[1]Jonkeris the title borne by the sons of Dutch noblemen until they come of age, when, as a rule, they bear the same title as their father;freuleis the title of all the unmarried daughters.
[1]Jonkeris the title borne by the sons of Dutch noblemen until they come of age, when, as a rule, they bear the same title as their father;freuleis the title of all the unmarried daughters.
[2]The governor-general's house near Batavia.
[2]The governor-general's house near Batavia.
It was six o'clock. Constance and Marietje had taken Grandmamma upstairs, for she no longer had her meals with the rest, but went to bed very early in the evening. And they were now in the dining-room, sitting at the great dinner-table: a table, Constance considered, of strangers—her brother's children—gathered round her husband, who alone had any right to live there, in the old man's house, and to sit at his table.... And yet it seemed quite natural that Emilie should be sitting there, that Adeline should be sitting there with her four girls, Marietje, Adele, Gerdy and Klaasje, and her two big boys, Alex and Guy; it seemed quite natural that, after the soup, the parlour-maid should set the great piece of beef in front of Guy for Guy to carve: one of the few things that he did well, as Van der Welcke told him, without thinking, for there was some truth in the jibe. It was the same simple fare daily: soup, a joint, green potatoes, vegetables and a sweet, so that Van der Welcke sometimes said:
"But, Constance, how Dutch you have grown in your taste!"
"Well, if there's anything you fancy, you have only to say so!" she would answer, gently.
And yet she was afraid that he would name something, some game or poultry, that would be much too expensive for so large a table and such appetites as the children's: wasn't she spending more than enough as it was, with that good, simple homeliness and wasn't the butcher's bill absurdly high, month after month?
And Guy carved the beef in fine, heavy slices, falling neatly and smoothly one on top of the other, with a dexterity which he remembered learning when quite a small boy from his father, when he recollected very well indeed carving the meat in the little dining-room in the Bankastraat.... That was Guy's duty, to carve the meat neatly; and he would have gone on carving till it all lay in neat slices on the dish, if Constance had not warned him:
"That ought to do, Guy."
The boy was just handing the dish to the maid, for her to take round, when a carriage drove into the front garden.
"Listen!" said Constance.
"That must be Addie!" exclaimed Gerdy, joyously.
"It's Addie, it's Addie!" cried Klaasje.
"Yes, it must be Addie," said Van der Welcke.
There was a loud ring at the bell; and at the same time a key grated in the latch.
"It's Addie!" they now all cried, with cheerful, expectant faces, rejoicing that he was back.
And Gerdy, in her restless way, got up. Mathilde would have got up too, but, finding Gerdy before her, she remained sitting. Gerdy's clear voice rang in the hall:
"Addie, you're back, you're back! Oh, but how cold and windy it is!"
The maids, likewise glad, fussed about, three of them to one handbag. Gerdy had left the door open and the draught penetrated to the dinner-table. But Addie was now in the room; and all their radiant faces were raised to his. They had done without him for five days.? They had missed him for five days.
"Good-evening, everybody!"
He flung off his wet great-coat: Truitje[1]caught it and took it out of the room. He gave a nod here and there, but kissed nobody and shook hands with nobody. He looked tired; and his collar was limp with the rain.
"Won't you go and change first, Addie?" asked Constance, smiling with content, because he was there.
"No, Mamma, I'd rather not. I'm hungry. Give me a glass of wine."
They saw at once what was the matter. He was out of humour. All their radiant faces fell immediately; and they were silent. Guy, who was nearest to him, poured him out a glass of wine, without a word. Addie drank down the wine. His eyes glanced up wearily from under their lashes; his gestures were nervous and jerky. When Addie was out of humour, they were silent, subduing the sound of their voices and the light in their eyes. Nobody knew what to say. And it cost Constance an effort to ask:
"How were things in Amsterdam?"
"All right."
He answered coldly, as though begging her to ask no more questions about Amsterdam. Nobody else asked anything: he would be sure to tell what there was to tell later. They began to talk among one another in constrained tones. They were sorry that Addie was out of humour, but they did not take it amiss in him. He must be tired; he had had a busy time. Yes, he must be tired. It was not only his collar: his coat also hung limp from his shoulders; his grey-blue eyes were dull. Oh, how serious his eyes had become, now that he was a man of twenty-six! How serious his forehead was, with those two wrinkles, above the nose, which seemed to unite with the tawny eyebrows! In face and figure alike he was older than his years, almost too old, as though bowed down with premature cares. He stooped over his plate; and they were all struck by his air of weary exhaustion. What was it that had overstrained him so? He did not speak, but ate on in silence and drank rather more wine than was his wont. Alex looked at him for a long time, with a touch of anxious surprise. And at last, glancing, almost in alarm, at their faces, he suddenly perceived how forced and confused they all were in their attitudes, sitting and staring in front of them or into their plates—even his father, even his mother—and he understood that they sat and stared like that because he had not returned in a cheerful mood, after his five days' absence. He had a feeling of remorse, did violence to his fatigue and his ill-humour, steadied his nerves. He smiled—a tired smile—at his mother; asked his wife:
"How are the children, Mathilde?"
It was at once evident to them all, from his tone of addressing Mathilde, that he was making an effort and no longer wished to be out of humour and tired. They were thankful that he was making this obvious effort, because, with Addie gloomy, a gloom fell over all. Even Alex seemed to breathe again. And they could none of them bear it when Mathilde just answered, coolly:
"All right."
Nevertheless his endeavour succeeded. He now spoke to his father; and Van der Welcke answered with a jest. There was a laugh at last; Gerdy led the outburst, about nothing; the voices broke into a hum....
After dinner, Addie went upstairs; and, when he had changed his things, he found Mathilde in her own sitting-room. Constant and Jetje had gone to bed. Out of doors, the night seemed to be wilder and stormier than ever; and the house creaked, the windows rattled. Mathilde sat staring before her, her ears filled with the sounds of the night. Nevertheless she heard her husband come in; but she did not move.
"Tilly...."
There was now an undoubted tenderness in his voice, in his deep, earnest voice. She was certainly very fond of him, she thought, if only he did not neglect her. She just raised her head towards him, sideways. She was a handsome woman; and her young, healthy blood seemed to give her a complexion of milk and roses. Her features were not delicate, but they were pure; her eyes were gold-grey and large, clear and bright; her hair had a natural wave in it and was almost too heavily coiled. Beneath her black silk blouse her bust was heavy, with a low breast and a naturally wide waist too tightly laced. She had the full, spacious form of a young and healthy woman and lacked all the morbid distinction of finer breeding. Her eyes seemed to stare at a vision of physical delight; her lips seemed ready to salute that delight; the grip of her large hands was greedy and decisive. Her foot, in its substantial shoe, was large, too large for a woman of fashion. Nor was she that: she was rather a woman of health. She had no delicacy of wit: she had rather common sense; and the only morbid part of her intelligence was an irrepressible vanity. She had no delicate taste: she wore a simple black blouse and a black skirt, both from Brussels; and yet there was a coarse line and a heavy fold in both. The brilliant on her finger gleamed insolently, white and hard. It was very strange, but she saw this herself. Her mamma-in-law had given her that brilliant during her engagement, out of her own jewels, because she had once admired the ring on Constance's finger, where the stone seemed to throw out sparks of fire....
"Tilly...."
She smiled at him now, made him come and sit beside her. Twenty-six years of age, a young husband and father, he looked quite ten years older, had aged more particularly, she thought, during the three years of his marriage. Now, however, that he had washed and changed, now that he no longer looked tired and wet, now that he was laughing under his fair moustache, now that his grey-blue eyes were filled with laughing kindness, now his aging no longer struck her so much; and she knew him again and he was hers again, in this one moment when her husband and she were alone....
"Tell me," he said. "How have you been getting on ... these five days?"
She felt a kindly affection for him; and she loved this in him. She let her hand remain in his two hands; she allowed him to kiss her and returned his kiss. And she answered lazily, with a movement of her shoulders:
"How have I been getting on? Oh, as usual!..."
"You mean, all right?"
"Yes, quite all right."
"I believe, Tilly...."
"What?"
"That you're telling a fib. Your voice is very abrupt."
She shrugged her shoulders and gave her little laugh, which meant that she couldn't help it.
"You ought to talk candidly to me for once," he said.
"Yes," she answered; and her tone was more intimate. "We don't do that too often."
"I'm very busy sometimes."
"You're always busy. Why did you have to go to Amsterdam suddenly? I hardly know the reason."
"It was for Alex."
"And did you succeed?"
"Possibly."
"Oh, I'm not asking to know!" she said, at once, in a tone of piqued indifference which he appeared not to notice.
"I have been thinking things over, Tilly...."
"Thinking things over? When?"
"At Amsterdam."
"I thought you were so busy!"
"I used to think in my room, in the evenings. About you."
"About me?"
"Yes. Tell me, wouldn't you rather have your own house? You might feel happier if you had a home of your own."
She was silent.
"Well, what do you say?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Of course I would rather have a home of my own. I told you so at once ... when we married."
"Yes, but at that time...."
"Well?"
"I didn't see it so clearly ... that you would not be happy in this house."
"Oh ... happy? I don't know."
"You're not happy here."
"I would certainly rather have my own house ... at the Hague."
"At the Hague. Very well. But, if we move to the Hague, Tilly, we shall have to be very economical."
"Very economical?"
"Well, of course! I'm not making much yet."
"And you're always busy!"
"Yes...."
"You have patients here, at Driebergen, and all around."
"Yes," he said, with a laugh, "but they don't pay me."
"No."
"Why not?"
He shrugged his shoulders:
"Because they can't."
She shrugged her shoulders also:
"It's very noble of you, Addie.... But we have to live too."
"Yes. But don't we live?"
"If we moved to the Hague, though ...?"
"We should have to be very economical."
"You're well off."
"I'm not well off.... Tilly, you know I'm not. Papa has a pretty considerable fortune. But he has a good many calls...."
"Calls!... why, you're his only son!"
"He might give us an allowance ... until I was making more money.... But even then we should have to be economical ... and live in a very small house."
She clasped her large, white hands:
"I'm sick of economy," she said, coarsely, "sick and tired of poverty. I've never had anything in my life but poverty, decent, genteel poverty. I would rather be a beggar, simply; I'd rather be a poor girl in the street than go through decent, genteel poverty again."
"It wouldn't be so bad as all that."
"Not so bad, perhaps, but still a small house, with one servant, and seeing how far a pound of meat will go and watching every half-penny that the servant spends. No, thank you, it's not good enough."
"Then, Tilly...."
"What then?"
"Then I see no chance ... of moving to the Hague."
"Well," she said in her dull tone of piqued indifference, "then let's stay here."
"But you're not happy here."
"Oh, what does my happiness matter?"
"I should like to see you happy."
"Why, you no longer love me!"
"I do love you, Tilly, very much."
"No, you don't love me. How could you love me? Do you think I don't see it? You love all of them here, all your relations: you don't love me. You hardly love your children."
"Tilly!"
"No, you hardly love your own children."
"Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. Because I'm fond of Uncle Gerrit's children, is that any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you ... and of Stan and little Jet?"
She had risen, tremulously. She looked into his grave eyes, which gazed at her long and almost sorrowfully, from under his heavily-knitted, tawny eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with reproaches; but on the contrary she threw herself on his breast, with her arms around his neck:
"Tell me that you love me!" she cried, with a great sob.
"I love you, Tilly, you know I love you."
He kissed her. But she heard it through his voice, she felt it through his kiss: he no longer loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty of it poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held him away from her for a moment, with her hand against his shoulders. She stared at him.... He also looked at her, with his sorrowful eyes, and he spoke, but she did not hear what.... Then she heard him say:
"Are you coming downstairs, Tilly? They will be wondering what's become of us!"
"No," she said, calmly. "I have a headache and I'm going to bed."
"Won't you come down?"
"No."
"Do, Tilly! Please come down with me. I shall be so glad if you will."
"I'd rather not," she said, softly and calmly. "I really have a headache ... and I'm going to bed."
She looked at him gravely, for one more moment, and he also looked at her, very gravely and very sorrowfully. But their souls did not come into contact. She kissed him first:
"Good-night," she said, softly.
He said nothing more, but he returned her kiss, very fondly. Then he left the room; and she heard his steps creaking softly on the stairs.
"Dear God," he thought, "how am I to find her! How am I to find her again!..."
[1]Gertrude, Gertie.
[1]Gertrude, Gertie.
Addie remained in the drawing-room for only a second:
"I'll go and keep Papa company for a bit," he said.
And he went and looked up his father in his room, where Van der Welcke always smoked his three or four cigarettes after dinner, alone.
"Daddy, am I disturbing you?"
"Disturbing me, my dear fellow? Do you imagine that you ever disturb me? No, you never disturb me.... At least, I can count the times when you have disturbed me."
"But I've come to disturb you this time...."
"Well, that's a bit of luck."
"And have a talk with you."
"Good. That doesn't happen often."
Addie knitted his brows, which gave him an expression of sadness:
"Don't be satirical, Father. How can I help it?"
"I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept the inevitable. I've been accepting it now for five days. After dinner I would come up here quietly and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of those five days, two have been windy and three have been stormy. And I sat here calmly and listened to it all."
"And ...?"
"And ... that's all. Life's an insipid business; and the older I grow the more insipid I find it. I don't philosophize about it very much. I never did, you know.... But I do sometimes think, nowadays, what a rotten thing life is, with all its changes. At least, I should have been glad to let it remain as it was...."
"How, Daddy?"
"As it used to be when you were a small boy. I have gradually come to lose you entirely ... and I have so little, apart from you."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Yes, I have gradually come to lose you entirely.... In the old days, when you were a schoolboy ... then you belonged to me. Then came your time at college: that took a bit of you from me. Your eighteen months in the hospitals at Amsterdam: I never saw you. Your year, after that, in Vienna: I never saw you. I was lucky if I got a letter now and again. Then you came back, took your degree. And then ... then you went and got married."
"And we have always remained with you."
"And every year I lost a bit more of you. You no longer belong to me. There was a time when I used to share you with Mamma; and you remember that I used to find that pretty hard occasionally. But now I share you ... with all the world."
"Not with all the world, Daddy."
"Well, with half the world then. With your wife, with Aunt Adeline and your nine adopted children, with all your outside interests."
"Those are my patients."
"You have a great many of them ... for a young doctor. And...."
"Well, Daddy?"
"Nothing, old boy. I only wanted to give you a piece of advice; but who amIto adviseyou?"
"Why not, Daddy?"
"I don't count."
"Now then!"
"I never have counted. You used to manage me; and I just did what you told me to."
"Give me your advice now. Haven't we always been pals?"
"Yes, but you were the one with the head."
"There's not much head about me just now. Give me your advice, Daddy."
"You won't take it from me."
"Out with it, all the same!"
"Well, my boy, listen to me: keep something of your life for yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You're giving it all away. I don't believe it can be done. I believe a man to stand as much in need of a healthy egoism as of bread and water."
"I should say that I was egoist enough."
"No, you're not. You keep nothing for yourself. You'll think it funny of me thatIshould talk to you like this; but, you see, the older I grow and the more cigarettes I smoke the more I notice that...."
"That what?"
"That both your parents have never—considering your character—taken yourownhappiness into account: Mamma no more than I."
"I don't agree with you."
"It is so, all the same. The years which you spent as a child between your two parents made you an altruist and made your altruism run away with you."
Addie smiled and gazed at his father.
"Well? What are you looking at me for?"
"I'm looking at you, Father ... because I'm amused to see you so utterly wide of the mark."
"Why?"
"I may have had a touch of altruism in me, but of late years...."
"What?"
"I have thought a great deal of myself. When I got married ... I was seeking my own happiness. I wanted to find happiness for myself in my wife and children, for my own self ... and hang the rest!"
"Ah, was that your idea? Well, it was a healthy idea too."
"A healthy idea, wasn't it? So you were wide of the mark, Daddy. I wanted a wife who belonged to me, children who belonged to me: all forming one great happiness for myself."
Van der Welcke wreathed himself in clouds of smoke.
"So you see, Daddy, the advice which you gave me I followed of my own accord."
"Yes, old boy, I see."
"That's so, isn't it?"
"Yes. Well, that's all right, then."
"I'm glad to have had a talk with you. But now I must talk not about myself but about something else."
"Of course. You can never talk for more than two seconds about yourself. However, you're right, I know now; and you had already followed my advice ... of your own accord. What else did you want to talk about?"
"Daddy, I've been to Amsterdam."
"For Alex. Well, is that settled ... about the Merchants' School?"
"Yes, he can go up for his examination. But afterwards...."
"Well?"
"I went to Haarlem. Near Haarlem."
"What took you there?"
"Someone sent for me."
"A patient?"
"A dying man."
"Who?"
Suddenly, from the look in Addie's face, Van der Welcke understood. He went very pale, rose from his chair and stared in consternation into his son's sad eyes:
"Addie!" he exclaimed, in a hoarse voice. "Addie, tell me what you mean! I had no idea ... that you knew anyone near Haarlem! I didn't know ... that you had a patient there!"
He seemed to be trying to deceive himself with his own words, for he already understood. And Addie knew by his father's eyes and his father's voice that he understood; and, speaking slowly, in a gentle voice, Addie explained, as though the name had already been mentioned between them:
"Six days ago ... I received a letter ... written in his own hand, a clear, firm hand.... The letter was quite short: here it is."
He felt for his pocket-book, took out the letter and handed it to his father. Van der Welcke read:
"Dear Sir,"Though I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I should consider it a great privilege if I might see you and speak to you here at an early date. I hope that you will not refuse the request of a very old man, whose days are drawing to an end."Yours sincerely,"De Staffelaer."
"Dear Sir,
"Though I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I should consider it a great privilege if I might see you and speak to you here at an early date. I hope that you will not refuse the request of a very old man, whose days are drawing to an end.
"Yours sincerely,
"De Staffelaer."
Addie rose, for his father was shaking all over; the letter was fluttering in his fingers.
"Daddy, pull yourself together."
"Addie, Addie, tell me,didyou see him?"
"Yes, I saw him. I was with him twice."
"And ... and is he dying?"
"He's dead. He died this morning."
"He's dead?"
"Yes, Daddy, he's dead."
"Did you ... did you speak to him?"
"Yes ... I spoke to him. He was very clear in his head: a clear-headed old man, for all his ninety-two years. When I arrived, he pressed my hand very kindly and nicely, made me sit beside his chair. He was sitting up, in his chair. That's how he died, in his chair, passing away very peacefully. He told me that he had wanted to see me ... because I was the son ... of my mother.... He asked after Mamma and made me describe how you two had lived ... at Brussels. I told him about my childhood. I told him of my later life. He took a strange interest in everything ... and then ... then he asked after you, how you had been, how you were ... asked if I was attached to my parents ... asked after my prospects ... asked after my aims in life.... I was afraid of tiring him and tried to get up, but he put out his hand and made me sit down again: 'Go on, go on telling me things,' he said. I told him about the Hague, told him how we were now living at Driebergen. He knew that Uncle Gerrit's children were here. He seemed to have heard about us.... When I went away, he said, 'Doctor, may the old man give you something?' And he handed me three thousand guilders: 'You must have patients, Doctor, who can't afford things,' he said. 'You won't refuse it, will you?' I thought it right to accept the money. It was an obvious pleasure to him to give it me.... Next day—that was this morning, when I went again—he was much less lucid. He just mentioned Mamma; and, when he spoke of her, I could see that he imagined that she was still quite young. Still he understood that I was her son.... Then he gave me his hand and said, 'I am glad, Doctor, to have seen you.... Give my regards to your mother ... the old man's regards ... and to your father too.' Then I went away; and, when I called again in an hour to enquire, the butler told me ... that he was dead...."
Van der Welcke sat in his chair, motionless and bent, with his hands hanging between his knees. He stared in front of him and did not speak. The past, the times of bygone days rose tempestuously before his eyes. It was as though that which had once existed never perished, as though nothing could ever change in what had once begun.... Life slid on unbrokenly.... His eyes saw Rome, an old palace, a lofty room ... Constance fleeing down a back stair, himself standing like a thief in the presence of the old man ... the good old man, who had been like a father to him.... Now ... now the old man was dead.... And Addie had been at his death-bed! And Van der Welcke's son was bringing the dying man's message, his last message, his forgiveness!...
Van der Welcke stared and continued to stare, motionless; and a sob welled up in his breast. His eyes, which were like a child's with their ever youthful glance, filled with great tears. Nevertheless, he controlled himself, remained calm; and all that he said, quite calmly, was:
"Addie, does Mamma.... know?"
"No, Daddy.... I wanted to tell you first ... and to bring you ... the old man's message and...."
"Yes?"
"His forgiveness...."
Van der Welcke's head drooped lower still; and the great tears fell to the floor. Addie now rose and went up to his father:
"Daddy...."
"My boy ... my boy!"
"The old man sent you this message: 'Tell your father ... that I forgive him ... and tell your mother so ... too....'"
Addie flung his arm round his father's neck; and Van der Welcke now sobbed on his son's breast. He could restrain himself no longer. He gave one great, loud sob, clutching hold of his own son, like a child.... Had it not always been like that, the child the consoler of his father? The son now his mother's consoler?
The emotion lasted but a moment, because of the calmness of older years; but it was a moment full as the whole soul and the whole life of a small being. The older man felt all his soul, saw all his small life. Wasthatcoming for him: forgiveness? Was it coming to him through his son? Because of his son, perhaps ... mysteriously, for some mysterious law and mystic reason?... He felt it ... as an enlightening surprise ... though he merely said, after a pause:
"I'm glad, Addie ... that you went. And now you must tell ... Mamma."
"I'll tell her this very evening, Father."
"This evening?"
"Yes, I can't wait any longer. Those last words ... are lying like a weight ... on my heart: I must hand them on...."
"To Mamma also...."
"To feel relieved...."
"Then go to her," said Van der Welcke, very calmly.
And he remained sitting in his chair. His fingers mechanically rolled a fresh cigarette. But in his eyes, which had always remained young, there was seen a faint inflexion, of surprise, as though for the first time they had looked into the deeper life. His son kissed him, gently, went away, closed the door. And Van der Welcke's fingers continued to fumble with a newly-rolled cigarette. He forgot to light it. He stared in front of him....
Outside the house the wind blew moaning along the walls and drew its tapping fingers along every window, as along a vast keyboard....
Forgiveness, the very possibility of it, whirled before his staring eyes....
When Addie came downstairs he met Constance. A gas-jet was burning with a small flame in the brown dusk of the oak wainscoting. She was obviously tired:
"I am going to my room," she said.
"I was looking for you, Mummy."
"Come along with me then."
"Perhaps you're tired, perhaps you want to rest ... and sleep."
"I can rest as well when you are with me as when I am alone. Come."
She put out her hand, took his and drew him gently up the stairs. She turned up the gas in her sitting-room. She changed quickly into a tea-gown; and he thought that he would not speak to her that evening, because she really seemed very weary.... While she was busy in her dressing-room, he looked round him and felt the years of his boyhood. The room was so exact a copy of the little drawing-room in the Kerkhoflaan that the past always came back to him here. And it brought with it the strange melancholy of all things that had been and no longer were....
"Hark how it's blowing!" she said. "It reminds me...."
"Of what, Mamma?"
"Of an evening, more than ten years ago, at the Hague. It was after the death of Grandmamma van der Welcke. I had returned from here, from the room which is now Papa's bedroom. I had been to Grandmamma ... and it was stormy weather, like to-day, and, when I got home, I was fanciful and frightened: the wind seemed to me so gigantic and I ... I was so small.... Then you came home ... and I was so frightened ... I crept into your arms ... I looked into your eyes, Addie.... In those days, it was very strange, they changed colour, they turned grey.... Now they are sometimes quite dark-grey, but sometimes I see a gleam of blue in them. I used to feel so sorry ... that they changed colour.... Do you remember? It was not long before Uncle Gerrit died.... Oh, how frightened I felt ... for days and weeks before!..."
"And why are you thinking of those days, Mammy darling?"
"I don't know why. Perhaps only because it's blowing.... How small our country is by the sea!... It's always blowing, always blowing.... One would think that everything that happens is blown to us, across the sea, and comes down upon us, in heavy showers of rain...."
He smiled.
"Oh, my boy, sometimes I feel so terribly heavy-hearted, without knowing why!..."
"Is it the house?"
"The house? No, no, it's not the house."
"Don't you like the house even now?"
"Oh, yes ... I'm pretty used to the house!"
"Is it the wind, the rain?"
"Perhaps both.... But haven't I known them for years?"
"Then what is it that makes you heavy-hearted?"
"I don't know."
"Come here, to me...."
"Where, my boy?"
"On my knees, in my arms...."
She sat down on his knees and smiled, sadly:
"It's an age...."
"What?"
"Since I sat on your knee like this.... Do you remember? Do you remember? When you were quite a boy ... and I felt frightened ... I used to creep up to your little study and creep into your arms and look into your blue eyes.... I never do that now."
He clasped his arms round her:
"Then do it again. There, you're doing it now.... My lap's bigger now.... My eyes have changed colour...."
"Everything, everything has changed!"
"Has everything changed?"
"Yes ... I've lost you!"
"Mamma!"
"I have lost you.... Hush, dear, it was bound to come!... Does a son belong to his parents?... Does a son belong to his mother?... A son belongs to everybody and everything ... but not to his parents, not to his mother.... It is a cruel law, but it is a law...."
"You're regretting the past ... and there was not so much peace and quiet in the past, Mummie.... Do you remember, do you remember ... how you used to be ... you and poor Father?... Now everything is much calmer ... everything has smoothed down so ... because life has gone on."
"Yes, life has gone on.... I had you ... and I have lost you!...."
She was sobbing on his shoulder.
"Mamma!"
"Dear, it was bound to be! Didn't I consider ... that it would be so ... years and years ago?... When you were a little boy, I often used to think, 'I've got him now ... but one day I shall lose him irrevocably?' Now it has come. ... I must accept it with resignation...."
"But am I not living with you all? Have I ever been away ... except to college ... and sometimes on business?"
"Dear, it's not that. It's the losing each other, the losing each other ... out of each other's souls...."
"But it's not that."
"That's just what it is.... And it's bound to be so, dear.... Only, because I no longer feel any part of you in my soul, I no longer know anything about you.... I have known nothing about you for ages.... I see you going and coming—it's the patients, it's the children, occupying you ... in turns—but what do I know, what do I know about you?... It has become like that gradually ... and since ... since you got married, it has become irrevocable."
"Mamma...."
"I oughtn't to talk like this, dear. I mustn't. And I should be able to overcome this melancholy, if I knew ... that you were happy in yourself...."
"Why should you doubt it?"
"I don't know. There's something about you...."
"Mother," he said, "how strange it is that you and Father...."
"Well?"
"Have never really found each other! You so often think the same things."
"Did Papa also think ...?"
"Just now ... almost the same as you."
"We have learnt to bear with each other, darling."
"But you have never found each other," he said, faintly; and his voice broke.
She looked at him; she understood that he too had not found his wife. She saw it: he was not happy in himself. A sword seemed suddenly to cut through her soul; and she was filled with self-reproach as from a well. Was it not all her fault, that her son was not happy now?... Was it not the result of his childhood, the result of his up-bringing?... The melancholy that had come after the excessive earnestness of his first youth ... was it not her fault?
But she merely answered his words mechanically:
"No," she said, "we have never found each other."
He would have wished to tell her now ... about his journey, about the old man, who had died, over there, near Haarlem. But he could not; a feeling of discouragement prevented him. And they remained sitting without speaking, close together, with her hand in his. After his father, after his mother had both, so soon after each other, spoken to him of his own happiness ... now that feeling of discouragement prevented him, because he saw life enveloping in clouds of darkness at his feet ... black darkness out of an abyss ... so that he did not know whither the first steps would lead him.... Black darkness and emptiness ... because he no longer knew, no longer knew what it would be best to say and do.... He could no longer speak now of the old man who had died yonder, who had sent for him to tell him that he forgave the two of them—his father, his mother—who had once injured him: he could not do it. Whereas, at the time of his father's words, the black darkness had only whirled in front of him, now that his mother, so strangely, was saying the same to him ... it had suddenly become an abyss ... pitch-dark ... because he no longer knew anything.... He no longer possessed the instinctive knowledge by which he must tread his path, which, while still so very young, he thought that he knew how to tread in clear self-consciousness of a clear soul that felt its own vocation. Oh, how often of late years had he no longer known! He no longer knew what was right to do, because, whatever he had done of late years, the heaviness had sunk within him, as an insufficiency, giving him that feeling of discouragement.... He had felt that discouragement by the bedside of his needy patients.... He had felt that discouragement in between his cares for Uncle Gerrit's children.... He had felt that discouragement when he was with his wife, with his own children....
Oh, world of feeling born just of the emptiness of self-insufficiency, because self, alas, was never sufficient, because something was always lacking and he did not know what!... And, when this came over him, this night of sudden chaos, the word died on his lips, the movement on his fingers, the deed on his will.... Oh, world of darkness, which then suddenly spread like the expanse of clouds outside over all the clear sky of himself!... He knew he wanted what was right; and yet the insufficiency swelled up.... He know his powers of alleviation and consolation; and yet it was the night without a smile ... as now, when he sat with his hand in his mother's, with no words after their first, save that she shuddered and said:
"Hark ... hark how the wind is blowing!..."
He drew her to him, until her head sank on his shoulder, and they remained like that, in the night.
The gale outside was like a living immensity, a vast soul raging with world-suffering, thousand-voiced and thousand-winged, and under its raging agony, which filled all the air above the land, the house that contained the life of them all was small as some tiny casket....
And that night he was unable to tell her....
Now at last, after days, he was himself again! Alone, all alone, in the night, in his study, while everyone in the house slept, while only the night itself was awake: the night and the immense wind tormenting itself and struggling, raging and tearing round the house. Now at last he was alone and himself again, after Amsterdam and after Haarlem, after the troubles and comings and goings, the excitement—needy patients, visited by stealth; the Merchants' School; the old man, the old man especially!—and, tired as he was, yet he could not make up his mind for bed. In the study which was now getting dusky-brown to his eyes in the light of the lamp, he sat in the low leather chair; and his head wearily drooped on to his hand. Now that he had no more need for action, waves of indeterminate darkness surged and floated all around and within him, bearing on their crests the mood of self-insufficiency. No one else knew him as he now knew and felt himself: not his parents, not his wife, not one of Uncle Gerrit's children, not one of his needy patients, who only saw him composed and steady of nerve, a little sombre-eyed, but so four-square and firm, so calm and confident in his knowledge, always sure what would be good for all of them, who were ill and wretched.... No one knew him as he was now, weighed down with such despondency in his leather chair; and all who saw him four-square and firm, calm and confident in his knowledge, would never have believed that he knew nothing at all ... for himself. Oh, however much he might know for others, with that almost mystic knowledge which healed as though by a suggestive force deep down within himself, however much he might know what was good for their bodies and souls, for himself he knew nothing, least of all for his soul!... To them his young life seemed to move from one goal to another, always certain of itself through the windings of its course; yet that was all on the surface; and he knew nothing of himself!... His own disease was insufficiency; and of recent years he had felt it swelling within him fuller and fuller, eating into him deeper and deeper....
He saw himself again as a child—his first recollection—between his two parents, his father taking him from his mother's lap, his mother taking him from his father's arms; and amid the unconsciousness of his earliest childhood he had always felt the jarring and jealousy between them. Very soon his blood made him speak, that calm unfevered Dutch blood; and his unfevered Dutch nature could be seen in his serious eyes; from the first his Dutch seriousness and steadying composure had been able to find, if not always words, at least sounds of consoling reconciliation, of riper tenderness for that mother, who hugged him in her arms, for that father, whom he came to regard so soon as a bigger and older brother. And this when he was still a little fellow. It had been like that ever since he could remember; from the time when he was a child in the nursery, stroking Mother's tearful eyes and bringing a laugh to Father's pouting mouth; and, as he grew older and bigger, he remembered, it had always been like that: he knew himself to have been their comfort.... It was small wonder that, when still quite young, he had begun to think of the comfort that he was and had then known for certain that he was their comfort.... He knew it then, as child and boy—no longer in unconsciousness but in assured, unshakable knowledge—and then it had become his destiny. So very early it had dawned on his consciousness and afterwards glittered before his eyes:
"I must help them, I must be to him and to her what is dear to them and what comforts them."
So naturally had he taken that destiny upon his young shoulders that it never became too heavy for him; and there had grown up with him an inclination to comfort and alleviate those who were not quite so near to him. Quite naturally he had spread his wing over all Uncle Gerrit's children, to care for them, to bring them up. Quite naturally, he sought what he could find to alleviate and comfort, whom he could cure, whom he could care for ... and this farther still from him, not close to his home, but in outlying villages and distant towns.... Thus had his nature grown and thus did he act, naturally, in obedience to his nature.... But the conflict between his parents, coming immediately, in the first, unconscious years of childhood, had made his tender nerves tremble with an incessant thrill, like a stringed instrument that is never silent.... And under the calm, earnest glance, under the laugh of comfort or composure, under the sturdy breadth of his young and manly strength, the strings had always vibrated and never consented to betray themselves.... They had betrayed themselves once, once only, when his very earliest childish pain had given him a violent shock, in a despair too great to be borne.... But immediately afterwards he had known within himself that he must be strong to overcome the cruelties of life.... Since then the cruelties had blown against him, like piercing winds ... without causing the sensitive strings to vibrate visibly or audibly to others.... Oh, did he not remember that suffering of his childish soul when he fancied that all his childish love had been wasted, because his parents in despite of it were going to separate, each grasping at the happiness that had smiled to him!... no one had seen that suffering and vibration. After the first suffering, no one had seen anything. And it was as if the too-great sensitiveness of the ever-vibrant strings had hardened in the robust young years of manliness; the god had stood before him so sharply defined: yonder!... Yonder!...
He had felt young and robust; and that too-sensitive vibration had only developed his soul mystically, so that it should heal, wherever it directed its magic.... It had been very strange to him; but just with the medical studies, which should have made him a materialist, there had developed within him a conscious mysticism, enquiring into the essence of life, which the medical books failed to teach him. When he discussed it with his student friends, they answered with the scoff of growing positivism, the barren philosophy which clings to most men from their medical studies, because they ask only for the visible manifestations of the life which it is their business to tend and not for the invisible source, the holy well of life, whence everything flows in a radiance that grows gradually dim ... until the first radiance is no longer visible....
So it had happened with his student friends; and theirs had become the common materialistic doctor's career. His eyes had always been set on the essence of life, the source of the radiant spring.... And, with his increase in practical science and positive knowledge, the strange, mystic certainty had increased in him, the certainty that he was able to heal if he wished ... that he could heal through sheer force of will.... It was not a matter for discussion, it was in him, a great instinctive knowledge.... Oh, that glorious certainty, which had shone out before him so early, sending its rays abroad.... Since he had felt it, very early, so clear and certain in himself, he no longer spoke about it; at most there was a very rare word to his mother, an occasional word to his father; but for the rest he would not touch his secret power with words: they were breath to dim a mirror's lustre!
Oh, why had he not this knowledge for himself! Why, of late years, had he sunk deeper and deeper in the vagueness of that self-insufficiency! Why was the balance disturbed, why did he feel a consciousness of blame welling within him!
He now sat on wearily; and, though everyone in the house was in bed, though the blowing wind, gigantic and plaintive, moaned up over distant heaths and slid along the walls and windows with its sombre, swelling howl, he could not make up his mind to go to bed, as though he knew that, if he did, he would not sleep. And, as if to know for himself how the discouragement could have overmastered him, he dived back into his memories, saw himself a boy again, healthy, strong and composed, loving his Dutch horizons and Dutch skies, with the deep, growing conviction that he had within himself the secret power which he could pour forth to heal all who suffered in body or in nervous soul.... He saw once more the disappointment of his parents, especially Papa, and of Grandmamma, because he would not enter the diplomatic service, because he wanted to become a doctor.... But he had carried his wish, backed up by Mamma, who seemed to understand him.... His rapid power of study, which allowed him to attain in feverish haste the aim which he saw so close before his eyes: matriculating out of the fifth class at school; putting in a short time at Heidelberg before he went to Leiden: he was so very young, only seventeen; passing his first examination in a year, his second in eighteen months, taking three intermediate courses in the next five years, during which period he also acquired practical experience with a demonstrator at Vienna; and lastly taking his degree at the age of twenty-six. His parents rejoiced when, after those nine years at the university and abroad, he settled down with them at Driebergen, when they had him back in their house, where, despite the presence of all Uncle Gerrit's children, he had left a feeling of emptiness.... A short spell of the tenderness of living with them all again; and his love for mankind had developed so quickly, making him find his patients inevitably among the poorest of the rural population, or sometimes in the villages, or even at Utrecht or Amsterdam.... He never spoke about them, maintaining an earnest silence about the things which he did, even as he was silent about the secret force which he so certainly knew himself to possess.... Never had he spoken to anybody over that poor little girl, a child of twelve, the daughter of two wretched labourers, a cripple since the age of five, whom, with the veriest trifle of material assistance, but more particularly through his sure power of will, he had gradually helped to raise herself from her bed of straw, enabled to move herself about, until she could now walk on her frail and yielding little legs.... He might have been ashamed of a cure so incredible, for he had never talked about it, not even to his mother, not even to his father....
Oh, it lasted such a short time, the tenderness of that time when he lived with them all again, with his parents and the others!... When he reflected upon the strange double projection of his soul, when he was meeting the girl, who was now his wife, at the Hague: meeting her just now and again. A strange projection one of them? Perhaps not, after all; but, because of the stormy night wind, sombrely sending its howl over the sombre heaths, he was not able ... to read his own thoughts plainly.... Mathilde! The few meetings, at the Hague; then that feeling, when he chose her, of having been irresistibly compelled; and, combined with a vague wonder within himself, the pride also of introducing that good-looking and healthy young woman into his family.... He was proud that she did not belong to their class, especially on her mother's side, because it gave her an opportunity of triumphing over their arbitrary divisions; proud too that she was healthy, with her complexion of milk and roses, and above all did not suffer from "nerves," that all too common complaint among them all.... But they had not shared his pride; and after his marriage, some hint of antagonism seemed inevitably to arise between him and his father; his mother, too, for all the liberalism that had come to her late in life, remained antipathetic to this girl, whose gait and voice, whose movements and utterance all suggested a different environment from that to which Constance was accustomed; it was as if Aunt Adeline, Emilie, Uncle Gerrit's children, all their big household, had been unable to receive Mathilde in their midst without a certain supercilious mistrust.... They could none of them understand why he had married this woman.... And he had not failed to see how they always stirred themselves to be gentle and amiable towards her—because, when all was said and done, shewashis wife—stirred themselves especially not to let her see that they all thought her notquite, really notquite.... Her footfall was heavy, her voice not high-pitched enough; in everything that she did or said they marked that sometimes infinitesimal difference which betrays a difference of station. He had not failed to see it, but his pride had lain low and had never allowed them to notice that he saw it, because he thought it so small of them, so small-souled, that they could not blind themselves to that infinitesimal difference between Mathilde and themselves, yes, because he considered even their assiduous amiability small-souled. They showed it her so graciously sometimes, priding themselves, all of them, willy-nilly, upon their greater native and acquired distinction, all thinking themselves finer and better and higher than his wife, whom nevertheless they did not wish to wound.... He saw this last even in his mother, in the boys, in Adeletje and in Gerdy—though Gerdy never succeeded—and he really preferred the undisguised aversion of little Klaasje, who clearly showed that she could not bear Mathilde....
And he now saw that, in marrying this woman, who was not quite of their class, he had wanted to display pride in particular against the arbitrariness of those whom he called his people—his parents, his family—he had wanted to show that there was no longer any distinction of class, especially no distinction in those minor shades of class. If they were going to think about distinctions, she had the distinction of health ... while his own people were all sick, in body and soul, not, it might be, suffering severely, but all affected or tainted with those "nerves" of their time.... Perhaps his pride had just contained a desire to place his wife, Mathilde, before them as an example:
"Look here now, here's a woman who is healthy and simple."
For that was how he looked upon her soul and body. Because he looked upon her thus, he had felt for her the love that had driven him towards her, his soul taking that direction of positivism and materialism which, after his student days, had at that moment mastered the mysticism of his soul.... For he had known then, those moments in which he—tired of his text-books or hardened in the operating-room—had felt the mysticism within him temporarily fading; and it was especially during those intervals of materialism that the young doctor had experienced Mathilde's attraction, the attraction of a healthy, pink-and-white woman who would give him healthy children. At such moments he saw the world, all mankind, renewed by careful selection; the vigorous life-force of the future bursting into luxuriant rose-blossoms which would overwhelm the sickly lilies of these days of "nerves...." When, afterwards, the secret forces spoke more loudly within him, then he would suddenly feel himself far removed from his wife, as though he had lost her; and especially in his dark, vague self-insufficiency he lost her entirely, feeling himself nerveless and without power even to return her kisses with any warmth, while his voice in speaking to her remained dull and his grey glance cold, whatever he said and however hard he tried to force himself back into his healthy, positive love for the healthy mother of his two children....
Then he would feel guilty towards her. And the inner conviction of his guilt increased. Was it her fault that he had been able only to give her one half of his soul, that he had it in his power to love her only with the positive half of his nature—however sincere it might be—while he gave her nothing of what worked and moved in him more profoundly and gloriously, the true web and woof of himself? Was it her fault and was he really entitled to take her, if he could not give her more than half of himself, while all that was higher—and he well knew what was higher in him—escaped her and always would escape her?... But often in his black insufficiency, even as now in his weary nocturnal mood, his consciousness of guilt, though it pained him, became suddenly too dreamy and unreal; and he now comforted himself tranquilly:
"She is a simple woman. She has never thought of other than simple and uncomplicated things, has never lived among them; and she will never miss this, all that I do not give her, she will never know the lack of it, because she is simple, because she is simple: a healthy, normal mother, the handsome, healthy mother of my two dear children...."
Then again, tired and undecided to go to bed, he was pricked by his consciousness of guilt, he thought of her unhappy in the house that was dear to him, and he knew that he was incapable to-day—and so often, so often!—of giving her that love, that positive half, that one half of himself.... Sinking and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now listened to the wind howling round the house, the storm that had lasted for days, and he seemed to hear voices that came moaning up over the wide heath, as though the wind were alive, as though the storm were a soul, as though it concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were their one manifestation: souls blowing up again and again, souls which now, in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling panes.... Round about this house, in which his grand-parents had lived so long and in such loneliness, until now life had come to fill all the empty rooms, it suddenly seemed to him as though he heard something of their voices, moaning plaintively through the storm ... accusing him first and then pitying him: the old man's voice, the old woman's voice. But what they moaned he did not understand in the ever shriller howl upon howl that floated despairingly along the swishing trees ... until suddenly the window, fastened only by the latch, blew open with a fierce tug, the Venetian shutter flapped to and slung open again, banging against the wall of the house.... The wind entered and with one breath blew out the lamp. The room now dark, the night luridly visible outside, the window so desperately pulled open took on new outlines.... Adriaan, groping, knocking against the chairs, moved towards the window, seized the flapping, banging shutter, closed it, closed the window, firmly this time, turning the old latch that was stiff with rust.
The rain poured in torrents; the wind moaned and sobbed with sorrowfully entreating voices and tapped its fingers against the trembling panes.
That night he did not sleep, tired as he was. And he kept thinking:
"Am I at fault?"
The old lady was sitting silently at the window—in the grey morning, which seemed spent and weary with the wind out of doors—and her thoughts were following a far course of their own in misty days of long ago. Klaasje came up to her. The child had two heavy books under her arm, bound volumes ofThe GraphicandL'Illustration, and walked bent under them; then she dropped them, clumsily.... Cross with the weight of the books, she beat them angrily, but the hard boards hurt her little hand; and so she decided to drag them to Granny, the naughty books which refused to come: she dragged them by the open bindings which had hurt her so; she tore them a bit, but that was their own fault, because they wouldn't be carried.... Satisfied with her revenge in tearing the books, she closed the bindings contentedly; the books lay at Granny's feet, against her foot-warmer; and now Klaasje dragged up a hassock too, pushed it against Granny's dress and, kneeling on the hassock, asked Granny, in a motherly fashion:
"Granny!... Granny!... Granny like to look at pictures?"
The old woman, with a vague, misty glance, slowly turned her head towards the child, whose fair hair fell loosely round the rather thin, sharp little face, from which the over-bright eyes shone strangely, hard and staring. The voice—"Granny look at pictures?"—rang strangely kind, but too childish for a big girl of twelve, with a maturing figure. It was too maternal towards the old woman:
"Granny!... Granny like to look at pictures?"
The old woman, vaguely, fancied herself at Buitenzorg, in a large white palace among mountains, which stood out against a blue sky, and coco-trees, which waved gently like ostrich-feathers; and she thought that her little daughter Gertrude was kneeling by her and wanting to look at the books with her. Her old mouth wore a little puckered smile; and she put out her hands for the book, which Klaasje held up clumsily. But the old woman was too weak to pull the heavy book on to her lap and it slipped obstinately down her dress to the floor, against the foot-warmer. Klaasje grew angry:
"Naughty books, naughty books!..."
She flew into a temper and struck the books again; but her little hand was hurt and she suddenly began to cry.
"Ssh!... Ssh!..." said Granny, soothingly.
She bent painfully in her big chair and laboriously pulled up the heavy, obstinate book; and Klaasje, with her eyes still wet, pushed up from below, till at last it lay in Grandmamma's lap. Then Klaasje sighed, after the final victory:
"Turn over," she said.
She turned over the heavy, clumsy binding and said:
"Klaasje will explain...."
But the black pictures, the dark portraits held no story for her; and, pointing her finger at the picture or the portrait, she could not make one up, could not find her tongue:
"Turn over, turn over," she repeated.
She was longing for colours, yellow, blue and red; but the pictures contained black, all black stripes and black patches, and she thought them ugly.
"Turn over, turn over, turn over," she kept repeating, excitedly yearning for them to become yellow, blue and red.
The old woman, with her puckered smile, patiently turned over the pictures. For her too they held no story, because they were black and sombre; and she was already seeing colours for herself, the dead-white and deep-blue, the bright, lacquered green of houses, sky and trees in Java. Here, under the sombre oppression of the skies, here, in the sombre pictures, the old woman and the child found nothing to charm them.
Then Klaasje became very angry and dragged the heavy book from Granny's lap and beat it, heedless of the pain, and scolded:
"Ugly books ... ugly, black books!"
"Ssh!... Ssh!" said the old woman soothingly, laying her veined hand on the girl's fair head.
"Build a tower!" said Klaasje, with a gurgle of laughter suddenly beholding a beautiful vision.
She sprang up quickly. On a table in a corner of the room she found a box of dominoes. She brought the box, beaming with delight, but the smooth lid slid out of the box and the dominoes rattled on the floor. Klaasje stamped her foot, but the beautiful vision still shone before her and hurriedly and passionately she scrabbled them into her little pinafore. Then she brought them to Granny, like a harvest, like so much booty, and rattled them down at her feet. With a great effort she again pushed one of the heavy books on to Granny's lap; and the old woman helped her, pulling while Klaasje pushed.
"Build tower!" cried the child.
Granny held the book, held it straight, while Klaasje placed two, three, four pieces on their narrow edges. Upon these she went on building the rickety black-and-white tower.
"A door and two windows," the child explained, lost in her game.
But the tower fell in with a crash.
"Granny mustn't move!" she whimpered.
Balancing the heavy book on Granny's knees, she went on building, hurriedly, so as to get very high.
"Granny mustn't move again.... Tower ... with a wall round it.... Higher ... the tower ... one more stone on the wall ... one more stone on the wall...."
But the wall and the tower came down with a crash.
"Naughty Granny!... Naughty Granny!"
"Ssh!" said the old woman, soothingly.
Addie had entered; and the child, dropping the book and the dominoes, crowed with delight and ran up to him. She called him uncle, not realizing that he was her cousin:
"Uncle Addie!" she cooed.
He opened his arms wide, lifted her a few inches from the floor:
"Look in Uncle Addie's pockets," he said.
"What have you got? What have you got?"
She fumbled in his pockets.
"No, that's Uncle's pocket-book.... No, that's his watch.... Here, look, what's this?"
He now helped her find the little parcel. She tugged hurriedly at the paper and string; and he opened the parcel for her. It was a little kaleidoscope.
"Look through it...."
"Lovely!" said the child, gleefully. "Lovely ... blue, red, yellow!..."
"Now shake it...."
She shook the kaleidoscope: the colours, from a square, changed their figure into a star.
"Green, blue, red!" the child cried.
"Now shake again...."
"Blue and yellow."
"There, what do you say to that?"
"Lovely!... Lovely!..."
She sat down on the floor, suddenly quiet and good, peered and shook the little cylinder, peered and shook it again. In the gaudy star she suddenly beheld a paradise:
"Green, yellow, blue."
Addie relieved Grandmamma of the book, put it down and began to arrange the dominoes in the box.
"It's been blowing," said the old woman, pointing through the window. "There are great branches lying in the garden."