+"Yes, Uncle...."
+
+"No, not uncle.... You must be my little friend.... Not a
+niece.... I've never had a girl-friend."
+
+"Your little friend?... But I am!"
+
+"Well, that's all right."
+
+"Look, how dark it is in the Wood.... People say it's dangerous. Is
+it, Uncle? No, I didn't mean to say uncle...."
+
+"Sometimes. Are you frightened? Take my arm."
+
+"No, I'm not frightened."
+
+"Come, take my arm."
+
+"I don't mind...."
+
+"We shall be home in a minute."
+
+"If only Mamma isn't angry with me, for staying out.... Are you
+coming in?"
+
+"No ... no...."
+
+"Not because you're still angry with us?"
+
+"No, I'm not angry."
+
+"That's all right. Oh, I am glad! I should like to give you a motor
+for making me so happy!"
+
+"Those old tin kettles cost a lot of money...."
+
+"Poor Uncle! No, I don't mean uncle...."
+
+"Here we are."
+
+He rang the bell.
+
+"Thank you for seeing me home."
+
+"Good-night, Marianne."
+
+The butler opened the door; she went in. He trotted back, whistling
+like a boy.
+
+"Wherever have you been, Marianne?" asked Bertha.
+
+"I stayed to dinner at Aunt Constance'."
+
+"I was anxious about you," said Bertha.
+
+But she was glad that Constance had been so gracious.
+
+"Who brought you home?"
+
+"Uncle."
+
+She ran up to her room. She looked in the glass, as though to read
+her own eyes. There she read her secret:
+
+"God help me!" she thought. "I oughtn't to have gone. I oughtn't to
+have gone. I was too weak, too weak.... Oh, if only they had never made
+it up, Papa and ... he!... Oh dear! I shall never go there again. It's
+the last time, the last time.... O God, help me, help me!..."
+
+She sank into a chair and sat with her face hidden in her hands,
+not weeping, her happiness still shedding its dying rays around her,
+but with a rising agony; and she remained like that for a long time,
+with her eyes closed, as though she were dreaming and suffering, both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+"And who do you think's in town?" Van Vreeswijck asked Van der Welcke,
+as they were walking together.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Brauws."
+
+"Brauws?"
+
+"Max Brauws."
+
+"Max? Never! What, Leiden Max?"
+
+"Yes, Leiden Max. I hadn't seen him for years."
+
+"Nor I, of course. And what is he doing?"
+
+"Well, that's a difficult question to answer. Shall I say, being
+eccentric?"
+
+"Eccentric? In what way?"
+
+"Oh, in the things he does. First one thing and then another. He's
+giving lectures now. In fact, he's a Bohemian."
+
+"Have you spoken to him?"
+
+"Yes, he asked after you."
+
+"I should like to see him. Does he belong to the Witte?"
+
+"No, I don't think so."
+
+"He's a mad fellow. Always was mad. An interesting chap, though. And
+a good sort. Has he money?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where is he staying?"
+
+"In rooms, in the Buitenhof."
+
+"We're close by. Let's go and see if he's in."
+
+Brauws was not in. And Van der Welcke left a card for his old
+college-chum, with a pencilled word.
+
+A fortnight passed; and Van der Welcke began to feel annoyed:
+
+"I've heard nothing from Brauws," he said to Van Vreeswijck.
+
+"I haven't seen him either."
+
+"Perhaps he's offended about something."
+
+"Nonsense, Brauws isn't that sort."
+
+Van der Welcke was silent. Since the scene with the family, he was
+unduly sensitive, thinking that people were unfriendly, that they
+avoided him.
+
+"Well, if he wants to ignore my card, let him!" he said, angrily. "He
+can go to the devil, for all I care!"
+
+But, a couple of days later, when Van der Welcke was smoking in his
+little room, Truitje brought in a card.
+
+"Brauws!" exclaimed Van der Welcke.
+
+And he rushed outside:
+
+"Come upstairs, old chap!" he shouted, from the landing.
+
+In the hall stood a big, quiet man, looking up with a smile round
+his thick moustache.
+
+"May I come up?"
+
+"Yes, yes, come up. Upon my word, Max, I am glad...."
+
+Brauws came upstairs; the two men gripped each other's hands.
+
+"Welckje!" said Brauws. "Mad Hans!"
+
+Van der Welcke laughed:
+
+"Yes, those were my nicknames. My dear chap, what an age since we...."
+
+He took him to his den, made him sit down, produced cigars.
+
+"No, thanks, I don't smoke. I'm glad to see you. Why, Hans, you haven't
+changed a bit. You're a little stouter; and that's all. Just look at
+the fellow! You could pass for your own son. How old are you? You're
+thirty-eight ... getting on for thirty-nine. And now just look at
+me. I'm three years your senior; but I look old enough to be your
+father."
+
+Van der Welcke laughed, pleased and flattered by the compliment paid
+to his youth. Their Leiden memories came up; they reminded each other
+of a score of incidents, speaking and laughing together in unfinished,
+breathless sentences which they understood at once.
+
+"And what have you been doing all this time?"
+
+"Oh, a lot! Too much to tell you all at once. And you?"
+
+"I? Nothing, nothing. You know I'm married?"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Brauws. "But what do you do? You're in a
+government-office, I suppose?"
+
+"No, Lord no, old fellow! Nothing, I just do nothing. I cycle."
+
+They both laughed. Brauws looked at his old college-friend, almost
+paternally, with a quiet smile.
+
+"The beggar hasn't changed an atom," he said. "Yes, now that I look
+at you again, I see something here and there. But you've remained
+Welckje, for all that...."
+
+"But not Mad Hans," sighed Van der Welcke.
+
+"Vreeswijck has become a great swell," said Brauws. "And the others?"
+
+"Greater swells still."
+
+"Not you?"
+
+"No, not I. Do you cycle?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Have you a motor-car?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That's a pity. I should like to have a motor. But I can't afford
+one of those sewing-machines."
+
+Brauws roared with laughter:
+
+"Why don't you start saving up for one?"
+
+"No, old chap, no...."
+
+"I say, do you know what's a funny thing? While you were living in
+Brussels, I too was living just outside Brussels."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Yes, I was."
+
+"And we never met?"
+
+"I so seldom went into town. If I had known...."
+
+"But what a pity!"
+
+"Yes. And what's still funnier is that, when you were on the Riviera,
+I was there too."
+
+"Look here, old fellow, you're kidding me!"
+
+"I never knew till later that you were there also that year. But you
+were at Monte Carlo and I at Antibes. Just compare the dates."
+
+They compared dates: Brauws was right.
+
+"But that was horribly unlucky."
+
+"It couldn't be helped. However, we've found each other now."
+
+"Yes. We must see something of each other now, eh? Let's go cycling
+together ... or buy a motor-car between us."
+
+Brauws roared with laughter again:
+
+"Happy devil!" he shouted.
+
+"I?" cried Van der Welcke, a little huffed. "What's there happy about
+me? I sometimes feel very miserable, very miserable indeed."
+
+Brauws understood that he was referring to his marriage.
+
+"Here's my boy," said Van der Welcke, showing Addie's photograph.
+
+"A good face. What's he going to be?"
+
+"He's going into the diplomatic service. I say, shall we take
+a stroll?"
+
+"No, I'd rather sit here and talk."
+
+"You're just as placid as ever...."
+
+Brauws laughed:
+
+"Outwardly, perhaps," he said. "Inwardly, I'm anything but placid."
+
+"Have you been abroad much?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you do?"
+
+"Much ... and perhaps nothing. I am seeking...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I can't explain it in a few words. Perhaps later, when we've seen
+more of each other."
+
+"You're the same queer chap that you always were. What are you seeking?"
+
+"Something."
+
+"There's our old oracle. 'Something!' You were always fond of those
+short words."
+
+"The universe lies in a word."
+
+"Max, I can't follow you, if you go on like that. I never could,
+you know."
+
+"Tell me about yourself now, about Rome, about Brussels."
+
+Van der Welcke, smoking, described his life, more or less briefly,
+through the blue clouds of his cigarette. Brauws listened:
+
+"Yes," he said. "Women...."
+
+He had a habit of not finishing his sentences, or of saying only a
+single word.
+
+"And what have women done to you?" asked Van der Welcke, gaily.
+
+Brauws laughed:
+
+"Nothing much," he said, jestingly. "Not worth talking about. There
+have been many women in my life ... and yet they were not there."
+
+Van der Welcke reflected.
+
+"Women," he said, pensively. "Sometimes, you know...."
+
+"Hans, are you in love?"
+
+"No, no!" said Van der Welcke, starting. "No, I've been fairly good."
+
+"Fairly good?"
+
+"Yes, only fairly..."
+
+"You're in love," said Brauws, decisively.
+
+"You're mad!" said Van der Welcke. "I wasn't thinking of
+myself.... And, now, what are you doing in the Hague?"
+
+Brauws laughed:
+
+"I'm going to give lectures, not only here, but all over Holland."
+
+"Lectures?" cried Van der Welcke, in astonishment. "What made you
+think of that? Do you do it to make money? Don't you find it a bore
+to stand jawing in front of a lot of people for an hour at a time?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Brauws. "I'm lecturing on Peace."
+
+"Peace?" cried Van der Welcke, his blue orbs shining in wide-eyed young
+amazement through the blue haze of his cigarette-smoke. "What Peace?"
+
+"Peace, simply."
+
+"You're getting at me," cried Van der Welcke.
+
+Brauws roared; and Van der Welcke too. They laughed for quite a minute
+or two.
+
+"Hans," said Brauws, "how is it possible for any one to change as
+little as you have done? In all these years! You are just as incapable
+as in the old days of believing in anything serious."
+
+"If you imagine that there's been nothing serious in my life," said
+Van der Welcke, vexed.
+
+And, with great solemnity, he once more told his friend about
+Constance, about his marriage, his shattered career.
+
+Brauws smiled.
+
+"You laugh, as if it all didn't matter!" cried Van der Welcke, angrily.
+
+"What does anything matter?" said Brauws.
+
+"And your old Peace?"
+
+"Very little as yet, at any rate.... Perhaps later.... Luckily,
+there's the future."
+
+But Van der Welcke shrugged his shoulders and demolished Peace in a
+few ready-made sentences: there would always be war; it was one of
+those Utopian ideas....
+
+Brauws only smiled.
+
+"You must come and dine one day, to meet Vreeswijck," said Van
+der Welcke.
+
+Brauws' smile disappeared suddenly:
+
+"No, my dear fellow, honestly...."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I'm not the man for dinners."
+
+"It won't be a dinner. Only Vreeswijck. My wife will be very pleased."
+
+"Yes, but I shall be putting your wife out...."
+
+"Not a bit. I'll see if she's at home and introduce you to her."
+
+"No, my dear fellow, no, honestly.... I'm no ladies' man. I'm nothing
+of a drawing-room person. I never know what to say."
+
+"You surely haven't grown shy!"
+
+"Yes, almost. With ladies ... I really don't know what to say. No,
+old chap, honestly....."
+
+His voice was full of anxious dismay.
+
+"I think it's mean of you, to refuse to come and dine with us,
+quite quietly."
+
+"Yes ... and then it'll be a dinner of twenty people. I know."
+
+"I shouldn't know where to get them from. We see nobody. Nobody."
+
+"No, no.... Well, yes, perhaps later."
+
+He raised his hand deprecatingly, almost impatiently:
+
+"Come," he said, "let's go for a walk."
+
+And, as though fearing lest Van der Welcke should still find a moment
+to introduce him to his wife, Brauws hurried him down the stairs. Once
+outside, he breathed again, recovered his usual placidity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+"I went last night with Van Vreeswijck to hear Brauws speak
+at Diligentia," said Van der Welcke, one morning. "The fellow's
+inspired. He speaks extempore and magnificently; he's an orator. A
+splendid fellow, the way he spoke: it was astounding.... I knew
+him years ago at Leiden. He was a queer chap even then. He did
+not belong to any particular club, not to ours either: his family
+is nothing out of the way. His father has a factory, I believe,
+somewhere in Overijssel. He himself has nothing of the tradesman
+about him. He used to coach us dull beggars and help us get up our
+examinations. I should never have passed without him. He knows about
+everything, he's not only good at law. He's read everything; he has a
+tremendous memory. He's travelled a lot and done all sorts of things,
+but I can't find out exactly what. Now he's lecturing. This evening,
+he's lecturing in Amsterdam. I asked him to dinner, but he refuses
+to come, says he's shy with ladies. Silly fellow!"
+
+The newspapers printed lengthy reports of Brauws' speeches on
+Peace. He spoke in all the large Dutch towns and in many of the
+smaller ones. When he was to speak at the Hague for the second time,
+Van der Welcke said, excitedly:
+
+"Constance, you must absolutely go and hear Brauws this evening. He's
+grand. You know, I can never listen to any one for more than a quarter
+of an hour...."
+
+"Nor I for more than three minutes," said Paul, who was there. "But
+I love to talk for an hour on end myself."
+
+"But Brauws: the fellow electrifies you. Though I think that Peace
+idea of his all rot. But that makes no difference: the chap speaks
+magnificently.... I'm dining with Van Vreeswijck and we're going
+on together."
+
+Paul asked Constance to go with him. That evening, the little hall
+of Diligentia--the proceeds were to go to the fund for the Boer
+wounded--was full: Constance and Paul had difficulty in finding seats.
+
+"All sorts of people," Paul observed. "A curious audience. An olla
+podrida of every set in the Hague. Here and there, the very select
+people have turned up, no doubt brought by Van Vreeswijck: look, there
+are the Van der Heuvel Steijns; and there's the French minister;
+and there, as I live, is Van Naghel, with his colleague from the
+Treasury.... And look, there's Isidore the hairdresser.... A bit of
+everything, a bit of everything.... How brotherly and sisterly the
+Hague has become this evening: it makes me feel quite sentimental!"
+
+Brauws made his entrance, to faint applause.
+
+"The fellow's not in evening-dress; he's wearing a frock-coat. I
+suppose he's playing the demagogue or the preacher."
+
+But he had to stop, for Brauws at once began to speak from the
+rostrum. He had nothing with him, not a note; and his voice was firm
+but very gentle. He began with a masterly exposition of the present
+political situation, sketching it in broad outlines, like an enormous
+picture, for all those people in front of him. His voice became
+clearer; his eyes looked through the hall, steady and bright, like two
+shining stars. Constance, who seldom read any political news, listened,
+was at once interested, wondered vaguely for a moment that she lived
+like that, from day to day, without knowing the times in which she
+lived. The present took shape before her in those few sentences of
+Brauws'. Then he spoke of Peace, which would be essential sooner or
+later, which was already making its joyous way into the mind of the
+nations, even though they were actually still waging war upon one
+another. It was as though wide and radiant vistas opened under his
+words; and his voice, at first so gentle, now rang through the hall,
+triumphantly confirming the glad tidings. He spoke without pausing,
+for two hours on end; and, when he stopped, the hall was breathless
+for a moment, the audience forgot to cheer. Then indeed applause
+burst forth, jubilant; but by that time Brauws was gone. They called
+him back, but he did not return; and the audience streamed out.
+
+Constance and Paul were in the crush, when they saw Van Vreeswijck
+and Van der Welcke behind them.
+
+"Mevrouw," said Van Vreeswijck, bowing. "What do you think of our
+friend?"
+
+"Wonderful," said Constance, excitedly.
+
+"The fellow speaks well," said Paul, "but he is too earnest. He means
+all he says. People don't like that in the long run."
+
+Van der Welcke protested vehemently, as he pushed through the
+close-packed crowd, and declared that he was converted, that he
+believed in Peace.
+
+They reached the street: the hum of the crowd floated through the
+wintry air.
+
+"How excited our stolid Haguers are!" said Paul.
+
+"There's our man," said Van Vreeswijck.
+
+"Yes, there he is!" exclaimed Van der Welcke.
+
+And he darted forwards, stopped Brauws, who was walking fast and saw
+nobody, and seized his hand. The others drew near. Van Vreeswijck,
+out of politeness, stayed by Constance, waved his hand to Brauws. Van
+der Welcke was in a great state of excitement:
+
+"Where are you going?" they heard him ask Brauws. "To the Witte?"
+
+"No, my dear fellow, home."
+
+"Home? Can you go home now? Won't you come to the Witte? I say,
+do let me introduce you to my wife, to my brother-in-law...."
+
+Brauws started:
+
+"No, Hans, honestly.... No, no.... What's the good?..."
+
+Constance heard and could not help smiling. She walked on with Van
+Vreeswijck and Paul.
+
+"Yes, yes," Van der Welcke insisted.
+
+Brauws no doubt realized that Constance had heard, for he said,
+in a voice of despair:
+
+"Very well then, Hans...."
+
+"Constance! Paul!" cried Van der Welcke, proud of his friend, and
+caught them up.
+
+He would have liked to introduce Brauws to the whole world, to the
+whole audience streaming out of Diligentia.
+
+"Let me introduce you: my friend, Max Brauws; my wife; my
+brother-in-law, Van Lowe."
+
+They shook hands. Brauws remained standing in front of Constance,
+shyly and awkwardly. She tried to pay him a compliment that would
+not sound too obvious; and, like the tactful woman that she was, she
+succeeded. Paul also said something; they walked on, Van Vreeswijck
+silently amused at Van der Welcke's excitement and Brauws' awkwardness.
+
+"And are you really going home? Won't you come to the Witte?" Van
+der Welcke urged, in imploring tones.
+
+"My dear Hans, what would you have me do at the Witte?"
+
+"So you're going home."
+
+"Yes, I'm going home, but I'll walk a bit of the way with you."
+
+And, wishing to appear polite, he bowed vaguely to Constance, but
+said nothing more.
+
+It was a delightful winter evening, with a sharp frost and a sky full
+of twinkling stars.
+
+"I love walking," said Constance. "When I've heard anything
+fine--music, a play, or a speech like to-night's--I would much rather
+walk than rattle home in a cab."
+
+"My dear fellow!" cried Van der Welcke, still bubbling over with
+enthusiasm. "You've converted me! I believe in it, I believe in that
+Peace of yours!"
+
+Brauws gave a sudden bellow.
+
+"There, now the chap's laughing at me again!" said Van der Welcke,
+in an injured tone.
+
+"Well," said Brauws, "shall I come and fetch you in a motor to-morrow,
+to reward you?"
+
+They all laughed this time.
+
+"Have you got one?" cried Van der Welcke, delightedly.
+
+"No, but I can hire one," said Brauws. "And then you can drive."
+
+"Can you hire one? Can you hire one?" cried Van der Welcke, in
+delighted amazement. "And may I really drive?"
+
+And forgetting all about Peace, he was soon eagerly discussing
+motor-cars and motor-cycles....
+
+When they reached the Kerkhoflaan, Constance asked:
+
+"Won't you all come in?"
+
+Van Vreeswijck and Paul said that they would be glad to come and have
+a glass of wine; but Brauws said:
+
+"Mevrouw, it's so late...."
+
+"Not for us."
+
+"Come along, Max," said Van der Welcke.
+
+But Brauws laughed his queer, soft laugh and said:
+
+"What's the good of my coming in?..."
+
+And he went off, with a shy bow. They all laughed.
+
+"Really, Brauws is impossible," said Van Vreeswijck, indignantly.
+
+"And he's forgotten to tell me at what time he's coming for me with
+his old sewing-machine...."
+
+But next day, very early, in the misty winter morning, the "machine"
+came puffing and snorting and exploding down the Kerkhoflaan and
+stopped at Van der Welcke's door with a succession of deep-drawn
+sighs and spasmodic gasps, as if to take breath after its exertions;
+and this monster as it were of living and breathing iron, odorous of
+petrol--the acrid smell of its sweat--was soon surrounded by a little
+group of butchers'-boys and orange-hawkers. Brauws stepped out; and,
+as Constance happened to be coming downstairs, she received him.
+
+"I'm not fit to be seen, mevrouw. In these 'sewing-machines,' as Hans
+calls them, one becomes unpresentable at once."
+
+He was shy, looked out at the gasping motor-car and smiled at the
+crowd that had gathered round:
+
+"I'm causing quite a tumult outside your door."
+
+"They ought to be used to 'sewing-machines' at the Hague by now."
+
+"That's a very graphic word of Hans'."
+
+They both laughed. She thought his laugh attractive and his voice
+soft and restful to listen to.
+
+"Mevrouw," he said, suddenly, overcoming his bashfulness, "I hope
+you were not angry that I was so ungracious yesterday?..."
+
+"But you weren't at all ungracious."
+
+"Yes, I was, very. But what excuse can I make? I have lost the habit
+... of just talking...."
+
+She smiled:
+
+"To ladies," she said, jokingly.
+
+"Yes, about nothing ... you know ... small talk...."
+
+"You really needn't apologize, Mr. Brauws. You had already said so
+many delightful things last night that I can quite understand...."
+
+"Yes, but I have said nothing this morning and...."
+
+"You wouldn't know what to say ... about nothing. But please don't
+trouble ... and make yourself at home. Henri will be down in a minute;
+he is very worried at not being ready."
+
+In fact, they heard Van der Welcke upstairs, dressing excitedly;
+he was rushing madly round his room and shouting:
+
+"Addie! Addie! Pick me out a tie! Do be quick, boy!"
+
+And Constance rose to go. Brauws stopped her:
+
+"Mevrouw," he said, hurriedly, "Hans asked me to dinner."
+
+"And you refused...."
+
+"Well, you see, I'm such a bear. Don't be angry and don't let Hans
+be angry either and let me come and dine with you one day."
+
+"So you're inviting yourself?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well; we shall be delighted to see you. When will you come?"
+
+"Whenever you like."
+
+"To-morrow?"
+
+"With great pleasure."
+
+"Would you rather come alone, or shall I ask Van Vreeswijck to
+meet you?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, Van Vreeswijck...."
+
+"And nobody else."
+
+"No, nobody. But I mustn't dictate to you."
+
+"Why shouldn't you, in this case?"
+
+Van der Welcke came rushing down the stairs, followed by Addie:
+
+"This is jolly of you, Max! Let's have a look at the old machine. She's
+a first-rater! And here's my boy.... Addie, eat a bit of bread and
+butter, quick; then we'll drop you at your school."
+
+Addie laughed, quietly ate his bread and butter without sitting down:
+
+"I've lots of time," he said.
+
+"So much the better ... we'll drive you round a bit first. Quick,
+quick! Take your bread and butter with you in your hand!"
+
+He rushed like a madman through the dining-room and hall, hunted
+for his hat, couldn't find it, shouted up the stairs, made Truitje
+look all over the place for his gloves, created a breezy draught all
+through the house. At last, he was ready:
+
+"If only I can manage the old sewing-machine! ... Tock-tock-tock-tock,
+tock-tock-tock-tock!... Good-bye, Constance...."
+
+He shoved Addie in front of him, made him get into the car, settled
+himself:
+
+"We're off, Brauws!"
+
+"Good-bye, mevrouw. Till to-morrow then!"
+
+He ran out. Constance looked out of the window: they drove off, with
+Addie between them, waving his hand to her, while Brauws was showing
+Van der Welcke--much too quick, too wild, too impatient--how to work
+the "sewing-machine" and obviously asking him to be careful....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Constance had invited Van Vreeswijck at the last moment and he was
+engaged, so that Brauws was the only guest. Though Constance usually
+gave a deal of thought to her little dinners, she received Brauws quite
+simply, treating him as one of themselves; and Addie dined with them.
+
+"And now tell me what you have been doing all these years?" asked
+Van der Welcke.
+
+Brauws tried to tell him, but kept on hesitating, as though under
+a strange compulsion. His father was a manufacturer, owning big
+iron-works in Overijssel, and still carried on that huge business
+with Brauws' two elder brothers, who were married to two sisters, the
+daughters of another manufacturer, owning a cotton-mill in the same
+district. But Max, who had been a queer boy from a child, had from
+a child felt repelled by all that factory-life of masters and men,
+as he saw it around him; and his father, recognizing his exceptional
+intelligence, had sent him to college, hoping that in this way he would
+carve out an honourable career for himself among his fellow-men. Max
+was fond of study and studied long and hard, for the sake of study. At
+Leiden, he became acquainted with Van Vreeswijck, Van der Welcke and
+other young sprigs of the aristocracy, who would gladly have admitted
+him to their club, putting up with him because he had plenty of money
+to spend and because he was clever and it amused him to help them in
+their examinations. Van der Welcke and Van Vreeswijck had learnt to
+value his friendship, but nevertheless lost sight of him afterwards,
+thinking that he had joined his brothers after all and was managing
+the factory with them. And, even as they, as youths, had hardly
+known their friend more than superficially, so they did not know,
+on leaving Leiden, that Max had not gone to Overijssel--where his
+father would have liked to marry him to the third daughter of the
+father-in-law of his two other sons--but to America, to "seek."
+
+"Well, but to seek what?" Van der Welcke asked, failing to understand
+what a rich youth could want to seek in America, if he did not see
+some idea, some plan, some object plainly outlined before him.
+
+Brauws now confessed that at the time he scarcely knew what he had gone
+to seek, in America. He admitted that his father, the iron-master, had
+hoped that Max would form industrial connections in America which would
+have benefited the factory. But Max had formed no connections at all.
+
+"Then what did you do?" asked Van der Welcke.
+
+And Brauws smiled his strange, gentle smile, in which there gleamed a
+touch of irony and compassion--with himself, or the world, or both--a
+smile which sometimes broke into his big, resonant laugh. He smiled
+and at last said, very slowly:
+
+"But I hardly dare confess to you, my dear Hans, what I did in
+America. I don't talk about that time as a rule, because it all
+sounds so strange, now that I am sitting at table with you and your
+wife and your son. Perhaps, if I tell you what I did do in America,
+Mrs. van der Welcke, after the first shock of surprise, will shudder
+at having invited such a queer person to her table and probably think
+me a very bad example for Addie. So don't let's talk about myself or
+what I did in America."
+
+But Van der Welcke had grown inquisitive:
+
+"No, my dear fellow, you sha'n't get out of it like that. I can't
+imagine that you did anything in America that Addie mustn't hear
+about; and in any case he needn't take you for his model. But I'm
+burning with curiosity and I insist on knowing what you were up to
+in America. Not lecturing on Peace all the time?..."
+
+"No, not even once."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"But, Hans, what's the good of talking about myself to this extent?"
+
+"We're all interested, Mr. Brauws," said Constance. "We certainly
+are. But, if you would rather not talk about those days, we will not
+be indiscreet."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," said Van der Welcke, impatiently. "By Jingo, I will
+be indiscreet. Max, I must know...."
+
+"Well, then," said Max Brauws, very simply and shyly, as though he
+were making an apology. "At the risk of your wife's never asking me
+to her house again: I was a porter."
+
+They all three looked at him and did not understand.
+
+"A porter?" asked Van der Welcke.
+
+"A porter?" asked Constance.
+
+"Yes, mevrouw: just a porter and dock-labourer."
+
+"A dock-labourer?" asked Van der Welcke, thinking, from Max Brauws'
+quiet voice, that he had suddenly gone mad.
+
+"Yes, Hans; and, later on, I worked as a stoker in an iron-works,
+like my father's."
+
+"As a stoker?" asked Constance.
+
+"Yes, mevrouw, as a stoker in a factory. And then, afterwards, as an
+engine-driver. And then--but that was very hard work--I was a miner
+for a short time; but then I fell ill."
+
+"A miner?" asked Van der Welcke, in a blank voice, dazed with
+astonishment.
+
+And at last, recovering from the astonishment, he burst out:
+
+"Look here, Max, if you want to talk seriously, do; but don't go
+pulling my leg and making a fool of me to my face. I don't understand
+a word of what you're saying, unless I'm to suppose that your father
+was angry with you and gave you no money and that you had to work
+for your bread, perhaps. But that you were a porter...."
+
+"And dock-labourer," said Constance.
+
+"And engine-driver and miner, that I refuse to believe, unless your
+father...."
+
+"My dear Hans, my father used to send me the same allowance that he
+made me at the university: three hundred guilders a month."
+
+"And...?"
+
+"And I used the money ... for other things; but I lived on my wages,
+like a labourer, as I really was. You see, you can't understand that;
+and, as I feared, your wife thinks it horrible to be sitting at table
+with a man who has been a porter, a dock-labourer and a stoker...."
+
+"And a miner," added Van der Welcke.
+
+And he shut his eyes, as though he had received a blow on the head.
+
+"But, mevrouw," said Brauws, with his quiet smile, "my hands, although
+they are not delicate, have become fit to show again, as you see."
+
+And he showed his hands, big, powerful hands, probably developed by
+manual labour, but now neither coarse nor hard.
+
+"But can you explain to me," asked Constance, with a little laugh,
+"why you worked in those various humble capacities?"
+
+"Shall we say, mevrouw, for the sake of being eccentric?" replied
+Brauws, almost coldly. "And then we will talk no more about
+myself. Tell me instead about Addie. Hans was saying the other day
+that his ambition was to enter the diplomatic service...."
+
+But a certain constraint seemed involuntarily to make the conversation
+flag, as though both host and hostess were unable to understand
+their guest at all, as though some one of another class had actually
+strayed by accident into their dining-room, into the home of these
+born aristocrats; and Constance, perceiving this, not only wanted
+to avoid that constraint, but also a deeper feeling of invincible
+sympathy made her regret almost unconsciously any misunderstanding or
+unpleasantness that might arise between that strange man and Henri
+or herself. This deeper feeling was so faint and unconscious that,
+at the moment, she saw in it only her wish, as hostess, to make the
+passing hour as agreeable as possible for her guest; and she did not
+hear the deeper note in her voice when she said, with that candour
+and sincerity which at times gave her an exquisitely feminine charm:
+
+"I should be very sorry indeed, Mr. Brauws, if you refused to go on
+speaking of yourself. You are an old and intimate friend of Henri's;
+and, now that you two have met again, it would be a pity if you refused
+to talk about the years when you did not see each other. But I am not
+speaking only for my husband, who will speak for himself: I am speaking
+especially for my own sake. When I heard you lecturing on Peace the
+other day--on something which I had really never thought about, though
+I had heard the word vaguely mentioned by people now and then--your
+speech really roused ... a sort of interest in me; and I listened
+with keen sympathy; and afterwards I thought about that word. And,
+now that you tell us that you have been a common workman in America,
+I am very much interested to know how you came to adopt a life so
+very different from that of the men in my set; and, if it is not too
+indiscreet, I should like to ask you, as a favour, to speak about
+yourself and explain what at present seems so perplexing to me...."
+
+The simple, homely meal was finished; and they went into the
+drawing-room.
+
+"May I stay, Mamma?" asked Addie, who never accompanied them to the
+drawing-room when there was a stranger present.
+
+She laughed; and Van der Welcke said:
+
+"You see, even my boy is curious."
+
+"Our future diplomatist!" said Brauws, with his quiet smile. "Well,
+mevrouw, may he stay or not?"
+
+"Of course he may stay!"
+
+"Aren't you afraid that the ideas of ... a labouring-man will spoil
+him?"
+
+"Oh, there's no spoiling my boy!" said she, lifting her head high
+and putting her arm round Addie's shoulder with motherly pride.
+
+"And you don't make him vain, by saying that?"
+
+"There's no making him vain," she continued, boasting a little,
+like a proud mother.
+
+"So he can stay?" asked Brauws.
+
+"He can stay."
+
+"Well, in that case I shall tell you more about myself."
+
+"Only in that case?"
+
+"You are giving me a proof of confidence and, I might almost say,
+of sympathy."
+
+Van der Welcke took his friend by the shoulders:
+
+"My dear Max, you pretend that you don't know how to talk to 'ladies'
+and there you stand, like a typical courtier, paying compliments to
+my wife. That's all superfluous, you know: here's a cup of coffee;
+sit down, make yourself at home, choose your own chair; and now,
+Mr. Miner, tell your Mad Hans how, when you were in America, you went
+even madder than he."
+
+But Brauws was obviously still seeking subterfuges, as though it were
+impossible for him to interpret the riddle of his former existence
+to these people who were entertaining him so kindly; and at last he
+half managed to escape their pressing curiosity by saying:
+
+"But I can't possibly tell you all that straight away.... Perhaps
+later, mevrouw, when I have known you a little longer, I may be able
+to tell you about that time, so that you may understand it after
+a fashion."
+
+Constance was disappointed, but she said, with a smile:
+
+"Then I must exercise patience."
+
+"But I exercise no patience," said Van der Welcke. "Tell us now, Max:
+when you left Leiden, after taking your degree in law, a year before
+I did--but you were much older than I, an older student who really
+studied, a rara avis!--what did you do then?"
+
+"I first went back to my father and my brothers, to the factory. And
+then I took such an aversion to the whole thing, to all that we
+represented, my father, my brothers and I, that I determined to go
+and lead an entirely different life. I saw that, though my father
+and brothers were comparatively good to their workmen, those workmen
+remained slaves; and we...."
+
+He passed his hand over his forehead:
+
+"How can I and why should I talk about all this, my dear Hans?" he
+said, gently interrupting himself. "You wouldn't understand me;
+nor you either, mevrouw...."
+
+"Why shouldn't we understand you?" asked Constance.
+
+His voice assumed a rough tone that almost frightened her:
+
+"Because both of you, you and Hans, are capitalists--and titled
+capitalists at that--and because I.... But I don't want to be rude
+to my host and hostess."
+
+"Capitalists without capital," said Van der Welcke, laughing.
+
+Brauws shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"There are more of them than you think," he said.
+
+"So really you're among enemies here," said Constance, in her
+drawing-room voice.
+
+"No," said Van der Welcke, "for he in his turn has deserted to the
+capitalists, even the titled ones."
+
+"Not quite," said Brauws, quietly, "though I admit that I have
+been weak."
+
+"I won't press you any more, Mr. Brauws," said Constance; but her
+voice urged him to continue.
+
+"Don't look upon yourself and Henri as my enemies, mevrouw," said
+Brauws, earnestly. "Above all things, I should like to see nothing
+but friendship in this world of ours. But you were asking me about
+America: well, when I had lived for a short time with my father and
+my brothers in our big house near the factory, it became too much for
+me; and I went away, to lead my life just as if I had been born among
+workmen ... so as to study them more closely, do you understand?... No,
+you don't understand; and how can I go on?..."
+
+"Max, you're being dull. And you're absurd too."
+
+"I'm sorry, Hans, I simply can't talk about myself: you see, I've
+tried to, two or three times over."
+
+"Then we won't worry you any more," said Constance.
+
+A constraint seemed to have come upon them, a barrier which rose
+between their words at every moment. Addie, disappointed, left the
+room quietly. In a little while, Brauws took his leave, awkwardly,
+almost rudely. Constance and Van der Welcke exchanged a glance when
+they were alone. Van der Welcke shook his head:
+
+"The fellow's mad," he said. "Always was; but, since he's joined the
+proletariats in America, he's stark, staring mad. He was so jolly
+yesterday, coming with that old sewing-machine. He is a good sort,
+there's something nice about him. But he's quite mad. Vreeswijck
+is much better company. We won't ask him again: what do you say,
+Constance? The fellow's really mad; and, besides, he doesn't know how
+to talk and, when all is said, he was impertinent, with his 'titled
+capitalists.' Indeed, I ought really to apologize to you for asking
+such a queer fish to your house."
+
+"He is different from other people," she said, "but I think that,
+however much he may differ from you, he likes you."
+
+Her husband burst out irritably:
+
+"You women," he exclaimed, "are simply impossible! Who would ever have
+thought that you could have found a word of excuse for Brauws! Why,
+I was afraid that you would cover me with reproaches and point out
+to me that, even though we see nobody, you wouldn't want to receive
+a socialist friend of mine. But there's no understanding women!"
+
+He was dissatisfied, out of temper, because of Brauws and that
+spasmodic conversation; and his tone seemed to invite a scene. But
+Constance raised her eyes to his very calmly and said, so gently and
+quietly that the voice did not sound like hers to his ears:
+
+"Henri, your friend Brauws is a man and an exceptional man; and that
+is enough to captivate a woman for a moment."
+
+"Well, you can ask him every day, for all I care."
+
+"I didn't ask him."
+
+"No, I did, of course!"
+
+"Don't let us quarrel, Henri. Mr. Brauws asked himself. But, if you
+would rather not see any more of him, we won't encourage him again;
+and then he'll stay away of his own accord...."
+
+Her gentle words, which he did not understand, disturbed him greatly;
+and he went upstairs in a temper, undressed angrily and flung himself
+on his bed:
+
+"And, upon my word, he'd be upsetting Addie's head next, with those
+queer notions," he muttered, as he dug his ear viciously into his
+pillow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+A few days had passed, when Brauws rang at the door, late one
+afternoon. Constance was sitting in the drawing-room and saw him
+through the corner window; and, as she heard the bell, she felt a
+shock of alarm. She was afraid, she did not know why, and listened
+anxiously to his deep voice in the passage.
+
+"Is meneer at home?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Perhaps mevrouw is at home?"
+
+"Yes, sir, mevrouw is in. I'll just ask...."
+
+Truitje entered:
+
+"Mr. Brauws, ma'am...."
+
+"Show meneer in."
+
+She still felt her heart beating with that strange, inexplicable shock
+of alarm. And she thought that it was because she was alone with that
+strange man, who had been a workman in America and who could say such
+rude things sometimes, suddenly.
+
+They shook hands:
+
+"Henri is out," she said. "But sit down. I see in the paper that you
+are speaking at Arnhem to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, mevrouw, but I haven't come to talk about my lectures. I've
+come to make you my very humble apologies."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Mevrouw, I'm a bear. I don't know how to talk to people. Forgive me
+... for what I said the other day."
+
+"But what did you say?"
+
+"Nothing--after your friendly encouragement--but what was rude."
+
+"I have no great reverence for titles," she said, quickly.
+
+She said it so suddenly and spontaneously that it surprised even
+herself; and she asked herself, the next second:
+
+"Why do I say that? And is it true, now? Or is it not true?"
+
+She herself did not know.
+
+"You haven't, perhaps, but Hans has.... But I was rude especially
+because, after you had asked me so kindly and graciously, I still
+would not talk about my life."
+
+"But you were to do that when we knew each other better...."
+
+"People never know each other well. Still...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know.... May I tell you something about myself from time
+to time? Perhaps it won't interest you as much as, from politeness,
+you wish me to think; but ... when I've done it ... I shall feel
+relieved.... Heavens, how difficult words are!"
+
+"And yet you are accustomed to speak for hours!..."
+
+"That's a different thing. Then some one else is speaking inside
+me. When I myself am speaking, in everyday life, I find words
+difficult."
+
+"Then don't make the least effort, but tell me ... gradually."
+
+"What did Addie think? I should like to know."
+
+"He was disappointed, but he did not say much."
+
+"He's a serious boy, isn't he? Tell me about him."
+
+She felt no more fear and talked about Addie. Brauws laughed, gently
+and kindly, at the pride that kept shining from her:
+
+"I was a serious child too," he said.
+
+And she understood that he was making an effort, in order to talk
+about himself.
+
+"I was a strange child. Behind our house was a pine-forest, with
+hills in it; and behind that a little stream. I used to wander all
+day long in those woods, over the hills and beside the stream. They
+would miss me at home and look for me and find me there. But gradually
+they stopped being frightened, because they understood that I was
+only playing. I used to play by myself: a lonely, serious child. It's
+true I played at highwaymen and pirates; and yet my games were very
+serious, not like a child's ... I still feel a thrill when I think
+of that strange childhood of mine.... I used to play there in those
+woods and beside that stream, in Holland; but sometimes I imagined
+that I was playing at pirates and highwaymen in America, or in the
+tropics. And in my childish imagination the whole Dutch landscape
+changed. It became a roaring river, with great boulders, from which
+the water fell foaming, and very dense, tropical foliage, such as I
+had seen in pictures; and great flowers, red and white, grew in the
+enormous trees. Then my fancy changed and I was no longer a pirate
+or robber, but became ... an oriental prince. I don't know why I, a
+pure-bred Dutch boy, should have had that strange vision of the east,
+of something tropical, there, on those pine-covered hills and beside
+that little stream.... It was always like that afterwards: the tropical
+landscape, the spreading cocoa-trees, the broad plantain-leaves and the
+huge flowers, white and red ... and then I often thought, 'Now I will
+find her.' Whom I wanted to find I didn't know; but I would run down
+the hills and roam beside the little river and seek and seek ... and
+my seeking for 'her' became strange and fantastic: I, an oriental,
+was seeking for a fairy, or a princess, I forget which. It seemed to
+me as if she were running there ahead of me, very white and fragile:
+a little child, as I was a child; a girl, as I was a boy; in white
+and decked with the flowers, white and red ... And my seeking for the
+princess, for the fairy, for the little white, fragile girl became
+so intense that I sometimes thought I had found her, found her in my
+imagination; and then I would speak to her, as in a dream.... Until
+... until I woke from my waking dream and remembered that I had been
+wandering away from home for hours, that my mother would be anxious,
+that I was not fit to be seen, that I looked like a dirty street-boy,
+that I had only been dreaming, that there were no white or red flowers
+around me ... and then I would cry, boy of thirteen though I was,
+passionately, as if I should go mad.... And I have never told all
+this to any one, but I am telling it to you, because I want to ask
+you: Addie is not like that, is he? When you come to think of it,
+how children differ, at that age!"
+
+She sat on her chair, very pale, and could not speak.
+
+"My parents did not know that I was like that; and I told nobody about
+my fancies. I went to school, in the meantime, and was just the usual
+sort of schoolboy. I was cruel to animals, a vulgar little rascal,
+in the meantime; and it was only in those free hours that I wandered
+and dreamt. And, when I now look at your boy, who is like a little
+man, I sometimes think, how is it possible that he is like this and
+that I was like that, at the same age?"
+
+She made an effort to smile.
+
+"So you see," he said, "gradually perhaps I shall be able to tell
+you something about my life ... at least, if it interests you...."
+
+It seemed as if his first confession had in fact given him a greater
+facility, for of his own accord he now went on talking: how, when
+he grew a year or two older, he had shaken those fancies from him as
+so much child's-play and devoted himself seriously to every kind of
+study, until he went to the university, where he not only read law,
+but really took up all the other faculties in between, while at the
+same time he felt attracted by every branch of knowledge:
+
+"I was a ready learner and a quick reader; I remembered everything;
+and I had a sort of fever to know everything in the world, to know
+all there was to know and learn. That I afterwards went and travelled
+goes almost without saying. And then...."
+
+It was at this moment that Van der Welcke entered. He was at first
+surprised, almost annoyed to see Brauws; but his warm friendship
+gained the upper hand:
+
+"Hullo, anarchist!" he said. "Is that you?"
+
+But it was very late; Addie came in; it was close upon
+dinner-time. Brauws said good-bye and promised to come again and
+fetch Van der Welcke in a "machine;" and that made up for everything
+to Van der Welcke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was a howling winter night of storm and rain. Addie was doing his
+lessons after dinner; and Van der Welcke had gone to sit by him with
+a book "because there was such a draught in his room." Constance
+was all alone. And she loved the loneliness of it just then. She
+had taken up a book, a piece of needlework; but first one and then
+the other had slipped from her hands. And, in the soft light of the
+lace-shaded lamps, she lay back in her chair and listened to the
+melancholy storm outside, which seemed to be rushing past the house
+like some monstrous animal. She was in a mood of vague excitement,
+of mingled nervousness and depression; and, in her loneliness, she
+let this strange feeling take possession of her and gave herself up
+to the quite new luxury of thinking about herself, wondering dimly:
+
+"Does that sort of thing really exist?"
+
+She found no answer to her question; she heard only the storm raging
+outside, the hiss of its lash round the groaning trees; and those
+mournful voices of the night did not include the mystic voice which
+alone could have supplied the answer.
+
+"Does that sort of thing really exist?" she asked herself again.
+
+And, in that vague emotion, she was conscious of a sense of fear,
+of a rising anxiety, an increasing terror. When, after a lull, the
+storm burst into sudden fury again, she started violently, as she
+had started when Brauws' hand rang the bell....
+
+With each shriller howl of the raging storm she started; and each
+fresh alarm left her so nervous and so strangely despondent that she
+could not understand herself....
+
+"Does that sort of thing really exist then?" she asked herself for
+the third time.
+
+And the question seemed each time to echo through her soul like a
+refrain. She could never have thought, suspected or imagined that such
+things really existed. She did not remember ever reading about them or
+ever talking to anybody about them. It had never been her nature to
+attach much importance to the strange coincidences of life, because
+they had never harmonized in her life with those of other lives; at
+least, she did not know about them, did not remember them.... For a
+moment, it flashed through her mind that she had walked as the blind
+walk, all her life, in a pitch-dark night ... and that to-day suddenly
+a light had shone out before her and a ruddy glow had filtered through
+her closed eyelids.
+
+"No," she thought, "in those things I have always been very much of
+a woman; and I have never thought about them. If by chance I ever
+heard about them, they did not attract me. Then why do they strike
+me so forcibly now? And why do I feel so strange?..."
+
+The wind suddenly cried aloud, like the martyred soul of some monster;
+and she started, but forced herself to concentrate her thoughts:
+
+"He can't know," she thought. "What can he know, to make him speak
+deliberately ... of those childish years? No, he can't know; and I felt
+that he did not know, that he was only speaking in order to compare
+himself with Addie to Addie's mother, in a burst of confidence. He is a
+man of impulses, I think.... No, there was nothing at the back of his
+words ... and he knows nothing, nothing of my own early years.... We
+are almost the same age: he is four years older than Henri. When he
+was a child, I was a child. When he was dreaming, I was dreaming. Does
+that sort of thing really exist? Or is it my fancy, some unconscious
+vein of poetry inside me, that is making me imagine all this?... Hush,
+hush ... it is becoming absurd! It is all very pretty and charming
+in children: they can have their day-dreams; and a young man and
+a young girl might perhaps give a thought to them afterwards, in
+a romantic moment; but, at my age, it all becomes absurd, utterly
+absurd.... And of course it's not there: it's nothing but a chance
+coincidence. I won't think about it any more.... And yet ... I have
+never felt before as I do now. Oh, that feeling as if I had always
+been straying, blindly, with my eyes shut, in a dark night! Have I
+never had that feeling before, that feeling as if nothing had really
+existed, as if I had never lived yet, as if I wanted to live once,
+just once, in my life?... But no, it can never be like that, it can't
+happen like that. No, that sort of thing does not exist. It is just
+our imagination when we are feeling restless and dissatisfied ... or
+when we are tired and feel that we have no energy ... or whatever it is
+that makes us more easily affected by all those strange things which
+we never suspected.... Why did I not at once laugh and say that, as a
+child, as a little girl, I myself...? No, no, I simply couldn't say it;
+and it is better that I didn't say it.... Now I am getting frightened
+at my own silliness. It is all very well for young people, for a boy
+and a girl, to have these fancies and even talk of them, in a romantic
+moment, but at my age it is simply ridiculous.... It is so long ago, so
+long ago; and, with all those years in between, it would be ridiculous
+to refer to poetic dreams and fancies which can only be spoken of when
+one is very young.... I sha'n't speak of them ... and I shall never
+tell him. Wouldn't it be ... utterly ridiculous?... Yet it does seem
+... it does seem to me that, after those years--when, as Gerrit said,
+I was a dear little child, playing in the river at Buitenzorg, making
+up stories about fairies and poetries, [3] decked with flowers, red and
+white--that, after those years, I lost something of myself, something
+romantic that was in me then, something living that was in me then,
+and that, since then, I have never lived, never lived a single moment,
+as if all sorts of vain and worldly things had blinded me.... Oh,
+what thoughts are these and why do I have them? I won't think them;
+and yet ... and yet, after those wonderful, fairy years, it was all
+over ... all over.... What do I remember of the years after? Dances,
+balls, society, vanity and artificiality.... Yes, it was all over
+by then.... And now surely that childish spark hasn't revived,
+surely my soul isn't trying, isn't wanting to live again? No, no,
+it can't do that: the years are lying all around it, the silent, dead
+years of vanity, of blundering, of longing, of death in life.... And
+besides, if my soul did want to live again, it would be too late now,
+for everything; and it doesn't want to either.... It's only because
+of those strange coincidences, it's only because he spoke like that
+... and because his voice it attractive ... and because I am sitting
+here alone ... and because the storm is blowing so terribly, as though
+it wanted to open the windows and come inside.... No, hush, hush ... I
+won't give way to those thoughts again, never again ... and, even if
+that sort of thing does really exist, it is only for those who are
+young and who see life with the glamour of youth ... and not for me,
+not for me. ... Oh, I couldn't have told him about myself when I was
+a child, for it would have appeared to me as if, by telling him, I
+was behaving like ... a woman offering herself!... But hush, hush:
+all this is absurd ... for me ... now; and I will stop thinking
+of it.... But how lonely I am, sitting here ... and how the wind
+howls, how the wind howls!... The lamps are flickering; and it's
+just as if hands were rattling the shutters, trying hard to open
+them.... Oh, I wish those lamps wouldn't flicker so!... And I feel
+as if the windows were going to burst open and the curtains fly up
+in the air.... I'm frightened.... Hark to the trees cracking and
+the branches falling.... Hear me, O God, hear me! I'm frightened,
+I'm frightened.... Is this then the first night that I see something
+of myself, as if I were suddenly looking back, on a dark path that
+lies behind me, a dark path on which all the pageant of vanity has
+grown dim? For it does seem as if, right at the end of the road, I
+saw, as in a vision, the sun; trees with great leaves and blossoms
+red and white; and a little fairy child, in white, with flowers in
+her hair, standing on a boulder, in a river, beckoning mysteriously
+to her brothers, who do not understand. O my God, does that sort of
+thing really, really exist ... or is it only because I never, never
+heard the wind blow like this before?..."
+
+These thoughts, these doubts, these wonderings flashed through her;
+and, because she had never heard herself thinking and doubting and
+wondering so swiftly, she grew still more frightened in her loneliness,
+while the storm howled more furiously outside. And the silent lamps
+flickered so violently in her drawing-room--in a sort of passionate
+draught--that she suddenly rushed staggering to the door. She went
+up the stairs; and it was as though the storm would break the little
+villa to pieces with one blow of its angry wing....
+
+She went to Addie's room; her hand was on the door-handle; she turned
+it. She saw her boy working at his table and Van der Welcke smoking
+in the easy-chair. She gave a start, because he was there, and she
+looked deathly pale, with terrified, quivering eyes.
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"My boy, I'm frightened; listen to the storm!..."
+
+"Yes, did you ever see such weather?" asked Van der Welcke, through
+the clouds of his cigarette.
+
+"Are you frightened, Mamma?"
+
+"Yes, my boy, my Addie ... I'm frightened ... I'm frightened...."
+
+"And shall your boy keep you safe, safe from the wind?"
+
+"Yes, my darling, keep me safe!" she said, with a wan little
+laugh. "For I'm really, really frightened ... I've been sitting alone
+downstairs ... and it blew so, it blew so: the lamps blew and the
+shutters banged and I'm so frightened now!..."
+
+The boy drew her on his knees and held her very tight:
+
+"Silly Mummy! Are you really frightened?"
+
+She made herself very small in his arms, between his knees, nestled
+up against him and repeated, as in a dream:
+
+"Yes, I'm so frightened, I'm so frightened!..."
+
+And, without a further glance at her husband sitting there clouded in
+the blue smoke of his cigarette, she as it were crept into the heart
+of her child, whispering, all pale and wan, with a wan smile and her
+eyes full of anxious wonder:
+
+"I'm frightened, Addie! Save me! Protect me!..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+"I'm mad!" he thought, as, after a hasty meal at a restaurant in
+the town, he walked along the Hooge Weg to Scheveningen through the
+shrieking winter night.
+
+The leafless branches lashed tragically to and fro, as though sweeping
+the scudding clouds; and the street-lamps seemed like ghostly eyes
+blinking here and there in the fitful darkness....
+
+"I'm mad! Why did I tell her all that, I ... I who can never talk
+to women?"
+
+He was walking against the wind, angry with himself and angry with the
+wind when it barred his way with its widespread hindering arms. The
+wind whistled very high in the air, along the topmost leafless boughs;
+and the boughs broke off, as though at the touch of angry fingers,
+and scattered all around him; and sometimes a heavier branch fell,
+black, right at his feet. He walked on--his legs were stronger than
+the wind barring his way, tugging at his flapping coat--walked with
+his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up, his hat pulled over
+his eyes; and he walked on and on without an object, only with an
+eager craving for the sea, for sea and air and wind, to blow and
+wash everything out of his brain, which otherwise would be sick with
+dreaming.... Was he still such a dreamer, even though all the rest
+of his life belied his dreams? What did he mean by suddenly going
+to that woman, apologizing to her that afternoon because he didn't
+know how to talk and then suddenly talking, talking like a boy,
+telling her things--shadowy things of the past--which he had never
+told to anybody, because they were not things to be told, because,
+once told, they ceased to exist?... What interest did she take
+in his childish games and his childish dreams?... He had probably
+bored her: perhaps she had laughed at him--the cynical little laugh
+of the society-woman--and at his really too-ridiculous simplicity,
+the simplicity of a man who had thought and worked and lived and who
+had yet always remained a child ... in certain little corners of his
+soul.... He was so much ashamed at the recollection of all that he
+had dared to say to her, so much ashamed of the irresistible impulse
+which had driven him to speak to her, at such length, of his childhood
+and his childish imaginings, that he was now--as though to regain
+mastery of himself after the strange spell of her presence--that he
+was now fighting with the wind, to make himself feel strong again
+and a man.... The wind clung howling to his body, dragged itself by
+his legs, struck him blinding blows in the face, but he walked on:
+his strong legs walked on, with a sharp, regular step, ever mightier
+than the wind, which he trod under foot and kicked out of his path....
+
+"I don't know what it was," he thought, "but, once I was alone with
+her, I had ... I had to say it.... How can I be of any use in the
+world, when I am such a dreamer?... Women! Have women ever woven
+into my life anything beyond the most commonplace threads? Have I
+ever confided in a woman before, or felt that irresistible impulse
+to open my heart, as I did this afternoon, in that weak moment of
+enchantment? Why to her, why to her? Why not to others, before her,
+and why first to her?... Must my life always be this clumsy groping
+with dreams on one side and facts on the other? But why, why should
+I have spoken like that: what was the overpowering impulse that made
+me tell her those strange things, that made it impossible for me to
+do anything else? Are our actions then so independent of ourselves
+that we just behave according to the laws of the most secret forces
+in and above us?... Do I know what it was in me that made me speak
+like that, that compelled me to speak like that? It was like an
+irresistible temptation, it was like a path that sloped down to
+delectable valleys and it was as if angels or demons--I don't know
+which--pushed and pushed me and whispered, 'Tell it all ... and
+go down the path.... You'll see how beautiful it is, you'll see how
+beautiful it becomes!' She ... just listened, without speaking, without
+moving. What did she think? Nothing, most likely. She heard nothing,
+she felt nothing. If she's thinking of me now, she thinks of me as
+a madman, or at least a crank.... What is she? She has been a woman
+of the world, of just that world which I hate.... What has her life
+been? She married a man much older than herself, out of vanity. Then a
+moment of passion, between her and Hans.... What else has there been,
+what else is there in her? Nothing! How utterly small they all are,
+these people who don't think, who don't live: who exist like dolls,
+with dolls' brains and dolls' souls, in a dolls' world! What am I
+doing among them? Oh, not that I'm big; not that I am worth more than
+they, but, if I am to do anything--for the world--I must live among
+real people, different people from them ... or I must live alone,
+wrapped in myself!... That has always been the everlasting seesaw:
+doing, dreaming, doing, dreaming.... But there has never been that
+temptation, that beckoning towards delectable valleys of oblivion
+and that luxury of allowing myself to be drawn along as though by
+soul-magnetism, by the strange sympathy of a woman's soul!... Is it
+then so, in reality! Is it merely a mirage of love? Love has never come
+into my life: have I ever known what it was? Is there one woman then,
+only one? Can we find, even late, like this?... Oh, I wish that this
+wind would blow all this uncertainty, all these vapourings out of my
+head and my heart ... and leave me strong and simple ... to act alone,
+to act alone!... And now I will not think about it any more...."
+
+And he quickened his pace and fought more vigorously against the wind,
+with a wrestler's vigour, and, when at last he saw the sea, foaming
+pale under the black pall of cloud and roaring with a thousand voices,
+he thought:
+
+"It all came from one moment of foolishness. It had no real
+existence. I spoke as I should not have spoken, but what I said was
+nothing and is being blown out of my heart and out of my head at this
+very moment...."
+
+But, the next day, waking from a calm sleep, he asked himself:
+
+"Is it not just the unutterable things in us that matter more than
+anything else to us ... and to those who made us divine them?..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A day or two later, Marianne called:
+
+"Auntie," she said, "I haven't seen you for days. What's the
+matter? Are you vexed with me?"
+
+"Why, no, Marianne."
+
+"Yes, there's something. You're cross with me. Tell me that you're
+not cross with me. I haven't dined with you for an age. You are
+vexed with me because I invited myself. Tell me that I'm mistaken,
+that you're not vexed with me. And do ask me to dinner again, one
+day.... It's such a busy time just now: parties, dinners, the Court
+ball the other night. It was very boring.... We never see you. You
+never call on us. Nor Uncle either. It's all through that Brauws man."
+
+Constance started, with that strange nervous catch in her throat:
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"That old friend of Uncle's, who speaks on Peace. I've heard him: it
+was splendid, splendid. His speech was topping, I'm mad on Peace. But
+he takes possession of Uncle; the boys have seen them together twice,
+in a motor-car. It's all through Brauws that I never see anything of
+either of you.... I suppose he's been to dinner, too?"
+
+"Once."
+
+"I'm jealous, Auntie. Why should he come when you don't ask me? Doesn't
+Mr. Van Vreeswijck ever come now either? If you're angry with me,
+I'll be an angel in the future, I'll never invite myself again. But
+do invite me again, yourself!"
+
+"But, you silly child, I'm not angry."
+
+"Yes, you are; you're cross with me. You're not the same. You're
+different towards me. I feel it. I see it."
+
+"But, Marianne...."
+
+"Aren't you? Am I wrong?.... Tell me that you're not cross with me."
+
+She knelt down by Constance, caressingly.
+
+"Marianne, what a baby you are!... I am not cross: there!"
+
+"Say it once more, like a darling."
+
+"I--am--not--cross. There: are you satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, I believe you now. And when am I coming to dinner?"
+
+"You little tyrant!"
+
+"I daren't ask myself again."
+
+"What do you like so much in our dinners?"
+
+"They're just what I do like. The other night, when I was so bored
+at the Court ball, I thought, 'So long as Auntie asks me again soon,
+I don't mind anything!'"
+
+"Rubbish! I don't believe a word of it!"
+
+"It's quite true."
+
+"Well, will you come one evening ... with Brauws and Van
+Vreeswijck? Then I'll ask Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline too."
+
+"Rather! That will be lovely. When?"
+
+"I'll write and let you know; don't be so impatient."
+
+"Now you are a darling!"
+
+She hugged her aunt:
+
+"You're looking so nice to-day, Auntie. So pretty. You are really. I
+say, how old are you?"
+
+"You silly child, what does it matter?"
+
+"I want to know. Wait, I can work it out. Mamma said there was eight
+years between you. Mamma is fifty. So you must be forty-two."
+
+"Very nearly forty-three. That's old, isn't it?"
+
+"Old? I don't know. For some women. Not for you. You're young. And
+how young Uncle looks, doesn't he? Why, Addie is more sedate
+than Uncle!... You don't look forty-two, you look ten years
+less than that. Auntie, isn't it strange how the years go by? I
+... I feel old. One year comes after another; and it all makes
+me miserable.... Auntie, tell me, what makes me so fond of
+you?... Sometimes ... sometimes I feel as if I could cry when I
+am here...."
+
+"Do I make you so sad?"
+
+"No, not that. But, when I'm with you, I don't know why, I'm always
+thinking ... even when I'm chattering ... I feel happy in your house,
+Auntie. Look, here are the tears!... But you ... you have tears in
+your eyes also. Yes, you have, you can't deny it. Tell me, Auntie,
+what is it?"
+
+"Why, Marianne, it's nothing ... but you talk such nonsense sometimes
+... and that upsets me; and, when I see other people crying, it makes
+the tears come into my eyes too."
+
+"Uncle isn't always nice to you, is he, Auntie?"
+
+"My dear Marianne!..."
+
+"No, I know he isn't. Do let me talk about it. It's so horrid, when
+you're very fond of some one, always to be silent about the things
+you're thinking of. Let me talk about it. I know that Uncle is not
+always nice. I told him the other day...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You'll be angry when you hear. I told him the other day that he must
+be nicer to you. Are you angry?"
+
+"No, dear, but...."
+
+"No, you mustn't be angry: I meant to say the right thing. I can't
+bear to think of your not being happy together. Do try and be happy
+together."
+
+"But, Marianne dear, it's years now...."
+
+"Yes, but it must be altered. Auntie, it must be altered. It would
+make me so awfully happy."
+
+"Oh, Marianne, Marianne, how excitable you are!..."
+
+"Because I feel for people when I'm fond of them. There are people
+who never feel and others who never speak out. I feel ... and I say
+what I think. I'm like that. Mamma's different: she never speaks
+out. I must speak out; I should choke if I didn't. I should like
+to say everything, always. When I'm miserable, I want to say so;
+when I feel happy, I want to say so. But it's not always possible,
+Auntie.... Auntie, do try and be happy with Uncle. He is so nice,
+he is so kind; and you were very fond of him once. It's a very long
+time ago, I know; but you must begin and grow fond of each other
+again. Tell me, can't you love him any more?"
+
+"Dear...."
+
+"Oh, I see it all: you can't! No, you can't love him any more. And
+Uncle is so nice, so kind ... even though he is so quick-tempered
+and excitable. He's so young still: he's just like a hot-headed
+undergraduate sometimes, Henri said. In that scene with Papa, he
+was just like a game-cock.... You know, in the family, the uncles
+are afraid of Uncle Henri, because he always wants to be fighting
+duels. But that's his quick temper; in reality, he's nice, he's kind. I
+know it, Auntie, because, when Uncle sees me home, we talk about all
+sorts of things, tell each other everything. You don't mind, Auntie,
+do you? You're not jealous?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"No, you're not jealous. And Uncle Henri is my uncle too, isn't he,
+and there's no harm in talking to him? He talks so nicely: time seems
+to fly when Uncle's talking.... Tell me, Auntie, Brauws: is Brauws
+really a gentleman? He has been a workman."
+
+"Yes, but that was because he wanted to."
+
+"I don't understand those queer men, do you? No, you don't either,
+you can't understand such a queer man any more than I can. Just
+imagine ... Uncle Henri as a labouring man! Can you imagine it? No,
+no, not possibly! He speaks well, Brauws; and I raved about Peace
+for a whole evening...."
+
+"And since?"
+
+"No. I don't rave over things long. Raving isn't the same as
+feeling. When I really feel...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then--I think--it is for always. For always."
+
+"But, Marianne, darling, you mustn't be so sentimental!..."
+
+"Well, what about you? You're crying again...."
+
+"No, Marianne."
+
+"Yes, you're crying. Let's cry together, Auntie. I feel as if I want
+to cry with you; I'm in that sort of mood, I don't know why. There,
+see, I am crying!..."
+
+She knelt down by Constance; and her tears really came.
+
+"Dear, you mustn't excite yourself like that. Some one is coming;
+I hear Uncle...."
+
+The girl recovered herself quickly as Van der Welcke entered the
+room. He stood for a moment in the doorway, smiling his gay, boyish
+smile, his blue eyes glowing with happiness. She looked at him for
+a second.
+
+"Well, Marianne ... I haven't seen you for ever so long...."
+
+"Yes, you're always in that old car with Brauws.... And I've been an
+absolute butterfly. Only think, at the Court ball, the other night,
+just as the Queen entered the ball-room...."
+
+She sat down and told her little budget of news in a voice that
+seemed to come from far away. The dusk crept in and shadowed the room,
+obliterating their outlines and the expression of their faces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+"Isn't she coming?" asked Adolphine, with a sidelong glance at
+the door.
+
+It was Sunday evening, at Mamma van Lowe's, and it was after half-past
+nine. It had been like that every Sunday evening since Constance
+returned from Nice: the sidelong, almost anxious look towards the door;
+the almost anxious question:
+
+"Is she coming?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if she did to-night," said Floortje. "If so,
+she's coming late, so as not to stay long."
+
+Mother and daughter were sitting at the bridge-table with Uncle
+Ruyvenaer and Jaap; and the cards fell slackly one upon the other,
+uninterestingly, with a dull flop; and Floortje gathered in the tricks
+mechanically, silently and greedily.
+
+"What a frump Cateau looks to-night!" said Adolphine, with a furtive
+glance at the second card-table.
+
+"Like a washerwoman in satin," said Floortje.
+
+"I say," said Uncle Ruyvenaer, burning to say something spiteful:
+he was losing, couldn't get a hand, kept throwing his low cards,
+furiously, one after the other, on Floortje's fat trumps. "I say,
+it's high time Bertha interfered!"
+
+"Why, what are you talking about?"
+
+"What am I talking about? What everybody's talking about: that Marianne
+is running after Van der Welcke in the most barefaced fashion."
+
+"Aunt Bertha had better be very careful, with such a rotten cad as
+Uncle van der Welcke," Floortje opined.
+
+"I passed them the other evening on the Koninginnegracht," said Jaap.
+
+"And what were they doing?"
+
+"How were they walking?"
+
+"They had hold of each other."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, he had his arm around her waist."
+
+"Did you see it?"
+
+"Did I see it? And he kept on spooning her all the time."
+
+"And Bertha," said Adolphine, "who just acts as if she saw
+nothing.... Good heavens, what a frump Cateau looks to-night!... She
+doesn't seem to be coming, does she?"
+
+"No, she doesn't seem to be coming now."
+
+"How does Mamma take it, her staying away?"
+
+"Mamma seems to get on without her," answered Uncle Ruyvenaer.
+
+"Mamma can't really be fond of her."
+
+"Or else Granny would insist on her coming," said Floortje.
+
+"It's much quieter, now that she's staying away."
+
+"Well, I don't mind a bit of a kick-up," said Jaap.
+
+"Have you had to-day's Dwarskijker, Jaap?"
+
+"Yes, but they've stopped putting in anything about us."
+
+"It's really a piece of cheek on her part, not to come any more
+on Sundays...."
+
+"And to go rushing off to Nice...."
+
+"And not even arrange to be back on New Year's Eve."
+
+"Yes; and then we hear about 'longing for the family.'"
+
+"And even on New Year's Eve...."
+
+"She takes good care to keep away."
+
+"Yes," said Adolphine sentimentally, "on New Year's Eve we ought all
+to be here."
+
+"Just so," said Uncle Ruyvenaer. "I agree."
+
+"Then, if you've had a quarrel...."
+
+"You make it up again...."
+
+"And start quarrelling again, with renewed courage, on the first of
+January," grinned Jaap.
+
+"But--I've always said so--what Constance has not got is ... a heart,"
+Adolphine continued, pathetically.
+
+"Do you know what I think?" said Floortje, sinking her voice.
+
+"What?"
+
+"That she encourages Marianne."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Well, deliberately."
+
+"But what for?"
+
+"Why, to be free of her husband."
+
+"Of Van der Welcke?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To get ... rid of him?"
+
+"Of course. He's young ... and she's old," said Floortje, not sparing
+her mother, who was only four years younger than Constance.
+
+"But do you believe...?" said Uncle, nodding his head.
+
+"Oh, no, I don't say that!"
+
+"But still...."
+
+"I expect it's only just spooning ... as Jaap says."
+
+"I don't think!" said Jaap, with a knowing grin.
+
+"Behave yourself, Jaap!" said Adolphine, angry because Floortje had
+used the word "old."
+
+"Rats!" said Jaap, rudely, shrugging his shoulders, as much as to
+say that Mamma was an idiot. "I'll eat my hat if it's only spooning."
+
+They looked at one another: Uncle, Adolphine and Floortje.
+
+"You mustn't speak like that," said Adolphine, in a tone of reprimand,
+"when you don't know...."
+
+"And what does Floortje know and what do you know? And you are both
+just as bad as I am, with your insinuations.... Only, I say what you
+and Floortje think...."
+
+He flung down his cards and left his seat, because he couldn't stand
+being treated like a little boy who didn't know things.
+
+The three others went on talking about Marianne and Van der Welcke
+... because they saw. But they saw nothing of Brauws and Constance
+... and did not talk about them....
+
+"Oh, dear!" whined Cateau. "What a frump Aunt Adolph-ine looks
+to-night!"
+
+She was sitting at the bridge-table with Aunt Ruyvenaer, Toetie
+and Eduard van Raven and looked over her ample bust at each card as
+she played it, very carefully, putting it down with her fat, stumpy
+fingers, the incarnation of unctuous caution.
+
+"To-night?" asked Eduard.
+
+"Oh, so oft-en: such a frump!" declared Cateau, emphatically. "So
+dowd-y!"
+
+"She's your husband's sister, after all," said Aunt Ruyvenaer, quietly.
+
+"Yes, Aunt-ie, I know.... But Ka-rel is al-ways a gen-tleman!"
+
+"And Aunt Adolphine never," replied Van Raven, to provoke her.
+
+There was no love lost between aunt and nephew; and Cateau said,
+meekly:
+
+"Well, I'm not say-ing it to say any-thing un-kind about
+Adolph-ine.... But, Van Ra-ven, how ill Emilie-tje's looking: so
+tired! Are you two all right to-gether?"
+
+"Say, half right," said Van Raven, echoing her emphasis.
+
+Toetie tittered behind her cards; and Auntie said:
+
+"Ajo, [4] Edua-r-r-rd, you!... Attend to the game.... Your lead!"
+
+Cateau was no match for Van Raven at laconic repartee and so she
+preferred to go on talking about Constance and said:
+
+"Is she nev-er com-ing to Mo-ther's Sun-days again? Ah, I ex-pect
+she's been fright-ened away!"
+
+"By you?" asked Eduard, gleefully capturing Cateau's knave of trumps.
+
+"No, by the old aunts. It was re-ally ve-ry tactless ... of the two
+old aunts.... Isn't it aw-ful: about Mari-anne and Van der Wel-cke?"
+
+Karel, Van Saetzema and Dijkerhof were playing three-handed bridge at
+the third table. They had begun in grim silence, each of them eager to
+play the dummy, and inwardly Karel thought his sister Adolphine dowdy,
+Van Saetzema thought his sister-in-law Cateau dowdy, while Dijkerhof
+thought both his aunts very dowdy, hardly presentable. All three,
+however, kept their thoughts locked up in the innermost recesses of
+their souls, so that outwardly they were playing very seriously,
+their eyes fixed greedily and attentively on the dummy's exposed
+cards. Suddenly, however, Karel said:
+
+"I say...."
+
+"Well?" asked Van Saetzema.
+
+"Isn't it caddish of Van der Welcke?"
+
+"What? Compromising Marianne?"
+
+"Ah, those girls of Aunt Bertha's!" said Dijkerhof, with a grin.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked his father-in-law.
+
+"Well, Louise is in love with her brother Otto, Emilie with her
+brother Henri and now Marianne, by way of variety, goes falling in
+love with her uncle."
+
+"They're crazy, all that Van Naghel lot," said Karel, who felt
+particularly fit and well that evening, puffing luxuriously after a
+substantial dinner. "I say, what about Constance? Isn't she coming
+any more?"
+
+"It doesn't look like it."
+
+"Isn't Aunt Constance coming any more?"
+
+"No, it doesn't look like it."
+
+"Father, it's my turn to take dummy."
+
+"Yes, Saetzema, it's Dijkerhof's turn."
+
+Father-in-law and son-in-law exchanged seats.
+
+The old aunts were sitting in a corner near the door of the
+conservatory:
+
+"Rine."
+
+"Yes, Tine."
+
+"She doesn't seem to be coming any more on Sundays."
+
+"No, Tine, she doesn't come on Sundays now."
+
+"A good thing too!" Tine yelled into Rine's ear.
+
+Mamma van Lowe, smiling sadly, moved from table to table, with Dorine,
+asking the children if they wouldn't like something to drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+"You're absolutely humanizing Brauws," said Van der Welcke to
+Constance, when Brauws had accepted a second invitation to dinner. "And
+with other people coming, too!... It's incredible!"
+
+She was fond of seeing people whom she liked at her table; and she
+took a pleasure in making her house comfortable for others as well
+as for herself. Addie was to come down to dinner. Adeline was going
+out for the first time after her recent confinement; and Gerrit was
+glad to come, appreciated a good dinner. Her only fear had been that
+Van Vreeswijck would think it too much of a family dinner this time.
+
+"Tell me frankly, would you rather not come?" she asked Van Vreeswijck.
+
+But he almost flushed as he said:
+
+"But I'm delighted to come, mevrouw."
+
+She had noticed lately that he was paying great attention to Marianne;
+and she was almost glad of it.
+
+They were very gay at dinner; and Brauws, feeling quite at home, talked
+about America: how he had stood on the platform of an electric tram,
+in wind and rain, as driver.
+
+"Constance," said Paul, "all the social elements are assembled
+at your dinner-table to-night! Did you choose them on purpose? Van
+Vreeswijck represents the Court aristocracy; your husband, let us say,
+the country aristocracy: it's the only word I can find for him; Gerrit
+the army; Brauws labour; I the middle-classes, the pure unadulterated
+capitalists; and your boy the future, the mysterious future! The
+ladies are not so mixed: next time, you must mix your ladies...."
+
+"Mr. Brauws," Marianne asked, suddenly, "why aren't you driving a
+tram now?"
+
+"Freule, [5] to explain that, I should have to talk to you for
+two hours about myself; and you wouldn't be interested in the
+explanation...."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Marianne, flippantly. "If you had remained a
+tram-driver, your life would not have interested me. Now that you
+have resigned your rank as a workman and are eating pate and drinking
+champagne with us, it does interest me. For it's just that evolution
+which attracts me...."
+
+"Marianne!" said Paul, admonishing her. "Not so fast, child: you're
+only a little girl and you mustn't discuss such questions. You'll be
+making Mr. Brauws afraid to take another mouthful!..."
+
+Brauws was obviously a little annoyed; and Constance whispered:
+
+"Marianne ... don't talk like that...."
+
+"But, Auntie...."
+
+"No, dear, don't do it: don't talk like that...."
+
+"Am I always saying tactless things?"
+
+"No, no, but ... if you keep on, you'll really make Brauws refuse to
+come to the houses of people like ourselves...."
+
+"Who eat pate!"
+
+"Hush, Marianne!"
+
+"Uncle!" said Marianne to Van der Welcke.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Don't you think it silly? To become a workman and then leave
+off? Why? That's what I want to know. If you want to become one,
+you should remain one! Are you in sympathy with those ideas which
+lead to nothing?"
+
+"I'm very fond of Brauws, Marianne."
+
+"But not of his ideas?"
+
+"No, he's a monomaniac. He's mad on that point, or was."
+
+"Just so: was."
+
+"Marianne, are you always so implacable?"
+
+The bells:
+
+"No, I'm not implacable. Paul is really right: I mustn't talk like
+that. I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. Is Brauws
+angry, do you think?"
+
+"With you? No."
+
+"I say, Uncle, do you think it's the least use, always thinking about
+that improvement of social conditions? Why not, all of us, do good
+where we can and, for the rest, try and be happy ourselves? That's
+the great thing."
+
+Van der Welcke laughed:
+
+"What an easy solution, Marianne!"
+
+"Tell me, Uncle: do you do a lot of good?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you happy?"
+
+"Sometimes...."
+
+"Not always.... I don't do any good either, or not much. I am happy
+... sometimes. You see, I don't go very far, even according to my own
+superficial creed. Uncle, are we very insignificant, should you say?"
+
+"Who, baby?"
+
+"You and I! Much more insignificant than Brauws?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Are we small?"
+
+"Small?"
+
+"Yes, are we small souls ... and is he ... is he a big one?"
+
+"Perhaps, Marianne."
+
+"Yes, I'm a small one. And you too ... I think. He's not. No, he's
+one of the big ones ... though he is eating pate just now. But I,
+a small soul, shall always like small souls best. I like you much
+better than him."
+
+"And yet he is more interesting than I; and one doesn't come across
+many big souls."
+
+"No, but I like you best. I daren't talk to him again. I should start
+quarrelling with him at once. Straight away. I could never quarrel with
+you. That's the sympathy between small soul ... and small soul. Tell
+me, is your insignificance attracted to mine also?"
+
+"Perhaps, Marianne."
+
+"You say perhaps to everything. Say yes."
+
+"Well, then, yes."
+
+"Are we both small?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Both of us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In sympathy?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The bells:
+
+"Yes--yes--yes!" she laughed; and the little bells tinkled merrily,
+the shrill little silver bells. "Uncle, I drink to it."
+
+"To what?"
+
+"To our small ... sympathy."
+
+"Here goes!"
+
+Their champagne-glasses touched, with a crystal note. They drank.
+
+"What are you drinking to?" asked Paul.
+
+She put her finger to her tiny mouth. She was radiant and, in her
+excitement, she became very pretty, with her shining eyes. She felt
+that Brauws was looking at her; and she felt that Brauws was still
+angry. And, feeling mischievous and happy, with a desire to tease them
+all, Brauws, Paul and Van der Welcke, she murmured, with an airy grace:
+
+"That's our secret; Uncle's and mine...."
+
+"A secret?" asked Van Vreeswijck.
+
+She laughed. The bells rang out merrily:
+
+"And you," she said to Van Vreeswijck, maliciously, "you sha'n't know
+the secret ever!..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The men remained behind to smoke; Constance went to the drawing-room
+with Adeline and Marianne.
+
+"You're looking so happy to-night, Aunt Constance," said
+Marianne. "Don't you think so, Aunt Adeline? Tell me why."
+
+The girl herself looked happy, radiant as though with visible rays,
+a great light flashing from her sparkling eyes.
+
+"Yes, Auntie's looking very well," said the simple little fair-haired
+woman.
+
+"That's because I think it so nice to have all of you with me."
+
+Marianne knelt down beside her, in her caressing way:
+
+"She is so nice, isn't she, Aunt Adeline? I say, Aunt Adeline, isn't
+she a darling? So nice, so jolly, so homy. I adore Aunt Constance
+these days."
+
+And she embraced Constance impetuously.
+
+"Yes, Constance," said Adeline, "I'm very fond of you too."
+
+And she took her sister-in-law's hand. She was a very gentle,
+simple, fair-haired little woman, the quiet, obedient little wife
+of her big, noisy Gerrit; and the family thought her insignificant
+and boring. Because Constance had at once sought her affection and
+valued her affection, she had, after her first surprise, grown very
+fond of Constance. She never went out in the evening, because of
+the children, except when Constance invited her. And she sat there,
+happy to be with Constance, with her gentle smile on her round, fair,
+motherly little face, pleasant and comfortable with her matronly
+little figure, now too plump for prettiness.
+
+The men joined them; and, when Constance saw Brauws come in with
+the others, she thought that he looked strange, pale under the rough
+bronze of his cheeks. His deep, grey eyes seemed to lose themselves
+in their own sombre depths; and for the first time she examined
+his features in detail: they were somewhat irregular in outline,
+with the short-cropped hair; his nose was large and straight and the
+heavy eyebrows arched sombrely over the sombre eyes; his temples were
+broad and level; his cheekbones wide; and all that part of his face
+was energetic, intelligent, rough and sombre, a little Gothic and
+barbarian, but yet curiously ascetic, with the asceticism of the
+thinker. But the mouth might have belonged to quite another face:
+almost weak, more finely and purely drawn than any of his other
+features; the lips fresh, without any heavy sensuality; the white
+teeth seemed to hold a laughing threat as though they would bite: a
+threat that gave him the look of a beast of prey. And yet that mouth,
+the moustache and the chin had something more delicate about them,
+as though they belonged to another face; his voice was gentle; and his
+laugh, which every now and then burst out naturally and clearly, was
+charming, had a note of kindliness, which softened all that was rough
+and threatening into something surprisingly lovable. In his vigorous,
+broad, powerful movements he had retained an almost unceremonious
+freedom, which most certainly remained to him from his workman years:
+an indifference to the chair in which he sat, to the mantelpiece
+against which he leant; an indifference which seemed a strong and
+virile, easy and natural grace in the man of culture whose hands had
+laboured: something original and almost impulsive, which, when it did
+not charm, was bound to appear antipathetic, rude and rough to any
+one who was expecting the manners prescribed by social convention for
+a gentleman in a drawing-room. Constance was sometimes surprised that
+she, of all women, was not offended by this unceremonious freedom, that
+she was even attracted by it; but a nervous girl like Marianne--herself
+a delicate, fragile little doll of boudoir culture--would tingle
+to her finger-tips with irritation at that impulsive naturalness,
+which was too spacious for her among the furniture of Aunt Constance'
+drawing-room. And a sort of uncontrollable resentment surged through
+her when Brauws came to where she sat and said:
+
+"Do you always ... take such an interest in evolution, freule?"
+
+She looked up at him quickly. He was bending forward a little, in a
+protecting and almost mocking attitude; and she saw only the barbaric,
+Teutonic part of his head and the beast-of-prey threat of his handsome
+teeth. She hated it all, because it was very strong and as it were
+hostile to her caste. She answered, with cool irony:
+
+"No, Mr. Brauws, only in your case."
+
+"And to what do I owe the honour?" asked Brauws.
+
+"It's only natural. You were not like everybody ... once. Now that
+I am meeting you just as I meet everybody, it interests me to know
+how it came about."
+
+"From weakness, you think? Is that your secret idea?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps you are right. And, if it were so, would you despise me?"
+
+The conversation was getting on her nerves. She tried to evade it:
+
+"You may be weak, you may be strong," she said, irritably. "I don't
+know ... and ... it doesn't interest me so very much."
+
+"It did just now."
+
+Again she looked up quickly, with the quick, nervous grace of all her
+movements, and it flashed upon her that he was very angry with her,
+very hostile towards her.
+
+"Aunt Constance!" she called. "Do come and help me. Mr. Brauws isn't
+at all nice."
+
+Constance came up.
+
+"He's not nice, your friend," Marianne went on, like a spoilt child,
+a little frightened. "He wants ... he absolutely insists on quarrelling
+with me. Do take my part!"
+
+And she suddenly flitted away to another chair and, bending behind
+her fan to Van der Welcke:
+
+"That Brauws man is a most disagreeable person. Why can't he let
+me alone?"
+
+She felt safe with him, this man of her own class, who joined hands
+with her own selfish, happiness-craving youth--for he was young--a
+small soul, like hers. Her small soul hung on his eyes; and she felt
+that she loved him. As long as she did not think about it and abandoned
+herself to her overflowing happiness, she remained happy, full of
+radiance; it was only at home that it cost her tears and bitter agony.
+
+"You're surely not angry with my little niece?" asked Constance.
+
+He was still pale, under the rough bronze of his cheeks.
+
+"Yes," he said, sombrely.
+
+"Why?" she asked, almost beseechingly. "She is a child!"
+
+"No, she is not merely a child. She represents to me...."
+
+"What?..."
+
+"All of you!" he said, roughly, with a wave of his hand.
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Her caste, to which you yourself belong. What am I here for? Tell
+me what I am here for. A single word from that delicate, lily-white
+child, who hates me, has made me ask myself, what am I here for,
+among all of you? I'm out of place here."
+
+"No. You are our friend, Henri's friend."
+
+"And yours?"
+
+"And mine."
+
+"Already?"
+
+"Already. So don't think that you are out of place here."
+
+"You also are a woman ... of your caste," he said, gloomily.
+
+"Can I help that?" she asked, half laughing.
+
+"No. But why friendship? Our ideas remain poles apart."
+
+"Ideas? I have none. I have never thought."
+
+"Never thought?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are a woman: you have only felt."
+
+"Not that either."
+
+"Not felt? But then what have you done?"
+
+"I do not believe that I have lived."
+
+"Not ever?"
+
+"No, not ever."
+
+"How do you know that now?"
+
+"I am beginning to feel it now, by degrees. No doubt because I am
+getting old now."
+
+"You are not old."
+
+"I am old."
+
+"And thinking: are you also beginning to think?"
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"But, by the way you speak of yourself, you are quite young!"
+
+"Don't be angry with that child!" she entreated, turning the
+conversation. "She is a nice girl, I am very fond of her ... but she
+sometimes says things...."
+
+"Do you like her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't. I could almost say, I hate her as she hates me."
+
+"Why?" she asked, in a frightened voice. "You don't know her. You
+can't hate her."
+
+"I am different from other people, am I not, mevrouw? I say different
+things and I say them differently. You know it, you knew it before
+I entered your house!" he said, almost fiercely.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I want to say something to you."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That child ... that delicate, that lily-white child ... is...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The danger to your domestic happiness."
+
+She gave a violent start:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"She's in love with Hans."
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, trembling, and laid her hand on his
+hand. "Hush!"
+
+"She is in love with Hans."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I see it.... It radiates from their whole being...."
+
+They both of them looked at Van der Welcke and Marianne. The two were
+whispering together with a glance and a smile, half-hidden behind
+a fan, while Paul, Gerrit and Van Vreeswijck were in the midst of
+an eager discussion and Addie gallantly entertaining Aunt Adeline,
+who was smiling gently.
+
+"Please hush!" Constance entreated again, very pale. "I know she's
+in love with him."
+
+"You know it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has she told you?"
+
+"No. But I see it radiating out of her, as you see it. But she is no
+danger ... to my domestic happiness. That happiness lies in my son,
+not in my husband."
+
+"I like Hans," he said, almost reproachfully. "I have always liked him,
+perhaps just because he was always a child--and I already a man--when
+we were boys. He is still a child. He also ... loves her. You see,
+I say different things from other people, because I don't know how
+to talk...."
+
+"I know," she whispered, "that he loves her."
+
+"You know?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has he told you?"
+
+"No. But I see it radiating out of him as I do out of her."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"Hush, please hush!"
+
+"What's the use of hushing? Everybody sees it."
+
+"No, not everybody."
+
+"If we see it, everybody sees it."
+
+"No."
+
+"I say yes. I know that your brothers see it."
+
+"No.... Please, please ... don't speak of it, don't speak of it,
+don't speak of it!"
+
+"She is happy!"
+
+"She must be suffering as well."
+
+"But she gives herself up to her happiness. She is young, she does
+not reflect ... any more than Hans does. I am sorry ... for your
+sake, mevrouw."
+
+"It is no sorrow to me for my own sake.... I am sorry ... for
+hers. Don't be angry with the child! Who knows what she suffers! Don't
+be angry because she ... annoyed you at dinner, with her questions."
+
+"One can't control one's likes ... or one's dislikes."
+
+"No. But I do like the girl ... and I want you to try, as our friend,
+not to hate her.... How seriously we're talking! I can't talk like
+that: I'm not used to it. I confess to you honestly, I'm getting
+frightened...."
+
+"Of me?..."
+
+"You're too big ... to hate a child like that."
+
+"I'm not big at all.... I am very human. I sometimes feel very
+small. But you are right: to hate that child, for a single word
+which she said, for a touch of hostility which I felt in her, is very
+small. Thanks for the rebuke. I won't hate her, I promise you."
+
+At first, the sombre austerity of his frown and his expression had
+almost terrified her. She now saw his lips laugh and his face light up.
+
+"I'm going to apologize."
+
+"No, don't do that."
+
+"Yes, I will."
+
+He went to Marianne; and Constance heard him say:
+
+"Freule, I want to make friends."
+
+She did not catch what Marianne answered, but she heard the little
+bells of Marianne's laughter and saw her put out her hand to Brauws. It
+was a reconciliation; and yet she felt that the hostility continued
+to exist, irreconcilably, like a hostility that was too deep-seated,
+going down to the fundamental antagonism of caste, even though this
+was innate in her and cultivated in him....
+
+"And why," she thought, "do not I feel that hostility?..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+There was a big official dinner at Van Naghel's; and the guests were
+expected in three-quarters of an hour.
+
+"Mamma," whined Huigje to Frances, as she was dressing, "what's
+happening?"
+
+"There are people coming," said Frances, without looking up.
+
+"What sort of people, Mamma?"
+
+"Oh, there's a dinner-party, dear!" said Frances, irritably.
+
+Huigje did not know what a dinner-party was:
+
+"What's dinner-party?" he asked his little sister Ottelientje.
+
+"Things to eat," said Ottelientje, importantly.
+
+"Things to eat?"
+
+"Yes, nice things ... ices."
+
+"Shall we have dinner-party, Mamma, and ices?" whined Huigje.
+
+"Allah, [6] baboe, [7] keep the sinjo [8] with you!... But, baboe,
+do me up first."
+
+Otto, who now had a billet at the Foreign Office, came in, followed
+by Louise.
+
+"Oh, aren't you dressing, Louise?" said Frances.
+
+"No, I'm not going down," she answered. "I shall have my meal with
+the children and with Marietje and Karel, in the nursery."
+
+"I don't want you to have your dinner with the children," said Frances,
+fastening her bracelet.
+
+"No," said Louise, gently, "but I'm having dinner with Karel and
+Marie in any case."
+
+"One would think you were mad," said Frances. "Why aren't you at
+the dinner?"
+
+"I arranged it with Mamma. There's a place short."
+
+"But you're not a child!"
+
+"Frances, what do I care about these dinners?" said Louise, with a
+gentle little laugh.
+
+"If there's a place short," said Frances, working herself up about
+nothing, "I'll have my dinner with the children."
+
+"Frances, please...."
+
+"I will!"
+
+"But, Frances, why make difficulties when there are none?" Louise
+replied, very gently. "Really, it has all been arranged ... with
+Mamma."
+
+"I'm only a step-daughter!" cried Frances.
+
+"You mean, a daughter-in-law!" Otto put in, with a laugh.
+
+"A step-daughter!" Frances repeated, trembling with nervous
+irritation. "You're a daughter. Your place is at the dinner."
+
+"Frances, I assure you, I'm not going in to dinner," said Louise,
+quietly but decidedly.
+
+"Oh, shut up, Frances!" said Otto.
+
+But Frances wanted to get angry, about nothing, merely for the sake
+of working herself up. She scolded the baboe, pushed the children
+out of her way, broke a fan:
+
+"There, I've smashed the rotten thing!"
+
+"Is that your new fan?" asked Otto, furiously.
+
+"Yes. R-r-rootsh!... There, it's in shreds!"
+
+He flew into a rage:
+
+"You needn't think I'll ever give you anything again!... You're not
+worth it!"
+
+"That's right, then you can give everything to your sister:
+you're fonder of Louise as it is ... you're in love with
+Louise. R-r-rootsh!... R-r-rootsh!"
+
+And she sent the fan flying across the room, in pieces.
+
+"Eh, njonja!" [9] said the baboe in mild astonishment.
+
+"You're a regular nonna, [10] that's what you are!" said Otto,
+flushing angrily.
+
+But his wife laughed. The broken fan had relieved her, made her
+feel livelier:
+
+"Give me that other fan, baboe."
+
+She was ready. She looked at her face in the glass, added a touch of
+powder and smiled. She thought that she looked nice, though she was
+a little pale and thin. Suddenly, she sat down, straight up in a chair:
+
+"I feel so faint!" she murmured.
+
+Louise went to her:
+
+"What's the matter, Frances?"
+
+"I feel so faint!" she said, almost inaudibly.
+
+She was as white as a sheet.
+
+"Give me some eau-de-Cologne...."
+
+"What's the matter with you now?" cried Otto, in despair.
+
+"Baboe," said Louise, "get some vinegar; mevrouw's fainting."
+
+"No," moaned Frances, "vinegar ... stains ... one's ... things.... Mind
+... my ... dress. Eau ... de ... Cologne."
+
+Louise dabbed her forehead.
+
+"Don't ruffle my hair!" screamed Frances.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" she moaned, the next second.
+
+She rested her head against Louise:
+
+"Louise!"
+
+"What is it, Frances?"
+
+"I haven't been nice to you.... I'm going to die."
+
+"No, no, you're not."
+
+"Yes, I am.... Huigje! Ottelientje! Mamma's going to die."
+
+Otto took the children out of the room.
+
+"Leave them with me!" she moaned. "I'm dying!..."
+
+"No, Frances. But won't you lie down a little? Take off your
+things? Lie down on your bed?"
+
+"No ... no ... I'm a little better.... I must go down...."
+
+"Are you feeling better?"
+
+"Yes.... Give me some ... eau-de-Cologne.... Oh, Louise, everything
+suddenly went black!..."
+
+"You felt giddy, I expect. Did you take your drops to-day?"
+
+"Yes, but they're no good, those drops. I'm much better now,
+Louise. Are you angry with me?..."
+
+"No."
+
+"For saying Otto was in love with you?"
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Frances!"
+
+"Yes, he is in love with you. You're mad, you two: brother and
+sister; I never heard of such a thing.... I'm better, Louise. Will
+you help me downstairs? And will you ... will you have your dinner
+with the children? That's sweet of you.... You see, the foreign
+secretary's coming and that's why Papa wants Otto and me to be at the
+dinner. Otherwise I don't care about that sort of thing.... I'm much
+better now, Louise.... Come, take me downstairs."
+
+She stood up and Louise helped her down the stairs, tenderly.
+
+The maids were running upstairs, downstairs and along the passages;
+footmen were waiting in the hall; the house was one blaze of light. In
+the drawing-room, Bertha, already dressed, was speaking to Willem,
+the butler; the doors were open, showing the long table glittering
+through its flowers.
+
+"What's the matter with Frances?" asked Bertha, seeing Frances come
+in slowly, looking very pale, leaning on Louise's arm.
+
+"I'm better now, Mamma.... I thought I was dying...."
+
+At that moment, there was a loud peal at the front-door bell.
+
+"Who can that be?"
+
+One of the footmen opened the door.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Bertha, softly, from the stairs.
+
+"It's I, Mamma!"
+
+"Emilie!"
+
+"Yes ... I...."
+
+Emilie came up. She had flung down a wet waterproof in the hall and
+was very pale; her hair hung in disorder over her face.
+
+"But, Emilie ... what's the matter?"
+
+She had flown upstairs precipitately, seeing nothing; now she suddenly
+perceived the rooms, all open and lit up, with the long table and
+the flowers; and she remembered that there was a dinner-party....
+
+"I've run away!" she said. "I'm not going back!"
+
+"Run away!"
+
+"Yes. Eduard struck me ... and insulted me ... insulted me.... I
+won't go back home.... I shall stay here!"
+
+"Emilie! Good heavens!"
+
+"Unless you turn me away.... Then I'll go into the streets, I don't
+know where ... to Leiden ... to Henri.... I'll go to Henri. Understand
+what I say, Mamma: I'll never go back to Eduard."
+
+Van Naghel appeared at the door:
+
+"What's happened, Emilie?"
+
+"Papa, Papa, I've run away...."
+
+"Run away...."
+
+"From Eduard. It's a dog's life. He's a miser. He's always bullying
+me, reproaching me, saying that I spend too much money ... that my
+parents, yes, that you ... that you spend too much money! He's mad
+with meanness. He locks up my linen-cupboard ... because I wear
+too many chemises and send too many things to the wash and employ
+too expensive a laundress! He grudges me more than one chemise a
+week! He's mad ... he's gone mad! For a whole week, I put on three
+fresh chemises a day, to annoy him, and I threw all those chemises
+into his dirty-clothes-basket, to annoy him! He found them this
+morning! I told him that I was the mistress of my own chemises and
+that I should wear just as many as I pleased. Then he flew into a
+passion and he struck me...."
+
+She burst out laughing:
+
+"I flung all my chemises at his head!" she screamed, hysterically. "And
+he flung them all back. The room was one vast chemise!... Oh, it's
+terrible.... It's a dog's life. I won't go back to him.... Papa,
+I needn't go back to him, need I?"
+
+"Emilie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
+
+She threw herself upon her father, crushed herself against the orders
+on his breast:
+
+"Oh, Papa, I am so unhappy! I can't stand any more of it: I am so
+unhappy!"
+
+Marianne came in. She was looking very pretty: a delicate, fair little
+society-girl, in her low-necked white frock. She heard Emilie's last
+words, saw her pale, thin, dishevelled:
+
+"Emilietje!... Sissy!... What is it?" she exclaimed. "Oh, that horrid
+man! It's that horrid man!"
+
+Bertha shut her eyes:
+
+"Emilie," she said, wearily.
+
+"Mamma, don't be angry ... but I'm staying!"
+
+The bell rang.
+
+"There's the bell, Emilie!" said Van Naghel, sternly.
+
+"I'm going, Papa...."
+
+She looked around her in perplexity, not knowing which door to go
+out by.
+
+"Come with me," said Louise, quickly.
+
+And, taking Emilie almost in her arms, she hurried her away.
+
+The first arrivals were coming up the stairs. Louise and Emilie just
+managed to escape into a little boudoir. But the doors were open.
+
+"We can run across the passage presently," whispered Louise.
+
+"Just think," whispered Emilie, "he's absolutely mad! He interferes
+with the cook's housekeeping-book. He checks what she spends each
+day.... He's mad, he's mad! He won't eat at meals, so as to save a
+bit of meat for next day. And, when we give a little dinner, nothing's
+good enough. It's all for people, all for show: he'd starve, in order
+to give his friends champagne!"
+
+"Hush, Emilie!"
+
+They heard the exchange of greetings in the drawing-room; their
+parents' well-bred, expressionless voices; Marianne's nervous, tinkling
+laugh; Otto and Frances making up to the foreign secretary. It all
+sounded false. The bell kept on ringing. More guests came upstairs,
+with a rustle of skirts, a creaking of shoes....
+
+"We can't get away!" said Emilie, plaintively, almost collapsing in
+Louise's arms.
+
+They succeeded in running upstairs between two rings at the bell. The
+table was laid in the nursery: Karel and Marietje were there, playing
+with Ottelientje and Huig; the baboe sat huddled in a corner.
+
+"I'll have something with you!" said Emilie. "I'm faint with
+hunger.... What a day, good God, what a day!"
+
+"We'll get something to eat in between," said Louise. "Come, Emilie,
+come to my room."
+
+And, as if they were fleeing again, this time from the children,
+she dragged Emilie up to her own room.
+
+"Emilie, do be sensible!" she implored.
+
+"Louise, I mean what I said, give me a glass of wine, a biscuit,
+anything: I'm sinking...."
+
+Louise went out and Emilie was left alone. She looked around the
+bright, cosy sitting-room, stamped with the gentle personality of its
+owner: there were many books about; the doors of a book-case were open.
+
+"The dear girl!" thought Emilie, lying back wearily in a chair. "She
+lives her own life peacefully ... and, when there's anything wrong,
+she's the one who helps. Her life just goes on, the same thing day
+after day! She was a girl while we were still children; and, properly
+speaking, we never knew her as we know one another. She's fond of
+Otto, just as I'm very fond of Otto ... but, apart from that, her
+life just goes on in the same way.... She's always silent.... She
+just lives and reads up here ... and, if there's anything wrong,
+she's the one who helps.... What have I done, my God, what have I
+done!... But I won't go back!..."
+
+Louise returned, with a glass of wine and a few biscuits.
+
+"We're dining presently," she said. "There, drink that and be sensible,
+Emilie. Does Eduard know you're here?"
+
+"No. He was out when I left. I waited till he was out.... Louise,
+I won't go back! I've telegraphed to Henri to help me. I'm expecting
+him here."
+
+They heard voices below.
+
+"Listen!" said Louise.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Perhaps it's some one who has come late.... But that's
+impossible.... I hear a noise on the stairs...."
+
+"My God!" cried Emilie. "It's Eduard! Hide me! Say you don't know
+where I am!"
+
+"I can't do that, Emilie. Keep calm, Emilie, be sensible. Go to my
+bedroom, if you like...."
+
+Emilie fled. It was a renewed flight, the fluttering of a young bird,
+a frail butterfly, hither and thither. Her eyes seemed to be seeking,
+vaguely and anxiously.... She and Louise had to go down to the next
+landing and Emilie managed to escape to Marianne's room, once the
+boudoir which they had shared between them:
+
+"My own little room!" she sobbed, throwing herself into a chair.
+
+The gas was half-lowered. Everywhere lay things of Marianne's; the
+dressing-table was in disorder, as though Marianne had had to dress
+quickly and hurriedly for the dinner-party.
+
+"How nice she looked!" sobbed Emilie. "My little sister, my dear
+little sister! O God, they say she's in love with Uncle Henri!"
+
+She sprang up again in nervous restlessness, turned the gas on,
+looked round, anxiously, feeling lost, even in this room:
+
+"His portrait!" she cried. "Uncle Henri's portrait!"
+
+She saw Van der Welcke's photograph. True, it was between Constance'
+and Addie's; but there was another on Marianne's writing-table.
+
+"My little sister, my poor little sister!" sobbed Emilie.
+
+And she dropped limply into another chair, on the top of a corset and
+petticoats of Marianne's. She lay like that, with drooping arms, among
+her sister's things. Suddenly she sat up. She heard voices outside,
+in the passage: Louise with Eduard, her husband.
+
+"She's mad, she's mad!" he was snarling. "She's run away! The servant
+didn't know where to. Where is she, where is she?"
+
+"She's here," said Louise, calmly.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"She's resting. But keep calm, Eduard, and don't let them hear you
+downstairs. There's a dinner-party."
+
+"I don't care! I insist...."
+
+"I insist that you keep quiet and don't make a scene...."
+
+"Where is Emilie?"
+
+"If you're quiet, you can speak to her. If you shout like that,
+so that you can be heard downstairs, I'll send a message to Papa."
+
+Emilie, on tenterhooks, quivering in every nerve, stood up and opened
+the door:
+
+"I am here," she said.
+
+She stood in front of her husband. He was no longer the dapper
+nonentity; he stood there coarse, raving, like a clod-hopper:
+
+"You're coming home with me!" he shouted. "This minute!"
+
+"Eduard!" Louise entreated. "Don't shout. Come in."
+
+She pushed him into Marianne's room.
+
+"You're coming home!" he shouted again. "Are you coming? Are you
+coming?"
+
+"No, I'm not," said Emilie.
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"No! I won't go back to you."
+
+"You've got to!"
+
+"I want a divorce."
+
+"I don't; and you're coming home."
+
+"I'm not going home. You've struck me ... and I'm placing myself under
+my father's protection. I don't know the law, but I'm not going to
+be struck by you."
+
+"If you don't come ... I'll make you, I'll thrash you to the door."
+
+She gave a contemptuous laugh:
+
+"You're not a man," she said. "You're a cowardly brute!"
+
+He raved as though beside himself. He cursed and foamed at the
+mouth. Louise stared at him in dismay; hardly knew him, now that he
+had lost all his veneer of manner, all his German, would-be correct
+politeness.
+
+"Home you go!" he roared again, pointing to the door with his finger.
+
+"I am not going."
+
+He flew at her, seized her by her frail shoulders, shook her, his
+mouth distorted by passion, his eyes starting out of his head, like
+a madman's. She writhed herself free, struck him full in the face. He
+hit her back.
+
+"Eduard! Emilie!" screamed Louise.
+
+Her anger gave her strength. She threw herself upon her brother-in-law,
+strong in her indignation, pushed him away from his wife.
+
+"Go away!" she cried aloud, clasping Emilie in her arms. "Go away! Out
+of the room!"
+
+"I want my wife back!"
+
+Louise calmed herself:
+
+"Eduard," she said, quietly, "leave the room."
+
+"No."
+
+"Once more, Eduard, leave the room, or I'll send one of the men to
+Papa. If you want to make a scandal, very well, do; but you'll be
+the chief sufferer."
+
+He suddenly remembered the Hague, his career....
+
+"Go out of the room, Eduard."
+
+"He's hurt me!" moaned Emilie. "I've got a pain, here...."
+
+She lay like a dead thing in her sister's arms.
+
+"Eduard, go out of the room."
+
+"I'll go," he said. "But I shall stay until the dinner is over...."
+
+He went away.
+
+"The wretch! The wretch!" moaned Emilie. "He's bruised my breast. Lucky
+that he did: now I can get a divorce, can't I, Louise?... Louise,
+do you know the law?"
+
+"No, my darling, but Papa will tell you all about it. But keep calm,
+keep calm...."
+
+"Where has he gone?"
+
+"If you don't mind being left alone, I'll go and see...."
+
+"No, stay with me, stay with me...."
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+An old nurse entered:
+
+"Freule," she said to Louise, "meneer asks if you'll please not talk
+so loud up here. Meneer can hear Mr. van Raven's voice."
+
+"Where is Mr. van Raven now?"
+
+"The blackguard has gone to Mr. Frans and Mr. Henri's sitting-room."
+
+"Very well, Leentje, we'll make less noise. But you mustn't talk
+like that."
+
+"It hurts!" moaned Emilie.
+
+The woman looked at her compassionately:
+
+"The dirty blackguard!" she said. "Did he hit you, my poor dear?..."
+
+"Leentje, I won't have you speak like that!" said Louise.
+
+"And I'll tell him to his face ... that he's a dirty blackguard,"
+the old nurse insisted, obstinately.
+
+She knelt beside Emilie, opened the girl's blouse and softly rubbed
+her breast:
+
+"The blackguard!" she repeated.
+
+The sisters let her alone. They were silent, all three; the room
+was all in confusion. Emilie had dropped back again limply among
+Marianne's clothes. Leentje got up and began tidying.
+
+"Louise," whispered Emilie.
+
+"My poor sissy!"
+
+"I see Uncle Henri's portrait there.... And there.... And another
+over there.... Marianne's fond of Uncle Henri...."
+
+"Yes, but hush!"
+
+"She's fond of him ... she's in love with him, Louise."
+
+"Yes, I know. Hush, Emilie!"
+
+"Does Mamma know?"
+
+"We don't talk about it. But I think so."
+
+"Does everybody know?"
+
+"No, no, not everybody!"
+
+"Does Marianne never talk about it?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Is there nothing to be done? Aunt Adolphine and Aunt Cateau were
+speaking of it the other day. Everybody knows about it."
+
+"No, no, not everybody, surely?"
+
+"Yes, everybody. And everybody knows too that Eduard beats
+me.... Louise!"
+
+"Ssh! I hear voices."
+
+"That's ... Henri!"
+
+"Yes, it's Henri's voice...."
+
+"And Eduard...."
+
+"Heavens!... Leentje!" cried Louise. "Go to Mr. Henri and Mr. Eduard
+and tell them that Papa doesn't wish them to speak loud."
+
+"The blackguard!" said Leentje.
+
+She left the room and went down the stairs. The whole house was lit up,
+the doors of the reception-rooms were open; one caught the glitter of
+the dinner-table amid its flowers and the sound of laughing voices:
+a soft, well-bred society-ripple, a ring of silver, a faint tinkling
+of crystal.
+
+"The blackguard!" thought the old nurse.
+
+She was down in the hall now: from the kitchen came the voices of
+bustling maids, of the chef, the footmen. The cloak-room was lighted
+and open, was full of wraps and overcoats. On the other side of the
+hall was the sitting-room of the two undergraduates.
+
+Old Leentje opened the door. She saw Van Raven standing opposite Henri;
+their voices clashed, in bitter enmity:
+
+"Then why did Emilie telegraph to me?"
+
+"I don't know; but our affairs don't concern you."
+
+"Mr. Henri, Mr. Eduard," said the old nurse, "your papa asks, will
+you please not speak loud...."
+
+"Where is Emilie?" asked Henri.
+
+"The poor dear is in Marianne's room," said Leentje. "Come with me,
+my boy...."
+
+She took Henri, who was shaking all over, by the hand. And, as she
+left the room with Henri, she said, out loud:
+
+"The blackguard!"
+
+"Who?" asked Henri.
+
+"He!"
+
+"What has he done?"
+
+"What hasn't he done!"
+
+She hesitated to tell him, dreading his temper, went cautiously up
+the stairs, past the open doors of the lighted rooms.
+
+Henri caught a glimpse of the dinner-table, through the flowers, and
+of three of the guests talking and laughing, lightly and pleasantly,
+in their well-bred, expressionless voices.
+
+And then he found his two sisters in Marianne's room. As soon as
+Emilie saw him, she threw herself into his arms:
+
+"Henri!"
+
+"Sissy, what is it?"
+
+She told him, briefly.
+
+"The cad!" he cried. "The cad! Has he hit you? I'll ... I'll ..."
+
+He wanted to rush downstairs; they held him back:
+
+"Henri, for goodness' sake," Louise entreated, "remember there are
+people here!"
+
+"Don't you all want your dinner?" asked Karel, at the door. "We're
+starving."
+
+They went to the nursery, as it had been called for years, and sat
+down to table.
+
+"I'm not hungry now," said Emilie.
+
+"I don't want anything either," said Henri. "I'm calmer now ... and
+I'm going downstairs."
+
+They held him back again. And the time dragged on. Ottelientje and
+Huig were put to bed; Karel went to do his home-work; Marietje hung
+round her elder sisters, inquisitively. And they listened, with the
+doors open, to the sounds below.
+
+"They've finished dinner...."
+
+"Yes, I can hear them in the drawing-room...."
+
+Marianne suddenly came running upstairs, appeared in the doorway,
+looking very white and sweet:
+
+"I couldn't bear it any longer!" she exclaimed. "The dinner's over. I
+escaped for a moment. Emilie! Sissy!"
+
+"He's here!" said Emilie. "Eduard: he's waiting downstairs. He wants
+to take me home with him. You must all help me. He struck me!"
+
+"My sissy, my sissy!" cried Marianne, excitedly, wringing her arms
+and her hands, kissing Emilie. "Is he downstairs? I'll tell Papa. I
+daren't stay any longer. Oh, those tiresome people down there! It's
+nearly nine. They'll be gone in an hour. Now I must go."
+
+And she started to hurry away.
+
+"Marianne!" said Henri.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I want to speak to you presently."
+
+"Very well, presently."
+
+And she flitted down the stairs.
+
+"How pretty she's growing!" said Henri.
+
+"And I," said Emilie, "so ugly!"
+
+She leant against Louise. They heard a rustle on the stairs. It was
+Bertha herself:
+
+"My child!"
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"I managed to slip away, just for a moment. My dear child!"
+
+"Eduard is here, Mamma. He's downstairs. He wants to take me away with
+him. He is waiting till the people are gone. He was shouting so...."
+
+"I heard him."
+
+"We told him to be quiet. I won't go with him, Mamma. I'll stay with
+you, I'll stay with you. He struck me!"
+
+"The cad!" cried Henri, pale in the face.
+
+"The dirty blackguard!" said the old nurse.
+
+Bertha, very pale, shut her eyes, heaved a deep sigh:
+
+"My child, my dear child ... be sensible, make it up."
+
+"But he is brutal to me, Mamma!"
+
+She flung herself, sobbing, into Bertha's arms.
+
+"My darling!" Bertha wept. "I can't stay away any longer."
+
+She released herself, went away; her dress rustled down the stairs. Her
+guests were sitting in the drawing-room; one or two looked at her
+strangely, because she had absented herself. In a moment she was once
+more the tactful, charming hostess.
+
+Marianne, with a smile on her face, had gone to Van Naghel's study,
+where the men were having their coffee, smoking:
+
+"Papa...."
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"Eduard is downstairs!" she whispered. "I only came to tell you. He
+wants to take Emilie with him. He has struck her."
+
+"Tell him I'll speak to him ... as soon as our visitors have gone."
+
+And, as the host, he turned to his guests again.
+
+Marianne went downstairs, found Eduard in the boys' sitting-room. He
+was quietly smoking.
+
+"Papa will speak to you as soon as they're all gone. The carriages
+will be here in three-quarters of an hour."
+
+"Very well," he said laconically.
+
+Her blood seethed up:
+
+"You're a cowardly wretch!" she cried. "You've struck Emilie!"
+
+He flared up, losing all his stiff German society-manners:
+
+"And I'm her husband!" he roared. "But you ... you ..."
+
+"What about me?"
+
+"You've no decency! You're in love with your uncle! With a married
+man!"
+
+"O-o-oh!" screamed Marianne.
+
+She hid her face with her hands, terrified. Then she recovered herself,
+but her pale face flushed red with shame:
+
+"You don't know what you're saying!" she said, haughtily, trying
+to withdraw into her maidenly reserve. "You don't know what you're
+saying. But your manners are only put on, for strangers. And at heart
+you're a cowardly cad, a cowardly cad, who strikes and insults women."
+
+He made an angry movement at her words.
+
+"You're not going to strike me, I suppose?" she said, drawing herself
+up haughtily. "You've insulted me: isn't that enough for you?"
+
+She made an effort to turn away calmly, walked out of the room, up
+the stairs. The sobs welled up in her throat; she could no longer
+keep them back:
+
+"O God!" she thought. "Everybody knows it. Everybody sees it. I
+can't keep it hidden: I love him, I love him!... Hush! Hush! I must
+suppress it, deep, deep down in myself. But, if I love him, if I love
+him ... if I am happy when I see him.... Oh, hush, hush!"
+
+She pressed her two hands to her breast, as though to thrust her
+emotion deep down in her soul. She wiped her eyes, had the strength
+to return to the drawing-room. She talked gaily and pleasantly,
+as the daughter of the house, but she suddenly felt tired to death:
+
+"Everybody knows it, everybody sees it," she kept on thinking; and she
+tried to read in the faces of the guests what they saw, what they knew.
+
+It was over at last. The butler was continually coming to the
+door, announcing the carriages. Those people would not remain much
+longer. It was ten o'clock; and they began to say good-bye. They
+followed one after the other, at short intervals, as is proper at
+big dinner-parties.... There was only one of the ministers left,
+talking earnestly to Van Naghel, in a low voice, probably about some
+government matter: he was not thinking yet of going.... But at last he
+also hastened away, apologizing. And Van Naghel and Bertha, Marianne,
+Frances and Otto all listened while he put on his overcoat downstairs,
+said a word to the butler.... The front-door slammed. They were alone.
+
+They looked at one another....
+
+And, as if driven by an irresistible impulse, Van Naghel went
+downstairs, to his son-in-law, and Bertha and Marianne upstairs,
+to Emilie....
+
+"Mamma, have you come to me at last?" said Emilie, plaintively. "Mamma,
+I shall stay here: I won't go back...."
+
+She was clutching Henri desperately; and Marianne went up to her,
+comforted her, kissed her.
+
+"Marianne," said Henri, "here, a minute...."
+
+He led her out into the passage:
+
+"Marianne," he said, "you don't know how fond I am of you ... almost as
+fond as of Emilie. Marianne, let me just say this to you: be sensible;
+everybody's talking about it...."
+
+"Everybody?" she asked, frightened; and she did not even ask what it
+was, because she understood.
+
+"You even know it yourself then?" he asked, quickly, to take her
+by surprise.
+
+She withdrew into the mysterious recesses of her little soul, which
+was too transparent, reflected its radiance too much; she wanted to
+veil that radiance from him and from the others:
+
+"What?" she said. "There's nothing to know!... Everybody? Everybody
+who? Everybody what?..."
+
+"Everybody's talking about it, about Uncle Henri's making love to you?"
+
+She tried to laugh; and the little silver bells sounded shrill
+and false:
+
+"Making love to me?... Uncle Henri?... People are mad!"
+
+"You were out with him yesterday ... in a motor-car."
+
+"And what is there in that?"
+
+"Don't do it again."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Everybody's talking about it."
+
+Again she tried to laugh; and the little silver bells sounded shrill
+and false:
+
+"Uncle Henri!" she said. "Why, he might be my father!"
+
+"You know you don't mean what you say."
+
+"Uncle Henri!"
+
+"He is a young man.... Marianne, tell me that it's not true...."
+
+"That he makes love to me? I'm fond of him ... just as I'm fond of
+Aunt Constance."
+
+"That you love him. There, you can't deny it. You love him."
+
+"I do not love him," she lied.
+
+"Yes, you do, you love him."
+
+"I do not love him."
+
+"Yes, you do."
+
+"Very well, then, I do!" she said, curtly. "I love him. What then?"
+
+"Marianne...."
+
+"I like being with him, like talking to him, cycling with him,
+motoring with him: what then? There's no harm in it; and ... I love
+Aunt Constance too."
+
+"Marianne, I've warned you," he said, sadly. "Be sensible."
+
+"Yes," she answered. "But you be sensible also."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Be sensible with Eduard! Control your temper, Henri! It can only
+make things worse, if you don't control your temper."
+
+"I will control myself!" he promised, clenching his fists as he spoke.
+
+"Henri...."
+
+"I hate the bounder ... I could murder him, wring his neck."
+
+"Henri, be quiet, I hear Papa coming."
+
+"Promise me, Marianne, that you will be careful."
+
+"Yes, Henri. And you promise me also, Henri, that you will be careful."
+
+"I promise you."
+
+She went up to him, put her arms round his neck:
+
+"My brother, my poor brother!"
+
+"My dear little sister, my little sister!"
+
+"Hush, hush!..."
+
+"Hush!..."
+
+"Here's Papa...."
+
+Van Naghel came up the stairs.
+
+And they went with him into the nursery, where Bertha was waiting
+with Emilie, Otto and Frances.
+
+"Eduard has gone now," said Van Naghel, quietly. "I calmed him down;
+he is coming back to-morrow, to talk things over. You can stay here
+to-night, Emilie."
+
+"Papa, I won't go back to him!"
+
+"No, Emilie," cried Frances, excitedly, "you can't go back to him!"
+
+"Be quiet, Frances," said Van Naghel, severely. And he repeated,
+"You ... can ... stay here, Emilie ... to-night...."
+
+He suddenly turned purple.
+
+"Tell me what the law is, Papa," Emilie insisted.
+
+"The law?" asked Van Naghel. "The law?..."
+
+And, almost black in the face, he pulled at his collar.
+
+"Bertha!" he cried, in a hoarse voice.
+
+They were all terrified....
+
+He tore open his collar, his tie, his shirt:
+
+"Air!" he implored.
+
+And his eyes started from his head, he staggered, fell into a chair.
+
+Louise rang the bell. The girls screamed for the maids, the
+butler. Henri flew down the stairs to fetch a doctor.
+
+It was was too late....
+
+Van Naghel lay dead, struck down by apoplexy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their
+continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once
+in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on
+blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with
+it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which
+came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And
+Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming
+on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the
+wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not
+always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees,
+sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained
+mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons,
+which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room,
+where at three o'clock dusk was falling.... The everyday life went on,
+regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der
+Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great
+deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing
+inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a "sewing-machine"
+of his own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it
+was he that enlivened the meals....
+
+And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at
+the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of
+her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous
+thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the
+rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was
+raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in
+her drawing-room--in that room in which she lived and which was tinged
+as it were with her own personality--and looked out at the clouds,
+at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the
+ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times
+the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her
+throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened
+to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her
+house, her trees--hers--till, blowing, they lost themselves in the
+infinities beyond.... She had her work beside her, a book; but she
+did not sew, did not read: she dreamt.... She smiled, looking out,
+looking up at the endlessly rolling skies.... The clouds sailed by,
+sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people's
+heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions
+riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds, from a far-off
+land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening
+cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering
+above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they
+passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates.... When Constance looked
+up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence
+and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and
+followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery,
+she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre
+skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used
+to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first
+time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her
+eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled,
+soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in
+pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul
+swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders
+itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little
+house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days,
+especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain
+round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life,
+which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and
+which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace....
+
+She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband's step
+in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering,
+cursing, because he wanted to go out.... Then she would think for
+a moment:
+
+"He hasn't seen Marianne for days."
+
+But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream
+shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly,
+like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were
+from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the
+soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards,
+upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat.... It
+was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she
+opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of
+light, always.... Her dream took no more definite shape and remained
+thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre
+skies.... It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty,
+shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room;
+and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in
+the darkening heavens.... The road outside was black.... A street-lamp
+shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle....
+
+Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat
+musing so long, ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to
+wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream.... She rang,
+had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.
+
+But those were the lonely afternoons.... Sometimes in those wet,
+dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she saw his figure pass
+the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she
+heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since
+he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the
+way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:
+
+"Now I'll go and pay my respects to your wife."
+
+The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the
+drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more
+informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own
+way. And, after the first shock which Brauws' ideas had produced in
+their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting
+which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for
+their own and each other's sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the
+only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors
+to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke
+let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his
+wife's drawing-room unnecessarily ... except when he heard the little
+bells of Marianne's voice and laugh.
+
+Constance' heart beat when she heard Brauws' voice on the stairs:
+
+"Now I'll go and pay my respects to your wife. She's at home,
+isn't she?"
+
+"Sure to be, in this beastly weather."
+
+She heard Brauws' step, which made the stairs creak as it came down
+them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly
+ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she
+was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt
+her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie's image:
+he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile
+of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was
+with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:
+
+"Isn't it dark early? But it's only half-past three and really too
+soon to light the lamp."
+
+"There are times when twilight upsets me," he said, "and times when
+it makes me feel very calm and peaceful."
+
+He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly
+in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were
+already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.
+
+"It's been awful weather lately."
+
+"Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors."
+
+"You're too much indoors."
+
+"I go out whenever it's fine."
+
+"You don't care for going out 'in all weathers.'"
+
+"I like looking at the weather from here. It's a different sky every
+day...."
+
+Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie,
+with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her
+face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily,
+she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der
+Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband's name,
+he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:
+
+"I'm very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I'm fond of him...."
+
+Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute
+with Van der Welcke--about nothing at all--and she would veer round
+and say:
+
+"It can't be helped. We can not get on. We endure each other as well
+as we can. To separate would be too silly ... and also very sad for
+Addie. He is fond of both of us."
+
+And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell
+him about Brussels and even about Rome.
+
+"It's strange," he said. "When you were in Brussels ... I was living
+at Schaerbeek."
+
+"And we never met."
+
+"No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there
+in the same year."
+
+"Did you come often to Monte Carlo?"
+
+"Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast
+between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my
+own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never
+saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as
+a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often
+passing your parents' house, where your mother still lives, in the
+Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe...."
+
+"We were destined never to meet," she said, trying to laugh softly;
+and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.
+
+"No," he said, quietly, "we were destined not to meet."
+
+"The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange," she said.
+
+"There are thousands and millions, in our lives...."
+
+"Don't you think that we often, day after day, for months on end,
+pass quite close to somebody...."
+
+"Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives?..."
+
+"Yes, that's what I mean."
+
+"I'm certain of it."
+
+"It's curious to think of.... In the street, sometimes, one's always
+meeting the same people, without knowing them."
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver,
+there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being
+in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her,
+to know her, to meet her...."
+
+"And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of
+people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were
+like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society."
+
+"Yes, it's all so futile...."
+
+"You exchange names, exchange a few sentences ... and nothing remains,
+not the slightest recollection...."
+
+"Yes, it all vanishes."
+
+"I was so often tired ... of so many people, so many ghosts.... I
+couldn't live like that now."
+
+"Yet you have remained a society-woman."
+
+"Oh, no, I am no longer that!"
+
+And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance
+in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.
+
+"Are you on bad terms with your sister now?"
+
+"Not on bad terms...."
+
+"He died suddenly...?"
+
+"Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party.... It was a
+terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial
+difficulties. It is all very sad.... But this doesn't interest
+you. Tell me about yourself."
+
+"Again?"
+
+"It interests me."
+
+"Tell me about your own life."
+
+"I've just been telling you."
+
+"Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg."
+
+"Why about that?"
+
+"The childhood of my friends--I hope I may number you among my
+friends?--always interests me."
+
+"About Buitenzorg? I don't remember anything.... I was a little
+girl.... There was nothing in particular...."
+
+"Your brother Gerrit...."
+
+She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.
+
+"What has he been saying?"
+
+"Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your
+dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking."
+
+"Gerrit?" she said, anxiously.
+
+"Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the
+river...."
+
+She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:
+
+"He's mad!" she said, harshly. "What does he want to talk about
+that for?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Mayn't he? He idolizes you ... and he idolized you at that time...."
+
+"He's always teasing me with those reminiscences.... They're ridiculous
+now."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I'm old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are
+young.... When you grow older, you let them sleep ... in the dead,
+silent years. For, when you're old, they become ridiculous."
+
+Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.
+
+"Don't you think I'm right?" she asked.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, very gently. "Perhaps you are right. But it is
+a pity."
+
+"Why?" she forced herself to ask.
+
+He gave a very deep sigh:
+
+"Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older ... even
+the right to our memories."
+
+"The right to our memories," she echoed almost under her breath. And,
+in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, "Certainly. When we grow
+older, we lose our right.... There are memories to which we lose our
+right as we grow old...."
+
+"Tell me," he said, "is it hard for a woman to grow old?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered, softly. "I believe that I shall grow old,
+that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard."
+
+"But you're not old," he said.
+
+"I am forty-three," she replied, "and my son is fourteen."
+
+She was determined to show herself no mercy.
+
+"And now tell me about yourself," she went on.
+
+"Why should I?" he asked, almost dejectedly. "You would never
+understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can't speak about myself
+to-day."
+
+"It's not only to-day: it's very often."
+
+"Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me ... that everything
+has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That
+my life ought to have been quite different ... to be worth while."
+
+"What do you mean by worth while?"
+
+"Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after
+my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play
+in the woods?"
+
+"Yes," she said, very softly.
+
+"Tell me," he suddenly broke in. "Are those memories to which I have
+no right?"
+
+"You are a man," said she.
+
+"Have I more right to memories, as a man?"
+
+"Why not ... to these?" she said, softly. "They do not make your
+years ridiculous ... as mine do mine."
+
+"Are you so much afraid ... of ridicule?"
+
+"Yes," she said, frankly. "I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own
+eyes ... as in those of the world."
+
+"So you abdicate...."
+
+"My youth," she said, gently.
+
+He was silent. Then he said:
+
+"I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my
+games as a child, it was always my obsession ... to be something. To be
+somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy
+of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed
+at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They
+never thought; I was always thinking.... I worked hard, I wanted to
+know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, 'Why go
+on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out
+for yourself!' ... Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness.... But
+I'm boring you."
+
+"No," she said, impatiently.
+
+"I felt utterly helpless.... Then I said to myself, 'If you can't
+think things out, do something. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!' ... Then
+I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?"
+
+"I've never read them," said she, "but I've heard their names often
+enough to follow you. Go on."
+
+"When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal
+... and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all
+those who were destitute.... God, how difficult words are! I simply
+can't speak to you about myself."
+
+"And about Peace you speak ... as if you were inspired!"
+
+"About Peace ... perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America,
+I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I was not
+a workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor ... nearly. But I
+kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably
+than my mates, to take a day's rest when I was tired, to buy meat
+and wine and medicines when I wanted them ... to go to the theatre
+dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I
+was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a 'toff.' I come
+of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while
+I was a workman, I remained--I became even more than I had been--an
+aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew
+more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening
+to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they:
+they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel
+who had been kicked out of doors, who had 'seen better days;' but
+they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman,
+a 'toff.' I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so
+as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light
+of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in
+my own station of life. But, though I was living among working people,
+I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes,
+their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a
+gentleman, a 'toff.' I remained of a different blood and a different
+culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates;
+but all my former life--my birth, my upbringing, my education--all
+my own and my parents' past, all my inherited instincts were against
+it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something
+different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of
+work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained
+a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction,
+that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my
+life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had
+it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life
+of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and
+they were worked to death. To me, after my brain-work, that manual
+and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested,
+left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others
+would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded
+the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long
+as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my
+face and hands became rough. I ate in proportion to the hardness of
+my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be
+all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money,
+secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages ... until I
+fell ill ... and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And
+never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my
+mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be ... to eat beef
+every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler,
+I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that
+and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed,
+even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than
+beef. And yet ... and yet, though I felt all this at the time,
+I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was
+because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior
+training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought,
+'I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman,
+a "toff;" it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my
+past life.' ... Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to
+Europe. I have lectured here ... on Peace. In a year's time, perhaps,
+I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know
+anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and
+seek.... But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? I
+am ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on
+seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to
+my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has
+no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn't found, then he looks back
+upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake--mistake
+upon mistake--and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless...."
+
+She was silent....
+
+She thought of her own life, her small feminine life--the life of
+a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only
+just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals
+to think--and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in
+mistake upon mistake.
+
+"Oh," he said, in a voice filled with longing, "to have found what
+one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young,
+happiness ... for one's self ... and for others! Oh, to be young,
+to be once more young!... And then to seek ... and then to find when
+young ... and to meet when young ... and to be happy when young and
+to make others--everybody!--happy!... To be young, oh, to be young!"
+
+"But you are not old," she said. "You are in the prime of life."
+
+"I hate that phrase," he said, gloomily. "The prime of life occurs
+at my age in people who do not seek, but who have quietly travelled
+a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my
+age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never
+found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel
+... old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more;
+try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a
+little, like a blind man. And," with a bitter laugh, "I have even lost
+that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young,
+or else it becomes absurd."
+
+"You are echoing me," she said, in gentle reproach.
+
+"But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left,
+at our age; not even our memories...."
+
+"Our memories," she murmured, very softly.
+
+"The memories of our childhood...."
+
+"Of our childhood," she repeated.
+
+"Not even that."
+
+"Not even that," she repeated, as though hypnotized.
+
+"No, there is nothing left ... for us...."
+
+The door opened suddenly: they started.
+
+"Mamma, are you there?"
+
+It was Addie.
+
+"Yes, my boy...."
+
+"I can't see you. It is quite dark."
+
+"And here is Mr. Brauws."
+
+"I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?"
+
+"Yes, do."
+
+He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in
+the corner:
+
+"That's it. Now at least I can see you."
+
+He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking,
+healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding
+a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the
+glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him
+down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:
+
+"He is left!" she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring
+to the last words which he had spoken.
+
+He understood:
+
+"Yes," he answered--and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a
+sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost,
+that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by
+Addie--and he repeated her own, radiant words, "Yes, yes, he is left!"
+
+The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled
+enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+For a long time, Constance had not been to Mamma van Lowe's
+Sunday-evenings; and at first Mamma had not insisted. Now, however,
+one afternoon, she said, gently:
+
+"Are you never coming again on a Sunday, Constance?"
+
+She saw that her mother had suddenly become very nervous and she was
+sorry that she had not made an effort and overcome her reluctance to
+attend the family-gatherings after that terrible evening.
+
+"Yes, Mamma," she said, without hesitation, "I will come. This is
+Saturday: I will come to-morrow."
+
+The old woman leant back wearily in her chair, nodded her head up
+and down, as though she knew all sorts of sad things:
+
+"It is so sad ... about Van Naghel," she said. "Bertha is going
+through a lot of trouble."
+
+It seemed as if Mamma wished to talk about it; but Constance, with
+an affected indifference to her relations' affairs, asked no questions.
+
+The next evening, Constance and Addie were ready to start for the
+Alexanderstraat.
+
+"Aren't you coming?" she asked Van der Welcke.
+
+He hesitated. He would rather not go, feeling unfriendly towards the
+whole family, but he would have liked to see Marianne. Still he said:
+
+"No, I think not."
+
+He was afraid that his refusal would cause a scene; but latterly,
+even though anger welled up inside her, she had shown a forbearance
+which surprised him; and she merely said:
+
+"Mamma would like us all to come again."
+
+He was really fond of the old lady: she had always been kind to him.
+
+"Who will be there?" he asked.
+
+"Why, all of them!" she said. "As usual."
+
+"Surely not Bertha ... and her children...?"
+
+"I think so," she said, gently, feeling that he was sounding her to
+see if Marianne would be there. "Why shouldn't they go, though they are
+in mourning? It's not a party: there will be no one but the family."
+
+"Perhaps I'll come on later," he said, still hesitating.
+
+She did not insist, went off on foot with Addie. It was curious,
+but now, whenever she went to her mother's house, nice though her
+mother always was to her, she felt as if she were going there as a
+stranger, not as a daughter. It was because of the others that she
+felt like a stranger, because of Bertha, Adolphine, Karel, Cateau and
+Dorine. Gerrit and Paul were the only ones whom she still looked upon
+as brothers; and she was very fond of Adeline.
+
+This evening again, as she entered the room, she felt like that,
+like a stranger. The old aunts were sitting in their usual places,
+doing their crochet-work mechanically. Mamma, as Constance knew, had
+had an angry scene with the two old things, to explain to them that
+they mustn't talk scandal and, above all, that they mustn't do so out
+loud, a scene which had thoroughly upset Mamma herself and which the
+old aunts had not even seemed to understand, for they merely nodded a
+vague consent, nodded yes, yes, no doubt Marie was right. Yet Constance
+suspected that Auntie Rine had understood at least something of it,
+for she was now looking at Constance askance, with a frightened
+look. Constance could not bring herself to speak to the old aunts:
+she walked past them; and Auntie Tine whispered to Auntie Rine:
+
+"There she is again!"
+
+"Who?" screamed Auntie Rine, aloud.
+
+But Auntie Tine dared not whisper anything more, because of their
+sister Marie, who had flown into such a passion; and she pinched Auntie
+Rine's withered hand, whereupon Auntie Rine glared at her angrily. Then
+they cackled together for a moment, bad-temperedly. The three young
+Saetzemas, playing their cards in a corner of the conservatory,
+sat bursting with laughter at the bickering of the two old aunts.
+
+Constance sat down quietly by Mamma. And she felt, now that Addie
+spoke to Marietje--Adolphine's Marietje--but did not go to the boys in
+the conservatory, that there was no harmony among them all and that
+they only met for the sake of Mamma, of Grandmamma. Poor Mamma! And
+yet she did not seem to notice it, was glad that the children and
+grandchildren came to her Sundays, to her "family-group."
+
+Adolphine and Cateau sat talking in a corner; and Constance caught
+what they said:
+
+"So Ber-tha is not ... keep-ing on the house?"
+
+"I should think not, indeed! They have nothing but debts."
+
+"Is it their bro-ther-in-law who is see-ing to things and
+ad-min-istering the es-tate?"
+
+"Yes, the commissary in Overijssel." [11]
+
+"So they are not well off?"
+
+"No, they haven't a farthing."
+
+"Yes, as I al-ways used to say to Ka-rel, they al-ways lived on much
+too large a scale."
+
+"They squandered all they had."
+
+"Well, that's not very pleas-ant for the children!"
+
+"No. And there's Emilie, who wants a divorce. But don't mention that
+to Mamma: she doesn't know about it."
+
+"Ve-ry well.... Yes, that's most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine,
+is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof."
+
+"At least, they're not thinking of getting divorced. I always look
+upon a divorce as a scandal. We've one divorce in the family as it is;
+and I consider that one too many."
+
+Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud
+on purpose, though it was behind her back.... Dear Mamma noticed
+nothing!... She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible
+evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing
+to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so
+spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful
+old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really
+never quite known.... And this, now that Constance was gradually
+drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck
+her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it
+as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in
+a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion
+about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also
+impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even
+taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw
+Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie
+refused, coldly; and now Constance was almost ashamed that she herself
+had not pointed out to Addie that Grandmamma must always be spared
+and left in her fond illusion that all was harmony. But fortunately
+Addie of his own accord always knew what was the right thing to do;
+for, when Adolphine's Marietje also came up with a smile and asked
+him to come and play cards in the conservatory, he went with her at
+once. She smiled because of it all: no, there was no mutual sympathy,
+but there was a general affection for Mamma. A general affection,
+for Mamma, was something rather touching after all; and really she had
+never before seen it in that light, as something fine, that strong and
+really unanimous feeling among all those different members of a family
+whose interests and inclinations in the natural course of things were
+divided. Yes, now that she was standing farther away from her brothers
+and sisters, she saw for the first time this one feature which was good
+in them. Yes, it was really something very good, something lovable;
+and even Adolphine had it.... It was as though a softer mood came over
+Constance, no longer one of criticism and resentment, but rather of
+sympathy and understanding, in which bitterness had given place to
+kindliness; and in that softer mood there was still indeed sadness,
+but no anger, as if everything could not well be other than it was,
+in their circle of small people, of very small people, whose eyes saw
+only a little way beyond themselves, whose hearts were sensitive only
+a little way beyond themselves, not farther than the narrow circle
+of their children and perhaps their children's children.... She did
+not know why, but, in the vague sadness of this new, softer mood,
+she thought of Brauws. And, though not able at once to explain why,
+she connected her thought of him with this kindlier feeling of hers,
+this deeper, truer vision of things around her. And, as though new,
+far-stretching vistas opened up before her, she suddenly seemed to be
+contemplating life, that life which she had never yet contemplated. A
+new, distant horizon lay open before her, a distant circle, a wide
+circle round the narrow little circle past which the eyes of her
+soul had never yet been able to gaze.... It was strange to her,
+this feeling, here in this room, in this family-circle. It was as
+though she suddenly saw all her relations--the Ruyvenaers had now
+arrived as well--sitting and talking in that room, all her relations
+and herself also, as very small people, who sat and talked, who moved
+and lived and thought in a very narrow little circle of self-interest,
+while outside that circle the horizon extended ever wider and wider,
+like a vision of great cloudy skies, under which towns rose sharply,
+seas billowed, bright lightning glanced. It all shot through her and
+in front of her very swiftly: two or three little revealing flashes,
+no more; swift revelations, which flashed out and then darkened
+again. But, swiftly though those revelations had flashed, after that
+brightness the room remained small, those people remained small,
+she herself remained small....
+
+She herself had never lived: oh, she had so often suspected it! But
+those other people: had they also never, never lived? Mamma, in the
+narrow circle of her children's and grandchildren's affection; Uncle
+and Aunt, in their interests as sugar-planters; Karel and Cateau,
+in their narrow, respectable, complacent comfort; Adolphine, in her
+miserable struggle for social importance; and the others, Gerrit,
+Dorine, Ernst, Paul: had they ever, ever lived? Her husband: had
+he ever lived? Or was it all just a mere existence, as she herself
+had existed; a vegetation rooted in little thoughts and habits, in
+little opinions and prejudices, in little religions or philosophies;
+and feeling pleasant and comfortable therein and looking down upon and
+condemning others and considering one's self fairly good and fairly
+high-minded, not so bad as others and at least far more sensible in
+one's opinions and beliefs than most of one's neighbours?... Oh,
+people like themselves; people in their "set," in other sets,
+with their several variations of birth, religion, position, money;
+decent people, whom Brauws sometimes called "the bourgeois:" had they
+ever lived, ever looked out beyond the very narrow circle which their
+dogmas drew around them? What a small and insignificant merry-go-round
+it was! And what was the object of whirling among one another and
+round one another like that?... It suddenly appeared to her that,
+of all these people who belonged to her and of all the others, the
+acquaintances, whom with a swift mental effort she grouped around
+them, there was not one who could send a single thought shining out
+far and wide, towards the wide horizons yonder, without thinking of
+himself, his wife and his children and clinging to his prejudices
+about money, position, religion and birth.... As regards money, it
+was almost a distinction among all of them not to have any and then
+to live as if they had. Position was what they strove for; and those
+who did not strive for it, such as Paul and Ernst, were criticized
+for their weakness. Religion was, with those other people, the mere
+acquaintances, not belonging to their circle, sometimes a matter
+of decency or of political interest; but, in their set, with its
+East-Indian leaven, it was ignored, quietly and calmly, never thought
+about or talked about, save that the children were just confirmed,
+quickly, as they might be given a dancing- or music-lesson. Birth,
+birth, that was everything; and even then there was that superior
+contempt for new titles of nobility, that respect only for old titles
+and a tendency to think themselves very grand, even though they were
+not titled, as members of a patrician Dutch-Indian family which, in
+addition to its original importance, had also absorbed the importance
+attaching to the highest official positions in Java.... And over it all
+lay the soft smile of indulgent pity and contempt for any who thought
+differently from themselves. It formed the basis of all their opinions,
+however greatly those opinions might vary according to their personal
+interests and views: compassion and contempt for people who had no
+money and lived economically; for those who did not aim at an exalted
+position; for those, whether Catholics or anti-revolutionaries--they
+themselves were all moderate liberals, with special emphasis on the
+"moderate"--who cherished an enthusiasm for religion; for those
+who were not of such patrician birth as themselves. And so on,
+with certain variations in these opinions.... It was as though
+Constance noticed the merry-go-round for the first time, whirling
+in that little circle. It was as though she saw it in the past, saw
+it whirling in their drawing-rooms, when her father was still alive,
+then especially. She saw it suddenly, as a child, after it is grown
+up, sees its parents and their house, their former life, in which
+it was a child, in which it grew up. She saw it now like that at
+her mother's, only less vividly, because of the informality of that
+family-gathering. She saw it like that, dimly, in all, in every one of
+them, more or less. But she also saw the respect, the love for Mamma,
+the wish to leave her in the illusion which that love gave her.
+
+She had never seen it like that before. She herself was just the
+same as the others. And she thought herself and all of them small,
+so small that she said to herself:
+
+"Do we all of us live for so very little, when there is so very
+much beyond, stretching far and wide, under the cloudy skies of that
+immense horizon? Do we never stop outside this little circle in which
+we all, with our superior smile--because we are so distinguished and
+enlightened--spin round one another and ourselves, like humming-tops,
+like everlasting humming-tops?"
+
+And again Brauws' figure rose before her eyes. Oh, she now for the
+first time understood what he had said, on that first evening when
+she saw and heard him, about Peace!... Peace! The pure, immaculate
+ideal suddenly streamed before her like a silver banner, fluttered
+in the wide cloudy skies! Oh, she now for the first time understood
+... why he sought. He had wanted to seek ... life! He had sought
+... and he had not found. But, while seeking, he had lived: he still
+lived! His breath came and went, his pulses throbbed, his chest heaved
+... even though his sadness, because he had never "found," bedimmed
+his energies. But she and all of them did not live! They did not
+live, they had never lived. They were born, people of distinction,
+with all their little cynicisms about money and religion, with all
+their fondness for birth and position; and they continued to spin
+round like that, to spin like humming-tops: moderate liberals. That
+they all tolerated her again, in the little circle, was that not all
+part of their moderate liberal attitude? Oh, to live, to live really,
+to live as he had lived, to live ... to live with him!
+
+She was now startled at herself. She was in a room full of people
+and she sat in silence next to her mother. Dear Mamma!... And she
+was weary of her own thinking, for swift as lightning it all flashed
+through her, that revelation of her thoughts, without sentences,
+without images, without words. It just flashed; and that was all. But
+that flashing made her feel weary, enervated, almost breathless in
+the room, which she found close.... And the very last of her thoughts,
+which had just for a moment appeared before her--sentence, image and
+word--had startled her. She had to confess it to herself: she loved,
+she loved him. But she inwardly pronounced that love--perhaps with the
+little cynical laugh which she had observed in her own people--she
+pronounced that love to be absurd, because so many silent, dead
+years lay heaped up there, because she was old, quite old. To wish
+to live at this time of day was absurd. To wish to dream at this
+stage was absurd. No, after so many years had been wasted on that
+meaningless existence, then she, an old woman now, must not hope to
+live again when it dawned too late, that life of thinking and feeling,
+that life from which might have sprung a life of doing and loving,
+of boundless love, of love for everybody and everything.... No,
+after so many years had been spent in living the life of a plant,
+until the plant became yellow and sere, then inevitably, inexorably
+extinction, slow extinction, was the only hope that remained....
+
+The absurdity, of being so old--forty-three--and feeling like
+that!... Never, she swore, would she allow anybody to perceive that
+absurdity. She knew quite well that it was not really absurd, that
+its absurdity existed only in the narrow little circle of little
+prejudices and little dogmas. But she also knew that she, like all
+of them, was small, that she herself was full of prejudice; she knew
+that she could not rise, could never rise above what she considered
+absurd, what she had been taught, from a child, in her little circle,
+to look upon as absurd!
+
+No, now that she was old, there was nothing for her but to turn her
+eyes from the radiant vision and, calmly, to grow still older ... to
+go towards that slow extinction which perhaps would still drag on
+for many long and empty years: the years of a woman of her age ... in
+their set....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+The door opened and Bertha, Louise and Marianne entered. And
+they stepped so suddenly right across Constance' thoughts that
+she was startled at their appearance: mother and daughters in deep
+mourning. She had not seen Bertha except on that first hurried visit
+immediately after Van Naghel's death and on the day of the funeral,
+six weeks ago; and she knew very little of what was happening; she had
+seen Marianne only once. And now that they both stepped right across
+her thoughts, into that narrow circle--which she condemned, though
+she herself was unable to move out of it--a great compassion suddenly
+surged through her, like a torrent. Bertha looked very pale, tired,
+wasted, grown all at once into an old woman, hopeless and resigned,
+as though broken under much silent sorrow. Louise's face wore a
+rather more tranquil expression; but Marianne beside her, delicate
+and white, still more delicate and white in her black dress, also
+diffused an almost tearful melancholy. Mamma rose and went towards
+them. It was the first time since her husband's death that Bertha
+had come to Mamma's Sunday-evening; and the gesture with which the
+old woman rose, approached her daughter, embraced her and led her to
+the sofa where she had been sitting showed the same open-armed and
+open-hearted motherly affection with which, as Constance remembered,
+Mamma had received her, Constance, at the door, on the landing,
+on the first evening of her own return. Dear Mamma!
+
+It touched her so much that she herself rose, went to Bertha, kissed
+her tenderly, kissed Louise and Marianne. Her voice, for the first
+time for many a day, had a sisterly note in it that took Bertha by
+surprise. She pressed Constance' hand and, after the others had spoken
+to her, sat down quietly near Mamma, Aunt Lot and Constance. How pale,
+dejected and resigned she was! She seemed to be looking helplessly
+around her, to be looking for some one to assist her, to be wishing to
+say something, to somebody, that would have relieved her. She sighed:
+
+"I have come, Mamma ... but I cannot stay long," she said. "I am very
+tired. There are all those business matters; and, though Adolph is very
+kind and sympathetic and is a great help, it is terribly complicated
+and I sometimes feel half-dead with it all.... It's lucky that I have
+Otto and Frances; I don't know what I should do without them.... You
+know we are going to live in the country?..."
+
+"You were thinking about it the other day, dear," said Mamma,
+anxiously, "but it wasn't decided yet ... Bertha, must I lose you?"
+
+"Dear Mamma, it's better in the country. Adolph wanted us to look
+round in Overijssel, but I would rather be at Baarn, for instance:
+it's nearer to the Hague and you...."
+
+"Why, Baarn, my child? There's nobody there but Amsterdam people,
+business-people: such a very different set from ours!..."
+
+"We sha'n't expect to make friends, Mamma, at first. I shall be alone
+with the girls. Otto and Frances have found a little house at the
+Hague: it's lucky that Otto is provided for at the Foreign Office. The
+minister spoke very nicely about him the other day.... Frans and
+Henri must finish their university-course quickly now," she said,
+in a hesitating tone. "Karel is going to a boarding-school, for
+I can't manage him. And Marietje too: she was going soon, in any
+case. So there will be just the three of us: Louise, Marianne and
+I.... Things have changed very much, all at once, Aunt Lot. We want to
+live quietly. In the first place, we shall just have to live quietly;
+and the girls are quite content to do so...."
+
+It again seemed to Constance as if Bertha were looking for somebody
+in the room, were hushing something up. Constance had Emilie's name
+on her lips, but she did not like to ask. Mamma knew nothing more
+than that Emilie and Van Raven sometimes had differences.
+
+"I shall have a lot of trouble and worry before me," said Bertha. "But,
+when it is all settled and we have our little villa...."
+
+She sank back in her chair and stared before her with dim eyes.
+
+Constance took her hand compassionately, held it tight. It looked as
+though Bertha, after that busy life which had suddenly snapped with
+Van Naghel's death, an hour after their last dinner-party, no longer
+knew what to do or say, felt derelict and helpless....
+
+Though there was so much business to attend to, she seemed stunned all
+at once, in the grip of a strange lethargy, as though everything was
+now finished, as though there was nothing left now that there would
+soon be no more visits to pay, no receptions to hold, no dinners to
+give; now that Van Naghel no longer came home from the Chamber, tired
+and irritable from an afternoon's heckling; now that there would be no
+more calculating how they could manage to spend a thousand guilders
+less a month; now that she would simply have to live quietly on what
+she and the girls possessed. And it seemed as if she no longer knew
+how or why she should go on living, now that she would no longer
+have to give her dinners and pay her visits ... for her children,
+particularly her girls. Louise and Marianne had said to her so calmly
+that they wanted very soon to begin living quietly that Bertha now
+began to wonder:
+
+"Why did I always make so much fuss, if the girls cared for it so
+little? Why did I go on till I was old and worn out?"
+
+It was true, that had been Van Naghel's ambition: he had wanted to
+see his house a political salon. What he wished had happened. Now it
+was all over. Now there was nothing to be done but to live quietly,
+in the little villa at Baarn; to make no debts; to let the boys finish
+their college-course as quickly as possible; and then to educate Karel
+and Marietje and let theirs be a different life from the others':
+how she did not know....
+
+Bertha remained sitting wearily, staring vaguely before her,
+half-listening to the sympathetic words, uttered with an emphatic
+Indian accent, of Aunt Lot, who kept saying:
+
+"Kassian!..." [12]
+
+But suddenly an access of nervousness seemed to startle her out of
+her depression. She looked round again, as though seeking for somebody
+... somebody to say something to. Her glance fastened for a moment on
+Aunt Lot and then on Constance. Suddenly she rose, with a little laugh,
+as though she wanted to speak to Louise, farther away. But the nervous
+pressure of her hand seemed to be urging Constance also to get up,
+to go with her, somewhere, anywhere.... They went through the other
+drawing-room, past the card-table at which Uncle, Adolphine, Karel
+and Dotje were sitting, past the other with Cateau, Van Saetzema,
+Dijkerhof and Pop; and the conversation at both tables at once
+flagged; the cards fell hurriedly one after the other.... They were
+talking about Bertha, thought Constance, as Bertha drew her gently to
+the little boudoir, the room where the wine and cakes were set out,
+where Papa van Lowe's portrait hung, stern and inexorable; the little
+room where they all of them went when they had anything confidential
+to say to one another, when there was a scene, or a difference, or a
+private discussion. And Constance at once remembered how, five months
+ago, she had appealed to Van Naghel and Bertha in this very room;
+how they had refused to receive her "officially" at their house;
+how Van der Welcke had lost his temper, flown into a rage, made a
+rush for Van Naghel.... She was now here with Bertha once more; and
+Papa's portrait stared down coldly and severely upon the two sisters.
+
+They looked at each other in silence. Bertha glanced round timidly: she
+felt that, in the big drawing-room, at the card-tables, the brothers
+and sisters had at once begun to talk again, criticizing her, because
+she had retired for a moment with Constance ... with Constance. And,
+lowering her voice to a hardly audible whisper, she murmured:
+
+"Constance ... Constance ..."
+
+"What is it, Bertha?"
+
+"Help me ... help me ... be kind to me."
+
+"But what's the matter?"
+
+"Oh dear, nobody knows about it yet, but I can't keep it all ... here
+... to myself!"
+
+"Tell me what it is and what I can do."
+
+"I don't know what you can do. But, Constance, I felt I had to ... had
+to ... tell you...."
+
+"Tell me then."
+
+"Nobody, nobody knows yet ... except Louise and Marianne."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Emilie ... Emilie has...."
+
+"Has what?"
+
+"She has gone away ... with Henri...."
+
+"Gone away?"
+
+"Run away perhaps ... with Henri.... I don't know where. Van Raven
+doesn't know where. Nobody knows. Adolph van Naghel, my brother-in-law
+the commissary, has made enquiries ... and has found out nothing.... We
+dissuaded her from seeking a divorce; so did Adolph. Then, no doubt
+because of that, she ran away with Henri, with her brother. She
+absolutely refuses to live with Eduard. She has run away.... Constance,
+where has she gone to? I don't know! Constance, it's a terrible
+thing! But keep it to yourself, don't tell anybody. Mamma doesn't
+know. I want to pretend, if there's nothing else for it, if they don't
+come back, that she has gone on a little journey, a trip somewhere,
+alone with her brother. We must pretend that, Constance. I don't
+think they intend to come back. Henri has been very excited lately: he
+fought Eduard, came to blows with him, for ill-treating his sister. You
+know how fond they are of each other, Emilie and Henri. It's almost
+unnatural, in a brother and sister. Now they've run away.... Oh dear,
+Constance, I am so terribly unhappy!"
+
+She threw herself into Constance' arms, sobbed, with her arms round
+Constance' neck:
+
+"Constance, Constance, help me!... I have no one to turn to, no one
+I can talk to. Adolph is helping me with the business-matters; Otto
+too. Louise is very kind; but she and Otto think that Emilie ought to
+divorce her husband, on the ground of cruelty. But, Constance, in our
+class, men don't beat their wives! It never happens. It's an awful
+thing. It only happens with the lower orders!... Oh dear, Constance,
+I am so unhappy!... The business-matters will be settled.... But
+there are debts. I thought that we were living within our income,
+but I don't know: there appear to be debts. Bills mount up so.... I
+did so hope that the boys would finish their course. Frans will; but
+now Henri ... that mad idea ... going away with Emilie ... running
+away ... nobody knows where.... Oh dear, Constance, I am so unhappy:
+help me, do help me!"
+
+She lay back limply in Constance' arms and the tears flowed incessantly
+down her pale face, which in those few weeks had fallen away till
+it was the face of an old woman. She lay there feeble and ill;
+and it seemed as if Van Naghel's death, coming suddenly as an
+additional catastrophe on that evening of misfortunes--her guests
+in the drawing-room, Emilie hiding upstairs, Van Raven waiting
+below--had so terribly shaken her composure, the composure of
+a prudent, resourceful woman of the world, that she was simply
+compelled to speak of private matters which she would never have
+mentioned before.... An instinct drove her into Constance' arms,
+drove her to unbosom herself to Constance as the only one who could
+understand her. Her near-sighted, blinking eyes sought anxiously,
+through her tears, to read the expression on Constance' face. And she
+was so broken, so shattered that Constance had to make an effort to
+realize that it was really Bertha whom she held in her arms.
+
+The ill-feeling which she had cherished for months past was gone. None
+of it remained in her soul, in her heart, as though she had passed out
+of the depths of that atmosphere to purer heights of understanding
+and feeling. Only for a moment did she still remember that evening
+when she herself, in this same room, had implored Bertha and Van
+Naghel to help her "rehabilitate" herself in the eyes of their
+friends and of the Hague. It seemed long ago, years ago. She could
+hardly understand herself: that she could have begged so earnestly for
+something that was so small, of such little importance to her soul, to
+the world. She could not have done it now.... She did not understand
+how she could so long have cherished a grudge against Van Naghel,
+against Bertha ... because they did not ask her to their official
+dinners, when the invitation would have given her the rehabilitation
+which she sought. At the present moment, she did not even desire that
+rehabilitation, did not care about it, treated it as something that
+had become of no value: an idea which had withered and shrivelled
+within her and which blew away like a dead leaf to far-off spacious
+skies.... Addie? He did not need his mother's rehabilitation in the
+eyes of the Hague. The boy would make his own way in life.... Oh, how
+small she had been, to beg for it; to go on bearing a grudge, months
+on end, for something so little, so infinitesimal ... so absolutely
+non-existent!... She felt that something had grown up inside her and
+was looking down upon all that earlier business.... No, there was no
+bitterness left. She felt a deep pity and a sisterly affection for
+this poor, old woman, Bertha, who now lay feebly and impotently in her
+arms, begging ... for what? She collected her thoughts: what could she
+do, how could she help Bertha? Her thoughts crowded upon one another
+rapidly; she thought vaguely of Van der Welcke, of Addie: what could
+they do, how could they help Bertha, how get upon the track of Emilie
+and Henri? And in the end she could think of nothing to say but:
+
+"Yes, Bertha, the best thing will be to pretend that Emilie has
+gone for a trip with her brother. We will put it like that, if
+necessary. What does Van Raven want to do?"
+
+"He won't consent to a divorce.... And it would be an awful thing,
+you know.... Oh, Constance, they have not been married ten months!"
+
+A weariness suddenly came over her, like the abrupt extinction of
+all the little mundane interests that had always meant so much to her.
+
+"But," she murmured, "if he beats her ... perhaps it is better that
+they should be divorced.... I don't know.... We are going to Baarn:
+there is a small villa to let there. I should prefer to take it at once
+and go down there with Louise and Marianne.... Karel gives me a lot
+of trouble: he doesn't behave well, no, he doesn't behave well. And
+he is still so young. Perhaps he will go to live with Adolph, his
+guardian, who will be very strict with him. I don't know what to do,
+I can do nothing.... I used to do everything with Van Naghel, he and
+I together. He was really good and kind. We were always thinking of
+the children, both of us. He was tired ... of being in the Cabinet;
+but he went on, for the children's sake...."
+
+Her unconscious simplicity, in implying that Van Naghel was in
+the Cabinet for the sake of his children and not of his country,
+seemed to strike Constance for the first time: she almost smiled,
+held Bertha closer to her.
+
+"He couldn't very well resign ... and he didn't want to," Bertha
+continued, feebly. "And now I don't know what to do. I feel so
+very much alone; and yet I was once a capable woman, wasn't I,
+Constance? Now I no longer feel capable. Perhaps that life was too
+crowded. And, Constance, what was the use of it all? My children,
+our children, for whom we lived, are none of them happy. I have
+grown weary and old ... for nothing. I wish that we were at Baarn
+now. I want to live there quietly, with the two girls. Louise is
+nice, so is Marianne. They neither of them want to go about any
+more. They're not happy, no, they are not happy. Oh, my poor, poor
+children!... You must never tell Mamma, Constance. Mamma doesn't know:
+dear Mamma! There is no need for her to know, poor dear! Better leave
+her under the impression that all is well with us, even though Van
+Naghel is gone...."
+
+And she sobbed at the thought that she was alone. Then, suddenly,
+she drew herself up a little, made Constance take a chair, sat
+down beside her and asked, peering anxiously through her tears into
+Constance' face:
+
+"Constance, tell me ... Marianne?"
+
+"Yes, Bertha?"
+
+"Are you fond of Marianne?"
+
+"Yes, very."
+
+"Still?"
+
+"Yes, still."
+
+"Constance...."
+
+"Yes, Bertha?"
+
+"It is just as well ... that we are going to Baarn.... Tell me,
+Constance: Van der Welcke...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"What do you mean, Bertha?" asked Constance, gently.
+
+"Is ... is it his fault?... Is he a gentleman?"
+
+Constance defended her husband calmly, but not without astonishment
+that Bertha could speak so frankly about that ... as if they both
+knew all about it:
+
+"No, Bertha, I don't think that Henri ... that it is Henri's fault. I
+don't think it's Marianne's fault either. Bertha, I don't believe
+they can help it. They have an attraction for each other, a very
+great attraction...."
+
+A tenderness came over her soul, like a glow, like a glowing
+compassion.
+
+"Constance, they must not let themselves go. They must struggle
+against it."
+
+"Who can tell what they are doing, Bertha? Who can tell what goes on
+inside them?"
+
+"No, they are not struggling."
+
+"Who can tell?"
+
+"No, no.... Constance, it is just as well that we are going to Baarn."
+
+They heard voices in the drawing-room, loud voices, with an Indian
+accent. The Ruyvenaers were going:
+
+"Good-bye, Ber-r-rtha," said Aunt Lot, looking through the door. "We're
+going, Ber-r-rtha."
+
+Constance and Bertha went back to the drawing-room. Bertha forgot to
+wipe the tears from her eyes, kissed Aunt Lot. Adolphine and Cateau
+came up to Bertha:
+
+"Ber-tha," whined Cateau; and this time she whined with a
+vengeance. "We just want-ed to say a word to you. Emilie-tje must
+not get a di-vorce."
+
+"No," said Adolphine, "if she goes and gets a divorce, the family
+will become impossible. It'll create a scandal, if they are divorced."
+
+"Ye-es," Cateau droned aloud, "it would be a scan-dal, Ber-tha. Don't
+you think so too, Constance?"
+
+"There's no question of it ... for the moment," said Constance. "Emilie
+has gone abroad for a bit with Henri; and the change is sure to do
+her good and make her a little calmer."
+
+"Oh?... Has she gone a-broad?"
+
+"Where to?" asked Adolphine, all agog.
+
+"They were to go to Paris," said Constance, without hesitating.
+
+"O-oh?... Has Emilie-tje gone to ... Pa-ris?"
+
+"Yes, with her brother," Constance repeated.
+
+A minute later, she found an opportunity of saying quietly to Bertha:
+
+"It's better like that, Bertha; better to say it as if it was quite
+natural... If you don't say it yourself ... and they come to hear...."
+
+"Thank you, Constance ... thank you."
+
+"Oh, Bertha.... I wish I could do something for you!"
+
+"You have helped me as it is.... Thank you.... That's all that I
+can say...."
+
+She lay back helplessly in her chair, staring dimly before
+her. Constance followed her glance. She saw that Van der Welcke had
+come, very late. He was sitting in the conservatory--where the boys had
+cleared away the cards after their game, as Grandmamma always expected
+them to do--sitting a little in the shadow, but still visible. He was
+bending over towards Marianne, who sat beside him, her face a white
+patch in the darkness: a frail little black figure making a faint
+blur in the dim conservatory, where the gas was now turned out. She
+seemed to be weeping silently, sat crushing her handkerchief. He
+appeared to be saying something, anxiously and tenderly, while he
+bent still nearer to her. Then, suddenly, he took her hand, pressed
+it impulsively. Marianne looked up in alarm. Her eyes met, at the far
+end of the long drawing-room, the eyes of Aunt Constance, the dull,
+staring eyes of her mother. She drew away her hand ... and her pale
+face flushed with a glow of shame....
+
+Grandmamma stood in the middle of the drawing-room, a little sad
+at the gloom which the recent mourning had cast over her rooms. The
+children took their leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Constance began to love her loneliness more and more.
+
+Her daily life was very uneventful: she could count the people with
+whom she came into contact. First her husband and her son: there was
+something gentler in her attitude towards Van der Welcke, something
+almost motherly, which prevented her from getting angry with him,
+even though the inclination welled up within her. Addie was as usual,
+perhaps even a little more serious: this disquieted her. Then there was
+Brauws, who came regularly. He dined with them regularly, on a fixed
+day in the week, quite informally; and moreover he had become the
+friend of both Van der Welcke and Constance and even of Addie. Then
+there were Mamma, Gerrit and his little tribe and, now and again,
+Paul. And then there was Van Vreeswijck; and Marianne, of course;
+and latterly she had seen more of Bertha. For the rest she seemed to
+drift away from all the others, even from warm-hearted Aunt Lot. She
+kept in touch only with those with whom she was really in sympathy.
+
+Still, though she had these few friends, she often had quite lonely
+afternoons. But they did not depress her; she gazed out at the rain,
+at the cloud-phantoms. And she dreamed ... along the path of light. She
+smiled at her dream. Even though she very much feared the absurdity
+of it for herself, she could not help it: a new youthfulness filled
+her with a gentle glow, a new tenderness, like the delicate bloom of
+a young girl's soul dreaming of the wonderful future.... And then she
+would come back to herself suddenly and smile at her sentimentality
+and summon up all her matronly common-sense; and she would think:
+
+"Come, I oughtn't to be sitting like this!... Come, I oughtn't to be
+acting like this and thinking of everything and nothing!... Certainly,
+I like him very much; but why cannot I do that without these strange
+thoughts, without dreaming and picturing all manner of things and
+filling my head with romantic fancies ... as if I were a girl of
+eighteen or twenty?... Oh, those are the things which we do not speak
+about, the deep secret things which we never tell to anybody!... I
+should never have suspected them in myself ... or that they could be
+so exquisitely sweet to me. How strangely sweet, to dream myself back
+to youth in visions which, though they never really take shape, yet
+make a shining path to those cloudy skies, to imagine myself young
+again in those dreams!... If I never had these thoughts and dreams
+before, why do I have them now? Come, I oughtn't to be sitting like
+this and thinking like this!... I make up a host of pretty stories,
+sentimental little stories, and see myself, see us both, years ago,
+as quite young children, both of us. He played and I played ... almost
+the same game: he a boy, I a girl. It was as though he were seeking
+me. It was as though I, in my childish dreams, divined something of
+him, far, far away, as though there were a part of me that wanted to go
+to him, a part of him that wanted to come to me.... Stop, I am giving
+way again to those secret enthusiasms which lie deep down in my soul
+like strange, hidden streams, those vague, romantic ferments such as I
+imagined that young girls might have, but not I, a woman of my years,
+a woman with my past, the mother of a big son.... I will not do it
+any more, I will not.... It is morbid to be like this.... And yet
+... and yet ... when the wind blows and the rain comes down, it is,
+it still is the dear secret that brings the tears to my eyes.... If I
+love him, quite silently, deep down within myself, why may I not just
+dream like that? The absurdity of it exists only for me: nobody, nobody
+knows of it. I have some one else hidden within me: a younger woman,
+a sister, a young sister-soul, a girl's soul almost. It is absurd,
+I know; but sometimes, sometimes it is so strong in me and I love him
+so well and feel, just like a girl, that he is the first man I have
+ever loved.... Oh, Henri! I can see now what that was: he was young;
+it was at first mere play-acting, just like a comedy; then it became
+passion, very quickly, a mad impulse, an almost feverish impulse to
+hold him in my arms. That is all dead. Passion is dead.... This is
+a dream, a young girl's dream. It is the beginning. It is absurd;
+and I am often ashamed of it, for my own sake. But I cannot resist
+it: it envelops me, just as the spring sunshine and the scent of the
+may and the cherry-blossom in the Woods envelop one with languorous
+sweetness. I cannot resist it, I can not resist it. My eyes go
+towards those clouds, my soul goes towards those clouds, my dreams
+go towards them ... and I love him, I love him.... I feel ashamed:
+sometimes I dare not look my son in the face.... I love him, I love
+him; and I feel ashamed: sometimes I dare not go across the street,
+as though people would notice it, by the light on my face.... But ah,
+no, that light does not shine from me, because I am old! It does from
+Marianne, poor child, but not from me ... oh, thank God for that!... I
+want to struggle against it, but it is stronger than I; and, when I
+think of him, I feel as if I were numbed here in my chair. When he
+comes into the room, I tremble, powerless to make a movement. Let me
+be ashamed of myself, argue with myself, struggle as I may, it is so,
+it is something real, as though I had never felt anything real in my
+life: it is a dream and it is also reality...."
+
+She often strove against it, but the dream was always too strong for
+her, enveloping her as with a multitude of languorous spring scents. It
+imparted a strange tenderness to her, to her fresh, round face, the
+face of a woman in her prime, with the strange, soft, curly hair,
+which the years were changing without turning grey. If he came, she
+awoke from that dream, but felt herself blissfully languid and faint.
+
+"I am not a girl," she thought, now that she heard herself speak;
+but her fixed idea, that she was old, quite old, retreated a little
+way into the background.
+
+But, though she now no longer felt so old in her dream, after her
+dream she thought herself ignorant. Oh, how ignorant she was! And
+why had she never acquired an atom of knowledge in her wasted days,
+in her squandered, empty years. When she was talking to Brauws--and
+now that he came regularly, they often talked together, long and
+earnestly, in the friendly twilight--she thought:
+
+"How ignorant I am!"
+
+She had to make an effort sometimes to follow him in the simplest
+things that he said. She was obliged to confess to him that she
+had never learnt very much. But he said that that was a good thing,
+that it had kept her mind fresh. She shook her head in disclaimer;
+she confessed that she was ignorant and stupid. He protested; but
+she told him frankly that it sometimes tired her to follow him. And
+she was so honest with him that she herself was sometimes surprised
+at it. If ever their conversation became too hopelessly deep, she
+preferred to be silent rather than lie or even seek an evasion in
+words.... Ignorant, yes; and it distressed her to such an extent that,
+one afternoon, when Henri was out and Addie at school, she went to
+her son's room and opened his book-case. In addition to the ordinary
+school-manuals, it contained a few boys'-books; and she laughed at
+herself, her little tender, mocking laugh of gentle irony. But she
+found a couple of volumes on Universal History, a present from Van der
+Welcke to Addie, who was very fond of history; and she opened them
+where she stood. She turned the pages. She was afraid that some one
+might come in: the maid, perhaps, by accident. She sat down in the
+only easy-chair, impregnated with the smoke of the cigarettes which
+Van der Welcke smoked one after the other, silently, while Addie
+was preparing his lessons; and she turned the pages and read. She
+continued to suffer from that sense of her own absurdity. She felt
+like a schoolgirl dreaming ... and learning her lessons. She went
+on reading; and, when Truitje was looking for her all over the house
+and she heard her ask the cook where on earth mevrouw could be, she
+blushed violently, quickly put the books back on the shelves and left
+the room. She would have liked to take the books with her, but dared
+not; however, that evening at dinner she plucked up courage and said:
+
+"Addie, Mr. Brauws was saying something about the French Revolution
+the other day; and I felt so stupid at being so ignorant on the
+subject. Have you any books about it?"
+
+Yes, he had this book and that book, in fact he had always been
+attracted by that period and had collected as many books upon it
+as his scanty pocket-money permitted. He would bring them to her
+after dinner. And she acquired a sort of passion for reading and
+learning. She indulged it almost hastily, feverishly, without any
+method, as though nervously anxious to make up for the deficiencies
+of her own education. And at the same time she was frightened lest
+other people--even Van der Welcke and Addie--should notice that fevered
+haste; and she devoured book after book with studied cunning, sometimes
+turning the pages over hurriedly, feverishly, then again reading more
+attentively, but never leaving the books about, always replacing them
+on her boy's shelves, or returning them to Brauws and Paul when they
+had been borrowed from them, or carefully putting away those which she
+had bought herself, so that her room apparently remained the same,
+without the confusion and untidiness of a lot of books. Her reading
+was a strange medley: a volume of Quack's Socialists, which Brauws
+lent her; Zola's novel, L'OEuvre; a pamphlet by Bakunin and an odd
+number of the Gids; a copy of The Imitation which had strayed among
+Van der Welcke's books; Gonse on Japanese Art; Tolstoi's novels and
+pamphlets. But it was a strange bold power of discrimination that
+at once taught her to pick and choose amid the chaos of all this
+literature, made her accept this and reject that: a psychological
+analysis; a new work on modern social evolution; an aesthetic rhapsody
+about a Japanese vase. She learnt quickly to look into them boldly and
+to take from them what was able as it were to develop her; and out of
+many of those books there flashed forth such entirely new revelations
+of hitherto unperceived truths that often, tired, dazed, astounded,
+she asked herself:
+
+"Is there so much then? Is so much thought about, dreamt about,
+so much sought for, lived for? Do people have those visions then,
+those dreams? And does it all exist? And can it all be taken in by me,
+by my intelligence?"
+
+And, as she thought, it seemed as if crape veils were being raised
+everywhere from before her and as if she, whose gaze had never wandered
+from her family and friends, now saw, suddenly, through the distant
+clouds, right into those cities, right into those civilizations, into
+the future, into the past, into so much of the present as still hovered
+closely around her own existence. She experienced shock after shock:
+she felt dimly that even the terrible French Revolution, though it
+did cost Marie-Antoinette her life, had its good side. Zola seemed
+to her so magnificent that she was almost frightened at her own
+enthusiasm and dared not put her feeling into words. And the noble
+dreams of those apostles of humanity, even though they anathematized
+the power of the State and money--all that she had unconsciously looked
+upon, all her life, as indispensable to civilized society--made her
+quiver first with alarm, then with compassion, then with terror, with
+despair, with exultation.... She did not utter her thoughts; only,
+in her conversations with Brauws, she felt that she was gradually
+better able to follow him, that she was more responsive, less vague
+in her replies.... If in all this, this new self-education, there was
+something hurried and superficial, the tremulous haste of an eager,
+nervous woman who fears that she is devoting herself too late to what
+is vitally necessary, there was at the same time something fresh and
+ingenuous, something youthful and unspoilt, like the enthusiasm of
+a woman still young who, after her girlish dreams, wants to grasp
+some part of the vivid, many-coloured, radiant life around her, who
+grasps with joyous open hands at the colours and the sunbeams and
+who, though she grasps wildly, nevertheless gathers fresh life in
+her illusion.... She gathered fresh life. The wind that blew outside
+seemed to blow through her soul; the rain that pelted seemed actually
+to wash her face; the continual gusts on every hand blew the mist from
+before her eyes, drew it aside like a curtain.... Her eyes sparkled;
+and, when the winter had done blowing and raining, when suddenly,
+without any transition, a breath of spring--the limpid blue of the sky,
+the tender green of the stirring earth--floated over and through the
+Woods, it was as though she yearned for movement. She managed, every
+afternoon that Addie was free, to take him away from Van der Welcke
+and to lure him out for a long walk, out of the town, over the dunes,
+ever so far. Addie, with his eyes bright with laughing surprise,
+thought it very jolly of her and would go with her, though he was no
+walker and preferred bicycling, athirst for speed. But, in his young,
+gallant boy's soul, he laughed softly, thought Mamma charming: grown
+years younger, grown into a young woman, suddenly, in her short skirt,
+her little cloth cape, with the sailor-hat on her curly hair and the
+colour in her cheeks, slim-waisted, quick-footed, her voice clear,
+her laugh sometimes ringing out suddenly. He thought of Papa and that
+she was now becoming as young as he; and Addie felt himself old beside
+her. He saw nothing of what was happening in his mother, even as nobody
+saw it, for she kept it to herself, was no different to the others,
+spoke no differently to the others, perhaps only just with a brighter
+laugh. What she read, what she learnt, what she felt, what she thought:
+all this was not perceptible to the others. It did not shine out from
+her; and her foot merely moved a shade quicker, her speech became
+a shade more spontaneous. But everything that blossomed and flamed
+up in her she kept to herself, in the vast silence of her broad but
+unshared vistas. To her husband she was gentler, to her son she was
+younger. Only now, in those walks, perhaps Addie was the one person in
+her life who noticed that, when Mamma happened to mention Mr. Brauws'
+name, an unusual note sounded in her brighter, younger voice. A boy
+of his age does not analyse a subtle perception of this kind; only,
+without reasoning, without analysing, just instinctively, this boy of
+fourteen thought of his father, whom he worshipped with a strange,
+protecting adoration such as one gives to a brother or a friend--a
+younger brother, a younger friend--and felt a pang of jealousy on
+his behalf, jealousy of this man who did what Papa never did, talked
+with Mamma for hours three or four times a week, so often in fact
+that she was growing younger, that she had taken to reading, so as
+no longer to be ignorant, that she had developed a need for walking
+great distances. But the lad kept this jealousy locked up within
+himself, allowed none to perceive it. Perhaps he was just a trifle
+colder to him, to this man, the friend of the family, though Brauws
+was so fond of him, Addie, almost passionately fond of him indeed:
+Addie knew that. This jealousy for his father, jealousy of that friend
+of the family, was very strong in him; and he felt himself to be the
+child of both his parents, felt within himself their double heritage
+of jealousy. The image of his father appeared constantly before him,
+appeared between the images of Brauws and of his mother. But he let
+her see nothing of it.
+
+She gathered fresh life in those walks. When Addie was at school,
+she walked alone, no longer fearing the loneliness out of doors,
+she who had come to love her indoor loneliness and the still
+deeper loneliness of her soul. It was as though, after dreaming and
+educating herself--quickly, nervously, superficially and with youthful
+simplicity--in what great men had thought and written, she felt herself
+breathe again in the midst of nature. No longer from her arm-chair,
+through the windows, along the bend of the curtains did she see the
+great clouds, but she now saw them out of doors and overhead, blue,
+white, immense, irradiated by the sun in the vault of the boundless
+spring skies all vocal with birds, saw them as she stood on the dunes,
+with the wind all round her head, all round her hair and blowing
+through her skirts....
+
+"I love him, I love him," a voice inside her sang softly and yet
+insistently, while the wind's strong passion seemed to lift her up
+and waft her along.
+
+But in the movement of her hands there was something as though she
+were resisting the wind, with a smile of gentle irony, of tender
+mockery. The wind blew past, as if grumbling, and she walked on,
+saw the sea. She seemed to look upon the sea for the first time. It
+was as though, in the strong wind, under the blue-white clouds, the
+sea streamed to her for the first time from the ethereal fount of
+the horizon and were now rushing towards her, roaring and frothing,
+like a triumph of multitudinous, white-crested horses. And the sky
+and the sea were as one great triumph of mighty, omnipotent nature. A
+nameless but overwhelming triumph seemed from out of those clouds
+to hold reins in thousands of fists, the reins of the multitudinous
+white-crested horses; and all that triumph of nature advanced towards
+her like a riot of youth. It was as though every atom of her former
+life, every memory flew away around her like sand, like dust, like
+straw. It all flew away; and the waves broke, the sea uplifted itself
+like an exulting menace, as though to carry her with it in the riotous
+rush of its triumphant crested steeds, over all that small life,
+over everything ... if she did not take care.
+
+It was all big, wide, far-reaching, like a world. When she reached
+home, she was tired out, sobered by the tram-ride and the last bit
+of walking, past casual, shadowy people. Worn out, she fell asleep,
+woke shortly before dinner, welcomed Addie in a dream. Until sometimes
+she read her son's eyes, made an effort, plunged her face in a basin
+of water, tried to be, to appear as she had always been. And then, in
+the glass, she saw herself like that, to all appearance the same woman,
+with just something livelier in her eyes, her gait, her movements. But
+inside her everything was changed.
+
+At home sometimes the past would still rise up before her, but
+different, quite different. She seemed to withdraw from her former
+personality and it was as though, far removed from the woman that she
+had once been, she was now for the first time able to judge her past
+from another point of view than her own. She saw suddenly what her
+father must have suffered, Mamma, the brothers even, the sisters. She
+realized for the first time the sacrifice which those old, pious
+people, Henri's parents, had made. She thought in dismay of the injury
+which she had done her first husband, De Staffelaer. She thought of
+them all, in dismay at herself, in compassion for them. And she felt
+sorry even for her husband and for what he had always querulously
+resented, his shattered career, which had constituted his grudge,
+his obsession, the excuse for his inertia: for Van der Welcke and
+even for that grudge she felt compassion. How young he was when she
+met him, when they had acted their comedy, their comedy which had
+become deadly earnest! And she had at once fettered him to herself,
+in ever-increasing antagonism! Then her eyes would rest on him with
+a more understanding glance, sometimes almost with a certain pity,
+as she looked into his eyes, his young blue boyish eyes, which Addie
+had inherited from him, but which in the father looked younger,
+more boyish than in the son. If, at the sound of his voice, the
+inclination to speak to him irritably welled up in her from the
+eternal antagonism between them, as from a gloomy spring deep down
+in her, she would restrain herself, control herself with that new
+sympathy and pity, answer gently, almost jokingly, and would let him
+have the last word. And, now that she herself was in love and felt
+herself live again, she had a sympathy that was almost motherly for
+his love, even though she herself was beginning to feel young again,
+and with it a strange tenderness for the two of them, Marianne and
+Henri. She did not think of the danger for him; she still had only, in
+her new world of romance, a sympathy for romance. He was her husband,
+but she felt none of a wife's jealousy. And for Marianne she felt
+the same strange compassion, as for a younger sister-in-love....
+
+There came to her scarcely a fleeting thought of the immorality which
+the world, people, small people--the whirlers in the little circle,
+with their little prejudices and dogmas, their little creeds and
+philosophies--would see in such strange views from a married woman
+concerning herself and a friend, concerning her husband and the little
+niece with whom her husband was evidently in love. She was a small
+creature like all of them, she was a small soul, like all of them;
+but her soul at least was growing, growing upwards and outwards; she
+no longer felt depressed; and it seemed as if she were being borne
+on wings to the greater cloud-worlds yonder, to the far cities, where
+flashed the lightnings of the new revelations, the new realities....
+
+Everything in her was changed....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Max Brauws was a thinker as well as a man of action; and each of these
+two personalities insisted on having its period of domination. After
+his college days, he had wandered over Europe for years, vaguely
+seeking an object in life. Deep down in himself, notwithstanding all
+his restless activity, he remained a dreamer, as he had been in his
+childhood and boyhood. It seemed as if that which he had sought in
+his dreams when playing as a boy on the fir-clad hills and over the
+moors went on beckoning him, darkly and elusively, a mystic, nebulous
+veil on the dim horizons of the past; and, when he ran towards them,
+those far horizons, they receded more and more into the distance,
+fading little by little; and the veil was like a little cloud, melting
+into thin air.... He had wandered about for years, his soul oppressed
+by a load of knowledge, by the load of knowing all that men had
+thought, planned, believed, dreamed, worshipped, achieved. An almost
+mechanically accurate memory had arranged those loads in his brain in
+absolute order; and, if he had not been above all things driven by the
+unrest of his imagination, with its eternal dreaming and its eternal
+yearning to find what it sought, he would have become a quiet scholar,
+living in the country, far from cities, with a great library around
+him; for very often, when spent with weariness, he had a vision of an
+ideal repose. But the unrest and the yearning had always driven him
+on, driven him through the world; and they had both made him seek,
+for himself as well as for others, because, if he had found for
+others, he would also have found for himself. They, the unrest and
+the yearning, had driven him on towards the great centres of life,
+towards the black gloom of the English and German manufacturing-towns,
+towards the unhappy moujiks in Russia, towards the famine-stricken
+villages of Sicily, all in a heart-rending passion to know, to have
+seen, penetrated and experienced all the misery of the world. And the
+capitals had risen up around him like gigantic Babels of fevered pride,
+accumulations of egotisms; the smoke of the manufacturing-towns had
+smeared along the horizon of his life the soot-black clouds through
+which he could not see and in which the days remained eternally
+defiled; the Russian snow-landscapes had spread out as eternal,
+untraversable steppes--steppes and steppes and steppes--of absolutely
+colourless despair; in Italy he had beheld an appalling contrast
+between the magnificence of the country--the glory of its scenery,
+the melancholy of its art--and the sorrows of the afflicted nation,
+which, as in a haze of gold, against a background of sublime ruins
+and shimmering blue, along rows of palaces full of noble treasures,
+uttered its cry of hunger, shook its threatening fist, because the old
+ground brought forth not another olive, not one, after the excesses of
+the past, exhausted by the birth-pangs of the untold glories of old....
+
+His mind, schooled in book-lore, also read life itself, learnt to know
+it, fathomed it with a glance. He saw the world, saw its wickedness,
+its selfishness, saw especially its awful, monstrous hypocrisy. Like
+so many leering, grinning masks, with treacherous honeyed smiles,
+contradicting the furtive glances of the diabolical eyes, he saw
+the powers of the world above the world itself: a huge nightmare of
+compact distress, the greedy, covetous, grasping fingers hidden as
+though ready to clutch at the folds of the majestic purple, ready to
+strike like vultures' claws. And he saw--O terrible vision!--the world
+as a helpless, quivering mass lying for centuries under that eternal
+menace. He saw it everywhere. Then he wanted to free himself with a
+gigantic effort from the sphinx-like domination of his impotence,
+with its eternally unseeing eyes, its eternally silent lips, its
+undivining mind; and his movement was as that of one who lies crushed
+under granite, the granite of that omnipotent sphinx of impotence, who,
+with her eternal immovability, seemed to be saying nothing but this:
+
+"I am unchangeable, eternally; against me everything is eternally
+dashing itself to pieces; against me your dreams scatter into mist. I
+alone am, but I am that which is unchangeable: human impotence,
+your own impotence. Lie still at my feet, do not move: I alone am."
+
+That was the vision of his hopeless eyes. But desperation drove him
+on, wandering ever on and on to other lands, to other capitals, to
+other towns black with smoke: the smoke through which nothing shone,
+not a single gleam of hope. And for years it was the same: wandering,
+seeking, not finding; only seeing, knowing, realizing. But the more
+he saw, knew and realized, the more terrible it was to him that he
+could not find the very first word of the solution, the more terrible
+it became to him that only the sphinx remained, the immovable granite
+impotence; and her blank gaze seemed to utter her solitary revelation:
+
+"I alone am. I am impotence; but I am immovable, I am omnipotent."
+
+Then he had felt in himself the need to do still more, to be really
+a doer, a common workman, as they all were, everywhere, the poor and
+wretched. And he went to America, in order no longer to think, read,
+ponder, dream, see or know, but to do what they were all doing, the
+poor and wretched. And it was as he had succeeded in telling Constance
+at last, after so many hesitations: everything that was atavistic in
+him had prevented him from becoming a brother, a fellow-worker. But he
+was scarcely back in Europe before he felt the air around him full of
+noble aims, passionate hopes; and Peace had shone before his eyes. He
+spoke; and his words were as the words of one inspired; and everybody
+went to hear him. He had spoken in Holland; he now went to Germany
+and spoke there. He wrote his book there: Peace. He went on doing and
+moving, until he was laid low not only with the fatigue of thinking
+and meditating, but also with the strain of constantly travelling
+hither and thither, of constantly appearing in overcrowded halls,
+of speaking in a clear, resonant voice to thousands of people. For a
+moment he said to himself that he was doing something, something even
+greater and better than his manual labour in America had been. For
+a moment he said to himself that he had found, if not everything, at
+least something, an atom of absolute good, and that he was imparting
+that atom to the world. But dull discouragement came and smote him,
+as well as physical strain, and left him saying to himself:
+
+"They cheer and applaud, but nothing is changed. Everything remains
+as it is, as if I had never spoken."
+
+His impatience demanded an immediate realization and the sight of the
+ideal flashing across the horizon. And then he lost all hope even for
+the future, for the brighter ages that were dawning. A mocking laugh,
+a sarcastic word in a report on his lectures was enough to shatter
+him for weeks. He hid himself like a leper, or allowed himself
+to be luxuriously lapped in the leafy melancholy of the German
+mountain-forests, or went, farther and higher, into the Alps, made
+reckless ascents, just himself and a guide, as though, along the pure
+world of the slippery glaciers, he hoped to find what he had sought in
+vain in the Old World and the New, in the world of all and of himself.
+
+Then he remained for weeks lingering on in a lonely little village
+in Switzerland, high up among the eternal snows, as though he wished
+to purify himself of all the dust of his humanity. Merely through
+breathing the exquisite rareness of the air, especially at night,
+when in the higher heavens the stars shone nearer to him, twinkling
+out their living rays, it seemed as if the pure cold were cleansing
+him to his marrow, to his soul. He gazed back almost peacefully upon
+his life as a man of thought and action, thought and action being two
+things in which a man is able to indulge only if he be willing to live,
+for others and for himself. If anything of his thought, of his action
+remained drifting in those lower atmospheres of the suffering world,
+he was certain that this would be so little, so infinitesimally small,
+that he himself did not perceive it, like an atom of dust floating
+in the immensity of the future. Perhaps then the atom would prove
+to be a little grain and, as such, be built into the substance of
+the ideal. But, even if this were so, his thought and his action
+and their possible results seemed to him so small, so slight that
+he was filled with humility. And in this humility there was a pride
+in being humble; for did he not remember all the complacency, the
+dogmatism, the conviction, the assurance, the self-consciousness,
+all the pedantry that battened down there?
+
+Amid the serenity of the mountains, as he sent his gaze roaming over
+the frost-bound horizons, all within him became pure and crystal-clear,
+his soul a very prism. He saw its colours lying there plainly, shining,
+glittering, with none of the foulness of that lower world. And these
+weeks were weeks of the deepest and most health-giving rest that he
+had ever known.
+
+He now felt very lonely. He was not the man to give himself up to
+the simple enjoyment of this healing rest. He loved best to feel
+the multitude around him, to fling out his strong arms wide towards
+humanity, feeling his most ardent and happiest glow when embracing
+humanity. But, after his discouragements, he seemed to have thrust it
+gently, though kindly, a little farther from him, had abandoned it,
+had sequestered himself, in order to recover from himself and from
+humanity in the ample, restful silence of utter solitude. He now felt
+very lonely. And a longing awoke in him, stirring but feebly as yet,
+for love to come towards him now, because hitherto love had always gone
+out from him, eager and passionate; a longing to be sought himself,
+for once in his life; to see arms opened to him this time, waiting to
+embrace him, to press him to a loving heart.... A feeling of melancholy
+softened him, made him small and human, while the mountain-wind swept
+past on giant wings....
+
+He looked back upon his life. That was one thing which it had never
+known: that concentration of all feeling on an individual. With him,
+any whole-hearted feeling had always been for the many. When he looked
+back, he saw spectres wandering through the past: the individual,
+the unit, just a faint blur here and there; he had never felt that
+all-devouring passion for them, the individuals. And yet, as a child,
+as a boy, playing his dream-game amid woods, fields, heather and
+stream, for whom had his longing been? To find all of them, humanity,
+or the one individual soul? He did not know; but a dreamer he had
+always remained, for all his thinking and doing. And now, after the
+many had brought him sorrow, he began to dream, for the first time,
+of the one....
+
+Of the one ... the one individual soul that would open wide arms
+to him and approach him with a loving embrace ... one individual
+soul.... Had his quest always been the self-deception of impotence
+and was it possible that now that quest had become a search for the
+one individual soul? Suddenly, through his longing, he remembered
+an evening: a table with flowers and candles; men talking amid the
+smoke of their cigars; the burly figure of a fair-haired officer;
+and some strange words which that officer had just uttered as though
+unconsciously, in the course of ordinary conversation: a vision
+calling up early years of childhood, childish play, a little girl,
+fair, with red flowers at her temples, dressed in white, running
+barefoot over great boulders in a river full of rocks, under the
+heavy foliage of the tropical trees, and beckoning, beckoning with
+her little hand to the two elder brothers who were playing with her,
+fascinated by their little sister....
+
+There, in that room, through the smoke of the cigars, amid the hum
+of indifferent talk, in three or four sentences, no more, that big,
+fair-haired man had said it, said it just casually, with a softening
+of his rough, noisy voice:
+
+"It was wonderful, the way she had of playing. She would run over
+the rocks and pluck the flowers. Lord, how adorable she looked, the
+little witch! And we boys used to run with her, run after her, as
+far as ever she pleased. She only had to beckon to us ... the damned,
+adorable little witch!"
+
+And the oath sounded like a caress; and the whole thing was only a
+picture lasting two or three seconds, no more; and then they returned
+to the smell of coffee and liqueurs, the cigar-smoke, the noisy
+voice growing rough again, becoming coarse and jovial as the burly,
+fair-haired soldier told some mess-room tale immediately afterwards,
+after that reminiscence. But in him, Brauws, the reminiscence had
+lingered, as though always visible: the picture shining in the
+tenderness with which the brother had spoken of his sister; and it
+seemed to him as though he himself had seen, but more vaguely and
+dimly, once in his life, on those Dutch horizons of his childhood,
+a blur like that of the little figure, the bright, fair-faced child,
+even the little red note of her flowers.... Oh, how vague it was,
+how visionary! You thought of it ... and it had gone, all of it,
+leaving hardly the memory of a perfume, nay, hardly the reflection
+of a memory! Really, it was nothing, nothing, too airy for thought
+and impossible to describe in words, however tenderly chosen. It was
+nothing: if he thought about it for more than the one second that
+the reflection flashed across him, it was gone, quite lost....
+
+He was feeling very lonely now.... Oh, to think of the passing years
+with their millions of meetings, so many men and women just brushing
+against one another, in that casual passing, just looking into one
+another's eyes, with the indifferent look of non-recognition, and
+then passing one another again, never seeing one another after!... And
+perhaps among them the one had passed, her eyes looking indifferently
+into his eyes, a bit of her body or dress brushing against his body
+or dress ... and she was gone, gone, lost altogether forever. Was
+that how it had happened in his life? Or not? Was life sometimes
+merciful at the eleventh hour, giving the one, the individual soul,
+as a consolation, as a reward for that love for the many?
+
+Now he felt quite lonely, he who was a dreamer as well as a thinker
+and a man of action. And an irresistible wish to be no longer lonely
+made him come down suddenly from that ring of glittering peaks. There
+was nothing waiting for him in Holland, nothing to draw him towards
+those low lands of his birth, into the swarm of utterly indifferent
+people, full of petty insignificance, save alone, perhaps, that it was
+there--in the same house where the vision had been conjured up--there
+that the soul was waiting, there that the one individual soul would
+bide his coming.
+
+"It is only a fancy," he now thought. "A fancy ... at my age! No,
+if any such thing had to happen, it would have happened in the
+years of youth in which we have the right to feel, to dream, to
+seek ... to seek for the one. Now that so many years, silent, dead
+years, lie heaped up around her and around me ... and between us,
+now it becomes absurd to feel, to dream, to seek those sweet solaces
+which we feel, dream and seek only when we are very young, but not
+when we have lost even our right to the remembrance of our youth,
+the reflection of our childish memories...."
+
+Still he came down from the mountains....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It was not until he was standing in front of her, at the Hague,
+that he knew, in his innermost soul, that he had come back to Holland
+because of her and of her alone. It struck him at once that her eyes
+were brighter, her movements younger, that her voice sounded clearer.
+
+"I have read your book!" was the first thing that she said to him,
+radiantly.
+
+"Well?" he asked, while his deep, almost sombre eyes laughed in his
+rough, bronzed face.
+
+She would not tell him that the book, Peace, written in his clear,
+luminous style, prophesying in ringing tones the great watchword of the
+future, had consoled her for his three months' absence. She managed to
+speak of it in terms of quiet appreciation, betraying no sign of her
+enthusiasm except by an added brightness in her eyes and a curious lilt
+in her voice, with its echo of summer and of carolling birds. The book
+was a great success, written as it were in one breath, as though he had
+uttered it in a single sentence of quiet knowledge, warning them of the
+coming changes in the world; in a single sentence of quiet consolation,
+foretelling its future destinies. There was in his words, in that one
+long sentence of prophetic consolation, an irresistible sweetness,
+a magic charm which affected for a moment even the most sceptical of
+his readers, even though they scoffed at it immediately afterwards;
+something wonderful, inspired ... and so simple that the word was
+spoken almost without art, only with a note that sounded strangely
+clear, as though echoing from some higher plane. He had thought out
+the book during his lecturing-period in Holland and Germany; he had
+written it up there, high up in the Alps, with his eyes roaming over
+the ice-bound horizons; and it had often seemed to him as if Peace
+were waving her argent banners in the pure air, her joyous processions
+descending from the eternal snows of the upper air to the pollution
+of the lower, to trumpet forth with blithe clarions the holy tidings,
+the fair, unfaltering prophecy.... The book had comforted her; she had
+read it in the Woods, on the dunes, by the sea; and, in the warm summer
+air, with its tang of salt, she had sat with the book in her hands and
+felt him with her, though absent.... She knew the sentences by heart;
+but she tempered her enthusiasm, lest she should betray herself. And,
+when she had spoken of the book and was silent for a moment, he said:
+
+"And now tell me about yourself! What have you been doing all these
+months?"
+
+"What have I been doing?..."
+
+"Yes. You must have done something besides reading my Peace!"
+
+She almost blushed; and a thrill went through her, that catch at
+her throat and grip at her heart which his step, his voice, his
+glance could still always give her; and she was not able to answer
+at once. Yes, really she had done nothing that summer except read his
+Peace! So it seemed to her for a moment. But, when she recovered from
+that sudden wave of emotion, she reflected that it was not so; that she
+had read other things; that she had dreamt, had thought; that she had
+lived! It was very strange, but she reflected ... that she had lived!
+
+It was as though both of them had much to say to each other and yet
+did not know how to say it. Van der Welcke was not at home; and they
+talked together for a long time of indifferent things. He felt all
+the while that a vague question was rising to his lips, a question
+hardly formulated even in his mind. He longed to ask her something,
+such a question as a brother's tenderness might have prompted, to
+which she would answer with a sister's ready sympathy. But he did
+not know how to speak; and so he buried within himself that strange
+bright tenderness which longed to give itself expression, to ask its
+questions; and he locked himself up in his deep, mournful seriousness,
+the sombreness of a middle-aged man. She also, opposite him, was the
+same, sat and spoke like a middle-aged woman; he remarked the soft grey
+of her curling hair; and both of them, serious, almost indifferent,
+talked quietly, if sympathetically, of casual things.... And yet
+he felt that, deep down in herself, she was changed. She had never
+looked like that before, never spoken so clearly, with such young and
+lively gestures. He noticed that she had been reading, that she had
+read other books than his Peace; and, when he told her of the world
+of misery which he had seen quite lately in Germany, she replied in
+a tone of compassion which struck him, because it was no more the
+shuddering pity of a woman of the world for the misery that swarms
+far beneath her like vermin, but true compassion, the welling up of
+a new and generous youth in her soul, an enthusiasm now experienced
+for the very first time. How sincerely her answer rang, how fervent
+were the words in which she uttered it! He was astonished and told
+her so, told her that he would never have suspected such sincerity,
+such fervour, such capacity for pity in a woman of her caste. But
+she defended her caste, especially because she did not wish to be
+too exuberant in her new youth and new life and was perpetually
+suppressing herself. And so now, to hide her feelings, she defended
+her caste: did he not think that there were others who had the power
+of feeling as she did for the misery of the world, women like herself,
+women of her caste, not merely those who perform their perfunctory
+little works of charity, but other women who welcome the new ideas
+and above all the new sentiments of universal brotherhood, women
+who will perhaps stamp them on their coming children, are already
+implanting them, germ by germ, so that later, soon indeed, they will
+bear a new generation whose lives will be based on those sentiments
+of brotherhood? He was surprised at what she said, but he brushed it
+aside with a rough gesture, while a glance of hatred flashed from his
+sombre, brooding eyes, deep-set in his rough face--a glance that was
+sometimes anguished as though with pain--and he said to her that this
+was not true, that it could not be, that her whole caste was nothing
+but egoism, nothing but hypocrisy, vast and monstrous, its hypocrisy
+perhaps even more colossal than its egoism, and that he was surprised
+at himself for having any friendly feeling towards her, a woman of her
+caste. A rough candour made his voice sound harsh. But she was not
+offended by it; she listened to him although out of his rough words
+there came a gust which seemed likely to overthrow all that she had
+long looked upon as cultured, correct, respectable, irreproachable,
+moral and aristocratic. It was as though her reading, like a breeze
+from the sea or the dunes, had suddenly removed and blown away from her
+all the pettiness, the miserable distortion of the dwarf plant with its
+aping of greatness; all the everlasting strife of opinions, interests
+and prejudices waged in and around all those creatures of the world,
+the women of her set. He noticed it, with a thrill of happiness; and
+he knew that they understood each other. There had sprung up between
+them the common understanding, the common discussion of things that
+are never discussed in current conversation.
+
+And, because of his happiness, he knew that he loved her, even though
+it was late in the day, even though it was too late. He had never known
+a love like that; he felt it now for the first, the very first time,
+that wave of exultant, smiling happiness, but at the same time he felt
+it like a shadow, a grief, a regret for what might have been. She had
+not yet felt it like that, a regret for what might have been, because
+she was living again, because she was living for the first time, late
+but not too late, since she was living at last in a real, intense,
+pulsating life; but to him, the man who had lived but only never loved,
+it came at once, came as regret for what might have been....
+
+And his love seemed never likely to become anything else than just
+that: regret....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+In these days, when Constance felt herself becoming so strangely
+young and alive--she who for so long believed that she had never,
+never lived--she was compelled to step outside that life dominated
+purely by feeling. Van Vreeswijck came to her one evening and sat
+talking for hours. She liked him; she valued him as a good friend
+who, notwithstanding that he really belonged to the most insufferable
+section of the Court set, had shown that he was not too much afraid
+of degrading himself by associating with Van der Welcke, with her
+or even with Brauws, though he loudly and sweepingly condemned
+Brauws' views. She, in her new pride of life, looked down upon him,
+with a kindly contempt, as one of the little people in the narrow
+little circle, a humming-top spinning around itself and around
+other humming-tops, just another figure in the merry-go-round which
+they represented to her, all of them; but she valued his unaffected
+friendship and, though she thought him anything but a great soul,
+she did not think him a base or evil soul. And so she spoke to him
+sympathetically that evening and promised to help him.
+
+She promised; and yet it was exceedingly difficult. A new honesty
+had sprung up in her, making her hesitate to whom to turn first. She
+had meant to speak to Van der Welcke the next morning, in quite an
+ordinary way. But, when she saw him for a moment before he went out,
+he seemed to her to be suppressing some secret grief deep down in
+himself: his blue boyish eyes were overcast, his mouth half-sulking,
+as on rainy days when he was not able to go cycling; and yet it was
+fine now, a fine autumn day, and he came down in his cycling-suit,
+fetched his bicycle, said that he was going a long way, that he would
+perhaps not be back for lunch. She suspected in him a craving to get
+away, as fast as possible and as far as possible, and to deaden with
+that wild speed the pain of his gnawing grief. But, in the soft glow
+of her new youth, which illuminated everything within her and around
+her, she had not the heart to tell him what she was going to do,
+what she had promised to do, though in her secret self she thought
+it dishonest not to tell him straight out. So she said nothing, let
+him go. She looked after him for a moment, watched the angry curve
+of his shoulders, as he pedalled desperately, in his mad craving to
+get away, far away.
+
+She sighed, felt sorry for him, she no longer knew why or wherefore
+... But she had promised Van Vreeswijck; and perhaps, she thought,
+it would be best so. She went out therefore, took the tram to the
+Bezuidenhout, rang at Bertha's door, found her at home. In the
+hall, the removers' men were busy packing china and glass in big
+cases. Louise and Frans were going from room to room with a list in
+their hands, making notes of the furniture which Mamma would want at
+Baarn. The little villa had been taken.
+
+Constance found Bertha upstairs in Van Naghel's study. She was sitting
+at an open window in the large room with its dark, heavy furniture,
+gazing into the garden, with her hands in her lap. She seemed calmer
+than she had been the other evening, at Mamma's. She sat there in her
+black dress, her face old and drawn, but calmer now; and her eyes never
+left the garden, a town garden full of rose-trees and fragrant in the
+late summer air. But all around her the room was gloomy and deadly
+and desolate. The book-cases were empty: the books had been taken out
+and divided among the boys. Only the large bronze inkstand remained
+on the writing-table. The furniture stood stiff, formal, stripped,
+unused, lifeless, as though awaiting the day of the sale. The bare
+walls showed the marks of the etchings and family-portraits that had
+been taken down.
+
+Bertha rose when Constance entered; she kissed her and sat down again
+at once, sinking into her chair and folding her hands in her lap. And
+Constance asked if she could have a moment's serious conversation with
+her. A shade of weariness passed over Bertha's face, as if to convey
+that she had had so many serious conversations lately and would rather
+go on gazing into the garden. She lifted her eyes almost sorrowfully
+from the riot of roses, turned them on Constance, asked what it was
+about. And Constance began to tell her: Van Vreeswijck had been with
+her for a long time the evening before and had told her that he had
+loved Marianne for so long, so long....
+
+Bertha was interested for a moment, seemed to wake from a dream:
+
+"Van Vreeswijck?" she asked.
+
+Constance went on. He had never said a word to Marianne, because he
+feared, was almost certain, indeed, that she did not care for him. Had
+it not been mentioned that they were moving to Baarn, he would perhaps
+not have ventured to speak even now. But this threatened change had
+suddenly compelled him to open his heart ... to her, to Constance. And
+he had begged Constance to ask Bertha, to ask Marianne herself if he
+might hope ... perhaps later....
+
+"Van Vreeswijck?" Bertha repeated.
+
+Two months ago, though she had never been a match-making mother,
+she would have welcomed this proposal, would have rejoiced at it:
+Van Vreeswijck was a man of good family, belonged to their own circle
+and to the Court set, had a little money; not very young, perhaps,
+but a good-looking, pleasant, well-bred fellow. But now she did not
+know, showed little or no interest after that momentary flicker and
+went on dully, with her hands lying motionless on her black dress:
+
+"Well, I have nothing against it, Constance. If Marianne likes the
+idea, I do too."
+
+Her voice sounded as if she were withdrawing herself from everything,
+including her children's interests. She sat there, just blankly
+staring, leaving everything to them. Louise and Frans went through
+the house looking out the furniture for which there would be room at
+Baarn. Constance heard their voices on the stairs:
+
+"So," Louise was saying, "we have, in addition to the furniture
+in Mamma's bedroom, in Marianne's and mine, enough for one
+spare-room; then there's the piano, from the drawing-room, and the
+china-cabinet...."
+
+"Isn't the china-cabinet ever so much too big ... for those small
+rooms down there?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps.... Perhaps we had better leave the china-cabinet...."
+
+Bertha heard as well as Constance: perhaps Louise and Frans were
+speaking loudly in the passage on purpose. Bertha, however, did not
+stir: her eyes remained vague, her hands lifeless. It was obviously
+a matter of supreme indifference to her whether they took the
+china-cabinet with them or not....
+
+And, as she did not speak at all, Constance was obliged to ask:
+
+"Would you mind, Bertha, if I just spoke to Marianne?"
+
+"Very well," said Bertha, "do."
+
+"Now? Here?"
+
+"Yes," said Bertha.
+
+Constance rose, opened the door.
+
+"So that's two more tables ... two sofas," Frans counted, making
+notes on his list.
+
+"Louise," said Constance, at the door, "would you ask Marianne to
+come here a moment?"
+
+She sat down again by her sister, affectionately, took her hand,
+brimming over with pity for the tired woman whom she had always looked
+upon as an ever capable, busy woman of the world, now exhausted with
+all the thousand cares of her life and smitten by the sudden blow
+that had befallen her. And Constance' heart beat anxiously in dread
+of what was coming: she trembled, felt her eyes become wet....
+
+Marianne entered, pale, almost diaphanous; and her black blouse made
+her look a frail little figure of mourning, slender and drooping. For
+the thing which she could not conceal in her innermost self was no
+longer a light shining from her, visible to all: it was now a cloud
+around her, still visible, but as a shadow of grief, whereas but lately
+it had been a glow of happiness. Constance at once drew her to her,
+kissed her, held her to her. And she could not find words. Bertha
+did not speak.
+
+"Marianne ..." Constance began.
+
+"Are you angry, Aunt Constance?"
+
+"No, darling, why...."
+
+"Yes, you are angry with me."
+
+"Why, Marianne!"
+
+"Yes, you are different. I have seen it for some time; there's
+something, I know...."
+
+It was no longer the joyous, playful, almost mischievous voice in which
+she had said this before. It now sounded rather like a cry of fear,
+because it, "that," seemed so obvious that every one was bound to
+see it, that Aunt Constance herself must needs see it ... and be angry.
+
+"Really, Marianne, I am not angry. But I wanted to speak to you
+alone...."
+
+"Oh, then you are angry!" she said, passionately, almost hiding
+herself in Constance' arms. "Don't be angry!" she said, almost
+entreatingly. "Do tell me that you will try ... not to be angry
+with me!"
+
+She betrayed herself almost entirely, incapable of keeping back that
+which had once shone from her and which now nearly threatened to sob
+itself from her. Constance could find no words.
+
+"We shall soon be going away, Auntie!" said Marianne, her features
+wrung with grief. "And then you will not see me any more ... and
+then ... then perhaps you will never have any reason to be angry with
+me again...."
+
+And then, all at once, she gave a sob, an irresistible sob, jarring
+every nerve with a shock that seemed to leave her rigid. She shut
+her eyes, buried her face in Constance' shoulder and remained lying
+like this, after that one convulsive sob, motionless, pale, as though
+she were dying, as though devastated with sorrow. Bertha, opposite
+her, stared at her vaguely, with her hands lying helplessly on her
+black dress.
+
+And Constance could find no words. Time after time she thought of
+mentioning Van Vreeswijck's name, time after time the name died away
+on her lips. She gently urged Marianne to control herself, assuring
+her that she was not angry, had never been angry. And for a moment,
+thinking of herself, she felt afraid.
+
+If love could be now gladness and now mourning, as it had been and was
+in this suffering, love-stricken child, should it not be the same with
+her--that gladness and oh, perhaps later, O God, that mourning!--with
+her, the middle-aged woman, who felt herself growing younger and a
+new life coursing through her: at first, in the soft spring flush
+of a girl's dreams; now in the summer glory of a woman's--a young
+woman's--love? But there was a mirror opposite her; and she saw
+Marianne grief-smitten, shaken with sobs ... and in herself she saw
+nothing! She seemed to have the power to hide her happiness in her
+secret self: her agony--O God!--she would also hide later in her secret
+self. She saw nothing in herself. And she knew that nobody saw it in
+her. It remained secretly, mysteriously hidden. Adolphine, Cateau,
+the Ruyvenaers, all of them talked about her husband and Marianne:
+she knew it; but she also knew that they never talked about herself
+and Brauws ... though she had now known him for months, though he
+was the friend of the house and came to their house almost daily. He
+was a friend of Van der Welcke's, he was a friend of the house and a
+very well-known man; and that was all. It was not visible to anybody,
+to anybody....
+
+Oh, was it not strange? That this same feeling, which she bore in her
+innermost self, unseen by any, should shine within her as a sun, while
+with Marianne it had shone out, for all the world to see, as an illicit
+joy ... and was now streaming forth from her, in a convulsive sob,
+as an illicit sorrow. What she, the woman, hid within her the child
+could not hide within her, as though her soul were too slight for it,
+so slight that it had glowed through her soul as through alabaster
+and now flowed from it as from alabaster.... Oh, was it not strange,
+was it not strange? After all, she did not hide it intentionally,
+for she, the middle-aged woman had never, in her new young life,
+thought of the people outside ... in connection with her reviving
+youth! But it was so, it was so, beyond a doubt.... And it made her
+feel strong: it seemed to her a grace that had been accorded her, this
+power to live and go on living a new life deep in her secret self,
+invisible to the people outside, this power to live and love....
+
+She felt grateful: something sang in her like a hymn of thanksgiving;
+but she was filled with compassion for Marianne. The girl, despite
+Constance' cheering words, still lay motionless against her shoulder,
+with closed eyes, as though dead. Constance now gently forced her to
+rise, led her away without a word ... while Bertha remained sitting,
+just followed them both with her dull, indifferent eyes, then looked
+out at the roses in the garden, her hands lying helplessly in her
+black lap.
+
+Constance opened the door, led the girl into the drawing-room. The
+carpet had been taken up, the curtains taken down; the furniture
+stood cold and lifeless on the bare boards.
+
+"Marianne, darling, do listen to me now!" Constance forced herself
+to say, in a firmer voice. "I am not angry and I wanted to speak
+to you ... and I have something to ask you.... But first tell me:
+do you believe that I care for you and that anything I say and ask
+comes from nothing but my love for you?"
+
+Marianne opened her eyes:
+
+"Yes, Auntie."
+
+"Well, then," said Constance, "Van Vreeswijck...."
+
+But Marianne suddenly drew herself up where they were sitting--she
+with Constance' arms around her--nervous, terrified, at once knowing,
+understanding:
+
+"No, Auntie, no!" she almost screamed.
+
+"Marianne!..."
+
+"No, Auntie, oh, no, no, no! I can't do it, I can't do it!"
+
+And she threw herself back, sobbed out her words, as though she no
+longer dared fling herself into Constance' arms.
+
+"Marianne, he is very fond of you ... and he is such a good fellow...."
+
+"Oh, Auntie, no, no, no!... No, no, Auntie, no!... I can't do it!"
+
+Constance was silent. Then she said:
+
+"So, it's no, darling?"
+
+"No, Auntie, no, no!... I don't care for him, I can never, never
+care for him! Oh, no, no, it is cruel of you, if you ask that of me,
+if you want to force me into it!... I don't care for him.... There
+is ... there is some one else...."
+
+She was silent, stared before her like a madwoman, with the same fixed
+stare as her mother. And suddenly she became very still, accepting
+her anguish, and said, gently, with a heart-rending smile:
+
+"No, Auntie ... no. I would rather go ... with Mamma and Louise
+... to Baarn. We shall live very pleasantly there ... cosily,
+the three of us together.... Marietje will join us later, from her
+boarding-school.... Karel...."
+
+She tried to utter just a word of interest in her mother, sisters
+and brothers, but her indifferent, dead voice belied her. There was
+nothing in her but what had once shone from her, what was now trying
+to sob from her....
+
+Constance clasped her in her arms:
+
+"My child!"
+
+"No, Auntie, you will tell him, won't you?... Tell him that I am sorry
+... but ... but that I don't care for him.... I care ... I care for
+some one else...."
+
+And now, without speaking a word, raising her beseeching, tear-filled
+eyes to her aunt's, she said to Constance, without speaking a word,
+told her only with her beseeching glance, told her that she loved
+... that she loved Uncle Henri ... and that she couldn't help it;
+that she knew it was very wrong of her; that she begged her aunt
+to forgive her and implored her please not to be angry; that she
+entreated only to be allowed to suffer and sob about it; but that
+for the rest she hoped for nothing more from life, nothing, nothing;
+that she would go quietly to Baarn, with her mother and sisters,
+and try to manage to live there and pine away silently in her grief....
+
+And Constance, as she held her in her arms, thought:
+
+"Living ... Living.... This child ... this poor child ... is living
+early; and, if I have begun to live late ... O God, O God, must I
+also suffer as she is doing ... must I also suffer some day ... soon,
+perhaps ... if one cannot have life without suffering?..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+When Constance returned home, she was even more troubled than she
+had been in the morning by what she called her dishonesty towards Van
+der Welcke. She lunched alone with Addie; Van der Welcke did not come
+in, was evidently trying to lose himself on his bicycle in the roads
+outside the Hague and lunching off a sandwich and a glass of beer at
+a country inn. He did not come home till very late, tired and dusty,
+and he was in an unbearable mood, as though his surfeit of movement
+and speed and space had produced nothing but an evil intoxication and
+not the beneficent anaesthesia which he had expected of it. Roughly,
+as though dispirited and disgusted, he put away his machine, without
+bestowing on it the care which he usually gave to it after a long
+ride, angry with the lifeless steel which had not consoled him,
+which had not shown itself a friend this time. It was three o'clock;
+and he went straight to his room to change his clothes.
+
+Constance, in her drawing-room, remained uneasy. In her heart there
+was a deep pity for Marianne; and for him too an almost motherly
+pity, which made her eyes fill with tears. Oh, when she had found
+so very much for herself, so much that was broad and lofty, radiant
+and lovely, of which she asked no more than that it should exist,
+exist in soft radiance within herself, a mystic sun, a glowing
+mystery, invisible to all but her, it pained her that those two,
+Henri and Marianne, could find nothing for themselves and for each
+other!... She listened anxiously to the sounds upstairs. She heard his
+footsteps tramping overhead, heard him even throwing his clothes about,
+splashing the water noisily, almost breaking the jug and basin in his
+savage recklessness, his violent resentment against everything. It
+all reechoed in her; she kept on starting: there he was flinging his
+boots across the room; bang went the door of his wardrobe; and, when
+he had finished, she heard him go to his den. Everything became still;
+the warmth of the summer afternoon floated in through the open windows;
+a heat mist hung over the garden of the little villa; in the kitchen,
+the maid was droning out a sentimental song, in a dreary monotone....
+
+Constance' uneasiness increased. Yes, she must, she must tell him
+something: she almost became frightened at the idea of telling him
+nothing, of concealing from him entirely that Van Vreeswijck had asked
+her to go to Marianne. And yet nothing compelled her to say anything
+to Henri; and it would perhaps not even, she thought, be fair to Van
+Vreeswijck. She did not know; her thoughts rambled on uneasily. But
+persistently, as though from out of the new, fresh youth that was hers,
+one idea obtruded itself: it would not be honest to tell Henri nothing,
+not even a casual word, so that at any rate he should not imagine, if
+he came to hear later, that she had been plotting behind his back....
+
+All of a sudden, the anxiety, the uneasiness became so great in her
+that she rose, impulsively, and went upstairs. The servant was droning
+sentimentally. Constance quietly opened the door of Henri's little
+den. He was sitting in a chair, with his arms hanging down beside him;
+he was not even smoking.
+
+"Am I disturbing you?" she asked. "I should like to speak to you for
+a moment...."
+
+He gave her a sharp look. Usually, when she came in like that,
+it meant that she had something to reproach him with, that she was
+spoiling for a scene ... about a trifle, sometimes about nothing. She
+would come in then with the same words; and her voice at once sounded
+aggressive. This time, though she tried to speak gently, her voice,
+because of her uneasiness and anxiety, sounded harsh and discordant;
+and he, with his irritated nerves, seemed to hear the aggressive note,
+the prelude to a scene. It was as though his nerves at once became set,
+as though he were pulling himself together in self-defence:
+
+"What is it now?" he asked, roughly.
+
+She sat down, outwardly calm, inwardly trembling, anxious, uneasy. And
+she made an effort to clear her hoarse voice and to speak calmly
+... so that he might know:
+
+"Oh," she began, reflectively, wishing to show him at once that she
+had not come to make reproaches, that she did not wish to make a scene,
+"I wanted to speak to you ... to ask your advice...."
+
+Her voice, now under control, sounded soft, as she wished it; and he
+was astonished for a second, just remembered, almost unconsciously,
+that she had not been so quick-tempered lately, that in fact they
+had not had a scene for weeks. Still he continued suspicious: she,
+who never asked his advice! And he echoed:
+
+"To ask my advice?"
+
+"Yes," she went on, in that same calm, reflective tone, with a certain
+constraint, "I wanted to tell you--what do you think?--Vreeswijck
+stayed talking to me for a long time yesterday evening ... and he
+wanted absolutely...."
+
+"Wanted what?"
+
+She saw him turn pale; his eyes blazed angrily, as though sparks were
+flashing from that vivid blue, generally so young and boyish.
+
+"He would so much like ... he asked me...."
+
+She could not get the words out, looked at him, afraid of his eyes,
+now that she was in no mood for a scene of mutual recrimination. But
+she could not keep silent either:
+
+"He asked me ... if I thought ... that Marianne...."
+
+She saw him give a shiver. He understood it all. Nevertheless, she
+went on:
+
+"That Marianne could get to care for him.... He asked me to go to
+Bertha ... and ask her...."
+
+"Van Vreeswijck? Marianne?" he repeated; and his eyes were almost
+black. "Asked you ... to go to Bertha?... Well, you're not mixing
+yourself up in it, are you? You're not going, surely?"
+
+"I went this morning," she said; and her voice once more sounded
+discordant.
+
+He seemed to hear a hostile note in it. And, unable to contain himself,
+he flew into a passion:
+
+"You went? You went this morning?" he raved; and even in his raving
+she saw the suffering. "Why need you mix yourself up in it? What
+business has Van Vreeswijck to come asking you?... Van Vreeswijck...."
+
+He could not find the words. All that he could get out was a rough
+word, cruel, hard and insulting:
+
+"Plotting and scheming ... if you want to go plotting...."
+
+Her eyes flamed; she felt his intention to insult her. But his
+suffering was so obvious, she saw him so plainly writhing under his
+pain, that the angry tempest died down at once and she merely said,
+very gently:
+
+"She has refused him."
+
+He looked at her. The black cloud lifted from his eyes, which
+turned blue again, and his gloomy frown gave way to his usual boyish
+expression, full of wide-eyed astonishment now. His features relaxed,
+his whole body relaxed; he gave a shiver and sat down, as though all
+his temper and rage were subsiding like a sudden storm that had arisen
+for no reason at all. And he asked, slowly:
+
+"She ... has refused him?"
+
+"Yes. Of course, Bertha had nothing against it. But Marianne, when
+I spoke to her, declined at once. I did not insist. Poor Vreeswijck!"
+
+"Yes, poor fellow!" he said, mechanically.
+
+"I wanted to tell you, because ..."
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Because Vreeswijck is a friend and I thought it better that you
+should know. I meant to tell you this morning, before I started. But
+you went out...."
+
+He looked at her again, with a keen glance, wondering if she was
+sincere or if there was anything behind her words; wondering what
+she thought, knew or guessed about him and Marianne; what she would
+really have liked; if it was a disappointment to her that Marianne had
+declined so promptly: so promptly that Constance had not insisted for
+a moment. But she was so calm and gentle, as she stood leaning against
+his table, that he found her incomprehensible and was only conscious
+of breathing again after that first moment when it had seemed to
+him that his throat, lungs, chest and heart were all gripped in one
+hideous constriction.
+
+They were silent, she standing there and he looking at her, with
+his keen glance. A heat haze hung over the garden; the heavy summer
+scent floated up to them; from the kitchen came the monotonous voice
+of the housemaid droning out her love-song. And suddenly a sort
+of remorse loomed as a spectre before Constance, because she had
+fettered him to her life, for all his life, years ago; because she
+had fettered him to her then by accepting his sacrifice and that of
+his parents in her despair and helplessness, reviled outcast as she
+then was. It flashed before her: the recollection of that day when
+he came to her in Florence, when he made his gift of himself to her,
+made it despairingly, feeling even then perhaps, despite the forced
+love-illusion of passion, the life-long mistake which they were
+mutually making. She had accepted his gift, taken his youth; she had
+rendered him aimless, him and his life, his career and his happiness:
+all that he might perhaps yet have found. It flashed before her again:
+the recollection of that good-looking boy, the way he had come to
+her in Florence and the way she had taken everything, without having
+anything to give him in exchange. Oh, how the past oppressed her now,
+how it hung round her shoulders, crushing her like a nightmare that
+was not to be shaken off, like the embrace of some leering monster! Oh,
+the remorse, the remorse that was beginning to torture her!
+
+She stared before her as she stood leaning against the table;
+and beads of perspiration began to come out on her forehead in the
+small, warm room, full of summer haze. He continued to look at her,
+penetratingly. And suddenly he heard her voice speak his name:
+
+"Henri...."
+
+He did not answer, thought her strange, did not recognize her; and
+again he wondered what she thought, guessed or knew ... and what else
+she wanted to say. But she, while a sweat of fear broke from her,
+made a great inward effort to release herself from the oppression
+of her past and her remorse, to be once more the woman that she had
+become: the woman young again; the woman whose life was beginning
+for the first time; the woman who thought, dreamed and loved; the
+woman in whom nowadays the thoughts and dreams sometimes darted and
+darted like multitudes of laughing butterfly fancies, swiftly, swiftly
+in front of them; the woman who loved so deeply that she floated in
+ecstasy as in the mystic sun of herself. Did she not now see farther
+than the usual little circle which had bounded her vision for years:
+the little circle of the little prejudices, the little moralities,
+the little follies; the little circle in which all the others--her
+own people, people like herself, the small people--felt happy and
+comfortable with their little philosophies, their little religions,
+their little dogmas? Had she not, for weeks and months past, been
+contemplating more distant prospects, all the distant cities of light
+on the horizons above which sailed the spacious cloud-worlds and
+across which shot the revealing lightning-flashes? In the love which
+she had already confessed to herself so honestly that it etherealized
+into sheer ecstasy, had she not risen above all that was still left
+in her and about her of prejudice and insincerity, that sneering at
+herself and others, with all the rest of that feeble cynicism? If
+she wanted to live, must she not be honest, honest in all things? Oh,
+she felt--in these thoughts which rushed through her mind in those few
+seconds while she leant against the table, her forehead bedewed with
+heat and excitement--that she was shaking off the nightmare of the
+past and that, if she felt remorse, she must also try to give back
+what she had taken ... and what had never belonged to her, because
+it had never been her right, because it had never been her happiness,
+any more than his, nor her life, any more than his life! No, she had
+grown out of that prejudice, the horror of making herself ridiculous;
+and what she had stolen she would like to give back now ... in so
+far as was possible to her!
+
+"Henri," she repeated, for her whole thought had rushed through her in
+those two or three seconds, "there is something more I want to say to
+you. I should like to talk frankly to you. Promise me to keep calm;
+and do not let us lose our tempers. It is not necessary to lose our
+tempers, Henri, in order to understand each other at last...."
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"I have been thinking a great deal lately," she continued, turning her
+steady eyes towards him. "I have been thinking a very great deal, about
+our life, about both our lives ... and about the mistake we made...."
+
+He became impatient:
+
+"What on earth are you driving at and what is it all about?" he asked,
+with an irritable shake of his shoulders.
+
+"Come, Henri," she said, gently, "let us talk for once, for once
+in our lives, and be quite frank and serious. Our life has been a
+mistake. And the fault...."
+
+"Is mine, I suppose?" he broke in, angrily, aggressively, working
+himself up for the scene which he foresaw.
+
+She looked at him long and deeply and then said, firmly:
+
+"The fault is mine."
+
+He remained silent, again shook his shoulders, restlessly, not
+understanding her, not recognizing her at all. This woman was now a
+stranger to him; and, above all, her calm seriousness confused him:
+he would almost have preferred that she should fly out at him and
+have done with it and tell him that he had no business to go bicycling
+alone with Marianne.
+
+But she did not do this, she merely repeated, calmly:
+
+"The fault is mine. The fault, the blame is mine alone, Henri. I ought
+not, in Florence, to have accepted the sacrifice which you made for
+me, which your father and mother made for me. It was my fault that
+your life did not become ... what it might have been."
+
+Yes, she was frank and calm: he had to admit that; and it was not
+a crafty prelude leading up to one of her angry scenes. She was
+speaking so quietly and gently; her voice had a note of sorrowful
+humility that almost touched him.
+
+"But what are you driving at?" he said, nevertheless, in a voice
+that was still nervous and jerky. "You are very frank and honest in
+looking at things like that; but what is the use of it all now? It
+is so long ago. It is the past. And it was my duty then to make up
+for the wrong which I had done you."
+
+"I had done you quite as great a wrong, Henri. I should not have
+accepted your sacrifice. I ought not to have become your wife."
+
+"But what would you have done then?"
+
+"I should have gone away, somewhere or other. If I had been then the
+woman that I am now, I should have gone away, somewhere or other. And
+I should have left you to your life ... and to the happiness that
+was perhaps awaiting you elsewhere...."
+
+"I should have had to give up the service just the same...."
+
+"But you would have been freer without me. You were still so young:
+you had your whole life before you; and you would perhaps have found
+your happiness. As it is, you have never found it ... or ... perhaps
+too late."
+
+He stood up, very restless and nervous, and his boyish eyes pleaded
+anxiously:
+
+"Constance, I can't talk in this way. I'm not used to it...."
+
+"Can't you face things seriously for a moment?..."
+
+"No, I can't. It upsets me. I don't know: you mean to be nice, I
+believe, but please don't let us talk like this. We're not accustomed
+to it. And I ... I can't do it. You can see for yourself, it upsets
+me."
+
+"Come," she said, in a motherly tone, "you are not so much upset as
+all that. You can have a bicycle-ride afterwards and you will feel
+better. But first let us talk seriously for a moment...."
+
+He sighed, sank into his chair, submitted to her stronger will. If
+only she had flown out at him, he would have stormed back at her;
+but she was saying such strange things, the sort of things that people
+never said, and she was so calm and frank about it, calmer and franker
+than people ever were.
+
+"You will listen seriously for a moment? Well, what I want to ask
+you is this: have you never thought that it would be better ... if
+we just quietly separated, Henri?"
+
+He said nothing, looked at her with his great wondering eyes.
+
+"It is certainly very late," she said, "very late for me to propose
+it. But it is perhaps not too late.... Let us be honest, Henri:
+we have never been happy together. You might perhaps still be happy
+without me, released from me, free...."
+
+He continued to look at her, his eyes still full of amazement; and
+it seemed as though he was afraid to turn his gaze towards a life of
+such transcendent peace and quietness and sincerity. It seemed to him
+that she was urging him to take a road which grew fainter and fainter
+as it took its mystic, winding way towards clouds ... towards things
+that did not exist.
+
+"I?... Happy?" he stammered, not knowing what to say.
+
+But a more concrete thought now came into his mind:
+
+"And Addie?" he asked.
+
+"I am not forgetting him," she said, gently. "He is the child of both
+of us, whom we both love. If we quietly ... quietly separate, if you
+become happy later, he will be able to understand that his parents,
+however passionately they both loved him, separated because it was
+better that they should. He need not suffer through it. He will not
+suffer through it. At least, I like to think that he will not. If we
+are only honest, Henri, he cannot suffer through it."
+
+"And you ... what would you do?"
+
+She blushed, but did not lose her composure; he did not see her
+blush. She had not yet thought of herself for a moment: she was
+thinking, had been thinking, after that wave of remorse and after
+holding Marianne that morning in her arms, only of him and Marianne,
+of their happiness, his and Marianne's, even though she did not
+mention the girl's name again, once she had told him that Marianne
+had refused Van Vreeswijck. She was thinking only of the two of
+them.... What would she do? She did not know. Her love, it is true,
+rose radiantly before her: her love, her new life; but she was not
+thinking of outward change. Life, the real life, was an inward thing;
+outwardly she was the mother of her son and would remain so....
+
+"I?" she asked. "Nothing. I should simply stay as I am. Addie could
+be with us in turns."
+
+"It would distress him, Constance...."
+
+"Perhaps, at first.... But he would soon understand."
+
+"Constance, tell me, why are you speaking like this?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"What do you really mean, Constance? What do you mean by my happiness?"
+
+"Only what I say, Henri: that you may still be able to find your
+happiness."
+
+"You are frank," he said, forcing himself to adopt her tone, though
+it was difficult for him to speak like that. "You are frank. I will
+also try to be frank. My happiness? You speak of my happiness?... I
+am too old to find that now."
+
+"No, you are not old. You are young."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I ... am old. But there is no question about me. I am thinking
+... of you."
+
+She looked at him and he suddenly understood her. He understood her,
+but he writhed under so much frankness and at seeing life so honestly:
+
+"No, no, Constance," he mumbled.
+
+"Think it over," she said, gently. "If you like ... I will agree. Only
+... let us do it quietly, Henri, ... let us do it, if possible,
+with something of affection for each other."
+
+Her eyes filled with tears. He was very much moved:
+
+"No, Constance, no," he mumbled.
+
+"Henri, have the courage to be honest. Have the courage and do not
+be weak. Be a man. I am only a woman and I have the courage."
+
+"Constance, people ..."
+
+"No, Henri, you must not hesitate because of people. If we cannot
+do it, it would be because of Addie. But I like to think that, if
+he understands, he will not suffer through it. He must not suffer
+through it: that would be selfish of him; and he is not selfish."
+
+"No, Constance, no!" he protested again.
+
+"Think it over, Henri," she repeated. "Think it all out. I shall think
+of Addie also. You know how passionately devoted I am to him. But ..."
+
+"Constance, it is all too late."
+
+"But think it over, Henri."
+
+"Yes, yes, Constance, I shall ... I shall think it over."
+
+"And, if we decide upon it ... let us do it ... let us decide to do
+it with something of affection for each other ..."
+
+"Yes, Constance ... yes, with affection ... You are nice ... you are
+kind ..."
+
+He looked at her, his chest heaving with emotion; a haze dimmed the
+boyish glance of his eyes. She had meant to go, quietly, to leave
+him alone. She went to the door, without another word, another look,
+wishing to leave him alone with his thoughts.
+
+"Constance!" he cried, hoarsely.
+
+She looked round. He was standing before her; and she saw him
+quivering, trembling with the emotion, the shock which the reality
+of life had sent shuddering through him. For a moment they stood in
+front of each other; and, because they saw into each other's eyes,
+they told each other once more--silently, without words--that they
+understood each other! A great gratitude, an emotion that to him was
+almost superhuman shot through his small soul and flowed over her. And,
+impotently, he cried once more, like a man in a fever:
+
+"Constance!"
+
+He flung himself, distractedly, desperately, with a wild impulse, into
+her arms; bursting into sobs, he buried his head in her breast. She
+started violently; she felt his convulsive tremors against her
+heart. Then she threw her arm around him, stroked his hair. It was
+as though she were comforting her son.
+
+"I am mad, I am mad!" he muttered.
+
+He released himself, hurriedly pressed a quivering kiss on her forehead
+and tore down the stairs. And, when she went down to her drawing-room,
+she suddenly heard the front-door slam and saw him bicycling away
+like a madman, his back arched like a professional's. He pedalled,
+pedalled furiously: she watched him lose himself ... in movement,
+speed and space ...
+
+"Poor boy!" she thought.
+
+Then she sank into a chair, while the room swam round her. She closed
+her eyes and her hands fell limply at her side. So she sat for half
+an hour, unconscious, alone ... as if the new life had been too keen,
+too intense, with its pure air, its honesty ... too rare and keen in
+its cold-blue ether ... and as if she were swooning away in it....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+She came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had
+been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell
+and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.
+
+"It is he, it is he!" an exultant voice cried inside her.
+
+But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive
+him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall,
+said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home;
+and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.
+
+"It was he, it was he!" the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.
+
+But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally.... Suddenly she
+did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If
+they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be
+free!... Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws,
+to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice,
+to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice!... At this moment,
+for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love
+her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did,
+reveal himself so completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise ... she
+did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from
+Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being
+was permeated with love for her ... a love that was strangely akin
+to regret, but still love ... Was her love regret? No.... Was her
+love hope? No, not hope either.... Her love, hers, was only life, had
+hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her
+eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late
+as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams
+which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her
+... while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their
+eager joy!... But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now,
+suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after
+that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that
+her love was not only just existence, just life--the real existence,
+the real life--but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing
+through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been;
+that she herself hoped--O Heaven!--for what might yet be. It was
+suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she
+saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide
+fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as though this
+new inner life of thinking and feeling, this new life of her soul,
+were also about to begin a new actual life, a life of fresh seasons,
+which lay spread before her broad and generous as summer and towards
+which she would fly in joyous haste, because it was already so late
+... but not yet too late, not yet too late....
+
+She thought of herself, for the first time that day; and a violent
+emotion throbbed within her, almost taking away her breath. Henri would
+be back presently: would he tell her that that was best, that they
+would separate, with still something of affection and gratitude for
+each other, heedless of people and of everything that made up their
+world, because they were at last entitled to their own happiness,
+to the happiness of their own souls and to the happiness of those
+who loved them really? They would shake from them all that had been
+falsehood during all those long, long years; and they would now be
+true, honest with themselves and with every one; and they would
+be happy.... It was as if these dreams were already lifting her
+up out of the ring of falsehood, the ring of small people, small
+souls. Sitting there in her chair, she hid her face in her hands,
+compressed her closed eyes until, in their blindness, they saw all
+the colours of the rainbow flashing before them ... so as not to see
+her room, so as to see nothing but her dreams....
+
+"Mamma!..."
+
+She started: it was Addie come home. And the start which she gave
+was a violent one, for she had forgotten him; and a quick compunction
+shot through those last flashes. She had forgotten him; and yet time
+after time she had said to herself that she must speak to him as if
+he were a man.
+
+She now called to him to come in, for he always looked in on her
+when he returned from school in the afternoon. And, when she saw
+him, she felt as if she were waking from a dream. Still the violent
+emotion continued to throb in her; and she felt that she could not
+be silent. She began, at once:
+
+"Addie, I have been talking to Papa."
+
+It was impossible for her to go on. Not until he sat down beside her,
+took her hand in his, did she continue, with difficulty:
+
+"Addie, would it make you very unhappy ... if ..."
+
+"If what, Mamma?"
+
+"If we, Papa and I ... quite quietly, Addie ... without any bitterness
+... were to separate?"
+
+He started inwardly, but remained outwardly calm. He knew the struggle
+that was going on in both of them. Had he not constantly heard his
+father's name mixed up with Marianne's? Did he not know and had
+not he--he alone, within himself, without even letting his mother
+notice it--had he not guessed the real reason why Mamma had had a
+different expression, a different voice, a different step during the
+last few months? Did he not feel what prompted her to go for long,
+long walks--sometimes with him, sometimes alone--over the dunes,
+towards the sea?... Though he did not know her new life, he had
+guessed her love....
+
+There was a buzzing in his ears as she talked, as she explained to
+him how it would be better like that, for Papa, and how they both
+loved him, their child. She mentioned no names, neither Marianne's
+nor Brauws'. He remained quiet; and she did not see what was passing
+within him, not even when he said:
+
+"If you think ... if Papa is of opinion ... that it will be better
+so, Mamma...."
+
+She went on speaking, while her heart throbbed violently with the force
+of her emotion. She spoke of honesty and sincerity ... of happiness
+for Papa ... perhaps. A curious shyness made her shrink from speaking
+of herself. He hardly heard her words. But he understood her: he
+understood what she actually wanted, the future which she wished to
+bring about and compel. But a passion of melancholy overwhelmed him
+and his heart was weighed down with grief. He heard her speak of her
+life--his father's and hers--as a chain, a yoke, a lie. He felt dimly
+that she perhaps was right; and the light of those glowing dreams
+of hers made something shine vaguely before his childish eyes. But
+he found in it only sadness; and his heart was still heavy with
+grief. He was their child; and it seemed as though something in his
+soul would be rent asunder if they separated, even though their life
+together was a lie, a chain, a yoke. He tried to weigh those words,
+to sound their depths, to feel them. But it was only his sadness
+that he measured, only the depth of his own sorrow. If they were to
+separate, his parents whom he loved so well, both of them, each of
+them, whom he had learnt to love so well just perhaps because they did
+not love each other, then his love, so it suddenly appeared to him,
+was something which they could both do without, something of no value,
+to either of them. That was how he felt it, though he could not have
+put it into words; and he felt it even more profoundly than any words
+could have expressed.... But she noticed nothing in him. It was not
+the first time that he had felt the cruelty of life, even towards a
+child, a boy; and it was not his nature to show weakness. That other
+time, after his childish soul had suffered so grievously, when he had
+doubted whether he was his father's son, he had resolved to triumph
+over life's cruelties and not to show anything and to be strong. Now
+the moment seemed to have come. He remembered his first great trouble,
+he remembered his resolve: the resolve to be always strong after that
+first childish weakness; and he was able to repeat, calmly:
+
+"If you think ... that it will be better for both of you, Mamma
+... then it is not for me to object...."
+
+She thought him almost cold; but he kissed her, said that he, whatever
+happened, would remain the child and the son of both of them, that
+he would love them both, equally....
+
+But, because of that coldness, the shadow of a doubt suddenly crossed
+her mind; and it seemed as though her dreams grew dark and cloudy....
+
+"Addie," she asked again, "tell me frankly, tell me honestly that I
+am right, that it will be a good thing ... for Papa...."
+
+"And for you?..."
+
+"And for me," she echoed; and he saw her blush. "Or ... or, Addie,
+my boy, my darling, is ... is it all too late? Is it too late ... for
+Papa's happiness?"
+
+"And for yours too, you mean.... Too late? Why should it be too late?"
+
+She looked at him, thought him hard, but guessed that he was suffering
+more than he was willing to admit....
+
+"I thought first ... of Papa's happiness, Addie," she said,
+softly. "Because Papa has never been happy with me ... with me who
+took everything from him and gave him nothing in return, I thought
+first of all ... of Papa's happiness and afterwards ... afterwards...."
+
+"Afterwards...?"
+
+"Yes, Addie, then I thought ... of my own! But perhaps it is not all
+as I picture it, Addie ... and perhaps it is all too late...."
+
+Then he took her in his arms; and she felt his young, sturdy, boyish
+body against hers, felt it all at once, as a pillar of strength.
+
+"Too late? Why should it be, Mamma? Let us first hear what Papa
+thinks. Too late? No, Mamma. If you see it in this light for the
+first time now, why ... why should it be too late?"
+
+She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder:
+
+"I don't know, dear. I thought ... I thought that it would be a good
+thing ... for everybody ... for all of us ... Perhaps I am wrong. I
+can't tell.... I am tired, dear. Leave me here by myself. Have your
+dinner with Papa: I don't want any dinner, I am tired, I sha'n't
+come down.... Hark, there's Papa coming in. Go and tell him that I
+am tired. Go now, go at once.... I can't say: perhaps it is not as
+I thought, Addie, and perhaps ... perhaps it is all ... too late!"
+
+She saw his eyes grow softer, full of pity; he pressed her to him.
+
+"Addie!" she suddenly implored. "Whatever I may lose, never, never
+let me lose you! For all the rest is perhaps illusion ... and all
+too late, too late.... But you ... you are real, you exist!"
+
+She held him, clung to his strong shoulders; and he saw her very pale,
+anxious-eyed:
+
+"Mamma...."
+
+"No, leave me now, my boy ... leave me alone ... and go to Papa...."
+
+He kissed her once more and went away.
+
+She stayed behind, looked at herself in the glass. She saw herself,
+after all this emotion, saw her pale face, her grey hair:
+
+"I don't know," she murmured. "Oh, to live really, I must not ... I
+must not think of myself!... For me ... it is all too late! If it
+has to be so, if we separate, it must be only ... only for him,
+for Henri ... and for ... and for Marianne!"
+
+She sank into her chair, covered her face, kept her eyes tightly
+closed; but their blindness no longer saw the rainbow-colours flashing
+before them....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Addie, downstairs, helped his father with the bicycle, took it for
+him to the little room by the kitchen, promised Papa to see to it
+for him in the morning.
+
+"Am I late for dinner?" asked Van der Welcke.
+
+He was tired and hot; his clothes were sticking to him.
+
+"Mamma has a head-ache," said Addie. "Go and change your things first:
+dinner can wait."
+
+Van der Welcke dragged himself upstairs. He had bicycled so hard that
+day--both morning and afternoon--with his eyes fixed in front of him,
+his thoughts fixed in front of him, that his body was tingling with
+weariness, his eyes blind with that fixed staring, as if they had
+been full of dust and sand.
+
+"Come and help me," he said to Addie.
+
+And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a
+shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.
+
+He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired
+hurry:
+
+"Now we can have dinner. Isn't Mamma coming down?"
+
+"No."
+
+They sat down opposite each other, but Van der Welcke was not hungry,
+did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was
+over in a quarter of an hour.
+
+"I am tired!" Van der Welcke confessed.
+
+The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the
+dining-room, which was now growing dark.
+
+The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the
+room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up
+restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw
+Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid
+his head on the boy's knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep,
+almost immediately.
+
+Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head
+on his son's knees.
+
+From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden
+and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen
+the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon,
+as though she were humming unconsciously.
+
+The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose
+chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie
+felt against his hand....
+
+That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to
+each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity,
+as his mother had told him. And now the thought was whirling in both
+their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion,
+they were going to separate after all! For Papa's happiness, Mamma
+had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.
+
+Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew
+that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought--as he was
+thinking now--had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And
+now jealousy--that heritage from both his parents--sprang up in the
+boy's breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with
+a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne
+than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not
+mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who
+was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him,
+something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship,
+they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age,
+of filial respect; and in Addie's love for his father there was an
+element--not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength--of
+protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger,
+but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a
+strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of
+looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.
+
+It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It
+was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had
+sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him
+with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie's cousins, a girl
+like ... Marianne.
+
+So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....
+
+He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and
+his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to
+cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and,
+if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so,
+if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier,
+why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and
+fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the
+world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore:
+everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which
+he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be
+different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then,
+it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues
+or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie's knees, just like
+a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.
+
+Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on
+shooting through him, like a painful, smarting sting.... But suddenly,
+in the dark room, in the silent house--the servant was no longer
+singing--Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck,
+which was stiff with lying down.
+
+"Well, you've had a good long nap!" said Addie, making his voice
+sound rough.
+
+There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest
+the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing
+down his childish soul.
+
+Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his
+vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He
+remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so
+unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and
+self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in
+spite of himself.
+
+"I have been speaking to Mamma," said he.
+
+But he was silent again, could get no further.
+
+"So have I," said Addie, to make it easier for him.
+
+But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side
+by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow
+light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each
+now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over
+his father's shoulder, almost protectingly.
+
+"It is an idea of Mamma's, Addie ... that it would be better...."
+
+"For both of you."
+
+"For me, Mamma thought."
+
+"And for her too."
+
+"And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that
+... at last?..."
+
+"If you both consider ... calmly and dispassionately ... that it
+would be a good thing...."
+
+"And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part
+with me...."
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"You're taking it very coolly, Addie."
+
+"Dad, what else is there to do? If it's better like that ... for the
+two of you ... I'm bound to think it all right."
+
+"If you can talk like that, it's because you're not so fond of us...."
+
+"No, I'm just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it's
+got to be, it's got to be...."
+
+"It's strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems
+likely to become different...."
+
+"Mamma saw it like that...."
+
+"Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don't you think?"
+
+"Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered."
+
+"Yes, not so quick-tempered."
+
+"That's all...."
+
+"Yes, that's all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as
+far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?"
+
+"I don't know, Dad. I don't bother about 'people.' I just go to school,
+you see. But I think...."
+
+"Do they talk about Mamma?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not at all?"
+
+"I never hear anything."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"They talk about me?"
+
+"Yes, they talk about you, Dad."
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"They talk of you, Dad, and...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Marianne."
+
+"She is going to Baarn ... and then we sha'n't see each other any
+more. People are always ready to jabber ... because I've gone cycling
+and motoring ... with Marianne."
+
+It was as though he were confessing and denying in the same breath.
+
+"Addie," he continued, "I cycled a great way to-day."
+
+"Yes, Dad."
+
+"I can always think best when I'm cycling like mad."
+
+"Yes, Dad, I know."
+
+"When I'm scorching along the roads, like a lunatic, I can think. At
+any other time, I can't."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I thought a great deal to-day, Addie. As a rule, I never
+think about anything. It tired me to-day even more than the cycling
+itself. I'm tremendously tired."
+
+"Well, Dad, go to bed."
+
+"No, I want to talk to you. I want to sit with you like this. You're
+my friend, aren't you, your father's friend? Or aren't you that
+any longer?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+"You're so cold, Addie, you don't care a bit."
+
+"Yes, Dad, I do care."
+
+And he pulled Van der Welcke to him and pressed his father's head
+against his chest:
+
+"Lie like that now and talk away. I do care."
+
+"I thought a great deal, Addie, cycling. This morning, I was angry,
+furious, desperate. I could have done something violent, broken
+something, murdered somebody."
+
+"Come, come!..."
+
+"Yes, murdered ... I don't know whom ... I felt, Addie, that I could
+have become very happy if...."
+
+"Yes, Dad, I know...."
+
+"You know?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You understand?"
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"When I came home, I was tired and mad with misery. Mamma came upstairs
+and talked to me. She told me that Van Vreeswijck ... had asked her to
+go to the Bezuidenhout and speak to Aunt Bertha ... and to Marianne,
+because Van Vreeswijck ... do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, Dad."
+
+"Mamma went. I was furious when I heard that she had been. But she
+said that Marianne refused...."
+
+"Marianne refused him?"
+
+"Yes. Then ... then Mamma said ... then she asked ... if it wouldn't
+be better that we--she and I--do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, Dad."
+
+"She said it in a very nice way. She said it gently, not at all
+angrily. It was nice of her to think of it, you know, Addie."
+
+"Yes, Dad, she is nice."
+
+"Well, old chap, then ... then I gave her a kiss ... because she
+was so nice about it and said it so kindly. And then ... then I went
+cycling again."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I can think best when I'm cycling. I rode and rode. Meanwhile,
+I was thinking, would it be a good thing?... My boy, you are more
+than my son, aren't you: you're my friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All the time, I was thinking ... of Marianne. I am fond of her,
+Addie."
+
+"Yes, Father."
+
+"I tried to imagine it ... I know ... that she is fond of me, Addie."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I tried to picture it ... And then, Addie ... then I thought myself
+old. Tell me, I am old, don't you think?"
+
+"You are not old, Father."
+
+"No, perhaps not.... Still, Addie, I don't know, I really don't
+know.... Then, Addie, I thought...."
+
+"Of what, Dad, of whom?"
+
+"I went on riding, like a madman. That's how I think best. Then I
+thought of ... you."
+
+"Of me?"
+
+"Yes, of you.... Tell me, my boy, if we did that ... if everything
+was changed ... wouldn't you be unhappy?"
+
+"If it was for the happiness of both of you, no. Then I should not
+be unhappy."
+
+"Yes, so you say. But you would have to be unhappy ... inside. If you
+still love us both. I thought it all out till I was dog-tired. For
+I never think as a rule. Thinking bores me. This time, I had to
+... because Mamma had spoken as she did. Yes, you are bound to be
+unhappy ... if you still care ... for both of us."
+
+"I tell you again, Dad...."
+
+"Yes, I know. But I, Addie, I should be unhappy ... afterwards,
+when it had once happened ... I should be unhappy ... because of you."
+
+"Because of me?"
+
+"Because of you. You would no longer have a home."
+
+"I should have two homes."
+
+"No, no, you would have none. You would go wandering to and fro
+between your parents. True, you will soon be a man. You will soon be
+leaving your parents. But I do feel now that you would have no home
+and that you would have a father and a mother ... but no parents. Do
+you follow me? No parents. Even though they quarrel, you have parents
+now. Perhaps, in a few years, you won't care about them ... and about
+their home. But just now, Addie, just for the present, you would be
+losing a great deal.... You see, old chap, your father has thought
+it all out ... and I frankly confess, it's made me dog-tired. I'm
+resting now, while I tell it you like this, leaning up against you."
+
+"Yes, Dad."
+
+"My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, when your father had got so
+far ... then he felt...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor
+darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!"
+
+A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his
+father's head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have
+that joy:
+
+"Dad, once more, if it means your happiness...."
+
+"No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something
+broken: I don't know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that
+you were not with me. I couldn't do it, Addie. It's an impossibility,
+Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn't to talk like this to a son of
+fifteen. Fifteen? No, you're only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But
+that's nothing to do with it. I oughtn't to talk like this. I'm a queer
+father, eh, Addie? I don't give you a proper upbringing: I just let
+you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can't do it, I can't give you
+a proper upbringing! I shouldn't know how. You'll bring yourself up,
+won't you? You're sure to be good and clever and honourable and all
+the rest of it. I don't know how, you see: I just let you run wild,
+like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right,
+don't you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa
+were to hear all this, were to hear me talking like this, he would
+think it very odd. And it is odd. It's not right. But your father,
+Addie, is like that: he's hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know
+all about it. I couldn't do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But
+she's young still; she'll have her happiness one day, a different
+happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would
+rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even
+though it's not always a paradise, that I'd rather leave everything
+as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could
+never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon:
+Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the
+present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations
+make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week
+on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done
+to-day.... And now I'm going to bed, old chap, for I'm dead tired...."
+
+He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went
+away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow
+shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite
+silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing
+all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still
+separated, in spite of so much that might have united them; he sat
+there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through
+which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....
+
+Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Constance remained alone the whole evening.
+
+She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out
+over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on
+a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the
+open window.
+
+For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her,
+to tell her his decision; but he did not come.... He seemed to be
+staying with Addie in the dining-room.... Then she heard him go to
+his own room....
+
+In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter
+the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had
+felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted
+away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the
+silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something
+stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to
+surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host
+of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her....
+
+Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy
+rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder,
+in the direction of the sea, which she divined in the distance
+flashing with sudden illuminations, with noiseless reflections,
+and then vanishing in the low-hanging clouds of the night.
+
+She lay back in her chair, at first oppressed by her doubt and by the
+heat, but gradually, gradually--her eyes fixed on the electric gleams
+far in the distance--all her doubts melted away, the enchantment
+penetrated yet deeper and the storm-charged sultriness seemed a
+languorous ecstasy in which her breast heaved gently, her lips opened
+and her eyes closed, only to open again, wider than before, and stare
+at the lightning that flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished,
+with intervals full of mystery....
+
+No, she doubted no longer: all would be well, all would be well.... She
+could not make a mistake in this new life, this later life, this mature
+life, which she had lived, so to speak, in a few months, giving herself
+up entirely to sincerity and honesty and to the crowning love, the
+only really true and lofty love. Her love, that late love, had been
+her life, right from those girlish dreams of a few months past down
+to the moment of inward avowal; and what in another woman would have
+lasted years, in the slow falling of the days, which, like beads on
+a long string, fell one by one through the fingers of silent fate,
+the unrelenting teller of the beads, she had lived in a few months:
+after her dreaming had come her thinking; after her thinking, her wish
+to know; after her wish to know, her plunge into books and nature,
+until dreaming, thinking, knowledge and, above all, love supreme and
+triumphant had mingled to form a new existence and she had been reborn
+as it were out of herself.
+
+She had dreamed and thought and questioned it all hastily and
+feverishly, as though afraid of being late, of feeling her senses
+numbed, her soul withered by the grey years, before she had lived
+... before she had lived. Hastily, but in all sincerity; and her
+late awakening had been deep and intense, a mystery to herself and
+an impenetrable secret to all, for no one knew that she dreamed and
+thought and questioned knowledge and nature; no one knew that nowadays
+she looked on a tree, a cloud, a book, a picture with different eyes
+than in the past, when she had neither eyes nor understanding for
+tree or cloud, for book or picture, nor found beauty in any; no one
+saw that something cosmic and eternal flashed before her in that one
+swift glance of tardy recognition and knowledge; no one knew that she,
+the aristocrat, felt that keen pity for her day and generation, had
+learnt to feel it from him, through him. All of it, all of it, all her
+later life: no one knew it save herself alone.... And gradually, too,
+in those intimate conversations, they had come to know something of
+each other, had learnt--guessing first and then knowing--that they had
+found each other, late in life--she him, he her--as though at last,
+at last, after that vague instinctive seeking and trying to find
+each other in their childhood days, Heaven had been merciful! How
+vague it had been, that shadowy intuition, hardly to be uttered and
+vanishing as soon as uttered: on his side, that distant veil of mist,
+that cloud, on the horizon of the moors; on hers, that perpetual
+longing to go farther, to flit from boulder to boulder down the
+hurrying stream, as it rushed past under the dense canopy of those
+tropical trees: a pair of children knowing nothing of each other and
+all unconscious until years later that they were both seeking ... both
+seeking! Oh, that strange dream-quest, that nameless desire, which,
+when one breathed it, vanished, was no longer a quest! At a touch,
+it became intangible; as soon as one grasped it, it slipped away,
+became something different, something different.... But, unbreathed,
+untouched, ungrasped, just dreamed and dimly felt in those far-off
+childhood days, it was that: the mystic, wonderful reality, which
+was the only reality.... To both of them, in those days, it had been
+too gossamer-frail, too intangible and too incomprehensible to last
+beyond their childhood, that seed of reality working in the womb of
+time: vanity and frivolity had claimed her for their own, study and
+reflection had claimed him; and each had wandered farther and farther
+from that half-divined other, no longer even seeking the other....
+
+The years had heaped themselves up between them, between her at the
+Hague, in Rome, in Brussels, and him in America, when she was an
+elegant young society-woman, he the workmen's friend and brother,
+their comrade who yearned to know and understand them. While she had
+danced and flirted in the ball-rooms of Rome, he had laboured in the
+docks, gone down the black shafts of the coal-mines. And all this
+which had really happened seemed unreal to her, a dream, a remote
+nightmare, by the side of that childish romance, those fairy visions
+of yesterday! And yet it had all happened, it had all happened. They
+had never been allowed to meet each other, not even when they had
+been brought near each other--on the Riviera, in Brussels--as by an
+unconscious power! They had not been allowed to meet until now, late,
+very late, too late.... Oh, is it ever given too late, that blessed
+boon, to live at last, to find at last?
+
+And they had both made mistakes. She had made her mistakes: her brief
+passion for Henri, the sudden kindling of the senses of a frivolous,
+bored and idle woman; then the marriage: mistake upon mistake,
+nothing but waste, waste, waste of her precious life. And he had
+made mistakes too: he had dreamed of being the brother of those men,
+a fellow-worker and comrade, and he had not become their brother. Oh,
+if they had once been allowed to know and find each other, in the
+years when they were both young, what a harmony their life together
+might have been: no jarring note in themselves or in each other,
+but perfect harmony in all things, attuned to the note of their day
+and generation; he by her side to understand and love her and support
+her when the sadness of it all oppressed her! Oh, to have lived, when
+still young, with him, in his heart, in his arms; and then to have
+loved, to have understood, to have done, with him and for his sake,
+all that can still be done for one's day and generation by those who
+themselves are strong and radiant in love and happiness and harmony!...
+
+And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other,
+had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain,
+wasted years!...
+
+No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the
+honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after
+first thinking of others--of Henri, of Marianne--she had also thought
+of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life
+also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything
+and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a
+life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might
+be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still
+be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...
+
+She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her,
+as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion,
+afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it
+as an illusion....
+
+And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and
+languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed
+only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of
+ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder,
+the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder,
+yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts
+and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When
+it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain
+as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep
+but that the night tempted and lured her:
+
+"Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it
+is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will
+mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne;
+it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose
+life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream
+it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed,
+however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes;
+sometimes the whole sky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift
+along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity,
+of everything that may happen!"
+
+The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the
+window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside,
+wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour,
+of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she
+felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a
+winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards
+the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of
+futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let
+herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her,
+penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction,
+that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so
+it would happen, at long last, because life's chiefest grace was at
+length descending upon her....
+
+Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the
+future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms;
+living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she
+saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant
+shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the
+past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they
+who, as boy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown
+into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the
+mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading
+leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards
+the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes
+under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams
+flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....
+
+A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night,
+and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the
+sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And
+the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with
+it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled
+away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let
+loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought,
+vaguely....
+
+And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy,
+now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry
+and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a
+morning pallor already dawning through the trees....
+
+And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it
+would be like that; she felt certain of it: that future would come;
+the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with
+him ... with him!...
+
+Yes, it would come, it would come, to-morrow, yes, to-morrow....
+
+And, while that hope still continued to transfigure her face, pale on
+the pillow in the dawning day, her eyes, blind from long gazing at the
+light, closed heavily; and she fell asleep, convinced ... convinced....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Conviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance
+awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence,
+as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to
+her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as
+early as seven o'clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on
+his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not
+know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away,
+as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled
+along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face,
+which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.
+
+She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still
+asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van
+Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask
+him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to
+read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him.... And,
+while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty,
+she bit her pen, looked out of the window....
+
+The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue
+sky with white, fleecy clouds, which passed like flocks of snowy sheep
+through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an
+impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words,
+her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above
+the sea, which she divined in the distance.... It was strange, but
+now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed,
+thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful
+word--with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was
+gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted
+her the night before--it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her
+knowledge of the future was wavering.... She did not know why, for
+after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing....
+
+They would be divorced....
+
+And Marianne would....
+
+Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to
+write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty,
+and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her
+that evening.
+
+She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited
+until she had signed her letter.
+
+"Why aren't you bicycling with Papa?" she asked.
+
+He said that his father had asked him to speak to her....
+
+And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without
+once mentioning Marianne's name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost
+cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued
+pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue
+smile of ignorance and indifference.... Suddenly it seemed to her as if
+she had been dreaming.... Not that her thoughts took any definite form,
+for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain,
+then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts
+had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take
+it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her
+as if she had been dreaming.
+
+Automatically, she said:
+
+"Perhaps it is better so."
+
+She had not expected it!
+
+She had never thought that Henri's answer would be the one which she
+now heard from the mouth of their son!
+
+Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person
+for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?
+
+But the boy held her hand affectionately.
+
+And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:
+
+"Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?"
+
+She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.
+
+"Would you rather have started a fresh life ... away from Papa?"
+
+She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:
+
+"Addie," she said.
+
+She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more
+too strong for her:
+
+"Yes," she said, simply.
+
+"Then you would rather have had it so ... for your own sake?"
+
+"I would rather have had it so, yes."
+
+They were silent.
+
+"I had even pictured it ... like that," she said, presently.
+
+"Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had
+already been thinking of it...."
+
+"You believe...?"
+
+"He will agree."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"If it means the "happiness of both of you...."
+
+"Tell me what Papa said."
+
+"I can't remember exactly.... Only Papa thought ... that not to see
+me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear."
+
+"Is that all that Papa said?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told
+that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had
+spoken of Marianne.
+
+"So Papa...." she repeated.
+
+"Would rather stay with us, Mamma."
+
+"With us," she repeated. "We three together?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It means going on living ... a lie," she said, in a blank voice.
+
+"Then I will speak to Papa again."
+
+"No, Addie."
+
+"Why not?..."
+
+"No, don't do that. Don't ask Papa ... to think it over again. It is
+perhaps too late, after all; and besides ... Papa is right. About you."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"He could not go six months without you. And I...."
+
+"And you, Mamma...."
+
+"I couldn't either."
+
+"Yes, you could."
+
+"No, I couldn't either."
+
+She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders,
+his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality
+... the reality of her life. He ... he was the real thing, the truth;
+but all the rest between her husband and her was falsehood, remained
+falsehood ... because of people. Could they not even for Addie's
+sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would
+falsehood then always cleave to them?...
+
+"We are too small," she thought and murmured her thought aloud.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Nothing.... Very well, Addie.... Tell Papa that it shall be as he
+says, that I am quite content ... that I could not do without you
+either ... for six months!"
+
+She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though
+she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first
+time. Six months ... six months without him! The new life, the new
+paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons ... and six
+months ... six months without Addie!...
+
+Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that
+glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just
+glamour and enchantment?...
+
+He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.
+
+She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house
+again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those
+of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal,
+though she had always loved it, looked after it, made it her beautiful
+home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house
+mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still
+half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if
+her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for
+that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely
+evening of inward conviction.... The morning had dawned, placid,
+with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri
+thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that
+... and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne
+very much ... that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne,
+she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than
+men.... She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual,
+everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked
+deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear
+depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that,
+if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him,
+she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness
+with the man whom she loved and who--she felt it!--loved her. She saw
+that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated
+because of her son!... Her son! He was certain to be leaving them
+soon in any case ... to seek his own life!... Her son! To provide him
+for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric
+of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together ... for his sake
+and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject
+the new life of truth!... It was as if she were standing in a maze;
+but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze,
+if the decision had been left to her ... that she would have known how
+to take the path of simple honesty ... that she would have elected
+to separate, in spite of Addie ... that she loved her new life--and
+the stranger--more than her child!
+
+She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth;
+and now ... now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she
+was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous;
+for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child,
+above the dear solace of so many years....
+
+Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle,
+go up the stairs ... and then turn back, as if reflecting that he
+could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling,
+had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling....
+
+"Has Addie told you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"And ... you think it is the best thing?..."
+
+"Yes ... I do...."
+
+"So everything remains...." he said, hesitatingly.
+
+"As it was," she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated
+also.
+
+"He told you ... the reason?" he went on.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I could not do without him ... all the time that he would be with
+you, Constance. And you couldn't do without the boy either, could you,
+while he was with me?"
+
+"No," she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she
+repeated, more firmly, "No, I should not be able to do without him."
+
+At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth
+or not. Only she had a vague sensation ... as though that fair,
+unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her ... like
+a glittering cloud....
+
+"Then we might try to be more patient with each other," he said. "But
+still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your
+thought ... your intention...."
+
+"Yes," she said, vaguely.
+
+"Your thought for me...."
+
+"Yes."
+
+But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip
+still farther from her; and she said:
+
+"I was thinking of myself also, Henri ... but it was not clear to me
+what I thought.... I don't quite know.... Henri, it is better like
+this, for everything to remain ... as it was."
+
+"And we both of us love our boy."
+
+"Yes, both of us...."
+
+He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms
+hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something
+kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that
+neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought,
+what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would
+remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other
+during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead
+against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude....
+
+"Well, that is settled then," was all that he said in conclusion,
+quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.
+
+She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she
+had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the
+simple truth, just as much as the new life itself.... And now ... now,
+as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal
+city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered
+in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring
+into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical
+pain. The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from
+that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her,
+to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no
+longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true ... that
+she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and
+that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat,
+pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:
+
+"Truitje, I am going out...."
+
+She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the
+loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other
+ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more
+than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few
+people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned
+down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people
+taking their morning stroll.... Suddenly, she gave a violent start:
+she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint;
+and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked
+back.... By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen
+her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly,
+she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:
+
+"Is this how you run away from your friends?" he said, making an
+attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.
+
+She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.
+
+"Don't be angry," she said, frankly, "but I was startled at seeing
+you."
+
+"I was not welcome," he said, roughly. "Forgive me, mevrouw. I
+ought not to have come after you. But I'm a tactless beggar in these
+matters. I am not one of your society-men."
+
+"Don't be angry," she repeated, almost entreatingly. "Society indeed! I
+certainly showed myself no society-woman ... to ... unexpectedly
+to...."
+
+She did not know what she wanted to say.
+
+"To turn your back on me," he said, completing the sentence.
+
+"To turn my back on you," she repeated.
+
+"Well, now that I have said good-morning...."
+
+He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.
+
+"Stay!" she entreated. "Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen
+to have met you...."
+
+"I came back yesterday ... I meant to call on you to-day or
+to-morrow...."
+
+"Walk with me," she said, almost entreatingly. "I want to speak
+to you...."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"I suggested to Henri...."
+
+She drew a deep breath; there were people passing. They were near
+the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently....
+
+"I suggested to Henri," she repeated, at last, "that we should...."
+
+The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both
+silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it
+seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where,
+which he would know....
+
+At last, she said:
+
+"I wanted ... as you are our friend ... to tell you...."
+
+He was determined to make her say the word:
+
+"You suggested what?"
+
+"That we should be divorced...."
+
+They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she
+saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the
+night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had
+revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal,
+with white clouds curling like steam....
+
+"I suggested that we should be divorced," she repeated.
+
+He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had
+breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And
+he remembered ... that vision ... and the yearning ... for the
+one soul ... the meeting with which would have been a consolation
+amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls,
+the thousands.... And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before
+him ... not only of having found at last ... in silence ... but of
+venturing to utter it ... once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope
+that at first he did not hear her say:
+
+"But Henri ... thinks it is better ... not...."
+
+"What?" he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.
+
+She repeated:
+
+"Henri thinks it is better not.... Because of our boy ... of Addie...."
+
+The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its
+dizzying rays....
+
+Uttered it would never be.... To have found in silence: alas, that
+was all illusion ... a dream ... when one is very young....
+
+"He is right," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Is he right?" she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated,
+"Yes, he is right...."
+
+"I should have been sorry ... for Addie's sake," he said.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, as though in a trance. "I should have been sorry
+for Addie's sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at
+last--my God, at last!--in absolute truth and sincerity.... and not
+in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they
+may think absurd and cannot understand ... and ... and...."
+
+"And...?" he asked.
+
+"And ... in that thought, in that hope ... I had forgotten my boy. And
+yet he is the reality!"
+
+"And yet he ... is the reality."
+
+"And now I am sacrificing ... the dream ... the illusion ... to him."
+
+"Yes ... the dream ... the illusion," he said, with a smile that was
+full of pain.
+
+"It hurts me!" she confessed, with a sob. "Yesterday--oh, only
+yesterday, last night!--I thought that the dream, the illusion ... was
+truth.... But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion
+... which comes true...."
+
+"Is at our age...."
+
+"Absurd?" she asked, still wavering.
+
+"Not absurd perhaps ... but impossible. We go bent under too
+heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and
+illusions. We no longer have any right ... even to memories...."
+
+"I have some ... from my childhood," she stammered, vaguely.
+
+"There are no memories left for us," he said, gently, with his smile
+that was full of pain.
+
+"No, there are none left for us," she repeated. And she confessed,
+"I have dreamed ... and thought ... too late. I ... I have begun to
+live too late...."
+
+"I," he said, "I thought ... that I had lived; but I have done nothing
+... but seek...."
+
+"You never found?"
+
+"Perhaps ... almost. But, when I had found ... I was not allowed to
+put out my hand...."
+
+"Because ... of the past?" she asked, softly.
+
+"And of the present. Because of what is and has younger, fresher rights
+than mine ... which are no rights ... but the forbidden illusions of
+an old man...."
+
+"Not old...."
+
+"Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life ... who has found
+... or thinks that he has found...."
+
+"Yes, that is so," she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. "I have
+begun to live too late. I could have lived ... even now ... perhaps;
+but it is all too late. I once told you ... that I was abdicating
+my youth...."
+
+"Once, months ago...."
+
+"Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much ... not to feel
+young ... for a few moments.... But it was all an illusion ... and
+it is all too late...."
+
+They looked at each other. He bowed his head, in gentle acquiescence,
+with his smile that was full of pain:
+
+"Yes, it is so," he said; and it was almost as if he were
+joking. "Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking ... and you...."
+
+"Oh, I have my boy!" she murmured. "He has always comforted me."
+
+They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door,
+a friends' leave-taking.
+
+"Will you come again soon?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "You know, you no sooner see me than I am
+gone.... I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The
+world is full of mighty problems; and we ... we are pigmies ... in
+the tiny worlds of our own selves...."
+
+"Yes ... we are nothing...."
+
+He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure
+of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was
+there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.
+
+"Addie," she said, softly, "Papa was right, Papa was right.... I
+believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain
+that Papa was right.... Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose ... you will
+not let me lose you?..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+Had it all been an illusion then? Was it all for nothing?
+
+The days passed slowly, one after the other. She saw Van Vreeswijck
+and felt for him, their friend, in his silent grief; she bade good-bye
+to Bertha and her children. She knew that Van der Welcke had seen
+Marianne once more before her departure; and her heart was full of
+pity for them both.
+
+Had it all been an illusion then, this world of feeling, this little
+world of her own self? Oh, he was going to England, to lecture on
+Peace; for him there were always those mighty problems which consoled
+him for the smallness of that little world of self! But she, had she
+lost everything, now that the illusion no longer shone before her,
+now that the magic cities had fallen to pieces, now that everything
+had become very dreary in the disenchantment and self-reproach of
+realizing that she had not loved her son enough, that she had not
+loved him as well as his father loved him, not as well as she had
+loved the stranger, the friend who had taught her to live?...
+
+Had she lost everything then? Now, ah now, she was really old,
+grey-haired; now her eye was no longer bright, her step no longer
+brisk; now it was really all over and it was over forever.... But had
+she lost everything then? This was what she often asked herself in
+the days that followed, those days of sadness, sadness for herself,
+for him, for her son, for her husband, for the girl whom she loved
+too ... for all those people, for all her life.... And what of the
+great questions, the mighty problems of life? Ah, they no longer stood
+out before her, now that he who had called her attention to them had
+gone straight towards those mighty problems as to the towers of the
+greater life! To her they seemed infinitely remote, shadowy cities
+on a far horizon behind her own shattered cities of fair translucent
+hopes.... Had she then lost her interest in all those things? And,
+having lost that interest, did she no longer care for her own
+development, for books, nature, art? Was the life that she had been
+living all illusion, a dream-life of love, lived under his influence,
+lived under his compelling eyes?
+
+Yes, that was how it had been, that was how she would have to
+acknowledge it to herself!... That was how it was!... That was how
+it was!... Only with his eyes upon her had she felt herself born
+again ... born again from her childhood onwards ... until she had
+once more conjured up the fairy-vision of the little girl with the
+red flowers on her temples who ran over the boulders in the river
+under the spreading tropical leaves, beckoning the wondering little
+brothers.... And she, a middle-aged woman, had grown into a girl who
+dreamed the shimmering dreams that were wafted along rainbow paths
+towards the distant clouds high in the heavens.... In her maturity,
+she had developed herself hurriedly, as though afraid of being too
+late, into a thinking, feeling, loving woman.... She had been sincere
+in that new, hurried life; but it had been nothing more than illusion
+and illusion alone, the illusion of a woman who felt herself growing
+old without ever, ever having lived....
+
+But, though it had all been illusion, was illusion nothing then?... Or
+was illusion indeed something, something of no great account? And,
+even though she had lived only illusion, illusion under the compelling
+eyes of the man whom she loved, feeling love for the first and only
+time, under the brooding, anguished eyes of that thinker and seeker,
+had she not lived then, had she not lived then?
+
+Yes, she had: she had lived, in the way in which a woman like
+herself--a woman who had never felt simply and sincerely except
+as a child in those far-off childish days, a woman whose life had
+been nothing but artificiality and failure--could live again, only
+later still, older still, old almost and finished; she had lived in
+illusions, in a fleeting illusion, which just for one moment she had
+tried to grasp, that day, now a few months ago....
+
+She shook her head, her grey head; she was no longer blinded; she saw:
+she saw that it could never have been....
+
+Yet she felt that they had--both of them--lived the illusion--both
+of them--for a little while....
+
+And was nothing left of it?
+
+Now that the long dreary days of sadness were drawing on, she saw:
+she saw that there was indeed something left, that a ray of light
+remained in her small soul, which had only been able to live like
+that, very late; for she saw that, in spite of all her repining,
+there was still gratitude....
+
+Yes, she was grateful, for she had lived, even though everything had
+been illusion, the late blossoming of ephemeral dream-flowers....
+
+And now--when she felt that strange question rise in her soul:
+is this life, this futile, endless round, or is there ... is there
+anything else? When she felt that bewildering, passionate doubt--then
+she was conscious, deep down in her heart, with a throb of gratitude,
+that there was something else....
+
+Illusion, yes, only illusion, without which there is no life....
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] The period of the novel is about 1901.
+
+[2] Equivalent to vous or tu.
+
+[3] Malay fairies.
+
+[4] Malay: "Come on, now then."
+
+[5] The title borne by the unmarried daughters of Dutch noblemen.
+
+[6] Lord! Heavens!
+
+[7] Nurse, ayah.
+
+[8] The young master.
+
+[9] Mem-sahib.
+
+[10] Half-caste.
+
+[11] The "Queen's Commissary" of a Dutch province has no counterpart
+in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His
+functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French
+prefect.
+
+[12] Poor thing!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Later Life, by Louis Couperus
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