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The Twilight of the Souls

by Louis Couperus · English · Gutenberg #34458 · 458,447 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Twilight of the Souls

Author: Louis Couperus

Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos


        
Release date: November 27, 2010 [eBook #34458]
                Most recently updated: March 23, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS ***

THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS

by

LOUIS COUPERUS

Author of "Small Souls," "The Later Life," etc.

Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos







New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1917

      *      *      *      *      *

THE BOOKS OF THE SMALL SOULS

By LOUIS COUPERUS

Translated by

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

  I. SMALL SOULS.
  II. THE LATER LIFE.
  III. THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS.
  IV. DR. ADRIAAN.

      *      *      *      *      *


TRANSLATOR'S NOTE


This is the third of the novels known as _The Book of the Small Souls_
and is by some considered the greatest of the series. Be this as it
may--and I confess that personally I like _Small Souls_ the best--it is,
beyond dispute, one of the most masterly and striking stories that this
generation has produced. It can be read separately and independently,
but will be enjoyed more fully by those who are familiar with _Small
Souls_ and _The Later Life_. The series will conclude with the next
volume, which, in the English version, will be entitled _Dr. Adriaan_.

                                      ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

HARROGATE, 10 _August_, 1917





THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS




CHAPTER I


When Gerrit woke that morning, his head felt misty and tired, as though
weighed down by a mountain landscape, by a whole stack of mist-mountains
that bore heavily upon his brain. His eyes remained closed; and, though
he was waking, his nightmare still seemed to cast an after-shadow: a
nightmare that he was being crushed by great rocky avalanches, which he
felt pressing deep down inside his head, though he was conscious that
the red daylight was already dawning through his closed eyelids. He lay
there, big and burly, sprawling in his bed, beside Adeline's empty bed:
he felt that her bed was empty, that there was no one in the room. The
curtains had been drawn back, but the blinds were still down. And,
though he was awake, his eyelids remained closed and through them he saw
only the red of the daylight as through two pink shells: it seemed as if
he would never be able to lift those two leaden lids from his eyes.

This after-weariness flowed slowly through his great, burly body. He
felt physically rotten and did not quite know why. The day before, he
had merely dined with some brother-officers at the restaurant of the
Scheveningen Kurhaus: a farewell dinner to one of their number who was
being transferred to Venlo; and the dinner had been a long one; there
was a good deal of champagne drunk afterwards; and they had gone on
gaily to make a night of it. One or two of the married ones had refused,
good-naturedly, but had come along all the same, so as not to spoil
sport; Gerrit had come too, in his genial way. At last, he had decided
that that was about enough and that the road which the others were
taking was not his road: he was one of your sensible, moderate people,
who never went to extremes; he was very fond of his little wife; indeed,
he already felt some compunction at the idea of perhaps waking her at
that time of night, when he went into the bedroom, after undressing. As
a matter of fact, she did wake; but he had at once reassured her with
his gruff, good-natured voice and she had gone to sleep again. He had
stayed awake a long time, lying there with wide-open eyes angry at not
being able to sleep, at having forgotten how to take a glass of wine
with the rest. At last, in the small hours, when it was quite light, he
had slowly dozed off into a misty dreamland; and gradually the mists had
turned into solid landscapes, had become a stack of heavy mountains,
which pressed heavily upon his brain until they crumbled down in rocky
avalanches.

Now, at last, he shook off the strange heaviness, took his bath; and,
when he saw himself naked--that expanse of clean, white skin, the great
body built on heavy, sinewy lines, a good-looking, fair-haired chap
still, despite his eight-and-forty years--he wondered that he sometimes
had those queer moody fits, like a lady's lap-dog. And now, as he
squeezed the streaming water over himself out of the great sponge, he
tried to pooh-pooh those moody fits, shrugged his shoulders at them,
muttering to himself as he kept on squeezing the sponge, squeezing out
the water until it splashed and spattered all around him. He had the
sensation of washing the inertia from him; he drew a deep breath, flung
out his chest, felt his strength returning and, still naked, took his
dumb-bells and worked away with them, proud of a pair of biceps that
were like two rolling cannon-balls. His eyes recovered their usual
jovial expression, which also played around his fair moustache with a
roguish sparkle, as of inward mockery; the wrinkles vanished from his
forehead, which was gradually acquiring a loftier arch as the crop of
fair hair on his head diminished; and the blood seemed to be flowing
normally through his big body, after the bath and the five minutes'
exercise, for his cheeks, now shaved, became tinged with an almost pink
flush. And he simply could not make up his mind to dress: he looked at
himself, at his big, strong, clean body, which he kneaded yet once more,
as proud of his muscles as a woman of her graceful figure.

Then he quickly put on his uniform and went downstairs to breakfast. The
children surrounded him instantly; and he at once felt himself the
father, full of a father's affection, passionately fond as he was of his
children. He was only just in time to see Alex and Guy go off with their
satchels: the school was close by and they went by themselves, two
sturdy little fellows of nine and seven; but the other children, all
except the eldest, Marietje, who was also at school, were eating their
bread-and-butter at the round table, while Adeline sat in front of her
tea-tray. And Gerrit, in the little dining-room, at the round table,
felt himself become normal again, quite normal, because of his wife and
his children.

The dining-room was small and very simply furnished, containing only
what was strictly necessary. Adeline, now thirty-two, looked older: a
plump little mother, with not much to say for herself, full of little
cares for her little brood; and Gerrit, noisy and clamorous, filling the
whole little room with the gay thunder of his drill-sergeant's voice,
was full of incessant jokes and fun. There were half-a-dozen younger
ones round the table: two girls, Adèletje and Gerdy; three boys:
Constant, Jan and Piet; and the latest baby, a girl, Klaasje. Gerrit had
given the youngest three their names, in his annoyance at the
high-sounding names of the others: Alexander, Guy, Geraldine, christened
after Adeline's family, while Marie and Constant were called after Mamma
and Papa van Lowe.

"Look here, not so many of those grand names," Gerrit had said, when Jan
was coming.

And, after Klaasje[1]--a name which the whole family considered
hideous--Gerrit said:

"If we have another, it shall be called after me, Gerrit,[2] whether
it's a boy or a girl."

"Gertrude, surely, if it's a girl?" Adeline had suggested.

"No," said Gerrit, "she shall be Gerrit all the same."

Gerrit's manias were Mamma van Lowe's despair; but so far there had been
no question of a grand-daughter Gerrit.

Gerrit had no favourites. His long arms swung round as many children as
he could get hold of and he drew them on his knees, between his knees,
almost under his feet; and by some miraculous chance he had never broken
an arm or leg of any of them, so that Adeline and the children
themselves were never afraid and only Mamma van Lowe, when she witnessed
Gerrit's embraces, went through a thousand terrors. And to the children
the joy of life seemed to be embodied in their father, a joy which they
soon came to picture instinctively as a tall man, an hussar, with a loud
voice and any number of jokes, a pair of high riding-boots and a
clanking sword.

Gerdy was a tiny child of seven, who loved being petted; and, as soon as
she saw Gerrit, she hung on to him, nestled on his knees, rubbed her
head against the braid of his uniform, tugged at his moustache, dug her
little fists into his eyes. Or else she would throw her arms round his
neck and stay like that, quietly looking at the others, because she had
taken possession of Papa.

This time too she left her chair, crept under the table, climbed on
Gerrit's knees and ate out of his plate, although Adeline tried to
prevent her. Gerrit ate his breakfast, with Gerdy on his lap; and the
childish voices twittered all around him, like the voices of so many
little birds. And this twittering produced a brightness in his heart, so
that he began to smile and then to poke fun at Klaasje, the baby in her
baby-chair, sitting beside him rather stupidly. Klaasje, who did not
talk much yet, was still a little backward and just fretted and
whimpered.

Latterly, he had felt a strange pitying tenderness when he looked at his
children, as though surprised at all this dainty, flaxen life which he
had created, he who had always said:

"Children are what you want; without children you have no life; without
children nothing remains of you; children carry you on."

He had married, fairly late, a very young wife; and that had been the
reason of his marriage, the root-idea: to beget children, as many
children as possible, because it seemed to him a dismal thought that
nothing of him should survive. And now, when he looked around him, now
that Marietje, Adèletje and Alex were twelve and ten and nine, he
sometimes had, deep down in his heart, a strange feeling of wonder and
pity, even of sadness, as though the thought had suddenly come to him:

"Where do they all come from and why are they all round me?"

A strange, wondering astonishment, as though at the riddle of
childbirth, the secret of human life, which suddenly became impenetrable
to him, the father and husband. Then he would give a furtive glance to
see if he could discover that same wondering astonishment in Adeline;
but no, she quietly went her way, the gentle, fair-haired little mother,
the domesticated little wife, very simple in soul and limited in mind,
who had quietly, as a duty, borne her husband her fair-haired children
and was bringing them up as she thought was right. No, he noticed
nothing in her and he was the more surprised, because, after all, she
was the mother and therefore ought really to have felt that strange
thrill of wonder even more than he did.

"And all these are my children," he thought.

And, while he boisterously tickled Gerdy and pretended to eat up
Klaasje's bread-and-butter, like the great tease that he was, he
thought:

"Now these are all my children and Adeline's children."

And he was filled with wonder as he saw them around him, the pretty,
flaxen-haired children: the wonder of an artist at his work, wonder such
as a sculptor might feel on contemplating his statue, or a writer
reading his book, or a composer listening to his melodies, a simple,
wondering astonishment that he should have made all that, a wondering
astonishment at his own power and strength.

And then, in the midst of his astonishment, he suddenly grew frightened,
frightened at having heedless begotten so much life simply because he
had been depressed by the thought that, if he had no children, nothing
of him would survive after his death. Yes, they would survive him now,
his children, his flaxen-haired little tribe, his nine; life would
scatter them, the little brothers and sisters who were now all there
together like little birds in the nest of the parental house, sheltered
by father and mother; and what would they be like, what would their life
be, what their sorrow, what their joy, when he himself, their father,
was old or dead? He was afraid; a terror shot through him strangely
enough at that breakfast-table where he sat eating with Gerdy out of one
plate and teasing little Jan with his jokes, which made the boy crow
aloud. And the strangest thing to him was that no one should suspect
what he was thinking, that it was hidden from them all, from Adeline,
from his mother, his brothers and sisters, because in appearance he was
a great robust fellow, a sort of Goth, a civilized barbarian, with his
flaxen head and his white, sinewy body, devoted to sport and racing,
revelling in his work as an officer; outwardly almost commonplace, with
his solid, healthy normality; loud of voice, a little vulgar in his
jests, even exaggerating his noisiness and vulgarity out of a sort of
bravado, an instinctive desire to hide his real self. Yes, that was it:
he hid himself, he was invisible; nobody saw him, nobody knew him: not
his wife, nor his family, nor his friends; nobody knew him in those
strange fits of giddiness and faintness which suddenly seemed to empty
his brain, as though all the blood were flowing out of it; nobody knew
the secret of his temperateness, the hidden weakness that would not even
allow him to take two glasses of champagne without that horrible
congestion at his temples which made him feel as if his head were
bursting; nobody, not even the wife at his side, knew of that heavy,
oppressive nightmare which came to him when, after lying awake for
hours, he dozed off, that nightmare of piled-up mountains and rocky
avalanches weighing upon his brain; nobody knew of his fears and
anxieties about his children, while outwardly he was the gay, jovial
father, "a healthy brute," as some of his brother-officers had called
him.

Sometimes, he had silently thought of the designation and smiled at it,
because he knew himself to be neither a brute nor healthy. Gradually,
almost mechanically, he had gone on showing that unreal side, posing
successfully as the strong man, with cast-iron muscles and a simple,
cast-iron conception of life: to be a good husband, a good father and a
good officer; while inwardly he was gnawed by a queer monster that
devoured his marrow: he sometimes pictured it as a worm with legs. A
great, fat worm, you know; a beastly crawling thing, which rooted with
its legs in his carcase, which lived in his back and slowly ate him up,
year by year, the damned rotten thing! Of course, it wasn't a worm: he
knew that, he knew it wasn't a worm, a worm with legs; but it was just
like it, you know, just like a worm, a centipede, rooting away in his
back. Then he felt himself all over, proud notwithstanding of his sound
limbs, his well-trained, supple muscles, his youthful appearance, though
he was no longer so very young; and then it seemed to him
incomprehensible that it could be as it was, that that confounded
centipede could keep worrying through those limbs, at those muscles,
right into the marrow of his strong body. Nothing on earth would ever
have induced him to see a doctor about it: he took walking-exercise,
horse-exercise, rode at the head of his squadron; and the brazen blare
of the trumpets, the dull thud of the horses' hoofs, the sight of his
hussars--his lads--would make him really happy, would make him forget
the confounded centipede for a morning. As he sat his horse, with head
erect, twisting his fair moustache above his curved lip, a burly,
straight-backed figure, he would say to himself:

"Come, get rid of all those tom-fool ideas and be a man--d'ye hear?--not
a nervy, hypochondriacal girl. You and your centipede! Rot! I just had a
peg yesterday; and that, damn it, is what I mustn't do: no peg at all,
not one!... Perhaps not even any wine at all ... and then not more than
one cigar after dinner.... But, you see, giving up drinking, giving up
smoking: that's the difficulty...."

Gerrit had just finished his breakfast and was putting little Gerdy
down, when there was a violent ring at the front-door bell. Adeline gave
a start; the children shouted and laughed:

"Ting a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling!" cried little Piet, mimicking
the sound with his mug against his plate.

"Hush!" said Adeline, turning pale. She had seen Dorine through the
window, walking up and down outside the door excitedly, waiting for it
to be opened. "Hush, it's Auntie Dorine.... I do hope there's nothing
wrong at Grand-mamma's!..."

But now the maid had opened the door and Dorine rushed into the room
excitedly, perspiring under her straw hat, with a face as red as fire.
She was in a furious temper; and it was impossible at first to make out
what she said:

"Just think ... just think...."

She could not get her words out; the passion of rage seething inside her
made her incapable of speaking; moreover, she was out of breath, because
she had been walking very fast. Her hair, which was beginning early to
turn grey, stuck out in rat-tails from under her sailor-hat, which
bobbed up and down on her head; her clothes looked even more carelessly
flung on than usual; and her eyes blinked with a look of angry
malevolence, a look of spite and discontent gleaming through tears of
annoyance.

"Just think ... just think...."

"Come, Sissy, calm yourself and tell us what's the matter!" said Gerrit,
admonishing her in a good-natured, paternal, jovial fashion.

"Well then--just think--that horrible creature came to Mamma first thing
this morning ... and made a scene...."

"What horrible creature?"

"Why, are you all deaf? I'm _telling_ you, I began by telling you: Miss
Velders, the creature who keeps the rooms where Ernst lives ... came and
made a frightful scene ... and upset Mamma awfully ... and Mamma sent
for me. Why me? Why always me? What can I do? I'm not a man! Why not
Karel? Why not you? ... Oh _dear_ no: Mamma of course sent for _me_!...
Off I went to Mamma's, found Mamma quite ill, that horrible creature
there.... Then I went off with Miss Velders ... first to Karel's ... but
Karel was absolutely indifferent ... a selfish pig, a selfish pig:
that's what Karel is.... Miss Velders had to go home.... Then I went off
to Ernst ... and, when I had seen him, I came on to you.... Gerrit,
you're a man ... you know about things, you know what to do; I'm a woman
... and I do _not_ know what's to be done!"

Her voice was now a wail and she burst into tears.

"But, Sissy, I don't yet know what's happened!" said Gerrit, quietly.

"Why, Ernst, I'm telling you ... Ernst, I'm telling you...."

"What about him?"

"He's mad!"

"He's mad?"

"Yes, he's mad!... He wanted to go out into the street last night: he's
mad!..."

Adeline had rung for the nurse, who took the children away.

"He's mad?" Gerrit repeated, passing his hand over his forehead.

"He's mad," Dorine repeated. "He's mad. He's mad."

"Oh, well," said Gerrit, in a vague, conciliatory tone, "Ernst is always
queer!"

"But now he's mad, I tell you!" Dorine screamed, in a shrill voice. "If
you don't believe me, go and see him. Don't you see, something's _got_
to be done! I, I don't know what. I'm a woman, do you hear, and I'm
utterly unnerved myself. Why didn't Mamma send for you at once? Why me?
Why _me_? And Karel ... Karel is a nincompoop. Karel at once said that
he had a cold, that he couldn't go out. Karel? Karel's a nincompoop....
A cold, indeed! A cold, when your brother's gone mad all of a
sudden!..."

"But, when you say mad ... is he really mad?" asked Gerrit, doubtfully.

"Well, go and see him for yourself," said Dorine, fixing her irritated
gaze full on Gerrit. "You go and see him for yourself; and, when
_you've_ seen him as _I've_ seen him ... then you won't ask me if he's
mad...."

"All right," said Gerrit. "I'll go at once. I must look in at barracks
first and then...."

"Oh, you must look in at barracks first," said Dorine, angrily. "Of
course you must look in at barracks first. And then, if you have a
moment to spare...."

"I can go from here," said Gerrit, dejectedly. "Are you coming?"

"I?" screamed Dorine. "Do you think _I'm_ going back with you? No, thank
you. I've told Mamma, I've told you and now I'm going home to bed. For,
if I'm not careful and go trotting about wherever you send me, I shall
go off my head myself.... I? I'm going to bed...."

She rose, walked round the table, sat down again; and suddenly her voice
changed, tears of pity came into her eyes and she wailed:

"Poor Mamma! She's quite ill.... What an idea of that horrible
creature's, to go running straight to Mamma. Why frighten her like that?
Why not first have told one of us?... I'll just go round to Constance
... and to Adolphine: then they can console Mamma a bit.... You call in
at Paul's on your way: he may be able to help you, if there's anything
to be done.... But, after that, I'm going home to bed."

"Yes," said Gerrit, "I'll go now."

And then at once he began to hesitate: ought he not to go to barracks
first? Should he go first to Paul ... or straight to Ernst? He went into
the passage, strapped on his sword, put on his cap. Dorine followed him
out:

"So you're going to him? Well, when you've seen him ... you won't ask me
again if he's mad."

And she made a rush for the front-door.

"Dorine...."

"No, thank you," she said, excitedly. "I'm going to Constance; to
Adolphine ... and then ... then I shall go home to bed."

She had opened the door and, in another moment, she was gone. Gerrit saw
Adeline weeping, wringing her hands in terror:

"Oh, Gerrit!"

"Come, come, I don't expect it's so very bad. Ernst has always been
queer."

"I shall go to Mamma, Gerrit."

"Yes, darling, but don't make her nervous. Tell her that I'm on my way
to Ernst and that I don't believe he's so bad as all that. Dorine always
exaggerates and she hasn't told us what Ernst is like.... There,
good-bye, darling, and don't cry. Ernst has always been queer."

He flung his great-coat over his shoulders, for the weather was like
November, cold and wet. Outside, the pelting rain beat against his face;
and he saw Dorine ahead of him, wobbling down the street under her
umbrella, with that angry, straddling walk of hers. She turned out of
the Bankastraat on the left, into the Kerkhoflaan, on her way to
Constance. He took the tram and, in spite of the rain, stood on the
platform, with his military great-coat flapping round his burly figure,
because he was stifling, as with a painful congestion, and felt his
veins, surfeited with blood, hammering at his temples:

"That confounded champagne last night!" he thought. "I don't feel clear
in my head.... I'd better go to Paul first.... Yes, I'd better go to
Paul first.... Or ... or shall I go straight to Ernst?..."

He did not know what to decide and yet he had to make up his mind while
his tram was going along the Dennenweg, for Ernst lived in the Nieuwe
Uitleg. But, because he did not know, he remained on the tram, on the
platform, with his back bent under the pelting rain; and it was not
until he reached the Houtstraat that he jumped down, his sword clanking
between his legs.

Paul lived in rooms above a hosier's shop. Gerrit found his brother
still in bed:

"Ernst is mad," he said, at once.

"He's always been that," replied Paul, yawning.

"Yes, but ... it appears that he's absolutely mad now," said Gerrit.

He felt so seedy and heavy-witted that he could hardly speak: his
swollen tongue lolled between his teeth. However, he told Paul about
Dorine's visit:

"We must go on to Ernst, Paul, and see how much there is in it."

Paul was listening now:

"Ye-es," he drawled. "But I must dress myself first. You see, the
curious thing about this world is that, whatever happens, we have first
to dress ourselves...."

"I was dressed," laughed Gerrit.

"Oh, really!" said Paul, amiably. "Well, that was lucky."

There was a note of sarcasm in his tone which escaped Gerrit, in his
dull condition.

Paul, stretching himself, decided to get up. And for a moment he
remained standing in front of Gerrit, in his pink pyjamas:

"Do you think Ernst is really mad?" he asked.

"Perhaps it's not so bad as that," Gerrit ventured.

"Everybody is a little mad," said Paul.

"Oh, I say!" said Gerrit, in an offended voice.

"No, not you," said Paul, genially. "Not you or I. But everybody else
has a tile loose. I'm going to have my bath."

"Don't be long."

"All right."

Paul disappeared in his little bathroom; and Gerrit, who was
suffocating, flung open the windows, so that the bedroom suddenly became
filled with the patter of the summer rain. And Gerrit looked around him.
He had hardly ever been here, at Paul's; and he was now struck by the
exquisite tidiness of the rooms. Paul had a bedroom, a sitting-room and
a dressing-room in which he had installed his tub.

"What a tidy beggar he is!" thought Gerrit and looked around him.

The bedroom was small and contained nothing but a brass bedstead, a
walnut looking-glass wardrobe, a walnut table and two chairs. There was
not a single object lying about. The pillows on the bed showed just the
faintest impress of Paul's head; the bed-clothes he had thrown well
back, when he got up, very neatly, as though to avoid creasing them.

Gerrit heard the ripple of water in the dressing-room. It was as if Paul
were squeezing out the sponge with exquisite precaution, so as not to
splash a single drop outside his tub. The bath lasted a long time. Then
all was silence.

"Can't you hurry a bit?" cried Gerrit, impatiently.

"All right," Paul called back, in placid tones.

"What are you up to? I don't hear you moving."

"I'm doing my feet."

"My dear fellow, can't you get on a bit faster? Or shall I go on?"

"No, no, I wouldn't miss going with you. But I must get dressed first,
mustn't I?"

"But can't you make haste about it?"

"Very well, I'll hurry."

There came a few sharp, ticking sounds as of scissors and nail-files
that were being put down on the ringing marble. Gerrit breathed again.
But, when everything became silent once more, Gerrit, after an interval,
cried:

"Paul!"

"Yes?"

"Will you soon be ready now?"

"Yes, yes, but don't be impatient. I'm shaving. You wouldn't have me cut
myself?"

"No, of course not. But we must look sharp: you don't know what sort of
state Ernst may be in."

Paul did not answer; and Gerrit heard nothing more, except the swish of
the rain. He heaved a deep sigh, moved about restlessly, stretching out
his long legs. After some minutes, which seemed hours to Gerrit, Paul
opened the door, but closed it again at once:

"Gerrit, will you please shut the window!" he cried, angrily.

Gerrit fastened the window; the rain no longer pattered into the room.
Paul now came in: he was in a sleeveless flannel vest and knitted-silk
drawers; a pair of striped socks clung tightly to his ankles; his feet
were in slippers.

"Good Lord, my dear chap, have you only got as far as that?" asked
Gerrit, irritably.

Paul looked at him, a little superciliously:

"No doubt you fling yourself into your uniform in three minutes; but I
can't do that. Since one _has_ to dress one's self and can't just shake
one's feathers like a bird, I at least want to dress myself with care
... for otherwise I feel disgusting."

"But do remember ... if Ernst...."

"Ernst won't go any madder than he is because I dress myself properly
and keep you waiting a quarter of an hour longer. I can't dress any
quicker."

"Because you don't choose to!"

"Because 'I don't choose to?" retorted Paul, pale with indignation.
"Because I don't choose to? Because I _can't_. I can't do it. Do you
want me to go as I am? In my drawers? Very well; then send for a cab.
I'll go like this, just as I am. But, if you want me to dress myself,
you must have a little patience."

"Oh, all right!" Gerrit sighed, wearily. "Oof! Get on with your
dressing."

Paul opened a door of his wardrobe. Gerrit saw his shirts lying very
neatly arranged, coloured shirts and white shirts. Paul stood hesitating
for a moment, looked out of the window at the rain and at last selected
from the coloured stack a shirt with black stripes. He put the stack
straight and hunted for his studs in his jewel-case.

"How much longer will you be?" asked Gerrit.

"Ten minutes," said Paul, lying angrily, though he was inwardly
delighted to make Gerrit lose his temper.

He found a set of niello studs and links that went well with the
black-striped shirt and deliberately and neatly put them into the front
and cuffs.

Gerrit rose impatiently and walked up and down the room. Through the
open partition-door, he saw the bathroom and was surprised to find
everything tidied up, with not a drop of water anywhere.

"Do you do your wash-hand-stand yourself?" asked Gerrit, in amazement.

"Of course," said Paul, who was now getting into his shirt. "Did you
think I left that to the servant? Never! She has nothing to do but empty
my slop-pail. I do my tub, my basin, my soap-trays, everything myself. I
have separate cloths for everything: there they are, hanging on a rail.
The world is dirty enough as it is, however tidy one may be."

"In that case," said Gerrit, astounded, "you haven't been so long after
all!"

"It's method," replied Paul, airily, though secretly flattered by
Gerrit's remark. "When you have method, nothing takes long."

And, basking in Gerrit's praise, he rang, while pulling on his trousers,
and told the maid to bring his breakfast:

"I'll only take a hurried bite," he said, amiably, just bending the
points of his stand-up collar at the tips.

Then he picked out a tie, in a large Japanese box.

"By Jove, what a number of ties you have!"

"Yes, I have a lot of them," said Paul, proudly. "They're my only
luxury."

And in fact, when the maid pushed back the folding-doors, revealing the
sitting-room, which Paul, loathing other people's furniture, had
furnished himself, in addition to his other two rooms, Gerrit was struck
with the plainness of it: comfortable, but exceedingly simple.

"I adore pretty things," said Paul, "just as much as our mad Ernst. But
I can't afford them: I haven't the money."

"Why, you have the same income that he has."

"Yes, but he doesn't dress. To dress yourself well is expensive."

Paul's dressing was now finished; and he had turned up the bottoms of
his trousers very high, showing nearly the whole of his well-cut
button-boots. He merely drank a cup of tea, ate a piece of dry bread.

"Butter's so greasy," he said, "when you've just brushed your teeth."

And he went back to his bathroom to rinse his mouth once more.

He was ready now, took his umbrella and followed Gerrit down the stairs.
Gerrit opened the door.

"What beastly weather!" growled Paul, furiously, in the passage.

He drew his umbrella carefully out of its case, while Gerrit was already
outside, with his blue military coat flapping round his shoulders,
because he had not put his arms through the sleeves.

"What a filthy mess!" raved Paul. "This damned, rotten mud!" he cursed,
pale with rage.

He had folded up the umbrella-case and slipped it into his pocket and
was now opening his umbrella: he seemed to fear that it would get wet.

"Come on!" he said, seething with inward rage.

And, taking a desperate resolve, he stepped aside, fiercely slammed the
front-door and carefully placed his feet upon the pavement:

"We'll wait for the tram," he said.

He glared at the rain from under his umbrella:

"What a dirty sky!" he grumbled, while Gerrit paced up and down, only
half-listening to what Paul said. "What a damned dirty sky! Dirty rain,
filthy streets, mud, nothing but mud. The whole world is mud. Properly
speaking, everything is mud. Heavens, will the world ever be clean and
the people in it clean: towns with clean streets, people with clean
bodies? At present, they're mud, nothing but mud: their streets, their
bodies and their filthy souls!..."

The tram came and they had to get in; and Paul, in his heart of hearts,
regretted this for, as long as he had stood muttering under his
umbrella, he could still yield to his desire to go on raving, even
though Gerrit was not listening. They got out in the Dennenweg; but by
this time he had lost the thread of his argument and moreover he had to
be careful not to step in the puddles:

"Don't walk so fast!" he said, crossly, to Gerrit. "And mind where you
walk: it's all splashing around me."

They were now in the Nieuwe Uitleg. That ancient quarter was quite dark,
soaked in the everlasting rain that fell perpendicularly between the
trees, like curtains of violet beads, and clattered into the canal.

"Do you think he's really mad?" asked Gerrit, nervously, as he rang the
bell.

Paul shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his trousers and boots.
He was satisfied with himself; he had walked very carefully: he had
hardly a single splash. A fat landlady opened the door:

"Ah!... I'm glad you've come, gentlemen.... Meneer is quite calm now....
And have you been to a doctor?"

"A doctor?" said Gerrit, startled.

"A doctor," thought Paul. "Just so: we've been practical, as usual."

But he didn't say it.

They went upstairs. They found Ernst in his dressing-gown; his black
hair, which he wore long, lay in tangled masses over his forehead. He
did not get up; he gazed at his two brothers with a look of intense
melancholy. He was now a man of forty-three, but seemed older, his hair
turning grey, his appearance neglected, as though his shoulders had sunk
in, as though something were broken in his spinal system. He did not
appear very much surprised at seeing the two of them; only his sad eyes
wandered from one to the other, scrutinizing them suspiciously.

And all at once the two brothers did not know what to say. Gerrit filled
the room with his restless movements and nearly knocked down a couple of
Delft jars with the skirts of his wet great-coat.

Paul was the first to speak:

"Aren't you well, Ernst?"

"I'm quite well."

"Then what is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"What was the matter with you last night?"

"Nothing. I was suffocating."

"Are you better now?"

"Yes."

He seemed to be speaking mechanically, under the influence of the last
glimmer of intelligence, for his voice sounded uncertain and unreal, as
though he were not quite conscious of what he was saying.

"Come, old chap," said Gerrit, with good-natured bluntness, laying his
hand on Ernst's shoulder.

As he did so, Ernst's expression changed; his eyes lost their look of
intense melancholy and became hard, staring hard and black from their
sockets, like two black marbles. He had turned his head in a stiff
quarter-circle towards Gerrit; and the hard gleam of those black marbles
bored into Gerrit's blue Norse eyes with such strange fierceness that
Gerrit started. And, under his brother's big hand, which still lay on
his shoulder, Ernst's limp body seemed to be turned to stone, to become
rigid, hard as a rock. He stiffened his lips, his arms, his legs and
feet and remained like that, motionless, evidently suffering physical
and moral torture, shrinking under the pressure of Gerrit's hand,
without knowing how to get rid of that pressure. He remained motionless,
stark; every muscle was tense, every nerve quivered; Ernst seemed to
shrink and harden under Gerrit's touch just as a caterpillar shrinks and
becomes hard when it feels itself touched. As soon as Gerrit removed his
hand, the tension relaxed and Ernst's body huddled together again, as
though something had given way in the spinal system.

"Ernst," said Paul, "wouldn't you do well to get some sleep?"

"No," he said, "I won't go to bed again. There are three of them under
the bed."

"Three what?"

"Three. They're chained up."

"Chained up? Who's chained up?"

"Three. Three souls."

"Three souls?"

"Yes. The room's full of them. They are all fastened to my soul. They
are all riveted to my soul. With chains. Sometimes they break loose. But
I was dragging two of them with me for ever so long yesterday, in the
street, over the cobble-stones. They were in pain, they were crying. I
can hear them now in my ears, crying, crying.... There are three under
the bed. They're asleep. When I go to bed, they wake up and rattle their
chains. Let them sleep. They are tired, they are unhappy. As long as
they're asleep, they don't know about it.... I ... I can't sleep. I
haven't slept for weeks. They only sleep when I'm awake. They're
fastened to me.... Don't you hear them? The room is full of them. They
belong to every age and period. I've gathered them around me, collected
them from every age and period. They were hiding in the jars, in the old
books, in the old charts. I have some belonging to the fourteenth
century. They used to hide in the family-papers. The first moment I saw
them, they rose up, the poor souls ... with all their sins upon them,
all their past. They are suffering ... they are in purgatory. They
chained themselves on to me, because they know that I shall be kind to
them ... and now they refuse to leave me. I drag them with me wherever I
go, wherever I stand, wherever I sit. Their chains pull at my body. They
hurt me sometimes, but they can't help it.... Last night ... last night,
the room was so full of souls that there was a cloud of them all round
me; and I was suffocating. I wanted to go out, but the landlady and her
brother prevented me. They are a miserable pair: they would have let me
die of suffocation. They are a pair of brutes too: they tread on the
poor souls. Do you hear ... on the stairs? Do you hear their feet? They
are treading on the souls...."

Paul's face was white; and he said, nervously trying to change the
subject:

"Have you seen Dorine this morning, Ernst?"

Ernst looked at his brother suspiciously:

"No," he said, "I have not seen her."

"She was here, wasn't she?"

"No, I haven't seen her," he said, suspiciously; and his eyes wandered
round, as though he were looking for something in the room.

The two brothers followed his gaze mechanically. Everything about the
large, comfortable sitting-room suggested the man of taste and culture,
of quiet and introspective temperament, but acutely sensitive to line
and form. The sombreness of the ceiling, wall-paper and carpet stood out
against the yet greater sombreness of old oak and old books; and a very
strange note of blue and other colours was struck in the midst of it all
by the pottery, which was not all old, but included some examples of
more recent art. The modern harmonies of line and the very latest
discoveries in earthenware suddenly appeared with their weird flourishes
in vases, jars, pots, like enamelled flowers, from modern
conservatories, that had sprung up in the shadows of some old, dark
forest. On the book-shelves too, the brown leather bindings of the
ancient folios were relieved by the direct contact of the yellow
wrappers of the latest French literature or the _art-nouveau_ covers of
the most modern Dutch novels. This lonely, silent man, who walked shyly
through the streets, gliding along the walls of the houses; who had no
friends, no acquaintances; who only on Sunday evenings--because he dared
not stay away, from a last remnant of respect for maternal
authority--consented to suffer martyrdom among the assembled members of
his family, even to the extent of taking a hand at bridge: this man
seemed, hidden from every one of them, to lead a rich, abundant life, a
secret, inner life, a life not of one age but of many. Because he never
spoke, they looked upon him as a crank; but he had lived his years
abundantly. Had he filled his silent, uncompanioned loneliness too full
with the ghosts of literature, history and art? Had the ghosts loomed up
and come to life around him, in that dark and gloomy room, where the old
and modern porcelain and earthenware glowed and rioted around him with
the haunting brilliancy of their colours and glazes, of their tortured,
gorgeous curves and outlines?

The two brothers, who had come because they thought their brother mad,
looked round the room; and to both of them the room also seemed mad. To
the captain of hussars, whose earlier depression had passed off, who
suddenly felt himself becoming healthy and normal again as he listened
to his eccentric brother's ravings, the room became a demented room,
because it lacked a trophy of arms, riding-whips, prints of horses and
dogs and the oleograph of a naked woman, bending backwards and laughing.
To the other brother the room also seemed demented because here the vase
was no longer an ornament, because the vase had become a morbid thing,
like a many-coloured weed, growing in rank profusion among the dark
shadows of the curtains and oak book-cases. To Paul the room seemed
demented because there was dust on the books and because the basket full
of torn paper had not been emptied. But to both of them the man Ernst
himself seemed more demented than the room: the man Ernst, their
brother, an eccentric fellow whom for years they had been compelled to
think "queer" because he was different from any of them. When he
confessed to them that his room was full of souls, souls that hovered
round him like a cloud until he was on the point of suffocating, souls
that chained themselves to him and rattled their chains, they thought
that he was raving, that he was stammering insane words. It was the view
of both of them, the view of normal, healthy men, outwardly sane in
their senses, in their gestures, expression and language, because their
gestures, expression and language did not clash with those of the people
about them, whatever they might sometimes feel deep down in themselves.
But to the man himself, to Ernst, his own view was the normal, the very
ordinary view; and he thought his two brothers Gerrit and Paul queer and
eccentric because he was able, in his furtive way, to see that neither
of them noticed anything of the innumerable souls, though these writhed
so pitifully and thronged so closely around him, as though he were in
purgatory. To him there was nothing mad or insane in his room, in his
words, or in any part of him. He looked upon them as mad, he looked upon
himself as sensible. When, last night, he tried to go out in his
nightshirt, because the souls pressed upon him until he felt as if he
were suffocating in the throng, he had simply wanted air, nothing but
air, had wanted to breathe without the discomfort of clothes, coat or
waistcoat, upon his chest; and he had thought it quite natural that he
should go downstairs with a candle and try to open the door with his
key. Then the fat landlady and her lout of a brother had heard him and
had come upon him, making a great to-do with their silly hands and their
loud voices; and the two, the fat landlady and her lout of a brother,
had stood there shouting and gesticulating like a pair of lunatics while
he had already loosened the chain from the front-door and felt the
draught doing him so much good, because it blew upon his bare flesh
under his flapping shirt. Then Ernst had become angry, because the fat
landlady and her lout of a brother did not listen to what he said: he
had a soft voice, which could not cope with the rough, loud, vulgar
voices of people without feeling, of people without soul, knowledge or
understanding. He had become angry, because the brother, the coarse
brute, had locked the door again, dragged him away, hauled him up the
stairs; and he had struck the brother. But the brother, who was stronger
than he was, had hit him, hit him on the chest, which had been bursting
before and at that had become still worse, because all the souls had
thronged against him in terror, beseeching him to protect them. And,
roughly, rudely, like the unfeeling brutes that they were, the fat
landlady and her lout of a brother had dragged him upstairs between
them; and, as they dragged him, they had trodden not only on his bare
feet but also on the poor souls! Their vulgar slippers, their clumsy,
caddish feet had trodden on the poor, poor tender souls, trodden on them
in the passage and along the stairs; and he heard them panting and
sobbing, so loudly, so loudly, in their mortal anguish, that he could
not understand why the whole town had not come running up in sheer
alarm, to see the poor souls and help them. Oh, how they had moaned and
gnashed their teeth, oh, how they had sobbed and lamented, most
terribly!

And nobody had come. Nobody would hear. They had refused to hear, those
townsfolk; no rescue had arrived; and the two brutes, that fat landlady
and that wretched cad of a fellow, her brother, had hauled him along, up
the stairs, into his room, had flung him in, locked the door behind him
and barricaded the door on the outside. And in the passage, caught in
the front-door, on the landing, caught in the door of his room, lay the
poor panting, sobbing souls; they lay trodden and trampled, as if a
rough crowd had danced on those tender gossamer beings, on their frail
bodies; and he had spent the whole night sitting on a chair in a corner
of his room, shivering in his nightshirt, in the dark, listening to the
lamentations of the souls, hearing them wring their hands, hearing them
pray for his pity, for his commiseration, for they knew that he loved
them, that he would not hurt them, the poor souls.... He understood,
yes, he understood that those two brutes, the woman and her brother,
thought that he was mad. But he had only wanted to breathe the cool
night-air, to feel the cool night-air blowing over his hot limbs, which
were all aglow because, in bed, the souls pressed so close upon him,
though he tried to push them softly from him. It wasn't mad, surely, to
want a breath of fresh air, to want to feel the cool air blowing over
one's self. That was all he wanted.... And, in the morning ... yes, he
had seen her at the door, opening it very carefully. He had seen the
face of his sister Dorine that morning, seen her grimacing and laughing
and cackling, with a devilish grin, glad, she too, at the sight of the
frail bodies of the poor souls lying trampled on the stairs and in the
passage; but he had been clever: he had remained sitting in his shirt,
in the corner of his room, and pretended not to see her and taken no
notice of her devilish grin, so as not to satisfy her evil pleasure....
Then at last the poor souls that still lived had settled down: he had
lulled their fears with gentle words of consolation. Then they had
fallen asleep around him; and he had been able to get up softly, without
rattling their chains, and wash his face, put on his trousers, his
socks, his dressing-gown.... What were his brothers doing now? He knew,
he knew: no doubt they were also thinking, like the landlady and her
beast of a brother, that he was mad, mad, bereft of his senses. But it
was they who had lost their senses: they had no eyes, not to see the
slumbering souls that filled the house; they had no ears, not to hear
the plaint of the souls last night ringing through the universe. They,
they were mad: they knew nothing and felt nothing; they lived like brute
beasts; and he hated them both: that big, burly officer and the other,
that fine gentleman, with his smooth face and his moustache like a cat's
whiskers, which he couldn't stand, which he simply could not stand.
Somehow, he had had to tell them about the poor souls; but, now that he
saw that they were mad, he would never mention the souls to them again:
otherwise they would be sure to want to beat him too and pull him about
and tread on the poor souls, as those two horrible brutes had done.

So he remained sitting quietly, waiting for them to go and leave him to
himself, in the peaceful solitude to which he was accustomed. For he was
tired now; and, sitting straight up in his chair, he closed his eyes,
partly to shut out the sight of his brothers' faces. Around him lay the
souls, countless numbers of them, but they were still and silent,
slumbering around him like children, though their faces were wrung with
all the grief and pain that they had been made to suffer the night
before.

Gerrit and Paul had stood up, were pretending to look at the vases,
talking in whispers:

"He is pretty calm," said Gerrit.

"Yes, but what he said was utter nonsense."

"We must go to a doctor."

"Yes, we must go to Dr. van der Ouwe first. Perhaps to Dr. Reeuws
afterwards, or any other nerve-specialist whom Van der Ouwe recommends."

"What do you think of him? Is he absolutely mad?"

"Yes, mad. He never used to talk in that incoherent way. Up to now, he
was only queer, dreamy, eccentric. Now he is absolutely...."

"Mad," Gerrit completed, in a low voice.

"Look, he's shut his eyes...."

"He seems calm."

"Yes, he's calm enough."

"Shall we go?"

"Yes, let's go."

They went up to Ernst:

"Ernst...."

"Ernst!"

He slowly raised his heavy eyelids.

"We're off, Ernst, old chap," said Gerrit.

Ernst nodded his head.

"We shall be back soon."

But Ernst closed his eyes again, yearning for them to go, driving them
out of the room with his longing....

They went. He heard them shut the door softly, carefully. Then he nodded
his head with satisfaction: they were not so bad, they had not waked the
souls.... He heard them whispering on the landing, with those two
beasts, the landlady and her brother. He got up, crept to the door,
tried to listen. But he could not make out what they said.

Then he laughed contemptuously, because he thought them stupid, devoid
of eyes, ears, heart or feeling:

"Wretched brutes, infernal brutes!" he muttered fiercely, clenching his
fists.

A mortal weariness stole over him. He went to his bedroom, let down the
blinds and got into bed, feeling that he would sleep.

All around him lay the souls: the whole room was full of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nicolette.

[2] Gerard.




CHAPTER II


Old Mrs. van Lowe's neighbours thought it a funny thing that, after
dinner that evening, the whole family arrived, one after the other, rang
the bell and went in, though it was not Sunday. Except on those
"family-group" Sundays, there was never much of a run on Mrs. van Lowe's
door. And they wondered what could be the matter; and, as it was very
warm, an August day, they opened all the windows, kept looking across
the street and even sent their maids to enquire of Mrs. van Lowe's
maids. But the maids did not know anything: they only thought it must be
something to do with the young mevrouw, the one in Paris--Mrs. Emilie,
as they called her--who had gone off with her brother.

"It's very queer about the Van Lowes," said the neighbours, looking out
of window at the old lady's front-door, at which somebody was ringing
again for the hundredth time.

"There come the Van Saetzemas."

"And here are those fat Ruyvenaers."

"What's up?"

"Yes, what can be up?"

"The servants say it's something to do with Emilie."

"A nice thing for the Van Ravens!"

"They say that Bertha has become quite childish, don't they?"

"I don't know about that: she just sits staring in front of her. They
never come now: they're living at Baarn."

"Here are the Van der Welckes."

"Like aunt, like niece."

"Now they're all there."

"All?"

"Yes, I've seen them all. Captain van Lowe and his wife, Paul, Dorine
and Karel."

"And Ernst?"

"He hasn't come yet."

"But then he doesn't always come."

"I wonder what's up."

"Yes, I wonder."

"There must be some scandal with Emilie."

"And, when you think of what the Van Naghels used to be.... Such big
people!"

"And now...."

"Absolute nobodies...."

"Oh, I think they're rather nice people!..."

"Yes, but they're all a bit touched, you know."

"Well, suppose we go to Scheveningen?..."

"Yes, let's go to Scheveningen. We may hear there what's happened...."

"Yes ... about Emilie, you know...."

And Mrs. van Lowe's neighbours went off to Scheveningen, with the
express object of hearing what had happened about Emilie....

Old Mrs. van Lowe was sitting in the conservatory, with the windows
open, and crying gently, like one who was too old to cry violently,
whatever the sorrow might be. Uncle Herman, Aunt Lot, all the children
had come in gradually, their faces blank with utter dismay; and they
were moving like ghosts about the large, dark rooms, where no one had
thought of having the gas lit.

"Herman!" the old lady cried, plaintively.

Uncle Ruyvenaer and Aunt Lot approached.

"Have you seen him, Herman?" asked the old lady, wringing her old,
knotted hands.

"No-o, Marie. But I ... I shall go to him to-morrow ... with Dr. van der
Ouwe."

"And who is with him now?"

"A male nurse, Mamma," said Gerrit. "We've seen to everything. He's
quite calm, Mamma dear, he's quite calm. It won't be very bad. It's only
temporary: it'll pass, the doctor said."

Cateau's bosom suddenly loomed through the open doorway of the
conservatory:

"Oh, Mam-ma," she said, "how _sad_ ... about Ernst! Who would ever have
im-a-gined ... that Ernst would become ... like _this_!"

And she bent over her mother-in-law and gave her a formal kiss, like the
kiss of a stranger paying a visit of condolence.

"And how are you, Mamma?" asked Karel, as though there were nothing the
matter. "I hope you're not suffering from the heat."

The old woman nodded dully, pressed his hand.

"All that I ask," said Adolphine, addressing her husband, Paul, Dorine
and Adeline, "is that you will not talk about it. Don't talk about it to
outsiders. The less it's talked about, the better pleased I shall be....
We have that Indian lack of reserve in our family, that habit of at once
going and telling everybody everything.... If people ask, we can say
that Ernst has had a nervous break-down; yes, that's it: let's arrange
to say that Ernst has had a nervous break-down...."

She asked them to give her their word; and they promised, in order to
keep her quiet.

"You'll see," she said, "this business with Ernst will mean that Van
Saetzema will once more fail to get elected to the town council."

Paul looked at her in stupefaction, failing to grasp the logic of her
remark. Then he said, calmly:

"Yes, you see funny things happen sometimes."

"Yes," said Adolphine, nodding her head to show how much she appreciated
the fact that Paul understood her. "It's horrid for _me_: you'll see,
Van Saetzema won't get in...."

"I believe that Ernst ... is the sanest of the lot of us!" thought Paul.

And, as he moved to a seat, he first looked to make sure that there were
no bits of fluff on the chair.

But Constance had come in; and, when the old lady saw her, she
half-rose, threw herself into her daughter's arms and began to sob more
violently than she had done. It was strange how she had gradually come
to look upon Constance once more as the nearest to her of her children,
this daughter whom she had not seen for years and years, until at last
Constance had returned to Holland and the family. As a mother, she had
never had a favourite; yet she would often, for months at a time, feel
drawn now more towards the one, then again towards the other. She was
growing old, she was getting the broken look which a mother's face
begins to wear as she sees sorrow coming into her children's lives: a
sorrow which, in her case, arrived so late that by degrees the illusion
had come to her that there would never be any sorrow. The sudden
break-up of Bertha's house--that house which she was so fond of
visiting, because she found in it the continuation of her own life, the
reflection of her own past grandeur--had fallen on her as a painful
blow: Van Naghel's sudden death; the sort of apathy into which Bertha
had sunk; the divorce between Van Raven and Emilie after Emilie had
refused to come back from abroad, preferring to stay in Paris with her
brother Henri, who had been sent down from Leiden: a divorce obtained in
the face of all the persuasion which Uncle van Naghel, the Queen's
Commissary in Overijssel, had brought to bear upon them; Louise living
with Otto and Frances, in order to help Frances, who was always ailing,
with the children, so that Bertha was living alone with Marianne in her
little villa at Baarn, now that Frans had taken his degree and gone to
India, while Karel and Marietje were at boarding-school. The big
household had broken up, in a few months, in a few days almost; and the
old grandmother, whose dearest illusion it had always been to keep
everything and everybody close together, had been seized with an
innocent wonder that things could happen so, that things had happened
so.... She no longer went about, finding a difficulty in walking; and,
because Bertha had become so apathetic and had also ceased to go about,
she had as it were lost Bertha and all who belonged to her. It had
produced a void around her which nothing was able to fill, even though
she saw Constance every day. A void, because with none of her other
children did the old lady find the same atmosphere of rank and position
which she had loved in the Van Naghels' ministerial household. She would
often complain now, a thing which she never used to do: she would
complain that Karel and Cateau were so selfish, so stiff and Dutch, that
they were getting worse every year; she would complain that at Gerrit's
the children were always so noisy, that Adeline was unable to manage
them, that both Gerrit and Adeline were much too weak to bring up so
many children--nine of them--with proper strictness; she would complain
that Adolphine was growing more and more envious and discontented,
because her husband did not make his way, because Carolientje was not
married, because the three boys were so troublesome; she would complain
of Dorine and Paul and had all sorts of little grievances against both
of them. Then, on the Sunday evenings, when the children and
grandchildren came to her, she felt the void which Van Naghel and Bertha
had left behind them, missed the sound of a few aristocratic names,
missed any reference to the Russian minister in her children's
conversation; and, with a little half-bitter laugh, she would say to the
Ruyvenaers that the family was no longer what it had been, called it a
_grandeur déchue_ and took a melancholy pleasure in the phrase, which
she would repeat again and again, as though finding consolation in its
gentle irony. And Constance had become the child towards whom she felt
most drawn in these dreary days, because Constance devoted herself
regularly to her old mother and also because she, Mamma, in her secret
heart, loved to talk with Constance about Rome, about De Staffelaer
even, about the Pallavicinis, the Odescalchis, whom Constance had known
in the old days; because Constance, whatever might be said against her,
was connected with the best Dutch families; because Constance had a
title; because Addie was the only one of her grandchildren who bore a
title, good family though the Van Naghels were. Oh, those grandchildren,
whom she now saw so seldom! And, now that the terrible thing had
befallen Ernst, the terrible thing which the children had at first
wished to conceal from her, but which she had guessed nevertheless,
because she had so long feared it, feared it indeed from the time when
Ernst was a tiny child--oh, what frightful convulsions he used to have
as a child!--now that the terrible thing had befallen Ernst, it was
Constance in whose arms she was first able to sob out her grief, in
whose arms she first felt how sorely she had been stricken in her
declining days:

"Connie," she cried, her voice broken with sobs, "Connie darling, it's
true!... Ernst ... Ernst is _mad_!"

And the word which no one had yet uttered to her, though she had guessed
what they meant, rang shrill through the fast-darkening room, in which
every whisper was suddenly hushed in terror at the shrill sound of the
old woman's high-pitched voice. Silence fell upon everything; and the
word sent a shudder through the room. The children looked at one
another, because Mamma had uttered the word which none of them had
spoken, though they had thought it silently. The word which Mamma
uttered so shrilly, almost screaming it at Constance, in the intolerable
pain of her sorrow, struck them all with a sudden dismay, because,
coming from Mamma's lips, it sounded like an open acknowledgment of what
they all knew but did not wish to acknowledge except among one another,
in great secrecy. They would merely say that Ernst was suffering from a
nervous break-down, nothing more. A nervous break-down was such a
comprehensive term! Anybody could go to a home for nervous patients for
a rest-cure. But the word uttered by Mamma to Constance in shrill
acknowledgment of the truth had cut through the dim room, where no one
had even thought of lighting the gas. Adolphine, Cateau, Karel, Uncle
Ruyvenaer, Floortje and Dijkerhof exchanged sudden glances, terrified,
struck with dismay, because they would never have been willing to utter
the word aloud, in open acknowledgment of the truth.

Aunt Lot's loud "Ah, _kassian_!"[1] now came from a corner of the dark
room; and Toetie was so much upset that she suddenly burst into sobs.
That was your Indian lack of self-restraint again, thought the Van
Saetzemas and Cateau; and it did not seem to them decent to let yourself
go like that, it made them feel that the business was a hopeless one.
But the door opened and the two doctors entered, groping their way in
the darkness: the old family-doctor, a retired army-surgeon, Van der
Ouwe; and Reeuws, a young nerve-specialist. At their entrance, Toetie,
abashed, ceased her sobbing. The doctors had come from the Nieuwe
Uitleg, where they had left Ernst reading peacefully, with the male
nurse, a stolid, powerful fellow, in an adjoining room. And, when the
brothers and sisters crowded round the two doctors, the older began,
quietly:

"Our poor Ernst can't stay where he is, all by himself. We must see and
get him to Nunspeet, at Dr. van der Heuvel's: that will do him good ...
the country, change of environment, nice, quiet people, who will look
after him...."

"Nunspeet?" asked Adolphine. "That's not...?"

"No," said the old doctor, decisively, understanding what she meant.
"It's not."

And he did not speak the word, left it to be implied, the word that must
not be uttered, the terrible word that denoted the house of shame, the
family-disgrace.

"It's a nice, pleasant villa, where Dr. van der Heuvel minds a few
nervous patients," he said, calmly and kindly, casting a glance round at
the brothers and sisters; and his grey head nodded reassuringly to all
of them.

They admired his tact; and they the more readily condemned Mamma's
shrill word, which had cut through the darkness and made them shudder,
they the more readily condemned Aunt Lot's exclamation and Toetie's
outbreak of sobbing.

And, breathing again, they lit the gas, suddenly noticing that the room
was pitch-dark now that the two doctors had gone to Mamma and were
telling her quietly that it would be all right and that Ernst was just a
little overstrained from being too much alone and poring too long over
his dusty books.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Malay: "Poor dear!"




CHAPTER III


Constance went to the Nieuwe Uitleg next morning; the landlady, shaking
her head, let her in; Dr. van der Ouwe met her in the passage:

"I thank you for coming, mevrouw. It won't do for Ernst to remain here
any longer; I should like to take him down to Nunspeet, with one of you,
as soon as possible, to-morrow. But it won't be an easy matter ... poor
fellow!"

"I'll do my best," said Constance, doubtfully.

"Then I'll leave you alone with him. You won't be nervous? No, you're
not nervous. He's quite quiet, poor fellow. Don't be afraid: I shall be
near."

Constance went upstairs, with her heart thumping in her breast. She
tapped softly at the door and received no answer:

"Ernst!" she called; and her voice was not very steady. "Ernst...."

But there was no reply.

She slowly opened the door. The door-handle grated into her very soul;
and before entering she asked once more:

"Ernst.... May I come in?"

He still did not answer and she walked into the room. She had made up
her mind to smile at once, to come up to him with a smile, so that the
expression of her face might put her poor brother at his ease. And so
she smiled as she entered, looking for him with kindly eyes, as though
there were nothing at all out of the common.

But her smile seemed to freeze on her lips when she saw him sitting
huddled in a corner of the room, in a flannel shirt and an old pair of
trousers, with his long hair hanging unkempt. Nevertheless she
controlled herself and said, in as natural a tone as she could command:

"Good-morning, Ernst. I've come to see how you are."

He looked at her suspiciously from his corner and asked:

"Why?"

"Because I heard that you were not well. So I thought I would see how
you were getting on."

"I'm not ill," he said, in a low voice.

"Why are you sitting in that corner, Ernst? Are you comfortable there?"

"Ssh!" he said. "They're asleep. Don't speak too loud."

"No. But I may talk quietly, mayn't I, Ernst?... Can't you get up from
your chair? For there's no room there to sit beside you. Come, dear,
won't you get up?"

And she smiled and held out both her hands to him.

He smiled back and said:

"Ssh! Don't wake them."

"No, no. But do get up."

He gave way at last and, grasping her hands warily, allowed her to pull
him up, out of his corner, and once more said, earnestly:

"You must promise me not to wake them. All my visitors wake them, the
brutes! The doctor woke them too."

"No, Ernst, we'll let them sleep. There, it's nice of you to have got
up. Shall we sit down here?"

"Yes. Why have you come? You never come to see me...."

There was in his words an unconscious reproach that startled her. It was
quite true: she never came to see him. Since that first time, eighteen
months ago, when he had asked her to his rooms on her return to Holland,
the day when she had lunched here with him, when he had toasted her with
two fingers of champagne out of a quaint old glass, she had never once
been back. She reproached herself for it now: she, who did feel all that
affection for her family, why had she left that brother to himself, as
all the others did, just because he was queer? If she had overcome that
vague feeling of distaste, almost of repugnance; if she had felt for him
always as she suddenly felt for him now, perhaps he would not have been
so self-centred, perhaps he would have retained his sanity.

"No, Ernst," she confessed, "I never came to see you. It wasn't nice of
me, was it?"

"No, it wasn't nice of you," he said. "For I'm very fond of you,
Constance."

Her heart began to fail her. Her breath came in gasps; her eyes filled
with tears. She put her arm over his shoulder and, without restraining
her emotion, she cried:

"Did we all leave you so much alone, Ernst?"

"No," he said, quietly, "I am never alone. They are all of them around
me, always. There are some of every century. Sometimes they are
magnificently dressed and sing with exquisite voices. But latterly,"
mournfully shaking his head, "latterly they have not been like that.
They are all grey, like ghosts; they no longer sing their beautiful
tunes; they weep and wail and gnash their teeth. They used to come out
into the middle of the room ... and laugh and sing and glitter. But now,
oh, Constance, I don't know what they suffer, but they suffer something
terrible ... a purgatory! They crowd round me, they suffocate me, till I
can't draw my breath.... Hush, there they are, waking again!..."

"No, Ernst, no, Ernst, they're asleep!"

He turned to her with a knowing laugh:

"Yes," he whispered, "you are kind, you love them, you are sorry for
them ... you let them sleep ... you don't wake them...."

And they sat quietly together for a moment, without speaking, she with
her arm round his shoulder.

"What a lot of pretty things you have, Ernst!" she said, looking round
the room.

"Yes," he said, "I collected them ... gradually, very gradually. There
was one in every piece."

"Ernst," she said, gently, "perhaps it would be a good thing if you went
to the country this summer."

At once he seemed to stiffen and shrink under her touch, as though all
his limbs were becoming tense and stark:

"I won't leave here," he said.

"Ernst, it would be so good for you. Do you know Nunspeet?"

She felt him go rigid; and he looked at her angrily and harshly:

"The doctor wants to get me to Nunspeet," he answered, craftily. He
laughed scornfully: "I know all about it. You people think I'm mad. But
I'm not mad," he went on, haughtily. "You people are stupid: stupid and
mad is what you are. You see nothing and hear nothing, you with your
dull brute senses; and then you just think, because some one else sees
and hears and feels, that he's mad ... whereas it's you yourselves who
are mad. I shall stay here; I won't go to Nunspeet."

But suddenly he grew alarmed and asked:

"I say, Constance, you won't force me, surely? You won't beat me? That
beastly cad down below, that fellow, that cad: he hit me ... and woke
them ... and trod on them! He stood treading on them, the great fool,
the blockhead!... Tell me, Constance, you will leave me here, won't
you?"

"No, Ernst, no one wants to force you. But it would be a good thing if
you went to Nunspeet."

"But why? I'm all right here."

"You would be among kind people ... who will be fond of you."

"No one has ever been fond of me," he said.

"Ernst!" she cried, with a sob.

"No one has ever been fond of me," he repeated, bluntly. "Not Mamma ...
nor any of you ... not one. If I had not had all of them ... oh, if I
had not had all of them! My darlings, my darlings! Oh, what can be the
matter with them? Now they're waking up! Now they're awake! Oh, listen
to them moaning! Oh dear, listen to them screaming! They're screaming,
they're yelling! ... _Is_ it purgatory? Oh, dear, how they're crowding
round me! They're stifling me, they're stifling me!... Oh dear, it's
more than I can bear!"

He rushed to the open window; and she was afraid that he wanted to throw
himself out, so that she caught him round the body with both her arms.
The old doctor came in. He shut the window.

"I can do nothing," she murmured to the old man, in despair.

"Yes, you can," said the doctor, calmly. "Yes, you can, mevrouw."

"You are all of you my enemies," said Ernst. "My enemies and theirs."

And he went and sat in his corner, huddled up, with his arms round his
knees.

"Go away," he said, addressing both of them.

"I'm going, Ernst," said the old doctor. "But Constance may as well
stay."

He sometimes called her by her Christian name, the old doctor who had
brought them into the world in India; and to Constance it was touching,
to hear that name from under his grey moustache; it called up those old,
old days.

"Constance can stay?"

"Very well," said Ernst.

The doctor left them alone: the nurse would be on his guard.

"Ernst," said Constance, "suppose we went together ... to Nunspeet?"

"Why? Why?" he asked, vehemently. "I'm all right here.... And we can't
take them with us there," he whispered, more gently. "Ssh! You're waking
them."

"It will be quieter for them, perhaps, if you leave them here, dear,"
she said, kneeling on the floor beside him, feeling for his hand, with
her eyes full of tears.

"No, no ... that woman's brother down there ... that cad...."

"But, Ernst," she said, more firmly, with her eyes on his, "dear Ernst,
do let me tell you: they don't exist. They exist only in your
imagination. You must really get rid of the idea: then you will be well
again, quite well.... Ernst, dear Ernst, they don't exist. Do look round
you: there's nothing to see but the room, your furniture, your books,
your vases. There's nothing else, except our two selves.... Oh, Ernst,
do try to see it: there's nothing.... That you feel as if you were
suffocating comes from always being so much alone, never going out,
never walking. At Nunspeet, we will walk ... on the heath, over the
dunes ... and then you will get quite well again, Ernst.... For,
honestly, you are ill.... There's nothing here, nothing. Look for
yourself: there's only you and I ... and your furniture and books...."

He quietly let her talk; an ironical smile curled round his lips; and at
last he gave her a glance of pitying contempt, gave a little shrug of
his shoulders. Then he softly stroked her hand, patted it gently, in a
fatherly manner:

"You are kind and nice, Constance, but," shaking his head, "you have no
sense! I believe you mean what you say, but that's just it: you're
narrow, you're limited. You don't see, you don't hear," putting his hand
to his eyes and ears, "what I see, what I hear with my eyes and my
ears...."

"But, Ernst, you must surely understand that those are all illusions.
The doctor says that they are hallucinations."

He continued to smile, looked at her with his contemptuous pity, looked
hard out of his black Van Lowe eyes.

"They are hallucinations, Ernst."

"And you?"

"No, I'm not."

"And the room, the books, the vases?..."

"No, they are not. They are all around you, they exist."

"Well ... and why not all of them, the souls?"

"They don't exist, Ernst. They are hallucinations."

He just closed his eyelids, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, to convey
that he was utterly at a loss to understand such exceedingly limited
perceptions. Then he said, gently and kindly:

"No, Constance dear, you're not clever ... if you mean all you say. I
believe you do mean it, but that's just it: you live like a blind
person; you don't see, you don't hear. That's the way you all of you
live and exist, in a dream, with closed eyes and deaf ears. You none of
you see, hear or understand anything. You know nothing. You are as
unfeeling as stones. You can't help it, Constance, but it's a pity, for
you are so nice. There might have been something to be made of you, if
you had learnt to see and hear and feel. It's too late now, Constance.
You are stupid now, like all the rest; but I'm sorry, for you are very
nice. Your hand is soft, your voice is soft; and you did your best not
to tread on my poor darlings ... and not to drag them away on their
chains, which are riveted so fast to my heart that they hurt me
sometimes, here!"

He put his hand to his heart. A weariness came over her brain, as though
she were exhausting herself in the effort to speak and to give
understanding to an intelligence and a soul which remained very far
away, miles away, and which her words could only reach through a dense
cloud of darkness. And suddenly that sense of weariness and impotence
became crueller and harder within her: it was as though she were talking
to a stone, to a wall; she felt her own words beating back against her
forehead like tennis-balls striking the wall.

"But, Ernst," she tried once more, "won't you come to Nunspeet with me
... to please _me_, to walk on the heath with _me_? You would be giving
me such immense pleasure. It would be good for _me_...."

"And all of them, here, around me?..."

He pointed round the room, cautiously.

"We will leave them to sleep here."

"And that cad, downstairs?..."

"He sha'n't interfere with them, I promise you.... We'll lock up the
room, Ernst, and they shall sleep peacefully."

She humoured him, not knowing if she was doing right, but feeling too
tired to convince him.

"You promise?" he asked, suddenly. "You promise that they shall sleep
peacefully?"

"Yes."

"That the cad downstairs won't wake them and tread on them?"

"Yes, yes."

"You promise that?"

"Yes."

"We'll lock up the room very quietly?"

"Yes."

"And nobody at all will come in?"

"No."

"You promise that?"

"Yes."

"Will you swear it?"

"Yes, Ernst."

"All right, then."

"Will you come?" she cried, rejoicing and unable to believe her ears.

"Yes. Because you would so much like to go for walks ... on the heath.
You're nice...."

He spoke gently, pityingly; and his contempt was not as great as it had
been, for he looked upon her as a nice but stupid child that needed his
help and his protection.

She smiled at him in return, stood up where she had been kneeling beside
him, put out her hands to him, inviting him to get up from his corner
also. He let her pull him up; he was a heavy weight: she drew him out of
his corner like a lump of lead.

"Then we start to-morrow, Ernst?"

He nodded yes, good-naturedly: she was very nice ... and she was longing
for those walks ... and she was so weak, so stupid, she knew nothing,
saw, heard and felt nothing, absolutely nothing. He must help her and
guide her and support her.

"And shall we pack a trunk now, while I am here?"

He did not understand that a trunk was necessary: he looked at her
blankly; but he wanted to please her and said:

"All right. But don't make a noise."

The doctor returned.

"He's coming," she whispered. "We're going to pack his trunk."

The doctor pressed her hand. Ernst looked down upon them both, smiling,
as upon poor, unfortunate people who cannot help being so stupid ... so
slow of understanding ... so limited in their knowledge ... so dull of
perception....

And, while Constance and the doctor opened the clothes-press in his
bedroom, he warned them, quietly, but with dignity:

"Ssh! Be careful, you know. Don't let the door of the wardrobe creak.
Don't wake them!..."




CHAPTER IV


It was a sultry summer morning and old Mrs. van Lowe sat at the
conservatory-window, crying very quietly. She had been crying
incessantly now for two long days. After her first sob in Constance'
arms, she had sobbed no more; but since then her tears had flowed
continually, salt, stinging tears that burned her wrinkled cheeks. She
sat with her hands folded in her lap; and from time to time she nodded
her head up and down, while she stared at the leafy garden, over which
the stormy sky hung dark and heavy as lead. Now and then she cleared her
throat, now and then heaved a deep sigh; and her handkerchief was soaked
with the tears that kept on flowing, quietly, out of her smarting eyes.
Constant fretting had drawn down the corners of her mouth into two long,
sad wrinkles. Oh yes, it was very hard! Trouble ... always trouble ...
her life had been full of trouble: trouble when Louis and Gertrude had
died at Buitenzorg, poor children; what had they not suffered from fever
and cholera? Money troubles: an expensive household to be kept up on
limited means. Trouble again, terrible trouble with dear Constance; and
the heavy trouble of her husband's illness and death: he had never
recovered from Constance' disgrace; more trouble over Van Naghel's
death, the great change in Bertha and the break-up of the whole
household; and now there was this last sore trouble with her son, her
poor son, who had gone mad! Oh, if it had only happened a little
earlier, when she was younger, she could have borne it, as she had borne
the rest, could have accepted it as her natural share, a mother's share
of trouble. But she was so old now; and it seemed to her that the
supreme trouble was drawing near, a trouble which was coming very late
in her life, too late for her to bear it with strength and patience, now
that she was growing older and feebler daily; and her only wish had been
to see her big family happy together, that great family of children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, amongst which she had always
rejoiced to live, thankful as she had been for that great blessing. It
was as though a presentiment were coming to her from very far, from very
far out of those heavy, lowering skies, a presentiment which her nerves,
sharpened by age, suddenly not only felt but saw coming like a menace,
as old people will suddenly see the truth very clearly, the future: a
waning lamp which suddenly flickers up brightly, before dying out in
darkness; a bright flicker which suddenly reveals the shadows in the
room and in which the portraits grin, with faces that seem to speak ...
before the lamp dies out, before everything is swallowed up in the black
darkness! Oh, the awful presentiment which suddenly approached like a
spectre out of the leaden clouds, that filled the whole vista before her
eyes with grey terrors; the presentiment that this trouble, the greatest
of all, was going to strike her most, now, in her old, old age, when she
no longer had the strength to endure it, when she would sink under the
weight of it!... O God, why should it now, why now, fall with such
pitiless, crushing weight? Why now? Was it not enough that one of her
children ... had gone mad, surely the most terrible thing that can
happen? Was not that enough? What more could be threatening, looming
before her, now that she was growing so feeble? See, did not her old
hands tremble at the mere thought, was not her whole helpless body
shaking, were not the tears flowing until they smarted in the furrows of
her wrinkles and until her handkerchief was just a wet rag? What more
could there be coming?

"O God, no more, no more!" she prayed, automatically, believing, in her
feeble despair, in the great, infinite Omnipotence which is so very,
very far removed from us ... and which she had always worshipped
decently, once a week, in church ... formerly ... when she still went
out. "O God, no more, no more!"

It was greater, the infinite Omnipotence, than what they worshipped in
church; it filled everything far and wide, to the utmost limits of her
thought; and it terrified and dismayed her: she saw it threatening from
afar; and why, why now? Oh, why had it not all come earlier, when she
would have had more fortitude, when she would have borne everything as
her natural share, a mother's share, of trouble?... She would have been
so glad just now to grow old peacefully, amongst her wide circle of
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But, alas, there was so
much to bear and ... perhaps there was still more coming!

"O God, no more, no more!" she implored: was it not enough that one of
her children ... had gone mad, surely the most terrible thing that can
happen?

She moaned in spirit, then felt a little eased as the rain began to
patter heavily on the expectant leaves and the lightning flashed and the
thunder rolled and the sky was rent asunder. But the tears kept flowing
in spite of her relief that the rain had come at last; and, because of
the thunder which filled her fast-aging ears, she did not hear the door
open softly, did not hear some one come through the drawing-room and
approach the conservatory, did not at once see the slender little figure
that stood quietly before her, solicitous not to intrude upon the grief
of the weeping old woman.

"Granny," the younger woman said, gently.

The old woman looked up in surprise, blinked her eyes, tried to see
through the flowing tears, did not recognize the one who called her
granny:

"Eh?" she said, plaintively. "Who is it?"

And the girl did not answer at once, because it had given her a shock to
see those silent tears flowing down the cheeks of that lonely old woman.
She remained standing quietly, a pretty, almost fragile little figure,
like a Dresden-china doll, but a very up-to-date doll, like a sketch by
one of the ultra-modern French draughtsmen, with the pointed little face
below the elaborately-waved hair under the very large hat, a hat which,
in the shape of its crown and the sweep of its feathers represented the
very latest extreme of fashion and consequently attracted immediate
attention in Holland, in these dignified rooms, while the light
tailor-made costume looked too dressy for a summer morning at the Hague
and a touch in every accessory--the sunshade, the tulle boa--proclaimed
that the young woman was no longer of the Hague and of Holland, short
though the time was since she had run away.

The old woman, still sensitive in all social matters, remained looking
at Emilie a little suspiciously, failing to recognize her and at once
noticing, just by those touches--the large hat, the tulle boa--the
exaggeration that displeased her.

"But who is it?" she repeated, wiping her eyes to see better.

And now the pretty little doll knelt down beside her and said:

"Don't you know me, Granny? It's I ... Emilie."

"Oh, my child!" cried the old woman, brightening up, glad, delighted.
"Is it you, Emilietje? And Granny who didn't know you again!... But then
you've got such a big hat on, child. And Eduard: how is he and where is
he?"

"But, Granny!..."

Under the arm which she had at once put round Emilie, the old woman felt
a shudder pass through the dainty little doll, who had knelt down beside
her so impulsively and affectionately; but she did not understand:

"Well, where is Eduard?"

"Why, Granny," cried Emilie, "you know that we're divorced!"

The old woman now shuddered in her turn and closed her eyes and sat
rigid. What was this? Was she becoming old, like her old sisters
Christine and Dorine, who always muddled up all the children, who never
knew anything correctly about their big family? What was this? Was she
getting confused? And was this the first time that she had utterly
forgotten things ... or had it happened before, that she had doted like
an old, old woman?

She opened her eyes sadly and the tears ran down her cheeks:

"Ah, Emilietje, my child, my child ... don't be cross with Granny! She's
growing old, dear. She had forgotten it for a moment. Yes, yes, she had
forgotten all about it.... Of course, child, you got a divorce. Oh, it's
very sad! You oughtn't to have done it so soon, you should have gone on
being patient. You see, child, a divorce in a family is always a very
sad thing. You know, there was Aunt Constance.... Well, she had had a
lot of trouble. You had plenty of trouble too. He used to strike you:
yes, Granny knows. But you ought not to have let the world know about
it. You were quite right not to let him strike you. But you should have
shown him, by remaining gentle and dignified, that he was doing
wrong.... No man strikes a woman, my child, if she preserves her
dignity. But you used to lose your temper, child, and stamp your foot
and call him names and invite scenes. Yes, yes, Granny knows all about
it, Granny remembers everything. Mamma used to say it was all right, but
Granny knew, Granny saw that it was far from right.... If you had not
lost your dignity, child, he would never have dared to strike you. And
who knows: you might gradually have made him gentler, have made him
respect you ... and you might still have had a very tolerable life. You
see, dear, there's always something, in marriage. It's not as young
girls imagine, when they are in love. There are always difficulties: you
have to get used to each other, to fall into each other's ways. Do you
think that Grandmamma never had any differences with Grandpapa? Oh,
there were ever so many ... and later on even, after years of marriage!
How often didn't Grandmamma and Grandpapa differ about poor Aunt
Constance!... And Mamma and Papa: do you think they always agreed?...
Temper, Emilie, is a thing we all have in our family, but one has to
keep it under. A woman must preserve her dignity towards her husband.
What a pity, what a pity it was!... Well, child, and where are you
living now? Not with Mamma at Baarn, I know."

"I'm living in Paris, Granny, with Henri."

"What do you say? In Paris? Are you living in Paris? With Henri? Well,
you see, Henri too--yes, Granny isn't quite in her dotage yet--leaving
Leiden like that! For shame! Why not have finished his college course
and gone to India?... And what do you do there, in Paris? It's very
nice, for the two of you to be together; but it's not natural,
Emilietje. Yes, I remember now: they told me you were living in Paris. I
had heard it before. But that's no sort of life: to go running through
the bit of money which your poor father left you, in Paris! What will
people say! For shame!... No, Grandmamma isn't pleased with you. Instead
of remaining quietly with your husband ... instead of Henri's quietly
finishing his time at the university! What does it all mean, what you
and he have done?"

The old woman rejected Emilie's caresses:

"No, child, don't kiss me; Granny is vexed; she doesn't want to be
kissed.... The family isn't what it was. It is a _grandeur déchue_,
child, a regular _grandeur déchue_. The Van Lowes were something once.
There was never much money, but we didn't care about money and we always
managed. But the family used to count ... in India, at the Hague. Which
of you will ever have a career like your Grandpapa's, like your Papa's?
No, we shall never see another governor-general in the family, nor yet a
cabinet-minister. It's a _grandeur déchue_, a _grandeur déchue_.... Ah,
child, Granny has too much trouble to bear, too much trouble in her old
age! Your Papa's death was a great blow to Granny; Mamma has changed so
much since, changed so much. And Granny never sees Mamma now, never.
Otto and Frances, once in a way, and dear Louise; but the rest of you
are all scattered, you are all independent of one another. Oh, it is so
nice to keep together, one big family together! Why need Mamma have gone
to Baarn? There's nothing but rich tradespeople there, not our class at
all.... And now--have you heard, dear?--poor Uncle Ernst.... Yes, child
... it's quite true: isn't it sad, poor fellow? And hasn't Granny really
too much to bear in her old age?... Dear Aunt Constance is taking him to
Nunspeet to-day: ah, where should we have been without Aunt
Constance?... Addie now is a great consolation to Granny. _He_ is a
dear, clever boy; and he works hard; and he will enter the diplomatic
service: he is the hope of the family. Yes, yes, I know, Frans is doing
well; but Henri, Emilietje, has done the wrong thing, going to Paris ...
with you.... No, child, don't kiss Granny; she's vexed.... And Karel
isn't behaving at all well, so Uncle van Naghel says. They don't always
tell Granny; but Granny hears, when they think she's deaf and whisper
things to one another. Ah, child, it would be better if Granny died!
She's getting too old, dear, she's getting too old.... She could have
borne all this trouble once, but she can't do it now, Emilietje, she
can't bear it now...."

And the old woman sobbed quietly; the tears flowed without ceasing. She
now let Emilietje embrace her passionately; and she listened to all the
caressing words with which her grand-daughter overwhelmed her.

Constance entered; and Mamma knew her at once:

"Connie! Connie! Have you taken him there? Have you come back?"

Constance, surprised at seeing Emilie, first kissed her and then said:

"Yes, Mamma, I've taken Ernst down, with Dr. van der Ouwe and Dr.
Reeuws. He was quite quiet. We had reserved a _coupé_-compartment; and
he travelled down with us very nicely. He did not speak; and he held my
hand the whole time. He pities me, I don't know why.... Mamma, don't
cry: he's really quiet; and he is very comfortable there. He has a
pleasant room, with a bright outlook; Dr. van der Heuvel and his wife
are kind, homely people. He will not be by himself: he has his meals
with the other patients. It is hard on him to have to do without his
books and curios. He misses his books particularly; but the doctor does
not want him to read. And he must walk...."

"But walk, Connie, walk? Alone? How can he walk? All alone, on that
enormous heath? He'll lose his way, he's not responsible, he'll step
into a ditch and be drowned!"

"No, Mamma, we shall look after him."

"How do you mean, child?"

"It will soon be Addie's holidays: Addie and I are going to Nunspeet and
we shall be with Ernst."

"Oh, how kind of you, Connie!... But I shall miss you."

"I shall come and see you regularly, Mamma: Nunspeet is not far."

"Oh, child, child, what should I do without you? Thank God, dear, that
you returned to us at last!... And what will your husband do without his
boy?"

"He will come down occasionally. And he is going away for a holiday with
Van Vreeswijck.... I only came back to tell you that Ernst is all right.
I'm going back to Nunspeet this afternoon. And from there I shall look
Bertha up, at Baarn."

"I'm going to Mamma's too," said Emilie, softly.

When they saw that the old woman was tired, Constance and Emilie rose:

"We must go, Mamma...."

"Yes, child. But don't leave me too long alone. When shall I see you
again?"

"In three days."

"So long?"

"The others will come and see you: Aunt Lot, Dorine, Adolphine...."

"Yes, but I am too much alone. I can't understand it: I never used to be
alone. I don't like being alone. I'm not accustomed to it. What do all
of you do?..."

"Suppose you took Dorine to live with you, Mamma?..."

"No, no ... not to live with me, not to live with me. Every one should
be free. But they might come and see me sometimes. I never see Adeline's
children now...."

"Why, Mamma, I know they were here two days ago!"

"No, no, it's longer ... it's longer than that. I never see your boy
either."

"I'll send him this afternoon."

"Yes, do. Why are we all so separated now? It never used to be like
that, never.... Well, good-bye, dear. Will you send Addie? Will you come
yourself soon?"

"You must wait a day or two."

"Yes, very well, stay with poor Ernst. You are doing a good work. And
tell Adeline too that she is neglecting me and that I _never_ see the
children now, _never_...."

They both kissed the old woman. When their mother and grandmother was
alone, she nodded her head up and down, looked out at the rain; and the
tears ran down her cheeks, without stopping ... without stopping....

Emilie had a cab waiting:

"I'll drive you home, Auntie."

They stepped in.

"It's months since we saw you, child."

"Yes, Auntie. I've come straight from Paris. I'm going to see Mamma at
Baarn."

"And then?"

"I shall go back to Paris. I'm living there now ... I intended to come
and see you too, Auntie."

"Come in then, dear, and stay to lunch."

"I should like to, Auntie."

They got out at the villa in the Kerkhoflaan. Emilie dismissed the fly.
Indoors, she removed her hat, took off the tulle boa, lost something of
her exaggerated smartness....

"We have an hour left before lunch, Emilie," said Constance. "Come up to
my bedroom. I want to talk to you."

They went upstairs; Constance shut the door:

"Tell me, Emilie ... how are you living, in Paris?..."

"With Henri, Auntie."

"With Henri ... but why, Emilie? Why keep your brother from his
work?..."

"I don't, Auntie. He doesn't want to do that sort of work. He wants to
be free; and so do I."

"Free ... in what way?"

"We don't feel ourselves suited ... to Dutch life...."

"But why not?"

"I don't know: an exotic drop of blood in our veins, perhaps. Try to
understand, Auntie ... you have lived abroad a long time yourself.
Holland is so narrow ... and I ... I have suffered too much in Holland."

"Dear, I suffered ... away from my country; and I longed for my country
when I had not seen it for years."

"You will understand all the same. Auntie, do understand. I can't
possibly live in Holland again; nor Henri either."

"How do you live there? Tell me."

"We are both living on the money we had left us."

"I know how much that is. There were heavy debts. You did not receive
much: not enough to dress as you are dressed.... Emilie, if you care for
me at all, tell me everything frankly. I am not inquisitive, but I am
fond of you, fond of all of you; and I take an interest in all of you.
You _can't_ live on the money you came into from your father."

"I work, Auntie."

"In Paris? What at? What do you do?"

"I paint. I paint fans ... and screens. You know I have a bit of a gift
that way. I paint them with a good deal of _chic_. People in Holland
wouldn't care for the way I do them. But in Paris I sell them for twenty
francs, fifty francs: my screens fetch a hundred francs. I turn them out
in half an hour. They have something about them, I don't know what:
_chic_, I suppose, that's all. But I sell them: they are quite nice."

"I see nothing against that, child."

"I've been very lucky with them, Auntie. I've brought a screen with me
for Granny ... one for you too ... and a fan for Aunt Lot.... They're
presents: I knock them off in a moment. It's not art exactly, but _chic_
rather, actual _chic_...."

And her delicate little fingers outlined a delicate gesture of sheer
twentieth-century artisticity. Constance had to laugh in spite of
herself.

"And Henri?" asked Constance.

Emilie suddenly turned very red:

"What do you mean?"

"What does Henri do?"

"He does...."

"Nothing?..."

"No. He does something. But don't ask me to tell you."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"You wouldn't understand. Henri is making money, a lot of money."

"What at?"

"I can't tell you, Auntie. It's not my secret, you see: it's his."

"Is it a secret?"

"Yes, it's a secret."

"Then I won't ask."

"It's a secret ... to the others. Perhaps not ... to you."

She was burning to let it out.

"I don't ask you to tell me, Emilie."

"I'll tell you ... if you promise me not to tell anybody else ... not a
soul! Henri is ... a clown!"

"Emilie! No!"

"Yes, he's a clown."

"No!... No!"

Emilie gave a loud, shrill laugh:

"You see, you refuse to believe it! I should have done better not to
tell you. You can't understand it. If you saw him as a clown, you would.
He is splendid, he is unique. He is not a vulgar clown, not a _dummer
August_. He is simply magnificent. He has turned the art of the clown
into something really artistic, something all his own. He makes the
audience laugh and cry as he pleases. He invents his own scenes, designs
his own dresses, or else I design them for him. He has a way of making
up.... He has discovered the melancholy side of the clown: he's sublime
in that.... He has one turn in the circus with quite fifty butterflies
flitting on wires all round him ... he tries to catch them and can't ...
and, when he does that turn, the people begin by laughing and end by
crying. You see, it's symbolical.... Really, you ought to go to Paris to
see him. He's so good, so artistic.... He does a lot of exercises, to
keep himself supple. He looks much better than when he was racketing
about at Leiden. He's very good-looking and he knows it: he never makes
up ugly. A modern sculptor wants to make a statue of him: very fanciful,
you know; something _art-nouveau_; in that part, with the butterflies
all round him. He is always being asked to sit to artists.... You would
never have thought it of him, Auntie. Here, he was just the ordinary
undergraduate, racketing about, blowing his money.... I was always fond
of him. The moment he got to Paris, he understood that he must do
something, show what he was made of, strike out a line for himself; and
it came to him with a flash: he would be a clown! But a very, very fine
clown, something quite new, not one of your vulgar clowns! He makes
heaps of money, I don't know how much.... And that's how we live,
Auntie: free and independent of everything and everybody. ... Auntie,
you look shocked. But you _mustn't_ blame us! Here, I was unhappy, so
was he; there, we are happy, happy together. I am fond of him and he of
me. I don't know what it is, but we can't live without each other. In
Paris, the people think that we are lovers; they won't believe that we
are brother and sister. And there you are: we're happy and we don't care
what horrible things they say about us in Holland. Do you think I've
come back to Holland for any other reason than to see Grandmother, you,
Mamma, Otto? I longed to see you; I have no feeling for the others. I am
sorry for Uncle Ernst. But I want to lead a free life, independent of
Holland, of the family ... and I had to make it independent of my
husband, whom I married in mistake ... and who beat me and ill-treated
me! We want to _live_, Auntie, and not merely exist!"

But Constance did not know what to say and shut her eyes as if she had
been struck in the face. She turned pale. They wanted to live, not
merely to exist! Was it for her to blame them, for her, who herself,
very late, when she was quite old--too late and too old--had felt the
need to live and not merely to exist? But ... had they really found
their life in what they now considered their life? Did she not now know
that the real life is not for one's self, but for others? Did she not
know it even though she had never reached the radiant cities of the new
life which had shone far off on those unattainable horizons? Had she not
guessed that it was there; and had she herself not seemed very small
when she had had to leave out of her reckoning the man who had become so
dear to her that she was able to forget everything for his sake, even
her son, the comfort of her existence, if not of her life? Was not she
herself small and had she the right to condemn, merely because she was
older and therefore saw the purest truths gleam at times out of some
shimmering mist of self-deception? No, she did not condemn ... but that
did not prevent her from being shocked. She could understand now ... and
yet the rooted prejudice was there. She was willing to accept their new,
fresh, free happiness in a life without conventional bonds; and yet
those bonds bound herself, despite her new powers of understanding. She
understood; and yet she felt a shudder at those who did not tread the
beaten path, the smooth track of their decent respectability. Did not a
vague suggestion of tragedy show dimly at the far ends of the new roads?
Could they possibly persevere? And what would be the result of so
unconventional a view of life? Was anything but convention possible for
people such as all of them? Were they not born for it, trained for it?
She herself had found new roads that led up to cities of light, but she
had not trodden those roads. These ... were these new roads leading up
to cities of light? Or was it merely wantonness, youthful levity,
turning aside from the smooth tracks, the beaten paths?...

"Emilie," she said, "if what you tell me is true, don't tell any one
else, don't talk about it! If Grandmamma heard, it would hurt her so
much! And Mamma too!"

"No, Auntie, I won't; besides, it is a great secret ... a secret from
the family, from all our friends. I have mentioned it to nobody but you;
and I shall mention it to nobody. But come, Auntie, it's not so bad as
all that: you look quite upset! We have different ideas from our
parents. We can't help it. Who's to blame?"

"When I think, dear, of your house, as it used to be!"

"And now Henri is a clown ... and I paint fans for my living!"

She gave a loud, shrill, almost triumphant laugh, followed by a laugh
that sounded sadder:

"Poor Grandmamma!" she said. "Poor, Grandmother! She called our family a
_grandeur déchue_. And she is right, from her point of view. I am very
sorry for her. I found her sitting there so melancholy, so forlorn; and
the tears were running down her cheeks.... Auntie, you're a darling; I
feel that you are better than I. But I can't live here. Your trouble
made you want to come back. Mine made me want to get away. You felt that
there were bonds that drew you here. I felt, on the contrary, that I
must throw off every bond. My life began with a mistake."

"So did mine."

"Is it always like that?"

"Often ... often...."

"Don't we know ourselves, then ... when we begin to live?..."

"No, every truth comes to us later, much later...."

"Then you don't think that I know _my_ truth?"

"No, Emilie."

"You are not pleased with me?"

"Pleased, child? It is not for me to judge you. All I say is, take care.
Don't play with your life. Don't waste it. Our life is a very serious
thing; and you treat it as...."

"As what, Auntie?"

"An artistic caprice."

"How well you have put it, Auntie! I never thought of that, never said
it. An artistic caprice! Henri too: an _art-nouveau_ caprice? Why not?"

"Oh, no, Emilie ... take care!"

"Auntie, we are so small. We don't make any difference. What do people
like us matter, women like us, girls such as I was? Nothing. Nothing.
Why make tragedies of our lives? Why not rather make them into something
fanciful, something fanciful and artistic?" And she made a painter's
gesture with her fore-finger and thumb. "When we are dead, it's
finished.... What do we matter, that we should be tragic? That is all
very well for heroes and heroines ... but not for us. I will not have my
life a tragedy. I started with a mistake. Since then, I have conquered
my life and given it a definite aim. Do try and see, Auntie...."

"I see, Emilie. But you forget...."

"What?"

"The bonds...."

"Which I unloose...."

"Which you cannot unloose."

"Yes, I can."

"No."

"Yes."

"No. You'll see, later, when you're older."

"I sha'n't grow old, Auntie."

"Oh, child, what do you know, what do you know? How can you tell what
you will become, how tragic your life may easily become, if you don't
think of it more seriously ... more _seriously_?"

She rose: an irresistible impulse made her embrace the girl
passionately.

Emilie gave a start:

"What are you thinking of, Auntie?... What do you mean?..."

But what was the use of saying anything now of her presentiment, when
presentiments always deceive? Constance said nothing more; she did not
know indeed what more to say; she merely stared in front of her,
strangely, vaguely; and what had shone for a moment was gone.

And she looked deep into Emilie's eyes and saw there only a vision:
Paris, a circus, a clown, butterflies, quite fifty or more....

The front-door downstairs was opened; there were sounds of footsteps and
voices. Ordinary life was beginning again.

"There are Uncle and Addie," said Constance. "Emilie, I'm going to
Nunspeet this afternoon."

"I'm going to Otto and Frances after lunch. Let us meet at the station;
and I'll go to Nunspeet with you. I want to see Uncle Ernst. And then
we'll go to Baarn together."

"Very well, dear. But will you do one thing, to please me?"

"Yes, Auntie."

"Dress a little more simply. Remember that we're in Holland."

Emilie gave a shrill laugh:

"Yes, Auntie. I'll go and buy myself a sailor-hat. All my hats are too
exciting for the Hague. The butcher-boys were shouting after me: 'Hat!
... Hat!' And, at Nunspeet and Baarn, I know the whole village would
turn out to look at me!"




CHAPTER V


Marietje sat in Marianne's room staring out at the road. The road, white
with dust and sunlight, gleamed through the green of the trees,
described a curve and wound round the creeper-clad station, which stood
in the shade close by. A train came thundering in, making all the walls
of the little villa shake. Each time that a train rumbled past, whether
it stopped or steamed through almost without slackening speed, it shook
the little villa....

Marietje was bored. She was home for the holidays from her Brussels
boarding-school, spending a few weeks at Baarn with Mamma and Marianne,
and she was bored. She would rather have stayed at school. Of course
_madame_ was a beast, but Brussels at any rate was better fun than
Baarn, even for a schoolgirl.... She wondered how she would be able to
stand a month of it. She had reckoned on an invitation from Uncle and
Aunt van Naghel to their beautiful country-place in Overijssel, where
she would have cycled and played tennis with her boy cousins; but Uncle
had not said a word about it: Uncle wanted her to put in her month with
Mamma, at Baarn. Lord, how _could_ Mamma go and live here, in such a
house! It would come tumbling down on her head one day, with that
everlasting rumble of the trains. She simply could not get away from the
rumble of the trains.... Marianne said that Mamma did not mind it and
that she herself had become so used to the noise that once, when there
was an accident at Hilversum and the something p.m. train did not arrive
at Baarn, she had woke up because of the unwonted silence! Well, that
was a bit stiff, thought Marietje. Still, perhaps the rumble of the
trains did keep Mamma and Marianne from going to sleep. For what a life
it was, in this little villa at Baarn! Neither Mamma nor Marianne knew
anybody; and they saw nobody. They had no carriage; and how _can_ one
live in the country without keeping a carriage? Even if it was only a
dog-cart, or a governess-car, with a pony; but you must have
_something_.... It was a rotten way of living. A brilliant idea of Uncle
Adolf's, wasn't it, to insist that she should come and bury herself here
for a whole mortal month and bore herself to death with Mamma and
Marianne!... Karel hadn't come, the brute! Oh no, he had gone to
Uncle's. Marietje knew why: because Uncle wanted to keep an eye on him!
So she didn't even see her brother.... Oh, how dull it all was!... Silly
little walks to the Beukenkom, to Soestdijk: once in a way, there'd be
the excitement of seeing the Queen drive past. But that was over in a
flash--whoosh!--and then there was nothing more to see. Well, if she had
been the Queen, she would never have come and spent the summer at
Soestdijk!... A month! She would never live through it. She counted the
days. She simply longed to go back to Brussels. _Madame_ had a young
nephew who used to make love to her in great secrecy, even leaving notes
under her napkin. It was risky, but it was great fun. He wrote so
thrillingly.... Ah, when you compared the life that awaited her, when
she came home for good in eighteen months, with what Emilie and Marianne
had had: parties at Court; dances at the Casino, with all the smartest
people in the Hague; the grand dinners at home: her sisters had had all
that.... Pretty frocks too.... And she, what would she have? Nothing at
all. She'd just go to Baarn, for you might be sure that Uncle and Aunt
would never, never ask her to stay with them! And at the Hague ... who
was going to invite her to the Hague? The whole winter at Baarn ... good
Heavens! No, she must absolutely get herself invited to the Hague, once
she had left school! Granny had a big house ... but Granny didn't like
people staying with her; Aunt Adolphine: bah, such a crew, she wouldn't
go there if she could; Uncle Gerrit: no, he had too many children, she
wouldn't care about that and they hadn't a spare-room either; Uncle
Karel was no use thinking about.... No, there was only Aunt Constance,
who never saw anybody, and Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer, who had no smart
friends, nothing but East-Indian people.... Yes, it was an awful
nuisance, but she saw no prospect of an invitation. But one thing she
did promise herself, to get married as soon as she could ... and to make
a good match while she was about it, some one with lots of money! A nice
thing she called it: Papa and Mamma brought you up in luxury and, the
moment you began to grow up, they let you eat your heart out at Baarn!
She was decent-looking, thank goodness, and her figure was going to be
all right ... and then she would marry a lot of money! You had to be
practical: that was the great thing. There _were_ a few rich men left.
But she ... she would show some sense and not behave like Emilie, who
had got married by mistake or by accident, so it seemed, and accepted
Eduard just as you accept a partner for a waltz.... Nor like Marianne
either, who had fallen in love with her uncle! No, mark her words, she
promised herself that much: since she had been brought up in luxury, now
that the luxury was gone, she would see that she married money ... for
money was everything. She wasn't going to trouble about a title or a
name: if a rich bounder came and proposed, he'd do. But a fine house,
fine clothes ... and a carriage ... and jewellery: all that she must
have and all that she meant to have; for, without it, life wasn't worth
living. To go on vegetating at Baarn, with that incessant rumbling of
the trains, which made the walls of the villa shake as if the whole
house were going to tumble down on her head: never! She had made up her
mind to that: never!

Marianne came into the room, which was her own boudoir, with a
conservatory leading into the garden: it was the pleasantest room in the
house; the only others on the ground-floor were a small drawing-room and
a gloomy dining-room. Marietje, lost in thought, was staring out at the
sunny, dusty white road.

"Shall we go for a walk, Marietje?" asked Marianne.

"Beukenkom?" asked Marietje, languidly.

"No, farther than that...."

"Soestdijk?"

"No, farther still, through the Overbosch and across the moor, if you
like."

"No, thank you: it's too hot and there's too much dust and glare. Can't
we hire the pony-cart? Then I'll drive you."

"That mounts up, you know, Marietje; we can't take it every morning."

"Every morning!" growled Marietje. "Listen to you: every morning!...
Well, then let's stay and look out of the window."

"Why don't you play the piano or do some painting?"

"Thank you for nothing. I can do that at school. I have no
accomplishments."

"Then take a book and read."

"Oh, rot! The books that amuse me I'm not allowed to read; and the books
I'm allowed to read don't amuse me. It's one of the drawbacks of my
awkward age! Why haven't you joined a tennis-club?"

"Yes, I'm sorry I didn't. I'll see that I do next year."

"Next year ... that's a long way off. You ought to have thought of it
before: you knew that you were expecting your sister and that there
wouldn't be much for her to do here. But you can't think of anything
here, you can't take your eyes off that horrible white road. It hurts
your eyes too.... My poor child, how can you stand this place ... after
the Hague! Don't you long for the Hague?"

"Not a bit."

"But what do you do here all the winter?"

"Nothing, Marietje."

"Oh, I know! You've grown pi. You go in for good works. Sewing for the
poor."

"There are two poor families for whom I make things sometimes."

"There, what did I tell you? I knew it! Well, give us some nighties, in
Heaven's name!"

"Oh no, Marietje, never mind about that!"

"Yes, yes, yes, hand over your nighties and let's sew them!"

Marianne had sat down at her work basket and Marietje, out of sheer
boredom, also took up a "nightie." But she did no sewing:

"Just imagine if we wore this sort of thing, Marianne! It would tear my
skin.... Oh Lord, there's another train! What a row, what an awful row!
Aren't you afraid the house will fall in?"

"No."

"Do you like that noise?"

"Yes, one gets used to it."

"You could sleep to it, eh?"

"Yes, it lulls one."

Marietje shrieked with laughter:

"Oh, Marianne, how sentimental ... you ... have ... be-come, as Aunt
Cateau would say...."

And, to herself, she thought:

"No, I'm not like that, you know. You won't catch me falling in love
with my uncle for nothing. I mean to marry money, lots of money...."

But she said nothing, just stared out at the sunny, dusty road. A few
people came along from the station.

"There's the rank and fashion of Baarn!" sneered Marietje. "The great
sight of the day: three tradesmen and a hunch-backed shop-girl. Uncle
Paul would say, three and a half atoms of human wretchedness.... Another
tradesman and another shop-girl.... Two ladies.... Look, as I live, two
ladies!... Goodness me, it's Aunt Constance and ... and Emilie!"

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, yes, it's Aunt Constance and Emilie! Hurrah!"

And Marietje, in sheer wild ecstasy at the unexpected distraction, threw
the "nightie" right up to the ceiling, where it caught in the
chandelier, and rushed through the garden down the road. She flung one
leg up in the air with delight.

"Auntie! Emilie!" Marianne heard her yelling, quite beside herself.

Marietje embraced her aunt and her sister madly at the gate of the
villa, conducted them indoors, thanked them personally for the surprise
which they were giving her, for the welcome distraction which their
arrival provided....

"And Uncle Ernst?" asked Marianne. "Poor Uncle Ernst! We had a letter
from Frances...."

Constance told her how he was getting on at Nunspeet, that he was still
rather restless, because he would look all over the house for fettered
souls that moaned and implored him to help them.

"Will the delusion never leave him?" asked Marianne, with tears in her
eyes. "Auntie, will he never get better?"

"The doctor has every hope that it will not be permanent...."

Marietje had taken possession of Emilie:

"And so you're living in Paris? With Henri? What do you do there, the
two of you? Come, let's hear! Aren't you going to ask me to stay?
Haven't you a spare-room? Look out: I shall come tearing in from
Brussels, suddenly! Just imagine if I did!"

But by this time they had passed through the dining-room into the
drawing-room, where they found Bertha. She was sitting at the window;
she looked up.

"Here's Aunt Constance, Mamma. And Emilie."

Bertha merely stood up, kissed her sister and her daughter and at once
dropped into her chair again. She scarcely seemed surprised at seeing
them so unexpectedly. She barely asked after Mamma, after Ernst, after
Henri. She seemed rooted to her seat at that window, through which she
gazed at the shadows of the trees. She had grown thin, her eyes stared
blankly and miserably in front of her and, in her black dress, she gave
an impression of weary, listless resignation. She spoke scarcely more
than a word or two, as if it were quite natural that Constance and
Emilie should be sitting there.

"Henri sends you his best love, Mamma," said Emilie.

Bertha gave a faint smile, just blinked her eyes, as though to say yes,
it was very nice of Henri. But she asked no questions.

"I have just come from Ernst, Bertha," said Constance. "I took him to
Nunspeet with the doctor. I went down again yesterday, to see him; and,
once I had started, I thought I would come and look you up."

"It's nice of you," said Bertha, vaguely, taking Constance' hand. "Is
Ernst very bad? We had a letter from Frances."

"The doctor is very hopeful."

"Yes," said Bertha, as if it went without saying, "he's sure to get over
it."

And she seemed tired from talking so much and said nothing more.

Presently Marianne, when she was alone with Constance, said:

"You'll stay to lunch, of course, Auntie?"

"Yes, dear, if I may."

"Are you staying for the night?"

"At the hotel."

"I'm sorry that we haven't a spare-room. Emilie can sleep here; then
I'll sleep on the sofa.... I must just go and see about lunch."

"Don't put yourself out for me, dear."

"No, Auntie, but I must see what there is. You know, with just the three
of us, we live very simply."

She flushed; and Constance realized that they had to be careful and that
they could not keep the same generous table as in the old days.

They exchanged a sad smile. Suddenly, Marianne flung herself into
Constance' arms.

"My darling, how are you yourself?"

"Quite well, Auntie."

"You don't look at all well. My child, how thin you've grown! And how
drawn your little face looks! And your poor cheeks: why, they've gone to
nothing!... Aren't you happy here, dear?"

"Oh yes, Auntie!"

"No, but tell me, honestly: are you happy at Baarn?"

"Yes, Auntie, I am."

"Do you regret the Hague?"

"Regret?... No...."

"Still, just a little?..."

"No ... no...."

Her eyes were full of tears; she began to sob on Constance' shoulder:

"Forgive me, Auntie. I oughtn't to break down like this."

"My darling ... tell me all about it...."

"No, Auntie, it's nothing, really. I feel so ashamed, but, as you know,
I always let myself go with you ... because I feel that you do love me
... a little ... and that you are not angry with me ... and that you
forgive me...."

"I have nothing to forgive, Marianne...."

"Yes, you have, yes, you have, Auntie.... Oh, forgive me, forgive me!
Tell me you forgive me!..."

"How do you spend your time here, dear?"

"Quietly, Auntie, but I'm quite satisfied. I try to be of some little
use ... to Mamma ... and others. I have some poor people whom I look
after. But I can't do much, I haven't much.... In the old days, you
know, Mamma used to do a lot of good ... in between all her rush and
worry; and I try to do a little now. But it is hard work ... and rather
thankless work.... However, that's all that's left: to live a little for
others ... and do a little for others. But sometimes ... sometimes I
find it too much for me...."

"Poor Marianne!"

"Yes, sometimes it's too much for me. I am so young still ... and I feel
as if I had done with everything, for good and all!..."

"No, dear, no.... If you only knew! You're a child still, Marianne....
And life, real life, will come later...."

"It will never come for me, Auntie. Oh, forgive me! I feel ashamed of
myself. I don't _want_ to talk like this ... but with you, just with
you, because you're fond of me, I can't restrain myself.... Oh, tell me
that you forgive me, say it, say it!"

"My child, if it does you any good to hear me say so, though I have
nothing to forgive, very well, I forgive you."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Auntie!... You are good and kind; you
understand."

"Yes, dear, I understand. But the real thing will come later."

"No, nothing will ever come, nothing can come...."

"Can't it?"

"No, how could it?"

"If you had the strength and courage not to give in, Marianne, there
would be happiness for you in days to come."

"But I have neither courage, Auntie, nor strength. What am I? Nothing.
There is a great, big river, which rushes and flows, carrying
everything, everything with it, like a deluge. And then there is ... a
tiny twig, a leaf. That's what I am, Auntie.... How can I hope to...?"

"You're talking in parables, my child. Shall I do the same?"

"Do, Auntie."

"Come and sit here beside me. Put your head on my shoulder. There. And
now listen to my parable.... There was once a soul, a very small soul,
like yours, Marianne. A very small soul it was, quite an insignificant
little soul. It knew nothing about anything, it seemed to be walking
blindly, walking in a dream, a child's dream, light and airy and
fragile. There was water and there were flowers ... and there was a
far-away light, towards which it moved. As the soul went on, the flowers
and the trees disappeared; and in their stead a palace and every sort of
pomp and vanity gleamed in front of the small soul.... But all that
glitter was just as much a dream as the water and the flowers; and the
small soul ... made its second mistake. It walked blindly in that dream
of pomp and vanity and thought that it _saw_ all that radiance. It gave
itself away, Marianne, gave everything it had to any one who might make
it shine still more brilliantly ... gave away everything it possessed,
for nothing ... for an illusion. And it already felt unhappy, thinking,
'There is nothing more coming; I've had everything now.' It thought
that, even before its fate arrived. It saw its fate arrive and could
still have avoided it, but did not, remained blind, blind to everything.
Its fate swept it along; and it thought, Marianne, that everything was
over, over for good and all; that it would wither like a flower, like a
twig, like a leaf; and that the river would carry it along with it. And
then, Marianne, then something else came, after it had been swept along
by fate: there came a great revelation, a vision of rapture, an ecstasy
of glory. And the small soul saw that it was _that_; but its fate
forbade it to accept that great happiness, that vision of ecstasy....
And once again it thought, 'Now, _now_, I have really had everything.
After _that_, nothing more can possibly come.' And yet something did
come. And, after that revelation, it was no longer a dream, but a
reality, as tangible as it could hope to be ... for such a poor small
soul.... What came, Marianne, was not so very much; but the small soul
does not want much: an atom, a grain of absolute truth and reality; a
tiny grain, but all-sufficing.... For small souls do not need much....
Just an atom, a grain. And of that grain, Marianne, it even communicated
a part ... to others. My child, that is the whole secret: to share your
grain, to give, though it be but of your superfluity, to others. But,
Marianne, you will have to wait for that grain; it will only come later;
and, before you can possess it ... you must first go through everything
... you must pass through all that unreality, that vain dreaming...."

"And, Auntie, have you the grain?"

"Oh, child, the grain is so small, so small! So tiny, so wee, such a
very little grain! But what are we ourselves? And, we being what we are,
is not that little tiny grain enough?..."

"For happiness ... some day, later, much later, after long, long
years?..."

"Happiness? Happiness?... Yes, the happiness of knowing, of
understanding; the happiness of resignation; the happiness of accepting
one's own smallness ... and of not being angry and bitter because of all
the mistakes ... and of being grateful for, what is beautiful and clear
and true...."

"Grateful...."

"For the great dream.... And the happiness of satisfying hunger and
thirst ... with that one, solitary little grain ... and of no longer
yearning for the great, great dream!"

"But yet remaining grateful...."

"Yes, grateful that the dream has been vouchsafed to us, that its
radiance ever smiled upon us...."

"But, Auntie, suppose it was no dream ... but the very bread of life!"

"My child, who can tell you _now_ what is the only bread of life? Now,
you are only hungry for your dream ... and, later, much later...."

"Have I hungered then ... after nothing?"

"Perhaps."

"After nothing? Oh no!"

"Who can tell?"

"Auntie, is every one of life's parables so cruel in its worldly wisdom?
Do they all teach that the great dream is nothing and the little grain,
which comes so late, everything?..."

"I fear so, child."

"Oh, Auntie, it's all words ... soft, gentle words!... I understand you:
it is your _own_ story, _your_ parable. But, until now, mine ... is
nothing but the river ... and the leaf...."

"And later perhaps there will come ... the tiny treasure, the grain...."

Then they were silent; and Constance thought: "Every soul must first go
through _that_, must have its dream.... Not until very late does it find
the grain ... for itself. What another communicates to it never
satisfies its hunger as does its own grain ... the grain it has found
for itself...."




CHAPTER VI


Addie was nearly sixteen. He did not grow much in stature, he promised
to have the same build as his father, for there was something sturdy and
yet delicate, something robust and yet gentle about him: strength and
refinement combined. He continued to look older than he was, as though
he could never quite catch himself up: his face, carved in firm and yet
delicate lines, wore an air of calm serenity that did not belong to his
years; his cheeks were covered with a golden down: indeed, his mother
would have liked him to start shaving, which however he was not willing
to do yet; and so the vague strip of golden velvet above his upper lip
had become a decided moustache. His hair, with its soft, short, brown
curls, was exactly like his father's; and his eyes also were his
father's eyes, but they had grown still more serious, if possible, calm
and tender, with a smiling sadness in their depths, and, above all,
Addie's eyes were of a clear, untroubled blue, with none of the
boyishness which shone in Van der Welcke's. Addie's were northern eyes,
as his mother said: Dutch eyes, she called them, as distinguished from
the creole eyes of all her family, the Van Lowes.

"Addie, how Dutch you are!" his mother would say, meaning thereby that
they all, the Van Lowes, were specimens of the languid, less robust
East-Indian type and that his father also had become more or less
un-Dutch through his long residence abroad. "Addie, how Dutch you are!
For a boy born on the Riviera, brought up in Brussels, who had never
been in Holland before his thirteenth year, how is it possible that you
should be the most Dutch of us all! You have nothing of the cosmopolitan
about you!"

His mother used to tease him like this, especially when she looked into
his eyes, his clear, calm, Dutch eyes, as into two blue mirrors, with a
smile in them like a reflexion ... and beneath that smile, a vague
shadow of sadness. And then he would give a sober nod of assent,
laughing quietly, as though to say that she was right, that he felt
quite Dutch and neither a languid East-Indian nor a mongrel
cosmopolitan. He was a Dutch boy above all things, but here, in this
little village of Nunspeet, he felt even more Dutch than at the Hague,
especially as he looked out of his window at the hotel and saw the
glittering white dunes undulating towards those vast skies, saw the
piled-up clouds, the immensities of grey-blue rolling clouds, drifting
by in their puissant majesty: all the glory of a small land; grandeur
and might and majesty towering above the small lowlands, which bowed
humbly beneath their awfulness.... Those clouds, those Dutch clouds:
Addie loved them, those awful powers throned high above the gently
undulating lands ... and Mamma, who teased him so, loved them too, her
Dutch clouds, so vast, so vast, as though they were islands and fields,
larger than the fields and islands of Holland itself....

It was early, six o'clock; and he looked out of his window into the
pearly morning and, with a characteristic gesture of enthusiasm, flung
out his arms towards the clouds. Then he laughed at himself, hoped that
no one had seen him from the road. No, the peasants going to their work
did not look up at his window; and now he dressed himself quickly, ran
downstairs, breakfasted hurriedly on bread-and-butter and a glass of
milk and went along the high-road and down a shorter road to Dr. van
Heuvel's villa. The house stood some way back, in a large garden, quiet
and shady; and, as the house stood high, it looked out over the
undulating, sparkling dunes, past the dark-green masses of fir-trees on
the moor which shimmered purple in the early morning sunshine, towards
low horizons of just a streak of green, broken only by the needle-point
of a steeple: just a narrow strip beneath the awful majesties of the
vast clouds which drifted calmly by, one after the other, on and on,
unceasingly, ever vast and majestic.

The doctor came out to meet Addie.

"Here I am, doctor."

"That's right, Van der Welcke, you're in good time. Would you mind going
for a walk with your uncle presently?"

"Not at all."

"For I can't manage to come to-day."

"There's no reason why you should, doctor."

"It's the first time you'll have been out alone with him. When will your
mother be back?"

"This afternoon."

"Of course, I could send the keeper with you. But it's better that your
uncle should not see more of him than's necessary."

"Don't worry, doctor; it'll be all right."

"Don't go too far, you know."

"No, close by, on the dunes."

"I can rely on you?"

"Yes, doctor, absolutely."

"Here he comes."

Ernst came shuffling into the garden from the verandah; he knew Addie
and smiled:

"Where's Mamma?" he asked.

"She'll be back this afternoon, Uncle. Are you coming for a walk with
me?"

"No, I'm going to wait for Mamma," said Ernst, in a suspicious voice,
with a glance at the doctor.

Nevertheless, Addie succeeded in coaxing him outside, down the road. And
then Ernst took Addie by the arm and said:

"Do you know what's so rotten? That fellow's hidden Mamma."

"No, Uncle, really he hasn't."

"Yes, he has, my boy. The fellow's buried her somewhere in the dunes.
Shall we go and look for her?"

"Uncle, I'm quite ready to go for a walk, but Mamma is not hidden or
buried: she's gone to Baarn, to see Aunt Bertha, and she'll be here this
afternoon."

Ernst shook his head and grinned contemptuously:

"You people are always so obstinate. Do you mean to say you don't hear
Mamma? Can't you hear her moaning? She's been moaning all night. That
fellow's buried her, I tell you."

"I don't believe it, Uncle, but at any rate we can go for a walk...."

"Yes, we'll look for her."

They went through a pine-wood: it was cool and dark as a church. Ernst
kept poking the ground with his stick, kept listening to the ground:

"She's farther on," he said, "in the dunes. Her voice comes from farther
away. Don't you hear it?"

"No, Uncle."

Ernst shrugged his shoulders:

"You people are so dull-witted. You have no senses ... and no souls," he
said, roughly. And he immediately added, as though afraid that he had
given pain, as though anxious to make atonement without delay, "Mamma is
kind. You too, you're a good boy. I may make something of you yet."

They walked along, up and down the dunes, Ernst continually stopping and
Addie continually forcing him to go on. At last, Ernst went down on his
knees and dug a big hole with his two hands:

"It's here," he said. "I can hear Mamma's voice sighing. O God, O God,
how she's moaning! She'll be suffocated, she'll be suffocated. Her
mouth, her throat, her eyes are full of sand. What cruel wretches people
are! What harm has poor Mamma done them? The wretches, the savages!...
It's here, it's here: yes, wait a bit, Constance, wait a bit. I'm
digging you out, I'm digging you out!"

He dug away, with his stick and his hands, dug away till the sand flew
all round him, making his clothes white with dust. Addie had stretched
himself on the ground and was letting him have his way, looking on
quietly with his serene blue eyes, which seemed to study each of Ernst's
movements. He said nothing more, finding no words with which to dispel
the hallucination. At that moment, all words were vain. The
hallucination was so vivid that Ernst actually saw Constance through the
sand, saw her lying four or five yards beneath the surface, stuck fast
in the sand, with its myriad grains pressing so tightly round her that
she could not move and that, when, through her sighing and moaning, she
was compelled to open her mouth, the sand at once trickled into it. He
saw her body, as in a black garment, glued tightly to her limbs, stiff
and motionless in that tomb of sand, in that winding-sheet which pressed
closer and closer to her until the pressure threatened to choke her,
especially now that her mouth was full of sand. Ernst could just see her
black eyes faintly gleaming through a screen of sand; sand trickled
into, her ears; and the sand, though there was no room for it below,
kept trickling faster and faster, till it became an eddy of trickling
sand. The trickling grains of sand were now gyrating madly around
Constance like a great cyclone ... and Ernst dug and dug, with furious
hands. He dared not use his stick ... for fear of hurting Constance. He
dug, like an animal, with frantic hands. He dug away, dug out a regular
pit; and the sand became wetter and wetter: he was now flinging out
great lumps of sand.... Then, as he dug, he saw the dark body sinking,
for ever sinking a yard lower: he could not reach his sister. The body
sank and sank; and he reflected that, however deep he might dig his pit,
he would never reach Constance:

"Addie!" he cried. "Addie! Help me, can't you? Help me!"

Addie, lying at full length, with his chin on his hand, looked quietly
at his uncle, with all the serenity of his searching blue eyes. Suddenly
Ernst stopped his digging, quickly turned his head halfway towards
Addie; and his restless eyes looked into Addie's eyes. Then Addie shook
his head gently, as if in denial, as if to explain to Ernst, without
words, that it was not as Ernst thought, that there was not a body under
the sand....

They looked at each other like that for a few minutes. Ernst lay on his
knees by the pit, his fingers still cramped with the effort of digging.
Suddenly, his feverish energy seemed to subside; he shivered and cried:

"O my God, O my God, O my God!..."

Then he bent over the pit and looked down. He saw nothing now: the body
was not there; there was nothing but the hard, impenetrable subsoil.
Then he listened, with his head on one side, for the plaintive voice.
There was no voice: there was nothing but the great subterranean
silence. There was nothing now: no body, no voice. He looked around:
around him lay the sand which he had flung up, those senseless heaps of
sand.

"O my God, O my God, O my God!" he cried.

Addie looked at him, very quietly; and Ernst shuddered under the blue
serenity of that compassionate, studying glance. Then, with a jerk which
shook his whole frame, the tension relaxed and his body seemed to go
slack. But he still scraped some sand together and carefully filled up
the pit to a certain depth, so that the wet sand was powdered over with
dry, white sand. Finally he stretched himself at full length, with his
legs straight out and his arms under his head. He was very tired,
especially in his head. He could not have spoken a word. Heaving a deep
sigh, he lay staring up at the tremendous clouds. They drifted past like
something unearthly in their immensity, drifted very, very slowly,
before his upturned gaze....

Then he closed his eyes, as if he were becoming frightened, as if it
were all too big for him, too tremendous, too unearthly. And at the
thought of his smallness he was oppressed with melancholy, a darkness
that clouded his soul. He could not help it: under his closed eyes, the
slow tears forced themselves; a sob shook him; and he lay weeping, still
stretched at full length, still with his eyes closed. A big tear
trickled down his cheek....

Addie never took his eyes off him. Now he rose, came nearer and gently
stroked Ernst's long, black hair....

And Ernst just raised his eyelids and saw Addie stooping over him: blue
eyes looking into black eyes. Then he closed his own again, breathed
heavily, let Addie stroke his hair. The big tears trickled slowly....

There was no need, thought Addie, to speak to the tired man. The
hallucination had gone; it must have left him utterly fagged out. Round
both of them, man and boy, hung the haze of the summer morning; a steady
droning filled the sultry air. Overhead, clouds drifted endlessly,
everlastingly, cloud after cloud, drifting on and on....




CHAPTER VII


It had gone very, very still. The tired man had dozed off; it seemed as
though his nerve-taut limbs had relaxed and lay loose and slack: the
thin legs in the wide, creased trousers; the chest sunk under the
rumpled coloured shirt; the narrow shoulders, the lean arms in the old
coat, with its tired creases. And the features of his face had also
fallen in, now that the nerves were at last resting; they had fallen in
like an old man's: queer wrinkles furrowed the forehead and etched lines
under the eyes and round the nose and mouth; the short, scanty beard
formed a stubble around the long chin; and the hair too was thin and
stubby, a little thin behind the ears. Addie looked at the hands of the
sleeping man: long, thin fingers, in which a nervous tremor still
lingered, a very slight tremor, as though quivers were passing under the
skin, over the veins.... The boy looked curiously at the hands, for he
was always interested in hands, judging people more by their hands than
by anything else: he did not exactly know why and certainly could not
analyze it. And he could see those long, thin hands not only reaching
out vaguely and ineffectually after art, but also laying hold of books
with a more confident grasp, turning them page by page. He saw too a
tremor of pity in the tapering finger-tips, which seemed not to dare to
touch things; and those finger-tips struck him particularly because of
the short nails, which nevertheless showed breeding, with their almond
shape and the little crescent-moon at the quick; only, the nails were
bitten short, as though in fits of nervousness. Then, mechanically, as
he always did when studying people's hands, he looked at his own: his
father's hands, but still boy's hands, though they were already becoming
manlier, short and broad, white and strong, hands that would take a
close, steady grip of things. He no longer bit the nails, but would cut
them swiftly, with a pen-knife, whenever they bothered him. And from his
own hands he glanced once more towards his Uncle Ernst's and seemed to
read in them a soul highly susceptible to art and of extreme
sensitiveness; a soul ready to assimilate the contents of books; a soul
evolved out of loneliness, out of lonely life and lonely knowledge and,
above all, out of lonely, very lonely feeling; a soul so lonely and
shrinking that it had fallen ill of that loneliness and appeared to see
and hear actually the thousand reflexions of all that it had read in
books, seen in art and felt in its lonely hypersensitiveness....

The tired man slept on.... And Addie stretched himself at still fuller
length, while around him the white dunes rippled away in the summer haze
under those wide, unearthly skies. He felt well and not unhappy, though
there was just a streak of sadness running through his reverie, sadness
because people and things were what they were. It was a pleasant,
benevolent sort of secret reverie; and through it all there was the
desire to grasp things, to hold them as with the close, steady grip of
his own hands, that close, steady grip, firm but tender, with which he
meant to grasp everything in this wavering, uncertain life, earnestly
and charitably and above all with a great longing for absolutely
understanding, for divine knowledge, for the sake both of others and of
himself.... And, because he had made up his mind, he ceased dreaming and
began to reflect, thinking over how he was going to tell his parents
what he knew so well in his own heart. He had loved them with such
earnest love from early childhood that he understood them very well,
both of them, knew them as thoroughly as it is possible for one being to
know another. His father had always remained young, despite what he
called the ruin of his life, despite that other thing which had brought
great sorrow to him recently. His mother had grown older but more
serious and lately, when she talked to him, Addie, had expressed views
on all sorts of subjects which he used to think rather ... or was it
because he himself was growing older and understood more and fathomed
more of the depths of this deep life? Had Mamma always been like this?
Were his childish memories at fault and had she always been the serious
woman that she now was?... No, that was impossible, he thought; but
nevertheless this was more an intuitive feeling than a definite ability
to assert it positively and unhesitatingly.... And now he reflected--he
had admitted it to himself--that, for as far as his love was greater for
one than for the other, it was greater for his father, however much he
would have liked it to be equally great for both.... Still, he would not
speak to his father this time: he would speak to his mother. She would
understand him more quickly than Papa; and what he had to tell her would
hurt Papa more than it would Mamma. He would speak to Mamma first....
True, it appeared to him difficult to speak of this matter at all and to
destroy in them a thought, an expectation, a hope which they had always
cherished. But yet his idea had sprung up with such force from his
innermost consciousness that he felt that he could not do otherwise. He
would have to speak and tell them what he had resolved to do with his
life, whose impenetrable future he saw unfolding before him, clearer
every day, as though wide doors were being opened, till he saw what
things would be like and where he would go to, a long, long way
ahead....

He would tell her that afternoon, would tell his mother first. And, as
he made up his mind to this, he felt that in his case it would be a
vocation, that the voice was a distinct one, as though it were calling
to him and beckoning him, through the wide doors that had opened. The
voice that called to him so distinctly he would answer....

But Ernst was stirring and now woke from his sleep.

"Do you feel rested, Uncle?"

Ernst sadly nodded yes.

"Well, then shall we walk a bit? Else the doctor won't be pleased,
Uncle."

They rose and walked on, in silence, up and down, down and up the
rippling dunes. Ernst was very gloomy and, at last, said:

"You see, it's beyond my powers to help all of you, all of you.... There
are so many of you, you see, that I can't possibly take care of every
one of you ... however much I should like to. Then again you mustn't
forget that there are thousands swarming round me as it is. True, they
are no longer alive ... but they feel, all the same. Those are the
souls. They never leave me in peace. And then to look after all of you,
who are alive, as well ... it's beyond me; sometimes it's beyond me....
There's Mamma, poor woman. The whole world is at her heels; and, if I
didn't see to it, they would hide her away and bury her.... Then I have
to look after Papa and you and Uncle Gerrit and Uncle Paul and all the
rest of them. I have all of you to look after. You never see anything
and you know nothing, you live in a dream, you walk blindly ... to your
ruin, all of you.... Who would look after you if I wasn't there? Who
would look after you if I died to-morrow?... If I worried about it,
instead of quietly doing my duty, it would send me mad to think of
it!... And you never stay by me, you keep on running about, with the
wretches at your heels, waiting to hide you away and bury you. Why, they
had hold of Uncle Gerrit the other day, in chains, under my room! I
heard him all through the night and I couldn't release him until ...
until...."

He had lost the thread of his thoughts, passed his hand over his hair
and said, mournfully:

"Addie, my dear boy, you mustn't come and see me any more. Uncle is in a
bad house. It's a bad place, that doctor's house. Terrible things happen
there at night. You're too young, Addie, to come to such a bad house.
Promise me that you won't come again...."

"Uncle, the doctor's is not a bad house...."

"Of course you would know better than I! You're young; and you don't
know and don't see things. There are scandalous goings-on at night,
scandalous things in every room in the house. I shall tell Mamma to take
you away: I can't look after all of you...."

"Uncle, you should stop thinking of such things and enjoy your walk and
the air and the woods and the dunes and the clouds...."

"Yes, that's what you say: stop thinking ... and enjoy ... and
enjoy...."

"Yes, enjoy nature around you...."

"Nature?..."

His restless black eyes encountered Addie's clear glance. And suddenly
he stopped and said:

"Tell me, do they leave them alone, in my rooms on the Nieuwe Uitleg?"

"Uncle, there's nothing there; and all your books and china are well
taken care of...."

"Is there nothing there?"

"No, Uncle, not what you think."

"And in the doctor's house?"

"There's nothing there either, Uncle."

"Here, round about us?"

"There's nothing, Uncle."

"Then what I hear...."

"Is an hallucination, Uncle."

"What I see...."

"That too."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's the truth, Uncle."

"How do you know what is the truth?"

"Through my senses, Uncle. Through my reason."

"Are they healthy? Are they infallible?"

"Perhaps not infallible, but healthy. And yours are ailing."

"Are mine ailing?"

"Yes, Uncle."

"My senses?"

"Yes. And your reason too."

"You know that?"

"Yes, I know it for certain."

It was as though the sick man for one moment doubted himself, while he
kept his eyes fixed on the boy's steady, blue eyes and read a strange
lucidity in them. But something inside him made him unable or unwilling
to overstep a certain boundary which was like a line of suffering in his
sick mind, a grievous horizon, an horizon which was too near, which he
could not look at from a distance, which had neither light nor darkness
behind it, but only mist.

"And what about this?" he asked, pointing with his stick to the dune on
which they stood.

"What, Uncle?"

"This, this, underneath us! This moaning and sighing and imploring for
help!"

He threw himself flat on the sand; he dug furiously:

"Yes!" he shouted. "Wait! Wait a moment! I'm coming, I'm coming!"

And, rooting with his hands, like an animal, he sent the sand flying
around him.

"Oh," thought Addie, "if he would only make one more effort suddenly to
see, to hear, to feel that he was dreaming ... that he was dreaming! Oh,
to have him get well ... to see him get well, all at once, so that one
knew it by the brightness in his eyes ... and the untroubled look on his
face!..."

Then he put his hand on Ernst's shoulder. The sick man stood up, walked
along:

"Come on," he said, beckoning to Addie.




CHAPTER VIII


That evening, in the lane in front of the little hotel, Addie walked
arm-in-arm with his mother. The deepening shadows gathered round them,
pierced by the bright light of the lamp outside the house.

"Mummy, I want to talk to you...."

They were strolling slowly up and down; and the pressure of his hand
urged her gently forward, through the deepening shadows, out of the
fierce glow of the lamp and farther along the road, whence, under the
starry skies, the meadows receded to remote distances towards the last
streak of light on the horizon.

"What about, my boy?"

How old he was for his years and how serious! She felt his hand lying
heavy on her arm, like a man's hand; she heard his voice in her ear,
full of deep resonance, sounding a little more caressing than usual. He
was still a boy, a schoolboy, but that was in years; in his soul she
realized him to be a man, her big son; and, though this made her feel
very old, it also made her feel calm and contented and safe in the
possession of him ... so long as she did not lose him.... And what did
he want to talk about now? For he had not spoken yet, but was walking
on, silently. And, all at once, she began to be curious, wondering what
it could be that he wanted to tell her in that suddenly caressing voice,
what he wanted to obtain from her. For she felt that he was going to ask
her for something, a favour almost, a gift. Because he was leaning on
her like that, she felt that something was weighing on his mind, some
oppressive anxiety which he would tell her in order to make it lighter
to bear. What could be troubling him? What would it be? It could not be
money: he was too sensible; he knew exactly how much she could spare.
Was he in love? A boy's love-affair? Yes, she was convinced that that
was it. She had always said that, when Addie fell in love, it would be
once and for all; and she had grown a little afraid for her big son,
with that serious heart of his....

"Well, what is it?" she asked; and she added, playfully, "Are you in
love?"

He only laughed:

"No, I'm not in love. But still I have something very important to say
to you, something that will distress you perhaps, because you always
pictured it differently...."

"What is it, Addie?" she asked, feeling a little frightened and
bewildered.

"It's this, Mamma," he said, quietly and very calmly. "I can't go into
the diplomatic service ... because I want to be a doctor."

She was silent, walked on, with his arm in hers; and it seemed to her
that new vistas suddenly opened out before her. No, she never thought
that he was going to speak to her of his future. It had always been so
positively settled, from the very beginning, that her son should take up
the life and the career which she had ruined for his father. She had
always looked upon it as a vague form of compensation which Addie, her
son, would pay to her husband, to his father. She had never imagined
that it would be otherwise. It could be done: he bore a distinguished
name, he would have money later on and, once he had entered the
profession which in their set had always been considered so eminent and
honourable and illustrious--the most eminent, honourable and illustrious
of all--he would console his father for the ruin of his career and
restore to his mother something of her old position in society.... She
had always, almost unconsciously, looked at it like that. And then there
was still a grain of vanity in her, dormant, it was true, of late, but
still an eternal, ineradicable germ: the vanity inherent in her, the
vanity of thinking that _her_ son would pursue that most eminent,
honourable and illustrious career. Now her whole world seemed to be
turned upside down: the shock, the surprise, the disappointment made her
dizzy; and through it all there came a sudden impulse to say no, no, no,
that it was impossible, quite impossible, that it would give too much
pain to Papa, to herself, to poor old Grandmamma and certainly to his
grandparents as well; and, if he insisted, to say to him imperiously,
almost in a tone of command, that it was out of the question, out of the
question. But for the moment she said nothing; and he said nothing
either; and they walked on, along the grey ribbon of the road, which ran
on through the meadows fleeing on either side to the last streak of
light on the horizon, under the great starry skies. He said nothing, as
if he had said all that he had to say, quietly and simply. And she was
too much under the influence of that tumult of shock, surprise and
disappointment....

"Does it upset you, Mamma?" he asked, at last.

"It comes as a blow, Addie.... I never expected it...."

"Can't you understand that I...?"

"Understand? I don't know, Addie. We always thought...."

"Yes, I know: you and Papa always thought differently. I understand that
it must upset you and that it is a disappointment."

"You had better speak to Papa first...."

"No," he said, calmly and quietly. "I want to speak to you, first,
Mamma. You know how fond I am of my father, what chums we are. But I
can't speak to him first, because he would not understand. And I want to
speak to you first, Mamma, because you will understand."

There was something soothing to her vanity in his words, but also
something deeper underlying them, which was not at once clear to her;
for she knew that he loved his father more than her and yet he wanted to
speak to her first....

"You will understand, Mamma, when I tell you. I don't feel in any way
cut out for a career in which, no doubt, one can rise very high if one
happened to be one of the four or five great men who stand out in it....
And even so ... even if I were one of those four or five--always
supposing I had the brains or the genius for it, which I haven't and
never shall have--then there would still be something in me which would
make me feel that I had missed my vocation, that it was all purposeless,
that I had got into the wrong path, into the wrong sort of work. I
should always be too simple, Mamma, and too natural, your Dutch boy...."

He turned towards her with a little laugh; and she suddenly pictured
him, faultlessly attired, in a white tie and a dress-coat, among the
young diplomatists whom she remembered in the old days, in Rome. No, he
did not resemble his father as much as all that....

"Whereas the other thing, doctoring, I feel quite different about. It's
the only thing which attracts me and in which I feel that I shall do
well. Let me just tell you what I do feel about it. First of all,
there's nothing that interests me more than people ... and studying
them, both their outsides and their insides. That's my _head_, Mummy.
And, as well as that, there's something else, a question of _feeling_. I
feel for nothing so much as for any one who suffers, physically or
mentally. And then I get a sort of impulse, which comes to me as
naturally as sitting or walking or talking, to help as much as I can.
That's how I feel; and I can't tell it you in any other way. It's no use
my trying to explain it in a lot of words; I couldn't say more than I
have already said. But, just telling it you like this, I do hope that
you understand it, Mamma, and that you get the same feeling as I do....
And then, Mummy, there's something else, something I hardly dare say to
you, because you will perhaps think that I am imagining...."

"Say it, dear...."

"It's this, Mamma: I feel inside me the power of curing people. And I
feel that that power is growing...."

His great seriousness startled her.

"But I'm only saying this to _you_, Mamma; I won't say it to any one
else ... not even to Papa, because I feel that he would not understand.
I am only saying it to you; and I shall never say it to any one but you;
and I'm only saying it to you as a sort of justification for what I mean
to do. And, if I'm wrong and it doesn't turn out as I think, then you'll
forgive me, won't you? For I'm quite in earnest now."

"My darling...."

"Who can tell me for certain that I am mistaken, Mamma, and that I have
_not_ that absolute conviction deep down in my soul? It is a wonderful
thing to have an absolute conviction like that about yourself. I would
almost say that to be certain about other people ... is not so wonderful
as to be certain about yourself.... But still ... but still.... I _feel_
that this is my vocation. Who can deny the existence of what I feel so
very plainly within me, even though I am sometimes amazed at my own
consciousness of it?... I know, Mamma, that all this sounds very strange
and that I am not talking like a boy of my age. But that is because I am
being very, very confidential and letting you know my most private
thoughts.... It is so calm and peaceful out here this evening, Mamma,
and the stars are shining so bright, as if _they_ knew everything for
quite certain. I ... I do not know for certain: I only feel ... and I
wish. And I am telling you my most private thoughts, just freely and in
the strictest confidence, so that you may not be unhappy...."

A thrill of tenderness went through her.

"Darling, I am not unhappy."

"What I have told you ... is a disappointment."

"A disappointment?... Is it a disappointment? I don't think so now,
dear.... Not after the first shock of hearing it. It's not a
disappointment any longer. If there is clearly something inside you
which tells you what your vocation is ... oh, why shouldn't you follow
it? So few of us feel clearly about anything.... Let's sit here, on the
sand, under the trees.... So few people feel things clearly. Everything
was vague with me ... until quite late in life, dear. We all cling to
small things, to small interests ... both in our own case and in the
case of the small people around us.... Do you still remember ... that
friend of ours ... whom Mamma liked so much? Things weren't clear to
him.... Darling, if they're clear to you, already, and if you are almost
certain that you are not mistaken ... then obey your vocation. No one
has the right to hold you back; and why should I hold you back ... for
small reasons, while much greater things perhaps are urging you on? For
small reasons ... for a touch of vanity, perhaps ... Ah, you see,
darling, I _am_ small. I should have loved to see you, you my own boy,
in the diplomatic service. Papa would have been satisfied; and you would
perhaps have given me back something of the past.... Do you understand?
It would not be honest of me if I did not confess that I should have
been glad to see it. But that is because I still cling to small things
... while you are urged on by greater things. And, if it is really so,
then I am proud of you, proud of you. You see, my darling, there's
always that about your mother: her little bit of vanity. She is so glad
that you did not inherit it ... that perhaps she gave you other
things--something very small, but the best she had--which may become
very great in you, an atom which in you will grow into a world.... No, I
am not disappointed any longer...."

"You see, Mamma, I feel it so clearly when I am alone with Uncle Ernst:
not that I can do anything yet, but I am certain that I shall be able
to, later.... I feel that, if he were to come a fraction of an inch
towards me ... and if I had the power to go another fraction of an inch
towards him, we should get near to each other, he and I.... It doesn't
happen now; but I feel ever so clearly that I am looking for something
in him, the secret spot from which I could cure him if ... if I was
older, more advanced and stronger...."

But he pulled himself up:

"Perhaps it's better not to say that."

"Why not, dear?"

"One shouldn't say those very private things.... But I wanted to talk
quite frankly to you...."

"You have, darling. Don't force your words, if they won't come. Just
tell me quietly, when talking comes to you more easily. Mamma will try
to understand you. Mamma does understand you."

"And you forgive me ... for the disappointment?"

"It has gone."

"Then what is left?"

"A great sense of peace, dear. It will all be for the very best, I
think. Do as you think, go to what calls you."

She leant against him, laid her head on his shoulder. He kissed her. A
kindly, health-giving stream seemed to be flowing through her.

"He knows already, he is certain about himself," she thought, looking up
at the understanding stars. "He knows his own mind ... definitely,
definitely. O God, let him always know his own mind!"




CHAPTER IX


Old Mrs. van Lowe had taken a furnished villa at Nunspeet for a few
weeks and gone to stay there with Adeline and her flaxen-haired little
tribe. She wanted to be near Ernst; and the doctors had not objected to
her going to Nunspeet and even seeing him once or twice: there was no
question of an isolation-cure; on the contrary, the patient had always
been too lonely; and something in the way of kindly sympathy, which
would counteract his shyness, might even have a salutary effect.

Gerrit ran down once or twice from the Hague. But there was hardly room
for him in the villa, which was full up with the children's little beds;
and also he was secretly hurt that Ernst had taken a dislike to him.
And, when he was back at the Hague, alone in his house, he pondered over
it all, over the difference and the resemblance between them: Ernst
belonging to the dark Van Lowes, Papa's blood; he, like Constance and
Paul, to the fair ones, Mamma's blood, though they all had black or at
least very dark-brown eyes, with that rather hard, beady glance. But
what struck him as very singular was that he more or less understood why
Ernst had become as he was: a little odd, he called it, nothing more;
whereas Ernst saw nothing in Gerrit, saw nothing but a nature entirely
antipathetic to his own: no doubt his deceptive muscular strength, which
was antipathetic to the morbid sensitiveness of the shy, lonely,
studious brother.... But did any one see him, Gerrit, really as he was?
And had it not always been so, from the time when he was a child, a boy,
a young man? It gave him a melancholy sense of security, in these days;
that he was living by himself, living a life taken up exclusively with
his military duties, captain for the week, out very early, in the
stables from six to seven seeing to the grooming of the horses, the
cleaning of their boxes, thinking even more of the horses than of the
men and caring more, hussar that he was, for a fresh, clean-smelling
stable, with a litter of fresh, clean-smelling straw for the animals,
than for the details of the troopers' mess. When the horses had been fed
and watered came the ride with his squadron: drilling, target-practice
or field-duty; then back again, handing in his report, finishing any
business in the squadron-office. This took up the whole morning; and in
the exercise of those minor duties which he loved he had hardly time for
thinking; and the officers for the week saw him as they had always seen
him: the big, strong, yellow-haired Goth, brisk in his movements,
flicking his whip against his riding-boots, broad-chested in his
red-frogged uniform, his voice loud and domineering, with a note of
kindliness under the bluster, his step quick and firm, giving an
impression of energy.... That was all that officers and men saw of him;
and he, for the time, was what he appeared, even to himself.... But then
he would go home and bolt his sandwich, alone, and would ride his second
charger, before going back to barracks in the evening, to supervise the
foddering of the horses again. And it was during this afternoon interval
that he was accustomed to pick out lonely roads, where he would meet
none of his brother-officers; it was then, in that afternoon interval,
when loneliness was all around him, that he saw himself and knew himself
to be different from what he seemed to his acquaintances, different even
to himself.... He saw himself again as a child in Java, a small boy
playing with his sister Constance, on the great boulders in the river
behind the palace at Buitenzorg. He could see her still in her white
_baadje_,[1] with the red flowers at her temples. The thought of it gave
him a curious sentimental pang, which made him melancholy, he did not
know why. Then he saw himself grown a few years older and in love,
perpetually in love, with the earnest amorousness of East-Indian
schoolboys for girls of their own age, little _nonnas_[2] who learn so
rapidly that they are women and that they attract the boys who ripen so
rapidly into men under the burning sun. He, Gerrit, had always been in
love, sometimes in romantic fashion, like the fairy princes in the
stories which his little sister Constance used to tell him, but more
often in rougher style, longing to satisfy his greedy mouth and greedy
hands, the gluttonous senses of his lusty, growing body, the body of a
schoolboy and of a young man in one.... Oh, he still laughed at those
recollections. He could see the school distinctly and, at play-time, the
boys slyly looking through the reeds by the ditch-side at the
schoolgirls' little carts; the young _nonnas_, in their white _baadjes_,
peeping through the curtains of the rickshaw; the boys throwing them a
kiss with quivering fingers, the girls throwing back the kiss to their
boyish lovers in the reeds. And the assignations in the great, dark
gardens; the burning and glowing in the childish breast: oh, he
remembered it all!... And he saw, as he went on his lonely
ride--although he now laughed the laugh of his mature years--he saw
before his eyes all the girls with whom he had been in love, as a
schoolboy, at Buitenzorg....

There was one delicate, fair-skinned girl, very pale and very pretty.
She soon acquired the purple, laughing lips of the child who, by the
time that she is thirteen, becomes a full-grown woman, with a ripe bust
and riotous black curls.... And he also remembered a coffee-plantation
in the hills, with a young married woman of barely twenty, who had taken
him, a lad of fifteen, in her arms and had not released him until the
boy had become a man. She had taught him the secret that was seething in
his blood, throbbing in his veins, the secret that flushed his cheeks
and took away his breath the moment he approached anything in the shape
of a woman: the secret which the boy knew by hearsay but not by
experience. And, ever since she taught it him, there had been in him,
like a healthy hysteria or vigorous sensuality, a great lustiness of his
adolescent body; a surplus of strength which he must needs dissipate: he
never came near a woman now but he at once swiftly appraised her arms,
her swinging gait, her bust, the look in her eyes, the laugh on her
lips; if he passed her in the street, a quick glance printed her whole
figure like a photograph on his sensual imagination until the next woman
whom he met effaced it with her own, later print.

And, when he came to Holland as a young man and entered as a cadet at
Breda, the need for lust had developed into an overpowering obsession,
as it were an unquenchable thirsting of those new-found senses which
were fermenting in the young male body. Afterwards, as a young officer,
he had known one quick sensual passion after the other, taking each
laughing enjoyment with all the carelessness of a youthful conqueror.
His strong constitution and open-air life had enabled him to triumph
like that with impunity, for years on end; but even at that time he had
often suffered from sudden fits of depression, a secret, silent
hopelessness, when everything seemed to be going black before him with
needless, useless, menacing gloom. None of his fellow-officers saw it;
none of his brothers or sisters. If he put in an appearance on one of
those days, he was the same blunt, jovial soldier, the fair-haired,
burly giant, rough and noisy, with the mock fierceness in his voice and
the love of women in his brown, questing eyes, that went up and down,
doing their appraising in a moment. But, secretly, there was within him
so great a discontent with himself, that, as soon as he was alone, he
would think:

"O God, what a rotten, filthy life!..."

Then he would fling himself on a couch, under his sword-rack, and wonder
whether it was because he had drunk champagne yesterday, or because of
something else ... something else ... a strong feeling of discontent. He
did not know, but he made up his mind on one point, that he must knock
off champagne: the damned fizzy stuff didn't suit him and he wouldn't
drink it again. Indeed, he wouldn't drink much at all: no beer, no
cocktails, for it all flew straight to his temples, like a wave of
blood, and throbbed there, madly. And so it came to a secret
abstemiousness, of which he never spoke and which he calculated so
cunningly that his friends, though they knew that he was no great
drinker, did not know that he could not support a drink at all.
Sometimes he was fierce about it, allowed the drink to be poured out and
emptied the glass under the table or broke it deliberately, knocked it
over. That beastly drinking drove him mad; the other thing, on the
contrary, kept him calm and cool, cleared his blood and his brain. It
was after drinking, especially, that he felt depressed; after the other
thing, he felt as if he were starting a new life. He was like that as a
young officer, like that for years at Deventer, Venlo and the Hague; and
his sudden rough outbursts--of insolent gaiety rather than anger--had
given him his name as a big, blustering, brainless sort of ass: a pane
of glass smashed, without the slightest occasion; a quarrel with a
friend, without occasion; a duel provoked for no reason and then a
reconciliation effected, with the greatest difficulty, by the other
officers; a need sometimes to go for houses and people like a madman and
destroy and break things, more from a sheer animal instinct of wanton
gaiety than from anger. When he was angry, he knew what he was doing; a
kind of soft-heartedness prevented him from becoming really angry; it
was only that madness of his which allowed him to go really far, letting
himself be carried away by a strange intoxication, the same intoxication
which he felt on horseback, when riding in a steeplechase: a longing to
rave and rage and go too far and trample on everything under him, not
out of malice but out of madness. That again cooled him, made him feel
clear and calm: it was only the confounded drink that drove him mad....

But, as he grew older, he quieted down and mastered his hot blood, so
that he was satisfied with a quiet _liaison_ with a little woman whom he
went to see at regular intervals; and suddenly, in his secret fits of
gloom and blackness, it was borne in upon him that he must get married,
that it was that confounded living alone in rooms which gave him the
deep-lying discontent which he never spoke about, for it would never
have done to let the others notice things which they would think queer
and of which he himself was at heart ashamed. And then, as he lay
quietly, under his sword-rack, he would think, ah, to get married, to
have a dear little wife ... and children, heaps of children ... and not
to dissipate your substance for nothing!... But children ... Lord, Lord,
how jolly, to have a whole tribe of children round you!... All that was
kindly in him and friendly, not to say very romantic and extremely
sentimental, now made him wax enthusiastic, under the sword-rack, the
great, strong fellow who made the couch crack under him with his weight:
Lord, Lord, how jolly! A whole tribe of children: not two or three, but
a tribe, a tribe!... He smiled at the thought; after his riotous youth,
it was a pleasant prospect: a nice little house, a home of his own, a
dear little wife, children.... He talked to his mother about it; and she
was delighted; because she had long been thinking that he ought to get
married.... He was thirty-five now; yes, really, it would be a good
thing to get married.... And she looked about and found Adeline for him:
a good family, of French descent; connections in India, which was always
nice; no money, but the Van Lowes never looked at money, though they
hadn't so very much themselves, comparatively, professing a laughing
contempt for the dross which, all the same, they could very well do
with. A dear little girl, Adeline, young--she was thirteen years younger
than her husband--fair-haired and placid: a regular little mother even
as a girl. And Gerrit, though he had had a brief vision of other women,
other girls, had thought:

"Oh, well, yes, a bit bread-and-buttery; but you want a different sort
for your wife than you do for your mistress!"

And, after all, she was round and plump, a little round ball, even as a
girl, and nice to hug, even though she was a bit short and though her
figure was badly deficient in the lines that set his blood tingling. He
never for a moment fell in love with Adeline; but he saw her for what
she was: his wife and the mother of his children, the little tribe for
which he longed, because it was such a pity and almost mean to go
dissipating your substance for nothing, especially when you were getting
a bit older and sobering down. He would have a healthy little wife in
Adeline; she would give him a healthy little tribe.... She, in her
placid way, had come to love him, very simply, because he was big and
good-looking and because he was offering her, a penniless girl, a modest
position. They had got married and were still living in the same little
house, quite a small house, but big enough to harbour what Gerrit had
looked for from the start, one citizen of the world after the other.

He thought it rotten now to be alone; and, when Mamma had asked Adeline
and the children to the little villa at Nunspeet, he had grumbled that
they were leaving him all alone, but gave in: a few weeks in the country
would do the wife and the children good; and he ran down once or twice
to Nunspeet on Sundays. But the loneliness was bad for him; and the
house that had suddenly become lifeless and silent oppressed him with a
gloom which weighed upon him so heavily that he could not throw it off:
a cursed heavy weight which bore down on his chest. Add to this that, in
order not to be alone in the evenings, he allowed the other fellows, at
whose mess he dined these days, to persuade him to go with them and have
a drink at the Witte ... and it was those confounded drinks which
finished him, simply finished him.... He was home by one, at the latest;
but he felt, after those drinks, as if he had been up all night: he
could not sleep; if he fell asleep at last, he kept on waking up; his
heart bounced as if it were trying to reach his temples; he turned about
and turned about, dabbed his face and wrists, lay down again, ended by
splashing cold water all over his body; then he crept into bed again,
huddling himself up, with his knees drawn up to his chin, like a child;
he stuffed the sheets into his ears, hid his watch, so as not to hear it
ticking louder and louder, and at last went to sleep. When he woke in
the early morning, whole landscapes of misty mountains pressed upon his
brain, as though his poor head were the head of an Atlas supporting the
world on his neck; persistent, slow-rolling, rocky avalanches crumbled
all the way down his spine; and, with his legs stretched out wide in
bed, he was so horribly depressed by that waking nightmare that he felt
as if he could never make a move to get up, as if he could not stir his
little finger. Then, at last, with a groan, he got up, cursing himself
for drinking the damned stuff, took his bath, did his dumb-bell
exercises, full of wondering admiration for his powerful arms and
ingenuously thinking, if he was so strong in his muscles, why couldn't
he carry off a drink or two?... Then he would look at his arms with the
smiling vanity of a woman contemplating her beautiful curves; and,
though his eyelids still hung heavy and round, too weary to roll up, the
waking nightmare vanished under the influence of the water and the
exercises and the misty mountains rose higher and higher till they
vanished out of sight and the avalanche of rocks just tickled his back
with a last gritty hail of pebbles. Then he became himself again: his
orderly was waiting outside with his horse; in barracks he was the
zealous captain, who carefully performed his military duties; none of
the officers saw anything the matter with him....

But, though, of course, there were always the other fellows, loneliness
seemed to envelop him, an almost tangible loneliness that pressed upon
him, something that alarmed him. What was it this time, he would ask
himself: was he ill, or had he the blues? Blast those moods, which you
couldn't understand yourself! Was he ill, or had he the blues? Was it
that beastly worm, rooting away in his carcase with its legs and eating
up his marrow, or was he just thinking it rotten that his wife and
children were away?... His brain was whirling with it all: first that
rotten feeling and then the beastly worm. Sometimes it became such an
obsession with him that, during his afternoon rides when he let his
horse gallop wildly, he would see the thing wriggling along in front of
him.... Then he would think of Ernst; and he felt sorry for the poor
chap. What a queer thing it was, a diseased soul; and could he ... could
he himself be diseased ... in his soul ... or at any rate in his
body?... If he told people what he suspected, nobody would believe him.
Outwardly he was such a sturdy fellow, such a healthy animal. But if
only they could take a peep inside him!... That wretched worm thing had
been at it again, rooting away in his carcase with its beastly legs, its
hundreds of legs, never leaving him in peace. Was it just a queer
feeling, was it an illusion, like Ernst's hallucination ... or could it
really be a live thing?... No, that was too ridiculous: it wasn't really
alive.... And yet he remembered stories of people who always had
headaches, headaches which nothing could cure; and, after their death, a
nest of earwigs had been found swarming in their brains.... Imagine, if
it should be some beastly insect! But no, it wasn't alive, it wasn't
alive: he only called it a worm or centipede because that described the
beastly sensation.... Should he go and see a doctor, some clever
specialist at Amsterdam?... But what was he to say?

"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase like a
beastly centipede!"

And the doctor would tell him to undress and would look at his carcase,
still young and fresh, notwithstanding his earlier rackety life, with
the muscles in good condition, the joints flexible, the chest broad, the
lungs expanded, and would stare at him and think ... he would think ...
the specialist would think that he was mad! He would ask questions about
his brothers and sisters ... and he would want to see Ernst ... and he
would draw all sorts of learned conclusions, would the clever
specialist.... No, hanged if he would go to a doctor; he would be
ashamed to say:

"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase, like a
beastly centipede."

He would be ashamed, absolute ashamed....

Or to say:

"Doctor, a gin-and-bitters upsets me."

"Well, captain," the doctor would say, "then you'd better not take a
gin-and-bitters."

What was the use of going to a doctor, or even a specialist? He would
not do it, he would _not_.... The best thing was to be abstemious,
certainly not take any drinks ... and then grapple with that damned
sensation--come, he wasn't a girl!--and not think about it, just stop
thinking about it.... He must have a little distraction: he was leading
such a lonely life these days. And, in that loneliness, without his wife
and children, he began to think, with that incurable sentimentality
which lay hidden deep down in him, of the comfort it was to belong to a
large family, of the way it cheered you up.... Theirs had been a big
family: but how it was scattering now! Bertha's little tribe had all
broken up.... The others Mamma still kept together; and that Sunday
evening was a capital institution of Mamma's.... And so he would look in
on Karel and Cateau towards dinner-time, hoping that they would ask him
to stay and that for once he would not have to dine with the other
fellows at the mess; but they did not ask him and, when it was nearly
six, Gerrit, feeling almost uncomfortable, heaved his big body out of
his chair and went and joined the others, reflecting that Karel and
Cateau had little by little become utter strangers.... And, though he
was not awfully keen on Adolphine, he sank his pride, invited himself to
her house and stayed on for the whole evening; and he had to confess to
himself that, upon his word, Adolphine was at her best in her own house
and that the evening had not been so bad. Constance was at Baarn one
day, at Nunspeet another; Van der Welcke was abroad; but Aunt Ruyvenaer
was at the Hague--Uncle had gone to India--and Aunt Lot was always
jolly:

"Yes, Herrit.... You showed a ghood nose to come here.... We're having
_nassi_[3].... You'll stay and lhunch, take pot lhuck, eh, Herrit,
what?"

He accepted gratefully, felt a sudden radiant glow inside him, just
where loneliness gave him a feeling of icy cold. Yes, he would stay to
lunch: he loved the East-Indian "rice-table," the way Aunt and Toetie
made it; and he was secretly glad that Uncle was away, for he didn't
like Uncle. In Aunt Lot's big, roomy house there was a sort of genial
warmth that gave him a delicious sensation and almost left him weak, as
though a smell of Java pervaded everything around, reminding him of his
childhood. The house was full of Japanese porcelain; there were stuffed
birds of paradise; under a big square glass cover was a whole
_passer_,[4] with tiny dolls as toys: little _warongs_,[5] little herds
of cattle; there were Malay weapons on the walls; in Aunt's conservatory
there were mats on the floor, as in Java; and Gerrit thought it fun to
tease Alima, though she was dressed as a European, and he was only sorry
that she was not _latta_,[6] because that reminded him of the _latta_
servants whom he used to tease, in Java, as a child:

"_Boeang, baboe; baboe, boeang_!"[7]

And from the Japanese porcelain and the birds of paradise and the
_passer_ there came that same smell, the smell that pervaded the whole
house, a smell of _akar-wangi_[8] and sandalwood; and, while Aunt was
making "rice-table" and Alima running from the store-room to the kitchen
with a basket full of bottles of Indian spices, Gerrit felt his mouth
water:

"Aunt, we're going to have a great tuck-in!"

"_Allah_,[9] that boy Herrit!" chortled Aunt Lot, looking terribly fat,
with her vast, pendulous bosom, wearing no stays, indoors, but with
brilliants the size of turnips in her ears. "_Allah_, that Herrit: he'd
murder his own father for _nassi_!"

And Aunt went into ecstasies: Aunt, turned into a mobile Hindu idol, ran
from kitchen to cellar and store-room; Toetie ran too; Alima ran too.
The aromatic fragrance filled the whole house. There would be _petis_,
black and scented and hot.

"Oh, for rice, with a dried fish, and _petis_!" Gerrit rhapsodized.

And Aunt laughed till the tears came, happy and glad because Gerrit was
fond of _nassi_.

But there would also be _kroepoek_,[10] golden and crisp: the dried fish
which, when heated, swelled up into brittle flakes, flakes that cracked
in your fingers as you broke them and between your teeth as you crunched
them; and then there would be _lodeh_,[11] with a creamy sauce full of
floating vegetables and _tjabé_; and, to follow on the rice, Aunt had
made _djedjonkong_, the Java sugar-cake, with the icing of white
_maizena_[12] on the top; only Aunt was sorry that she could get no
_santen_,[13] in "Gholland," and had to do the best she could with milk
and cream....

And, when at last they sat down to table--Aunt, the three girls and
Gerrit, the enthusiastic Gerrit--Aunt and the little cousins would laugh
aloud:

"_Allah_, that boy Herrit!"

And they vied with one another who should help him, very carefully, so
that the rice should not make a messy heap on his plate:

"No, _don't_ mix up your food!" Aunt Lot entreated. "That Dhutch
_totok_[14] way of mixing up everything together: I can't stand it. Keep
your rice clean, as clean as you can."

"Yes, Aunt, as maidenly as a young girl!" cried Gerrit, with sparkling
eyes.

And Aunt again laughed till the tears came: too bhad, you know!

"And now your _lodeh_ in the little saucer ... that's it ... so-o! ...
And the _sambal_,[15] neatly on the edge of your plate: don't mix it up,
Herrit ... Oh, that boy Herrit! ... Take a taste now: each _sambal_ with
a spoonful of rice ... that's it ... so-o! ... The _kroepoek_ on the
table-cloth ... that's it ... so-o! ... And now ghobble away ...
_Allah_, that boy Herrit: he'd murder his own father for _nassi_! ...
_Kassian_, Van Lowe!"

This last exclamation was meant to convey that Van Lowe, Gerrit's
father, was dead long since and that Gerrit therefore could not murder
his father for _nassi_ if he wanted to; and this time Aunt's eyes filled
with tears of real emotion, not of laughter: _kassian_, Van Lowe!

Gerrit no longer felt lonely and ceased thinking of those queer feelings
of his. He ate his rice with due respect, ate it slowly, so as to spin
out the enjoyment as long as he could; but it was an effort, you know,
with Aunt and Toetie and Dotje and Poppie vying with one another in
turns:

"Herrit, have some more sambal-tomaat[16]... Herrit, fill up your
_lodel_-saucer.... Herrit, take some _ketimoen_:[17] that's nice and
cool, if your mouth's burning...."

And, though Gerrit's palate was on fire, though the _sambal_ rose to his
temples till it congested his brain like a cocktail, Gerrit went on
eating, took another spoonful of clean rice, took another taste of black
_petis_....

"Herrit, there's _djedjonkong_ coming!" Aunt warned him. "You won't
leave me in the lurch with my _djedjonkong_, will you, Herrit?"

And Gerrit declared that Aunt was making heavy demands on his stomach,
but that he would manage to leave room for the _djedjonkong_; and he
banged one fist upon the other, to express that he would bang the
_nassi_ together in his stomach, to make room for the sugar-cake. Aunt
was radiant with pleasure, because Gerrit thought everything so
delicious; and, after the _djedjonkong_, as Gerrit sat puffing and
blowing, she suggested:

"Come, Herrit, _nappas_[18] a bit now!"

And Gerrit took the liberty of loosing a few buttons of his uniform and
dropped, with legs wide outstretched, into a wicker deck-chair, while
Aunt invited him to be sure and not leave her in the lurch, next day,
with the remnants.

The curry lunch at Aunt Lot's put Gerrit in good spirits for the whole
day. He puffed and blew more in fun than in reality; he extolled the
"rice-table," which is never heavy, the _tjabé_, which clears your blood
and your brain; and it was as though Aunt's aromatic and very strong
_sambals_ filled him with the joy of life, for that day, and also with a
certain tenderness, because it all reminded him of his childhood at
Buitenzorg. He took his afternoon ride quietly and pleasantly: excellent
exercise, after the generous meal; arrived at the mess in good spirits
and did not eat much, gassing about Aunt Lot's _nassi_; and, when he
went home, at a reasonable hour in the evening, he asked himself:

"If I can have such good days, why should I have such rotten ones? I
shall tell Line to give us _nassi_ every day; but Line can't do it as
Aunt Lot does...."

Another day, Gerrit, with that sentimental longing for his own people,
went and looked up Paul. He found him in his sitting-room, the place
beautifully tidy, Paul lying on the sofa in a silk shirt and a
white-flannel jacket, reading a modern novel. And Paul was very amiable,
even allowed Gerrit to smoke a cigar: one of his own, for Paul did not
smoke; only, he asked Gerrit not to make a mess with the ash and to
throw the match into the wastepaper-basket at once, because he couldn't
stand used matches about the place.

"Aren't you going away this summer?" asked Gerrit.

"Not I, my dear fellow!" said Paul, decidedly. "It's such dirty work,
travelling: your skin gets black, your nails get black in the train;
your clothes get creased in your trunk; and you never know what sort of
bed awaits you. No, I'm getting too old to go away...."

"But aren't you even going to Nunspeet?"

"Oh, my dear Gerrit," Paul implored, "what _is_ the use of my going to
Nunspeet? Mamma has Adeline and the children with her; Constance is
devoting herself to Ernst: what earthly use would it be for me to go to
Nunspeet?... All that travelling is such a nuisance; and going to
Nunspeet would make me almost as dirty as going to Switzerland.... No, I
shall stay where I am. The landlady's very clean and so is the maid;
and, though I have to see to a lot myself, of course, things are fairly
well cared for ... and not _too_ dirty...."

"But, Paul," said Gerrit, with a sort of "Look here, drop it!" gesture,
"that cleanliness of yours is becoming a mania!"

"And why shouldn't I have a mania as well as any one else?" asked Paul,
in an offended voice. "Every one has a mania. You have a mania for
bringing children into the world. Mine is comparatively sterile, but has
just as much right to exist as yours."

"But, Paul, you're becoming an old fogey at this rate, never moving, for
fear of a speck of dirt. If you go on like this, you'll get rooted in a
little selfish circle of your own, you'll cease to take an interest in
anything ... and you're young still, only just thirty-eight...."

"I've taken an interest in the world for years," said Paul, "but I
consider the world such a vile, dirty rubbish-heap, such a
conglomeration of human wretchedness, such a rotten, scurvy, stinking,
filthy dustbin...."

"But, Paul, you're absurd!"

"Because I choose at last to retire into my room, where at least things
are clean!" said Paul, with a gesture of irritation.

"My dear chap, you don't mean what you say: I can't tell if you're
serious or humbugging."

"Serious? You say I'm not serious?" cried Paul, grinning scornfully and
working himself into a real temper. "Do you think I'm not serious?"

"Well, if you're serious, then I say that you're simply diseased."

"Diseased?"

"Yes, diseased: just as much as Ernst is diseased. That tidiness of
yours is a mania; that way of looking upon the world as a dustbin is a
disease. You were always a humbug, but at least you used to be good
company, you used to be a brilliant talker; and nowadays, for some time
past, you show yourself nowhere, you shut yourself up, you're becoming
impossible and a bore...."

"I'm becoming older," said Paul, soberly. "A brilliant talker? I may
have been, perhaps. But it's not worth while. The moment you fashion a
thought into words and try to express it, no one listens to you. People
are just as sloppy and messy in their conversation as in everything
else. It's not worth while.... And yet," he said, with a touch of
melancholy, "you're right: I used to be different. But it's really not
worth while, old fellow, in my case. You have your wife and your
children: not that I'm yearning for a wife and children, especially such
an ant-hill as you've brought into the world. But what have I? The club
bores me. Doing anything bores me. I am too modern for the old ideas and
not modern enough for the new ones."

His eyes lit up as he heard himself beginning to talk:

"Yes, the old ideas," he repeated; and his voice became fuller and
recovered the rather sing-song rhythm of earlier days, when he used to
unbosom himself at great length of all sorts of ironical theories and
mock philosophy, very often superficial, but always brilliant. "The old
ideas. There's rank, for instance. I've been thinking about it lately. I
like rank. But do you know how I like it? Just as Ernst loves an antique
vase, even so I am sometimes attracted by an old title. I should like to
be a count or a marquis, not from snobbery: don't imagine that I want to
be a count or a marquis out of snobbery, for that's not the idea at all.
But just as Ernst admires an antique vase, or an old book, or a piece of
brocade, I admire a count's or marquis' title; and my title, besides,
would be much cleaner than the piece of brocade, which is full of
microbes. But, for goodness' sake, don't run away with the idea that I
want to be a count or a marquis out of snobbery. You understand, don't
you? I should only care for it from the decorative and traditional point
of view.... But a modern title of _jonkheer_,[19] Gerrit, dating back to
William I.,[20] I wouldn't have if you paid me! To begin with, I think
_jonkheer_ an ugly word; and then I think that a title of that sort
looks like a modern-art signboard, like one of those _art-nouveau_
posters with their everlasting stiff, upright, squirmy lines; and those
conventional poppies are positively revolting to my mind because they
symbolize to me the cant and hypocrisy of our modern world.... Yes,
there's a great deal of poetry, Gerrit, in old ideas. We people are
crammed full of old ideas: we inherited them; they're in our blood. And
we live in a society in which the new ideas are already putting forth
shoots, the real, new ideas, the true, the beautiful ideas, the three or
four beautiful ideas that already exist. But I, for my part, have my
blood so full of old ideas that I can't advance with the rest.... New
ideas: look here, one new idea, a really beautiful new idea, in our
time, is pity. Gerrit, what could be more beautiful and more delightful
and newer than pity: genuine pity for all human wretchedness? I feel it
myself, even though I never leave my sofa. I feel it myself. But, even
as I feel it and never leave my sofa, so the whole world feels the new
idea of pity ... and never leaves its sofa.... Lord, my dear chap,
there's blood sticking to everything; the world is nothing but mean
selfishness and hypocrisy; there's war, injustice and all sorts of
rottenness; and we know it's there and we condemn it and we feel pity
for everything that is trampled underfoot and sucked dry.... And what do
we do? Nothing. I do just as little as the great powers do. The Tsar
does nothing; there's not a government, not an individual that does a
thing. You don't do anything either.... Meanwhile, there is war, there
is injustice, not only in South Africa, but everywhere, Gerrit,
everywhere: you've only to go outside and you'll come upon injustice in
the Hoogstraat; you've only to go travelling and get black with grime
and dirt ... and you'll find injustice everywhere.... And, meanwhile,
that idea is stirring in this filthy world of ours: the idea of pity....
And, just as I am powerless, everything and everybody is powerless....
Then am I not right to withdraw from the whole business into my room ...
and to stay on my sofa?..."

He went on talking; and at last Gerrit got up, glad that he had been to
see Paul and that Paul had talked as usual, long-winded though he might
have been. But he was hardly gone, before Paul rose from his sofa. He
flung open the shutters, to air the room of Gerrit's smoke; he rang the
bell, to have the ash cleared away; he put the chairs straight and
removed every trace of Gerrit's visit:

"There, I let myself be persuaded into talking!" thought Paul,
irritably. "But d'you think the chap grasped it and valued it for a
moment? Of course he didn't: not what I said of the old and not what I
said of the new ideas!... It's not worth while taking the trouble to be
a brilliant talker.... The world is dirty and stupid ... and Gerrit is
stupid also, with his nine children, and dirty, with those cigars of his
... and besides he's a melancholy beggar, who has his manias ... just as
Ernst has ... and I ... and everybody...."

And he flung himself angrily on his cushions and read his modern novel,
all day long, without so much as stirring....

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Shirt.

[2] Half-castes.

[3] Malay: rice, currie.

[4] Market-place, bazaar.

[5] Booths.

[6] Attractive, pretty.

[7] "Put the baby down, nurse; nurse, put baby down."

[8] Cedarwood, or any other scented wood.

[9] Lord!

[10] The dried fish known in British India as Bombay duck.

[11] A sort of cocoa-nut.

[12] Indian cornflour.

[13] Cocoa-nut milk.

[14] The nickname given by the half-castes to the pure bred
Dutch.

[15] Red pepper, capsicum.

[16] Tomato-capsicum.

[17] Cucumber, gherkin.

[18] Take breath.

[19] The lowest title of nobility in Holland, ranking after the
barons and hereditary knights or _ridders_. The highest title is that of
count. There are no marquises or dukes in the Northern Netherlands.

[20] 1814.




CHAPTER X


Dorine also, Gerrit remembered, had remained in the Hague; and he looked
her up at her boarding-house, where she occupied two small, comfortless
rooms. He had not seen her for days ... or was it weeks? He called twice
without finding her in: the servant did not know where she had gone, for
Miss van Lowe was nearly always out. At last, Gerrit caught her at home,
at twelve o'clock, when she was hurriedly having a makeshift lunch, on
the edge of the table, with her chair askew, taking nervous bites and
timid sips.

"My dear Dorine, where have you been hiding all this time?" asked
Gerrit, with boisterous geniality.

She was out of sorts at being taken by surprise:

"Where have I been hiding? Where have I been hiding? I never have a
moment to hide anywhere. I'm far too busy for that!"

"But what have you got to do?"

"What have I got to do? The day flies ... and I never have time to do
what I've got to do."

"But what _have_ you got to do, Dorine?"

"My dear Gerrit, I won't bore you with a list of my doings. Take it from
me that my life is sometimes _too_ busy and that I _never_ know a
second's rest...."

He sat down and looked at her lunch.

"I came to take a snack with you and just to have a chat. But I see that
you're in a great hurry and that you haven't a great deal to eat, so I
don't expect you want me...."

"Do you think I sit down to an elaborate meal all by myself? No, Gerrit,
I've no time for that."

"Have you a mouthful for me?"

"A mouthful, yes. I'll ring and order a couple of eggs for you."

She rang, ordered the eggs; and Gerrit was given a plate on the edge of
the unlaid table:

"I'm glad to see you again, Sissy," said Gerrit. "I never see you at
all, now that we don't meet at Mamma's."

"Well, you don't miss much."

"I can't say you're very amiable to-day. Have you such a thing as a
glass of beer for me?"

"No, I haven't any beer."

"What are you drinking then?"

"Water, as you see."

"Oh, do you drink nothing but water? Well, then I'll have a glass of
water too. I'm not very hungry either," said Gerrit, fibbing, for he was
always hungry. "And, tell me, Dorine: don't you intend to run down to
Nunspeet?"

"Ye-es," said Dorine, dubiously. "I ought really to go to Nunspeet....
Mamma's written to me, so has Adeline ... but I don't know how to fit it
in."

"How do you mean, to fit it in?"

"Well, with the things I've got to do here."

"But what is it you've got to do?"

"Oh, Gerrit, nothing really that would interest you!... The point is
that I'm good enough for Nunspeet ... but then of course they only want
me to be nurse to your children."

"Why, Dorine!"

"That's it, of course!" she said, tartly. "To be nurse to your
children!"

"I don't think you need be afraid o

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