[1]There is a tax on all servants in Holland.
[1]There is a tax on all servants in Holland.
Ernst was still living in his rooms in the Nieuwe Uitleg, surrounded by his collections, surrounded by his hobbies. A man of fifty now, he led a silent, solitary life amid his books, his china, his curiosities; and the landlady looked after him and cooked his meals, because he paid well, paid too much indeed. He saw little of the family because the others really lived as secluded as he did, Paul in his rooms, Dorine at her boarding-house, though she was never satisfied and was constantly changing her boarding-house; and no family-tie drew him to Van Saetzema's house or Karel's. In this way a separation and estrangement had grown up among all of them; the bond between them had perished, now that Mamma was no longer at the Hague to gather them all around her on Sunday evenings in her big house in the Alexander Straat; and Constance, of late years, had often pressed him to come and live at Driebergen. But he obstinately refused; and yet, on the rare occasions when he saw her at the Hague, he would take her hand and sit knee to knee with her, unbosoming himself of all his stored-up discontent with the rooms, the meals, the landlady, that brother of hers: the brother especially, whom he could never stand, the vulgar bounder, as he called him. Constance then felt him to be an aging, always lonely man, who never uttered his thoughts and who, because of this continual silence, bottled up within himself the thousands of words which he now poured forth to her all in one torrent with a timid look, as if he were afraid that the landlady and her brother were standing behind the door, listening. When Constance, at such times, tried to persuade him to move to Driebergen, he shook his head obstinately, as though some part of him had grown fast to that room of his, as though he could not tear himself out of it; and his eyes would glance at his books and his china, as though to say that it was impossible to remove all that. And, because he was calm and no trouble and quiet in his behaviour, she let him alone, because this was what he preferred: to live within himself, among his hobbies, solitary, shy and eccentric. Five years ago, it was true, he had been ill again, had talked to himself for days on end, had wandered about in the Wood. Paul wrote to Constance and she had come over; but Ernst had soon grown quiet again, afraid no doubt that he would have to go back to Nunspeet, afraid of a change of residence, afraid of keepers, of nurses, of the things which he had never been able to forgive any of them, not even Constance. That was years ago, five years ago; and lately Constance and Addie too had never seen Ernst other than calm and peaceful, though a good deal of strange and silent brooding seemed to lurk behind the silent cunning of his dark, staring eyes. But then, months and months would again pass without their seeing him, without their hearing of him; they were all accustomed to his strangeness; and the months would drag past without the threatened crisis coming. No, nothing came, even though the man was strange, though he did talk to himself, though he was full of bottled-up grievances; and, when they saw him again after a lapse of months, they were struck by a certain artistic method in his rooms with their beautiful warm colouring, struck by some new arrangement of the furniture, by some new purchase; and he, as though conscious that he was on trial, would talk almost normally, terrified lest they should drag him from his rooms, to which he was attached even though the landlady and her brother always stood spying behind the door....
Constance, feeling suddenly upset and filled with self-reproach at neglecting Ernst, went to the Hague with Addie the day after Adolphine's visit; and the two of them arrived unexpected in the Nieuwe Uitleg.
"Meneer is out," said the landlady.
"In this rain?" asked Constance.
"Yes, ma'am, he went out early this morning."
"How has he been lately?"
"Pretty well, ma'am. As usual. Meneer is always odd, you know, but he is not troublesome. He is fairly well."
"Not like ...?"
"Some years ago? No, ma'am. Meneer has been talking to himself rather more of late, but that's all. Will you wait for him?"
"Yes."
"He is sure to be back by twelve o'clock or so. He is very regular in his habits. Won't you come upstairs?"
Constance and Addie went upstairs and waited in Ernst's room.
"Poor fellow, poor fellow!" said Constance, with emotion.
She did not know what was the matter with her, but she felt full of self-reproach. Oh, were they not leaving him too much alone, sunk in his solitude? How she wished that she could coax him to go back with her to Driebergen and to live there, not far from them, in a little villa, with some people who were in the habit of looking after invalids! Oh, not in their own house, not in their own house! She would never have dared suggest that to Van der Welcke; nor had Addie ever proposed it. No, not at home, not at home, but somewhere near, so that she could see him at any moment and not worry herself with the idea of his suddenly having a nervous breakdown with no one by him to take his piteous soul-sickness to heart.
And, as she sat thinking, she looked around her and was struck by the manner in which the eerie lines of the old porcelain and new pottery curved against the sombre hangings and furniture. It was very strange, stranger than she had ever noticed. The setting enhanced the eeriness of it all. As the years passed, the vases had become more and more of a disease, blossoming in eerie lines and glowing glaze like some vicious orchid, high against the walls, rising to the ceiling, in a riot of exotic forms, like a vegetation reaching up, stretching up, stretching up necks and hands with the necks and handles of the vases, as though trying to rise higher and higher beyond the grasp of profane mortals.
"Why does Ernst put his vases so high up?" Constance wondered, as she looked round the room.
Suddenly he entered. The landlady below must have told him that his sister and his nephew, the young doctor, were upstairs, for the movement with which he turned the door-handle was abrupt, his glance as he stood and looked from the one to the other was laden with suspicion and his voice trembled violently as he asked:
"What are you here for?"
He stood before them an old, trembling man. His neglected clothes hung in old, slack folds about his angular limbs; his hair already almost entirely grey, hung long and lank around his lean, trembling features and dark, staring eyes, which looked with a martyred glance from the one to the other. And yet, however neglected and soul-sick this trembling man might be, who looked an old, old man though he was not more than fifty, a gleam of intelligence shone deep down in his suspicious glance; and his long, lean fingers were those of an artist: impotent to paint or model, in lime, colour, wood or sound, the fluttering, ever-present dream of a beauty only just divined.
They both strove to reassure him, said that they happened to be at the Hague and so had come to look him up; and, after the first shock, he really did not strike them as strange or more ill than usual. Suddenly even a ray of sympathy seemed to shoot through him and he sat down between them, took their hands and delivered himself of his complaint:
"Hush! They're always listening behind the door, the brutes!" he whispered, timidly. "The landlady and her brother! I can't call my soul my own; they're always spying.... When I'm undressing, when I go to bed, when I have my meals ... they're always spying. I can hear them grinning.... They're standing there now, to hear if we're talking about them.... And, when I open the door, they're gone in a moment ... so quickly, just like ghosts.... The other day, he lay under my bed all night. I'm getting used to it, I no longer mind.... But, properly speaking, I can't call my soul my own. Any one with less steady nerves than mine simply could not stand it, could never stand it...."
"But, Ernst, why don't you move?"
He knew the question well, he recognized the motive. He gave a kind and condescending little smile, because they did not know, because they were so coarse of fibre.
"I can't very well move," he said. "You see ... I have everything here ... everything here...."
His glance and his gestures became very vague, as though he did not wish to say more. And Addie saw how it was: Uncle Ernst still believed, had always, all those years, believed in the souls that swarmed around him, the souls that had been conjured like spirits out of books, curiosities and old vases. But he never spoke of the souls now, because he remembered only too well how stupid and wicked his people had been in the old days. After that attack twelve years ago, he had gone on believing in these brain-and soul-phantoms of his, but he had learnt to keep silent about them, to talk as the stupid people talked. Or by preference he did not talk at all.... But this very silence had caused his mistrust to develop into a mania that he was being persecuted, a mania that made him constantly look round, timidly.... He would open the door, look into the passage.... And Constance knew that, in the street, he was for ever looking round, attracting the attention of the passers-by with this frightened, suspicious trick of his.
Addie saw it: Ernst believed in the souls which lay crowding around him, which linked themselves with chains to his soul, which he dragged with him through the mud of the streets and the wretchedness of life, the souls that thronged in agony around him, until they weighed down his chest and stifled him so that he longed to run half-naked into the street to cool himself in rain and air, to gulp down the wind. And very deeply bedded in the sick soul Addie saw hypersensitiveness hiding as an adorable tenderness which, instead of turning to a disease, might have developed into the profoundest qualities of sympathetic feeling, not only to feel, but also to know and understand, because of the slumbering spark of intelligence, because of the knowledge so eagerly gleaned.... And now these were wasted gifts, morbid qualities, now it was all useless and sick and had become more sick and more useless as the sick years of shadow drearily dragged on their misty-melancholy introspection and increasing distrustfulness. It was all, all lost. And, in his pity at this fatal waste, at this tenderness which had soured almost into madness and was devoted to shadows while the poor world stood in such real need of tenderness and feeling, Addie remembered how once, years ago, he had felt conscious of a longing with a single word to cure the sick man: but which, which word? It was as though he knew that one word to be hovering in the air around him, while he was still too young and ignorant to catch it as he might have caught a butterfly with his hat! And now, now he knew for certain—after all those years of misty-melancholy introspection and increasing distrustfulness—that it was too late and that the man could not recover and that he would die as he had lived in the almost proud hallucination which brought around him for protection the numberless oppressed, persecuted and martyred souls, suffocating him in the cloud of their frail tortured and complaining bodies. And it was not only the souls: the living who sought him out were also included in his proud illusion; they also needed his support, because he alone was strong and all of them were weak.
It was too late for a cure; but still Addie longed, though he knew for certain that no cure could ever take place, to free that lost and impaired quality of noble feeling from everything that could shock or offend the silent, suffering man; and he swore to himself to get Uncle Ernst out of the Hague, out of these rooms, where he was taking root and at the same time being tortured. He happened that day to feel very restful, very calm, even though, deep down in the subsoil of his soul, black self-insufficiency lowered as usual. He would not know what to do for himself; for this sick man he did know what to do! For himself, he groped around in a dark labyrinth; for the man of stricken brain and soul he knew it all suddenly, with a bright ray of clearest perception, knew with a sacred, instinctive knowledge! And yet there was not a touch of joy, not a touch of ecstasy or fervour in his sombre, melancholy glance, in his deep, sombre voice, when, with his customary earnestness of words and manner, he said to his mother:
"Mamma, you must leave me alone with Uncle Ernst."
She looked at him. And, despite his quietness, his earnestness, his calm and sombreness, she knew her son too well not to feel, suddenly, that he knew.
"Very well," she said, "you stay with Uncle Ernst. I'll go round to Aunt Adolphine and see Marietje. When and where shall I see you? This evening, at the hotel?"
He shook his head:
"No," he said. "You had better go back by yourself to Driebergen, with Marietje. As for me...."
He paused, as though reflecting, passed his hand across his forehead:
"As for me, you'll see me to-morrow," he said, "or the next day...."
"At Driebergen? At home?"
"Yes."
"And ... your uncle?"
He made a sign with his eyelids; and she understood him, partly, and asked no more. She took leave of Ernst and moved to go; but Ernst kept her for a moment at the door:
"Constance...."
"What is it, Ernst?"
"If there's anything ... that I can do for you, you'll tell me, won't you? Tell me frankly.... It's very difficult for me, I know ... to look after all of you ... but, if I don't, nobody else will.... So tell me plainly if I can help you in any way...."
"There's nothing at the moment, Ernst...."
"But later on?..."
"Perhaps."
"Then I shall be very glad to help. You must ask me straight out."
"I will."
"Look here ... you must be careful...."
"Of what?"
"Of the brother.... The fellow's a scoundrel. Take care, don't speak too loud: he's standing behind the door. You see, he can't reach so high."
"What do you mean?"
"He can't reach up to my poor vases. He would have to take the steps ... and he won't do that in a hurry."
"What used he to do to the vases, Ernst?"
"Take them in his hands."
"I dare say he admired them."
"No, he used to break them ... on purpose. He ... he...."
"What, Ernst?"
"He used to throttle them. Hush! He used to wring their necks with his vile fingers."
Then he realized at length that he was saying too much and he gave a loud, kindly laugh:
"You don't believe that he used to throttle them. Well, at any rate, they're safer up there."
"At least, he can't break them."
"No. What's the matter with Addie? He's not looking well."
"Nothing. He's staying on to talk to you."
"Is there anything I can do for him?"
"Perhaps there is, Ernst. Have a talk with him."
"You people are a heavy burden on me...."
"I must go now, dear."
She kissed him good-bye.
"Be careful," he whispered.
Suddenly, he swung open the door:
"There!" he cried, triumphantly. "Did you see? The scoundrel slips away so quickly. Just like a ghost. No, more like a devil."
She gave a last glance at Addie; her eyelids flickered at him and she went away. Ernst closed the door very carefully.
"He simply can't go on living by himself," thought Constance, as she hurried to the Van Saetzemas'.
It was a very small house in a side-street at Duinoord; and she found Van Saetzema sick and ailing in a stuffy little sitting-room; she saw Caroline, too, bitter-eyed and bitter-mouthed, generally embittered by her dull existence as spinster of nearly thirty, with no prospect of marrying. Meanwhile, Adolphine kept her sister waiting. She had obviously run upstairs to put on a clean tea-gown. At the back of the little house, under the grey sky, which sent down a false, morning light through the heavy rain-clouds, the atmosphere seemed full of bitterness ... bitterness because they were ill and poor and disappointed; and all this dreariness was scantily and narrowly housed between the father, mother and daughter, in the little room where they kept getting in one another's way. A melancholy born of pity welled up in Constance; and she tried to talk cheerfully, while Van Saetzema coughed and complained, Caroline, bitter-mouthed and bitter-eyed, sat silent and Adolphine suddenly, with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance:
"It's splendid air here, at Duinoord.... And the house is extraordinarily convenient...."
But her boasting voice choked as she completed her sentence more humbly:
"For the four of us."
"And where is Marietje?" asked Constance.
"Upstairs. She likes being upstairs, in her own little room...."
"How is she to-day?"
"Just the same."
"May I see her?"
Adolphine rose with some hesitation. But she took Constance upstairs and opened a door:
"Marietje, here's Aunt Constance."
The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of the little room. She was tall and pale and, in that light, seemed suddenly to blossom up like a lily of sorrow, with the white head drooping at the neck, a little on one side. The very fair hair hung limply about the temples. It was heavy—her only attraction—and was wrung into a heavy knot which she wore low at her neck. The movements of her long arms, of her long, thin hands betrayed a listless, lingering anæmia; and her blouse hung in folds over her flat bosom. She was twenty-six, but looked younger; her lacklustre eyes were innocent of all passion, as though she were incapable of ever becoming a woman, as though her senses were dying away like some fading lily on its bending stalk.
"Good-morning, Auntie."
The little room was grey and white as a nun's cell, with the cloistered simplicity of a hermitage.
"I'm so glad to see you, Marietje."
"Auntie, Mamma said that you and Uncle...."
"Yes, Marietje, we'll be glad to have you with us. Mamma has told you, hasn't she?... Then Addie can...."
"It's very kind of you, Auntie. But ... but I would rather not come."
"What do you mean, dear?"
"I would rather stay here.... There's not much about me to cure; and I'm not anxious to be cured. And in your house...."
"Well?"
"I should be so gloomy. I am never bright or cheerful, you know. And I hardly ever come downstairs."
Adolphine's eyes filled with tears.
"It's true," she said, softly. "She lives up here."
"You would be cheerful enough with us, Marietje."
"No, Auntie, I should feel uncomfortable with you ... because I am not cheerful. I should depress you all."
"We are not so easily depressed. And the chief thing is that Addie could treat you regularly."
Marietje gave a pale smile.
"Why won't you go, dear?" asked Adolphine.
The girl retained her pale smile. She seemed to be wrestling with a temptation that opened up soft and peaceful visions in her pale life as a constant invalid; but she did not wish to yield.
"Come," said Constance, "you had much better, really."
Suddenly Marietje felt herself grow very weak. She saw death, saw the end so very close before her eyes; and the soft, peaceful visions would never be more than a very brief hallucination, which after all she might as well accept. And, because she suddenly felt as though in a dream, she had no strength to resist the gently persuasive voices of her mother and her aunt, which were luring and luring her, like voices from very far away, voices which she seemed to hear through the haze of vague and enticing distance. Yet her own wan voice did not reveal what she felt, as she continued feebly objecting:
"I should be too much trouble. An invalid is so depressing."
"It would be very difficult for Addie to look after you here."
"Besides, you have Grandmamma...."
"She's no trouble."
"And little Klaasje."
"Yes, but that's different."
"How are Marietje and Adele?"
"Quite well, very well indeed. We'll go on calling her Marietje and, if you come down, we'll call you ... let's say Mary, to avoid confusion."
"Mary...."
"Will that do?"
"But your house is so full as it is."
"Guy is giving you his room."
The girl uttered more faint words and phrases, but they were like little waves which carried her softly and tenderly towards the gentle vision and the dream.
"Very well, Auntie," she said, at last. "You are very good to me."
"It's only natural, as far as I'm concerned. But, when you're at Driebergen, you'll thank your uncle, won't you?"
"Of course. It's his house."
"Yes."
"Won't it be rather damp ... for Marietje?" asked Adolphine, hesitatingly.
"I don't think so," said Constance.
"Constance," said Adolphine, taking her hand, "it is so kind of you ... and I am so grateful...."
Her voice trembled as she spoke.
"My dear, what a fuss you make!" said Constance. "I'm your sister and Marietje is my niece. But...."
"But what?"
"It certainly is kind ... of Henri."
"Yes, it's very nice of your husband."
"You see, it's his house."
"Yes ... and he had so many calls on him," said Adolphine, humbly. "Constance, won't you let me pay something ... for Marietje's keep? So much a month, I mean ... until she's a little better...."
"You'd better not bother to do that, Adolphine."
"You have so many expenses."
"Yes, but you've plenty of use for your money too."
"What I mean is ... it's your husband's money."
"I know. But Henri would rather you didn't pay anything ... really."
"Really?"
"I'm sure of it. If you or Van Saetzema wrote him a line ... he'd like that."
"Of course I shall. I shall thank him myself."
"And you'll come and see the child whenever you like, won't you, Adolphine?"
"Yes, Constance, I will.... What a pity it is that you don't live in the Hague!"
"Why?"
"Oh, the Hague is so muchourtown, our family town; and your house, now that Mamma is so old, is certainlythehouse ... of the family, the centre, so to speak...."
"It's Henri's house."
"Yes, that's what I mean."
Constance stood up to go:
"Then will Marietje come down with me to-morrow?"
"Yes, we'll pack her trunk."
Marietje rose suddenly, threw her arm round Constance and sobbed excitedly:
"Auntie ... Auntie ... I do think it so...."
"So what, dear?"
The rapture died out of her voice; and she concluded:
"I think it so kind ... of Uncle ... of Uncle and you ... to have me ... to live with you, to live with you...."
Van Saetzema downstairs had a violent attack of coughing; and Adolphine rushed anxiously out of the door.
Days had come of endless flaking snow; and the hard frost kept the snow tight-packed in the garden, alongside the house, the silent, massive building whose thick white lines stood out against the low-hanging snow-laden skies: one great greyness from out of which the grey of the snow fell with a sleepy whirl until it was caught in the grip of the frost and turned white, describing the outlines of villa-houses and the branching silhouettes of black and dreary trees with round soft strokes of white. The road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness with cart-tracks and footprints; and with the snow there fell from the sky, like so much grey wool, the pale melancholy of a winter in the country, all white decay and white loneliness: days so short that it seemed as though the slow hours slept and, when awake, but dragged their whiter veils from grey dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once again be turned to night. And the short days were like white nights, sunless, as though the light were shining through velvet, as though life were breathing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of death, the breath of death itself, striking down and embracing all things in its chill velvet....
In the big house reigned the silent warmth of domesticity in big heated rooms and passages, with the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and curtains which had lived long and were beginning to grow worn in weary attitudes and folds of chamber contemplation, as though the dead stuffs looked down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with all that lived among them, while in the snowy light reflected from outside the mahogany furniture also gleamed with its own life or cast back things of long ago, past sufferings of small people and past sentiments. The silent moods of old and lonely people seemed to rise up from the old, solemn furniture, which smiled good-humouredly because so much new life had come into the midst of it from the outside: the chair-springs moaned, the cupboard-doors creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in turns, the china became chipped, the silver became scratched, full of the serviceable humility of those very old, wearing things of daily life, which had long been used and were dying off slowly, while all around and about them blossomed the new movement of the new life from without. And yet, despite that new movement and that new life, a soul of the past seemed to hover through the long passages, up the brown stairs, to skim along the dark doors, even though these, when opened, gave admission to the rooms of the new life. Even in the rooms themselves, something still hovered of that soul of the past; and the furniture reflected that soul, as though it were vaguely clinging to material things, a soul catching at earthly things when itself had not yet died out entirely....
In among these reflections of the soul-things of the past there lingered a remnant of biblical piety, because of the titles of certain books in the book-cases, because of certain old-fashioned engravings in the dark rooms; and at certain hours of silent twilight there passed through the house a sort of hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so intently that, on Sunday mornings, she always insisted that the girls at least should go to church, as though they were almost bound to do so out of reverence for the old people who used to live and pray here ... and especially for the old man. And the thought that she herself did not go troubled her so greatly that, very occasionally, she accompanied the girls, though she continued insensible to any impression derived from liturgical religion. And the things of the past that flickered and hovered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the dark passages and the rich-brown rooms, in which the only gay note was struck by the blue-and-white of the Delft pots and jars: those things of the past all unconsciously harmonized with the mood only of Van der Welcke, because something of his childhood was wafted and reflected in them, and of Addie, because of his vague sense of inheriting not only the material but also the immaterial things with which the big house remained filled. Though he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related to the old woman, with a strange retrospect of what he knew of her and remembered of her later, silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not enough to satisfy her.
But for the rest the house remained as it were one great hospitality, though alien in blood to so many who had found a shelter in it and a sanctuary: the old, doting woman at the window, peering out at the snow-grey garden-vistas; the mourning and still young mother, with her grown-up children; and Emilie, full of silent mystery. And, the other day, in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home Marietje van Saetzema—Mary, as they decided to call her—and they had given her Guy's room, now that Guy worked in a corner of Addie's study, where he heaped up his books on a little table. The house gradually became very full. The daughter-in-law also remained alien to the big house; but the children, Constance and Jetje, were always like golden sunbeams, sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stammering voices of early springtime, as they went along the stairs and passages with their nurse—one already toddling on foot, the other still carried—to go for a drive in the governess-cart or to play in the conservatory, where the old great-grandmother, at the window, looked on with vague smiles at their playfulness, which was that of very small children.
And, the day after Constance' arrival with Marietje in the grey-white blizzard, how surprised they all were when Addie telegraphed that he was coming, next day, with Uncle Ernst! Two or three words only in the telegram, with no explanation: how astounded they were that Addie had managed to get that done! Constance and Guy went at once to the little villa where they took in patients: yes, the doctor had already wired for the two rooms, they were told, and everything was being got ready, that was to say, the bedroom; for the gentleman would furnish the sitting-room himself. And on the next day Addie and Uncle Ernst actually arrived. Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague; his china had been packed up under his own and Addie's supervision; and, though Ernst at first looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion, tapping at the walls, listening at the partition and declaring that the people—the man of the house, himself a male nurse, and the trained nurse, his wife—were spying behind the door, just like the landlady and her cad of a brother at the Hague, nevertheless he was pleased, surprised to find the room so large, though he missed the sombre canal in the Nieuwe Uitleg, which he loved for the gloom of its colouring and atmosphere. As he passed through the garden with Addie, leaning on Addie's arm, he thought it strange that he saw walking through the white snow, accompanied by the nurse, an old lady, the only patient at the moment, though there were several in the summer, and he looked at her with suspicion; but he was pleased again and surprised when Addie explained to him how very near he would be living to all of them; and, when Addie brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the garden-gate gazing at it and looked up at the snow-corniced gable, at the soft snow on the straight lines of the windows and above the door. The great house seemed to look down upon him benignly with all the eyes of its window-panes; and he went on, leaning on Addie's arm, through the garden and inside. He had never been there before. He took an immediate interest in the antique cabinet in the hall, the engravings, the Delft jars and nodded his head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful. Constance welcomed him cordially; and, though he had not seen Mamma for years, he greeted her in all simplicity, as if he had parted from her only yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the face, recognized him for a son of hers but did not know his name, imagined that he had come from Java, asked after things and mentioned names.... They did not understand each other; and Constance felt very sad, especially because of little Klaasje, playing at Mamma's feet with lovely coloured picture-books which "Uncle" Addie had given her:
"Look ... a blue man ... yellow woman ... red! And outside ... everything white ... everything white.... everything white!..."
And suddenly so heavy a melancholy arose in Constance that she could have burst out sobbing because of her mother, her brother, because of that child of her poor brother Gerrit! But she made a violent effort of self-control, put her arm round Ernst's shoulder and led him away from Mamma; and Adeline and Emilie came to speak to him. Oh, the things of the past—not the past things of which the atoms still hovered about this house, those of the old people, but the things of their own past, of the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a youth not so long ago—how they crowded in amongst them all, how they filled the atmosphere of the faintly sombre room, while the snow reflected its gleams indoors to water away brightly in the old mirrors!... How did they all come to be here like this, how did they all come to be here like this, as in a refuge, as in a sanctuary, a silent haven of simple love?... How nerveless she became, how nerveless, when she saw her husband and her son come in, those two who ...! Shecouldnot pursue her thoughts of nervelessness and sadness any further. Alex also now entered; and in him, so young, so young, she also saw all the past, flashing at her suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his father's death.... But now the girls came in too, and, when Guy and Gerdy came, both laughing, she also laughed, because of their gaiety, their flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and healthy and simple, both of them.... How happy, how happy those two were! Oh, the more the past heaped itself up, the more the present was overcast with shadow; but those two, Gerdy and Guy, were young and strong and healthy and simple!... Happy, happy! And, with a laugh almost of happiness, however intensely she might feel all the things of the past, she asked Addie:
"Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst, now?"
"Yes, I shall take him home," said Addie.
"Can't he stay and dine one day?"
"Perhaps later on; he must get used to it first. The great thing is not to force him."
And he suggested to Ernst that they should go back.
But Ernst said:
"When will my packing-cases come?"
"To-morrow, Uncle."
"You see, if I'm to get everything in order...."
"I'll help you."
"Will you help me unpack?"
"I'll help you too, Uncle," said Guy.
"Yes," said Ernst, "that's right.... You see," he whispered to Addie ...
"What, Uncle?"
"It's not good ... for the vases to remain in the cases so long.... You don't believe it, of course, but...."
He did not complete his sentence, would not say that the vases were suffocating in their cases, with all that paper and straw; he would not say it, because Addie was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, really, but devoid of understanding, stupid, just as stupid as all the rest of them....
"We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, and make the room comfortable for you."
"Yes. I have only the bedroom at present."
"The bedroom's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes. Am I to have my dinner there to-night?"
"If you don't mind ... as your sitting-room isn't ready...."
"Yes. I don't care for dining in my bedroom. Can't I stay and dine here?"
"Certainly, Uncle. We should like that above all things. Aren't the troop of us too noisy for you?"
"They are a bit noisy, but ... no, they're very good. Tell me, Addie, they're all children of Uncle Gerrit, aren't they?"
"Of Uncle Gerrit, yes."
"Yes, yes, I remember. I should like to stay and dine, if I may. It's because the sitting-room isn't ready, you see."
"Very well, Uncle. Then come upstairs now, to my study. Then you can rest a bit and read, or sleep if you like, on the sofa."
"No, I never sleep by day."
"It'll be quiet for you there."
"Yes, it's quiet where you are."
"Come with me."
He took Ernst upstairs.
"This is a nice, quiet room," said Ernst.
"Then I'll leave you by yourself. You'll find books and papers.... Can you manage to occupy yourself alone?"
"Yes, my dear boy; I want to be alone. You're kind, you're very kind. You understand me. I shall be glad to stay and dine."
"Would you like your dinner up here?"
"No, downstairs, with all of you. They're Uncle Gerrit's children, aren't they? You see, it's all family. I'd rather dine downstairs."
"All right, I'll come and fetch you."
A few days' skating produced a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart; and Mathilde grew more animated. The members of Gerdy's tennis-club met again on the ice; Guy did nothing but skate these days, excusing himself to Constance and Addie for his idleness by saying that one had to make the most of the ice, which never lasted long; and even Van der Welcke was persuaded by Guy to fasten on his skates, remaining young as ever in his quiet way. It was indeed a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart after so many rainy days: the cold wind whipped up their blood; the snow crackled like powdered crystal under their eager, hurrying feet; young men and girls of Gerdy's little circle came to fetch her in the morning and again after lunch; and, when the skating was over, they would all meet round the tea-table, in the big drawing-room. And Addie taught Klaasje to skate on the pond in the garden; and, under the jovial influence of the frosty snow, he romped about the garden with his children, with little Jetje and Constant. And yet perhaps none of them sniffed up the healthy outdoor life of those cold days of east-wind and ice so greedily as Mathilde, suddenly quickened in her rich blood, her somewhat coarse build, her heavy tread and her loud, full, womanly voice. It had been no life for her, with the silent, dripping rain, in the noisy but yet sombre big house. She and the children had kept upstairs as much as possible in her own rooms, because she felt out of tune with the whole pack below, unable to coalesce with the big household: those sad women and all those children of Uncle Gerrit's, who daily monopolized Addie more and more, until he had hardly a moment to give to his own children and her. What was he to her now, always busy, always occupied, always away, always attending to the pack below or to poor people outside, poor people about whom she knew nothing? What was her life to her, the life in which she pined away in that musty atmosphere, in which she always remained a stranger, for lack of any sort of sympathy, because she did not—any more than any of them—wish for the establishment of any harmonious intimacy? Was it not really a terrible existence, for a young and spirited woman, in the country, in the winter, at Driebergen, with no friends, in a house with rooms so dark and gloomy that the servants declared that it was haunted; then downstairs, always at the window, the doting grandmother; Klaasje, half an imbecile; Adeline and Emilie, never cheerful, always melancholy; and those who were cheerful, Guy and Gerdy, never nice to her; her father-in-law much fonder of Guy and Gerdy than of herself, whom, as she well knew, he actually disliked; her mother-in-law, kind at times, it was true—had she not given Mathilde the beautiful brilliant which now sparkled on her finger?—but still cold, she thought, cold even to the children, just forcing herself to be kind because Mathilde happened to be her son's wife. No, she couldn't say who or what was to blame, but a stranger she remained, a constant stranger, half-forgotten, together with her two children, the children who alone, besides Papa and Addie, bore the name of the house, of Van der Welcke—Baron and Baroness van der Welcke—the children neglected, because the whole troop of Van Lowes made themselves masters of the house; of the affection of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, of every minute that Addie had to spare! Oh, it was just a hospital! Adèletje was always ailing; and now Marietje van Saetzema, really very seriously ill, had been added to the rest. Or wasn't it rather, with their exaggerated clinging to that family of semilunatics, a mad-house, now that, over and above doting Grandmamma and half-witted Klaasje, this Uncle Ernst, who was quite out of his mind, had appeared upon the scene? True, he did not live in the house, but he was there a great deal and would come in to meals unexpectedly, without a word of warning. She was frightened when she met him suddenly in the passages, always carrying on about the Delft jars; and then he didn't recognize her, didn't know who she was, what she was doing there, until he remembered: Addie's wife. Perhaps he only behaved like that from craftiness, from wickedness.
A haunted house, a sick-house, a mad-house: that's what it was; and this was where she had to spend her life, for Addie's suggestion, that they should live by themselves, economically, at the Hague, did not attract her: she had had enough of economy, she had not married him for economy! She had not married him for his money or for his title either: she had really and truly married him because she loved him, loved his quiet, charming, serious face, his eyes, his mouth, loved having him in her arms, because she loved his voice, loved, strange though it might seem, his rather elderly, restful manliness, calmness and strength suggested by that rather short, sturdy, blond frame. She had looked upon him with love, had felt love for him; and no one could blame her for being sensible and for not being prepared to marry him if he had been quite without money. Of course she thought it nice to have a title: well, there may have been a little vanity in that; but weren't there hundreds like her? And did that make her bad and so contemptible that they just left her to her own devices, Addie himself just as much as the whole pack of them?
All the little grievances accumulated within her breast, weighing her down and almost stifling her: the tea, which Gerdy purposely made not fit to drink; the half-witted child, which pushed against her chair; the imbecile man, who did not recognize her; the coolness of Papa, whoneverspoke a kind word to her, not even when he was playing with his grandchildren, Jetje and Constant, who were just as much her children as Addie's.... The grievances accumulated within her: grievances against Papa, Mamma, the sick people and the mad people they had to live with them—all because they were relations—against the servants, against Truitje, against everything and everybody.... Oh, how gloomy that rainy winter had been, ever and ever raining, with the great wind blustering round the house, drawing such strange, moaning sounds from the creaking windows and shutters and bellowing down the chimney, till all the old wood of the house and the furniture came to life, took soul unto itself and squeaked and groaned, until the whole place was one eerie horror of inexplicable noises!... Those noises, oh, those noises! They all knew of them and not one of them spoke of them, because, in spite of it all, they clung to the old, creepy haunted house; they even denied their existence to her; and the best thing that Mathilde could do was not to speak about them, because they refused to hear them! But she was frightened, she had gradually become frightened, with that long keeping indoors: where could she go, with the rain, the wind, the storm, lashing for days and days? She had become frightened, frightened; and they, all of them, had one another, whereas she had nobody, with her husband generally out, visiting his patients: she had only her two little children; and she was frightened on their account too! And now, when she suddenly came upon Ernst on the stairs, she became frightened again; and she could see that the children also were frightened. No, she was not happy and she was angry with herself at not being pluckier and choosing poverty and economy—oh, how sick of it she was!—at the Hague rather than the so-called luxury of this haunted house. And such luxury: the furniture old, the carpets worn, the table very simple; really, a simple, middle-class life and one that cost thousands and thousands, as Addie would assure her on the first of the month, when handing her her allowance for herself and the children! With those thousands and thousands they could surely have had a more genuine luxury, if Papa and Mamma and Addie hadn't been such soft-hearted fools as to take in that pack of Uncle Gerrit's: you could do good and still think of yourself.... With those thousands—but without the pack—they could start and furnish the house in a better, less stuffy and more modern style; paint all those brown, gloomy doors a cheerful white and gold; have cheerful new carpets, curtains and furniture, with flowers and Japanese fans in the conservatory; make a summer-residence of the house and in the winter live at the Hague, keep their carriage, have their opera-box, go out and entertain.... They could have lived like that, Papa, Mamma and Addie, if they had wished, for the thousands were there to do it with; at the Hague, Addie, as Baron van der Welcke, could have acquired a smart practice, the good-looking, pleasant fellow that he was!... That was how they might have lived, deriving some enjoyment from their money; and even then they could very well have helped Aunt Adeline with the up-bringing of her children; and everyone would have thought it very handsome of them and no one would have thought that they were living or acting unreasonably or selfishly or inexplicably, whereas now!... Whereas now!... Locking themselves up in the dark haunted house, all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, nothing but mad people about them!...
Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It was as though this glorious ice had brought about a friendlier feeling: Gerdy was not so very horrid; Guy skated with Mathilde because she was a good, finished skater, fond of good, finished, unwearied skating; and the crisp crystal cold, after all the days of rain and storm, made everybody cheerful and indulgent. Oh, those skating-trips! First a short journey by train; and then along the waterways, endlessly, endlessly! And she was so grateful when Addie, one single morning, was able to escape going to all those sick, poor people, whom he had to visit daily—she hated the sight and the feel of him when he returned—and went with her, for half a day's skating! And she took possession of her husband, glad to have him with her, with crossed hands, swaying evenly and rhythmically with him, in the rhythm of hip to hip, in the swing of firmly-shod feet, while she cut through the broad blast of the wind with her swift, powerful movement, till her eyes and face shone and she was drunk with swallowing the ice-cold distance, shooting far ahead in canal-vistas between the snow-clad meadows, under the low-hanging skies, swept clean as with giant besoms of wind, while the horizons of skeleton trees dwindled and faded away, and the windmills, with the broad, black, silent gestures of their sails, loomed up and disappeared as she shot past.
Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It seemed to her as if, suddenly, in these days of winter pastime, she had found her husband again, as if she half felt that he was finding her again! He did love her then? He was not quite indifferent to her? Through her glove, she felt his hand glowing in hers; she felt the swift rhythm of their hips as a voluptuousness; and she could have hung round his neck because he took her with him like that, rushing, rushing over the straight streaks of endless smooth ice!
"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"
Amid the swift movement she looked at him and laughed; and his eyes turned, with a little laugh, to her. Oh, how they knew how to laugh, those great, earnest eyes of his, with the often strange blue spark, like a flash of secret fire, which she sometimes did not understand but which she understood now! For what else did it mean, that flash, than that he loved her too, that he thought her pretty? And was he not telling her with his eyes as he had often told her in words that he loved her because she was so attractive, so palpably healthy and pretty and that it was this that attracted him in her: her pink-and-white complexion, her rounded form, her young and vigorous limbs? Then she felt him akin to herself, a young man, a man made young again, a man with a clear, materialistic soul; and in this man she read the young doctor, who loved her healthy body, her rich, healthy blood, weary as he must be of the morbid nerves of his mother's family! Oh, those Van Lowe's: she hated them all, she felt herself to belong to another race! And was Addie himself, like his father, not healthy, simply healthy and manly, a good-looking young fellow, a man, even though he was almost prematurely old? Was he, in the very smallest degree, a Van Lowe, with all their nerves, the morbidity, their semilunacy, so sickly in constitution one and all, that she could not stand any one of them? Bah, they turned her stomach: Adèletje, always ailing; Marietje, really very ill; Alex, so weak; Emilie, so crushed and melancholy: a Van Naghel, she, but still with Van Lowe blood in her: and Guy was a nice-looking boy, but so dull and sleepy; and Gerdy was a nice-looking girl, but full of eccentric ways, of course because she was a Van Lowe! Bah, they turned her stomach, that always ailing, half-mad family of her mother-in-law's, who had ensconced themselves intheirhouse; and it was lucky that in Addie she found simply a Van der Welcke, Baron van der Welcke, a healthy fellow belonging to a healthy, normal family. That was how she looked at it: normal. That was how she looked at it while she let her husband swing her along the endless, endless streaks of ice; the snow-fields flew past; the horizons of leafless trees approached, changed their aspect, disappeared; the spreading sails of the windmills loomed up, disappeared, loomed up, with the silent tragedy of their despairing gestures outlined against the sky. That was how she looked at it: normal. True, Addie employed hypnotism from time to time, but that was the fashion nowadays: he could not lag behind when medicine was making progress in all directions.... And, utterly blind to the really duplicate soul that was her husband's, she saw him merely single, simple and normal, because she remembered now, in the joy of their sport on the ice, the vigorous embrace of his arms, the hunger and thirst of his unsated kisses.... Normal, quite normal; and oh, she felt herself so strong now to win him, to bind him to herself, because she herself was comely and healthy and normal: his delight, when he was tired of every sort of ailment; his luxury, which already had given him two pretty children.... People were skating in front of her, behind her, like the pair of them; and she was proud that she was skating with her husband; she would not let him go; he was hers; he was hers....
It was fortunate that it had begun to freeze. They had had three fine days and this was the fourth; and already—alas!—a touch of thaw seemed to slacken the crystal-clear firmness of the sky which had been so transparent at first. But still the ice was in no way impaired; a trip was planned and Mathilde felt sure that Addie would come. And great was her disappointment when he said:
"Not to-day, Tilly. I must go to my patients this morning."
"You managed with the afternoon yesterday."
"I can't wait so long this time: there's an old woman who expects me. And Marietje isn't so well to-day: Mary, I mean, as Mamma calls her."
"Then I sha'n't go either," she said, crossly.
"Why shouldn't you go?" he persisted, gently. "You enjoy it so."
"With you."
"I can't come this morning."
"Yes, you can ... to please me."
"No, I can't come this morning, Tilly. But you would please me by going."
"I like skating with you."
His eyes laughed.
"And do you imagine that I don't enjoy it?"
"You don't love me."
"You know better."
"Then come."
"Not this morning."
"You're always so self-willed."
"Because I mustn't go this morning.... Be sensible now and go without me."
She shrugged her shoulders:
"All right, I'll go, I'll go."
It was just after breakfast; and the children were still downstairs. He played with them: Constant toddled to him on shaky legs; Addie held Jetje on his arm and rubbed his moustache against her milk-white little face, to make her laugh and crow. A soft feeling of bliss welled within him, because he was pressing against him a life that was his life, a small shrine of frail and tender child body in which flashed an atom of soul that laughed and crowed and lived. And the baby was so ordinary, a baby just like other babies, when he looked at it as a doctor; and the baby was so mystic when, as a father, he pressed it to himself. What was more mystic than a little child? What was more mysterious and higher in divine incomprehensibility than a little child, a little child born just ordinarily a few months ago? What was more divinely mysterious and mystic than birth and the dawn of life? Where did it come from, the baby with its tiny atom of soul, the baby which his wife had borne him? As a doctor, he laughed at his own naïve question; as a father and man, he grew grave in awe of it.... He felt two beings within himself, more and more clearly every day; two beings long maintained in a strange equilibrium, but now trembling, as at a test. He felt two within himself: the ordinary, normal, practical, almost prematurely old, earnest young scientist and doctor; and within that soul his second soul: a soul of mystery, of divine incomprehensibility; a soul full of mysticism; a soul full of unfathomable force, a force which unloosed a magic that was salutary to many.... And, when that magic passed out of him, salutary to many, he would feel himself normal, practical and serious, but suddenly blind for himself, as though he knew nothing for himself, because he was two souls, too much two souls to know things for himself.... Oh, what was more incomprehensible than the essence of life, what more incomprehensible than himself, what more incomprehensible than this little baby and that little toddling boy!... And it was born so simply, in the womb of a healthy woman, and it grew up so ordinarily; and that very ordinary growth was as great a riddle as anything or everything.... Oh, who knew, what did anyone know?... And the strangest thing of all was that he knew, with a strange consciousness for others, what to do, what to say, how to act; that he had known, unconsciously, as a child, when he had spoken words of consolation to his father, to his mother; later, consciously, with a salutary and sacred knowledge, not alone for father and mother but for others, for so many, for so many!
Now he handed her back to the nurse, his little Jetje, his little riddle of birth and the dawn of life, his little atom of soul; now he stroked the silky curls of Constant, who was clinging to his legs, and went upstairs, knowing. How strange that was in him, that calm, quiet knowledge, that certainty of his will, which would shine forth in a setting of calm speech!... He went up the stairs, to the top floor, to what used to be Guy's room, where Guy had generally sat in the morning bending over his books and maps, until, in an impulse of youthful restlessness, he would wander through the house, looking for his sisters or aunt. Marietje now occupied the room, or Mary, as she was usually called.... Addie knocked and she asked who was there, kept him waiting for a moment in her modesty as she nervously tidied something in her room and put away her clothes. When he entered, she was sitting in a big arm-chair, looking very pale....
But Mathilde, angry that Addie had refused to come skating, suddenly felt a violent jealousy, a violent, dagger-sharp jealousy in her soul, because Addie had spoken of patients who expected him and because he had spoken of Marietje. And, in her room, undecided whether to go or not, whether to stay indoors and sulk or to seek her amusement without her husband, she suddenly felt an irresistible impulse to follow her husband upstairs. She went; and, in order to keep in countenance should she meet anybody, she resolved that she would pretend to be fetching a coat hanging in a wardrobe-closet next to Marietje's room. The wardrobes were used for clothes that were not worn every day. Entering the closet, she softly closed the door and held her keys in her hand: if she were surprised, she would quietly open the big wardrobe. Meanwhile she listened at the partition. And she heard the voices of her husband and Marietje as though they were sounding across a distance and an obstacle:
"How did you sleep, Marietje?"
"I haven't slept at all."
"What was the matter?"
"All night long I had a buzzing in my ears.... It was a roaring and roaring like the sea.... I wanted to get up and come downstairs ... to Auntie, but I was afraid to ... and I didn't want to disturb the house.... It was just like waves.... I didn't sleep at all.... And then I dream, I dream while I lie awake.... All sorts of things flash out before me, like visions.... And it makes the night so long, so endless.... And I feel so tired now and above all so hopeless. I shall never get well."
"Yes, you will."
"No, Addie. I have always been ill."
"You must have a quiet sleep now."
"I sha'n't be able to."
"Yes. Come and lie here on the sofa. I'll draw the blinds."
"Addie!"
"What is it, Marietje?"
"Do you know what I should like?"
"What?"
"I should like, when you have put me to sleep, as you did yesterday and the day before, I should like never to wake again, to remain asleep always. I should like your voice to lull me to sleep for ever and ever."
"And why don't you want to go on living? You're young and you will get better."
"Tell me what's the matter with me."
"Don't think about that."
"My body is ill, but isn't my soul ill too?"
"Don't think about that; and lie down ... keep very still ... give me your hand.... Hush, sleep is coming, peaceful sleep.... The eyelids are closing.... The eyelids feel heavier and heavier.... The eyelids are closing.... Heavier and heavier the eyelids.... You can't lift them, you can't lift them.... The hand grows heavier and heavier; you can't lift the hand.... The whole body is growing heavy, heavy, heavier and heavier with sleep, peaceful sleep, coming, coming...."
Mathilde listened breathlessly at the partition. All was silent now in Marietje's room; Mathilde no longer heard Addie's soothing voice summoning sleep, the magic of peaceful sleep. And suddenly, as she listened, she grew frightened, she, Mathilde, grew frightened of things which she did not understand, grew frightened as she was frightened when; in the evening, late, she went along the dark passages and the dark staircases. And yet it was morning now and the wintry reflexion of the snow, a little faded by the first touch of the thaw, fell shrill into the narrow closet, without any shade of mystery....
She trembled where she knelt, frightened of what she did not understand. She trembled and in her trembling became conscious of a fierce jealousy not only of Marietje but of all Addie's patients, those outside, whom she had never seen, living in their poor little houses, which she did not know. But she was most jealous of Marietje. Was the girl asleep now?... She heard Addie's footstep, heard his hand on the handle of the door, heard him go out. He was going out ... Marietje was no doubt asleep.... She waited a few seconds longer, heard the stairs creak lightly under his feet as he went down; and now, after her fears and jealousy, she was seized with curiosity. She left the wardrobe-closet, listened in the passage outside Marietje's door. And suddenly, grasping the handle firmly and carefully, she opened the door and saw Marietje slumbering peacefully in the darkened room, her face white and relaxed on the sofa-cushions. Then she closed the door again and went downstairs. She was no longer frightened, no longer curious; only her jealousy burnt fiercely within her, like an angry fever. She had just time to put on her things and pick up her skates: Guy, Gerdy and their friends were waiting for her downstairs....
That evening Gerdy said to Constance:
"Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic to-day."
But Constance refused to listen. She well knew that there was no love lost between Mathilde and the rest of them; and it always upset her that, on the one hand, Mathilde always remained a stranger and that, on the other, one of the children always had some remark to make about Mathilde. She, on the contrary was always glossing over Mathilde's shortcomings and nearly always took her side.
"Honestly, Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic this afternoon...."
Gerdy was in a great state of excitement and she determined to tell her story. It was after dinner, tea had not yet been served and Mathilde was upstairs, putting the children to bed. The others in the room were Adeline, Emilie and Guy; Granny was sitting in her corner. And Constance refused to listen:
"You mustn't always be so intolerant ... about Mathilde," said Constance, by way of reprimand.
"Intolerant? Intolerant?" echoed Gerdy, excitedly. "But you didn't see her, the insane way she behaved.... We were on the ice ... and...." She lowered her voice to a whisper, though Granny was not likely to understand. "We were on the ice ... and there were others: the Erzeeles from Utrecht and Johan Erzeele from the Hague, you know, the one who's in the grenadiers.... Yes, I know, Mathilde and he are old acquaintances, she used often to dance with him ... but that's no reason for carrying on with him as she did."
"I say, it wasn't as bad as all that," said Guy, in a tone of palliation.
"Not as bad as all that, not as bad as all that?" repeated Gerdy, very angrily, because Guy, Constance and everybody were making excuses for Mathilde. "Not as bad as all that? Well, if I was married, or even unmarried, I should be ashamed to carry on like that with any man, though I'd met him at a hundred dances!"
"Do let Mathilde enjoy herself," said Constance. "Really, she has so little...."
"So little what?" said Gerdy, almost impertinently. "She has everything, she has everything she could wish for! She has a darling of a husband, she has the sweetest of children ... she has everything...."
"But she sometimes feels ... a little neglected and strange ... among all of us," said Constance, still taking Mathilde's part. "So, if she's a little irresponsible once in a way, I don't grudge it her for a moment."
"But it was more than being irresponsible, it was much worse: she was simply carrying on!"
"For shame, Gerdy! You mustn't be so spiteful."
Gerdy shrugged her shoulders angrily. She simply doted on Aunt Constance; nothing on earth would induce her to quarrel with Aunt Constance: Aunt Constance, who was so kind to all of them; and so she preferred to say nothing. But her dear, eager little soul was up in arms; she was very angry indeed; she pitied Addie. She was so angry, she felt such pity for Addie that really she did not quite understand her own feelings. After all, this was not the first time that Mathilde had annoyed her; she had never liked Mathilde; it was enough to make her spill the tea or the milk if Mathilde entered the room unexpectedly; and so she really could not quite understand why she was so very angry and thinking so much of Addie, simply because Mathilde had carried on so with Johan Erzeele, why it should irritate her so that Constance—on principle, she could understand that much—was taking Mathilde's part, why it should irritate her that Mamma and Emilie were sitting so sad and silent, that Granny was sitting so feeble and silently trembling in her far corner, why it should irritate her that Adèletje and Guy should keep on playing backgammon:
"Three and four...."
"Two and five.... Imperial.... Once more...."
She was very much overwrought; and, when Mathilde came in for tea—the children were now asleep—Gerdy's little face quivered; she could hardly contain herself; but she made the effort, because Constance was looking at her in such surprise. And, to keep herself in countenance, she went in search of Uncle Henri, found Van der Welcke in the passage, on the point of coming in, and asked him:
"Uncle, are you coming to play a rubber?"
"If you like, dear. Who's going to make up?"
"Marietje, I dare say, and Alex."
"Is the other Marietje, Mary, downstairs?"
"No, Uncle, she's up in her room."
"This house of ours is a regular hospital, eh?"
"Oh, it's not as bad as that, Uncle!... I think it's a very nice house."
"You do, do you?"
Gerdy, usually so cheerful, suddenly became very nervous, cross and angry, very limp; and she didn't understand herself, couldn't understand herself....
"Well, come and have a rubber."
"Yes, yes, I'm coming.... Don't hustle your uncle: he's getting old."
But Gerdy laughed, shrilly, though she had to keep back her tears:
"You'll never be old."
"You think that?"
"No, never."
"Ah! Then I shall remain a scapegrace to my dying day?"
"No, a dear, kind uncle.... But come and have a rubber now."
She dragged him into the room. Constance grumbled mildly:
"Gerdy, you're just like a naughty child. Every time you run out of the room, you leave the door open."
And Gerdy, from being limp, became filled with poignant self-pity. Aunt Constance had ceased to care for her, cared more for her daughter-in-law, Mathilde.... Everybody, everybody cared more for Mathilde.... Addie, Johan Erzeele: they all cared more for Mathilde.... She, Gerdy, was misjudged by everybody ... everybody except Uncle Henri, who was nice and kind....
She made a great effort, mastered herself, mastered her volatile emotions. Alex had come over that Saturday from Amsterdam, where he was now boarding with a tutor at the Merchants' School; and he and Marietje soon got the bridge-table ready. And it became quite a serious rubber, in the still, pale-yellow atmosphere of the big living-room, where the lamps shone sleepily through their yellow-silk shades, just bright enough to light the books or crochet-work in the hands of the silent women, Constance, Adeline, Emilie.... At about nine o'clock there was a certain movement in those intimate, silent, almost melancholy indoor lines and colours, when Adeline took Klaasje to bed and Constance and Adèletje helped Grandmamma upstairs: the child and the old woman at the same hour, the one never outgrowing her first childhood, the other relapsing into her second, after so well knowing the many sad things that were to come, that had come, that had already faded away, even as all life, that comes and goes, fades away in the faded pallor of the past.... And, when Constance and Adeline returned downstairs together, they seemed to hear the wind getting up around the house; and Adeline said, on the stairs:
"Listen, the wind's getting up."
"There's a change in the weather," said Constance.
"That means thaw; it's a westerly wind and we shall have rain."
On entering the room, they found Ernst there. He often came round in the evenings. He watched Gerdy's cards and sat very still, never spoke much, feeling that they never understood what he said and that it was better to talk to them as little as possible, even though there was some good about them, even though they were not utterly depraved, even though they meant the suffering souls no harm, although once in a way, all of them, they would trample on them unconsciously, because they did not see and understand and because they were so stupid and so innately rough.... Nevertheless, rough and stupid as they were, they were his relations and he came and looked them up, feeling at home in the house of his sister Constance and her husband, in the house also of Addie, who was the cleverest of them all and who, he felt certain, did hear and see the souls, for he often spared them.... He now stared at the cards and thought of the rubbers at Mamma's in the Alexanderstraat, when he used to go there on Sundays in the old days.... Strange, that everything changed, that nothing remained, he thought.... It was no longer the Hague now: it was Driebergen; it was Van der Welcke's house and Gerrit's children: Gerrit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, but even so not exactly wicked and depraved! And the cards as they were played one after the other fell from the fingers of Van der Welcke, Gerdy, Alex and Marietje. The same game; only life changed; the game did not change nor did the souls, the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him, linking themselves to his soul with dragging chains.... He sat in silence and followed the play of the hand, understood it, nodded his approval of Van der Welcke's careful game....
Mathilde had come in; so had Addie, for a moment, before going upstairs to work; and they met as husband and wife who, after dinner, in a bustling house, seek each other out for a moment to exchange a word or two. Mathilde's eyes were red, Addie looked serious; and they all noticed it; it struck them, it saddened them, while they heard the wind flapping like a sagging sail and the panes lightly creaking and the windows lightly rattling in their frames.... Constance wondered what had happened and thought that it must be Mathilde, always urging him to move to the Hague; and Addie would be quite willing, for his wife's sake, but then the money-question would crop up and remain insoluble, because Mathilde would not be economical.... And that indeed was how it was; and they had lost each other, Addie and Mathilde; and they would find each other again in a rebirth of desire, when Addie reflected: