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diff --git a/37578.txt b/37578.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0535c4c --- /dev/null +++ b/37578.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9917 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LATER LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 37578.txt or 37578.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/5/7/37578/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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